August 10, 2023 - 7:00am
After riding an anti-Trump wave to three electoral victories in a row (2018, 2020, and 2022), some Democrats seem eager to run against the former president again in 2024. But the waters of American politics can be unpredictable. While a Trump nomination could bring significant advantages to Democrats, they might also have reasons not to be complacent about a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024.
Political vulnerabilities dog Trump. His personal approval rating currently bobs around 40%. In the 2022 midterms, swing-state voters rejected one Trump-branded candidate after another. The legacy of 6th January, 2021 and numerous legal indictments have covered his campaign in a fog of scandal. Personal grievance seems to have edged out much of a positive message, and his campaign funds are haemorrhaging tens of millions of dollars in legal fees.
However, none other than Barack Obama has warned Joe Biden that a Trump rematch should not be taken lightly. To some extent, this might be bait for Republicans, but there is reason to believe the former president has a point.
One is polling. In 2020, Biden was much more popular than Trump. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, almost all polls had Biden with a net positive approval rating (often in the range of five to 10 points). Conversely, Trump’s net approval rating was around -10 or so. By 2023, Trump is still in negative territory (around -16), but Biden’s net approval is now also negative (at -11). This means that the dynamic of the 2024 campaign could be closer to the 2016 election, which pitted two deeply unpopular candidates against each other. That election did not turn out so well for Democrats.
Related to polling is the question of a third-party candidate. Surveys consistently show that voters would prefer to have a choice for president other than Biden or Trump, and a Quinnipiac poll from July found that almost half of voters would consider voting for a third-party candidate. Voters are generally more favourable to third-party candidates in the abstract; in the voting booth that support often evaporates, as they pull the lever for a Republican or a Democrat. Nevertheless, a Trump-Biden battle might be an environment in which an outsider could get more traction, which could add to electoral uncertainty.
How a third-party candidate would play out in 2024 would depend on who that candidate is, and polling on this issue is mixed. A number of state-level polls have shown that a third-party candidate could boost Trump’s margin by a few points, which could tip the scales in some states. Another national poll found that a third-party candidate would not really affect the top-line Biden-Trump margin (and that Trump would come in third to a generic third-party candidate).
Nevertheless, many Biden allies are fearful of an insurgent figure from neither of the two main parties, and have launched a scorched-earth campaign against the group No Labels for daring to entertain a third-party candidacy. Jill Stein’s Green Party campaign pulled votes from Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Democrats do not want to see that repeated in 2024.
Republicans should not fool themselves. As a presidential candidate, Trump retains considerable structural vulnerabilities. Many cases for his electability admit the slimness of his chances by focusing on some black-swan event — an economic slowdown, a foreign-policy crisis, a Biden health emergency, or a third-party candidate who catches fire.
But Democrats should also remember that, while on the endangered-species list, black swans are not yet extinct.
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SubscribeIf a week is a long time in politics, 15 months is an eternity. There’s a lot that could happen between now and November, 2024. This is, in fact, the first presidential election campaign in my lifetime in which one or both of the candidates have a significantly non-zero chance of being dead on Election Day.
If a week is a long time in politics, 15 months is an eternity. There’s a lot that could happen between now and November, 2024. This is, in fact, the first presidential election campaign in my lifetime in which one or both of the candidates have a significantly non-zero chance of being dead on Election Day.
Very interesting piece by Ben Domenech in The Spectator: We’re living through Barack Obama’s third term. It concerns the possibility of Barack Obama continuing to exert covert influence on the current US Presidency. Could this be the reason the US government is so determinedly woke under the dazed and confused Joe Biden?
I believe power is held by the neo-cons.with “woke” a dangerous sideshow. I have read twice from sources I respect that the 2024 US election may not happen. For example, if the country is at war.
Smacks a bit of conspiracy but it will be interesting to see if your sources are right. Presumably, the most likely adversary would be China with Taiwan as the motive. Let’s not forget North Korea – China’s menacing pitbull (don’t tell me they developed all that nuclear and missile tech on their own).
Smacks a bit of conspiracy but it will be interesting to see if your sources are right. Presumably, the most likely adversary would be China with Taiwan as the motive. Let’s not forget North Korea – China’s menacing pitbull (don’t tell me they developed all that nuclear and missile tech on their own).
In what way is Obama properly called “woke”. As an ex-president he has been outspoken against purity politics and the intolerance “gotcha/cancel” culture, opposing woke smugness in particular, using that exact term. While in office he had a mostly moderate and conciliatory approach to racial matters, with a few deviations like the regrettable “Trayvon could have been my son” comment (could have kept that one in his head and thought gratefully of his two daughters).
