Depressing but true – there isn’t an apparent way out of Biden being president
And we are in absolutely enormous trouble. By “we” I don’t just mean the right. I mean America. I also mean the West. Biden is just a symptom rather than a cause, but he is amplifying the problems tremendously, perhaps even exponentially.
How can he be removed, and would that even help? I agree with this analysis of both impeachment and the 25th Amendment as methods to remove Biden. I was planning to write something similar, so now I don’t have to and I’ll just quote from it:
The Constitution has no proviso for the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris catastrophe, except for a series of impeachments, 25th Amendment removal, and waiting it out until 2024.
A disabled Biden won’t be removed unless his cabinet says so… and Biden’s cabinet members are happy to have a crash dummy wherein they can romp without any guide rails. Impeachment is breath-wasting banter as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would never assemble let alone schedule a vote on articles to impeach Joe Biden.
But assuming both Biden and Harris are impeached, who would replace them? Pelosi and then Dem Senator and Senate President Pro-Tem Patrick Leahy are next in line.
Can the Republicans arrange an omnibus impeachment to eliminate all of the toxic or incompetent successors? Rhetorical speculations of that sort are unserious clickbait.
Would the House and Senate Republicans, as a unified bloc, stymie and neutralize any Democrat agendas? Uh, no.
As for the last paragraph – the Republicans in Congress may not be unified in general, but they are relatively unified in their disapproval of what Biden has done and some of the most extreme things the Democrats are planning. I’m referring to the fact that the Republicans in Congress have already “stymied” several of the Democrats’ most dearly-embraced plans: removing the filibuster, packing the Court, DC statehood. To be more accurate, what mattered is the fact that the GOP really did present a unified front on those issues and were joined by two Democrats on the need to continue the filibuster. The two Democrats were Manchin and Sinema, and without their votes the Democrats were powerless to do away with the filibuster unless a Republican (or two, if both those Democrats had held firm) broke ranks and voted with the Democrats.
No Republican did break ranks or it would have been all over. If the filibuster had been done away with, even a totally united GOP would lack the power to block much of anything unless a Senate Democrat or two joined them on whatever the issue might be.
That’s the reality of having a Democrat president, Democrat House, and Democrat Senate bent on increasing their power so that it will be permanent. It’s also the reality of having an abominable president and vice-president.
Democrats and especially leftists were only in favor of protecting minority rights while there was a chance that they would be the minority. If they can fix it so that they remain a permanent majority, almost all of them would be perfectly happy if the minority had few or no rights.
We have never been in a more dangerous situation in my lifetime – and probably even longer than that. Since the Civil War, perhaps? Or the early years of World War II, when the Allies were doing poorly?
This is what happens when standards become things you only enforce on people you don’t like. I’m sure there are plenty out there to disagree with a veteran Clinton-hater like me but you can draw a straight line back from our current precarious situation to our political elite being confronted with Bill Clinton’s behavior, which up to that point had been almost universally accepted as disqualifying and career-ending, and responding with “Meh. Let’s just change the rules.”
It’s not just Biden and Harris. People like that never surround themselves with Machiavellis or von Clausewitzs, let alone Washingtons or Jeffersons. Spend decades ignoring failures, holding no one accountable, and upholding standards only when convenient…and this is where it’s always going to end up.
Mike
I agree that the severe decline of the US government began with the Clintons. They came to town as Arkansas grifters. Maybe we could blame Ross Perot for that but GHW Bush was equally to blame. Reagan’s worst mistake. Like Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy, the failure of our ruling class was gradual, then sudden.
I remember when we despaired of ever getting rid of LBJ. Plus ça change….
I’ll join the chorus and agree that it’s a lack of standards leading to a lack of accountability that goes back to Clinton.
Sadly I agree with your assessment that at this point it’s pretty unlikely that the current regime will be removable. Things will have to get a lot worse first. Things are bad now. But I can see how things could get a whole lot worse.
Domestically, our economy could go into free fall. We could have the beginnings of hyperinflation with $12 a gallon gasoline and $15 for a loaf of wonderbread. All this could lead to riots that would make the summer of 2020 seem quaint.
Foreign policy-wise, there’s a few nightmare scenarios that could very well happen within the next year or so. A big one would be China invading Taiwan, and I’m not convinced that the current administration would be willing to do anything about that. Or we could have another 9-11 terrorist attack as a direct result of the Afghanistan debacle.
