“Does U.S. want a "well-meaning elderly man," or one who means ill? Would rather have a POTUS who briefly confused Egypt for Mexico, or one who'd start a war on the border?
On the slow train wreck of democracy - it doesn't have to be this way.”
@GottaLaff@willbunch
Excellent article.
Biden is not a lesser of two old men or the lesser of two evils. ONE IS EVIL AND CRUEL AND EXTREMELY MENTALLY CHALLENGED. The other is older who has wisdom, excellent knowledge of foreign affairs, has a good and highly working domestic policy and is growing the economy. He may be chronologically 81 but closer to 70 physiologically. He stutters and has a bad foot and not perfect, AND he's not a demented evil moron, like trump. The choice is an easy one.
I hope this is the point in the program when the media and right wing extremism lit such a white hot fire for truth and decency they cannot extinguish... and the good people of this nation do push back and crush the trump's and Hur's and Millers into fine dust that blows away with the wind... We have endured 40+ years of the disease Reagan puked on this nation and it's past time to crush it....
@tdwllms1@GottaLaff@willbunch
You have said this perfectly. I would like to contribute one further thought.
Last night the cruel, evil narcissist rampaged against democracy at another one of his whatevers in South Carolina. It was treasonous.
It is absolutely beyond my comprehension how anyone can, will, could, would, agree with, support and follow trump.... it's just unbelievable... it's incomprehensible...
@tdwllms1@GottaLaff@willbunch let's be fair - in a normal world you the age would be enough enough to disqualify both candidates. We don't need to start a new cult how 80 is the new 30.
What's.. a normal world... we live in the world we have... people ages 80+ have completed great writings, works of art, discoveries, etc. all throughout history... maybe Biden is one of those who will continue to strive for excellence and achievement well past 80...
Corruptly missing from coverage of dissimilarities in #Biden's and #Trump's competency is mention of the plausible suspicion the latter's "erratica" are rooted in syphilis. My Trump flag-flying neighbor, in response to my drive-by shouts of "your hero has syphillis" is "SO WHAT!? A single anecdote, I know. But c'mon, who really believes the so-what isn't pervasive among his following? Stormy Daniels? So what. E Jean Carroll? So what. POW/MIA/KIA losers? So what.
Yep.. the dyed in the wool maga-zombies won’t be swayed… but a lot of others can be and that’s who needs to be targeted, moderate republicans and independents…. Many Haley supporters said they refuse to vote for trump.. so solidifying that group is important… can’t get them all, but need to get most…
I won't disabuse you of this belief, but I find mine, that the "undecideds" have been decided, and "the thurd" are distilled to purity, a bit more comforting.
“To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”
2/ “ To see last Thursday unfold in real time was like watching the wreck of a slow-moving train, with democracy heading like Wile E. Coyote toward a cliff and nobody — not a Supreme Court bought and paid for by billionaires, nor a judiciary too easily gamed by inertia, nor a Congress engineered to produce only gridlock and gibberish, nor a gullible news media lacking backbone — throwing the switch to stop it. And the American people?
3/ “In a nation where more than half of voters can’t name all three branches of government, Biden’s inevitable verbal gaffe — calling Egypt “Mexico” — was gleefully treated by reporters and MAGA partisans alike as if they’d won a Super Bowl prop bet on a Travis Kelce touchdown.
The real import of what happened on Feb. 8, 2024, probably won’t be understood until it is too late: The Trump train of a U.S. dictatorship gained considerable steam.”
4/ “For a lot of folks, the 2024 election is starting to feel like déjà vu, replay of 2016..news media & a good chunk of political estab — so convinced America could never elect a buffoonish demagogue, determined to show toughness toward the expected 45th pres — turned mini-scandal over Hillary Clinton’s private email server into 2nd coming of Watergate. Trump’s victory, & media’s complicity, led to a meme of a neighborhood flooded by 6 ft of water w a barely visible road sign, “But Her Emails.”
5/ “3 ways to understand such a pivotal moment.. 1st: look with clear eyes at what actually happened last Thurs.
In morning, a skeptical Sup Court heard arguments on whether Trump can be disqualif.. It all raises the q of whether Trump is actually above the law, in a nation too partisan for impeachment and too afraid of taking the Constitution literally, and with a judicial system that allows Trump’s lawyers to throw sand in the gears until he becomes 47th president and makes it all disappear.”
6/ “Later, unexpected bombshell: final report of spec counsel, Repub Robert Hur, about classif docs in Biden’s home & private offices, mirroring similar scandals w Trump & Pence.
Hur’s report littered w over-the-top gratuitous commentary about what his team believed about Biden’s memory lapses, explaining it would be useless to later try POTUS 46 since a jury would see him as “a well-meaning, elderly man w poor memory.” It was the sentence that launched 1,000 NYT hot takes..stunning cynicism”
7/ “Thursday night, the exclamation point came in the form of another Trump victory — in a complicated Nevada caucus process that had been rigged by party bosses for his benefit — with 99.1% of the tally, a number that Saddam Hussein would have envied. It reflected the anxieties of a nation where two-thirds of voters say they’re unhappy with the two presumptive nominees and yet no serious alternatives have been offered.”