A two-minute clip of him speaking publicly establishes Obama’s current stance quite well. Note how some of young black people on stage with him seem to know Obama is right but look awkward as they haven’t been hearing much like that from anyone inside their bubble–(my own little impression): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
This is really is wearying, AJ Mac.
I said the Biden government “is so determinedly woke”. There are quite clear indications of that being the case. People are left wondering how Biden, a supposedly moderate Democrat could possibly have ushered in the radical changes they are seeing.
I also said that Ben Domenech’s article in The Spectator looked at the possibility that Obama might be exerting covert (dictionary definition: not openly shown, engaged in or avowed) influence. He is not alone in voicing suspicion that Obama post-presidency may be perpetuating change by non-democratic means – a vice left-wingers find difficult to resist (they know what’s good for the masses even if the masses don’t)
Do try reading Ben Domenech’s article rather than merely commenting on my mention of it. And try not to be so naively trusting of public figures merely because their professed beliefs sit comfortably with your own carefully curated world view.
By the way, there is also a quite revealing critique of Obama’s autobiography by Lloyd Billingsley,The Obama Factor, in The Front Page Magazine – 7 August. Difficult to pin down the truth about the ex-president’s origins and there is evidence that Dreams From My Father may be largely fiction (and I don’t mean poetic licence).
Your words: “Barack Obama continuing to exert covert influence on the current US Presidency. Could this be the reason the US government is so determinedly woke under the dazed and confused Joe Biden?“***(italics and boldface added).
Your precise, pasted words. And how is your pivot to a borrowed accusation–true or not–about Obama’s memoir germane to whether he was a servant of wokeness or whatever? Now you’re just making a more general effort to undermine his character?
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you admit any mistake or even misleading statement. Wearisome indeed.
I respect your point of view on the whole and agree with much of what you say. Often that may be obscured by a somewhat built-in emphasis on differences or qualifications here (and on most online comment boards), when there is anything beyond “loud agreement”. But the quarrelsome tone and vexatious stalemates that typify our exchanges are not a one-way street. Not from my admittedly self-charitable perspective.
*** It appears that you’ve pivoted to your own take or wording in your concluding interrogative statement. If not, or if you don’t endorse these claims, you should make that clear, not expect me to absorb outside opinion in order to fully appreciate your comment.
Either way, the claim is baseless and I don’t need to place that in the “context” of a hit piece on Obama (correct?) that you happen to be fond of, nor will I bother to do so. (Incidentally: Did you watch the two-minute video clip?). The insinuating, speculative noise you’ve cited is plenty, N Satori.
**I avoid responding to you now, even when I have a substantive disagreement with certain things you post, because neither of us seems good at having a meaningful or useful exchange with the other. But I was unwilling to let this one go.
** And given Domenech’s documented history of plagiarism (fired for it in 2006) and mercenary journalism (you likely know of this. otherwise look it up), one could hardly call him a reliable source for anything. I’ve read some of his pieces at The Spectator and National Review and found him to be self-certain mudslinger. I no longer even check The Federalist, because it has a predetermined and severe bias, with no attempt to entertain any alternate viewpoint that ventures outside its own acoustic and lighting schemes.
—————————————————-*Oh, I did skim the ludicrous article you cited. Three nuggets:1) “The easy explanation, of course, is that Joe Biden is not running that part of his administration” (as you know, this is Domenech’s primary named source, David Samuels) 2) “If true, it really would take allegations that Biden’s presidency is merely an old man serving as an Obama puppet to a new level” 3) This is a real gem: “On its face, this would explain a great deal about the inconsistencies between the current president’s past approaches to any number of areas of policy — domestic, economic and foreign — but it would also particularly explain Biden’s embrace of modern wokeness as a trademark issue, despite not campaigning on it in 2020″. Domenech provides no follow-up that moves past the superficial face of what these rather strained “inconsistencies” would explain to him, (if true), and to those ready to believe any compromising speculation about a president and former president whom they despise, however venturesome and unsubstantiated.
This is journalism? Easy explanations indeed.
Such a protective bubble of backslapping echo-men on many of these boards. Demanding fairness for Your Side, very one-sidedly. I read reporting and opinion from the left, right, and center, but many of you don’t unless it’s filtered through your preferred spin. Or on this website, where you can rail BTL and bare your teeth to one another in mutual outrage. Just like those of the Other Side, whom you so revile. Some of you are massive hypocrites. These days anyway. That’s all.