If any of the above events were to transpire, I think the public outcry would be so severe that it would result in impeachment and removal of the current regime. In other words, regular Americans will have to feel a lot more pain first.
I seem to recall seeing some descriptive statistics which surprised me as they suggested that Perot was drawing about equally off the candidates. I wouldn’t blame him.
What you saw with Clinton in 1992 (in addition to the contrast in how the electorate reacted to Gennifer Flowers in contrast to how they reacted to Donna Rice) was that the broad public rejected a combat veteran who had been a satisfactory president in favor of an oleaginous man who was an honest-to-God draft dodger. (Pat Robertson, Clinton, Bernie Sanders are the only notable contestants for the presidency who received special dispensations not written into the statute). The Clintons are corrupting, but the cultural shift antedates them. (I have never understood their appeal).
“the broad public rejected a combat veteran who had been a satisfactory president in favor of an oleaginous man who was an honest-to-God draft dodger.”
I certainly wouldn’t exempt the general public from blame but they should never have been presented with that choice. As they say, the fish rots from the head down.
Mike
I agree that the article describes an impossible situation. I thought of a different option that has an effectively zero chance of happening, but it’s interesting IMO.
Instead of attacking Biden and working on down towards Pelosi, what if several angry Democrats in the House attacked Pelosi first.
Here is the House “For Country Caucus.” All veterans.
Democrats
Salud Carbajal (CA-24) – Jason Crow (CO-06)
Jared Golden (ME-02) – Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06)
Kai Kahele (HI-02) – Conor Lamb (PA-17)
Elaine Luria (VA-02) – Seth Moulton (MA-6)
Jimmy Panetta (CA-20) – Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11)
Republicans
Don Bacon (NE-2) – Jim Baird (IN-04)
Jack Bergman (MI-01) – Scott Franklin (FL-15)
Mike Gallagher (WI-08) – Mike Garcia (CA-25)
Tony Gonzales (TX-23) – Adam Kinzinger (IL-16)
Brian Mast (FL-18) – Peter Meijer (MI-03)
Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02) – August Pfluger (TX-11)
Greg Steube (FL-17) – Van Taylor (TX-03)
Michael Waltz (FL-06)
The Dems have a 8 vote margin in the House, and there are 10 Dems on the above caucus. Maybe most of those 10 really hate what has happened.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the members of the House can vote for a new Speaker of the House anytime they want. They can vote for anyone, not just House members. And to win a vote, a 50% +1 vote is required.
What if they replaced Pelosi with a Joe Lieberman and then demanded that Biden resigns? Let Pres. Kamala have all the travel budget and perks she wants as long as the adults in the Democrat party get to pick the new cabinet and run the major departments. Leon Panetta for Sec. of Defense. Let the Dems save face and restore sanity if they can. Those two names are just my best guess.
There are dozens of possible issues, problems, and variations in the middle of the process. Actually getting Biden to resign or thrown out via the 25th is the thorniest problem. But I think Pelosi is a severe impediment and getting rid of her Speakership doesn’t seem to be super difficult.
OK, now you can laugh.
Nine angry Dems (+ all Republicans) in the House is maybe only a dream.
Neo, I think the danger is greater than our Civil War, and not only about another U.S. civil war. With the U.S. presenting a vacuum of power, competence and morality, the danger is first to the West but ultimately global. If the West collapses, what that might mean is beyond what I can imagine, given the distribution of nuclear capability around the world.
We most certainly have our flaws and unresolved problems, but most of the rest of the world has looked to us as a force for stability and freedom. I’m afraid it’s up to us. We used to be “the last, best hope”. Are we still? Can we ever be again?
Maybe I’m overstating things. I hope so.
I think the Democrats knew exactly what they were doing which was why they went bold with cheating the election. And as depressing as the situation seems, there was a critical error. Trump lost the election but drove turnout down ballot and had far longer coattails than Biden. The result was still a loss of the Senate, but only because of the Presidential outcome. Seats were gained in the House. And the Senate was limited on what they could do, not only because of the 50/50 split, but also because it would only take one untimely death of a Democrat in the Senate to flip it. That last part can still happen before 2024 (or happen the other way).
