I have been thinking about this. Who can one name, who is not in jail, and who would be eligible to be President, who would actually be worse than this moron, to lead the country through this crisis right now? Someone who is even more self-centered, who knows less about the world, less about proper management, who has had more business failures, who is even more divisive, who has more staffing problems, who is more petty, more insulting to reporters asking tough questions, and who generally would fuck things up even more than him? This is truly not an easy question to answer. Any suggestions? I am seriously finding it hard to name someone.
The republicans sure picked a doozy.
Sure. The self-serving mutual cynicism is breath-taking.
And did I see one small indication of how things will continue? The Wisconsin election:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/07/wisconsin-votes-controversial-election-coronavirus-us-election-2020
The Republicans thought a small turnout favored them in the election, so they were willing to endanger voters by refusing to change the date of the election.
Tell it to the Calvinists.
That was always the plan, have to make up somehow for the deficit the tax cut created.
newton,
I see Politico has an article on this!
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/07/liberals-recoil-at-supreme-court-decision-on-wisconsin-primary-171347
Naked cynicism.
And didn’t Trump remark recently something along the lines of “If we let everybody vote, the Republicans would never get in again”?
My thought goes back to Mitch McConnell cynically blocking Obama’s choice for Supreme Court back in March 2016.
I need a few synonyms for cynical!
Alan Fox,
Cynicism in what manner? Directed at Kavanaugh, or directed at a particular caucus?
phoodoo,
Unfortunately, no matter who may or may not have been a good candidate, the establishment has forced on us Generic Moderate Candidate yet again. I will regretfully vote for him, however, to avoid four more years of this hell.
Schizophora,
Nobody could be a bigger fuck-up than Infant Orange. Its almost mathematically impossible. He is such a pathologically bad human being, that I really don’t think there could ever be someone more unqualified and more damaging to the office and the country as him,ever He is in a rare league of one in his derangement. Who could be a more thin skinned, whiny, uneducated, spoiled little baby crying for a mother to shove a pacifier in his filthy mouth. Its an extremely safe bet no one will ever be this bad again. George W. Bush looks like Socrates next to the collicky little bed wetter.
Imagine if the infant had ever gone to Vietnam? His own squad would have tied him up, wrapped his own underwear around his matted hair, and made the North Vietnamese take him away and torture him just to get him to shut the hell up.
So am I worried about Biden, no of course not. The question is just, why.
Provisionally ended with Biden, the convention has not been held, because he won the most delegates in elections. Democracy.
And Biden baggage pales in comparison to Trump’s. It seems baggage only matters if you are a Democrat,
Again you are welcome to believe what you choose .For instance, when testifying in the House Benghazi hearing she outclassed the cream of the Republican prosecutors.
Trump was hardly likable, a conceited ,lying blowhard. And sorry, the US has and continues to have different standards for male and female politicians. Hillary was a hard nosed politician who worked in the confines of the Senate, ran the State Department.
She was calculating, no doubt. The vote to go to Iraq, and the use of a private servers were cold calculations which backfired. She practiced her own form of misogyny when it came to Bill’s dalliances.
I voted for Beto for Senate, his ego was out of control. He had no business running for President as the voters affirmed . He was unqualified, he have should of run again for Senate.
That is because every when Democrats do it it is creeping socialism, when Republicans do it , it is the sign of being a good and wise leader.
Totally conjecture. I just don’t see Sanders flipping those voters who chose Trump. He might of boosted the turnout of voters , which is possible. He might have also boosted those voters who fear “Socialism “. No way to know, just like if Comey had not held his infamous press conference. We just can’t know how much Sanders would have been damaged.
Sure, the South has voted regularly for Republicans despite the policies favor big corporations or working class. Given the right motivations, voting against your best interests is not uncommon.
Biden has demonstrated that his support among the black voters is not very high either. Unlike the elderly ,that is critical. We don’t know who Sander’s VP would have been, that might have help solidify that demographic.
