Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Biden Time
It’s difficult to grasp how the Democratic Party has maneuvered itself into the position of having two dozen contenders for the nomination with the three most popular candidates being Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.
Did Obama suck out all the oxygen for tokenism? Was Hillary so anointed, or her network so powerful, no one dared to prepare for a 2020 run? (Certainly, 2016 was out of the question – ask Bernie).
If this were a football team, they’d be like the NY Giants with an aging quarterback who won a couple of Super Bowls but was never that great to begin with, but it’s even worse.
With years of help from the referees, the Donkey-team got so bad that even the referees couldn’t help them win. New talent was never groomed, or never could be groomed because they were never challenged.
Has their party become so insulated over the last couple decades by the fawning media that they haven’t had to compete, and their ideas consist of little more than platitudes, tokenism, and demonization of any and every Republican threat?
Have they run out of causes? Are they actually “tired of winning”?
All of the above?
The speech their frontrunner, Joe Biden, gave yesterday encapsulates most of these concepts. It’s worth watching for the abject catastrophe it is. This is the Biden campaign’s version of the Un-Trump.
It seems like some campaign advisor told him that he’s got blue-collar appeal and he’s good with the “folks,” so he decides to use that word early and often. He’s remarkably casual and complacent. The term “low energy” doesn’t apply here (besides, it’s taken); “sleepy” is closer. The guy needs a double-dose of Adderall. He’s quiet, faux-humble, and overly deferential. He seems to be play-acting, typecasting himself as the opposite of Trump in demeanor (as he perceives), but this ego-suppression will not be inspiring for audiences.
They’ve run out of ‘believable’ platitudes. Healthcare for All is so, last year. Now it’s “we’re going to cure cancer.” I don’t know who “we” is; maybe Biden will get Madame Curie onboard as Vice President.
Likewise, they’ve run out of alarms and dire warnings. They’re gonna put y’all back in chains, is so 2012. They don’t have to say anything with conviction. It’s all so obvious by now.
The media has convinced half the country that Trump is such an “existential threat” that all Biden needs to say is, “Look, folks…” and the drones will nod along with whatever tumbles out of his mouth.
It sure doesn’t look good for Democrats.
Published in General
All those named are/were senators. That tells me why there’s no there there.
Biden won’t be the nominee (wasn’t Jeb! leading at this point in 2015?), but the curing cancer thing would be nice. Politicians are really good at that sort of stuff, right?
If Biden were the nominee, can he deliver the black vote ? Count me sceptical on that one.
The party has to deliver the black vote to win. With so many pathetics, I have to believe the heavy donor,s are looking for another dark horse. Mouchel was playing dodge ball the other day. Hmmm…….
Franco,
This is a very good question that you are asking. I think it reflects two inherent flaws in the Democratic Party that have now come back to haunt and thus destroy their efforts. The first inherent flaw is identity politics. As Jordan Peterson has pointed out once identity politics is turned loose it fractures society until everyone is some oppressed minority group or claims to be. This might be temporarily exploited by a fluke like Obama but long term it is a disaster. The second inherent flaw is a corrupt centralized party. This is a very old aspect of the Democrats that used to be referred to as machine politics whose demise was greatly exaggerated. Whether it is sandbagging for their favorite, Hillary, or just out and out fraud like vote harvesting, the real face of the Democratic Party is very ugly the closer you get.
Inherent flaws are like Greek tragic flaws. Little can be done in the face of such fate and I have no great desire to help them anyway.
Regards,
Jim
I had a delicious thought.
Say Mouchel gets the nod. Then Trump wins.
Trump will have dispatched two ex President’s wife’s.
What a MISOGYNIST ! :)
Being a Senator is a big negative because it’s relatively easy to get elected, they have no real responsibility and is the perfect place to hide and pretend. They aren’t exactly ‘our best people’. And it seems the longer someone is in the Senate, the worse his/her Presidential prospects become. JFK was a Senator ( for a short time) but he had unbelievable charisma and a powerful family. After that no Senator came close to winning, except Obama ( who hadn’t even completed one term) . But he was running against another Senator!
Biden is beating Trump by 13 points, 53-40%. Warren, Sanders, Harris, Buttigieg and Booker are all beating Trump by 5 to 9 points in yesterday’s polls.
Trump squeaked by in the Electoral College when he lost by 2.1%. If he loses by three or more percent, the Electoral College can’t save him.
Haley/Mattis 2020!
Agreed. Biden would do better than Warren in that department, but worse than Bernie.
They see through Biden.
Little talked about fact: Black voters aren’t especially enthusiastic about having a female President. Especially black men.
They’ve been having to compete with women as “minorities”, which in many cases is quite unfair. Some white girl who grew up in the suburbs counts the same as the black guy who grew up in the hood. They see through all the fraud.
