2020 Elections - Trump FIRED

[seacoaster]

Very Good Analysis On The Upcoming Election

NOT TRIPE.

Delaware can reasonably claim to be the most innocuous state in the US. The tax-advantageous peninsula seldom incurs hatred, its opposite, or even a second thought from those outside its nearly 1m residents. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, in which a man seeks deliverance from a life of desk-bound averageness, has Wilmington, its largest city, as an implied setting.

Not all politicians take after their states, but despite being Pennsylvania-born, Joe Biden is Delaware incarnate. In half a century of public life, the Democratic candidate for president has never assembled an intense fan base or many dedicated enemies. His politics are middle-of-the-road and his charisma is of the functional, baby-kissing sort. The polls suggest that President Donald Trump’s supporters are fewer but incomparably more zealous. This “enthusiasm gap”, with its supposed implications for turnout, disturbs the sleep of some of Mr Biden’s supporters.

It is also the most precious thing about him. The US has had two consecutive presidents with messianic followings, and it is worse off for the 12-year surge of emotion. No democracy is riper for a period of tepid leadership.

The problem with the politician as hero is that even well-meaning ones can damage civic life in all sorts of ways. The most corrosive is the raising of impossible expectations. Barack Obama touted his presidency as the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow”. Others read into his election the end of America’s racial schisms. What transpired — a conscientious, flawed, mildly reformist administration — inevitably struck millions as a grievous betrayal. No one who grew up in Tony Blair’s UK will fail to recognise the dive in mass sentiment from ecstatic credulity to embittered cynicism. By not starting so high, Mr Biden cannot fall so low.

Then there is Newton’s law on equal and opposite forces. One side’s enthusiasm for a leader is the other side’s alienation. Republicans who diagnose liberals with “Trump derangement syndrome” are citing a case in point. But it is as nothing against their own conniptions about Mr Obama a decade ago. In fact, the current president is best understood as a howl against the previous one.

Given that hatred of Bill Clinton and George W Bush were also mass-participation sports, Mr Biden promises to be the first president since the latter’s father whom a large majority of Americans could more or less live with. What he cannot command in enthusiasm he makes up for in what we might call legitimacy. Had he lost the nomination to Bernie Sanders, a Democrat with a fervent flock, America would be in line for another dialling up of partisan tension, whoever wins in November.

Political enthusiasm is not just the cause of problems, but also the symptom of them. It can sometimes seem that, as the US has atomised, citizens have returned to politics as a means of emotional expression and human belonging. Partisan tribe fills in for family, neighbourhood, romantic love and friendship. A generation has passed since the Harvard professor Robert Putnam traced the decline of associational life in his “Bowling Alone” essay. Cause and effect are nightmares to establish, but, starting with the new congressional Republicans of 1994, it has been a generation of “my party right or wrong”. It follows that one’s leader is not just an executor of policies but the object of blind loyalty. “Enthusiasm” can be a euphemism for something altogether weird and pernicious.

The problem, in other words, is not Mr Biden’s failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one’s whole identity.

It is hard to convey the coolness — in truth, the resentment — with which Mr Biden’s candidacy was met by many Democrats upon its launch 18 months ago. After their long tryst with Mr Obama, there was something bathetic about the man from Wilmington. The urge to worship a leader is often framed as rightwing, and the Trump base is unsurpassed in its intensity. But the itch is ultimately cross-partisan.

It was not conservatives who made West Wing, the syrupy television drama about a near saint of a Democratic president. It was not conservatives who built the now faltering cult of the Kennedys. Mr Biden is the corrective to an unhealthy trend in his party and country. Nothing commends him to national leadership as much as the mild feelings that he arouses. Whatever enthusiasm has achieved this past decade or so, it is not an America at peace with itself.

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

POTUS Biden would have one very large IOU to the extreme radical base of the party. They will come knocking at his door on 1/21 expecting payment in full with interest. I can see them camping out on the White House lawn already with their list of "demands" WH police better get the porta poddies ready.

I doubt they'll get much for their trouble. Most Democrats understand that the party is center to center-left and has been since Clinton's presidency. The narrative being pushed by the Trump folks and the shills for Trump is simply untrue: the Democratic Party isn't a radical force for European style democratic-socialism.