Such a protective bubble of backslapping echo-men on many of these boards. Demanding fairness for Your Side, very one-sidedly. I read reporting and opinion from the left, right, and center, but many of you don’t unless it’s filtered through your preferred spin. Or on this website, where you can rail BTL and bare your teeth to one another in mutual outrage. Just like those of the Other Side, whom you so revile. Some of you are massive hypocrites. These days anyway. That’s all.
The recent Tablet interview of David Garrow by David Samuels also reveals that Dreams is fictional and ghost written, likely by long-time Obama friend, the terrorist Bill Ayres.
A largely unknown, unaccomplished minor state politician was essentially invented by the Democrat machine and its media to create, in the words of Joe Biden,“the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Biden is an awkward old bumbler who was never excellent, not in his prime. If he weren’t quite literally “grandfathered in” he might have been “cancelled” in a political sense years ago.
I admire and am defensive of Obama–who certainly had vastly more relevant experience and general aptitude for the job than Trump–but not Biden. I’d pull the lever for someone else that was under 80 if given a non-insane, electable alterative.
Biden is an awkward old bumbler who was never excellent, not in his prime. If he weren’t quite literally “grandfathered in” he might have been “cancelled” in a political sense years ago.
I admire and am defensive of Obama–who certainly had vastly more relevant experience and general aptitude for the job than Trump–but not Biden. I’d pull the lever for someone else that was under 80 if given a non-insane, electable alterative.
Yes – and read The Tablet’s interview of (progressive!) Garrow’s biography of Obama that has been making the rounds this past week. Talk about nail-hitting-head.
I read that disjointed character-assault too, just now. It moves from a he said/she difference of opinion to disputing Obama’s own self-assessment, to calling him a fabulist. His bitter ex-girlfriend knows the whole truth about Barack? Talk about switching one bias for the other!
It’s fine to take issue with Obama’s or anyone’s self-assessment but memoirs are subjective, and some measure of narrative art, or even self-delusion, does not make one a liar in and of itself.
If I could stand to hear any more Ron DeSantis than I have to, I could pick up a copy of “The Courage to Be Free” and find…what? Clear-eyed, objectivity and unstinting honesty? C’mon, even the best and most conscientious memoirs hold certain things back and push certain things forward, whether consciously or not on the part of the author.
I read Dreams of My Father in 2008 and found it to be a searching, self-aware, and rather candid book for a public figure. Not a masterpiece or peer-reviewed scholarly text with nothing but verifiably fact in it, of course. A subjective, autobiographical work.
The Art of the Deal. which Trump didn’t, indeed couldn’t write himself, engages in far more self-mythologization and truth-be-damned bragging (in Trumps own sometimes polished-up words–he ain’t eloquent) than anything most people have put out as their own story. His ghostwriter Tony Schwartz now disavows it, but it abides, to his lasting embarrassment.
That write-up interview was a meandering hit-piece with a foregone conclusion: “Obama and Biden bad, conservatives and Trump-lovers good”.
None of this is any more of an honest attempt to get at the truth than “Fury and Fire: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff was.
It all starts with an fixed agenda, fierce opposition, and sometimes a personal animus. Such an approach finds something very close to what it looks to find, and if something else should penetrate, you just need to squint until you see what you want and need to see–the lenses are very smudged anyway.
I read that disjointed character-assault too, just now. It moves from a he said/she difference of opinion to disputing Obama’s own self-assessment, to calling him a fabulist. His bitter ex-girlfriend knows the whole truth about Barack? Talk about switching one bias for the other!
It’s fine to take issue with Obama’s or anyone’s self-assessment but memoirs are subjective, and some measure of narrative art, or even self-delusion, does not make one a liar in and of itself.
If I could stand to hear any more Ron DeSantis than I have to, I could pick up a copy of “The Courage to Be Free” and find…what? Clear-eyed, objectivity and unstinting honesty? C’mon, even the best and most conscientious memoirs hold certain things back and push certain things forward, whether consciously or not on the part of the author.
I read Dreams of My Father in 2008 and found it to be a searching, self-aware, and rather candid book for a public figure. Not a masterpiece or peer-reviewed scholarly text with nothing but verifiably fact in it, of course. A subjective, autobiographical work.
