https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens...n-age-nyt-9f2187ea?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s Biden’s Frailty and the Political Price of Insincerity When people said he seemed unwell, Democrats called it a Republican ploy. That was a costly mistake. By Barton Swaim July 10, 2024 at 12:39 pm ET The question remains unanswered: How did they let it get this far? How did Democratic power brokers and progressive media personalities—groups not known for their indifference to winning elections—wait until July 2024 to urge President Biden not to run for re-election? Any mildly observant person could see four years ago that Mr. Biden had declined further than a commander in chief should. These pages noted Mr. Biden’s diminished state during and after his 2020 campaign. In the 2012 debate with Paul Ryan, the editorial board remarked on Nov. 19, 2020, Mr. Biden “was aggressive and confident. In 2020, in the rare times he speaks off the cuff without a teleprompter, he looks more tentative, as if grasping for an argument or words that he knows are around here somewhere.” Democrats disregarded this and 10,000 similar observations because they took them to be insincere, and the political left has become so accustomed to insincerity as not to recognize its opposite. On the left—particularly in the New York Times and other elite outlets—substantive complaints are routinely presented as procedural or ethical ones. Rather than make a straightforward argument that a person or policy is wrong on the merits, elected Democrats, following the media’s lead, typically raise technical or otherwise secondary objections they plainly don’t care about. Any time a Republican president nominates a judge to the Supreme Court, Democrats can be counted on to fly quickly past the substantive reasons for their opposition and invent ethical lapses that, even if true, wouldn’t bother them in any other situation. No Senate Democrat cared if Brett Kavanaugh behaved badly at some unspecified time and place in the 1980s. They wanted him defeated. Other defamatory inventions—against Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, among others—aren’t worth repeating because Democrats themselves didn’t care enough to believe or disbelieve them. Last month the Times published a report claiming that Judge Aileen Cannon, assigned to adjudicate Mr. Trump’s classified documents case, had been advised to stand down by “two more experienced colleagues on the federal bench.” Judge Cannon hadn’t bowed to every Democratic demand in the Trump documents case, so she had to go. Progressive pundits dropped their feminist sensibilities and simply talked down to her. “Girl, stay in your lane,” legal analyst Melissa Murray advised Judge Cannon on MSNBC. None of these talking heads cared a whit about judicial experience. They wanted Judge Cannon gone. The process argument was, as ever, a means to an end. Did any earnest progressive journalist care, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pretended to care, that Donald Trump once “falsified business records” in furtherance of an unnamed second crime? Of course not. Mr. Trump’s business records were irrelevant to Mr. Bragg and his defenders. What they cared about was convicting him of a felony. Any felony. Progressives in the Washington Post newsroom pretended to care that Will Lewis, the publisher brought on to turn the Post’s failing finances around, had once been connected to a phone-hacking scandal in the U.K. None of these newsroom activists cared the first thing about the “scandal” to which they wanted to attach Mr. Lewis. They wanted him fired. Our pundit class and Democratic officeholders appear to believe that everyone else in the political realm thinks the way they do. Most don’t. When right-leaning commentators pointed out that Mr. Biden appeared weak and confused, they did so because Mr. Biden appeared weak and confused. Democrats evidently thought Republicans were making it up and only wanted to get rid of Mr. Biden. A week before the debate that forced Democrats to acknowledge the reality of Mr. Biden’s condition, the Times ran a long and amply illustrated article about how Republicans and “conservative news outlets” had circulated videos of the president that “lacked important context” in order to portray him as old and feeble. The writers of this risible work of advocacy might have reflected that Republicans had every reason for wishing Mr. Biden to remain on the ticket. Having convinced themselves that the president’s infirmity was a right-wing invention, Democrats find themselves in the unenviable position of having to acknowledge the truth of what their opponents have been saying for years. The whole mess might have been avoided if Democrats had credited their critics with sincerity. Mr. Swaim is an editorial page writer for the Journal.
