The Campaign Continues…
The Biden campaign is apparently enthralled in Alan Lictman’s magical “14 Keys”. Or so goes the quicker-YouTube snippet he dropped, some Biden figure dropped him a message ending in a “all hail the 13 keys” (sic). Though there are things to mock with it — the road map is not the terrain — there is one essential element in his tight construction that points back to Biden — even as it is all of the Democrats making. There I go over to two people and their presentations out of connections with elected Democrats’ behind the scenes yammerings. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez and Joe Walsh. Narrative wise and stylistically they have entirely different approaches here, yet the core is the same. The problem with these Democrats is that they hold to dropping Biden and dropping Harris — which is the one thing you can say on Lichtman — completely bonkers — there is no path out of Biden or Harris, if it is not Biden It is Harris, and any other path is convoluted and destructive. But the reason they can do so is in their own self interest and a maybe losing any interest in the 2024 presidential election — a look ahead at their 2026 Senate election with the standard party dynamics of a midterm election or ahead to the 2028 presidential election where they want to shuffle Harris away. I am mostly indifferent on who is helming the Democratic ticket — I always hoped there was a way Biden could bow out and declare his one term a success — but if this is the attitude amongst the Democratic office holders, stick with him. He is down in the polls? Of course he is –the Democrats have been running against him for the last three weeks. In a very passive-aggressive manner, which to be sure gets him to worst results than if it were aggressive – aggressive. All the while I have seen the worst of him and the best of him — that debate (which, needs to be pointed out, Trump was just as awful performative-wise) and the NATO summit press conference (on the headline of “One Adequate Press Conference Does Not Change Things”, I am pondering the question ” Yeah, but what about an exceptionally good one? “) Now, if everyone there were on that same page of — “if it is not Biden, it is Harris” — then the grand “burn it down and tear him out” game would at least make sense.
I watched that Hulk Hogan rnc speech. I had listened a couple times in the last few years of old broadcasts of a radio host who was commenting on the “idiocracy” element when candidates Obama, Hillary, and McCain dropped in to run a “vote outreach” on wwe. And now here we are even further into the muck. I am, by way of jumping around on commentary, somewhat assured that I need to watch Tucker Carlson’s speech, understanding that it is pure fascism. The term has kind of lost most meaning, and the best I can suggest in an academic frame is that Mussolini lays down what is closest to pure definition and everything else (including Hitler) is a derivation from it, but broad strokes are acceptable here. I did not watch Trump’s speech — and do not know how to approach it — but understand enough to see that the headlines along the lines of “Trump calls for Unity Before Pivoting to Familiar Attacks” are b.s. — or, if I am now your annoying Biden-stan, “malarky”. The actual headlines ought be “Trump Heaps Praise for Hannibal Lector” (a key part in his stump speech) and, if we go to dip into policy and substance — “Trump Calls for Re-Implementation of ‘Operation Wetback’ Program”.
And to be sure, you are walking on eggshells on Biden. There is a bit of a Trump 2016 that will occur — which saw Paul Ryan stumping for Republicans, mostly hoping to keep the down ballot up — by encouraging all the Republicans to “Vote for Pence”. Which is fine here, because old white people in the Rust Belt not all that enthralled with Hulk Hogan and wanting to keep NATO will be to Biden above Harris. You would like to think there are a few Pence / Trump voters, but we will see won’t we?
There is a number of haunting dilemmas that abound.