Just a quick check, since I'm not seeing it discussed much, even in this space now. Hostages are being released in the Gaza crisis. Though details are sketchy, Biden and his team evidently are working the phones non-stop and otherwise doing their due diligence as global leaders to try to get more of them out and more done for peace, and …
Just a quick check, since I'm not seeing it discussed much, even in this space now. Hostages are being released in the Gaza crisis. Though details are sketchy, Biden and his team evidently are working the phones non-stop and otherwise doing their due diligence as global leaders to try to get more of them out and more done for peace, and as quickly as possible. It is old school American activism to try to find solutions and broker agreements where possible. Yet I'm not hearing discussion of that, as Biden continues in so many quarters to be branded too old, aloof, too old, out of touch, too old, incapable, and too old. And everything that goes wrong continues to be his fault. Got it.
I'm wondering if we will live to see the day when Biden finally receives the credit for the good work that he has done on behalf of our nation, even the world, during his years in office. Or is it just too easy and too trendy anymore to follow the course of gravity and see everything as a downward spiral with no end, such that what is good is lost in the endless white noise of anger, complaints, criticism, and hostility?
Critics say that where good work is done, Biden simply is doing his job. To which I say: that's exactly the point. Biden is doing his job. So let's talk about it more, not less.
The tendency of even non MAGA right wing critics to not give Biden any credit for some awesome foreign policy work is astounding... Looking at you Mary Katherine Hamm.
Anecdotal reports indicate that an overwhelming majority of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are now resolved not to vote for Biden - even if it means throwing the election to Trump, who famously started his first campaign with a "Muslim ban" and whose Middle East policy was strongly aligned with Netanyahu (though with some big favors for the Saudi rulers) - and who, in current circumstances, would not be pressing Israel on humanitarian concerns, and would not have announced an initiative to combat "Islamophobia" along with antisemitism.
It's as if they think Biden could and should have prevented Israel from launching any kind of military response -- and that the U.S. should in no degree have favored its main regional ally over people who don't much like us. It's also a case of seeking tribal vengeance, even if it hurts oneself at the same time.
A friend of mine confirmed that she would never vote for Joe Biden and that he would likely lose the Arab-American vote in Michigan because they think he’s personally responsible for the genocide in Gaza. I asked her whether she would regret that when newly reelected President Trump cancels the citizenship of all of the Arab & Palestinian immigrants and mass deports them back to the Middle East. No response. Leopard Eating People’s Faces Party.
Yeah, for all of the right's deep seated anti-Semitism, America isn't very likely to start deporting or shipping Jews to camps. Muslim immigrants and Muslim / Arab Americans on the other hand...
Hell, they're going to make a much better scape-goat than trans people (not that I think Trump's America would just ignore trans in favor of a better scape-goat). They'll be the face of the anti-immigrant efforts as a semi-blind eye gets turned towards Latin immigrants needed for cheap labor.
If Arab Americans tip the election to Trump and he starts shipping them off to camps. These same Arabs will expect the Democrats to help them. And they will because Democrats never learn.
Yeah, elsewhere I joke (gallows humor) about a low, low 3% rate of American Citizens being 'mistakenly' sent to camps with only half that number actually deported. I rather suspect that'll be much more common with various hyphenated Americans.
Though I will note that help from the democrats might be a failure to learn a lesson, but it is also the right thing to do. I fear that it will be too little, too late, if we get to that stage though.
People will screw themselves over royally to get back at someone who they think has betrayed them or who isn't (by some criteria) deserving--witness all the poor white people who regularly vote against government assistance measures that would help them because those Other People might get something.
Regarding an almost certain Trump/Biden rematch, I have recently seen comments by some that they were tired of having to choose between the lesser if two evils. Could someone please elaborate for me what precisely is "evil" about Joe Biden?
I think many people, especially Americans, are afraid of old age and old people. Old Joe's age shows in ways the other likely candidate's does not. Slower of step and speech. Old Joe's oldness is vaguely threatening, a reminder that old age and the big D(eath) are out there for us all, and many would rather forget , and live with illusions and delusions, as the other candidate does.
Almost everyone I talk to blame Biden for inflation. They don’t care why we have inflation, or that it is world wide, or even that the US has inflation under better control than almost every other nation. But it happened on his watch, therefore he is to blame.
It really is amazing how the US President has such control. They set gas prices, give green lights to Russia to invade, to Hamas to attack, and everything in-between.
There are a whole lot of magical thinkers in the US. Even on the left: I read on this site somewhere (it's escaping me exactly where) of a casual Democrat being interviewed who thinks that since punitive anti-abortion statutes have been passed in various states, that Joe Biden is somehow responsible for it!
