President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

You don’t have to turn on the gas light
Those days are over
You don’t have to sell your body to the right

 

I seriously wish it was that simple.

It’s true that Trump’s biggest contribution was the funding and the government promise to buy hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines that got authorized, and removing some of the red tape in the way of getting those authorizations.

Moderna might not have made it otherwise. Novavax sure as hell wouldn’t have either. Pfizer didn’t take U.S. money, but it did take government money from elsewhere.

People at all levels of our government (i.e., the Trump administration) worked tirelessly on this for months on end to get these things out. GEN Perna was a top-notch logistician.

The fact that Trump couldn’t stop tripping on his own dick was beside the point once the shit got done.

 

Far too much "business as usual" stuff went on at the FDA and CDC in the early days of the pandemic. If nothing else, the Trump administration was able to beat back some of that bureaucratic torpor. But for that I can't imagine that we'd have had vaccines as (relatively) quickly as we did.

For the dim(mer) bulbs around these parts, note that this is not a defense of the Trump's administration overall COVID effort. Rather, it's a recognition that, especially as re: vaccines, his administration had its successes.

 

I’ll leave reflexively villainizing everything to Trump. He seems to be a man who thinks everything can be solved easily as long as he is in charge of it, so a vaccination program that could instantly lift his election campaign tracks. No matter his motives, he did fine on the development of the vaccine.

Then the fuckery began.

 

Haven’t seen this word probably since Bubba’s first term.

 

I use that word when I'm posing as "the smart guy on the thread."

 

I think Fauci is a good microcosm for how fucked everything became under Trump.

— Trump himself appoints Fauci to the White House COVID Task Force.
— Trump then constantly complains that Fauci is a meanypants stupidhead.
— The left then unites and takes a blood oath to support Fauci no matter what.
— Fauci doesn’t know when to shut his mouth and proceeds to theorize about every possible tangent for the whole country to see. Ironically undermining his own credibility more than if he didn’t say anything that didn’t need to be said.
— Trump, seeing attention foisted on Fauci, starts holding his own press conferences where he openly theorizes about drinking bleach or taking horse pills.

Now, rinse and repeat and extrapolate that over 150 million politically motivated Americans over the course of the following year, and here we are.

 

It’s super fun that Trump’s best COVID related resume line he can’t bring up, because he’ll get booed at his own rallies, because he’s worked hard to convince his fans that this country is evil and conspiring against them.

 

Biden has done an OK job. But things are not that good in America. They're just not. Not much of it is his fault, but, they're not.

And people don't feel that good about America, either. Especially on the left. The Democrats require the votes of people who think America has ripped them off personally and might be killing the planet through its consumption of fossil fuels. Increasingly, that will be a sit-out group of voters who have a list of demands in return for a vote.

 

This is the problem, which I think BTExpress is referencing despite everyone telling him he's crazy. It just doesn't seem to be happening, and, unbelievably, there is a very real chance that Trump could be President again, assuming he isn't in jail. By not having another candidate, the Democrats are hoping to win with Biden. But they might not.

Trump's and Fox's rhetoric and constant presence over the past three years, along with people's uninformed and misinformed and apparently purposely obstinate stupidity is a very dangerous combination to be relying upon being overcome. And yes, Biden is now up against nature, too.

 

The reason the Democrats don't have another candidate besides Biden is that all the plausible possible candidates have decided on their own that they couldn't beat him in the primaries, mostly because of their pitch would be "I'll be pretty much just like Joe and do what he's doing, but I'm younger." That just doesn't sell. Look at how DeSantis did with his "I'm just like Trump, except I'm not him" pitch.

 

Trump has a cult. No Democrat does. The reason Democrats don't have another candidate is protocol. Period. We just don't DO that . It should have been a one-term thing from Day 1, with everybody in agreement. And with Harris told, there WILL be competition in 2024.

Two out of three Democrats don't want the person we're told MUST be the nominee or it will be catastrophic for the party.

Yeah, I'm the crazy one for worrying Trump is going to be handed the presidency.

When "hoping your opponent goes to jail" is your best chance of winning . . .