Posted on 09/13/2023 10:41:17 PM PDT by Libloather
The New York Times and Washington Post both published opinion pieces Wednesday branding 80-year-old President Joe Biden as too old to run for re-election in 2024.
It comes as Biden faces an impeachment inquiry and recent polling numbers show most consider the president at too advanced an age to serve again.
Ross Douthat, a conservative op-ed writer for the liberal Times, penned a piece titled '2024's Field of Nightmares,' a reference to the 1989 film Field of Dreams.
He said while his concerns with Biden come down to run-of-the-mill political disagreements during his first term, Democrats are playing with fire in allowing the oldest president in American history to run again.
The two risks of Biden running again, according to Douthat: 'the high stakes of the next election, in which a health crisis or just more slippage might be the thing that puts Trump back in the White House, and the different but also substantial stakes of another four-year term.'
While Douthat argued that similar to Ronald Reagan's second term - which was long-rumored to be served with the president in decline - Biden can 'limp to another victory,' he sees the current political era as telling.
He compared it to liberals praying Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg could live long enough to see a Democrat replace her, only to see her die weeks before the election, with Trump able to nominate another justice to the Supreme Court.
'The Trump era has been one of those periods when providence or fate revenges itself more swiftly than usual on hubris - when the longstanding freedom that American parties and leaders have enjoyed, by virtue of our power and pre-eminence, to skate around our weak spots and mistakes has been substantially curtailed,' he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Marvin mentions the Parties zero times in his discussion of the Cathedral.
Which is appropriate given their limited importance and influence.
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/a-brief-explanation-of-the-cathedral
Bkmk
And So it Begins … Washington Post’s David Ignatius Calls on Joe Biden to Not Run in 2024
By Colby Hall, Sep 13th, 2023
White House staffers may very well be saying out loud, “Et tu, David Ignatius?” after the Washington Post columnist openly called for President Joe Biden not to run for reelection in 2024 in a Wednesday morning column.
There can be no question about the intent of his opinion, as it is clearly titled “President Biden should not run again in 2024,” but opens with a laundry list of Biden’s accomplishments and successes in his first term. Perhaps most damning is the nuanced and nearly loving tone Ignatius takes, almost as if he’s a loving son giving tough news to a cherished parent that they are no longer able to drive a car.
But that’s clearly an encouraging setup to soften the “painful” blow in which he makes clear that Biden, AND notably, Vice President Kamala Harris, should not run for reelection. The money part of his column:
But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.
Biden wrote his political testament in his inaugural address: “When our days are through, our children and our children’s children will say of us: They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.” Mr. President, maybe this is that moment when duty has been served.
Biden would carry two big liabilities into a 2024 campaign. He would be 82 when he began a second term. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, 77 percent of the public, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he’s too old to be effective for four more years. Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer.
Ignatius explains why he is also cool on Vice President Harris, citing recent polling that shows her “less popular than Biden,” adding, “Harris has many laudable qualities, but the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.”
In his piece, Ignatius suggests strategies for moving forward within the Democratic party in a solution-oriented piece that, given Ignatius’s enormous respect and standing within the established political media ecosystem, will be difficult for the White House and Democratic leaders to ignore.
Ignatius checks many boxes when it comes to left-of-center bona fides: Washington Post contributor? Check. Morning Joe contributor? Aye. Born near the green grasses of Harvard University? Yup.
As I have written before, Biden’s age is an issue, and there is a manner in which people can discuss it that is not ageist. Kudos to David Ignatius for threading a very narrow needle with nuance, respect and courage to say the thing out loud that many, if not most, on the left, are already thinking.
Read the entire column here.
Replace Heels Up Harris. How? She definitely won't go voluntarily. She knows it would be the end of her political career. There is no way to force her out and even if they could somehow, they'd risk alienating Black Women who are THE core of their voting base. They can't run her either. She is deeply unpopular outside the Democrat party. Black men in particular hate her.
