Monday, July 06, 2020

Lesser Evil? Joe Biden's Grand Bargain

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Top Trumpist Regime figures fanned out across the battleground states to reassure political and financial supporters that Trump isn't tanking, even if all the evidence says he he. And the Trumpist cabinet members brought promises of big money flows in return for loyalty. Associated Press reporters Bobby Calvan, Ellen Knickmeyer and John Flesher ventured that with Señor T "confronted by skyrocketing joblessness and the coronavirus pandemic as he campaigns for reelection against Democrat Joe Biden, members of his Cabinet are busy making time in pivotal states. They are carrying a message to voters about what the Trump administration is doing for them. At the same time, there are questions about whether these agency heads are running afoul of a law meant to bar overt campaigning by federal officials on the taxpayer tab... Cabinet-level leaders have come to Florida alone more than 30 times this year. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona have also seen visits from agency and administration chiefs discussing federal funding and initiatives for local interests-- and talking up Trump... Biden campaign spokesperson Michael Gwin accused the Trump administration of focusing on 'scoring political points, not delivering for the people they work for. With COVID-19 raging unchecked, more than 17 million Americans unemployed, and our country divided, it’s shameful that Trump’s Cabinet is campaigning on the taxpayer’s dime instead of doing their jobs.'"

On the other end of the conservative spectrum, there are Republicans rallying to Biden, the best conservative in the presidential race. Yesterday, The Guardian wondered aloud if it will help defeat the Orange Menace. "In 2016, as Trump steamrolled his way through the Republican primary," wrote Daniel Strauss, "some Republican lawmakers and operatives tried to mount an effort to stop him. Elected officials and veterans of previous Republican administrations organized letters, endorsed Hillary Clinton, and a few set up meager outside groups to defeat Trump. That’s happening again-- but there are differences. The outside groups are more numerous and better organized, and most importantly, Trump has a governing record on which Republicans can use to decide whether to support him or not." And they didn't really like Hillary-- just the lesser of two evils. But they love Biden. He's one of them in all ways except for that incongruous "(D)" next to his name.


The Republicans organizing for Biden this time, aren't just organizing against Trump; they want Biden. "We’re truly a grassroots organization. Our goal is to do whatever we can to elect Joe Biden as president," said John Farner, who worked in the commerce department during the Bush administration and is one of the founders of a new Super Pac called 43 Alumni for Biden. They say this is a one-issue election: "Are you for Donald Trump, or are you for America?"

The Economist doesn't think it's even necessary, that Trump has just done himself in. "Before covid-19 hit America," they asserted, incorrectly, "Trump looked likelier than not to be re-elected, thanks to a relentlessly growing economy. Incumbent presidents almost always win in such circumstances. Our election model made him a narrow favourite, even though he was a few points down in national polls with his rival, Joe Biden. However, the president is now in a deep hole. Mr Biden is up by nine points-- more in some polls. He is doing well in battleground states like Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin, and he has strong support among older voters and is doing surprisingly well among white voters who did not go to college. Our model now gives Mr Trump only a roughly 10% chance of winning. The virus has demonstrated something definitively to a large number of persuadable voters: that Mr Trump is just not that good at being a president."

They have higher hopes for Biden than I do-- not about November; I agree with their assessment that Biden is "in landslide territory [and that] Trump’s flailing has made a Democratic Senate majority possible."


But what I laugh about is that this landslide may see "a highly productive presidency which once seemed incon-ceivable." It once did seem incon-ceivable-- but it still does... because of who Joe Biden is and what he actually wants to accomplish-- and not accomplish.

The Economist: "Before COVID-19 and widespread social unrest, Mr Biden’s candidacy was about restoration-- the idea that he could return America and the world to the prelapsarian days of 2016. It transpires that he could have the opportunity to do something big instead. [T]o make lasting change through the federal government you need to win the Senate. And that cannot be done with a candidate at the top of the ticket who frightens the voters... [B]ecause he comes across as the grandfather he is, he is viewed with suspicion on the left."