I think the big problem now is us. I read to much commentary such as “they’ll get away with it like they always do”. We need to stop yielding to this strategy that only leads to defeat. Marching in the streets could help, but I think a simpler solution is to demand a Republican party platform plank that is about holding people accountable for Afghanistan. Billions of equipment was left by the military, and that wasn’t authorized by Congress. Hundreds of Americans were abandoned; why weren’t they evacuated first or at least before Bagram? Why was NATO and our allies not informed? Don’t we owe it to our allies to determine what went wrong with those lines of communications and to rectify them, and if we don’t, how do we ever expect them to trust the United States?
It may seem unlikely Republicans would make this a national issue, because they seem cowardly in the past. However, if we would expect them to impeach if they could, then why wouldn’t they be willing to promise that they would if they ever get the chance? Whether Biden is around by 2023 is irrelevant to the fact that his Administration and successors will be, and they ought to be punished for failing those abandoned Americans and our allies, if not also the people of Afghanistan.
Neo wrote:
“If they can fix it so that they remain a permanent majority, almost all of them would be perfectly happy if the minority had few or no rights.”
I can’t find the reference now but I read that during the long majority reign of the Democrats in the House from 1932 to 1994 at times committee chair’s would have the sergeant of arms simply lock Republicans out of meeting and votes telling them to go play golf as their votes and voices were irrelevant.
“I think a simpler solution is to demand a Republican party platform plank that is about holding people accountable for Afghanistan.”
You’d have to be careful with that. Make no mistake, the pushback in the media and among a lot of political types on Afghanistan is very, very, VERY much connected to the “forever war” Deep State being upset with Biden.
Mike
Criminal law (fraud, election law, etc) is fully adequate to remove a fraudulent regime. Courts have sufficient power, but in the main have so far lacked the integrity to take election fraud cases and decide them on the merits. The seven SCOTUS justices who declined to take Texas v Pennsylvania set an extremely bad example.
It’s worth noting Alito’s dissenting comment: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. He was correct, of course, but the court nevertheless has the power to shirk its duty and to be dishonest if it chooses. The same is true throughout our justice system. Power wielded without integrity inevitably leads to calamities such as the one we are in now.
Usually, I’m all for letting it burn down in the hope of enjoying the sight of the damned arsonists and enablers thrashing wildly in the inferno they have lit.
But that does not mean that I cannot appreciate outlandish but legitimate parliamentary maneuvers of the kind mooted by TommyJay, no matter how slender the prospects for realization may seem.
History changing events, for good and bad, have turned on any number of just such strategies.
Not that such a turn would do anything to improve the moral fiber or the appreciation of constitutional governance among the smugly malwvolent friends and relatives of many of you.
But such actions, if workable, might buy time for individual preparation, or even shift the political trajectory a bit.
Might actually get some of that parallel institution business going a bit, before more towers start collapsing, carrier groups are hit with hypersonic missles of unproven origin, water supplies poisoned, and freeway traffic shot up in tunnels and on bridges during rush hour. All things the organisms of the left have invited upon us with their neurotic and irresponsible life choices..
One cause for optimism is the state and local elections. If there is local resistance and some big dems lose their next elections,maybe our politicians will start listening to the people and ignore the MSM.
I am sure Sundowner is doing exactly what the Leftists want as a
Puppet would, they don’t want him gone and a impeachment would only divide the country and save him.
Nevertheless I wanted him gone day 1 and still do. A total obvious heath failure the best possibility to remove him. If he keeps making tragic decisions and a overwhelming public turns on him causing a negative Democrat polling maybe they will toss him.
If he does hang on 1 year and stays after mid terms Democrats are taking chance they won’t lose control.
For more in-depth background on corruption at multiple levels of our justice system, also see this interview with former prosecutor and law professor David Clements:
https://rumble.com/vlw5b9-dr.-david-clements-interview-august-30-2021.html
The views about rot are historically insufficient. The Democrats have been the evil (and I exaggerate not) Party for 150 years.
Was there ever a Republican in the KKK? But Sen. Byrd D-VA remained a member while sitting as a US Senator.
Think more long-term.
Woodrow Wilson RE-segregated the Army as president. He and Progressives favored eugenics and racism.
