Said President Trump at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania yesterday. Transcript here.
Trump reveals his own inner turmoil: "It’s unbelievable. It’s disgusting. It’s disgraceful." That refers himself. He wants to be a winner, but he is not only losing (apparently) but losing to "the single worst candidate in the history of presidential politics." That's really really losing. Unbelievable! Disgusting! Disgraceful! Even if he ekes out a win — why was it close? It should have been a landslide with such a pathetically bad opponent. It's got to hurt. But he's out there on the stage showing you his wounds. There's something phenomenally energized about that. So optimistic... or oddly distanced. A comic view of life.
But on the way out, he's telling us: The radical left will take over! And that is the message that hits me hardest. Biden may be a fairly mild manifestation of liberalism, but he won't stand up to the left-wing element within the Democratic Party. Are they "running his party"? Maybe not quite yet. Are they "lunatics"? It depends on what counts as "running" the party and ready to "take over" and how you define "lunatic," but I'm afraid of the people of the left. I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years. Eventually, a Democratic Party candidate will win the presidency. Would it be better to have this person in 2025 or 2029 — after 4 or 8 more years of exclusion from power?
How much of an empty figurehead would President Biden be? Was he really incapable of remembering the name Mitt Romney? I looked it up. Here, from Fox News (with video): "You may remember, I got in trouble when we were running against the senator who was a Mormon, the governor, OK?"
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174 comments:
"Trump reveals his own inner turmoil" -- Althouse
Bullshit. He's making a joke.
Mental declines like these rarely stop or reverse, though there are moments of days when it seems to disappear. Unfortunately, these days of clarity lessen or disappear over time.
Biden couldn't even stand up against Alyssa Milano and has spent the past 2 years renouncing everything he has said and done in the past 47. What evidence exists he has the strength, character, and intellect to oppose the worst instincts of his party now?
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/447518-alyssa-milano-urged-biden-to-reverse-stance-on-hyde-amendment-reports
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years."
Yeah, I see your point. It worked out pretty well for the Russians. The Cubans seem to be pretty relieved and pressure-free. Venezuela, I'm not so sure, the operation seems to have gone wrong down there. They may just need more time. It usually takes a couple generations for the Left to relieve all the built-up pressure in a country.
" It’s unbelievable. It’s disgusting. It’s disgraceful." That refers himself.
No. That refers to the people who, knowing that Biden is unfit, will still vote for him anyway. Because Democrats. And Orange Man Bad.
That is a nice take, AA. I would like for the R president to win, but if the D's lose, I fear the hard left will go nuts, maybe violent. That sounds like extortion, and it might be.
Remember when we were inspired by that city on a hill?
Not a lot of that here. This is just the politics of fear and you've fallen for it.
Mitt Romney is sort of forgettable. So I give both a pass.
Meanwhile , the left are liars and everything they have done to Trump is pure corrupt treachery.
Why would anyone vote for that?
I mean - if you don't like Trump's style - fine. But jumping over to the democrats is an awful willing blindness to pure corruption.
vote 3rd party if you must. but please to not reward the democrats.
Biden winning will not deradicalize the democrat party, that ship has sailed.
They will attempt to cement a lock on power by changing the game to eliminate opposition.
Take a look at college campuses for that future.
Followup from my earlier point...Popular vote is relevant here, IMO. If R wins the presidency this year, and D gets say 10 million more votes, seems like that could give some type of "support" to Left anger.
Since 1992 and counting 2020, out of 8 presidential elections, the R has won the popular vote one time. Demographics Determine Destiny.
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.
@Althouse, no. The Democrats must be beaten up and down the ticket, beaten so badly that they know not only that they’ve been beaten, but explicitly that they’ve been humiliated because of their unwillingness to put a leash on their most extreme elements. They can do it, but rewarding them at the ballot box for not reining in their violent extremists is clearly not how to get them to act responsibly. If you believe that voting Democrat on the 3rd will lead to less rioting and less arson and less looting and more amicability between the parties, well ...
Don’t kvetch when I say you’re gullible.
“ I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.”
With no small amount of shame, I’ve wondered this, too. God knows I’m no fan of rolling over, but I’m not sure it’s worse then what may happen to the country if we continue the way we are.
Fuck.
For a well-stated argument against the idea that we "would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years", I recommend this recent post by Mickey Kaus.
It occurs to me that voting for Biden to calm the left is like voting for Obama in 2008 to heal the country racially. A wonderful hope but ...
On Trump: He is stirring up his base to make sure that they vote, because he - and by extension his base - doesn't want to lose to a candidate like Joe Biden. A common type of locker room pep talk.
On Biden: He does mix a lot of stuff up, forget names, that I would not expect.
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.
Fair question. Here's my answer.
I believe the Democratic Party can't sustain four more years of Trump. The Progressives will demand an all-out leftist next time, surmising that Biden's moderation is what did them in. They will accelerate running primary opponents against the older, more moderate members of the party, and the left will be forced to reckon with the cancer growing within.
The bargain Joe and Bernie made this year was dependent on Joe's ability to win. If a "moderate Democrat" can't be Trump, the Progressives will say, it's time to run a candidate in the name of full-on Socialism.
I think it will be four years of blue-on-blue, in the knowledge that Trump can't run in 2024, and they're likely to get a more mainstream Republican who will be more easily defeated.
I mean, what else can they do? Impeach Trump for appointing even more Justices to the Supreme Court?
Biden may be a fairly mild manifestation of liberalism, but he won't stand up to the left wing elements within the Democratic Party. Are they "running his party"? Maybe not quite yet.
Seriously? Sure, Biden's brain dead, and parrots any point to go along to get along, but name one prominent democrat that doesn't espouse the far left agenda.
There is one interesting point about Biden winning the election. He would finally knock off William Henry Harrison as the shortest term in office.
So, there's that.
"And you know, Biden, he can’t stand up to the lunatics running his party.
Proof: He can't say whether he's for or against packing the Court.
If Yes: The Progressives have already turned him against his previously-stated principles - what he called a "bonehead move" by FDR.
If No: The Progressives have him so scared of what they might do that he can't utter the truth.
BTW, you can't link to fox news. Here is another link https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/10/13/biden_flubs_mitt_romneys_name_the_senator_who_was_a_mormon.html
Trump may be red-meating his rhetoric here, but only in the bit that "the left" will be running the puppet show. It won't be them, exactly, but as always it will be the people who can buy people.
"The left" however will have a far more significant role than ever before, if only because the elite culture that will have the executive will be much more infected with their culture, and will be socially constrained from ever pushing back at them.
As for worrying about them (the left or anyone else) being restrained by having power, this is a mistake. This has already become insect politics remember? Eat or be eaten.
Whether its the left or the grey-eminencing, or puppet-mastering, Powers that Be, one thing for sure is that your ability to speak will be systematically crushed. That will be job 1. All public communication will be channeled through entities with proper oversight and filters, and coordination with the ruling powers. That is an absolute necessity in order to stay in power, to prevent yet another Trump-style backlash run through alternative media.
It's not Trump's inner turmoil. He's making a joke.
It will be close because women vote. He's alluding to that. The implied part of the joke is that women voters are disgusting.
The crowd appreciates that implication. It's their feeling too.
Remind me: What was/is the “Biden-Sanders Unity Platform?” Did that have anything to do with the “radical left?”
There will be no turning back if the Democrats win. They are “all in” on this one. They have revealed their seditious corruption, voting fraud schemes and their “one party country” intentions with the full support of the leftmediaswine. They have also released their Brownshirts to ravage our cities. They now know that half the country doesn’t care.
Prepare for a Banana Republic and the ravaging of the First and Second Amendments.
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years."
-- Sadly, that has not worked so well in Democrat run cities and states. You get more of the behavior you reward; I don't like Trump. Biden, though, is only going to mean that the next Republican administration, if there is one, will have to deal with the same violence we see now, and the people who used violence to improve Biden's odds of winning... got what they wanted.