The dream Biden would most like to accomplish-- the dream beyond his fondest dream-- would be catastrophic for America and for the idiots who have put him so close to the nomination: the Grand Bargain he's always wanted which would destroy Social Security (and Medicare), the #1 conservative goal since the 1930s.

"Yet that is precisely what makes him reassuring ... to voters in states like Montana and Georgia where Democrats must win to gain a majority in the Senate. It is Mr Biden’s caution that opens up the possibility of more change than a real radical would." If only they had the slightest idea of who Joe Biden really is!

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11 Comments:

At 5:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for your support of Fat Orange Fuck. This marks the 1000th straight time you've chose to attack Biden, a new world record.

 
At 8:18 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Someone suggested that the closest analog for Biden isn't FDR, it's James Buchanan. I think this is probably right. As Twain noted, history never repeats, but sometimes it rhymes. In terms of a governing majority, Biden will probably have one, but the incoming class of prospective Senators are all basically Republicans. I'm skeptical that they move things forward in the right direction at the speed that things need to go.

As far as Anon 5:04 AM goes, if Biden loses this lay-up of an election, he isn't going to be sunk by a blog post. At a certain point Dems need to grow up and learn to hold the leadership to a higher standard. If the goal is to actually end, not just Trump's presidency, but Trumpism, you have to remove the conditions that made it possible -- you have to give people a reason to hope and to believe that there is something in politics for them. Blue MAGA is just a nihilistic as Red MAGA. The only real difference is the means of global destruction and the time scale. Neither group has any credible program for dealing with the myriad of crises facing us right now. Both are basically elite programs for the elite. I wish Biden didn't have the record or the governing philosophy of a moderate Republican circa 1990, but any honest appraisal of his actual history makes that understanding inescapable.

 
At 8:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

5:04 demonstrates what the delusion of "Democrats" looks like. Biden's much longer record of working against the traditional base of the New Deal Democrats (extinct in real life) does not make him any better than Trump. Those operatives in the background of each right wing of the one Corporatist Party could swap seats, and no one outside the inner circles would be able to detect any difference in the way We the People end up used and abused for the benefit of the corporate bottom line.

But delusion is strong in the 'Mer'kkkan Greenhou$e. The potted plants want to think that the political Brawndo ("It's got the political electrolytes that 'Mer'kkkan potted plants crave!") consumed by the gallon daily actually benefits them instead of besotting them. There is no thought about what is really happening. They still want Mayberry America to be their world, when that world never really existed.

Before too much longer, this world won't exist either. We're not going to like what follows at all.

 
At 9:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon 8:46 AM, it depends where a person sits, but on a host of issues, a Biden administration will be better than Trump. e.g. no more family separations at the border, Biden will likely continue DACA. He's talked about lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60 and increasing taxes marginally on the wealthy. I strongly doubt that a Biden administration would have botched the Covid response to the same degree that Trump has.

For a lot of people though, there won't be much difference. For people overseas, American foreign policy will continue to be just as bad under Biden. Western Europe might find a more amendable president, and China might find a more willing business partner, but not so much for anyone else. For the young in particular, both are a disaster. For most people who aren't rich, more will drowned under Trump than Biden, but a lot will still drowned under Biden. It's a lose-lose more election for the world and the U.S.

Unlike Obama, however. Biden will enter office with a lot less goodwill from younger voters. The issue here is really that Trump has completely disqualified himself. Biden will almost certainly win by default.

 
At 12:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

8:18, close.

" At a certain point Dems need to grow up and learn to hold the leadership to a higher standard."

actually, one might have expected "Dems (voters)" to grow up and demand their leadership be better instead of not worse (than the Nazis). but whatever.

biden exists because the democraps only ever run against Nazis. it's easy to be less worst than Nazis.

$hillbillary ran on that. lost. biden is a bigger ocean of flaming pig shit than even that bankers' whore. and trump has lost maybe a point off his support.