FDR imposed socialism on America, and gave Eastern Europe to Stalin in 1945. Social Security was enacted in 1935, with benefit eligibility beginning at age 65; but the life expectancy of a white male born that year was 64, so it was a vote-buying con.
LBJ is on record as having said the passage of the Civil Rights act would guarantee blacks would vote Democratic for the next 100 years or more, though in saying so he used the N-word which only blacks are today allowed to use..
Apparently few remember HillaryCare, the 1992 national universal healthcare scheme with no opt-out, developed in secret! Rahm’s brother, the wretched Ezekiel, told me then that less than universal coverage was “unethical”, as if that man had any ethics.
The national decay was long established before Clinton and Monica.
After the globalist RINO Bushs 1 and 2, we get Obama. I need not recap his tenure.
America is sinking, like the Titanic.
JanMN:
I agree with you.
neo opines; “there isn’t an apparent way out of Biden being president”
Oh but there is one, the tried and true method known as assassination. Not legal of course and would result in either Harris or Pelosi occupying that fouled oval office. Yet there have to be people considering it, perhaps a relative of one of the thousands of Americans betrayed and stranded in Afghanistan? Watching your son or daughter being beheaded on your high definition TV might cause one to desire ‘recompense’. None of us want to see that occur but where shall we turn for redress of grievance? Not from the Biden regime that’s for sure.
“Democrats and especially leftists were only in favor of protecting minority rights while there was a chance that they would be the minority. If they can fix it so that they remain a permanent majority, almost all of them would be perfectly happy if the minority had few or no rights.”
An excellent formula for rebellion, as the British learned in 1776.
Sorry, a bit off topic. We’ve completed our move from deep blue CT to northern Fl, Jax area. Besides missing the northeast weather, and only here a week the political change is paltable. Its going to take some time to get use to the fact I now live among a population who, in general, actually agree with me.
We have a rental house in a suburban neighborhood while we build our retirement dream home. Already met 2 neighbors and couldn’t be happier. Enjoy the upcoming New England winter y’all. 🙂
MBunge,
It was not our political elite’s reaction of “Meh” to Bill Clinton’s behavior but the liberal public’s reaction of “Meh” to Bill Clinton’s befouling of the Oval Office that was the determining factor. Had enough democrat voters reacted with outrage, the political elite would have shown him the door. That so many did not was proof positive of the loss of their moral compass.
Mike K,
Reagan would not have been elected without the GOP establishment’s backing. HW Bush was their price for backing Reagan. They saw Reagan as a regretable but correctable speed bump when Bush succeeded Reagan. Same tactic with Trump and Pence.
Nonapod,
The great danger with regular Americans feeling a lot more pain first is that they may celebrate the end of democracy with applause. Tyrants first offer safety and an end to chaos.
Art Deco,
I reluctantly voted for Perot in 92. Still a liberal, I could sense Clinton’s shifty nature. A fraudulent ABC segment, portraying Bush as so out of touch that he was unfamiliar with Grocery check out scanners convinced me that he couldn’t handle the recession the country was experiencing. Many years later, I learned that Clinton essentially kept unchanged the economic measures that the Bush administration had emplaced.
“what if several angry Democrats in the House attacked Pelosi first.” TommyJay
Not laughing but I suspect that the DNC would end all support for those representatives and primary them in their next election. They would never be forgiven for actions that led to the impeachment of a democrat President. Especially now, so close to ‘victory’.
JanMN,
That is the greatest danger humanity now faces.
“I think a simpler solution is to demand a Republican party platform plank that is about holding people accountable for Afghanistan.” Leland
The GOPe will be happy to put into it’s platform whatever will satisfy it’s base. Just as it always has and then after the election, ignore what it wishes.
geoffb,
The difference between then and now is that it’s the voters whose wishes have been rendered irrelevant.
MBunge,
I suspect that the Deep State is not that upset with Biden. They know they can always arrange another “police action” with which to involve America. Even if it takes a false flag operation to do it. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
Banned Lizard,
What basis is there for imagining that our corrupted judicial system will regain any deeper integrity? Such would not be the case if the public had not elected the people who have facilitated that corruption.
“Well, Doctor, what have we got – a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” replied Franklin, “if you can keep it.”
physicsguy:
Glad for you! Wondered a bit what you were up to.
