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We’re in that political foolish season when too many Democrats bemoan their looming doom, nervous that their present standard-bearer (on this case President Joe Biden) is simply too broken by unfair assaults—and the common fusillade of GOP ratf*ckery—to carry out the way in which an incumbent actually ought to within the upcoming election.
And that’s honest. I get it. I’m as nervous as they arrive—and I fear consistently. About every part. I fear about killer asteroids wiping out civilization as we all know it. I fear that humanity fled the planet on a large area ark throughout Y2K, left behind 6 billion silicone dopplegängers, and nobody bothered to inform me. After I eat nachos, I fear that the cheese and the chips gained’t come out evenly. However most of all, I fear that we’ll see the mom of all October surprises and find yourself with 4 extra years of Donald Trump. To get me to cease worrying about that, you’d just about should boil my mind in bathtub salts, punt it right into a flaming lard lagoon, and hook it again up with jumper cables and half a pack of poster putty.
However sufficient about Ben Carson’s proprietary surgical strategies. Now we have an election to win subsequent yr, and whereas it’s human (and particularly Democratic) nature to fret, the most effective strategy is to place our heads down, work arduous, donate no matter crumbs we will, and perceive that we now have the within monitor. Actually.
Sure, some current polls present Biden in a lifeless warmth with the four-times indicted man, however good God, the election is roughly 14 months away, campaigning hasn’t but began in earnest (nor have Trump’s quite a few prison trials), the post-pandemic financial system lastly seems to be getting its sea legs, the abortion subject continues to be galvanizing pro-choice voters like by no means earlier than, and, oh, did I point out that the election is 14 months away?
So it’s a good suggestion to maintain issues in perspective whereas additionally taking a fast peek within the rearview mirror once in a while as we plan for coming election season. To that finish, I need to share some excerpts from a current column by Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton, who’s telling us nervous Nellies in no unsure phrases to relax the fuck out already. Panic time is for when 4 hours of grainy Tremendous 8 video of Biden doing coke strains off Strom Thurmond’s Anita Bryant ass tattoo at Studio 54 is found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer three days earlier than the election. Which, given my nearly preternatural expertise for projecting worst-case situations, is clearly not out of the query.
Salon:
I am reminded of Washington Put up columnist E.J. Dionne, who wrote in September of 1995, “There may be little unity amongst Democrats or on the center-left on the desirability of reelecting President Clinton.” He was proper. On the time there have been pitched battles happening among the many centrists and the progressives which made the prospect of solidarity within the social gathering a distant dream. The massive Republican win within the midterm election of 1994 in addition to the continuous scandal-mongering and investigations by the congressional Republicans had Democrats in all places questioning how Clinton might probably win re-election. The one factor that appeared to unite the social gathering on the time was a mutual loathing of Newt Gingrich. 14 months later, Clinton gained a decisive victory.
Equally, on the similar level within the 2012 election, there have been rumblings from sure quarters that it is perhaps clever to run a main problem in opposition to President Barack Obama after his approval numbers fell to the 30s in some polls. It had been a really tough three years making an attempt to get better from the monetary disaster, to not point out the rise of the Tea Occasion and a political bloodbath within the 2010 midterms. The New York Instances reported in September of 2011, “Democrats Fret Aloud Over Obama’s Possibilities” …
[…]
Simply two years in the past there have been infinite tales about Democratic hand-wringing upfront of the 2022 midterms, largely because of the off-year win by Glenn Youngkin within the Virginia gubernatorial race that supposedly portended a crimson wave like no different. In December of 2021, Thomas Edsall of the New York Instances wrote a narrative headlined, “Democrats Should not Panic. They Ought to Go Into Shock.“
You get the purpose. Regardless of all our worry and loathing, every part turned out okay. Not that we shouldn’t have a wholesome worry of Republican ratfuckery—and a vigorous loathing for these more and more fascist fuckwits—however operating round screaming like our hair’s on hearth, when at worst it’s a bit dry and fraying, merely gained’t assist.
As Jim Messina, President Obama’s 2012 marketing campaign supervisor, lately informed Politico’s Playbook, Donald Trump stays an actual menace—to Democrats, the nation, and the world—however issues aren’t practically as dire as they usually appear.
“I assumed it was necessary to say to my associates and purchasers and different folks, let’s simply take a step again and attempt to be actually number-specific and actually kind of who has what playing cards of their poker hand,” stated Messina. “And you’d simply quite be Joe Biden than Donald Trump. … Traditionally, we’re fucking bedwetters. We grew up within the ’80s and ’90s when Republicans gained elections on a regular basis. Democrats had their hearts deeply damaged when Hillary misplaced and other people didn’t see that coming. And so, , we regularly imagine each dangerous factor folks say.”
