Big Picture American Politics

[Nimbly9]

It isn't whataboutism.  It's not a justification.  I'm merely pointing out that there are plenty of pro-democracy people in power, both here and abroad, who already have no problems being fascist when they want to be.  The goalposts keep moving and nobody pays enough attention because the cost of living keeps going up and your average voter is going to blame whoever is currently in power when the time comes to cast their vote. 

Trump wouldn't be able to thrive in these polls in swing states that basically forsook him in the past unless there was some legitimate deep seated rage going on regarding how the mostly Democrat-led government has been approaching the country's problems.  One or two polls can be misleading, but Biden is losing to Trump in almost all of them across tons of different constituencies.

I think you two should take a harder look at why Trump is leading in all the major polls less than a year out from the next big election in a country that already had 4 years of him. Lotta people in those swing states still blame him for Covid-19 tanking the economy before....yet he's leading Biden.  He's up with demographics like Hispanics and even black men and women.  That's the reality. 

It's all (unfortunately) extraordinary because Trump is one of the most well known people on planet Earth at this point.  Everyone is aware of practically every little thing he says and does, as well as everything he's said and done in the past. Everyone has an opinion of him of some kind. So if he ends up winning in an election cycle like this one, America probably deserves him.  If people actually believed in democracy and really wanted to give the middle finger to fascism, they'd vote for a 3rd party candidate of some kind instead of this constant life-or-death swing between different sides of the corporate uniparty. 

A better question at this point would be something like  "what could Biden do to turn things around?" He's just surrounded by yes men who tell him he doesn't need to campaign seriously, and they seem to take voters for granted.  I personally think that's a recipe for disaster for an incumbent, but maybe that's just me.

Ya'll should just hope RFK Jr. pulls an upset, cause things aren't looking too good no matter how ya slice it.

[Lisnaholic]

Trump wouldn't be able to thrive in these polls in swing states that basically forsook him in the past unless there was some legitimate deep seated rage going on regarding how the mostly Democrat-led government has been approaching the country's problems.  One or two polls can be misleading, but Biden is losing to Trump in almost all of them across tons of different constituencies.

I think you two should take a harder look at why Trump is leading in all the major polls less than a year out from the next big election in a country that already had 4 years of him. Lotta people in those swing states still blame him for Covid-19 tanking the economy before....yet he's leading Biden.  He's up with demographics like Hispanics and even black men and women.  That's the reality.

^ Yep, I think about these poll results that keep rolling in, and I'm very disappointed that Trump remains so popular. I don't accept, though, that your bolded explanation is an accurate or only reason for the poll results we are seeing. Instead of "legitimate deep-seated rage", here are some alternative explanations:-

i) Trump is a master at stirring up a sense of grievance, and he makes people feel angry about things that aren't real. Here's a few things Trump wants us to be mad about: an election that he lost, wind turbines that cause cancer, an "open Southern border", (which of course is not open, it's just more porous than many would like), media, and prosecutors, who are "the enemy of the people", and most recently , "communists, marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin...". Some people buy into that rhetoric and feel the rage, without it necessarily being legitimate.
 
ii) Biden has many shortcomings as a figurehead and orator,(see the "Primary Biden" thread), so I can understand that people are slow to tick the Biden box in a poll.

iii) as enablers-in-chief, the GOP has consistently set the stage for abandoning conventional moral positions when it comes to Trump. They send a message to poll-takers: don't worry, he may have been impeached, he's guilty of insurrection and is currently being charged with 91 offenses, but he's still our guy, so he can be your guy too. 

Third party candidate or no, I'm hoping it'll all come good in the end, as it sometimes does, in refutation of the poll predictions. With a year to go, plenty can change as Trump continues to be dragged through the courts, and who knows, perhaps some voters will notice the rather invisible powers of Biden: that, for example, he listens to fact-based advice from a rational and scandal-free support team - largely unnoticed, but so different from Trump's "best people". (Remember John Kelly, Bill Barr and all the people in between who ran screaming from the White House, and turned out not to have been "best people" after all? Great theatre, great drama, but not great governance.)   
Also, by election day, voters may have come round to the idea that democracy is preferable to autocracy, and will remind themselves of something the majority of them (80%,I think) have already decided: that freedom of choice on abortion is better than having a bunch of old men and religious nut-jobs competing over who can push through the most restrictive ban.   