Trump is not my first... or second... or nth choice. But, the other option is to legitimize political violence and court packing. This is a bad set of choices, and like with Hillary vs. Trump, the question is: Which disaster do we think is more manageable?
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.
How quaint. You seem to think Trump is a reason, not an excuse. Are these riots in Democratic cities because of Trump?
If the Democrats are defeated soundly, it is quite possible the next Democrat President will be a center leaning one, not a far-left leaning one.
A Biden win by fake mailed in ballots would end the Republic. Trump’s irony Observation about watching that happeing is a fighting man’s assertion to his own sanity in the midst of an insane battle.
So you're really going to sit out this election and let Biden and the crazy left win?
Newsflash: The only place Trump is losing is in the polls. It remains to be seen how accurate they turn out to be. Good analysis on Powerline Blog a couple of days ago. And if the media is in the bag for Biden and actively advocating for him, what's to saying that the polling outfits are not also. I believe that they are.
Too many counter indicators that make me question the polls.
Gallup,poll 5 days ago that found 56% of respondents say that they are better off now than they were four years ago. Gallup stopped doing straight political polling in 2016 because they found the results to be unreliable.
Most polls weighting turnout as +12% to +14% Democrat. It was about 1/2 that in 2016.
Most polls still using registered voters as opposed to likely voters. They had switched to likely voters by this point in the 2016 election. Hmmm...
Trump job approval more than double his 2016 total (8%) among Blacks.
Trump job approval approaching 50% among Hispanics.
Enthusiasm off the charts for Trump and barely lukewarm for Biden.
All of the polls were wrong in 2016. They are more than wrong in 2020.
Ann Althouse said...
>>It should have been a landslide with such a pathetically bad opponent.>>
Not when a huge segment of the electorate has no idea that Trump's opponent is so pathetically bad, by virtue of the fact that that opponent's allies control almost all of the information channels in the country. With their use of that control to hammer Trump daily for four years even as they hide Biden's glaring "badness," it is a miracle that Trump is even this close.
He's already an empty figurehead, the left aren't going to look at the last 4 years and think they campaigned as moderates, they are instead going to think their radical behaviour worked and take it further in all walks of life. It ultimately doesn't matter what Biden does in office, the left can make life a living hell without political machinations, they just need the person in the office leaving them alone and letting them get on with what they want to do.
There's also the bigger problem that it'll much harder to congeal a group of people together in 2024 if one side thinks they are the righteous elites for opposing Trump and thinks the candidate needs to represent their world view for them to vote for them. It would be much easier for them to get a candidate more to their liking if the populist right isn't coming in wounded, if they are however it'll be a bloodbath that will likely take more than 4 years to resolve and who knows how bad things would be by then.
Maybe voters don't like it when candidates are actually honest about how they feel. Maybe people actually want politicians to lie about such things. Maybe some voters prefer fiction to reality. These days most people spend a good portion of their lives consuming fiction, stories, and narratives that have be generated by an entertainment industry that has spent at least a century honing the craft of story telling. Perhaps some people are so conditioned by these tropes that seeing someone like Trump as a villian just makes too much sense?
Trump fits a certain mold in many people's minds, at least superficially. It must be difficult when he says and does things that seem out of character. For example, they can't imagine that a person like Trump could actually honestly admit vulnerability in such a public way.
Joe IS delusional. No if, ands, or buts about it. You will be voting for the extreme left wing part of the party (AOC and Bernie) if you vote for Biden. He won't be there long...they will get rid of him in a heartbeat. Trump has done more in 47 months, then any of the previous presidents have in their first term. You can hate him for being an ass, but he loves the country and is doing his best to make it a better country. Vote for the country, not the person. Do you want Venezuela, or do you want America?? Choose wisely.
I'm afraid of the people of the left
There you go. A very honest assessment from a capital L Liberal. The Left is illiberal. They don’t disagree with our ideas they want us dead or at least completely silenced.
Biden's liberalism is mild only if you believe the things he says now as he walks back from his previous statements, and distances himself from the positions still on his own website (New Green Deal, fracking, etc).
The interesting thing is that Trump has not unleashed major surprises in his four years -- he is attempting to do pretty much what he said he wanted to do.
Meanwhile, Biden is all over the board, depending on who he is talking to and whatever his handlers want him to say at any particular time (or not answering at all, such as the court packing dodges).
He is not to even be a figurehead: he is a Trojan Horse, in which the Pelosis, Kamelas, Schumers, AOCs etc will be waiting.
As far as "relieving pressure": electoral trepanning is not the answer. The Left needs medication, not power.
I am Laslo.
I don’t know if the radical left or the clinton corruptocrats will run things, but neither is a happy prospect. Both seem possible. Biden is the high risk candidate.
Conventional politicians are best understood as actors paid to play leaders on TV. That's bad enough, and that's Kamala: she was the chosen lead by those who run the production, and they'll get her in no matter what the people say about her. Althouse was prescient about this. But Biden isn't even an effective leading man anymore: he doesn't look right, he doesn't sound right and he just ain't right. To ask the question about whether he will have any influence in his own administration is to answer it.
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years."
I hear an echo of forcing the Democrats to take responsibility for the country as a reason for voting Obama in 2008.
Dementia Biden is an action figure that is packaged very carefully, but whenever taken out of the wrapping and used, breaks immediately. Unelectable Harris is an action figure that should never, ever be let out of its sealed packaging, for it is dangerous.
Triumphant Trump is an action figure that arrives at your house already working outside the box, and it comes equipped with several Supreme Court Justices and long coattails.
I remember Senator John "I voted for the bill before I voted against it" complaining, "I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot" (George W Bush).
>>"You may remember, I got in trouble when we were running against the senator who was a Mormon, the governor, OK?"
He's bad with numbers, can't remember names, and gets lost mid-sentence.
Prepare yourselves for at least a few years of President Senior Moment.
I think the ongoing re-alignment of the two parties is more likely to accelerate if Trump wins. If he wins it will probably be because more blacks either vote for him outright or withhold their vote from Biden. Combine that with continued rightward lurch of the Supreme Court (thereby releasing Court voters from the Republican Party) in a second Trump administration, and the Dems will be able to stop embracing the Left.
There are emails that render Joe subject to blackmail and, perhaps, prosecution. In 1974, Senators Goldwater and Scott and Congressman Rhodes went to Nixon to encourage him to resign. Is there any Democrat with similar character who will go to Joe today?
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years."
I watched video of Kamala Harris "questioning" Amy Barrett yesterday. We don't need that blowhard running the executive branch. Ewwwwwwwwwww.
>>I fear the hard left will go nuts, maybe violent. That sounds like extortion, and it might be.
Very true. Mrs. DtM is afraid to put a Trump bumper sticker on her car, for fear of being attacked or having her car vandalized.
Political Correctness has passed scolding, and then censorship, and is now rapidly expanding into suppression.
The next step is arrest and punishment for "dangerous" opinions.
How much of an empty figurehead would President Biden be? Was he really incapable of remembering the name Mitt Romney? I looked it up. Here, from Fox News (with video): "You may remember, I got in trouble when we were running against the senator who was a Mormon, the governor, OK?"
Biden has aphasia, a brain disorder caused by insults to the brain that are most likely strokes or small aneurisms. He did not so much forget Romney's name as he could not find the word. You know, the thing. That is aphasia.
Biden's problem is that he needs to take a boatload of blood thinners to avoid another aneurism and/or stroke. That is why he calls a "lid" at 9 AM/ He is exhausted by old age and his medications.
As POTUS he would also call a lid at 9AM. The DNC would run the country.
When Goldwater lost, it moderated the republican party. When McCarty lost, it moderated the Democratic party.
The Democrats need to lose and lose big to get rid of the radical wing of their party.
When the leading Democratic candidate for mayor in Portland openly supports Antifa, when California is actively looking into reparations for something that ended at least 50 years ago, when packing the court - defunding the police - and fairly open corruption are accepted as okay with the party, then it's time for a cleaning out of the party.
