In my first post this morning I presented a round-up of opinions on last night’s debate. In this post I’d like to describe what I think should happen and why I don’t think it will. In preface I want to give a preemptive responses to those who will just deny what we saw last night. Telling people they didn’t see what they saw is not the way that Democrats should respond to what we saw. That reminds me of nothing so much as the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch. “He’s just stunned”. “He’s pining for the fjords”.
I think that Tom Friedman (quoted in the cited post) has it right. The president should be persuaded to withdraw his name from nomination, release his delegates, and the party’s presidential nominee should be decided at the convention. When was the last time that happened? 1972? I’ve heard a number of contenders mentioned including Vice President Kamala Harris, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, just to name four.
There are many reasons I don’t think it will happen including that it’s unprecedented, no Plan B, risky.
Has any incumbent ever withdrawn his name from candidacy just before the convention? LBJ withdrew his name in March 1968. That’s why I say it’s unprecedented.
President Biden has no Plan B and, apparently, neither does the Democratic Party. If Mr. Biden doesn’t run, it is likely to ruin not just him but his whole family. That’s a pretty big risk. He believes he can and will win. That’s the nature of politicians. They always think they can win. And Mr. Biden needs to withdraw. If there’s a public move to dump Biden at this late date, the party leadership will be placed in a very difficult position. They won’t accept that.
As to the risk, George McGovern lost in 1972. That’s enough to illustrate the risks of an open convention.
Who could the cabal nominate that would be so easily manipulated and controlled?
They need to complete their mission of completely transforming this nation they detest, and they need to do it under the cover of Democracy.
They need Joe. Just a cold.
I don’t believe the Democratic leadership is quite as nefarious as you appear to, GS. I think they’re just insistent on using government to achieve wealth and power and cocksure of their own ideas and righteousness.
‘I think they’re just insistent on using government to achieve wealth and power and cocksure of their own ideas and righteousness.”
I don’t think that let’s them off the hook. Even a casual observer knew Biden was impaired during the 2020 basement campaign. The execrable attempts to spin (read: lie) about his advancing and now profoundly impaired status are entirely self serving, at the expense of US citizen’s well being, even national security. Is the man you saw last night capable of handling a crisis?
Further, the so-called mainstream media has perpetuated this fraud. The networks, Atlantic, NPR, cables and on and on all have willingly participated – no, orchestrated – this. They now reside right there with the Bulwark’s and Raw Story’s of the world.
I saw that MSNBC is still, mostly, clinging on to the Biden bandwagon. A cold. The pre-packaged Trump lies narrative. I can’t wait to have steve tell us everything is OK.
I didn’t watch the debate and pretty much have my viewed shaped by the Schulers, Nate Silver, Matt Yglesias, Josh Barro, and some British journalists. Yglesias now thinks Biden is going to lose. If you start from that belief (as well as that’s it either important for a Democrat to win or Trump to lose), then I think everything becomes pretty clear.
While usually, alternatives analysis is a good approach, if one starts from the proposition that Biden is going to lose, you can’t be asking “if not Biden, then whom?” That’s how Biden will go on to lose the election because a secondary concern will be unnecessarily imposed to prevent the primary concern from being addressed. The important thing is that someone, probably family, will have to persuade him to step down. The easiest path would be to resign from Office, but if the decision has to come from Biden, then it’s whatever his terms might be.
If you think Biden is going to lose, there is no downside risk. I think McGovern lost because Nixon was going to win that election, just as Carter was going to lose in 1980 whether Kennedy challenged him or not.
I don’t see the benefit to Biden’s family to watch him lose, perhaps humiliatingly or unkindly, forever to be blamed for Trump.
I put a lot of weight on the belief Biden is going to lose, which can certainly be pushed back on. But Biden is uniquely unpopular; it looks like other Democrats running for Congress are doing well or at least competitively given their state alignments. A generic Democrat would probably be favored to beat Trump.
Not nefarious, true believers in socialism.
Holdovers from the Obama era. They prop up the old man and make the decisions and set course for the country.
There was a chap, well known in the early 20th century, who founded a utopian community (he died on the Lusitania). When asked if he were a socialist, he replied. “when 51% of the people want to give rather than get, I’ll be a socialist”. I very strongly suspect that you could count the number of committed socialists among Democratic leaders or their staffs on the fingers of one hand.