[Lisnaholic]

A better question at this point would be something like  "what could Biden do to turn things around?" He's just surrounded by yes men who tell him he doesn't need to campaign seriously, and they seem to take voters for granted.  I personally think that's a recipe for disaster for an incumbent, but maybe that's just me.

^ Yep, despite what I just posted, I'd largely agree with this. Biden's campaign staff seem to be asleep at the wheel - far too complacent. It's understandable to me that perhaps Biden is focused on legislation and stuff, passes a bill and thinks, "that's a job well done", but unless he's got someone banging a drum, saying "look at this guy legislate!!" then voters aren't going to notice. Isn't that what happened with Obama and Obamacare? The Dems got the package together, then forgot to tour the country to tell everyone what a milestone improvement it was for so many Americans. 

[Nimbly9]

A couple of other points.

1. Biden has never had a scandal-free support team. If you have followed any news at all over the last few years, there's been significant dysfunction.  The reason you don't remember the revolving cast is because the media isn't motivated enough to keep going back to these stories the same way they used to go after Trump.  The current government is better at narrative control and has a superior relationship with a larger share of media outlets than the Trump administration did.  For being savvy in that regard, I give the Biden administration some credit.  They're way better at information damage control than Trump ever was.  For example, If that debacle with Sam Brinton had happened during the Trump administration, you'd never had heard the end of it.

Biden was also smarter than Trump early on in regards to replacing most Trump-sympathetic officials in his first year or so. That in and of itself eliminates a lot of high profile firing problems that might show up later on closer to election season.

2. Trump is a master of going after weakness. In particular, he's good at cutting through the noise and pointing out "hey, we may be extreme to liberals but their side has extremes you don't like too".  And for some people that will always be a better argument to give the GOP another shot.  I personally don't find grievance-focused populism all that endearing, but clearly I'm not the target audience.

3. Whether you vote for Democrats or Republicans, when you vote for a party are endorsing the full spectrum of policy positions from that side of the aisle, even the extremes. Some abstract idea of preserving democracy doesn't cut mustard because most people are going to say "well democracy is great and all, but Newsweek says I'm $10,000 poorer this year because of inflation, so **** Biden." That's where all the polarization comes from, because most voters are somewhere in the middle but don't feel like either side "really" represents their own beliefs as the ideological gap continues to widen.  Prior to Obama and Trump, that gap didn't seem as insurmountably wide.

4. If you really want Biden to have the best chance of winning, you shouldn't want anything to happen to Trump.  These same polls that show Biden being neck and neck show him losing by much larger margins to someone like Nikki Haley, and my guess is RFK Jr. would get an even larger slice of the pie if Trump dropped out as well.  As you said, a lot can happen in a year - its probably in Biden's best interest to be campaigning against the devil he knows as opposed the ones he doesn't (who could clearly kick his ass if the election was held today).

[Jwb]

The American people are functionally  retarded. The reason Trump is doing better in the polls, IMO, is because of this fact.  When he was in the news constantly because he was president,  people grew sick of him and voted in Biden largely as a "referendum" against Trump.  Biden largely stayed out of the spotlight for that election. 

That's obviously not going to be as effective with Biden as the incumbent.  The incumbent has to stand on their own track record,  not just attack the opposition. I happen to think it's not even close in that regard.  Regardless of which guy you like more,  Biden has done a much more effective job pushing his agenda through than Trump or even Obama.  But that isn't the perception.  The perception is that he's a doddering old man.  And perception matters more than reality.


The reality is though,  regardless of how frustrating it is to watch this current state of affairs in the Democratic party,  with prominent voices starting to panic at the prospect that Biden can't win,  if I was a republican I might be even more frustrated. The fact that they are so cucked to Trump that they are going to give him a second chance at beating Biden,  after he lost to him as an incumbent,  is simply hilarious. 

Try to imagine for a second the prospect of the Democrats running Hillary against Trump for a second time in a row in 2020. Can you imagine how weak that would make them look? Now imagine that on top of that she had already served one term as president.  So even if she does win,  in 4 years you won't get the incumbent advantage.  It will just be back to the drawing board with an open primary.


Now a lot of people these days seem to either undermine or just completely ignore the incumbency advantage,  acting puzzled at the fact that the Democrats haven't pushed to primary Biden.  But there are obvious strategic incentives that both parties follow and that is why they avoid that sort of thing. Not out of some abstract dedication to norms or traditions, but as a sheer survival mechanism. 

