Battle of the geriatrics - round 2.

[Ag3ma]

Joe Biden formally announces 2024 White House run

President, who could face Donald Trump in 2020 rerun, urges voters to give him four further years to finish what he started

www.theguardian.com

Joe Biden is going to run in 2024. Given that Trump is looking likely to win the Republican nomination, the USA appears likely to stare into the abyss of two guys ten years or more past retirement slugging it out to be president.

This isn't healthy for a country.

My only hope is that the Republicans can find an excuse to ditch Trump relating to his criminal cases, and Joe Biden reconsiders.

 

[Thaluikhain]

My only hope is that the Republicans can find an excuse to ditch Trump relating to his criminal cases,

Would his potential replacement be any better for the US, though?

 

[meiam]

Biden said he might not run if Trump isn't the nominee, but considering Desanti GOP support is wavering that seems unlikely now, for some reason I'm not quite sure why since his whole stupid crusade is very Trumpian, but maybe the people who do care about that would rather have vanilla Trump rather than Trump lite.

The hunter Biden stuff might hurt Biden a bit (not the laptop nonsense case, the tax one), but I doubt it since everything that Hunter might be guilty of, Trump did way worse, so anyone that would be turn off from Biden for that wouldn't touch Trump anyway. Could potentially turn some people off from bothering to vote at the last minute, kinda like Hillary last minute reopening of her investigation.

Biden is caught in the usual dilemma of competence being really unpopular, he passed some mammoth spending bill that are quietly upending decades worth of economy realignment in a way that's, on paper, is really popular with the general public, and is disproportionately benefitting red state. But no one really pay attention to that so he gets almost none of the benefit for that and people instead think he's not doing anything. Although on the positive side for him, the progressive wing seems to have been mostly tamed.

 

[Worgen]

It would be stupid to give up the incumbent advantage so of course he's running. We will see if a rising star will show up in the primary process, but traditionally when you have the presidency there isn't much of a primary since its assumed the president will win. But, because of Biden's age there could be more of one this time.

 

[Ag3ma]

Would his potential replacement be any better for the US, though?

Basically no-one (who could plausibly win) is worse than Trump.

Republican pretenders can play at Trumpism, but they aren't Trump and never will be - it won't work for the same way. De Santis for instance modelled himself on Trump and it got him some way, but what he's ended up doing is failing to win the loyalty of his own state's Republican politicians and getting humiliated by Disney. He can't out-Trump Trump, he needs to find his own path, and what we're seeing is that off the Trump track maybe there's just not that much there. Like the NY fraud trial: de Santis charged out to bat for Trump probably so he didn't risk alienating Trump loyalists he wants to win over. But how did he think that was going to end, except to reinforce his own opponent? Why are Trump supporters going to give up Trump for a pseudo-Trump? He might be competent in all sorts of way Trump is not and those could be dangerous, but he has limitations too, and they will limit how dangerous he can be as president.

Trump is genuinely terrifying, because he's completely venal and corrupt, knows few if any boundaries, and we can be sure bursting with vengeance. He would burn everything down, and just sit there watching the TV and checking the ratings.

 

[Ag3ma]

It would be stupid to give up the incumbent advantage so of course he's running. We will see if a rising star will show up in the primary process, but traditionally when you have the presidency there isn't much of a primary since its assumed the president will win. But, because of Biden's age there could be more of one this time.

US politics is, I think, too deferential.

I don't think it should go full Australia and backstab the leader every year or two, but it could really do with more people telling the current top dog that their time is done.

 

[Worgen]

US politics is, I think, too deferential.

I don't think it should go full Australia and backstab the leader every year or two, but it could really do with more people telling the current top dog that their time is done.

Its pretty common for us to re-elect a sitting president. It was actually really weird that trump lost, I think the only other time that happened in the last 40 years was Bush Sr and that was because of his "read my lips, no new taxes" and Ross Perot splitting the vote.

 

[CM156]

Looks like I get to spoil my ballot for a second time.
Fun!

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

As long as adrenochrome supplies don't dry up, keep 'em juiced and all should be fine. Time to invest in adrenochrome shares has never been better.

 

[Silvanus]

I'd say "first as tragedy, then as farce", but nobody seems to be laughing.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Is it too much to ask to have leaders who don't predate color television? I see these septuagenarians listening to experts talk about things like AI and cryptocurrency with all the comprehension of me trying to translate Sanskrit. There comes a point where experience becomes irrelevant and it's best to step aside.

 

[CM156]

Is it too much to ask to have leaders who don't predate color television? I see these septuagenarians listening to experts talk about things like AI and cryptocurrency with all the comprehension of me trying to translate Sanskrit. There comes a point where experience becomes irrelevant and it's best to step aside.

If I could amend the Constitution to say anything, it would be age and term limits for all federal office.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Is it too much to ask to have leaders who don't predate color television? I see these septuagenarians listening to experts talk about things like AI and cryptocurrency with all the comprehension of me trying to translate Sanskrit. There comes a point where experience becomes irrelevant and it's best to step aside.