Run Gavin Newsome. Firstly, his record is godawful. The whole country knows San Francisco (where he was formerly mayor) and LA are now literal chit holes. Crime has exploded. Americans are leaving - their population numbers only stay up due to illegal immigration. California has by far the largest number of welfare cases and is the most economically polarized of any state with very little middle class left. None of this will sell anywhere by the Left Coast and the Northeast.
Run Big Mike. Even assuming they could hide the embarrassing bulge for the whole campaign....he hates politics. He has no desire to schmooze with the lowly peasants and he has zero charisma. No matter how much the corporate media fluffs him and puts him on magazine covers claiming he's "beautiful" he's still ugly as sin and extremely arrogant and bitter - and comes across that way. Sure it might appeal to Black women but they were going to get those votes anyway. It doesn't appeal to anybody else.
Run Bend over Bernie? Aside from the fact that he's ancient, he has lost a great deal of his support after bending over for the Democrat Party Establishment twice - and being rewarded with a new house each time. Besides, the Democrat Party Establishment would never let him win.
Run RFK Jr. To the Democrat Party Establishment, that would be like electing a Republican.....I mean a real Republican and not a RINO. He would do things that are anathema to them like securing the border, staying out of foreign wars, investigating corruption that directly implicates them, not pushing Gaia Worship, dismantling much of the Deep State, etc. They cannot live with any of this.
Who does that leave? Gestapo Gretchen? She's not exactly popular and she doesn't have a good record. Its very late in the day to be entering the race for the Democrat nomination. They really don't have any options other than to hope for another Weekend at Biden's candidacy.
Good essay—kind of a milder version of Sam Francis and James Burnham.
Their view (part of the argument of your linked article) is that power is what matters.
You either have it or you don’t.
If you have it your ideas matter—if you do not have power then your ideas mean nothing.
What none of them address is a homo sapiens problem—which is that high performing sociopaths rise to the top of all large organizations.
That is how it has been since the days of the Pharaohs—with rare exceptions.
One of those exceptions was the Founding Fathers—and they tried to protect us from the sociopaths among us that they knew would rise and seek to rule.
It worked for a while—but now we are degenerating into the natural state for homo sapiens—ruled by evil vicious liars who live and breathe conflict of interest and identity of interest and stomp on everybody else.
For the Dems, deciding that Joe shouldn’t run is the easy part. The hard part — ‘then what?’ — comes next.
If you read the NYT daily (as you should), the fact that Biden is being moved out has been obvious since December 2022.
In fact, I have come to believe that all the “Biden this! Biden that!” clickbait that Conservative Inc puts out every day is controlled opposition, meant to distract a potential right wing opposition from what the Left is actually up to.
That's tha easiest one - Newsom appoints her to replace Feinstein.
Newsom/Whitmer or Whitmer/Newsom is the ticket.
And your idea that they are unpopular is ridiculous.
Your denial of their unpopularity is ridiculous.
She was a Senator before. She would give up the vice presidency or a shot at the presidency to become a Senator again? That would be a demotion. I seriously doubt she would accept that.
Check back with me on Inauguration Day 2025.
Newsom won his recall election with 62% of the vote. Whitmer was re-elected last November with 55% of the vote.
They are two of the most attractive and popular Democratic politicians in existence. Whitmer, in particular, by taking Michigan (and probably Wisconsin, too) off the board for the indefinite future makes a Trump return to the White House very unlikely.
Glady
Newsom won his recall election with 62% of the vote.
Where? In CALIFORNIA.
Whitmer was re-elected last November with 55% of the vote.
The RINOs starved Tudor Dixon of any funding at all. She was massively outgunned.
They are two of the most attractive and popular Democratic politicians in existence. Whitmer, in particular, by taking Michigan (and probably Wisconsin, too) off the board for the indefinite future makes a Trump return to the White House very unlikely.
But she wouldn't. She's not well thought of nationally.
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