In order of us like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris present up on the Sunday reveals—together with young-ish Republican candidates who can sometimes handle to place a sentence collectively with out complaining about low-flow bathrooms or endemic windmill most cancers—it appears pure to want for a youthful chief who can trip in on a white, and even beige or ecru, horse to save lots of us and eventually permit me to melt my resting existential terror face.
However you merely don’t hand over the benefit of incumbency, and one other candidate would have their very own baggage to cope with.
So we’re ridin’ with Biden into one more most necessary election ever. Fortunately, we’re nonetheless in fairly fine condition. Let’s marketing campaign like we’re supremely assured of victory, however vote like we’re scared shitless.
And now, on to the standard nonsense …
RELATED: Sunday 4-Play: Precise Black folks react to Trump’s ‘gangsta’ road cred, and Tim Kaine returns
1.
Converse of the satan who was as soon as married to Devil. Gov. Newsom was on “Meet the Press” as a result of … he likes TV cameras? Who is aware of? He appears to be making himself obtainable to the media lots today. Maybe he’s laying the groundwork for 2028, or perhaps he’s only a Democratic thirst entice being recklessly tossed in our path to distract us.
I’ll admit, he’s a good-looking, suave, well-spoken man who might be a formidable campaigner. And because the steward of one of many world’s largest economies, he has the governing chops to go the space. He additionally has a bead on the foul winds at the moment blowing throughout our nation, each typically and 20 minutes after Donald Trump visits Arby’s.
Briefly, the man is fairly interesting at first blush. Simply get a load of this:
TODD: “Do you assume one other 4 years of Donald Trump will break us?”
NEWSOM: “I hope we don’t should expertise that. However I fear about democracy. I fear concerning the fetishness for autocracy that we’re seeing, not simply from Trump, however all over the world, and notably throughout this nation. I made the purpose about [Ron] DeSantis. I feel he’s functionally authoritarian. I’m anxious extra, in lots of respects, about Trumpism, which transcends effectively past his time period and time and tenure …”
TODD: “Do you assume Trump or DeSantis can be a better menace to democracy?”
NEWSOM: “I’ll go away that to extra goal minds; I’m involved about democracy essentially.”
TODD: “I perceive you say for extra goal minds … however inform me what’s in your thoughts.”
NEWSOM: “I feel the vengeance in Donald Trump’s coronary heart proper now could be extra of a menace.”
Hey, I agree. Newsom will get it. I can’t say that 4 extra years of Donald Trump will break us—although I believe it’ll. However I do know it might break me, and Newsom is talking to each my hopes and fears.
However faucet the brakes a sec, as a result of the man can also be good associates with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and whereas he’s clearly disenchanted in his pal, you’d hope for a stronger condemnation than this:
I gained’t transcribe the whole factor, as a result of I really feel a case of the mumps approaching and my mother had me vaccinated with a shot of Jäger and half a Snickers, however right here’s the takeaway:
TODD: “Did you attempt to encourage him to not run?”
NEWSOM: “No, I’d by no means try this.”
I do know what you are pondering: “Aldous, two umlauts in a single story? Du bist der Mensch!”
But additionally, he’s saying Trump is a grave, existential menace to the nation, however RFK Jr.’s barmy anti-vax bullshit is only a trifling concern? And RFK Jr. is clearly a MAGA plant meant to weaken President Biden. What was Newsom simply saying concerning the menace Trump poses?
And when you’re anxious about Biden’s age, how way more anxious do you have to be about Newsom’s judgment?
Severely, he was as soon as married to her:
Good Lord. It’s like Chuck E. Cheese employed Hieronymus Bosch to design its newest lineup of animatronic jug band characters.
Transferring on …
2.
Sticking with the theme of “everybody sounds higher than the incumbent till you actually begin listening to them,” I offer you former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Haley would seemingly be Biden’s greatest basic election menace if she might in some way handle to interrupt MAGA’s stranglehold on the Republican Occasion. It’s not that she’s a very proficient politician or something. However it’s marginally tougher to think about locusts swarming out of her mouth the second she begins her inaugural deal with than it’s with the remainder of the GOP area.
She was on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper, and Tapper requested her a fairly easy query that she nonetheless declined to reply.
TAPPER: “One in all President Biden’s greatest achievements he’s touting on the marketing campaign path is a $35 worth cap on insulin for American seniors on Medicare. Some firms have prolonged that worth, $35, to all their sufferers. As president, would you retain that $35 worth cap on insulin, or would you attempt to reverse it?”