I spent most of my growing-up years in Ormond Beach. I think of possibly living there again, what with the ocean, the climate and the more favorable politics.
Glad to hear it physicsguy, enjoy your new home!
Skip,
Are they taking a chance? As Tucker pointed out the other day, they seem unconcerned and inordinately confident that things will go their way. Are they whistling past the graveyard or do they know something we don’t? Dominion is still up and running…
Cicero,
I am no more optimistic than you and our national decay was indeed long established before Clinton and Monica.
But the examples you offer of that decay are, each and every one, arguable.
Our ship of state may indeed be sinking but as Adam Smith observed, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation” none more so than America.
I can’t “prove it” but there’s no doubt in my mind that the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that Trump won and by a substantial margin both in the popular vote and in the electoral college. Many more Americans desire liberty than do those who seek control. We’re not finished yet.
Geoffrey Britain,
I think you may be roughly correct, that those Dems would not get campaign funds, but just because they attacked an uber power player like Pelosi. I’m guessing that they’d have to threaten Biden with impeachment, but not actually follow through to completion. That was the Nixon model if memory serves. Part of my point is face saving, so that the Democrat party isn’t entirely humiliated.
Physicsguy;
Good on you! Enjoy having a great Governor.
Whatever the long arc of Western Civ may be, in the short term I’m optimistic…
If we can get through to the midterms without passing the 3.5T boondoogle or having some drastic foreign policy disaster which Biden’s weakness will encourage and surely mishandle.
I believe we have the votes and they won’t be able to rig enough state elections to make the difference. Once they lose Congress we can breathe easier and focus on taking the White House.
The other danger, however, is that the Dem-Woke-Oligarchy will see this coming, panic and take measures I don’t want to think about.
A dangerous time.
__________________________
Don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open your eyes
One day you’re waiting for the sky to fall
The next you’re dazzled by the beauty of it all
When you’re lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you’re made to feel as if your love’s a crime
But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight
–“Bruce Cockburn – Lovers In A Dangerous Time”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IX4gWkFqvU
I am nervous about the 3.5T bill. Some believe that Manchin is holding firm. Jonathan Chait is near apoplectic on that score:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-magazine-jonathan-chait-joe-manchin-joe-biden-failed-presidency
I’d say Chait is correct that unless Manchin and Sinema are bought on board to kill the filibuster then ram through Every Crazy Thing on the Dem wishlist, the Biden presidency will fail.
Good. But I’m not so sure. NRO might have it right:
–“Manchin Isn’t Going to Kill the Bill”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/manchin-isnt-going-to-kill-the-bill/
The failure of blue city governments to allow their police to protect residents and businesses from mob violence was an advance warning of other officially sanctioned crimes to come – specifically election fraud, mostly in those same blue cities.
A return to integrity would mean full forensic audits across the country, and judicial rulings to enforce the will of the people (unlikely but doable). Although corrective action to overturn the fraud would put us in uncharted water, having a known illegitimate government is equally unprecedented, perhaps even more treacherous.
Consent of the governed is presently suspended, replaced at the federal level by illegitimate dictatorship. Whether and when we might return to mutually respectful polity is an open question. I do not see it happening without a reckoning that addresses the damage and lawlessness of the past two years.
@physicsguy
“Sorry, a bit off topic. We’ve completed our move from deep blue CT to northern Fl, Jax area.” Congrats on getting out of CT. I left there for the last time in 2013. That state has the sorriest and most stupid US senators and representatives I have had the “pleasure” to represent me in the swamp. Probably even less intelligent than their counterparts in my new home, Vermont. Your move reminded me of my move many years ago from university in Madison, WI to Dallas, TX. All of the sudden, there was no talk about politics because we all agreed with each other and we were not insane. Of course, back then Texas was very reliably Red.
It really is amazing how badly Biden screwed this up. Leaving Afghanistan was a very popular decision, and even a semi-competent withdrawal would have been a great boost to Biden and Harris.
They could have made great political ads about how, after 20 years of wasted blood and treasure, one man had the courage to put the lives of Americans ahead of a naive nation building exercise. To boost the gravitas of Harris, they could have pretended she was in charge of evacuating and saving desperate women and non cis-gendered individuals.