Primarying your presidential incumbent is a great recipe for just kneecapping your candidate going in to the general election.  Believe it or not,  getting to avoid the shitslinging on your own side of the isle for the primary season is a big part of the reason why the incumbency advantage exists.

On the other side of the isle, there is no reason to stick with Trump other than the fact that the base genuinely supports him by leaps and bounds.  Which puts them in a real predicament, considering what a general liability he is and has been to the Republican party.

It's funny when I hear Vivek say that only an American first candidate can win and then in other talking points when he is attacking the broad from the RNC he will cite the consistent track record of losing the Republicans have done in the last 5 straight elections.  He doesn't seem to connect the dots that the Trump strategy has only worked once and for one guy, and that was Trump in 2016. Since then there is scant evidence of this movement translating to broader electoral success and more recently in 2022 it was specifically MAGA candidates who performed poorly.

Trump is an enigma and a cult of personality. He doesn't represent a coherent political ideology but rather a borderline messianic vision of only this one guy can save humanity from the forces of evil and the deep state.  That's why they haven't just latched on to the younger Indian version of Trump,  incase Vivek is still confused why "America first" voters don't just opt for him since he's younger,  more intelligent and articulate by leaps and bounds,  and parroting largely the same ideology. The reason is because they're not "America first" voters. They're Trump voters.  Period.

Also,  since as I mentioned the American people are functionally retarded,  they tend generally to oscillate between the two parties, generally on an 8 year basis given the incumbency advantage.  Obviously not a hard rule but a statistical trend.  So if somehow Biden does win this election,  likely 28 would swing back to the GOP. That's what i would expect. 

On the flip side, if the Republicans had a fresh candidate like say Vivek who managed to win in 24 against Biden,  he would be going in to 28 with the incumbency advantage.  Which would give them a decent shot at 8 years of GOP rule.

If you go with Trump and he wins, not only can he not run again in 28, but the well will be poisoned by another 4 years of Trump in office.  That will almost certainly put the Republicans at a disadvantage going in to 28. All of this without even mentioning any of his legal issues.

But ultimately it is up to the voters.  Dems picked Biden as the "safe" option against Trump, ignoring his optical shortcomings and insisting he was the only one who could beat Trump.  Now they're paying for that.  But the Trump situation is different.  His followers have almost a cult like loyalty that seems unbreakable.  The Dems picked Biden and now feel  stuck with him as a weak incumbent,  where as the Republicans can't ditch Trump because he has the loyalty of their voters.

[Lisnaholic]

^ That's an interesting look at how things stand, and I'd agree with most of what you say. Just as you invite us to look at some what-if situations, on this point, I'd like to put forward a fantasy of my own:

Primarying your presidential incumbent is a great recipe for just kneecapping your candidate going in to the general election.  Believe it or not,  getting to avoid the shitslinging on your own side of the isle for the primary season is a big part of the reason why the incumbency advantage exists.

Imagine for a moment that politics was amenable to good grace and common sense. In that case, Biden could pass on the baton to a younger candidate, who would run with the slogan of "Just like Biden, but more likely to still be alive in 2028". I don't know who that candidate would be, but running with the same cast of characters, the same storyline, and with Biden's blessing he/she would perhaps get a touch of "incumbancy advantage" in 2024, plus the whole weight of it 2028.

3. Whether you vote for Democrats or Republicans, when you vote for a party are endorsing the full spectrum of policy positions from that side of the aisle, even the extremes. Some abstract idea of preserving democracy doesn't cut mustard because most people are going to say "well democracy is great and all, but Newsweek says I'm $10,000 poorer this year because of inflation, so **** Biden." That's where all the polarization comes from, because most voters are somewhere in the middle but don't feel like either side "really" represents their own beliefs as the ideological gap continues to widen.  Prior to Obama and Trump, that gap didn't seem as insurmountably wide.

^ I thought I'd explore this theory, without necessarily subscribing to it, and found some stats for us in this article:-

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/economy-performed-under-president-since-120038478.html

LBJ 7 years in office: 4.4% inflation
Nixon 6 years ditto : 10.9%
Gerald Ford 4 years: 5.2%
Jimmy Carter 4 years: 11.8%
Reagan 8 years: 4.7%
George H.W. Bush 8 years: 3.3%
Clinton 8 years: 3.7%
G.W.Bush 8 years: 0.0% !!!
Obama 8 years: 2.5%
Trump 4 years: 1.4%
Biden 3 years and counting: 5.0%

So Biden is on the high side, although he has scored lower than average for Unemployment and poverty rates. Maybe the inflation rate will be a big driver on polling day, as you say, Nimbly, but it's still my hope that other issues will be in people's minds: that democracy thing, abortion, and not having a corrupt conman and self-declared autocrat running your country.   