The "socialism" of the democrats will not lead to equality, it will lead to the elite socialists with the wealth and the rest of us with no way to move up. Capitalism allows people to get rich by finding something that others want to buy, socialists get rich by telling others what they are allowed to have.
" It’s unbelievable. It’s disgusting. It’s disgraceful." That refers himself.
Pretty sure he's talking about the people like the Dem bigwigs and powerbrokers, like Biden's advisors and Biden's wife, who would run an obvious dementia patient, a transparently empty suit, for US President. That is rather unbelievable, disgusting and disgraceful. Hard to keep track in this day and age as we lower the bar for acceptable behavior from our public officials, but this charade, this nearly literal staging of the Emperor's New Clothes fable, is both a symptom and sign of our decline.
"For a well-stated argument against the idea that we "would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years", I recommend this recent post by Mickey Kaus."
I tried to find what you're referring to. I need to you to quote it. I'm thinking you're inferring something that isn't really there.
"It's not Trump's inner turmoil. He's making a joke."
I said it's a comic view. The fact that there's humor in it doesn't eliminate the real feeling that I'm seeing behind the urge to joke.
More precisely, the plutocrats will be running the party, and the radical left is useful to them.
"I’m running against the single worst candidate in the history of presidential politics. And you know what that does? That puts more pressure on me. Can you imagine if you lose to a guy like this?"
That would mean Biden is only the third worst candidate of all time.
I’m still worried about finding myself in an afterlife with my ancestors who built the US. What do I tell them about the generation of politicians on display at that hearing? We weren’t the people who wrote the fine words. We were the ones who made the fine words stick.
So we endure eight years of democrat governance, but the temper tantrum left is only required to endure four years of republican governance?
Dumb Lefty Mark: "Remember when we were inspired by that city on a hill?"
All the dumb lefties, like Dumb Lefty Mark, called Reagan a literal Hitler, war criminal, and murderer and they wanted him impeached over the ever changing and evolving (3 times!) Boland Amendment, passed by the democraticals, which was intended to assist the Soviets directly by protecting their client state commies in Nicaragua under Danny Ortega from internal opposition.
Who can forget the piece of s*** democraticals in Congress crowing about how the Boland Amendment was such a wonderful thing, with Ortega at their sides, only to have Ortega hop a jet to Moscow for more military armaments while increasing internal commie crackdowns on his own people which led to the democraticals in the congress having to go and relent a little bit since it all made them look like the Soviet lackeys that so obviously were.
Dumb Lefty Mark doesn't remember any of that, especially how the lefties completely trashed Reagan and called him every name in the book even as Reagan was painting in words the vision of that shining city on the hill.
A term, by the way, that the dumb lefties in the 80's hated every bit as much as the dumb lefties hate "Make America Great Again" now.
John Gill:Joe Biden::Melakon: ?? (I've made this Trek-y allusion before)
Who will hold the true power if feeble Biden is President? The same people who thrust Harris onto the ticket? Who are they? We don't even know!
Serious question for you, Ann:
If you were a Trump supporter (I don't know whether you are or not and don't care) would you tell a pollster that you were voting for Trump? You see what happens to Trump supporters. They get vilified, beaten, bricked and even shot. Their houses and cars get vandalized and destroyed.
No you are supposed to be anonymous. But if they came to your house they know your address. If they called you, they know your number and can easily find your address. That will be on file somewhere with your pro-trump response.
Probably no harm will come of it. But as the wise guys say "Why take a chance?" Just lie to the pollster and say "Yeah, I'm voting Biden."
Assuming that you would lie to the pollsters like this, and many, perhaps most, people would why should we trust any poll that shows Biden ahead? I think he is mainly ahead because of liars.
John Henry
"Remember when we were inspired by that city on a hill?"
That was before the entire context of that world view was systematically demolished throughout the 20th century. The 21st has buried the rubble.
"It's not Trump's inner turmoil. He's making a joke." "The fact that there's humor in it doesn't eliminate the real feeling that I'm seeing behind the urge to joke."
Some people don't get Jewish humor. Trump was a New York real estate developer and he learned it there.
Rewarding Democrats for weaponizing intelligence agencies and promoting violence in American cities seems unlikely to moderate their approach. More likely they take it as an affirmation of their tactics.
On the bright side, you will likely see a short period of quiet if they win. It might even be long enough for a few of those cute State Street boutiques to be reopened before they are inevitably destroyed again.
If there is President Biden, he is a short-timer--I give him a year or less before his incapacity can no longer be ignored. So we'll be on to Kamala--how did she get picked? She really is a zero. I'll make it easy for all: she'll be taking orders from Silicon Valley and Wall Street, probably via consultation with Obama, Emanuel, and the Congressional tag team of Schumer and Pelosi. Can China be far offstage? I think not.
Blogger Mark O said...
There are emails that render Joe subject to blackmail and
But those emails are being made public. Just yesterday one came out from a Ukraine pol saying that Hunter had arranged the meeting and thanking Joe for taking it.
If the emails are public, how can he be blackmailed with them? He can be beaten over the head with them publicly but I don't think blackmailed.
As for talking him into resigning, I think it is way too late for that. Who becomes the candidate? It is not automatically the VP candidate but who else they got? Is there still time, 20 days, to move Harris to the top spot and find someone else to be VP?
And what about the millions who have already voted for or against him? Their votes don't count? What do you tell the person who says "I voted for Trump because I can't stand Biden. I would have voted for Harris if I had known" or vice versa, voted for Biden but would have voted for Trump is Harris were the alternative.
No, they have to play the hand they are dealt now.
That assumes he even makes it through the next 20 days. I saw him Monday(?) and he looked like something from a horror movie. A zombie who had been dead in a grave for 11 years. Not healthy at all.
John Henry
It's unbelievable, disgusting and disgraceful that a pair like Biden and Harris are running for Pres and VP.
Reality Polls would show Trump ahead 60-40. Than the stuffed fake ballots making Biden win would appear
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won.
Don't overthink the problem. The simplest solution is usually best.
It’s unlikely, but I hope Joe realizes that many of those supporters who are actively trying to downplay his cognitive issues are going to do a complete about face should he win. He needs to be prepared for that eventuality, assuming he can still comprehend it.
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years. Eventually, a Democratic Party candidate will win the presidency. Would it be better to have this person in 2025 or 2029 — after 4 or 8 more years of exclusion from power?"
If this is the reasoning that gets you to a Biden vote, Althouse, then you are the lunatic. Biden won't serve for more than a year if he wins- Harris is a member of the hard left Democratic leadership in D.C.- it is Harris that you are voting for, not Biden, if you choose the Democrat. I don't think it is even necessarily counterintuitive to understand that the people you have to empower to stop the hard left are the moderate Democrats, and you can only empower them by slapping down the left right now.
I have written it before, but will do so again- a Biden victory is analogous to Von Hindenburg's victory in 1932 Germany- and by all historic accounts, Hindenburg was not demented in any fashion the way Biden is. Biden will be quickly shoved aside if he wins.
OT... after watching MaligNancy Pelosi’s meltdown with Wolfie Blitzer, Ima find that gentleman what took a shit on her driveway and buy him a steak dinner.
Biden also declared at one point yesterday that he was running for the Senate.
"He is not to even be a figurehead: he is a Trojan Horse..."
Bingo!!
Leftism is truly facism.
For someone who loves logic and words, the left has been/is destroying all of that.
Tear down statues of Lincoln? Girls are boys; boys are girls. Freedom is slavery.
You must conform...
And if Biden wins he will be president for only a year or so.
Harris is the most liberal member of the senate and she will open the floodgates to the lunacy of the California left.
“Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation do conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Just the words spoken by some guy whose statues are being pulled down, or (in Madison) threatened to be pulled down. He was speaking a whole bunch of years ago at some small Pennsylvania town where “something happened.”
"...I'm afraid of the people of the left."
A clear definition may be needed here because it is my understanding that you are "of the left."
"When Goldwater lost, it moderated the republican party. When McCarty lost, it moderated the Democratic party."
Neither is true. And in any case nothing is going to moderate anything.