Now they have sabotaged the only qualities that Biden supposedly had — empathy and foreign policy experience. Biden’s poll numbers are falling fast and he is still along way from the bottom if any other horror occurs that can be traced back to this fiasco. Instead of Harris gaining more credibility as future commander in chief, she reminds everybody why she couldn’t even make it to the primaries.
I would love to hear the conversations of Democrat strategists trying to figure out what to do now. Who will be the first name Democrat to oppose Biden in order to set up their own run for 2024? Of course, by then we might have much bigger problems to worry about then who the next Democrat nominee is.
Responding to some commentary, above: the Republicans must immediately stop going along with ANY legislation that creates even a single new federal government employee or promotes the further dependency by our citizens and other inhabitants on federal government transfer payments. In addition to the bad consequences of this dependency, each such new program increases the centralization of power in the federal government – to Democrats, this is a feature, not a flaw – undermining the ability of each state government to act in the best interests of their own citizens in their own environment and set of circumstances. Money that otherwise would be in the hands of the taxpayers or the state or local governments is laundered through DC and sent back out with conditions attached. Our republic has been slipping away little by little, unnoticed by many.
It is bad and scary right now, but I never for a minute thought there was a way to get rid of the current status quo. Their age maybe a factor?
I don’t think it is Apocalyptic, but I do think it is similar to AA. We are heading to the bottom, but we haven’t hit it yet. At some point enough people will be affected by our incompetent government and then things will change.
I still look at the history of the USA and before all of our lives, there were dire and difficult times. True leaders emerged. Great Presidents were elected or fell into the position as Theodore Roosevelt did. Teddy was the needed man at the time and a great President.
Reagan would not have been elected without the GOP establishment’s backing. HW Bush was their price for backing Reagan. They saw Reagan as a regretable but correctable speed bump when Bush succeeded Reagan. Same tactic with Trump and Pence.
You’ve forgotten that the Democratic Party in 1980 was more internally fissured than the Republican Party.
Reagan won 60% of the Republican primary and caucus vote in 1980; he led in the delegate count from the 4th week of February to the convention and had won an absolute majority of the delegates by the 1st week of June. His popular tally exceeded George Bush’s by 2.5 to 1.
John Anderson’s campaign was the last significant effort by the Rockefeller wing which put almost no new blood into Congress after 1982 and withered away over the succeeding 25 years. You’ll recall that Anderson ran as a non-partisan candidate in the general election. (IIRC, subsequent polls indicated 2/3 of his voters cast ballots for Walter Mondale in 1984; he was drawing off the Democrats in 1980).
Note, the Vice Presidency is not a consequential office per se and extending it to an opposing faction is a courtesy. Reagan distributed cabinet posts and the like to a slew of Nixon Administration retreads. At the same time, his personnel office put loyalists in crucial positions where policy innovations were taking place, e.g. the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Reagan also buffalo’d establishment Republicans and Dixicrats into supporting his extensive revision of the income tax code in 1981.
Physicsguy – welcome to FL.
But please don’t let your well honed (and welcome) critical faculties and assessment abilities atrophy here in retirement. FL is still (now) tinged purple. We had a close run thing electing DeSantis over the Obama-Redux candidate the Dems nominated. And many of our (and your future) friends, neighbors, and business people came from other states first, with whatever mix of conservative and liberal views they held then. They probably haven’t changed either. But of course most people are very welcoming, at least until they find out you are “one of them!”.
Things will certainly be better than CT politically, meteorologically, and economically, but we grew from 15M to 22M folks over the last 40 years, and we are no longer a near clone of TX or ID. The pro Trump vs. TDS mix is well represented here, even just within my small circle. But, again – welcome.
I certainly wouldn’t exempt the general public from blame but they should never have been presented with that choice. As they say, the fish rots from the head down.
Huh? They had that choice because Clinton was who the Democratic electorate preferred.
Bush’s only opponent in the Republican contest was Pat Buchanan, a newspaper columnist with no executive experience to speak of, running to get ideas into circulation and rally a constituency.
