President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I'm guessing you've never been to a Waffle House at 1 a.m.

 

Oh, I have. And I had indigestion and acid reflux at 4 a.m.

 

I got reflux just reading "Waffle House at 1 a.m."

 

I was about to go to bed, but I'm seriously thinking about going to Waffle House.
Damn this thread.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/28/politics/foreign-diplomats-biden-debate-reaction/index.html

 

I wonder which European diplomat said this:

“If they can change the horse, they should,” said the second European diplomat. “If it was possible to call the governor of California and have Biden say, ‘You go and I’ll step out,’ that would be the right thing to do.”

 

I shit you not -- this will win more votes than Biden lost last night.

Also, more people may be motivated to vote after last night. All the hand-wringing Dems bitching about Biden not being pro-Israel or pro-Palestine enough or any other issue just got a bucket of cold water to the face.

So many Dems have been convincing themselves that Trump will magically go away, but the reality is he isn't. And they saw a clear possibility of him winning the election for the first time last night. Hopefully it's a wake up call.

 

Diplomats could mean foreign secretaries...or they could be flunkies who get the coffee at the US Embassy in Switzerland.

 

So this is what I’m coming back to after two years in Australia. Wonder if I need to rethink.

 

Back in my hometown of 2,000 and stopped by the barbershop. My cousin's been the barber for 50 years and it remains one of my favorite places on earth. You'll hear nothing but dirty jokes and total bullshit and some good gossip and you can get a fantastic haircut for 15 bucks, which I did. I then hung around and eventually the whole crew--my cousin the barber and the regulars who are straight out of central casting, many of whom still come up to talk about me scoring 33 points in a high school hoops game 30-plus years ago--started making fun of Biden and gleefully anticipating a Trump victory and after one guy gave a long list of all of Biden's failings and shortcomings I finally looked up from the newspaper and said, "And yet somehow he's still far and away the better candidate. Tells you something about Trump."

"Whoooaaaaaaaa! The New York liberal has some thoughts!"

Usually I just hold my tongue in there but I just couldn't at a certain point and then I had a fairly entertaining, occasionally frustrating but always cordial and fun discussion. I was like Kobe going 1 on 5 to take a contested 22-foot jump shot. Honestly it was a lot less annoying than arguing with far-left folks, but there were a few times where I just had to be like, fellas, come on! Come on!

"Trump doesn't lie." ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! 10 minutes of discussion.

Me pointing out that Trump doesn't give a single solitary shit about folks in a small town in Minnesota. "What do you mean? He cares so much about the little guy."

"Like the contractors he's fucked over for 50 years?"

I pointed out that everyone who has worked for him and then quit/left basically says this guy is an absolute fucking idiot when they're not calling him a menace.

"That's because those people are just bitter he got rid of them. He fires people who don't get the job done." Come on!

One guy brought up Soros--"Really? George Soros. George Soros affects your life here in rural Minnesota."

That same guy said that every presidential election, "I don't think about Democrat or Republican. I vote for who I think is the best person for the job and I ask myself if I'm better off than I was four years ago."

I said that's perfectly valid reasons to vote for someone, but then added, "So, with that as your criteria, how many Democrats have you voted for the past 50 years?"

"Well, none."

"Wow. Shocking. So not a single time did you think the Democrat is best guy and not a single time when a Democrat had been president the previous four years did you think you were better off than you had been before? Amazing."

"That's right."

When someone said Democrats are brainwashed (?) and just follow what the leaders want, I spoke about several areas where I quite often disagree with wide swaths of Democrats and then asked them to name some areas where they disagree with mainstream Republicans or Trump.

"Well, there aren't any. He's right about everything!" Come on!

Then the talk about the media started and how unfair the local daily is to Trump. "They wrote an editorial about how he lies." Yeah? I then pointed out that an opinion page is going to be different than the actual news stories (should have directed them to the journalism board here and thread about op-ed pages) and to tell me specific stories they remember that were unfair to Trump. "There must be dozens of them you remember the way you're going on." Well...it's just bad that they print what Trump says and then tell people what to think.

"So people read an absolutely fucking batshit crazy thing Trump says and they can't say to themselves, this guy is nuts. It's only because the media criticizes him that people think that. But in here, in this barbershop, you guys are the only ones in the world who see through all the lies and know the actual truth. But the rest of the public they only think negatively of Trump because of the media."

"Yeah, exactly." Come on!

We then had a long discussion about how farmers used to be Democrat and how that changed and talked to my cousin about how my grandpa, a lifelong farmer, would have disowned one of his kids if they ever voted Republican.

Eventually several of the guys left and one shook my hand and slapped me on the back and then said we'd solved the world's problems.

Half of them probably then went home and asked their wives if they knew that Small Town Guy had some odd political beliefs and then reminisced about the time we almost upset the eventual state hoops champs in the playoffs my senior year.

Meanwhile I went back to my parents' and filled my folks in and then reminisced about the time we almost upset the eventual state hoops champs in the playoffs my senior year.