You don't really have an old fashioned intraspecific conflict here - a contest between peers within a common cultural context. Wars and other problem solving tools in this sort of case tend to be rule bound and damage limiting, like German student sabre duels, or 18th century military campaigns.
You have a conflict between incompatible cultures and peoples, with very little in common anymore, not even a common language, for most practical purposes. In such a case all limits are gone, it is a war to extermination.
Althouse, I thought you prided yourself on your "cruel neutrality". To be truly neutral you have to be brave which you are since I know you have taken a lot of flak from both sides of the political divide. Allowing yourself to be intimidated by the political left is precisely what they want. You are playing into their intimidation. Their message is, "If you dont put us in power, we will do our best to destroy the country." As I tell my liberal friends the Republic will survive another 4 years of the Donald. It will also survive 4 years of left wing extremism if the Donald wins. Have some faith in the US's political checks and balances. The biggest check has always been the ballot box which emerges every 2 years and changes the balance of control in the US. As an outsider (I am not an American) it is wonderful to watch. In my personal life, I have always tried to avoid giving in to intimidation. Whenever I have, I have invariably regretted it. I believe you and others who are exploring this idea will regret it too.
Big Mike said...
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.
@Althouse, no. The Democrats must be beaten up and down the ticket, beaten so badly that they know not only that they’ve been beaten, but explicitly that they’ve been humiliated because of their unwillingness to put a leash on their most extreme elements. They can do it, but rewarding them at the ballot box for not reining in their violent extremists is clearly not how to get them to act responsibly. If you believe that voting Democrat on the 3rd will lead to less rioting and less arson and less looting and more amicability between the parties, well ...
Precisely, Big Mike. I've written the same thing many times. I believe in checks and balances, including between political parties. Right now, the Democrats have become completely unhinged. The only hope of sanity returning to the Democrat Party is for them to suffer massive losses (think 1972 and 1984) up and down the ticket. Only then will whatever remains of adult leadership have a chance to rein in the party from the extremists. We need a viable Democrat Party to balance and check the Republicans. We really need for the Democrats to lose on a massive scale.
"And what about the millions who have already voted for or against him? Their votes don't count? What do you tell the person who says "I voted for Trump because I can't stand Biden. I would have voted for Harris if I had known" or vice versa, voted for Biden but would have voted for Trump is Harris were the alternative."
As a practical voting behavior matter, to push Biden aside now would probably cost the Democrats votes between now and November 3rd- the time to do this was at the convention. As a legal matter, though, replacing Biden at the top of the ticket is actually pretty easy- in the US you are not voting for Biden directly- you are voting for the slate of electors who are committed to voting for the Democratic candidate at the electoral college, so all the people who voted for Biden in the early vote don't need to do a thing- all votes for Biden and the new candidate are still counted for the same slate of electors.
The second part is trickier, and is probably state dependent- in some states, you can have them can your mailed ballot as long as it hasn't been opened and counted. You can then get a new ballot to change your vote. However, people who have voted early at the polling station, like here in Tennessee, can't change their vote any more than the people who vote on November 3rd. Tough shit.
AS a tentative matter, I like Trump's response better than Hillary's version
Hillary: "How can I not be beating this guy by 50 points?!? What's wrong with you voters?"
Trump: "If I lose to this guy it will be a horrible failure on my part"
"It's my fault" beats the hell out of "it's everyone else's fault"
It won't be close.
"electoral trepanning"
Ok, I am stealing this without shame.
The beatings [of Democrats] must continue until morale improves.
@Larry, @Big Mike @Althouse
Yes, Larry, you are correct: rewarding the Democrats for letting their violent extremists run free is near suicidal. Because that which is rewarded is repeated.
Now, I don't think they will learn much from losing this year. I think they will double down for the next four years, and the lunatic left will tell themselves that they lost because they compromised.
So IMO they need to pretty much lose, and lose hard, for the next 3 elections. Because losing this time with "moderate" Biden, while letting the violent extremists burn down cities, then losing in 2024, when the extremists are at the top of the ticket, is what will be needed to get the Democrats to rein in their extremists.
Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a society where "burn the place down" is the routine response, by both sides, to any loss? Then vote for Biden?
You don't? Vote for Trump. Vote straight ticket GOP. And keep on doing that until the Democrats stop allowing their violent extremists free rein.
Mark said...
Remember when we were inspired by that city on a hill?
Not a lot of that here. This is just the politics of fear and you've fallen for it.
It's hard to be inspired by a city that's being burned down, trashed, and the streets are covered with human poop.
The barbarians (that's you, Mark) are inside the gates, burning things down. We must drive them out, before we can again be inspired
The claim that a Biden administration will represent a triumphal march for the far left is silly.
Almost everything big has to go through the legislature, and not one of the 40 or so House Democrats or 5-7 Senate Democrats who will provide the critical margin for legislation is far left by any standard--assuming that current odds hold, it will be people like Manchin, Tester, Bullock, Cunningham, Gideon, Kelly, Hickenlooper, etc. in the Senate, and Tom Malninowski, Elissa Slotkin, Mikie Sherill, and Sean Casten in the House. Sensible moderates all.
Then think about the cabinet and who is owed. For every Elizabeth or Corey there is a Pete or Amy--the cabinet will not be stacked with the far left of the party in the way that Trump has stacked it with the far right.
Then of course there is the history, in which Biden himself participated--including keeping on Republican cabinet members, and nominating centrist moderates with strong law and order credentials like Merrick Garland.
Finally, there is Biden himself: he does not favor defunding the police, he does not favor the big blown up version of the green new deal, he does not favor single payer--and he says so regularly and repeatedly. Moreover his core staff has a strong moderate bent.
So where is this left wing takeover coming from? A handful of first and second term members of the house from safe urban democratic seats? Give me a break.
The whole notion of a left wing takeover is Trump claptrap, and the fact that you keep spouting it as a possibility seems to me to reflect a failure to think through the probable scenarios that leaves you vulnerable to saying stupid things.
"“Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation do conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Just the words spoken by some guy whose statues are being pulled down, or (in Madison) threatened to be pulled down. He was speaking a whole bunch of years ago at some small Pennsylvania town where “something happened.”
===================================================================================
You have less in common with each other now than those fellows did who were shooting each other down by the thousands at Gettysburg.
Lyssa said...
“ I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.”
With no small amount of shame, I’ve wondered this, too. God knows I’m no fan of rolling over, but I’m not sure it’s worse then what may happen to the country if we continue the way we are.
You think that rewarding violence will get less of it? Think again
This is a game that both sides can play. "Hey, look, the voters reward whichever side is more violent! I guess that means we should start being violent!"
The Soros DAs aren't going to cut us a pass, so we're not going to follow the Left's playbook. Instead?
The Left is protesting here. I'll find a nearby building, go up, shoot a couple of people, then leave before anyone can react
Car bombs. IEDs. Drive by Molotov cocktail with a stolen car. That's with 30 seconds thought. People will get much more creative than that.
If you reward violence, you will get more of it. If you value our society, heck if you just value your own life, don't reward it
Lyssa said...
“ I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.”
With no small amount of shame, I’ve wondered this, too. God knows I’m no fan of rolling over, but I’m not sure it’s worse then what may happen to the country if we continue the way we are.
-----------=============
how do you and Professora respond to : if rape is inevitable lie back and enjoy it?! and thank for not killing you.
"It's my fault" beats the hell out of "it's everyone else's fault"
Now this is the best comment in the thread.
An email from the cache indicates Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden met with Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, while it employed his son. At the time, Biden led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Biden said last year, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” including his reported $83,000 monthly pay on Burisma’s board.
Imagine if it had been Trump and some Russian company. Imagine if our press was really free, and not owned and beholden to the people that want a government that can be bought because they have shiploads of money and now they want power. "Democrat Party, ready to serve sir!”
I have been in Boston for a couple of days, and so far have seen more Trump flags(1) than Biden posters(0). Boston.