[Peter Brown]

What Democrats want is open-ended voting with no deadline in order to change the outcome after the fact, straight up. They are NOT interested in an honest election.

I was a little surprised they are going to allow ballots received by the Friday after election day without a postmark before election day unless there is some indication the ballot was mailed after election day.

I suspect that the number of “unmarked” ballots received after election day that end up being counted will be small, but we shall see. I imagine the clerks will keep a count of those by candidate so there will be a record if there is a challenge.

If I am correct that this group of ballots will be small in number, then vote differential between the candidates will be even smaller. My guess is that at the end of the day this difference won’t be enough to tip Pennsylvania.

Yesterday’s ruling does make clear, however, that we likely won’t know Pennsylvania’s result for perhaps a week after election day.

[seacoaster]

I had been wondering what rock O'Reilly had been hiding under.

You get the feeling, from "twits" like this one, that O'Reilly is trying to make himself relevant to someone, anyone....

[MDlaxfan76]

you needn't wait, Petey. I didn't see Joe be mean to anyone, including the woman who clearly remains a Trump voter as of this town hall, quite the opposite. He spoke directly to her issue, it was clear he understood her concern. She may not have been persuaded that his policy responses are what she wants, but he didn't dismiss her or put her down or say he was concerned about himself not her, ala Trump facing a tough questioner.

But sure, I thought some of his answers were unnecessarily long. Did he need to go into such detail in his responses, explaining his views thoroughly, whether what shapes them or the policy facts? No, not all the time...but the overall impression that came through as a result was that he's actually thoughtful and well informed...and, perhaps most importantly, his views are genuine.

Of course, a Trump Cultist will see it differently.

[cradleandshoot]

Very Good Analysis On The Upcoming Election

NOT TRIPE.

Delaware can reasonably claim to be the most innocuous state in the US. The tax-advantageous peninsula seldom incurs hatred, its opposite, or even a second thought from those outside its nearly 1m residents. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, in which a man seeks deliverance from a life of desk-bound averageness, has Wilmington, its largest city, as an implied setting.

Not all politicians take after their states, but despite being Pennsylvania-born, Joe Biden is Delaware incarnate. In half a century of public life, the Democratic candidate for president has never assembled an intense fan base or many dedicated enemies. His politics are middle-of-the-road and his charisma is of the functional, baby-kissing sort. The polls suggest that President Donald Trump’s supporters are fewer but incomparably more zealous. This “enthusiasm gap”, with its supposed implications for turnout, disturbs the sleep of some of Mr Biden’s supporters.

It is also the most precious thing about him. The US has had two consecutive presidents with messianic followings, and it is worse off for the 12-year surge of emotion. No democracy is riper for a period of tepid leadership.

The problem with the politician as hero is that even well-meaning ones can damage civic life in all sorts of ways. The most corrosive is the raising of impossible expectations. Barack Obama touted his presidency as the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow”. Others read into his election the end of America’s racial schisms. What transpired — a conscientious, flawed, mildly reformist administration — inevitably struck millions as a grievous betrayal. No one who grew up in Tony Blair’s UK will fail to recognise the dive in mass sentiment from ecstatic credulity to embittered cynicism. By not starting so high, Mr Biden cannot fall so low.

Then there is Newton’s law on equal and opposite forces. One side’s enthusiasm for a leader is the other side’s alienation. Republicans who diagnose liberals with “Trump derangement syndrome” are citing a case in point. But it is as nothing against their own conniptions about Mr Obama a decade ago. In fact, the current president is best understood as a howl against the previous one.

Given that hatred of Bill Clinton and George W Bush were also mass-participation sports, Mr Biden promises to be the first president since the latter’s father whom a large majority of Americans could more or less live with. What he cannot command in enthusiasm he makes up for in what we might call legitimacy. Had he lost the nomination to Bernie Sanders, a Democrat with a fervent flock, America would be in line for another dialling up of partisan tension, whoever wins in November.

Political enthusiasm is not just the cause of problems, but also the symptom of them. It can sometimes seem that, as the US has atomised, citizens have returned to politics as a means of emotional expression and human belonging. Partisan tribe fills in for family, neighbourhood, romantic love and friendship. A generation has passed since the Harvard professor Robert Putnam traced the decline of associational life in his “Bowling Alone” essay. Cause and effect are nightmares to establish, but, starting with the new congressional Republicans of 1994, it has been a generation of “my party right or wrong”. It follows that one’s leader is not just an executor of policies but the object of blind loyalty. “Enthusiasm” can be a euphemism for something altogether weird and pernicious.