Sorry, I think that’s really dumb, Dave. Am I missing someting?
Its a constant propaganda campaign that a politician says someone else will pay for your free beer. All my adult life. I’m sure longer.
Labels are loose. Call that a liberal, a socialist, a progressive. Its always the same. “I’m for good things, because I’m a good guy, as long as someone else pays. And if I happen to be a politician………shit, goddamn, what a racket!”
I’m where PD Shaw is. I think the scale has tipped and Biden can’t win.
I’ve been traveling for the last month and have limited time for commenting and research, but one potentially major problem with replacing Biden that I haven’t confirmed is that it is/may be too late to replace him on ballots in several states.
I thought Biden’s chances were small and this probably kills him.
Free beer? Like when the GOP always cuts taxes and doesnt address or increases spending?
Steve
@Andy, the plan is for Biden to be nominated in a virtual roll call before the convention in Chicago. Ohio law requires the President to be nominated at least 90 days before the election — that means Aug. 7 this year. Ohio legislators have said they would change the law, but haven’t and it looks like Republicans are playing games. I can’t tell when this virtual roll call is supposed to take. I see July 9th in one place, but that might be a virtual meeting to plan the roll call.
In any event, I would assume that state laws incorporate the results of the party’s formal nominating process in determining who will be on the ballot at least for the major political parties. That’s probably happening before Chicago and maybe in a few weeks.
After that, Biden could publicly withdraw and his replacement could be nominated by what would essentially be faithless electors. Even if there is a publicly recognized replacement candidate that Biden electors would nominate in his place, there would probably be some vote loss from perhaps less informed, less certain supporters with that approach.
Dave:
I mean that they are actually Socialists.
Not theoretically so, they believe everyone should be equal but someone has to enforce that so the need for a permanent ruling order. Oddly enough, that would be them and regime change is intolerable.
Therefore, actual Democracy is intolerable.
PD, Ohio did end up changing the filing date so their deadline is Sept 1st. The virtual roll call is still planned for Aug 6th; I think the roll call is clearest indicator of what will happen.
The problem with an open convention is it’s pretty late to introduce a nominee. The DNC is Aug 19-22. Absentee balloting in Pennsylvania starts Sept 16. I think less than a month is too little to introduce a candidate for President to voters.
If they are going to have a replacement; to be a net positive the candidate needs to be known by the beginning of August.
As my @EngineeringProfessor friend said, you all are like “kittens having school girl fights”. In a week, it will be “Trump is worse than Hitler, Stalin, and every criminal combined. Plus, his farts stink.”
@bob sykes
I told you I would steal it, at some point.
There is no such thing as a socialist who owns two houses as long as some people are homeless. They may imagine that they’re socialists but they actually are greedy, rapacious, hypocritical people who use the power of government for money and power. Shorter: nefarious.
Dave Schuler: There is no such thing as a socialist who owns two houses as long as some people are homeless.
Socialism is a term with various meanings, including social democracy, where “democratically elected governments that employ some socialist practices but within a capitalist framework in the belief that extensive state regulation paired with limited state ownership produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth.” In other words, socialism is often seen as being on a spectrum rather than as a dichotomy.
ETA: Nor does socialism entail perfect equality. While (in Marxism) communism envisions “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” socialism entails “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”
Socialism is mostly used as a perjorative. It has some meaning in the worlds of poly sci and economics but no meaning when used in common parlance.
Thinking all of this over the one piece i find most surprising is that if Biden was really like that all of the time why did GOP leaders hold off on talking about how he performed when they talked with him. I dont think you can make the case anymore that decency or ethics are common in Congress so it seems like they should have been pretty open and critical.
Steve
@Curious, thanks for the correction. I thought Ohio has passed the legislation, but my google skills found no confirmation and an Ohio article from a little over a week ago that suggested no law had been passed.
In any event, there is some insinuation that keeping the virtual roll-call now that it’s not strictly needed helps protect Biden’s nomination. At the very least it limits the time frame for action. The options before and after the official nomination are strikingly different.