You have a conflict between incompatible cultures and peoples, with very little in common anymore, not even a common language, for most practical purposes. In such a case all limits are gone, it is a war to extermination.
Call for Michael Savage... Dr. Michael Savage, there’s a call for you on the white phone...
Parsing the data and watching the behavior of the candidates and their supporters lead me to believe Trump's is not losing.
If you're concluding Trump is losing by looking at the top line in these polls or worse, listening to what Nate is saying or what RCP is saying, you're a dolt.
a Biden victory is analogous to Von Hindenburg's victory in 1932 Germany- and by all historic accounts, Hindenburg was not demented in any fashion the way Biden is. Biden will be quickly shoved aside if he wins.
-----------============
why blinkered comparisons from history citing German experience but not Russian experience? after all Germany sent Lenin to Russia ? and what followed.
Somebody pitch in please! Buwaya?
IIRC, one of our hostess’ reasons for voting for Obama over McCain was because the Democrats would be forced to take some responsibility for the conduct of the Iraq War. In retrospect, was that reasoning correct?
On a different note, my brother is voting for Biden. He views Biden as the booster rocket lifting Harris into the Presidency.
"So where is this left wing takeover coming from?”
Biden is non compis mentis, and Harris is way to the left of Biden. And the complicity of the Democratic leadership and their operatives in the press with the rioting and Fort Sumpter like attacks on Federal buildings. That’s where.
Not to mention that Biden is obviously planning to pack the courts or he would answer the question, and so is Harris. Once the courts have been properly constructed, the Constitution can mean anything they want it to mean. That’s not Trump talking, that’s coming right out of the mouths of Democrats.
People like Manchin will do whatever Schumer tells him to do. He only voted for Kavanaugh once it became clear that his vote didn’t matter. He voted the second it was clear from Collins’ speech which way she was voting.
The left is counting on Biden to rapidly flag, I think though that they were hoping he would hold up to election day. We should know what we are voting for, but Biden has told us we don’t “deserve to know” what we are voting for, so sure, your post sounds real nice, too bad it ranges from highly debatable to downright false. Nobody with plans to pack the courts is a ‘moderate’. No ‘moderate’ needs to pack the courts to get what they want done.
And he called another lid on the day. Tell me what this man is going to do when he is in charge of the Country. Me...I'll take the guy who worked through Corona Virus and works more hours a day than a lot of people half his age.
Assuming that you would lie to the pollsters like this, and many, perhaps most, people would why should we trust any poll that shows Biden ahead? I think he is mainly ahead because of liars.
John Henry
---------------==================
what can be sweeter than lying to pollsters as proBiden but actually voting for Trump - otherwise it will not be lying to pollsters but caving
“ I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.”
Thank god the founders weren't appeasers.
Any time legacy media drops a supposed "bombshell" on Trump, it immediately hits the front pages.
Still waiting on NYT, WaPo, and CNN however to write anything on the @nypost's actual bombshell on Joe Biden lying about what he knew of his son's overseas business interests.
To complement legacy media's operation to protect Joe Biden three weeks before the November election, Facebook announces it will censor outlets reporting on the latest new details to emerge in the Biden scandal
...of course 18 of 20 members of Facebook's 'third party' independent oversight board collaborated with or are tied to groups that have received funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations
"Finally, there is Biden himself"
A bottom-of-the-barrel submediocrity and plagarist who was soundly rejected as a candidate even before he was stricken with his current mental decline.
Even if Trump isn’t re-elected is has been refreshing to have a President who knows lunatics when he sees them and says so.
"If he wins, the radical left will be running the country. He won’t be running the country. The radical left will take over."
He's not wrong. But do the nice women of American pay any attention at this point?
Said President Trump at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania yesterday. Transcript here.
"So optimistic... or oddly distanced. A comic view of life."
It's a good insight, a dimension of his clownishness, which turned off many of us in 2016 but enables him to persist in playing the role and project his persona.
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years. Eventually, a Democratic Party candidate will win the presidency. Would it be better to have this person in 2025 or 2029 — after 4 or 8 more years of exclusion from power?"
OMG. Not another clever Althousian rationalization. The Dems will moderate under Biden! They will take responsibility! They will rein in the crazies!
"How much of an empty figurehead would President Biden be? Was he really incapable of remembering the name Mitt Romney? I looked it up. Here, from Fox News (with video): "You may remember, I got in trouble when we were running against the senator who was a Mormon, the governor, OK?"
IOW, very much of an empty figurehead.
“ I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.”
Buying ammunition, lots of ammunition, is a better choice regardless of who wins.
Biden is irrelevant. There are 2 people on the ballot--Trump and Not Trump. Not Trump may be spelled B-I-D-E-N, but this election has basically nothing to do with Joe Biden.
"It's not Trump's inner turmoil. He's making a joke."
I said it's a comic view. The fact that there's humor in it doesn't eliminate the real feeling that I'm seeing behind the urge to joke.
Take it from a guy - he isn't having inner turmoil.
He's disparaging the MSM and their (women) audience. It grew out of ratings but turned political once they figured out it sold well.
Trump's emotional reaction to losing would be, "Fine, make your mess." A husband's reaction to a wife not taking his advice on something he knows about.
Stephen said...
The claim that a Biden administration will represent a triumphal march for the far left is silly.
Almost everything big has to go through the legislature, and not one of the 40 or so House Democrats or 5-7 Senate Democrats who will provide the critical margin for legislation is far left by any standard
Thank you for playing. Please stop insulting our intelligence.
There were a whole bunch of "pro-life" Democrat Senators and Reps when ObamaCare was passed.
ObamaCare provides Federal government and private insurance funding of abortions, which was supposed to be a "deal breaker" for those "pro-life" Democrats.
Every single Senate Democrat voted for ObamaCare.
In the House, a pro-life majority of Democrats and Republicans imposed a rule on ObamaCare that it couldn't fund abortions. The Senate pulled that out (and every single Democrat Senator, no matter how "moderate" or "pro-life", voted for it).
When ObamaCare came back to the House, the deal was simple: either you vote for government funding of abortions, or you stuck to your "pro-life" beliefs, and voted ObamaCare down.
So the "pro-life" Democrats voted for government funded abortions.
The claim that there are "moderate" Democrats at the Federal level is a lie. There are Democrats who will pretend to be moderate when it doesn't matter. But when it does matter, they all do what Pelosi / Schumer tell them to do.
If they didn't, ObamaCare would not have passed
A guy is dedicated to the mechanics of being right, not to persuading women. The latter fails all the time.
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years. Eventually, a Democratic Party candidate will win the presidency.
Kind of like an inoculation of some sort? Your musings are based on the assumption that if we give the crazies a little bit of what they want they will be satisfied. And you know that's not how it works. You will be much better served if you put your tennis shoes in the washer, add plenty of bleach, and wash those Democratic Party germs off your shoes. Pronto. The Democrats clearly represent a life threatening disease to the Republic. Vote Trump.
Joe Smith @ 11:18am,
You left out "Your speech is violence; my violence is speech".
I support Joe Biden for Senate!
Put him back on the Judiciary Committee.
He'll fit right in.
Trump not only lost, but has been losing for the last 16 trimesters of Democrat-sponsored witch hunts, warlock trials, and protests. The end of Obama's wars (e.g. Iraq War 2.0), Pro-Choice coups, political congruence, progressive prices and Obamacares, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform a.k.a. "refugee crises", diversity breeds adversity, domestic spying, collusion, obstruction, the Special Olympics, the feminist "burden", etc.
You have less in common with each other now than those fellows did who were shooting each other down by the thousands at Gettysburg.
Monotonic divergence, where the former has an unearned, imputed positive sense, and the latter is perceived as tolerant.
With no small amount of shame, I’ve wondered this, too. God knows I’m no fan of rolling over, but I’m not sure it’s worse then what may happen to the country if we continue the way we are.
I, too, believe we are being held hostage to the far left.
But I won't vote with some idea that it will solve that problem. I will vote for the policies I want, and the left is going to have to deal with their disappointment in their own way. But that's not my responsibility, and there's reason to believe they'll settle down forever if they just get their way now. The reprieve of Obama between Bush and Trump just riled them up more.