Well...yes. But then that shouldn't be that important. They'll have to listen to experts on all sorts of things they've little understanding of themselves. That they fail to deal properly with issues about new technology and the like is more down to their own failings, than their ages, IMHO.

 

[Gergar12]

Great Biden vs Trump. Again. It oddly enough reminds me of the US Costco Food Court. When given a choice do executives I mean people in power pick variety, newness, and innovation? No, It's the same old: the same shitty hotdogs, non-combo pizza, lousy ice cream with no swirls, no bulgogi bake, no local items, no onions on hotdogs because the Costco food court is a 'lost center', and we can't be a bother to raise prices or take the loss when people already buy hundreds of dollars in our store. It's the same with the US democratic party, Clinton, Gore(best one out of all of them), Obama, Clinton again, and Biden. Similar policies, and sometimes they know each other from their previous position. Whereas the Republicans used to be boring old people, a boring old person, and a moderately but still old fashion middle age guy whose most exciting feature is that he is a Mormon. Trump was an anomaly and is more different from Bush, McCain, and Romney than Biden, Obama, and Clinton or to each other. But with the Republicans, their policies at least may change look at DePudding's fingers. whereas Dems may change on foreign policy, but domestically it's very sticky, and mushy boring policies never offer anything dynamic.

And they both suck like the US Costco Food and they keep taking away good things like onions or tax credits that are means-tested.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

We got any good political cartoons of two old men feebly trying to debate each other or something?

 

[tippy2k2]

People were willing to hold their nose and vote Biden the first time. I'm not sure they're going to be willing to do it again. Democrats once again playing the low bar card of "Well he's better than the other guy!!!" and hoping that's enough.

Maybe it'll be enough again but considering how incredibly unpopular Biden running again has been, the "Well if you don't vote/vote third party, THAT'S a vote for Trump!!!!" tactic seems hella risky for the Democrats. But hey, can't wait for the same cycle where I'm so powerful that not voting for Biden will literally kill democracy but I'm so weak and pathetic that the Democrats have no need or desire to campaign to me.

 

[Schadrach]

My only hope is that the Republicans can find an excuse to ditch Trump relating to his criminal cases, and Joe Biden reconsiders.

Being the incumbent is a huge advantage. Given how narrowly they won last time, they'd be mad not to take advantage of it and have Biden run again for that reason alone.

Would his potential replacement be any better for the US, though?

It would likely be DeSantis, so no.

If I could amend the Constitution to say anything, it would be age and term limits for all federal office.

I'd want to add outright banning the filibuster and setting a time limit on confirming appointments - you get X long from date of appointment, allowed to pass one extension for as long by 2/3 majority of Senate and if you do not hold a vote on confirming the appointment in that time, it is confirmed by your lack of protest. You have to vote against the appointment to actually block it, not just sit on your hands. I call it the "DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS Amendment."

If I got a second one it would likely have to do with replacing our districting maps with something based on raw math and utterly without consideration for party membership - something like least splitline or least splitline snapped to nearest major geographic boundary where applicable (rivers, mountains, that kind of thing).

Democrats once again playing the low bar card of "Well he's better than the other guy!!!" and hoping that's enough.

This might work again if Trump is the nominee or if the nominee can manage to inspire a similar degree of terror to turn out the vote. The election is won or lost by Dem turnout more than anything - there are more Dem voters, enough more that if they'd just go out and fucking vote consistently the GOP would have very few seats at any level. Even after gerrymandering, because the gerrymandering assumes a predicted level of turnout for each party - you only have so many people to draw lines around and the more seats you take by drawing clever lines the narrower the margin you have to engineer around and the easier it is to overcome by raw turnout.

 

[Silvanus]

I'd want to add outright banning the filibuster and setting a time limit on confirming appointments - you get X long from date of appointment, allowed to pass one extension for as long by 2/3 majority of Senate and if you do not hold a vote on confirming the appointment in that time, it is confirmed by your lack of protest. You have to vote against the appointment to actually block it, not just sit on your hands. I call it the "DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS Amendment."

Both promising suggestions.

I'd go for term limits for SCOTUS judges, and a ban on overt political affiliation for SCOTUS judges.

 

[Thaluikhain]

and a ban on overt political affiliation for SCOTUS judges.

You'd have fun defining "overt" there. Not that it's a bad idea, or couldn't be done, though.

 

[Ag3ma]

Both promising suggestions.

I'd go for term limits for SCOTUS judges, and a ban on overt political affiliation for SCOTUS judges.

I certainly want exceptionally strict standards about people giving SCOTUS judges "gifts" worth a few tens-hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And I think any SCOTUS judge unwise and ethically challenged enough to accept them (and not declare them) should be kicked the fuck out, pronto.