The problem, in other words, is not Mr Biden’s failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one’s whole identity.

It is hard to convey the coolness — in truth, the resentment — with which Mr Biden’s candidacy was met by many Democrats upon its launch 18 months ago. After their long tryst with Mr Obama, there was something bathetic about the man from Wilmington. The urge to worship a leader is often framed as rightwing, and the Trump base is unsurpassed in its intensity. But the itch is ultimately cross-partisan.

It was not conservatives who made West Wing, the syrupy television drama about a near saint of a Democratic president. It was not conservatives who built the now faltering cult of the Kennedys. Mr Biden is the corrective to an unhealthy trend in his party and country. Nothing commends him to national leadership as much as the mild feelings that he arouses. Whatever enthusiasm has achieved this past decade or so, it is not an America at peace with itself.

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

POTUS Biden would have one very large IOU to the extreme radical base of the party. They will come knocking at his door on 1/21 expecting payment in full with interest. I can see them camping out on the White House lawn already with their list of "demands" WH police better get the porta poddies ready.

I doubt they'll get much for their trouble. Most Democrats understand that the party is center to center-left and has been since Clinton's presidency. The narrative being pushed by the Trump folks and the shills for Trump is simply untrue: the Democratic Party isn't a radical force for European style democratic-socialism.

I don't know coaster, my impression is these folks want big changes ASAP. I don't believe patience is a virtue for them at this point in time.

[cradleandshoot]

you needn't wait, Petey. I didn't see Joe be mean to anyone, including the woman who clearly remains a Trump voter as of this town hall, quite the opposite. He spoke directly to her issue, it was clear he understood her concern. She may not have been persuaded that his policy responses are what she wants, but he didn't dismiss her or put her down or say he was concerned about himself not her, ala Trump facing a tough questioner.

But sure, I thought some of his answers were unnecessarily long. Did he need to go into such detail in his responses, explaining his views thoroughly, whether what shapes them or the policy facts? No, not all the time...but the overall impression that came through as a result was that he's actually thoughtful and well informed...and, perhaps most importantly, his views are genuine.

Of course, a Trump Cultist will see it differently.

" But sure, I thought some of his answers were unnecessarily long"

Rule #1 for any politician answering a question... keep it simple. BHO was a prime example of this. The man could have a one hour presser and only answer 2 questions.

[MDlaxfan76]

you needn't wait, Petey. I didn't see Joe be mean to anyone, including the woman who clearly remains a Trump voter as of this town hall, quite the opposite. He spoke directly to her issue, it was clear he understood her concern. She may not have been persuaded that his policy responses are what she wants, but he didn't dismiss her or put her down or say he was concerned about himself not her, ala Trump facing a tough questioner.

But sure, I thought some of his answers were unnecessarily long. Did he need to go into such detail in his responses, explaining his views thoroughly, whether what shapes them or the policy facts? No, not all the time...but the overall impression that came through as a result was that he's actually thoughtful and well informed...and, perhaps most importantly, his views are genuine.

Of course, a Trump Cultist will see it differently.

" But sure, I thought some of his answers were unnecessarily long"

Rule #1 for any politician answering a question... keep it simple. BHO was a prime example of this. The man could have a one hour presser and only answer 2 questions.

I dunno, Obama was a pretty darn successful "politician"...

But yes, he could be pretty darn long winded.
But no one doubted he knew the details, had thought thoroughly about it.
You didn't necessarily agree with his conclusions, but you knew he was serious.
Worked for him.

To be clear, Biden doesn't have Obama's talent in speaking.

[seacoaster]

Very Good Analysis On The Upcoming Election

NOT TRIPE.

Delaware can reasonably claim to be the most innocuous state in the US. The tax-advantageous peninsula seldom incurs hatred, its opposite, or even a second thought from those outside its nearly 1m residents. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, in which a man seeks deliverance from a life of desk-bound averageness, has Wilmington, its largest city, as an implied setting.