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years. Eventually, a Democratic Party candidate will win the presidency. Would it be better to have this person in 2025 or 2029 — after 4 or 8 more years of exclusion from power?
A win this year would encourage the BLMAntifas, not relieve pressure. They would be convinced their public extremism carried the country.
Silence is violence. Threatening people in public. Claiming children are racist because they wear a hat with a political slogan in public. Murder. If we give in to these tactics surely they'll go away and things will get back to normal. That's how extremism works.
"If I just let my child have ice cream for dinner, he will learn to not throw fits when asking for ice cream for dinner"
If Trump wins, it's game over for the Democrats.
He's promised to reveal to unredact all of the information about the fake Russian collusion plot to overthrow him.
That'll confirm what we already know from what's been revealed so far, that President Obama knew about the plan and let it go forward. As the titular head of the Democratic Party, he approved the use of the FBI and CIA to go after political enemies.
Exactly what Nixon tried to do. Only the Democrats succeeded.
And you want scared? Project Veritas released an interview with a member of Colorado's Democratic Party committee, who promised "guillotines, motherfucker":
"I am going to do everything morally acceptable to win. I will lie. I will cheat. I will steal. Because that’s morally acceptable in this political environment. Absolutely. We are pirates on a pirate ship," said Jacks, who functions as trainer, mentor and on-the-ground quarterback at Our Revolution protests.
"I want to make this point very loudly and very clearly. I said it nicely before, but I’ll say it more curtly now. 2020 is a political revolution," he added.
Yes, he's a loon. He's a loon in a position of power, and he's not alone.
Note: He's been dropkicked since the video went out, but do you think he's the only one in the Democratic Party who thinks like this?
So that's why, on Election Day, I'm going down to the polls and vote. When every Democratic Party candidate or representative I see, I'm going to tell them that I'm never, ever, voting for a Democrat again, no matter what position.
Because they're letting this happen.
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years. Eventually, a Democratic Party candidate will win the presidency. Would it be better to have this person in 2025 or 2029 — after 4 or 8 more years of exclusion from power?
I am going to pretend you are joking with this.
Nobody could be that stupid.
Is the position of AA and Lissa that voting for Biden will reduce left-wing, domestic terrorism? If Biden is not elected, they'll get really mad and be even more violent, so let's give them what they want now, and they'll calm down enough? Have I stated your position fairly?
If I haven't forgive me. If I have, why would you give up your rights and freedoms so willingly, and cheaply? Are they not worth fighting for?
Don't you also know that you cannot cave to the tyranny, just this once? That you cannot pay protection, just this once? Don't you remember the famous alligator analogy? Feeding the reptiles just means you get eaten last? Churchill, IIRC.
Last,I'm the father of 5 women, husband to 1. I'd be heartbroken if any of my girls, or my wife, copped such cowardly, illogical reasoning, and would do my utmost to convince them or their destructive errors.
That none of mine subscribe to this alarming passivity implies that the AA and Lissa surrender tactic is not due to their gender, or sex, or whatever it's called.
But God help us if most women feel that way, and vote accordingly. Talk about going out with a whimper. Jeez.
I suppose another way to look at it, is that white women aren't going to get the picture until they see the mob shouting obscenities through bullhorns on their streets, driving motorcycles over their lawns, shining lights into their homes, breaking their windows. And a Biden win will certainly get you that, and plenty of it. Thing is, the first thing they're going to do is try to take our guns away, and a lot of people are going to get killed when that happens. After that, I don't think anyone will be bothering with asking white women what form of government they prefer. As the Lefties say, "Democracy is like a streetcar. When it gets to your stop, you get off."
Lyssa said...
“ I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.”
With no small amount of shame, I’ve wondered this, too. God knows I’m no fan of rolling over, but I’m not sure it’s worse then what may happen to the country if we continue the way we are.
Fuck.
What. The. Fuck.
When has capitulating to Socialists ever produced anything other than mass graves?
When has giving evil people who used violence to get ever power ended up mollifying any situation?
This makes no sense. But I understand that most women stop fighting back once the penetration part of a rape has commenced. Probably biologically hard wired survival/reproduction instinct.
Is this what is going on?
Electorates are fickle. Seventy-five years ago, two months after VE day and while fighting still raged in the Pacific, Winston Churchill and his Tories were driven from power in one of the greatest landslides in British history. That Churchill was then at the peak of his popularity and prestige didn't save him, as war-weary voters were hungry for free stuff, including nationalized healthcare.
Trump has nothing to be ashamed of. Contrary to expectations, he's done some great things against overwhelming opposition. In the end, like Hannibal and Napoleon, the Combine finally wore him down. But his considerable achievements remain.
I'll remind the people who feel like just giving in: your ability to complain will be vastly reduced -again- because the VP will be a minority woman. Whatever you don't like about the administration will be racist and sexist. Are you ready for that?
Ready for G--gle to flag Althouse's posts as racist and sexist?
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years."
That's what the left told us to think back in 2008. That worked so well. Thanks to Obama, look at how peaceful the left is now! <3
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.
You all have choices.
If you reward Democrats with power because they are violent and allow them to take away our freedom what do you expect us to do?
Right now you have a bunch of stupid college educated hippies on a Soros stipend with UHaul trucks throwing rocks through windows and shooting a couple Trump supporters every now and then.
Compare this to several million Vets who spend more on their gun collections and ammo than their cars.
We have kits set up for whichever load out we decide to carry. We have pistols and each have their own belt complete with custom holsters and extra mag carriers. we have dump pouches, know how to use a map and compass, can walk 30 miles a day with gear and 1000 rounds of ammo. We have a thorough understanding of how the electrical grid works and how to disable it.
This country lives on the sufferance of the vast majority of us desiring peace. We want peace. We have been through war.
If you force us to go back there we will make sure we never have to go back there for another 150 years. The last generation that knew someone alive during the Civil war is almost completely died out.
You all may want to go back and read some history.
Bill Peschel said...
Yes, he's a loon. He's a loon in a position of power, and he's not alone.
Note: He's been dropkicked since the video went out, but do you think he's the only one in the Democratic Party who thinks like this?
We know he is not alone.
Part 2 dropped today. The Democrat party in Colorado is dominated by these people.
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years
The first lesson in microeconomics is People Respond to Incentives. If you reward violence by giving the people committing violence the outcomes they seek, you are incentivizing people to commit more violence.
>>I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years.
Appeasement has a poor record of success. And voting for Biden because you fear lefty violence is appeasement.
The lesson the left has learned in 2020 is: Violence works, because those in charge are afraid of us.
If you doubt that leaders are afraid, ask yourself how a small group of loonies can pull down a statue without being stopped by the local police.
What, if anything, Joe Biden himself brings to the Presidency will be minimal, and bad for the nation.
Oddly, that's probably OK with many Democrat voters (especially women). They don't care about the nation either, only about their feelings. And their feelings are hurt! As noted above by rhhardin.
Biden should announce that from now on he will speak allusively, in haiku, or zen coans, or in Jeopardy answers. The answer to "Will you pack the court?" will be "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "East wind, rain," or "Over the wintry/Forest, winds howl in rage/With no leaves to blow." That would clear up a lot, or at least make it easier to live with the confusion.
I don't know about the radicalism of Biden or Harris. They will go quite far to please their party's power blocs, but they aren't going to displease the bankers and hedge fund managers, and tech and entertainment moguls who got them elected. In spite of Bernie and AOC, radicalism isn't what it used to be. Now it's more about race/gender/sexual orientation/environment, rather than about class and economics. The divide between the socialists and the corporate wing of the party will make trouble for the next Democrat president.
"I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won, because it might relieve pressure that would otherwise build for the next 4 years. Eventually, a Democratic Party candidate will win the presidency. Would it be better to have this person in 2025 or 2029 — after 4 or 8 more years of exclusion from power?"