Bush’s principal opponents in 1988 were Robert Dole (a Capitol Hill apparatchik who knew how to work Congress but had no executive experience) and Pat Robertson (who knew something about building institutions from scratch but was just too peculiar as a human being to be a salable candidate, as well as tainted by his Korea-era service record). The other candidates running in 1988 were Jack Kemp, Pierre duPont, and Alexander Haig. Haig seems to have run in order to make fun of George Bush in debates. The fate of Jack Kemp’s candidacy reminded people that (1) he’d never run for anything outside a safe seat located in the Buffalo suburbs and exurbs and (2) he was appealing to editorial writers and the sort of person who attends CPAC, not to ordinary Republican voters. There was one person running in 1988 who had policy chops, a history in Congress, and executive experience in public office and private companies. He was Pierre duPont, but he never caught on, in part for all the usual reasons candidates simply do not and in part because people suspected his policy stances in 1988 were opportunistic, as he’d been a Rockefeller Republican during his six years in Congress.
JHCorcoran: “Teddy was the needed man at the time and a great President.”
You don’t have to agree with him, but your view might change upon reading Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom, by Andrew P. Napolitano.
Then again, some people consider Andrew a kook.
As H.L.Mencken puts it, “The people know what they want, and deserve to get it. Good and hard.”
I am so minor a figure in the destiny of this republic that I barely register as a vote.
Three months ago, I moved from Michigan to Arkansas, in protest of a state government utterly incapable of representative suffrage and self-restraint and self-control (despite of a personal friend/running partner who is a GOP state representative.)
I was born in the Detroit area 65+ years ago, but recently lived 25 years near Dallas. My return to Michigan 8 years ago was soured by the election of Whitmer on the marijuana vote and her subsequent idiotic COVID-19 decrees.
I may not be any better off in Arkansas. But I can at least wash my hands of supporting a tyrant and the apparent future of the “republic”.
Can the states save us? As a resident of AR (with the ghost of the Clintons hovering over me) , I honestly cannot say…
David Harris
R2L,
The Republican’s didn’t like TR in the early 1900’s and ran him as VP to keep him out of trouble. As President, not perfect, but took actions that we could use today. For instance he broke up monopolies, such as Standard Oil. He also preserved more land for conservation then any other President;
https://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/theodore-roosevelt-and-conservation.htm
I grew up and lived decades in the western states of Montana and Wyoming, before they were fashionable. When it came to conservative, TR understood the value of these lands left wild. Something I think a large portion our society has lost touch with, which is concerning. The USA has amazing places to see and fall in love with the great country it really is.
@ huxley > “NRO might have it right:”
Klein’s analysis of Manchin’s op-ed tracks pretty close to what I thought when I read it. Manchin is just opening negotiations with the Democrats. Whether his goal is genuinely bringing down the cost and maybe nixing the worst positions, or log-rolling for more pork to go to WV, I don’t know. Probably some of both.
There are two ways of getting rid of Biden that give me nightmares, because the consequences of either are very similar, and not just that Harris will be promoted.
Assassination is the worst, because it’s morally impermissible anyway, but it would also be bally-hooed as a conservative’s action, even if not committed by a conservative. Consider how many Democrats today believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist rather than a Republican.
A fatal heart attack, or even a manifestly disabling health event such as a stroke, would also be pinned on conservatives as being the people who hounded poor old Joe until he broke.
“Republicans pounced” will look like a love-letter from the media in comparison.
Consider how many Democrats today believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist rather than a Republican.
Much of the broadcast media at the time attributed Kennedy’s death to an abstraction which they fancied grew from the soil in Dallas, ‘hate’. It’s characteristic of intellectuals and their dependents and hangers on that they fancy acknowledging obvious and commonsensical causes and behavior patterns is a mark of a lack of sophistication. Our media today are awful, but even in 1963 a great many of them weren’t worth jack squat.
(It’s a reasonable inference that Oswald’s ‘Marxism’ was a function of his self-aggrandizing tendencies and delusions of grandeur, something Marina teased him about).
huxley:
I think Manchin is impossible to predict in this case. He has almost always caved in the past. But so far he has held firm on the filibuster, and so there’s that. On the $3.5 gazillion, who knows? But I think – not sure but I think – that in the past, when he caved, he didn’t write big opinion pieces in major newspapers to state his original position (the one he later betrayed). That makes me lean ever-so-slightly to the “he won’t cave” side of things.
“At some point enough people will be affected by our incompetent government and then things will change.”