The Art of the Deal. which Trump didn’t, indeed couldn’t write himself, engages in far more self-mythologization and truth-be-damned bragging (in Trumps own sometimes polished-up words–he ain’t eloquent) than anything most people have put out as their own story. His ghostwriter Tony Schwartz now disavows it, but it abides, to his lasting embarrassment.
That write-up interview was a meandering hit-piece with a foregone conclusion: “Obama and Biden bad, conservatives and Trump-lovers good”.
None of this is any more of an honest attempt to get at the truth than “Fury and Fire: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff was.
It all starts with an fixed agenda, fierce opposition, and sometimes a personal animus. Such an approach finds something very close to what it looks to find, and if something else should penetrate, you just need to squint until you see what you want and need to see–the lenses are very smudged anyway.
Your words: “Barack Obama continuing to exert covert influence on the current US Presidency. Could this be the reason the US government is so determinedly woke under the dazed and confused Joe Biden?“***(italics and boldface added).
Your precise, pasted words. And how is your pivot to a borrowed accusation–true or not–about Obama’s memoir germane to whether he was a servant of wokeness or whatever? Now you’re just making a more general effort to undermine his character?
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you admit any mistake or even misleading statement. Wearisome indeed.
I respect your point of view on the whole and agree with much of what you say. Often that may be obscured by a somewhat built-in emphasis on differences or qualifications here (and on most online comment boards), when there is anything beyond “loud agreement”. But the quarrelsome tone and vexatious stalemates that typify our exchanges are not a one-way street. Not from my admittedly self-charitable perspective.
*** It appears that you’ve pivoted to your own take or wording in your concluding interrogative statement. If not, or if you don’t endorse these claims, you should make that clear, not expect me to absorb outside opinion in order to fully appreciate your comment.
Either way, the claim is baseless and I don’t need to place that in the “context” of a hit piece on Obama (correct?) that you happen to be fond of, nor will I bother to do so. (Incidentally: Did you watch the two-minute video clip?). The insinuating, speculative noise you’ve cited is plenty, N Satori.
**I avoid responding to you now, even when I have a substantive disagreement with certain things you post, because neither of us seems good at having a meaningful or useful exchange with the other. But I was unwilling to let this one go.
** And given Domenech’s documented history of plagiarism (fired for it in 2006) and mercenary journalism (you likely know of this. otherwise look it up), one could hardly call him a reliable source for anything. I’ve read some of his pieces at The Spectator and National Review and found him to be self-certain mudslinger. I no longer even check The Federalist, because it has a predetermined and severe bias, with no attempt to entertain any alternate viewpoint that ventures outside its own acoustic and lighting schemes.
—————————————————-*Oh, I did skim the ludicrous article you cited. Three nuggets:1) “The easy explanation, of course, is that Joe Biden is not running that part of his administration” (as you know, this is Domenech’s primary named source, David Samuels) 2) “If true, it really would take allegations that Biden’s presidency is merely an old man serving as an Obama puppet to a new level” 3) This is a real gem: “On its face, this would explain a great deal about the inconsistencies between the current president’s past approaches to any number of areas of policy — domestic, economic and foreign — but it would also particularly explain Biden’s embrace of modern wokeness as a trademark issue, despite not campaigning on it in 2020″. Domenech provides no follow-up that moves past the superficial face of what these rather strained “inconsistencies” would explain to him, (if true), and to those ready to believe any compromising speculation about a president and former president whom they despise, however venturesome and unsubstantiated.
This is journalism? Easy explanations indeed.
The recent Tablet interview of David Garrow by David Samuels also reveals that Dreams is fictional and ghost written, likely by long-time Obama friend, the terrorist Bill Ayres.
A largely unknown, unaccomplished minor state politician was essentially invented by the Democrat machine and its media to create, in the words of Joe Biden,“the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Yes – and read The Tablet’s interview of (progressive!) Garrow’s biography of Obama that has been making the rounds this past week. Talk about nail-hitting-head.
Obama said a lot of things but for the most part became the least effective President in American history, primarily because he threw race relations into a hole with numerous gaffs and misunderstandings. Obama was never ‘moderate’ or conciliatory. In foreign policy, he was a disaster- exploded the Middle East in Syria and then went on to drone people to death.
That’s just opinionated spin. To which, of course, you are entitled. To me it’s very far from accurate and I hope you can admit that Trump did far more to aggravate our racial divides (for example “very good people on both sides”–yes, taken out of context, but he didn’t clear it up, on purpose!) than even the shock (for some) of a black president.