We are told that the world is Doomed, Doomed if Orange Man wins again -- climate change will overwhelm us, we're at the Tipping Point! So why worry about 2029? Besides, you are about to hit 70 -- looking on the bright side, it may be someone else's problem by 2029.
More seriously, there is no profit in pretending to know what the world will look like, or even what the Dems will look like, 5 or 10 years from now. In 2010, who could have predicted what American politics 2020-style would look like? "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
I've been wondering if perhaps those of us who are afraid of American left-wingers would be better off if Biden won
Afraid? Nope.
Hate. Loathe. Despise.
They are the enemy within. To hell with fearing them.
They must be defeated. By any and all means.
There are too many incalculables in politics to make long-range predictions. Too much changes from one cycle to the next. And there are too many factors in play at any one time.
If Biden loses, the next nominee definitely won't be a White man. But does that necessarily mean that the candidate will be a radical? If Biden loses, the response will be to try something different, but does that mean the substance will change, or just the style and outward appearance?
Also, AOC will run for the nomination in 2029 or 2032, whatever happens now or in 2024. The party left will have its day, but it's not the case that the pot is going to keep boiling more and more until they do. Post-covid, things will calm down some and the pressure won't be as great.
As far as I am concerned, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are wholly irrelevant to this discussion.
To vote Democrat is to justify and reward political violence that extends to destroying the lives of innocent bystanders. To reward the Orwellian rewriting of language. To reward a cancel culture that threatens my ability to feed and house my children if I inadvertently draw the eye of the mob. To reward not simply the politicization of our intelligence services, but their actual use against political opponents.
I have children and I know exactly what happens when you reward bad behavior: you get significantly more of it, not just from the child rewarded, but from every other child that witnesses the exchange.
So, if the thing that frightens you about the left is their behavior the last few years, then it would be absolutely insane to send them the message that such behavior will not only be tolerated, it will be amply rewarded.
"Seventy-five years ago, two months after VE day and while fighting still raged in the Pacific, Winston Churchill and his Tories were driven from power in one of the greatest landslides in British history. That Churchill was then at the peak of his popularity and prestige didn't save him, as war-weary voters were hungry for free stuff, including nationalized healthcare"
True. The Brits were exhausted from six years of war and food rationing. This got worse in 1945 as the Brits, along with the Americans, had to feed western Europe. The 'free market system' requires energy and drive from individuals. That was lacking. In addition there was mass propaganda about the superiority of the Soviet Union and their economic system. Socialism seemed to be the answer to all life's problems. This turned out to be all lies.
It was a somewhat unique situation. Churchill regained power in the 1950's.
reflect a failure to think through the probable scenarios that leaves you vulnerable to saying stupid things. - The Dog Who Likes to Hear Itself Bark
You have absolutely no self-awareness, do you?
but I'm afraid of the people of the left
Seriously? Really?
You voted for Obama! You must be one of those who say they are moderate because they are uncomfortable about lynching landlords in public, a policy Comrade Lenin dictated in the early USSR. He telegraphed the order to his Party minions: "You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers." [Library of Congress]
The "notorious kulaks" were prosperous farmers, many of whom rented land to poor peasants. It's known as the Lenin's "Hanging Order". Lenin thought terrorist lynching would motivate obedience to the new Communist government.
Compared to that, even Bernie is a moderate!
Today, Twitter and Facebook are blocking the NY Post's Hunter Biden story.
Do you think that will just stop if Biden wins?
"Besides, you are about to hit 70 -- looking on the bright side, it may be someone else's problem by 2029."
Good luck to any then-79-year-old that wants any kind of decent health care under a single-payer system.
@AA will be told to take these nice little pills and die with dignity.
All for the greater good, of course...
"I don't know about the radicalism of Biden or Harris."
You clearly haven't been paying attention...
Hirono is questioning Barrett right now and I really think she's drunk. Or too many benzos or something. She's all over the place and kind of sloppy in her pronunciation.
It is a truly dangerous moment for the Republic.
This is a Big Tech information coup. This is digital civil war.
I, an editor at The New York Post, one of the nation’s largest papers by circulation, can’t post one of our own stories that details corruption by a major-party presidential candidate, Biden.
EVERY SINGLE ELECTED CONSERVATIVE SHOULD BE SOUNDING THE ALARM RIGHT NOW. DEMANDING ANSWERS BY THE END OF THE DAY. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
I think DanTheMan was correct the other day that the only reason Trump won last time is that the Dems, believing the Hillary polls, underestimated the number of votes they needed to manufacture. The Philly machine, the Broward County machine, the Detroit machine will be working hard this time to make up for last time's blunder. California 2018 was their test run, the fake-Covid 19 rules changes their vehicle. The only way Trump can win this time is if he has unexpectedly increased his support (Blacks, Hispanics, ex-never-Trumpers) beyond expectations again. And if that happens, if the Dems come to believe they cannot win even by mega-cheating, then the armed-revolution crazies will try to take over.
Portland's mostly peaceful Antifa Yelp auxiliary at work.
Center-Left people don't support this sort of thing, of course.
I just hope they don't support politicians who do support this sort of thing.
Given how quickly Facebook, Twitter and journalists moved to... stop the free press from presenting a news story, do we really think they'll suddenly start playing fair or giving any critical news stories to Biden's allies or the fringe left?
No. The fact that Biden's allies will thoroughly pervert the First Amendment is unacceptable for anyone who values Free Speech.
Ms. Althouse: I'm stunned that you just stated, unequivocally, that you are afraid of today's American Left.
My apologies if you have expressed this before, but it's the first I've seen. Finally. Finally.
Be afraid of the Left. They have become authoritarian and impervious to reason and to recognizing the consequences of their policies and actions. Violence and discrimination in the name of progress is being forwarded, and supported by government entities, in blatant violation of the Constitution and the common good.
I've always valued freedom and rationality along with allowance for the eccentric and the creative within a just framework of civil rights and rule of law. That used to make me a "liberal." Now I'm an "irrational science-denying Nazi irredeemable piece of white scum."
Forget my career and social life---my physical life is now literally in danger if I am outed as being opposed to the Left. All because I don't want a boot stamping on my face forever.
""Remember when we were inspired by that city on a hill?"
That was before the entire context of that world view was systematically demolished throughout the 20th century. The 21st has buried the rubble."
Yes. A culture trashed by trash people.
With no small amount of shame, I’ve wondered this, too. God knows I’m no fan of rolling over, but I’m not sure it’s worse then what may happen to the country if we continue the way we are.
Fuck.
10/14/20, 9:45 AM
When the 4 year old brat has a tantrum in the store, weary parents will something buy the kid the toy just to shut him up.
That's understandable. But what does the child learn from it? That throwing tantrums work.
Appeasement is not a good strategy, as Chamberlain discovered.
(Biden) is a Trojan Horse
I don't like Trojans, especially the USC kind. I'm a Michigan fan who's still ticked off about Charles White's phantom touchdown in the '79 Rose Bowl!
Regarding Biden putting a lid on it at 9:41 (EDT) this morning. To heck with the 3:00 AM phone call — what would Joe Biden do with an emergency phone call that required the President’s personal attention at 10:00 AM?
Blogger William Jamieson said...
"Is the position of AA and Lissa that voting for Biden will reduce left-wing, domestic terrorism? ... the AA and Lissa surrender tactic is not due to their gender, or sex, or whatever it's called. But God help us if most women feel that way, and vote accordingly. Talk about going out with a whimper."
Many will. Called it here repeatedly: the nice women of America will vote against Trump of the Bad Tweets, hoping Joe will tone down the destructive left a tad. And when the left instead takes over, gives it to the nice women good and hard, they'll wail: we didn't know! we didn't vote for that! it's terrible!
Bye, bye, murica.
@Lyssa, I am going to assume that you are childless, because I assume that any that any mother has learned from coping with the tantrums of a child in the “terrible twos” that giving in to the yelling and screaming and fussing will not lead to fewer tantrums in the future.
You doubt he forgot Romney's name?
Come on, man!