But Michelle isn’t ambitious enough, and to her credit I don’t think she has either a need or a taste for it. Much nicer to be a rich celebrity, immune ( relatively) from attacks. Barack wouldn’t like it either. At. All. Right? They’ve made it.
Also she has no experience and would make too many mistakes. Not gonna happen.
Couldn’t get past the introduction. Brave for running for the Senate at age 29? What did he have to lose? For a lawyer, that’s a great idea. Blech! Blech! Blech!
Beyond that, successful Presidential candidates often have certain features:
I could go on (and on and on), but the point is that Sleepy Joe isn’t fitting the demographic.
I like the way you think.
Off topic.
Mattis?!?!? No thanks to any modern military leader. They are sycophants.
With all due respect, I do not see how this is off topic. Indeed, I am mentioning poll results that came out yesterday about Biden, the subject of your post.
Here’s the deal. As fewer districts/states are competitive, demagoguery becomes a better campaign technique. In swing districts/states, getting stuff is what gets a person elected. As Americans self-sort by ideology, we should expect more hysterics and less substance. Sorry.
I do appreciate the comment above via Jordan Peterson about Identity Politics being self-destructing. Does it really destroy society as it goes supernova? Or, does it pass like a bad fever? I don’t think the world has ever had as pluralistic a society as the USA, so we don’t have history as a guide.
Deliver? Not at Obama’s level, but he should be fine. The rest of the pathetics (Sanders, Warren, Booty) look like about the worst black turnout roster you could dream up. Bootyjug didn’t know how to eat fried chicken. And I don’t think plopping Stacey Abrams in the VP slot as consolation is going to cut it.
Actually, with Abrams on the ticket you can just claim victory regardless of what the voters do . . .
Biden came out with his own “Green New Deal” In addition the general tax and cost increases that are a part of the Plan, he pays for it by removing the Republican/Trump tax cuts.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/12/joe-biden-radical-green-new-deal-plan-moderate-column/1365919001/
Biden is leading in the polls based on name recognition and being the “moderate”. As he tacts to the left his numbers will go down.
That was paragraph one. It’s the predictable, inaccurate, and liberal-like disrespect for the Electoral College that’s irrelevant to this discussion.
Do you remember the SAT test where you were asked to read a short essay and then answer a multiple-choice question on what the essay was about?
The above essay was about:
A. Trump’s latest poll numbers relative to various Democrats.
B. The overall state of the Democratic Party
C. The Electoral College and the popular vote.
D. Who the Republicans should run in 2020
With all due respect….
A, C and D are wrong answers.
…”we’re gonna cure cancer”…
What an ass is this man.
LOL.
Biden was young once but he was always full of lies. The list in the beginning had three outright lies and 4 half-truths.
Yep.
But lots of their there.
Biden is a distinctly unintelligent man who is used by the democrat party again and again to go out and say whatever they wanted him to say. He’s never been intelligent enough to grasp that he’s been used, but they will trot him out over and over to give his concerned, indignant reaction and say something with enough earnestness that his handlers would be able to point and say, “see, Joe Biden” is saying what we want said, and the pop culture and media would showcase him blathering through his lines. I don’t think he really knows that his positions on everything change with the wind. He really just isn’t very bright at all.
What’s really good is that he’s very sensitive to being accused of not being very bright. Trump will thrash him every way to Sunday if he needles him about his grades in college, or his class standing at law school.
He is an empty man, which made him the perfect foil for the empty chair that was Obama. He chose him precisely because he did whatever he was told without question, and wasn’t bright enough to go against him.
Best line ever about Biden came from Ann Coulter in end of 2007 I believe. The comment was in reference to him being Obamas VP.
“Assassination Insurance”.
I seem to remember it was said about Dan Quayle.
I was an ignorant kid in high school in 1989 and somehow got a copy of Mother Jones. They had an advertisement for a George Bush Prayer Club and I bought a button. I’ve thought about mailing it to Dan Quayle with an apology letter. If I find it again I should.
This is akin to John Edwards touting the idea back in 2004 that John Kerry was going to make Christopher Reeve walk again because Kerry was going to unleash embryonic stem cell research on the nation. While Edwards later proved to know a thing or two about unleashing embryos on the nation, Kerry at least had the restraint not to claim Nobel Prize in Medicine-levels of wonderfulness for himself, as Uncle Joe did with this howler.
Well if Obama could halt the rising seas and and heal the planet , why can’t Slo Joe heal the sick?
I am to young to rember that.
However I always thought Gore was impeachment insurance.
As a 12 year old I remeber watching Al Gore talk about Global warming on Nickelodeon. I had never heard anything good or bad about global warming. I also had no idea who he was other than he was the VP who was a nonentity to me. It only took about 15 mins listening to him to relize he was an moron/crazy person.
As a teenager during the impeachment sagga. I Though my Uncles and my Dad a bit were crazy when they ranted wanted Clinton impeached and out of office because we would get Gore. Why would you want an even bigger fool in office?