every time they show their weakness, I start to dislike them more and more Trump is a convicted felon with even more felony counts he has to try and defend, yet republicans would never attack him like Dems are doing their own nominee When I say that Dems suck at messaging, this part of what I mean. I’m sure MAGA is loving all this infighting just a few months before the election…Dems just continue to give them more ammo I can not stand the incompetence and the amount of feckless cowards
Dem staffer axed after saying Trump gunman should have taken ‘shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time’ https://nypost.com/2024/07/14/us-news/dem-staffer-axed-over-post-wishing-trump-shooter-had-lessons/ excerpt: A staffer for a Democratic congressman from Mississippi was fired for her inflammatory comments saying she hoped the shooter who targeted Donald Trump “wouldn’t miss next time.” “I don’t condone violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time ooops that wasn’t me talking,” Jacqueline Marsaw wrote on Facebook Saturday evening, shortly after Trump narrowly avoided being shot in the head during a rally in Pennsylvania. Marsaw, of Natchez, worked as a field director of Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Natchez Democrat reported. more at the link
It has nothing to do with messaging. Democrats are extremely self-righteous. Anytime there is a deviation of expectations, one of the branches must die, thus Democrats eating their own. And its usually the more extreme branch that wins out, which is how we get to the sheer stupidity we face today. The right wing has DJT, who as effectively stated the entire circus is corrupt, and he is not beneath it. His endless list of sins are on full display. Confess your sins and you shall be saved, vs the mantra of making a bad decision when you were young and you will forever be haunted. Clinton diddled with an intern. Big ****ing deal. Trump screwed a prostitute and tried to pay her off with campaign funds. Not cool, but lets be honest, there is a hell of a lot more abuse in government than a 100k payoff with campaign funds. Now you are going to try to gaslight me into believing the 16 entries on the book each cost 2 felonies each (or whatever the number is)? People aren't that stupid. They see it for what it is ... paying off a prostitute. You should probably slap him with a few dozen more felonies for pirating p*rn. BFD.
Pretty much par for the course for today's modern Democratic Party. If Trump is elected and Project 2025 is acted upon, there won't be a Department of Education to attack the opposition party any more.
Jack Black’s band cancels tour after backlash to bandmate’s comment on Trump assassination attempt https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/ente...ination-attempt-backlash-scli-intl/index.html
The Democrat party is trying to pivot faster than Edward John Smith. Much like Smith, their complacency and stupidity comes way too late. No avoiding this iceberg. They have become who they dispise.
I think a lot of this is correct https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/07/the-changes-in-vibes-why-did-they-happen.html 7 hours ago The changes in vibes — why did they happen? by Tyler Cowen July 17, 2024 at 12:49 am Clearly it has happened, and it has been accelerated and publicized by the Biden failings and the attempted Trump assassination. But it was already underway. If you need a single, unambiguous sign of it, I would cite MSNBC pulling off Morning Joe for a morning, for fear they would say something nasty about Trump. Another way to put it is that Trump was a highly vulnerable, defeated President, facing numerous legal charges and indeed an actual felony conviction. Yet he now stands as a clear favorite in the next election. In conceptual terms, how exactly did that happen? I had been thinking it would be a good cognitive test to ask people why they think the vibes have changed, and then to grade their answers for intelligence, insight, and intellectual honesty. For instance, I used to read people arguing “Trump is popular because of racism,” but now that view is pretty clearly refuted, even if you think (as I do) that racism has some marginal impact on his support. Or other people have attributed the development to “polarization.” Whether or not you agree with the polarization thesis, it begs the question here, as we could be polarized with Trump as a big underdog. In any case, thought I should start this process by offering my answers. Here they are, in a series of bullet points: 1. Trump and his team understand that we now live in a world of social media. Only a modest part of the Democratic establishment has mastered the same. 2. The “Trumpian Right,” whether you agree with it or not, has been more intellectually alive and vital than the Progressive Left, at least during the last five years, maybe more. Being fully on the outs, those people were more free to be creative, noting that I am not equating creative with being correct. 3. The deindustrialization of America has mattered more than people expected at first, and has had longer legs, in terms of its impact on public opinion. I would say this one is squarely in the mainstream account of the matter. 4. Many Trumpian and MAGA messages have been more in vibe with the negative contagion effects of our recent times. 5. The Democrats made a big bet that trying to raise the status of blacks would be popular, but at best they had mixed results. Some part of this failing was due to racists, some part due to immigrants with their own concerns, and some part due simply to the unpopularity of the message. 6. The ongoing feminization of society has driven more and more men, including black and Latino men, into the Republican camp. The Democratic Party became too much the party of unmarried women. 7. The Obama administration brought, to some degree, both the reality and perception of being ruled by the intellectual class. People didn’t like that. 8. Democrats and leftists are in fact less happy as people than conservatives are, on average. Americans noticed this, if only subconsciously. 9. The relentlessly egalitarian message of Democrats is not so popular, and furthermore — since every claim must have messengers — it translates in lived practice into an “I am better than you all are” vibe. Americans noticed this, if only subconsciously. 10. The Woke gambit has proven deeply unpopular. 