Trump’s election was, in part, enabled by racialized distrust of Obama. Trump never even tried to be conciliatory on race, which many Americans, mostly white but not only, couldn’t and still can’t get enough of.
The Age of Outspoken White Grievance, all the while saying things “you’re not allowed to say” and hoping they’ll finally be able get a fair shake again, like in 1955 when nearly all white men (who weren’t gay) were, in fact, getting a more favorable deal than they are now, for sure. As a white man myself, I just hope I can live long enough to get my hands on some of that black privilege that’s so prevalent in America!!
I hope you’ll forgive me for rattling on so long at you. Your comment exists in a larger context. I am now well and truly done with the sisyphean labor, or idle hobby, for today. See y’all around the boards.
*I acknowledge that Obama did many things wrong(all presidents do even the better ones) including by continuing the Bush era marathon nightmare wars and in ramping up the surveillance state. But that is not the topic we were supposed to be on, and as a collective (un)herd of likeminded opinionators you have done very little to provide any substantive counterweight to my initial post or my follow-ups.
Perhaps I should conclude that you would have provided such substance–not more speculation and hyperbole, though published somewhere that is or seem to be reputable–if you could. I’ll regard your views on the subject as settled and insensible to change except from within the herd. Vanity and vexation of spirit!
Genetically, Obama is exactly half white and half black. Had had, as President, a unique basis for appealing to and reconciling the racial divide in USA. Instead, he solidly identified himself as ‘Black’ and pushed the Black agenda in public policy – and left a bitter legacy.
America defines most people who are one-fourth or more black as black on their unrequested behalf. It is not a real choice. He never threw shade (pun intended) on white people as a group or pushed a policy of black grievance: “There’s not a white America and a black America, there’s the United States of America”. His white mother and grandparents were very dear to him, and vice versa. His black father, not so much.
What black policy agenda? How so? Specify one thing. These are just orphaned assertions you’ve absorbed into a seemingly black and white worldview.
The baseless nature of your claims and those like them leads me to suspect there was nothing short of absolute uninterrupted perfection, concerning America’s toughest and most intractable issue, that would have satisfied you. And maybe not even that, because fault can always be found with enough of a determined search, especially a predetermined one.
That’s me declaring myself done here again and handing it back over to the echo panel. Enjoy that.
No it doesn’t. What year do you think this is?
Yes, it does. They may be bi-racial or multiracial on government forms or to their friends or the sensitive youth these days, but if they are dark or have a strong African facial phenotype, they will just be “black” for most social, cultural, and descriptive purposes. In 2023. “Light-skinned black man” ever heard that? Not a thing of the past, nor a rarity.
Living in Florida (not saying it is uniquely color-coded, especially in bigger cities, but it is the South) I’m surprised that you would overlook or perhaps try to deny any of this.
*On an episode of his PBS program “Finding Your Roots”, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., he of the quick-arrest brouhaha and much-derided “Beer Summit”, took a very thorough DNA test that shows he is about 51% European and 49% African. Yet I doubt many people, unless making a detailed point about it, will refer to him as bi-racial.
The average slavery-descended American black person is about 25% white. But no one is talking about “reverse-quadroons” or whatever–thankfully.
AJ Mac you are spamming this whole thread. It’s obnoxious. Drop it.
Aw, did I ruin your private, invite-only board?Butfair enough, gaslight each other to your hearts are full. Bye.That’s fair. However passionate or right I thought I was, I overdid it by a lot.
Aw, did I ruin your private, invite-only board?Butfair enough, gaslight each other to your hearts are full. Bye.That’s fair. However passionate or right I thought I was, I overdid it by a lot.
AJ Mac you are spamming this whole thread. It’s obnoxious. Drop it.
Yes, it does. They may be bi-racial or multiracial on government forms or to their friends or the sensitive youth these days, but if they are dark or have a strong African facial phenotype, they will just be “black” for most social, cultural, and descriptive purposes. In 2023. “Light-skinned black man” ever heard that? Not a thing of the past, nor a rarity.
Living in Florida (not saying it is uniquely color-coded, especially in bigger cities, but it is the South) I’m surprised that you would overlook or perhaps try to deny any of this.
*On an episode of his PBS program “Finding Your Roots”, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., he of the quick-arrest brouhaha and much-derided “Beer Summit”, took a very thorough DNA test that shows he is about 51% European and 49% African. Yet I doubt many people, unless making a detailed point about it, will refer to him as bi-racial.
The average slavery-descended American black person is about 25% white. But no one is talking about “reverse-quadroons” or whatever–thankfully.