[Jwb]

That's not how it works,  in my mind. They would hold a primary.  Biden could have for instance voluntarily agreed at some point in time not to run for re-election, thus clearing the way for an open primary.  But to do something like that at this point in time is not only logistically unfeasible,  it's a clear sign of weakness.

So Biden could at best give his endorsement to one of the primary candidates, which might help them win the primary,  but I definitely don't think that they would by any means inherit the incumbency advantage in the general election merely by getting Biden's endorsement.  The incumbency advantage is structural in nature. By definition you sacrifice it by having a primary and selecting a new candidate.

A big problem is that anyone who is serious about running on the Dem side is just waiting for 28. If Biden had signaled early on that he was only in it for one term then maybe the Dems could have had a prospect ready to replace him.  But who in their right mind would waste their bid on running at this time?

[Lisnaholic]

A couple of other points.

1. Biden has never had a scandal-free support team. If you have followed any news at all over the last few years, there's been significant dysfunction.  The reason you don't remember the revolving cast is because the media isn't motivated enough to keep going back to these stories the same way they used to go after Trump.  The current government is better at narrative control and has a superior relationship with a larger share of media outlets than the Trump administration did.  For being savvy in that regard, I give the Biden administration some credit.  They're way better at information damage control than Trump ever was.  For example, If that debacle with Sam Brinton had happened during the Trump administration, you'd never had heard the end of it.

Biden was also smarter than Trump early on in regards to replacing most Trump-sympathetic officials in his first year or so. That in and of itself eliminates a lot of high profile firing problems that might show up later on closer to election season.

I think you're giving too much credit to Biden's PR team and their (according to you) superior relationship with media outlets. Do you seriously imagine that they can persuade Fox News to downplay scandals about employees quitting the Biden White House in disgrace or anger?!



These are the stats that suggest why "revolving door" turnover at the Trump White House was newsworthy, and why it's not under Biden. Trump turnover was historically high and Biden's is not. Instead of fabricating the notion that the Sam Brinton scandal was somehow underplayed by the media, why not accept the far more probable scenario that it just wasn't in the same league as some of these high-profile staff changes:-


In 2018, Mattis wrote a scathing resignation letter. In an interview, he called Trump "the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership."

Omarosa claimed she was fired because she knew too much about a possible audio recording of Trump saying a racial epithet. "Donald Trump, and his decisions and his behavior, was harming the country. I could no longer be a part of this madness," she wrote in her book.

Eleven Day Scaramucci: "For the last 3 years I have fully supported this President. Recently he has said things that divide the country in a way that is unacceptable. So I didn't pass the 100% litmus test. Eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country."

Just a couple of the fiery, scandalous staff changes that the media love. The reason we don't hear similar tales from inside the Biden White House is that those kinds of things just aren't happening.

[Nimbly9]

I disagree on a few things here.

Firstly, your graph proves the points I was mentioning earlier - Biden doesn't thrive on drama and didn't have a ton of trial-and-error to that end during year 1.  But look at year 2 on both presidencies - Trump and Biden are neck and neck.  How do you explain that? Going by your train of thought, Trump should be way higher than Biden based on how he ran things. So I'd say all of that supports the points I already made. 

Secondly, Trump made a big show out of firing people whenever it occurred - he thrived on the drama it created.  Biden doesn't do that and the media are happy to go along with it because he doesn't get up on the podium and call them "fake news" every day.  If you honestly don't think that there's a very different "overall" attitude from all the non-Fox outlets in regards to how they covered Trump vs Biden, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

I think you're giving too much credit to Biden's PR team and their (according to you) superior relationship with media outlets. Do you seriously imagine that they can persuade Fox News to downplay scandals about employees quitting the Biden White House in disgrace or anger?!

The cumulative viewership of all the other various news networks and liberal websites dwarfs the right-wing mediasphere significantly, and Fox and their various fixations (regardless of their merit or lack thereof) are constantly mocked and/or marginalized by every other outlet.  Fox doesn't downplay anything related to Biden they can find obviously, but they report stuff all the time that doesn't get picked up at all in any of the other major outlets.