Trump also broadened the base to those those who believed the character he played on TV was real. Gave the hardcore racists dog whistles galore. A coalition of the aggrieved ,resentful,and revengeful. Crossed party lines. Benefitted from voter suppression In just the right places.
And right after that date , Super Tuesday happened and then Amy and Pete dropped out and endorsed Biden, Biden surged.
And that is good enough, last election there was a lot of perfect being the enemy of the good.
It was McConnell flatly rejecting any move to approve Garland, without feeling any need to justify his stance and just because he could. Sheltered soul that I am, I was pretty shocked. The whole Republican party seems shot through with this amoral, self-serving cynicism. And they claim to be Christian.
As Neil pointed out above, right-wing American Christianity has become an anti-Christian death cult.
I don’t quite know what this means.
The Christian Right Becomes A Suicide Cult
Kantian Naturalist,
Thanks, KN.
I think your analysis is way off. You think being qualified is what most Americans care about? Then how did Infant Orange win?
The amount and diversity of people who vote in the primaries is quite different than the general election. Young people aren’t voting in primaries. O’Rourke almost won a very red Texas state. That in itself was an achievement.
You think Hillary was a good candidate. But I don’t see how in the world you can say that, given that she lost to the worst candidate to ever run. You also said earlier that liberals are going to vote for whoever is there going against against a republican. But then who are the other 20% of the country who aren’t liberal or conservative going to vote for? Not Hillary. Joe is much of the same. What voters cared about her email server? That didn’t sway anyone. That is not what voters vote about. They vote about the character of the person, if they like them, if they think they share similar ideas for the country. Hillary had no ideas-not one. She was like a pollster. And pretty much was a zero for likability.
I agree that she was a terrible campaigner and far less “likable” than Beltway insiders reckoned with. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, should be anathema to us all. (I find it astounding that no one blames her loss on her campaign manager — he now has some cushy job on CNN, the rat fucking bastard.)
My only disagreement is with the claim that Clinton had no ideas. She had tons of detailed policies, an extraordinary amount of planning, for fixing everything wrong with the US. It was all available on her website. Anyone could go look at them. It’s rather that she made no attempt to advertise any of it, or even inform anyone that it existed.
Sure ,but what counts as qualifications varies. Some think the knowledge how government works is necessary, just like one desires their doctor to know what he is doing. Some think playing a businessman on TV is enough .For Grover Norquist the qualification is “ enough working digits to hold a pen” . Racists have their own view, some like to have someone to celebrate their victimhood at the hands of the “ other”. Republicans ,generally with the exception of the military , want someone willing to cut government services.
Overconfidence by the Clinton camp, and lots of help for the Trump campaign, the last being James Comey discussing an ongoing investigation.
Helped by the fact that Ted Cruz is universally despised by both Republicans and Democrats. Beto did a good job , but doing well an election in Texas and being a Member of the House from El Paso does not mean you can get nominated as a Democrat for President. His ego got the best of him, he should have run Senate again.He had in Texas what he lacked nationally, an organization. He wasn’t ready.
I think she had the experience and knowledge to run the Federal Government.She had the ability ,as she demonstrated , to the act as an effective counterbalance the Republicans. She would have strengthened Obamacare. She would have had a cabinet of reasonable competent people. Normal President stuff .
You seem to be confused about makes a candidate, Trump may be the lying, grifter sociopath but he was a celebrity who played a tough guy businessman on TV. Nationally known He gained fame as a birther. And he was a pretty good salesman. He knew how to work the press. And it seems he had a pretty good campaign data system, and lots of money. He benefitted from Republican voter suppression , was willing to accept help from Russia interference and money, Wikileaks, and was good at stoking grievance and racism. He convinced the right voters he make them richer. And he was a man running against a woman. And Republicans have twice in the last few elections benefitted from the quirks of the electoral college.
Actually, against Trump.
