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Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race?
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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politics
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This November we will elect a King.
Anyone who still believes we are electing a president like usual is not paying attention.
Biden was a mediocre status quo manager, tweaks around the edges president who inspired no one. No one voted for Biden with love or with enthusiasm. As president Biden was just barely passable, more about damage mitigation ("I am not Trump!") than about a positive, affirmative, forward looking VISION for America.
But we aren't electing a president anymore.
We are electing a King.
As a prospective King, Biden is absolute trash. Biden can use his newly granted Kingly powers to immediately official act assassinate all 6 servative SCOTUS judges! Ruthless and efficient response is what befits a King. Biden is a goddamn sleepy and moist slug who can't even protect himself from salt. Biden is weak, slow, lacks insight into the moment.
Biden had 4 years to deal with the structural wealth inequality issue in America. He's ignored the issue because his billionaire donors paid him to ignore it. In other words, Biden does not think big, and cannot escape the big money influence. He's a far cry from FDR. That's Biden as president.
But as King? The requirements for a King are totally different. Biden needs to be removed immediately, and a ruthlessly hard left individual needs to be installed immediately. Nothing less will thwart the GOP while creating a path to the future we actually want to believe in and want to live in.
I am pleased to see all the downvotes, and have not the energy for any extensive debunking, but Biden raised corporate taxes in fairly massive fashion, and oversaw the first reduction in income inequality and growth in wages (beating even historic inflation) for the working class in quite some time.
Why don’t you know that? Along with 98% or so of the American electorate?
Why are the media companies which are largely operated by the wealthy, who see all of that as an extremely bad thing, trying so hard now to bend things around to say he’s trash and we need someone else instead?
Are these two things related?
(As Hunter Thompson said, to ask the question is to answer the question.)
Wealth inequality is the issue, not income.
Wealth. As in wealth accumulations. Wealth holdings. Assets.
Fascinating. So you’re aware that working class wages are rising, and income inequality falling, in dramatic fashion, but you would rather look at other metrics instead?
I want to ask why, but as I said, I don’t currently have the energy for a spirited back and forth. I’m just interested to learn that you are in the very small minority that know that that even happened, but it’s not important to you and you’re still here asserting that Biden did what the billionaires wanted him to… by taking 2 trillion dollars away from, well, millionaires and billionaires, not exclusively billionaires, to spend on climate change and the working class.
It’s just weird that you still are so vocal against him, and in a carefully constructed manner that allows for the admission that that happened while still saying it doesn’t count.
It’s just a weird combination of having the knowledge and still reaching the wrong conclusion with it.
Do you know the difference between wealth and income?
Do you know the difference between the types of candidates the media likes, and the types that are good for the American people? What kind of correlation do you think exists there?
(I do know the difference between wealth and income, and I’m even happy to explain some other time why wealth inequality is still going up even in the face of these gains for working people. It’s still weird to me that wages for working people are a metric you are so hostile to, apparently.)
Do you understand that an individual with $150 billion dollars net worth (a measure of wealth) can have zero or even negative income? And that same individual can be funding election campaigns and revolving door opportunities for house reps and for senators? And give gratuities to Clarence Thomas? This could even be the reason for negative income.
At the same time a poor working stiff could have her income doubled and still NOT be able to SAVE anything?
And how all this is a GIANT structural political problem, and indeed a THREAT to democracy itself?
Yeah, I think you’re gonna have to teach me all this stuff from square 1 again. I thought that increasing wages for working people was a good thing, and the guy who wants to be king and kill his political opponents and has an organized plan for how to make it all happen was the giant threat to democracy, and Clarence Thomas was being funded by people who didn’t like Biden, but it sounds like I’ve got it all tremendously mixed up somehow.
Also, you didn’t answer my question, even though I answered yours. You just pretended that my answer was “no I don’t understand wealth inequality, can you please explain it to me in the style of a half-drunk sophomore business major whose dad paid for his college and car, proving why Ron DeSantis is a genius to someone he is convinced he is smarter than”
(You do not need to answer; I am asking these things rhetorically but I think the productive part of this conversation has run its course and then some.)
Imagine you have a patient with body temperature at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The environment is at -20F. You increase the heat around the hypothermic patient by a massive amount to +50F. Is that good enough? If you stop here and have no further plans, is that good or bad if saving a life is your goal? But it's a massive movement in the right direction!
Now imagine that all the workers got a 20% raise. All the landlords read the same news as everyone else and raise their rents by 30%. Your wages increased massively but your ability to gain wealth is as bad as it ever was.