8/ “2nd way to view last week’s events is thru the eyes of flailing news media. It’s not just that Trump is nearly as old as Biden & not only makes similar gaffes — like referring to Pelosi as Nikki Haley — but also veers into insane digressions like claiming ”they” will rename Pennsylvania if he loses here in November. Or that some of the folks criticizing Biden last week, like House Speaker Mike Johnson or Fox News’ Jesse Watters, also confused nations, or states, proving anyone can do this”
9/ “ It’s the media’s failure to put Biden’s occasional slips into any meaningful context. Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan helped cement the idea of a president as performer-in-chief, when that’s really not the job. The person in the White House is CEO of an outfit with a cadre of whip-smart top aides and cabinet secretaries overseeing nearly 3 million federal employees. They implement policies set by what is in the president’s heart, not the speed of the neurons in his brain.”
10/ “Press feeding frenzy over Biden’s brain is maybe worst ex we’ve seen in 2024 of reporters playing odds of a polit horse race, as defined by Jay Rosen, while ignoring what’s at stake bw the only actual choices we have, Biden & Trump.
That was driven home in biggest story—which rec’d min coverage: Trump’s confirmation that he & his anti-immigration guru, Stephen Miller, are advancing plans for a Day One policy in January 2025 of large-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants”
11/ “Biden thought for a split sec that Egypt was Mexico, while TFG wants a war zone on border w Mex. Anyone see a diff here? & that’s just 1 of many stakes of electing a wannabe dictator..
As a journalist & voter, I don’t think Trump’s awfulness means Biden gets a free pass... So many desperate human beings — from Central Amer’s seeking asylum to children in Gaza seeking to grow up—need us to get democracy right.
That’s why it’s painful to feel we are on that couch, watching slow train wreck”
12/ “If neither Biden’s age nor Trump’s neo-fascist policies are viewed in right perspective, democracy will go over cliff on Jan. 20. We need to listen to famous words of the 1960s activist Mario Savio, that “there’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part! ... And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you’ve got to make it stop!” PLZ READ WHOLE THG
@GottaLaff I do believe, and I say this with respect, that America's democracy is deeply flawed, from its myriad candidate selection "battles", its active disenfranchisement of minority voters, the deeply partisan & overtly / obvious attempts to circumvent existing laws & rules. The electoral college, designed to balance, but now no longer fit for purpose.
Not saying the UK's democracy is any better, its not, it too is sorely in need of a redesign to re-enfranchise & reengage ALL voters.
@GottaLaff you, like us need a benevolent dictator to take over, for just a short while & tidy up the mess & set things right & then hand it all back again....
If Biden gets re-elected then I am NOT worried. Faulty memory or not, Vice President Harris is ready. I wanted her to get the nomination in 2020.
If the orange mop that thinks Obama is still president get elected then I am worried.
@GottaLaff I read every word, and thanks for writing it when you should probably be giving your pooch belly rubs. I have a number of friends under The Donald's spell and I have found no incantations to break it. But I can make it stumble occasionally. "I'm sorry, but I don't and can't support Trump. Because January 6 and that one reason is sufficient. But I'm still your friend, and I hope I'm still yours, even though I'm [sic] wrong." A Llap Goch master never lets them see it coming....
I have one beef with this piece, he didn't take the opportunity to add that, the manifest failures of the for-profit media not withstanding, we have the power to make damn sure that Joe Biden, the best President since FDR, is reelected.
@GottaLaff Biden did not think "for a split sec that Egypt was Mexico". He misnamed a country with a border issue - pulling the wrong name out of a choice of two. People do this all the time. I do it quite often. Word memory is associative. Especially noticeable when there is an extra person in your life - the closest matching person gets mis-named a lot.
"It feels like a serious personal attack"...
If you mean by what Hur wrote and how the press has responded, so unfaithfully, as well not hardly reporting on trumps obvious impairments, I agree.
I'm so fucking angry over this revolting piece of trash Hur published... his lack of any decency and integrity is appalling to anyone with a truly working sense of humanity. And I'm disgusted by Garland letting it be released (as written.)
Possibly Pres. Biden releasing it, as was delivered, may be a political master piece... it's pissed off a lot of people who fully support him and a pissed off at how the press has responded... or not... it's certainly lit a fire under his supporters...
@tdwllms1@MaggyWells@GottaLaff@willbunch
You’re probably right. So when Biden held the press conference which was complete mayhem… it was what he expected… or maybe anticipated. He did look rather calm as it escalated.
And the resulting both sides backlash confirms everything good about Biden and evil about trump.
Wow.
@GottaLaff@willbunch the fact that this is your choice is truly mind blowing. Orange turd aside, what the hell were you thinking with Joe Biden? Age limits should be a thing in holding high public office
@GottaLaff@willbunch Sometimes someone comes along, someone better with words than I, and manages to say what I would if I just could. Will did that here and I appreciate & respect him for it. Thanks for pointing to it
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