Unfortunately many of the antivaxxers are on the gullible left. We have our own ignorati, but the difference is they don't control the party. However, they do vote for the likes of Jill Stein.
I think for many you would have to use the common usage of that term and not take 'evil' as literal evil. From that starting point you can get to enough clips of Biden gaffs to believe that he's at least missing a few steps here and there, and if your mind wants a mythologized JFK to vote for, yeah, Biden (and no one else, ever) is that.
People aren't realistic when it comes to candidates and the nature of our system that forces us into a choice of two and only two. They also ascribe way too much power and control to the person who is President rather than the entire administration that comes with them.
Exactly -- though inevitably that becomes an "eye of the beholder" debate. People wind up seeing what they want to see. Our role is to advocate for full disclosure and balance, since too many others are not necessarily inclined to do so.
Still, if President Biden comes out of this looking like the guy who got the hostages returned and brought about Middle East peace it would sure help his campaign. It's at least a good talking point.
True, there has been some discussion in various outlets. I'm just disappointed that it was not brought up here, in a place which has been used, effectively, to counter the political right's deceptive discourse about the Biden administration and what actually it engages in and succeeds in accomplishing. After the long weekend and multiple rounds of hostage releases, some acknowledgment of that seems to be in order. (We did, on the other hand, get yet another update from the Students Behaving Badly file, and at the top of the column, no less. So there's that.)
And even here we see those whose experitise of more about campaigns than governing - they lament that Biden is not doing more campaigning. Well governing is actually what the job is. Not debating, no answering questions from reporters in a snappy manner etc.
apparently, a president has to be good on TV & make a lot of noise to feed the corporatist media to get any coverage. President Biden’s quiet competence earns their disdain
yes it is amazing. But I have started to take for granted that the public responds to loud voices. If the accusatory voices against Biden are loud and relentless (even if not stating facts), they must be answered just as loudly, or he will lose. Hell, half of the US thinks that Trump is more ethical than Biden!
Just a quick check, since I'm not seeing it discussed much, even in this space now. Hostages are being released in the Gaza crisis. Though details are sketchy, Biden and his team evidently are working the phones non-stop and otherwise doing their due diligence as global leaders to try to get more of them out and more done for peace, and as quickly as possible. It is old school American activism to try to find solutions and broker agreements where possible. Yet I'm not hearing discussion of that, as Biden continues in so many quarters to be branded too old, aloof, too old, out of touch, too old, incapable, and too old. And everything that goes wrong continues to be his fault. Got it.
I'm wondering if we will live to see the day when Biden finally receives the credit for the good work that he has done on behalf of our nation, even the world, during his years in office. Or is it just too easy and too trendy anymore to follow the course of gravity and see everything as a downward spiral with no end, such that what is good is lost in the endless white noise of anger, complaints, criticism, and hostility?
Critics say that where good work is done, Biden simply is doing his job. To which I say: that's exactly the point. Biden is doing his job. So let's talk about it more, not less.
Not with the media controlled by the Right wing. They won't give Biden credit for anything.
Thanks for this comment!
The tendency of even non MAGA right wing critics to not give Biden any credit for some awesome foreign policy work is astounding... Looking at you Mary Katherine Hamm.
Anecdotal reports indicate that an overwhelming majority of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are now resolved not to vote for Biden - even if it means throwing the election to Trump, who famously started his first campaign with a "Muslim ban" and whose Middle East policy was strongly aligned with Netanyahu (though with some big favors for the Saudi rulers) - and who, in current circumstances, would not be pressing Israel on humanitarian concerns, and would not have announced an initiative to combat "Islamophobia" along with antisemitism.
It's as if they think Biden could and should have prevented Israel from launching any kind of military response -- and that the U.S. should in no degree have favored its main regional ally over people who don't much like us. It's also a case of seeking tribal vengeance, even if it hurts oneself at the same time.
What makes you think these people are any smarter than the rest of chuckleheads.
A friend of mine confirmed that she would never vote for Joe Biden and that he would likely lose the Arab-American vote in Michigan because they think he’s personally responsible for the genocide in Gaza. I asked her whether she would regret that when newly reelected President Trump cancels the citizenship of all of the Arab & Palestinian immigrants and mass deports them back to the Middle East. No response. Leopard Eating People’s Faces Party.
They know Trump is too lazy to do that. He'll only bloviate everytime someone puts a microphone and camera in front of his flabby, fat face.
But Stephen Miller isn’t lazy.
Yeah, for all of the right's deep seated anti-Semitism, America isn't very likely to start deporting or shipping Jews to camps. Muslim immigrants and Muslim / Arab Americans on the other hand...