“Thinking all of this over the one piece i find most surprising is that if Biden was really like that all of the time why did GOP leaders hold off on talking about how he performed when they talked with him”
Oh, Steve. You poor dear. You trying to wriggle out on that? So many have said he’s toast. Since the basement campaign. More recently the evidence has been portrayed on “certain” media outlets. By many GOP pols.
And yet, it’s been willful denial. You. Our host. ABC. NBC. CBS. NYT. WaPo. NPR. CNN MSNBC. The Atlantic…..,,should I go in? How about just the last two weeks? “It’s all AI fakery”.
Liars. Propagandists, insulting people’s intelligence despite what they see right in front of their eyes. But knowing: band together. Lie together. It will work.
And then came the debate. And the rats scurried.
And now. The excuse is people have bad days. Well guess what, not that bad. And the Presidency isn’t a part time job. And that vacant look must make Putin and Jim smile: America has gone nuts enough to let a purchasable, mentally impaired old man at the helm just because of a woke, tranny oriented culture war. Talk about a 3am call.
Oh, and Trump lies. Skipping the BS about what passes for a lie. Joe Biden lies every single day. Every day. No one knows it because of the slobbering media I just cited. And of course, HRC or BC didn’t lie. Obama didn’t lie. Schumer doesn’t lie. Pelosi doesn’t lie. Kindergarten is over, people. That pre- planned and canned Dem line to Joes senile performance should insult your intelligence, not inform your argument.
Except, I’m sure, that partisanship is everything to some.
Drew- Just out of curiosity are you able to address an issue or are you only able to rave?
Steve
I’m not sure whom you were quoting here. The classical economists proved that a market system maximizes welfare (as economists use the term). The corollary to that is that inhibiting the market with regulations, redistribution, etc. reduces total societal welfare. For some that is enough to oppose any government intervention in the economy. Note that maximizing welfare does not mean that some people will not be in severe need.
I don’t agree with that minarchist view. I believe that the government should intervene in the economy to ensure the persistence of markets and to reduce the number of people in severe need. There are some other things, e.g. preserving confidence in the food supply, that warrant, for example, government inspections. The market simply won’t do it.
However, there are two things that need to be recognized. The first is that, as noted above, government interventions reduce the total welfare. The second is that the mechanism by which that takes place is through deadweight loss (which I’ve posted on many times). There are other factors, e.g. the knowledge problem.
A little deadweight loss is acceptable to achieve some social goods while the economy is growing but when it’s not growing it’s a lot less acceptable.
Show me an issue, Steve. An issue. I dare you.
“I don’t agree with that minarchist view.”
A red herring argument.
” I believe that the government should intervene in the economy to ensure the persistence of markets and to reduce the number of people in severe need. There are some other things, e.g. preserving confidence in the food supply, that warrant, for example, government inspections.”
I believe the vast majority do as well. And we could do it cheaply. But some recognize the folly of government, and its propensity to expand. But no results…..
Milton Friedman himself quipped that he realized he was going to pay $3 for every $1 of government services received. I’d ask if its not more like 10/1. Further, has government solved the issues that politicians today ran on in 1965? 1990? Poverty? Education? Immigration? Housing? Nutrition? We are defended, but expenditures are hated. And on…….
Regulatory protection? Don’t insult my intelligence.
Why have we spent so much money, brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy………….yet politicians are running on the very same issues they promised to solve 40-30-20-10 years ago? Its a scam.
Its a shell game. Authorize Washington to issue free beer. Let the plebes dole it out for votes. No results. Except those taking the skim.
The justice system? Heh. Really?
Poverty? We take money in under that guise, and our elected poker players, er, representatives vie to get as much money back to their (contributor) voters as possible. Poverty be damned. I mean really, people, WTFU
Rinse, lather, repeat.
Dave Schuler: I’m not sure whom you were quoting here.
The dictionary.
Dave Schuler: The classical economists proved that a market system maximizes welfare (as economists use the term).
Untempered markets will abandon people who have trouble adapting to penury, leading to social unrest. Unbridled markets often result in consolidation and the loss of the free market. In other words, unregulated markets are unstable. Experience has shown that maximizing the general welfare requires mixed economies (hence the idea that socialism can be seen as on a spectrum).