He referred to Obama as "President My Boss".
Funny that Biden couldn't remember Romney's name. Just two Presidential elections ago he told Black Americans that Romney would "put y'all back in chains". You'd think he'd remember someone who wanted to bring back slavery.
Do you think the Democrats actually believe the opinion polls that show Biden's ahead of Trump by double digits? They don't act like it. The Dems in Congress and in the Media are practically hysterical about Trump. All the news is slanted against Trump and any news that might make Trump look good (oh, say, peace in the middle east) goes down the memory hole. The Dems on the Judiciary Committee are using the free air time to record anti-Trump commercials; they are so desperate that they are even lying about Judge Barrett.
No, Prof. Althouse, turning the US Government over to the radical Left Democrat Party won't make the crazies behave.
Please don't "forget" to vote for the SOB; it's important.
All I can think of is that the corruption of the Bidens in Ukraine, which the New York Times own reporting showed involved a lot of connected Democrats must be pretty major if they were willing to run that fake ‘peachment to prevent it coming out, and have now suspended the NY Post’s Twitter account because they have brought more of it to light. Maybe it does run into the billions the way some people have been saying.
I wonder how the New York Times feels about Twitter censoring newspapers?
It's best to think of the Biden/Harris ticket as the Kerensky/Lenin ticket.
"Amid a bombshell report by The Post that Hunter Biden introduced his dad to an executive at Ukraine’s Burisma energy company less than a year before then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor whose office investigated the company, Team Biden called a “lid” for reporters before 10 a.m. “The Biden campaign has called a lid for in-person events,” wrote Biden press pool reporter Sabrina Siddiqui of the Wall Street Journal, indicating that the candidate would not be making any public appearances or fielding questions Wednesday.”
Is he curled up with his ice cream cone? Does he even know what is going on? Is he even in the war room where they are discussing their response to this? I don’t think that banning reporting of the story on Twitter and Facebook is going to make it go away.
Speaking of war rooms, wasn’t Biden the one who said not to kill bin Laden that day?
As a tax-paying member of the Trump-Biden generation, it is certainly not uncommon for us oldtimers to forget names and to recall uncommon words - which leads to embarrassing pauses in speech.
But Donald cannot bring himself to the reality that his narcissism leads to speeches full of stream-of-consciousness rants such as this one from his younger-looking days before the incomprehensible disaster that is his presidency:
"Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right — who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us."
Sorry Godwin, it's also sort of like the Hindenburg/Hitler ticket.
So many times Trump supporters would actually have a better argument but they sacrifice that for the mucho macho stance which invariably is weaker.
Another chickenshit troll whose profile is "unavailable."
Here is a good one about our man Biden from the Banned-From_Twitter NY Post
In 2001, Hunter Biden transitioned full-time to a federal lobbyist, though he stayed on the payroll of MBNA as a consultant until 2005, when President George W. Bush signed Biden’s Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act into law.
It was a savage piece of legislation, and Joe Biden even worked to block an amendment that would have offered bankruptcy protection to people with medical debt. The bill also blocked people from discharging private student loan debt under bankruptcy. Total student loan debt was under $400 billion in 2005; it surged in the wake of the law’s passage and is now over $1.5 trillion.
A lot of people who are being crushed under these loans for worthless educations in woke sociology and the like are going to vote for Biden without realizing that Biden was the reason that they can’t discharge these loans. Our press is doing a great job!
"As a tax-paying member of the Trump-Biden generation, it is certainly not uncommon for us oldtimers to forget names and to recall uncommon words - which leads to embarrassing pauses in speech.”
Correct gadfly, and I wouldn’t vote for you for dogcatcher either. This isn’t any old job we are talking about. But you don’t care, as long as the Democrats are in control of the graft again.
“Senator Romney” is a name that a senile old codger like yourself might forget, but that’s just rationalization that it’s OK for POTUS to be in his sunset years.
When you reward something, you get more of it.
It's too much to Expect Biden to keep track of what office he's currently running for. It's a generational thing, for certain.
The Poor Man's LLR-lefty C**** gadfly: "But Donald cannot bring himself to the reality that his narcissism leads to speeches full of stream-of-consciousness rants such as this one from his younger-looking days before the incomprehensible disaster that is his presidency:"
gadfly, its as if you were a child........and not in a good way.
I don't think Joe Biden is a bad man. I really don't. When my state's (Illinois) last Republican senator had a stroke,Joe was out there to help him walk up the stairs of the Capitol upon his return. It was a sweet moment. But what is sad is that Biden could cleave to no principle that would allow his views in 2020 to bear any relation to his views in 1980. Some lodestar such as maybe the value of human life or the importance of work or the need for civil society to mitigate crime. So sad.
A lot of people who are being crushed under these loans for worthless educations in woke sociology and the like are going to vote for Biden without realizing that Biden was the reason that they can’t discharge these loans. Our press is doing a great job!
That's interesting and I did not know Biden, the Senator from MBNA, was responsible for that provision of student loans. It might be a good topic for an ad or speech point.
I'm also afraid of the left, and while I've opposed the political positions of the left for most of my life, I've never been afraid. There have always been loons on the left and the right, but the people who made it into any level of political leadership held to the norm that political opponents were US citizens and their rights were protected by the Bill of Rights. Now it is not uncommon to hear democrat politicians and party leaders speak approvingly of violence against those who oppose the woke policies du jour, and even against those who are simply trying to stay out of the way because their "silence is violence". From calling on the left to harass and intimidate members of the Trump administration who are at a restaurant or play (Maxine Waters) to bailing out rioters, vandals, looters and arsonists (Kamala Harris) the current democrat leaders give no indication that they will respect the rights of citizens who dare to oppose them or their policies, so there is good reason to fear the left.
Nothing in my personal experience or my limited knowledge of history suggests that they will become conciliatory if they gain more power than they have now. In fact, it seems likely that they will become frighteningly aggressive. Losing power may provoke them to more violence, but at least the tools to deal with that violence will be in the hands of sane people who still value our Republic and the rights we all enjoy as citizens.
I hope we can get through a Biden/Harris administration without irreparable damage, but I certainly don't think anyone other than those in power would be better off.
Blogger PJ57,
That's a nice gesture.
But does the way he sold access via his family not nick his nice guy veneer for you?
You have less in common with each other now than those fellows did who were shooting each other down by the thousands at Gettysburg.
Just how true is this, I wonder; an interesting question to ponder, anyway. I could make a list in two columns: what definitely I do share with the 'average' urban NYY/Guardian reader, what I definitely don't.
The Guardian headline last night assured its readers that Mr Trump is 17 points behind. The fact that it was phrased that way, rather than as 'Biden Ahead 17 Points!' may or may not be significant.
It might be worth a mention, but I would suggest that our Civil War forefathers were more than happy to fraternize whenever the military situation was still. Sentries from both armies sharing fires, rations, trading coffee and tobacco, talking politics and so on. It was, of course, different when a battle was in the offing, but in between those, many soldiers of both sides were of the 'live and let live' variety (which also appeared in Europe in WW1). I don't know many of the rabid leftists who might be interested in such an agreement today to be honest. Tearing down Lincoln and TR statues really places them beyond the Pale. They seem to want history to begin anew when their destruction stops and they are ascendant.
“ Manchin, Tester, Bullock, Cunningham, Gideon, Kelly, Hickenlooper, etc. in the Senate, and Tom Malninowski, Elissa Slotkin, Mikie Sherill, and Sean Casten in the House. Sensible moderates all.”
Mark Kelly? The guy behind (and married to) Gabby Gifford? Moderate? Tester pretends to be a moderate every six years, when they winch him up on the family combine for his combine photos. What he, and at least Kelly and Bullock have, is mountains of out of state monies. A couple months ago, Kelly had the biggest war chest of anyone running for the Senate, twice that of the Senate majority leader or his Republican opponent. Bullock was fairly moderate, until he ran for President. Then hard left.
"once you have paid him the Danegeld/ You never get rid of the Dane." Kipling understood. Ann clearly doesn't.
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