Actually , most independents lean to one party or another, about 50/50. The rest are the famous undecided. Right now ,with likely voters, Biden leads Trump, but too early to tell much
She got 3 million more votes, some did. She did lose some that voted for Obama
Could be , but you seem to be saying anybody but Biden would be liked and supported by the famous undecided and have yet to articulate how.
The server was part of the narrative of crooked Hillary the murder of Seth Rich, Pizzagate, Clinton Foundation. That she was a politician.
All the while , accepting the obvious odious character of Trump, evangelicals enthusiastically accepted a man who was a serial , unrepentant, adulterous , lying , conman.
if they like them, if they think they share similar ideas for the country.
And you don’t think some voters are tired of the constant chaos that envelopes Trump? Find distaste your daughter and son in law are White House aides, spends buckets of public money enriching himself, pardons war criminals.
Sometimes you surprise me you are not a Trump supporter. She didn’t have racist ideas ,true.Trump is obsessed with ratings, and for 3 million more Americans he was viewed as a threat to democracy.
Some do, but beltway insiders always support one of their own. Look at all the Never Trumpers, they are hailed as so sort of brave resistance as long as you never remember Trump is not an outlier, he is a direct consequence Republicanism.
Except if you watched the debates or cared about such things.
newton,
It is amazing to me that you are actually going to defend Hillary, and say she would have won, except for her email problems. She lost. She lost badly! I think anyone who had any good understanding of the American psyche could see why. People hated here. They still hate her. They hated her more than orange. That is a feat!
She got more overall votes because America is more democrat than republican by a fairly large size. Anyone who wasn’t so roundly hated would have killed the infant. She couldn’t even do that. The reason people were predicting infant would lose so badly is because of how bad he was.
Gore would have won. Wesley Clarke would have won. You can’t win as a democrat if democrats hate you. Democrats hated Hillary. They held their nose and voted for, but many just didn’t vote, because they preferred not to hold their nose.
So its not like we are speculating as to who is right. The election showed you that I am right and you are wrong. Nearly every poll was wrong. They didn’t take into account how much people disliked her. So yea, she could win California and New York. What democrat can’t? Against a psychopath?
I don’t think you understand politics as well as you think, and its why you believe Biden is the safest, best candidate. He isn’t. The DNC controls much of what happens in the primaries. They are idiots.
I wish they were idiots. That would be better than what I fear is the truth: that they are desperately sick with nostalgia for a pre-Trump era, a ‘return to normalcy’ — without even bothering to address any of the many factors that led to Trumpism in the first place.
To be sure, Sanders and Warren had serious negatives: in Warren’s case, she was almost certainly doomed by lack of media attention at a time when she was doing well in the primaries. She was my top choice and I’m thankful I had an opportunity to vote for her before she dropped out. Sanders, much I admire him personally, never explained to anyone’s satisfaction why he should be given leadership of a party that he never belonged to. And Biden had all that Wall Street/Beltway/DNC cash to keep him afloat so that he won the primary by sheer attrition.
Maybe Biden can beat Trump in November. I don’t know. He certainly could have beaten Trump in 2016.
Kantian Naturalist,
Of all the candidates, I would have liked Warren to have been President more than any other. Who knows, maybe Biden might even chose her. I think it would help him a lot, but I fear he is going to do something based on what some pollster tells him-and they will most likely be wrong.
Kantian Naturalist,
I honestly still don’t get why the DNC didn’t back Booker. Booker doesn’t make a fool of himself when he speaks, his policy positions are nuanced and center enough to attract a large section of the middle. He acts Presidential, he would help with minorities without being too one-sided with his politics. And I believe he has been vetted pretty well by now. If the party would have gotten behind him, he seems like a really strong candidate in a year where you desperately need that. I don’t see the downside there. I think if Booker then chose a Warren, or Andrew Yang, that’s a really strong ticket that would appeal to a very broad base.
