The 2024 Election, Part XX. The Debate Edition

 

June 27, 2024

So, tonight (9:00 p.m. Eastern), the two ancient contestants in what both parties insist is a "binary choice" square off in what will be the only debate of the 2024 Presidential Election.

Trump, who has a habit of going weirdly off script in meandering monologues, has been trying to downplay the results ahead of time, after having spent months claiming that Biden is cognitively impaired.  In reality, Biden's always made odd speech gaffs, but Trump, who in his younger days did not, now makes them frequently, suggesting that the impacts of age are catching up with him.  Both men are the same age chronologically, for all practical purposes, but Biden is obviously more physically fit than Trump, who doesn't believe in exercise.

It is, of course, not a binary contest.  You can vote for somebody else.

Do you intend to watch the debate?

So, who all do we have right now?

Presidential Election:

Democratic Ticket:  

Biden/Harris, incumbents.

Republican Ticket:  

Trump/Unknown.

American Solidarity Party:¹   

Sonski/Onak

Libertarian Party:²

Oliver/terMaat

Reform Party:³

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr (an independent)/Shanahan⁴ 

Green Party:⁵

Jill Stein/Unknown

Green Party of Alaska:⁶ 

Sherman/BluBear

Constitution Party:⁷  

Terry/Broden

Constitution Party of Utah and Nevada: 

Skousen/Combs

Party for Socialism and Liberation:⁸

De la Cruz/Garcia

Approval Voting Party: 

Huber/Denault

Prohibition Party:⁹

Wood/Pietrowski

Independent:  

West/Abdullah

Quite a few third parties, we'd note.  Have you considered any of them?

Wyoming Senate Race:

Democratic Contest:

Scott Morrow.

GOP Contest:

John Barrasso, incumbent

Reid Rasner

John Hotz.

Wyoming House Race:

Democratic Contest:

Kyle Cameron

GOP Contest:

Harriet Hageman, incumbent.

Steve Helling

Constitution Party:  

Jeff Haggit

June 28, 2024

I only watched about 30 minutes of it and could no longer stand it.

There's really no denying at this point that Biden's age makes him unfit to be President.  It's not that Trump made sense, Trump's performance demonstrated that he's an unmitigated liar and constitutionally unfit for office.

Rather, the supposed binary system that Americans have bought off on means that, for most people, the choice, because they refuse to imagine another one, will between somebody whose age has caught up with him vs. somebody who doesn't have a single positive political attribute and who is a danger to democracy.

Some, like Nate Silver, and he's far from being alone, are calling for Biden to drop out of the race.  If he does not, it will be to his everlasting shame.  The real question is not if he should drop out, but when he should drop out.

And who, in that case, might replace him.

Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  A possibility?

The other, and vital question, is how American democracy reached this state.  These two choices are the worst in American history and most people don't want them (which again means, they shouldn't vote for either of them).  If the country survives this election, something has to change, beyond that which will change simply because of who is elected.   The system is not functioning to produce two such abysmal choices.

Almost missed, so far, as a Wyoming story, but sort of an interesting aspect of the warp and woof of our times, a Hageman staffer has been forced to resign, in this case, an intern.

A news story by "The Laramie Reporter" reveals that the intern had connections, at least in the form of social media likes, with the extreme right. The same figure has been a rising, albeit young, figure in the populist far right at UW and is on the student senate.

The entire matter is interesting in that it reveals the extent to which populism in the US right now trends highly towards the anti-democratic. The intern was found to have liked racist posts on social media, and to also have outright stated his opposition to democracy at least once.  He also seems to have followed Francoist, which is stunningly bizarre.  This seems to have come out of the same figure being a Christian Nationalist, which shows a really dark side of the National Conservative movement, but perhaps one that is closer to the surface than many people care to admit.

He lost his position, or resigned, the very day the blog broke the story.

June 29, 2024

To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race

June 28, 2024

The New York Times.

The Times is absolutely correct, which doesn't mean it will occur.  The stunning level of refusal to accept reality will keep it from occurring.

Establishment Democrats like Robert Reich who ignored the repeated calls for Biden not to run in the first place failed to address the deer in the headlights appearance of Biden and the obvious age related mental decline following the debate (Reich may be addressing it in his entry of today).  "It's only one bad day" seems to be the theme, with those commenters forgetting the truism expressed by Janis Joplin "that it's all only one f***** day man".  

The bolt is shot.  Some Democrats who were to vote for Biden will now not vote at all, or go to third parties.  Republicans on the fence will in fact fold back into Trump.  Wavering independents will fall towards him, or fall towards not voting at all.

The reality is that Biden needs to step aside in the race. The other reality is, he won't.

Biden will keep running, and Trump will win in the fall.

Footnotes:

1. The American Solidarity Party is a Christian Democratic party that's centrist in nature, which should not be confused with Christian Nationalism, which it would generally be in opposition to.

2.  For some time the third-largest party in the US, the Libertarian Party has seemingly fallen into hard times as libertarian ideas have been co opted by some elements of the Republican Party, which ironically in its populist mode of present, it's also radically opposed to, but doesn't realize it.

3.  A number of parties have had the "reform" label for at least a couple of decades. This party is generally centrist in nature.

4.  Kennedy has the Reform Party's nomination, but isn't running from it.  He's an independent.

5. The environmental party.

6. I have no idea why Alaska's Green Party has separated from the main Green Party, but it certainly has no chance of electing a President.

7.  The Constitution Party is a populist party and is where the "Freedom Caucus" people actually belong.

8.  A radical left wing party.

9.  A really old party, it was at one time a significant one but has waned since the repeal of prohibition.

June 30, 2024

Predictably, there's a lot of Democratic true believer "nothing to see here" type of comments regarding President Biden and the recent debates, maintaining nothing whatsoever will happen in regard to his poor performance.

Not likely.

I'm reminded of Monty Python's classic scene of King Arthur confronting the Black Knight.

"Just a flesh wound".

Related threads:

Blog Mirror: Joe Biden should drop out.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, Blog Mirror, Joseph Biden, Personalities

Last prior edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XIX. The Clerks say "M'eh" edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, flap de jour, Natrona County Wyoming, Politics, Taxes, Wyoming, Wyoming (Natrona County)