Hell, they're going to make a much better scape-goat than trans people (not that I think Trump's America would just ignore trans in favor of a better scape-goat). They'll be the face of the anti-immigrant efforts as a semi-blind eye gets turned towards Latin immigrants needed for cheap labor.
If Arab Americans tip the election to Trump and he starts shipping them off to camps. These same Arabs will expect the Democrats to help them. And they will because Democrats never learn.
Yeah, elsewhere I joke (gallows humor) about a low, low 3% rate of American Citizens being 'mistakenly' sent to camps with only half that number actually deported. I rather suspect that'll be much more common with various hyphenated Americans.
Though I will note that help from the democrats might be a failure to learn a lesson, but it is also the right thing to do. I fear that it will be too little, too late, if we get to that stage though.
People will screw themselves over royally to get back at someone who they think has betrayed them or who isn't (by some criteria) deserving--witness all the poor white people who regularly vote against government assistance measures that would help them because those Other People might get something.
Not only will, but actually do help them. There are more White people on some sort of government assistance than black people.
I believe this is what we call "cutting off your nose to spite your face." Nothing new under the sun!
Biden will be credited like Jimmy Carter - years after he leaves office.
Was just thinking the same thing.
Regarding an almost certain Trump/Biden rematch, I have recently seen comments by some that they were tired of having to choose between the lesser if two evils. Could someone please elaborate for me what precisely is "evil" about Joe Biden?
I think many people, especially Americans, are afraid of old age and old people. Old Joe's age shows in ways the other likely candidate's does not. Slower of step and speech. Old Joe's oldness is vaguely threatening, a reminder that old age and the big D(eath) are out there for us all, and many would rather forget , and live with illusions and delusions, as the other candidate does.
except that old Donnie is only 3 years younger & in far worse shape
Almost everyone I talk to blame Biden for inflation. They don’t care why we have inflation, or that it is world wide, or even that the US has inflation under better control than almost every other nation. But it happened on his watch, therefore he is to blame.
It really is amazing how the US President has such control. They set gas prices, give green lights to Russia to invade, to Hamas to attack, and everything in-between.
There are a whole lot of magical thinkers in the US. Even on the left: I read on this site somewhere (it's escaping me exactly where) of a casual Democrat being interviewed who thinks that since punitive anti-abortion statutes have been passed in various states, that Joe Biden is somehow responsible for it!
Ugh. I was thinking more about people I know on the right, but at an intellectual level I know that idiocy is not confined there.
Unfortunately many of the antivaxxers are on the gullible left. We have our own ignorati, but the difference is they don't control the party. However, they do vote for the likes of Jill Stein.
Exactly
I think for many you would have to use the common usage of that term and not take 'evil' as literal evil. From that starting point you can get to enough clips of Biden gaffs to believe that he's at least missing a few steps here and there, and if your mind wants a mythologized JFK to vote for, yeah, Biden (and no one else, ever) is that.
People aren't realistic when it comes to candidates and the nature of our system that forces us into a choice of two and only two. They also ascribe way too much power and control to the person who is President rather than the entire administration that comes with them.
that has been Democrats downfall for decades! Focusing on the Presidency while Republicans stacked the decks in state legislatures
Exactly -- though inevitably that becomes an "eye of the beholder" debate. People wind up seeing what they want to see. Our role is to advocate for full disclosure and balance, since too many others are not necessarily inclined to do so.
Still, if President Biden comes out of this looking like the guy who got the hostages returned and brought about Middle East peace it would sure help his campaign. It's at least a good talking point.
Joe Scarborough has been talking up Biden's efforts to get the Israeli and other hostages released.
True, there has been some discussion in various outlets. I'm just disappointed that it was not brought up here, in a place which has been used, effectively, to counter the political right's deceptive discourse about the Biden administration and what actually it engages in and succeeds in accomplishing. After the long weekend and multiple rounds of hostage releases, some acknowledgment of that seems to be in order. (We did, on the other hand, get yet another update from the Students Behaving Badly file, and at the top of the column, no less. So there's that.)
And even here we see those whose experitise of more about campaigns than governing - they lament that Biden is not doing more campaigning. Well governing is actually what the job is. Not debating, no answering questions from reporters in a snappy manner etc.
Unfortunately, that is not how elections are won. Quiet competence is not enough currently.
apparently, a president has to be good on TV & make a lot of noise to feed the corporatist media to get any coverage. President Biden’s quiet competence earns their disdain
Sure. But especially now, given the real challenges, it is amazing that Biden gets so little credit.
yes it is amazing. But I have started to take for granted that the public responds to loud voices. If the accusatory voices against Biden are loud and relentless (even if not stating facts), they must be answered just as loudly, or he will lose. Hell, half of the US thinks that Trump is more ethical than Biden!