That’s beside the point, though. You claimed people who “imagine” they are socialists are actually “greedy, rapacious, hypocritical people”. Being misguided doesn’t make someone hypocritical. Having two houses doesn’t mean someone can’t be a socialist, nor does it mean the person is hypocritical. Socialism doesn’t necessarily mean a perfect distribution of resources. Even if the person thinks it does, that might require a social change taking place over time, not something that can be done by the individual. Giving away your property could just abandon it to the markets to redistribute, hardly advancing socialism.
Moderation help please.
It’s hypocritical when you benefit but the people you claim to be helping don’t.
Dave Schuler: It’s hypocritical when you benefit but the people you claim to be helping don’t.
You seemed to ignored the points. Let’s just start with one: socialism doesn’t necessarily imply a perfectly equal distribution of resources.
Drew- Just a few.
1) Is it reasonable to believe that GOP leaders who have been meeting with Biden have been hiding his disability?
2) You are in business. Bribes are illegal but now gratuities, in thousands of dollars, are legal. Good with that?
3) Trump will put tariffs on everything? What is the effect on inflation? What is the effect if he replaces income taxes with tariffs?
4) Having just double checked the numbers there is no recent instance of the GOP actually cutting spending when they cut taxes. You OK with that? (TBH, i get the impression you never look at actual numbers.)
5) SCOTUS just said this? ….”On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.”
You OK with not being able to look at what POTUS and his advisors say when investigating possible lawbreaking? Seems like de facto immunity.
Steve
and you seem to ignore reality. When the primary effect is enriching the supposed socialists and those they say they want to help are barely benefiting at all, it’s only reasonable to be skeptical.
Dave Schuler: When the primary effect is enriching the supposed socialists and those they say they want to help are barely benefiting at all, it’s only reasonable to be skeptical.
You didn’t express skepticism, but outright denigration of anyone who “imagines” themselves a socialist. You ignored the point that many people who “imagine” themselves socialists don’t think it means the perfectly equal distribution of resources. Another point you ignored is that socialism is often seen as a spectrum.
I have actually never seen a definition that claimed there would not be some degree of economic inequality. What I generally see is the first one when you look for the definition by Google.
“a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”
There is an assumption that if the community or the workers own the means of production that things will be more equal, but not that it is eliminated. Anyway, if you have a definition by some credible writer making that claim you should cite it.
Now, if you want to claim that those at the top of the pyramid set things up so that they are beneficiaries at the cost fo everyone else I would agree that is often the case, no matter the ideology or political party.
Steve
Yep. That’s my claim. I would add look at the net worth of elected officials when they took office and now. If their net worth has grown enormously while in office, there is something seriously wrong. Net worth increasing 10 fold or 100 fold is not all that uncommon.
Dave Schuler: That’s my claim.
Ah. When you said socialists, you meant it’s politicians who are “greedy, rapacious, hypocritical people”. But you repeat yourself.
Regardless, it doesn’t salvage your original statement, for the reasons given, which you ignored.
“What is the effect if he replaces income taxes with tariffs?”
Probably higher Federal government income and a reconfiguration of evasion schemes. Some with the means would leave the country, that’s fine.
If they want access to the market then let them help pay for infrastructure and defense. Payroll taxes on the lower class will never be enough to offset spending.
GS:
I don’t think that replacing the personal income tax with tariffs is practical. To give a very simplified example federal revenue from individual income tax is around $2.18 trillion. Our imports from China are about a half trillion.
“Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.”
Seriously, Steve? Never debate when the going in assumptions are stilted arrant nonsense.
Surely you can do better.
Tasty – standard Democrat campaign rhetor…..er, bullshit.
“Yep. That’s my claim. I would add look at the net worth of elected officials when they took office and now.”
And that’s just the elected officials. They in large portion go into politics for Money or power. Now let’s take the people who know they can capture government for their own benefit.
Tell me again why we look to government all the time?
You guys crack me up. All you want is more government intervention, solutions to insoluble problems, and then you lament the mess government makes…..and ask for more.
Perhaps with the one example of abject poverty that SS reduced, what social ills has government solved? And why are politicians running on the same issues they ran on 20, 40, 60 years ago?
Drew: Perhaps with the one example of abject poverty that SS reduced, what social ills has government solved?
Medicare.