Tag: Nikki Haley

Not-So-Super Tuesday

W.J. Astore

A Grim Repeat of Biden Versus Trump Looms

Today is Super Tuesday in America, where sixteen states go to the polls, including mine. At the presidential level, the expected winners are Joe Biden and Donald Trump, setting up a grim rematch of their 2020 contest, won by Biden, who campaigned mostly in Covid lockdown from his basement.

Down in the basement, we hear the sound of machines …

The revolution America needs, of course, isn’t going to take place at the ballot box. The big money and powerbrokers make sure of that. The DNC has acted to ensure a one-horse race for Biden, as Marianne Williamson has noted. Biden should perhaps be put out to pasture, if not sent to the glue factory, but the horse is not dead yet. Even if it stumbles to the finish line in November, losing to Trump, that’s still a win for the DNC, whose main job it is to ensure no progressive Democrat ever wins the nomination. No matter who wins in November, with Biden the DNC has already won.

On the Republican side, Trump should win easily over Nikki Haley, who’s basically a younger female version of Biden when it comes to fighting wars, kowtowing to Israel, and serving Wall Street and big finance. A conundrum in American politics is that a Con Man is the most genuine mainstream “big party” candidate, the one most likely to blurt out uncomfortable truths. 

Speaking of Con Man Trump, he said something the other day that was so outrageously Trump that I had to laugh. Naturally, it was about immigrants (recall in 2015 how Trump said Mexico was sending drugs, crime, even rapists, to America, but “some I assume are good people”). This time he hit a Trumpian home run describingthe languages young immigrants speak in New York schools:

“Pupils [come] from foreign countries,” Trump explained, “from countries where they don’t even know what the language is. We have nobody that even teaches it. These are languages that nobody ever heard of.”

Something about “languages that nobody ever heard of” tickled my funny bone. OK, maybe if these young people were from previously uncontacted tribes deep in the Amazon rain forest, or perhaps from the lost island of Atlantis…

I know, maybe it’s not that funny, but if I couldn’t laugh I’d go insane, to quote the late great Jimmy Buffett.

Biden and Trump Win New Hampshire!

W.J. Astore

The American People Lose

Surprise! The results are in from New Hampshire and Donald Trump won a clear victory over Nikki Haley and Joe Biden won with write-in votes.  Dean Phillips (Biden 2.0) was a distant second and Marianne Williamson a disappointing third. Interestingly, even though Phillips had a respectable showing, the Democratic chair in New Hampshire suggested he should drop out of the race to ensure a Biden/Harris victory in November. In short, there should be no alternative to Biden/Harris because that’s how democracy works best!

A “strong second” for “scrappy” Haley?

Nikki Haley, though losing in NH, did fairly well because a lot of independent and “undeclared” voters decided to cast their lot with her. Trump, exit polls show, held a commanding lead among self-identified Republican and conservative voters. Trump commands the base, the most strongly committed Republican voters, so it’s difficult to imagine a path for Haley to the nomination.

Trump versus Biden redux is looking very likely for 2024, a Caligula versus Nero scenario for the new Roman Empire. I get to cast my primary vote on Super Tuesday early in March, and the only thing I’m certain of is that I won’t be voting for Trump or Biden.

Never has it been so glaringly obvious that America needs an alternative to the duopoly and the “choices” it provides for POTUS.

America may be deeply in debt, but we the people of the United States are totally bankrupt politically.

Are Biden and Trump Too Old to Run Again?

W.J. Astore

Corporate Capture of Government, not Age, Is the Problem

In honor of Presidents’ Day, let’s look ahead to the 2024 presidential election.

Right now, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the leading candidates of their respective parties for the 2024 election. Biden will be 82 if reelected; Trump will be 78. Are they simply too old to serve?

Another battle of aging white men wearing red power ties?

The short answer is “no.” Sixty is allegedly the new forty, so I suppose eighty is the new sixty. Seriously, age alone isn’t the issue. Many people are mentally alert and physically vigorous well into their eighties and beyond. But many people aren’t; age does take its toll, we do age unequally, so it’s best to take this case by case, person by person.

Trump’s problem isn’t that he’s too old; he’s simply too much of a con man and a narcissist. Even as a businessman, he was largely a loser. When you go bankrupt running casinos, where the odds are stacked in your favor, you truly are incompetent. Trump wants to be president again because he lost and hates to lose. He lacks a positive plan for America, which isn’t surprising, as he has no empathy for others. He’s not too old; he’s just supremely focused on himself. 

Biden isn’t too old, in theory. But more so than Trump, he does appear to be in physical and cognitive decline. At the British Guardian, Margaret Sullivan wrote that:

“Of course, I wish Biden were 20 years younger; I wish he didn’t stumble over his words and sometimes make inexplicable mistakes. I worry about his cognitive decline and physical frailty. But right now, he looks like the best bet to stave off a likely-disastrous Republican presidency and his record, while not flawless, is impressive.”

Her argument is simple: Biden is the best bet to defeat Trump (or DeSantis), so ignore his faults and frailties. It’s OK for a president to stumble over his words, to make inexplicable mistakes, even to exhibit signs of cognitive decline and physical frailty. Why? Because Democrats apparently have no other viable candidate to defeat the Republicans.

The willingness of the mainstream media and so many otherwise sensible people to dismiss obvious signs of Biden’s decline inadvertently points to a larger truth: Biden, if reelected, won’t be running the country anyway, so why worry about his physical and mental health?

As Chris Hedges and others have argued, America isn’t a democracy. Presidents aren’t public servants. America is an oligarchy, and presidents largely answer to the oligarchs. A corporate coup d’etat enacted over the last half-century ensures the real rulers of America are on Wall Street, in big finance, and with the national security state and similar powerful interests. 

So, which figurehead do you want, Trump or Biden? That seems to be America’s “choice” for 2024, making this Presidents’ Day grimmer than it should be.

Show me a candidate who wants to fight against the corporate capture of the U.S. government, and I’ll joyfully vote for that person irrespective of their age.

(A coda: Speaking of age, can you imagine two women the ages of Biden and Trump contesting for the presidency in America? I can’t. They’d be dismissed by too many as “old hags,” obviously well past their prime, as Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was recently described by CNN host Don Lemon, and Ms. Haley is only 51! Yet again, America has a “choice” between aging white men wearing red power ties, each with serious flaws. Democracy!)