11. Trans support has not been a winning issue for Democrats, but it is hard for them to let it go. 12. Immigration at the border has in fact spun out of control, and that has been a key Trump issue from the beginning of his campaign. And I write this as a person who is very pro-immigration. You can imagine how the immigration skeptics feel. 13. Higher education has been a traditional Democratic stronghold, and it remains one. Yet its clout and credibility have fallen significantly in the last few years. 14. The Democrats made a big mistake going after “Big Tech.” It didn’t cost them many votes, rather money and social capital. Big Tech (most of all Facebook) was the Girardian sacrifice for the Trump victory in 2016, and all the Democrats achieved from that was a hollowing out of their own elite base. 15. Various developments in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel did not help the Democratic cause. Inflation was very high, and real borrowing rates went up sharply. This is true, whether or not you think it is the fault of Biden, or Trump would have done better. Crypto came under attack. The pandemic story is complicated, and its politics would require a post of its own, but I don’t think it helped the Democrats, most of all because they ended up “owning” many of the longer-lasting school closures. 16. In very simple terms, you might say the Democrats have done a lot to make themselves unpopular, and not had much willingness to confront that. Their own messages make this hard to face up to, since they are supposed to be better people. You might add to this: 17. Trump is funny (he is one of the great American comics in fact), and 18. Trump acts like a winner. Americans like this, and his response to the failed assassination attempt drove this point home. 19. Biden’s recent troubles, and the realization that he and his team had been running a con at least as big as the Trump one. It has become a trust issue, not only an age or cognition issue. On the other side of the ledger, you might argue, as do many intelligent people, that the Democrats are better at technocracy, and also that Democrats are more respectful of traditional political processes, especially transitions after elections. I’m not here to debate those issues! I know many MAGA supporters are not convinced, most of all on the latter. I’ll simply note that, in the minds of many Americans, those factors do not necessarily outweigh #1-19. And there you go. Addendum: Of course there was and is plenty wrong with Trump and the Trump administration. But the purpose here is not to compare Biden and Trump, rather it is to see why the Democrats are not doing better. If your response to that question is to cite reasons why the Democrats are better than Trump…well then you are exactly part of the problem.
‘Betrayed’: Unions, White House irate over Teamsters president’s RNC speech One Teamsters executive board member said he was “embarrassed” by Sean O’Brien’s speech at the Republican National Convention. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/17/teamsters-rnc-union-biden/ excerpt: White House aides were particularly furious over O’Brien’s appearance, which they viewed as a betrayal of the administration’s support for many of the Teamsters’ top priorities, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Biden secured a pension bailout that restored retirement accounts for around 350,000 Teamsters members, appointed staunchly pro-labor allies to the National Labor Relations Board and instituted labor requirements for federal contracts. The backlash against O’Brien’s speech reflects the high stakes of the 2024 presidential election for the nation’s labor movement, which fears Trump will undo these policies. “How could the Teamsters not endorse the man who is transparently the most pro-labor president in history? There is no question the White House is furious,” said one person in communication with White House officials. “Everybody is p---ed. Everybody is like, ‘What on Earth? How could this have gotten so messed up?’” A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. more at the link
oops . . . this is inconvenient: https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/files/special-session/R-3989(SS)-135.pdf
Warren: Democrats ‘will suspend the filibuster’ to codify Roe v. Wade https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4777476-warren-democrats-filibuster-roe-v-wade-abortion-rights/ excerpt: Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced Wednesday that there are currently enough votes in the Senate to suspend the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade and abortion rights if Democrats win control of the House and keep the Senate and White House. “We will suspend the filibuster. We have the votes for that on Roe versus Wade,” Warren said on ABC’s “The View.” She said if Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2025, “the first vote Democrats will take in the Senate, the first substantive vote, will be to make Roe versus Wade law of the land again in America." The Massachusetts Democrat said her party would only need “skinny” majorities in the House and Senate to override the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the national right to an abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973. “We can make Roe versus Wade law of the land if we have, and I have to be clear, we’ve got to have a majority in the House — skinny majority. We can take a really skinny majority in the Senate, I’ll take fifty. And a Democrat in the White House. We have those three things we will suspend the filibuster,” she said. more at the link
I can tell the author of this article doesn't interact much with humans that aren't narrowly within his ideological sphere. A lot of his rants are based in the assumption those anti-woke YouTube gaming channels and "end wokeness" Twitter accounts are mainstream. Most voters are totally disconnected from that type of stuff.
https://marginalrevolution.com/about Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and also Director of the Mercatus Center. He received his Ph.d. in economics from Harvard University in 1987. His book The Great Stagnation: How America Ate the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better was a New York Times best-seller. He was recently named in an Economist poll as one of the most influential economists of the last decade and several years ago Bloomberg BusinessWeek dubbed him "America's Hottest Economist." Foreign Policy magazine named him as one of its "Top 100 Global Thinkers" of 2011. His next book, about American business, is due out in 2019. He has blogged at Marginal Revolution every day for almost fifteen years.