Going back to Sam Brinton, for example - that story got a fraction of the amount of attention from other outlets than Fox gave it at the time Sam stole luggage for the 2nd or 3rd time.  If those incidents had happened under Trump's watch, they would be right up there with his firing of Comey or some of his other high profile turnovers and cited as an example of Trump putting "bad people" in charge of stuff that's critical to national security.

[Lisnaholic]

Your comment on Sam Brinton is honestly the kind of thing I'm talking about.  Your doing the exact same thing the media does. Because it didn't happen during the presidency of someone you already didn't like, it's not significant.

You take an observation (me doing the same as the media) but then ascribe to it a reason that may not be entirely true. Sure, I love to dish the dirt on Trump, but perhaps the reason the Sam Brinton scandal isn't bigger is just simply that it isn't that big a story. There doesn't need to be a media plot going on: they are just doing what they always do, promoting the most newsworthy stories they can find. If I accept their filtering process and focus on stories they have chosen, well, Guilty as charged.
Some stories just dissolve away because of lack of substance or far-reaching importance. Recently, for example, we haven't heard much about the House Oversight Committee's plan to impeach Biden: how is that working out? It's not in the news these days, so my guess is that again me and the media are in agreement: it's turning into a non-story. In this case, yet another pre-determined GOP conspiracy, which, as Rudy Guilliani admitted about election fraud, has no evidence to support it.

Also, your graph proves my point in a way as well - Biden cleaned house more effectively than Trump did in his first year.

Did he though, Nimbly? I remember back at transition time, Biden was still talking hopefully about bipartisanship and actually was criticised for going soft on Trump admin staff and leaving them in place. If I had the time I would fact-check that too.

But look at year 2 on both presidencies - Trump and Biden are neck and neck.  How do you explain that? Going by your logic, Trump should be way higher than Biden based on how he ran things. So I'd say all of that supports the points I already made.

There doesn't have to be an exact year-by-year correlation between the two admins to prove my point that Trump's turnover figures are historically high. Here's another graphic that makes the same point, though it doesn't have Biden's admin in it:-



So what's your arguement, exactly? That almost alone of modern presidents, Trump didn't make a clean transitional sweep of his White House staff because he is such a big-hearted softy? Personally, I favour the explanation that the much-reported toxic atmosphere of the Trump White House was the reason for the high turnover.   

[Jwb]

If we are going to be honest,  even if the media had tried to make a big deal out of the Sam Brinton thing if it happened under Trump's watch,  his administration had such a never ending list of bad headlines that it literally would not have made a blip.

I'm perfectly willing to admit that MSNBC spent the entire administration hyping up every potential scandal.  But that lead to information overload and a sense of boy who cried wolf,  which ultimately backfired.  But whether they exaggerated shit or not,  he gave them much more to work with than any other president in my lifetime.

[Nimbly9]

for example, we haven't heard much about the House Oversight Committee's plan to impeach Biden: how is that working out? It's not in the news these days, so my guess is that again me and the media are in agreement: it's turning into a non-story. In this case, yet another pre-determined GOP conspiracy, which, as Rudy Guilliani admitted about election fraud, has no evidence to support it.

Fox and a few others still covers that story pretty regularly as far as I know, since it is still ongoing despite White House attempts to stonewall on a few things. If you are that curious about it, I'm sure Google could tell you.

If we are going to be honest,  even if the media had tried to make a big deal out of the Sam Brinton thing if it happened under Trump's watch,  his administration had such a never ending list of bad headlines that it literally would not have made a blip.

I'm perfectly willing to admit that MSNBC spent the entire administration hyping up every potential scandal.  But that lead to information overload and a sense of boy who cried wolf,  which ultimately backfired.  But whether they exaggerated shit or not,  he gave them much more to work with than any other president in my lifetime.

If we're talking year 1, probably would get lumped in with the other drama like the 2 scoops of ice cream stuff.  Year 2 and 3? Would have been in the headlines a lot longer.  The coronavirus sucked up all of the media oxygen after 2019.

In any case, I'm expecting a fun election this time around if RFK Jr. ends up debating Thing 1 and Thing 2 on the big stage next year.

[Jwb]

I wouldn't be surprised if there is no debate.

[Psy-Fi]

Sen. Joe Manchin doesn't commit to staying in Democratic Party as he weighs presidential run

[Jwb]

Lmao. He's lost it.