Agreed on those points. I sometimes think the parties operate with a “line of succession” mentality — “whose turn is it?” to run for president. Booker is young enough that he’ll “get another chance.” Why does Biden want to be president? Because it’s his turn — because being president is the prize for a life spent in Beltway politics. I think we see this same mindset in Bob Dole, John Kerry, John McCain, Hilary Clinton — all of them ran for president because they saw the presidency as something they were entitled to as their reward for having spent their lives in politics.
And they all lost, because voters hate that entitlement mentality.
Yea, looking back, it seems really obvious that none of those candidates would win. I could see Clinton winning that race, but I don’t think there were many voters thinking, boy this will be great when she gets in, this will be a great new path for the country. Nobody would say that with any of these candidates-there is no way you would get anything special from any of them-and the voters knew that. Obama, like him or not, actually did give people hope for a better country.
I believe most voters would like to think, if I vote for this person, things might really improve in America. That’s what people want to vote for. Are democrats (I refuse to capitalize democrats or republicans) going to feel that now? How could they? Its why Biden’s pick for VP is so critical. I am guessing a lot of people are betting he doesn’t finish his presidency.
I get asked on a daily basis, why is America so stupid these days?(literally almost everyday someone asks me this), and I just have to shake my head and say I don’t know what happened (even though I kind of do know).
newton,
I would say that you’re being generous with your attribution of “good.” It’s easy at this point to look at literally anyone else but Trump and think of that person as good; however, for many people, the pre-Trump status quo was not actually “good,” merely better than it is now. Republicans were already cementing their hold on state and local governments and using that power to gerrymander and ensure their anti-democratic process stood, the senate used their power to refuse to do one of their core jobs (approving judges) so they could wait out until a Republican president and only approve conservative judges.
The most basic structures of the country are flawed. As mentioned, the presidential vote has, twice in the last 2 decades, gone to the candidate who had less support from the American public as a result of the electoral college. Even more than that, the electoral college unequally benefits Republicans by giving rural states significantly more of a say in the election per capita than their urban counterparts. In the same manner, the Senate, which is the more powerful legislative body, is biased toward Republicans by its very nature. The idea of antidemocratic practices in the country is bad enough, but to top it off, the Republican party is hell-bent on empowering the very wealthy and destroying the environment at the expense of the poor. The middle class in this country is disappearing, student debt is skyrocketing as a direct consequence of reduced federal funding for state public schools, and wealth inequality grows every year. As it becomes harder for the average person to just live their life, the very rich become even more obscenely rich.
Further, the very nature of knowledge and information has been under constant assault for decades. Reagan-era trickle down, supply side, free market economics has been proven repeatedly to be a terrible idea, and yet a large share of the public is able to be convinced year after year that the unregulated market will provide the best possible life for the most people (it doesn’t) and that anyone who is rich must have worked for their wealth.
Trump was elected specifically because of the status quo. I’m not sure that I could be convinced to call anyone who is intent on upholding that status quo “good enough,” and the Democratic party will continue to suffer for as long as they insist that appeasing their rich donors is more important than real, impactful change.
Lori Vallow. I think Lori Vallow would possibly be worse in this time of tragedy than the infant. A little worse. Maybe. Not for sure.
Has some prepping experience probably.
I would have thought that you’d have sympathized with someone who is able to articulate that they know “instinctively” some things are wrong but without the inability to anchor that knowledge in empirical facts. Someone who misdirects from their lack of knowledge with insults and farcical comparisons.
Trump consistently reminds me of people like you who bluff and bluster their way through life. Your screeds regarding fitness for example read just like Trump making it up as he goes along.
You should ponder the reasons you dislike Trump and ask yourself in what way is your behavior identical?
If only….
Not can’t disagree.
True.
I see
True.
Not my problem.
Not really. Plenty of folks who have enabled Trump would fall into my category of “not good”.
That being the case , it is a shorter distance to “ good” from better.
I agree, voter suppression is one problem any Democratic candidate faces, as is the Citizen’s United ruling.