I cannot wait to see what DWT punditry says after biden loses biglier than the whore did.

 
At 1:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon 12:24, at this point in 2016, Clinton was up by about +5 points.

There were some mainstream polls in July as well that had Trump up too at one point or another (e.g. Trump +5 CNN/ORC, July 22-24; NBC News Trump +2 July 18-24).

Biden's averaging closer to +9 points, and in several polls he's been as high as +12 points. Those numbers nationally, should be sufficient to put him over on the electoral map. He's absolutely crushing it too with voters over 65, because of Trump's handling of Covid-19.

Trump benefited from the benefit of the doubt in 2016. Enough voters broke for him in a few critical states late in 2016. Biden is somehow running an even more inept campaign than Clinton. It still may not matter. He's not as polarizing as Clinton, because there hasn't been a 20 year project to destroy his reputation (for issues real and imagined). Trump and his team clearly have no idea how to attack Biden. If they had spent the past year doing so in a consistent way, that might have helped, but at this point, it's too late. This election will likely be a referendum on Trump's performance as the incumbent at this point.

I think Trump probably would have won re-election, absent his godawful response to COVID-19. The economic performance was good enough that "stay the course" might have won the day. But Trump and his team are absolutely flailing right now. I've even seen Trump advisors arguing publicly against another worker-centered stimulus measure, because it would be "bad politics". These people have no clue.

I wouldn't be surprised if Biden beat Trump despite being ruled legally incompetent sometime between now and election day, and despite the fact that he may not have any turnout operation.

 
At 2:25 PM, Blogger Bil said...

I have to agree Howie. Like him or not the GOP got ON the Trump Wagon.
GET ON the Biden Wagon Howie,& then we'll make it better, not worse like Trump did.

 
At 2:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Right, Bil. That worked so well in 2008, didn't it?

 
At 5:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bil,

The Trump and Biden situations aren't analogous. Trump ran as an outsider. He beat the party establishment. When it came time to deal, Trump did what he needed to do to get weak GOP support on board. e.g. he appears to have promised a cabinet level job to Mitch McConnell's wife, selected a far-right, social conservative in Mike Pence as his VP, instead of going with his first choice, Chris Christie. In his first two years, he was able to exercise discipline by beating his critics inside the GOP in primaries with people like Mark Sanford in an SC House race. He had leverage.

The better analogy would be if Bernie had won the nomination. Bernie likely would have needed to deal in order to shore up weak support within the party establishment just in order to staff his administration. In Biden's case, he doesn't need the left to win election at this point. He might have absent COVID, but at this point, the first key to where he's going is his VP pick. All indications are that he's going to pick a woman who is acceptable to his biggest donor interests. The people directly advising him, are all basically on the right-wing of the party (really a lot of the worst people in the party). The thing that's also weakened leverage for the left are the way that Senate primaries have played out with RINOs effectively winning key Dem races. Maybe the 2024 or the 2028 nominee will need to make a play for the left, but at this point it doesn't really matter. Time, energy, and resources are much better served building the bench and protecting the few progressive seats that are currently occupied by incumbents. Biden and his cronies are going to steal as much as they can, while they can, just like most politicians do at the federal level. He won't be as brazen as Trump -- doubtful his kids are going to get paid $80 million a year while acting as "special advisors" -- but it's going to be pay to play on steriods. Nothing that can really be done about it at this point.

 
At 10:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

can I remind you all that biden is RUNNING on being not trump?

What he does and does not do can be divined, trivially, from his loooooong record as a racist, misogynist, liar, dotard and corrupt neoliberal fascist... from the many times he advocated cutting sustenance programs... and so on and so forth.

Coincidentally, that was obamanation's "grand bargain" too. And biden has promised that 'nothing substantial will change'.

so there's that.

 
At 11:45 AM, Blogger Bil said...

We voted for Bernie AGAIN in the primaries.
It is what it IS.
We can't give Trump 4 more years.

 

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