Your verbiage shrouds whatever points and veiled insults you seek to deliver. If you despise the ‘echo panel’ so much, make yourself ‘done’ permanently and remain in your pram.
Well done on delivering such an open and childish insult.
I’d much rather have a meaningful, good-faith exchange with you and others. When that proves impossible, I sometimes make the questionable choice to swim into a would-be private pool, where like-minded pontificators (and some more fair-r-minded observers) are splashing around and having such a good time.
I regret my prevailing tone and volume of input here, but stand behind nearly all my pushback and sourcing, even when it’s just my informed or even kneejerk opinion.
This ain’t your private board.
Another example of verbiage! Boo hoo!
Another example of verbiage! Boo hoo!
Well done on delivering such an open and childish insult.
I’d much rather have a meaningful, good-faith exchange with you and others. When that proves impossible, I sometimes make the questionable choice to swim into a would-be private pool, where like-minded pontificators (and some more fair-r-minded observers) are splashing around and having such a good time.
I regret my prevailing tone and volume of input here, but stand behind nearly all my pushback and sourcing, even when it’s just my informed or even kneejerk opinion.
This ain’t your private board.
No it doesn’t. What year do you think this is?
Your verbiage shrouds whatever points and veiled insults you seek to deliver. If you despise the ‘echo panel’ so much, make yourself ‘done’ permanently and remain in your pram.
America defines most people who are one-fourth or more black as black on their unrequested behalf. It is not a real choice. He never threw shade (pun intended) on white people as a group or pushed a policy of black grievance: “There’s not a white America and a black America, there’s the United States of America”. His white mother and grandparents were very dear to him, and vice versa. His black father, not so much.
What black policy agenda? How so? Specify one thing. These are just orphaned assertions you’ve absorbed into a seemingly black and white worldview.
The baseless nature of your claims and those like them leads me to suspect there was nothing short of absolute uninterrupted perfection, concerning America’s toughest and most intractable issue, that would have satisfied you. And maybe not even that, because fault can always be found with enough of a determined search, especially a predetermined one.
That’s me declaring myself done here again and handing it back over to the echo panel. Enjoy that.
That’s just opinionated spin. To which, of course, you are entitled. To me it’s very far from accurate and I hope you can admit that Trump did far more to aggravate our racial divides (for example “very good people on both sides”–yes, taken out of context, but he didn’t clear it up, on purpose!) than even the shock (for some) of a black president.
Trump’s election was, in part, enabled by racialized distrust of Obama. Trump never even tried to be conciliatory on race, which many Americans, mostly white but not only, couldn’t and still can’t get enough of.
The Age of Outspoken White Grievance, all the while saying things “you’re not allowed to say” and hoping they’ll finally be able get a fair shake again, like in 1955 when nearly all white men (who weren’t gay) were, in fact, getting a more favorable deal than they are now, for sure. As a white man myself, I just hope I can live long enough to get my hands on some of that black privilege that’s so prevalent in America!!
I hope you’ll forgive me for rattling on so long at you. Your comment exists in a larger context. I am now well and truly done with the sisyphean labor, or idle hobby, for today. See y’all around the boards.
*I acknowledge that Obama did many things wrong(all presidents do even the better ones) including by continuing the Bush era marathon nightmare wars and in ramping up the surveillance state. But that is not the topic we were supposed to be on, and as a collective (un)herd of likeminded opinionators you have done very little to provide any substantive counterweight to my initial post or my follow-ups.
Perhaps I should conclude that you would have provided such substance–not more speculation and hyperbole, though published somewhere that is or seem to be reputable–if you could. I’ll regard your views on the subject as settled and insensible to change except from within the herd. Vanity and vexation of spirit!
Genetically, Obama is exactly half white and half black. Had had, as President, a unique basis for appealing to and reconciling the racial divide in USA. Instead, he solidly identified himself as ‘Black’ and pushed the Black agenda in public policy – and left a bitter legacy.
This is really is wearying, AJ Mac.
I said the Biden government “is so determinedly woke”. There are quite clear indications of that being the case. People are left wondering how Biden, a supposedly moderate Democrat could possibly have ushered in the radical changes they are seeing.
I also said that Ben Domenech’s article in The Spectator looked at the possibility that Obama might be exerting covert (dictionary definition: not openly shown, engaged in or avowed) influence. He is not alone in voicing suspicion that Obama post-presidency may be perpetuating change by non-democratic means – a vice left-wingers find difficult to resist (they know what’s good for the masses even if the masses don’t)
Do try reading Ben Domenech’s article rather than merely commenting on my mention of it. And try not to be so naively trusting of public figures merely because their professed beliefs sit comfortably with your own carefully curated world view.