Failure to retake the Senate in 2016 made the election of Trump far worse .It would have mitigated the harm Trump could do. That was bad.
Taking the House back in 2018 made it better. That is good, not perfect ,but good.
I agree it is unfortunate that the electoral college does not always agree with the popular vote especially when Trump benefitted from it. I might feel different if Clinton had benefited from it. I am certain if that happened the Republicans would calling to abolish it. But knows it is the rules . The Clinton campaign could have done better job spending more resources in those markets
All good points, but we are a long way from changing that system, no small state would vote to ratify it .
Certainly your prerogative, the Republican would encourage such a stance. In my opinion ,you need to put out fire out first before you make plans how to rebuild the house. The rules of this election are not going to change, you have to win before any change can take place. Right now that means Joe Biden and take the Senate.
“Germ is so brilliant antibiotics can’t keep up with it”.
– D. Trump.
Spending was the problem? You think there were some people living under rocks who didn’t understand the dynamics of the election?
I don’t think so. The public knew who their two choices were. It was quite clear.
Notadoctor
Shorter is irrelevant. It’s a shorter distance from here to the moon than to the sun, and yet I still couldn’t walk to either. It’s important to not let perfect be the enemy of good; it’s also important to not let good enough be the enemy of good.
Absolutely. Preventing the Republican party from passing whatever bill they want has been crucial. And it’s important to point out that, under any previous administration, taking back the House would have been even more impactful; the administration’s willingness to stonewall Congress’ constitutional powers to investigate has been unsurprising yet alarming, and the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to help Congress assert its constitutional powers has been disappointing at best, and vile deference to the Great Leader at worst. It only deepens the problem that the highest court in the land has become little more than a tool for conservatives to force their agenda on the country with an unelected body of what have become lawmakers.
This is essentially the issue. As far as I can tell, the country had numerous chances long ago to fix some of these issues, but the idea of an unchanging Constitution which fails to predict the problems of the 19th century and beyond has become too entrenched in the minds of “Patriotic Americans” to ever be questioned. Especially when that same system benefits a powerful, entrenched minority.
What you and many others have been unwilling to reckon with is that this fire has been burning for decades. Reaganomics and lasseiz-faire capitalism have lead to this point. Donald Trump is not a sudden change of course, but the inevitable result of decades of trickle-down economics making life harder for the people already worst off and an outdated set of laws which are not sufficient to police modern society.
The fire has been burning for quite some time; Donald Trump is just the smoke rising from the fire.
phoodoo,
I think you put far more faith in “the public” than they deserve. People tend to be generally uneducated about intimate details of public policy and its effects on their life. However, this stance is quite fair; it’s difficult to expect every single person to have a deep understanding of every policy position held by every politician. This is why the beer rule often applies, and why politicians with incredible policy chops (like Elizabeth Warren) are underestimated and poorly covered. The ability to coherently and cohesively write and explain policy doesn’t drive TV ratings and website clicks like fun soundbites and offensive rhetoric.
To extend the metaphor a little, even when the flames are extinguished the smoke will still be flammable. What happens after he loses the election will demonstrate the future direction of the USA for some time to come I suspect…
Not necessarily, take Wisconsin, lost by Clinton lost by 70,000 votes out 3 million cast, .77%. A better get out the vote strategy and implementation might have been a better use of finite resources. A least one campaign visit.
Probably. Nevertheless there are two ways to win, increase your voters turnout or discourage your opponents voters from voting . The first way , you track your likely voters and pinpoint those who have not yet voted and spend your resources getting them to the polls. Clinton’s campaign could have done better. Better pollsters and data would have helped.
The other way is to do push polls, and if you control the state government like Republicans in Wisconsin ,you use various ways of pinpoint your opponents demographic groups and pass laws to make it harder to vote.
I agree, Clinton needed to spend more resources getting her supporters to the polls because the Republicans were doing everything possible to discourage Clinton’s voters.