In other words, Biden must improve people's ability to accumulate wealth at the lowest quintile and THEN brag.
Wait so the ability to bring in more money per week doesn’t help people to accumulate more wealth in the bank over time?
Dude I had it so wrong, you got teach me more
Yeah, I get what you’re saying here. I think I’m starting to understand. Let’s plug in the actual numbers. So let’s see, cumulative inflation since 2019 is 20% which is really fucking high, like historic, which makes sense because they were digging out from Covid. So yeah that’s gonna hurt a lot. Let’s see now, cumulative wage growth at the 10th percentile is 32%, unadjusted, so… fuck me, yeah, they’re gonna be behind by negative 12%. That’s behind AND negative, it’s like a double whammy. That’s super fuckin rough yeah.
(Edit: inb4, He’s either going to pretend not to understand that the 32% at the 10th percentile is a real number that actually happened, or more likely he’s going to pretend that “inflation” doesn’t include food and housing by misleadingly presenting certain metrics that exclude those factors and pretending that if they were included, the number would be different, even though it wouldn’t)
So this is actually a really good point. Having accomplished these aforementioned economic results after coming in literally mid COVID apocalypse with a big fraction still depending on Covid assistance to live and massive unemployment, Biden’s economic platform for his next term is literally just these 7 words and then 200 blank pages. I’m surprised people don’t talk about it more often because it definitely seems like he should have done something different.
So you're just all-in on autocratic rule then? Fight fire with fire, even though the forest is a mostly-dead tinderbox?
Yes, Biden will not assassinate Supreme Court justices. That's a strength. If the Supreme Court intends to give a president king-like power, then I'm sure as hell going to vote for a president that I don't believe will exercise that power.
As soon as we have a president that exercises the power of a king, left or right, there will be no going back. That power will corrupt left politicians just as surely as right, institutions will begin to act corruptly causing people to lower their expectations of the rule of law, freeing institutions to be corrupted further, in an endless cycle. Mexico is far down that spiral, despite nominal "left" politics. And if we even seen another "president" in our lifetime they will only slip further down the slope. The only way you can win this game is by not letting it begin.
How do you not let it begin? That supreme court ruling isn't going anywhere. Even if Biden wins this time, what about the next election, or the one after that? Right wing politicians have said they want to kill their enemies and the loaded gun is staying on the table for a very long time.
I despise autocracies but if my foe forces me into an autocratic ruleset, I will be ruthless and lightning quick. Don't like it? Don't even think about establishing an autocratic ruleset. Meanwhile while an autocratic ruleset is still in effect I will use it to end it in a spectacularly bloody manner. Once the autocratic ruleset is over and all the relevant individuals thirsty for autocracy have been properly dealt with, I will return to being an institutionalist.
Sorry to be so blunt, but you're sharing a fantasy. The outcome will be no different from a right-wing autocratic takeover, even if it starts out more in your favor. The institutions of democracy will be destroyed either way.
You use "ruleset" like this is a game, but there's no change-back in "ruleset" without a bloody revolution, after probably decades of suffering, and decades of reconstruction, if that - I expect we won't see a return to pre-autocratic democracy in our lifetimes. Modern autocratic rule is too savvy, they will maintain the facades of our institutions while hollowing them out and making them meaningless, leading to efficient, soul-draining, Orwellian oppression like in Russia.
What you're describing is a technical victory when you've also conceded that the playing board will be destroyed. And it won't work as a deterrent. The opponent is irrational.
Yeah, expecting any Democrat to wield power they've been handed is ridiculous.
They don’t realize we’ve already lost, and we’re never going back to normal.
SCOTUS has changed the rules.
If you can't come to terms with what has happened, the one living in a fantasy land is you.
Any American who does not think we are electing a King this November is a dangerously ignorant citizen.
No, we agree that we're electing a person with the power to be a king. That's already objectively awful. The way it could get worse is if we elect someone who will actually use the power of a king. Because that moment is the end of the game, not merely an escalation.
Right now we have a candidate that I think we both agree will not use that power. Holding the presidency and keeping it away from those who would use that power is the best outcome, until enough Supreme Court justices turn over (which could even be a single 4-year term, though it's not likely).
No the game is over when the rules change.
If you are playing hockey and suddenly a referee with real authority over the game starts using the rules of basketball, hockey is OVER no matter what the players do. It doesn't matter what the players do.
The participation trophy is no longer just an "I voted" sticker, it comes with a bullet of you don't like the results: https://youtu.be/-OdM4_WO2wk
Pretty sure, after the debate, we’re playing golf /s