By the way, there is also a quite revealing critique of Obama’s autobiography by Lloyd Billingsley,The Obama Factor, in The Front Page Magazine – 7 August. Difficult to pin down the truth about the ex-president’s origins and there is evidence that Dreams From My Father may be largely fiction (and I don’t mean poetic licence).
Obama said a lot of things but for the most part became the least effective President in American history, primarily because he threw race relations into a hole with numerous gaffs and misunderstandings. Obama was never ‘moderate’ or conciliatory. In foreign policy, he was a disaster- exploded the Middle East in Syria and then went on to drone people to death.
I believe power is held by the neo-cons.with “woke” a dangerous sideshow. I have read twice from sources I respect that the 2024 US election may not happen. For example, if the country is at war.
In what way is Obama properly called “woke”. As an ex-president he has been outspoken against purity politics and the intolerance “gotcha/cancel” culture, opposing woke smugness in particular, using that exact term. While in office he had a mostly moderate and conciliatory approach to racial matters, with a few deviations like the regrettable “Trayvon could have been my son” comment (could have kept that one in his head and thought gratefully of his two daughters).
A two-minute clip of him speaking publicly establishes Obama’s current stance quite well. Note how some of young black people on stage with him seem to know Obama is right but look awkward as they haven’t been hearing much like that from anyone inside their bubble–(my own little impression): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
Very interesting piece by Ben Domenech in The Spectator: We’re living through Barack Obama’s third term. It concerns the possibility of Barack Obama continuing to exert covert influence on the current US Presidency. Could this be the reason the US government is so determinedly woke under the dazed and confused Joe Biden?
What is going to matter is the minority vote, black and latino but also the Asian vote.
Trump is polling MUCH better with Latinos than he did in 2020 and he is currently pulling 18% of the black male vote.
Among working class minorities, Trump is making big headway. That is more a rejection of the democrats than a love of Trump.
Then, you gotta look at the Asian vote. Asians have not had a great few years under Biden. Hate crimes against them are up, particularly in cities like NY. Lot of conflict between the Asian community and the Black community over things like education. Black equals democrat. The opposite is republican.
Gotta remember too that CA, MA and NY lost seats in the census, and electoral college votes with them. TX and FL gained.
Personally, I think I am gonna sit this one out. However, if Manchin runs on the No Label, I will think about it hard. Trump is a vindictive SOB and only chaos will rein if he wins. Biden is an incompetent, corrupt, pandering fool with what looks like dementia. There is almost no point in picking between them except as a protest vote against the woke insanity and the corrupt coverup of Biden’s foreign dealings.
I have to think that the evidence of corruption in the Biden family is going to swing some voters. Many voters are making a connection between the links to Burisma and the funding of Ukraine – blackmail is certainly at least a possibility.
I have to think that the evidence of corruption in the Biden family is going to swing some voters. Many voters are making a connection between the links to Burisma and the funding of Ukraine – blackmail is certainly at least a possibility.
What is going to matter is the minority vote, black and latino but also the Asian vote.
Trump is polling MUCH better with Latinos than he did in 2020 and he is currently pulling 18% of the black male vote.
Among working class minorities, Trump is making big headway. That is more a rejection of the democrats than a love of Trump.
Then, you gotta look at the Asian vote. Asians have not had a great few years under Biden. Hate crimes against them are up, particularly in cities like NY. Lot of conflict between the Asian community and the Black community over things like education. Black equals democrat. The opposite is republican.
Gotta remember too that CA, MA and NY lost seats in the census, and electoral college votes with them. TX and FL gained.
Personally, I think I am gonna sit this one out. However, if Manchin runs on the No Label, I will think about it hard. Trump is a vindictive SOB and only chaos will rein if he wins. Biden is an incompetent, corrupt, pandering fool with what looks like dementia. There is almost no point in picking between them except as a protest vote against the woke insanity and the corrupt coverup of Biden’s foreign dealings.
If the charges against Trump are not politically motivated, why are Democrats obsessed that the charges may not produce the political effects they want?
If the charges against Trump are not politically motivated, why are Democrats obsessed that the charges may not produce the political effects they want?