First ,Trump will never lose, the election will have been stolen. Perfect scenario, that ways to make money off his supporters will be endless. Winning just the White House is not enough.
Unbelievable. What a dumbass
Who would be worse?
Ilhan Omar.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/omars-campaign-has-paid-more-than-500k-to-her-new-husbands-consulting-firm
stcordova,
Don’t be naive, Sal!
Trumpmaster, or Trumpdisaster, is just a poppet of one of the greatest evils…
15% of people meet their partners at work. The thing you link to says nothing more then two people first had a professional then a personal relationship.
Is there some specific allegation of wrongdoing?
What is the corruption? If corruption is there I’m sure the GOP would be delighted to get their man Barr on the case.
Using your well known powers of deduction, Sal, care to speculate on why such blatant corruption has not been prosecuted despite a pet department of justice at the GOP’s beck and call?
What, Hilary?
stcordova,
I feel for you Sal, it must be so hard and so sad for you. You want to find something, anything, to show that there exists at least one person on the planet more incompetent, more unlikeable than infant orange. If you could just find one good thing to say about him, one positive aspect of his presidency, it might help you deflect a little. Like maybe he doesn’t beat his kids, he loves his kids (some of them at least, sorry Tiffany) , in fact he loves some of his kids so much he wants to date and sleep with them if they weren’t his daughter-maybe there is something positive you can say. Maybe you can talk about the women he DOESN’T grab by the pussy, that might make him seem more human.
But there are no articles like that, talking about something good he has done. Probably the national interest has written something positive about him, but its probably about him calling one group dirty criminals or something, so this would only appeal to the national interest fans, but not to people who aren’t deranged followers.
So what are you to do? There really is no way for you to talk his record (not his criminal record I mean) his performance. But listen Sal, be creative, there are lots of media outlets that aren’t conservative shill papers that actually talk about bad human being who may be as bad or even possibly worse than the idiot. That would make you feel much much better. The hope that someone is dumber, more corrupt, more feckless, more defensive, more mentally damaged than ol sourpuss.
Someone is dumber than him Sal, there HAS to be. Keep trying. Like Mike Huckabee, he is dumb. Jim Jordans, very dumb. Huckabee’s daughter, also very unlikable. Sebastian Gorka, now he is really dumb. He would be a worse president than the idiot, I will grant you that. But he is not an American born racist, dam. But there is Betsey DeVos, Ben Carson, Ryan Zinke, Steve Bannon, Steve Mnuchin, Scott Pruit, Wilbur Ross, Mick Mulvaney, …These are all incredible dufuses. Stupendous. So they are out there. What about Steven Miller, now there is a useless piece of crap zombie.
Come on Sal, you can do it!
stcordova,
You make a solid point. How dare she become romantically entangled with a business partner. And to think this isn’t even her first marriage! To top all that off, she didn’t make her relationship public to the Washington Examiner?
And she thought she would be allowed to do all that WHILE BEING MUSLIM?! How dare she.
True enough, if walking to the sun is required to achieve the good. In which case maybe it would be better to have a more achievable destination rather than not do anything.
I agree, that is the dilemma of compromise.
Could not agree more. Republicans are vandals, the goal is to destroy the ability of government to do anything but wage war and make the rich richer.
Attempted to do that with the ERA, never got the states to ratify it until past the deadline. On the other hand, there are almost enough states calling for a Constitutional Convention, personally sounds like the opportunity for incredible mischief.
If money is speech , that minority has the loudest voice. That is not part of the system rather a recent and particular interpretation of it.
For the US , from its conception. Women have only been eligible to vote for a hundred years, systematic racism has been a hallmark of the country. I grew up in the South when segregation was the law of the land. But I also lived in the South when a black man became President.
True, as well the cult of celebrity , elevation of greed and privilege and vilification of the other. And having those emotions justified and reinforced by a conservative media. And the laws are only as good as the judges. That is the long term worse case .
And that is why whatever it takes to reduce the number of judicial appointments is the first step, that is the first “good”.