HALEY: “I feel what Biden did was a Band-Assist. Do we have to do one thing about well being care? Completely. My dad simply bought out of the hospital. I do know the associated fee, however the way in which we cope with it’s we have to begin exposing the insurance coverage firms, the hospitals, the medical doctors, the PBMs [pharmacy benefit managers], the pharmaceutical firms, make all of them clear. Why ought to anybody go to the hospital and have an insurance coverage firm and the hospital negotiate the associated fee for the affected person with the affected person not having something concerned? Why are medicine so costly? Why do pharmaceutical firms get to resolve this with authorities and never have sufferers on the desk? Why do not we now have extra competitors and transparency on this? After I’m president, we are going to undergo and expose all of that. If we simply handled the insurance coverage firms alone, we’d minimize well being care in half. So, sure, it’s nice when you may say we’re going to decrease the price of these medicine as a result of folks can not afford them, however it’s a Band-Assist. It’s not fixing the actual drawback. Let’s do the arduous work and repair the truth that we’re the most effective nation on the earth with the costliest well being care, and common, regular People can’t afford it.”
There’s extra, however you get the purpose. Count on to see insulin prices return up if Nikki Haley ever turns into president.
Sure, these had been loads of phrases, and so they had been in some way unencumbered by tales about large, burly males from central casting coming as much as her with tears of their eyes saying, “Thanks, Gov. Haley, for making my mother-in-law’s insulin costlier. She’s in an irreversible coma now.” Nevertheless it’s price stopping for a second and asking how she’s going to do any of this.
Establishing these worth caps on insulin was arduous. Why? Republicans. And right here’s what’s irritating. Sure, Haley is correct concerning the excessive price of well being care in America in comparison with the remainder of the world. Why is it so excessive? As a result of we now have essentially the most conservative well being care system within the developed world.
Different nations that assure well being care to all their residents not solely pay much less per capita, they have an inclination to get higher outcomes. In actual fact, a current Yale examine discovered that greater than 335,000 lives might have been saved through the pandemic if we’d had the type of common well being care plan progressives have been advocating for years now.
However simply as Republicans had no viable alternative for Obamacare once they took management of the federal authorities in 2016, regardless of having relentlessly whined about it for the higher a part of a decade, Haley has nothing however phrases. Whereas Biden can clearly level to outcomes.
RELATED: Sunday 4-Play: Trump’s attorneys attempt to spin their incorrigible consumer’s newest indictment
3.
Sure, Biden is previous. However so is Donald Trump. And whereas Biden frequently workout routines and does his greatest to remain match and trim, Trump would have bother profitable a footrace with a blotch of bathe mildew. Additionally, Biden doesn’t brag about passing kindergarten-level dementia checks they have an inclination to provide to sufferers who’re suspected of affected by dementia.
However we will additionally relaxation straightforward realizing that Biden’s prime lieutenant, Kamala Harris, is able to step in at a second’s discover—whereas Trump’s VP (Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake, or somebody equally as absurd) would must be dislodged from his sphincter with a Jaws of Life, hydraulic pulley, and group of Bud-besotted Clydesdales earlier than they may even take the oath of workplace.
Vice President Harris appeared on “Face the Nation” with host Margaret Brennan.
BRENNAN: “Even Democrats are anxious concerning the president’s age. The Wall Avenue Journal had a ballot exhibiting two-thirds of Democrats say Joe Biden is simply too previous to run once more. Are you ready to be commander in chief?”
HARRIS: “Sure, I’m, if essential. However Joe Biden goes to be wonderful. Let me let you know one thing. I work with Joe Biden day-after-day. Beneath Joe Biden’s management, we now have reworked, and are within the course of of remodeling, America’s infrastructure, with a historic funding in not solely roads and bridges, however high-speed web, what we’re doing round points like lead pipes, and I might go on and on.”
Oh, yeah, did I overlook to say how a lot Biden has achieved in lower than three years, notably with regard to infrastructure? Guess he wasn’t too “distracted” to do his job. In contrast to the final man, who turned “infrastructure week” right into a operating (or, to be extra exact, sedentary) joke.
4.
Hey, it’s longtime “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd’s final day!
My mother used to say when you can’t say something good about somebody, don’t say something in any respect. So listed here are some random clips of Chuck’s long-anticipated finale:
In honor of Chuck and his storied profession, there can be no followup.
The supremely succesful Kristen Welker will substitute Todd, and he graciously handed the baton to her on Sunday.
Good luck, Kristen. You’ve bought some large, squishy bathe sandals to fill. One thing tells me you’re greater than as much as the problem.
However wait! There’s extra!
That’s all for now! See you subsequent week—if I don’t see you sooner.
RELATED: Sunday 4-Play: Kos was on ‘Meet the Press’! Additionally, debate fallout and mug shot mania
Take a look at Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, together with the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this hyperlink.
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