If the poll question is pick one: Trump or Biden, the characterization “two candidates nobody really wants” is probably very accurate. The problem is in that case the question itself creates a so called “middle ground” that isn’t really middle at all. It is comprised in large measure of one group of anybody but Trump and another of anybody but Biden. That makes the “middle” very volatile. Historically the middle is complacent. This middle is not that. It is angry, disappointed, and feeling like no one is paying attention to them. I submit no one, especially the pollsters who historically only ask multiple choice questions, know what this group is going to really do in 2024.
If the poll question is pick one: Trump or Biden, the characterization “two candidates nobody really wants” is probably very accurate. The problem is in that case the question itself creates a so called “middle ground” that isn’t really middle at all. It is comprised in large measure of one group of anybody but Trump and another of anybody but Biden. That makes the “middle” very volatile. Historically the middle is complacent. This middle is not that. It is angry, disappointed, and feeling like no one is paying attention to them. I submit no one, especially the pollsters who historically only ask multiple choice questions, know what this group is going to really do in 2024.
What a pathetic state of affairs. Yet another country where the electorate are presented with two leaders no one likes. IMO the only chance Trump has is if RFK feels so betrayed by the Dems he decides to run as a third-party candidate.
Don’t you think RFK and his anti-establishmentarian, freewheelin’ talk would peel away some Trump voters too?
Agreed.
Still, my gut is telling me that Trump is gonna win in a squeaker, even if he is in jail.
Haha!
*I honestly thought that was a joke. Elected from a jail cell?
I can’t see how they could Jail a former President. What facility could hold him? How would that work? Apart from that about half the country voted for him last time. Probably the half that support 2A a huge number of lower ranks in the military and a preponderance of police officers. Courtroom shenanigans are one thing, incarceration is quite another.
My back-to-college veteran military students, and/or current police students, during the 2016 election noted that no matter their own racial/ethnic/class background, and sometimes their own political preferences and supposed “loyalty to their community,” they’d vote Trump. They knew the GOP would feather their nests, and long before 2020, that no Dems would (well, maybe Tulsi Gabbard, who’s lately left the party.)
I do wonder if progressives have thought that through – if there is any actual armed conflict in the US the Democrats are going to lose for the reasons you stated. If there is any serious election shennanigans this election things could easily go sideways – especially if the FBI try and be heavy handed.
My back-to-college veteran military students, and/or current police students, during the 2016 election noted that no matter their own racial/ethnic/class background, and sometimes their own political preferences and supposed “loyalty to their community,” they’d vote Trump. They knew the GOP would feather their nests, and long before 2020, that no Dems would (well, maybe Tulsi Gabbard, who’s lately left the party.)
I do wonder if progressives have thought that through – if there is any actual armed conflict in the US the Democrats are going to lose for the reasons you stated. If there is any serious election shennanigans this election things could easily go sideways – especially if the FBI try and be heavy handed.
Haha!
*I honestly thought that was a joke. Elected from a jail cell?
I can’t see how they could Jail a former President. What facility could hold him? How would that work? Apart from that about half the country voted for him last time. Probably the half that support 2A a huge number of lower ranks in the military and a preponderance of police officers. Courtroom shenanigans are one thing, incarceration is quite another.
That’s a possibility I suppose, but he will only get the anti-establishment voters who don’t like Trump. Not sure there’s a bunch of them on the GOP side.
I think you’re right that it would probably help Trump, but we’ve got a long grim season of trials, mutual sociopolitical hostility, and distrust ahead of us yet, sadly.
I think you’re right that it would probably help Trump, but we’ve got a long grim season of trials, mutual sociopolitical hostility, and distrust ahead of us yet, sadly.
Agreed.
Still, my gut is telling me that Trump is gonna win in a squeaker, even if he is in jail.
That’s a possibility I suppose, but he will only get the anti-establishment voters who don’t like Trump. Not sure there’s a bunch of them on the GOP side.
Don’t you think RFK and his anti-establishmentarian, freewheelin’ talk would peel away some Trump voters too?
What a pathetic state of affairs. Yet another country where the electorate are presented with two leaders no one likes. IMO the only chance Trump has is if RFK feels so betrayed by the Dems he decides to run as a third-party candidate.
If it’s a toss-up between Biden or Trump, I will vote Trump. We need someone who can heal the nation rather than further divide it.
Demographics. If Washington wants a war with China it had better get a move on. There will be no serious Anglo candidates for the White House by 2032.
Demographics. If Washington wants a war with China it had better get a move on. There will be no serious Anglo candidates for the White House by 2032.