Great lead article over at AT this morning about a changer for Neo. I don’t know if it’s original to the author, but she had a pithy saying: “It’s easy to be a liberal until the shit hits your OWN fan.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/09/liberalism_in_the_rearview_mirror_.html
A new Contract With America is needed. So far nothing like a specific set of objectives is evident. The GOP has only one specific goal, ending abortion. Everything else they do is mere reaction, there are no alternative models beyond disobeying whatever the Woke crowd is pushing.
Academia and the DC Swamp are fighting for their lives. Their clueless incompetence is becoming impossible to hide, but hiding it is the only thing they can do. Letting go of the gravy train is impossible.
At some point some popular objectives will emerge, and a new Reagan will emerge to promote them. That person does not exist today. Reagan had at one time been a Democrat. Current GOP leaders can never attract a Democrat following because of their pro-life fanaticism.
Harris is building her 25th Amendment file. Her hubby, the real lawyer, is leading the charge.
I regularly tweet at KH’s top PR flack who is from Omaha (and, sadly, Creighton) to get to work building the case.
“It’s easy to be a liberal until the shit hits your OWN fan.”
physicsguy:
Or as folksinger Phil Ochs said of liberals:
______________________
An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally
______________________
Of course, Ochs said that like it was a bad thing.
Good article.
Jack Posobiec on Twitter wrote yesterday that KH is ready to throw Biden under the bus.
Poso has good WH sources; more than Maggie Haberman.
Under the 25th Amendment you need the approval of the majority of the cabinet along with the approval of the Vice President to place the President on leave. Then you need the approval of 2/3 of each chamber if Jill Biden, EdD wishes to contest the move by having the dement sign a letter so doing.
Thirty years ago, the cast of characters included George Mitchell, Robert Dole, Thos. Foley, Richard Gephardt, and Robert Michel. Except for Gephardt, these men were public spirited to a degree. George Bush’s cabinet was studded with serious policy wonks and men who had taken a step down financially to take a cabinet post. Note that the culture of the Democratic Party was quite different at that time as it was still possible for partisan Democrats to acknowledge having made erroneous decisions.
Cornhead:
The stories I find on the web about Harris underbussing Biden peaked in mid-August, just as Afghanistan was falling.
I can believe Harris was checking Biden’s support then. She probably wasn’t the only one.
However, since then Team Biden and its media supporters have settled on the narrative that Afghanistan was a Biden triumph, I don’t see how they can flip that around to “senile Biden must go” without looking like a sketchy dictatorship.
The Biden people seem to have consolidated their power for now, and if anyone should be watching their back, it is Harris.
But Sen. Byrd D-VA remained a member while sitting as a US Senator.
Byrd was a KKK organizer in West Virginia ca. 1942. It was a very odd thing to be doing at the time. The 2d incarnation of the KKK was a fad organization which imploded demographically after 1924. West Virginia was a state that had perhaps 70,000 blacks at the time and may have had proportionately fewer immigrants than any other state in the country. The 2d incarnation of the KKK dissolved as a corporation in 1944. It was refounded in 1946 but then broke up into klanlets with the death of it’s leader, Sam Green, in 1949. IIRC, surviving correspondence indicates that Byrd remained a Klan admirer during some portion of his years in the West Virginia legislature. Not sure there’s any indication he attended Klan meetings after 1944.
Byrd’s eulogists maintained he joined the Klan ‘to get elected’, but that’s rubbish. Antagonism to blacks did not have much purchase in West Virginia politics. There were five notable pieces of federal ‘civil rights’ legislation passed by Congress over the period running from 1957 to 1968. The West Virginia delegation cast 33 votes in favor of final passage of these pieces of legislation. There were three occasions where a member wasn’t present (of whom one was a member dying of cancer) and one ‘no’ vote. One of the absences was Byrd’s and the solitary ‘no’ vote was Byrd’s.
Cornhead:
You don’t need “sources,” much less good ones, to surmise that Harris would dearly love to throw Biden under the bus. She probably felt that way from the day he asked her to be Veep.
Here is one scenario: DJT runs for Congress in 2022. Republicans take the House, (and the Senate with a slim majority. DJT is elected Speaker of the House. The House impeaches *resident Biden, and Que-mala.
DJT becomes Acting President until January 20, 2025 (at which time he joins Grover Cleveland in the very limited group of Presidents who have been elected to non-consecutive terms).