Not all politicians take after their states, but despite being Pennsylvania-born, Joe Biden is Delaware incarnate. In half a century of public life, the Democratic candidate for president has never assembled an intense fan base or many dedicated enemies. His politics are middle-of-the-road and his charisma is of the functional, baby-kissing sort. The polls suggest that President Donald Trump’s supporters are fewer but incomparably more zealous. This “enthusiasm gap”, with its supposed implications for turnout, disturbs the sleep of some of Mr Biden’s supporters.

It is also the most precious thing about him. The US has had two consecutive presidents with messianic followings, and it is worse off for the 12-year surge of emotion. No democracy is riper for a period of tepid leadership.

The problem with the politician as hero is that even well-meaning ones can damage civic life in all sorts of ways. The most corrosive is the raising of impossible expectations. Barack Obama touted his presidency as the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow”. Others read into his election the end of America’s racial schisms. What transpired — a conscientious, flawed, mildly reformist administration — inevitably struck millions as a grievous betrayal. No one who grew up in Tony Blair’s UK will fail to recognise the dive in mass sentiment from ecstatic credulity to embittered cynicism. By not starting so high, Mr Biden cannot fall so low.

Then there is Newton’s law on equal and opposite forces. One side’s enthusiasm for a leader is the other side’s alienation. Republicans who diagnose liberals with “Trump derangement syndrome” are citing a case in point. But it is as nothing against their own conniptions about Mr Obama a decade ago. In fact, the current president is best understood as a howl against the previous one.

Given that hatred of Bill Clinton and George W Bush were also mass-participation sports, Mr Biden promises to be the first president since the latter’s father whom a large majority of Americans could more or less live with. What he cannot command in enthusiasm he makes up for in what we might call legitimacy. Had he lost the nomination to Bernie Sanders, a Democrat with a fervent flock, America would be in line for another dialling up of partisan tension, whoever wins in November.

Political enthusiasm is not just the cause of problems, but also the symptom of them. It can sometimes seem that, as the US has atomised, citizens have returned to politics as a means of emotional expression and human belonging. Partisan tribe fills in for family, neighbourhood, romantic love and friendship. A generation has passed since the Harvard professor Robert Putnam traced the decline of associational life in his “Bowling Alone” essay. Cause and effect are nightmares to establish, but, starting with the new congressional Republicans of 1994, it has been a generation of “my party right or wrong”. It follows that one’s leader is not just an executor of policies but the object of blind loyalty. “Enthusiasm” can be a euphemism for something altogether weird and pernicious.

The problem, in other words, is not Mr Biden’s failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one’s whole identity.

It is hard to convey the coolness — in truth, the resentment — with which Mr Biden’s candidacy was met by many Democrats upon its launch 18 months ago. After their long tryst with Mr Obama, there was something bathetic about the man from Wilmington. The urge to worship a leader is often framed as rightwing, and the Trump base is unsurpassed in its intensity. But the itch is ultimately cross-partisan.

It was not conservatives who made West Wing, the syrupy television drama about a near saint of a Democratic president. It was not conservatives who built the now faltering cult of the Kennedys. Mr Biden is the corrective to an unhealthy trend in his party and country. Nothing commends him to national leadership as much as the mild feelings that he arouses. Whatever enthusiasm has achieved this past decade or so, it is not an America at peace with itself.

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

POTUS Biden would have one very large IOU to the extreme radical base of the party. They will come knocking at his door on 1/21 expecting payment in full with interest. I can see them camping out on the White House lawn already with their list of "demands" WH police better get the porta poddies ready.

I doubt they'll get much for their trouble. Most Democrats understand that the party is center to center-left and has been since Clinton's presidency. The narrative being pushed by the Trump folks and the shills for Trump is simply untrue: the Democratic Party isn't a radical force for European style democratic-socialism.

I don't know coaster, my impression is these folks want big changes ASAP. I don't believe patience is a virtue for them at this point in time.

I actually think a Biden Administration will attempt to govern from the center, and will include Republicans in his cabinet. He will owe as much or more to Independents and Republicans for his election. Some of you guys busily mock MDLaxfan, but he is the center-right type of guy that have remained true to what Conservatives used to at least say they believed: strong defense; commitment to multilateral alliances and institutions; fiscal restraint at home; states' rights; careful and slow movement on social and cultural issues that land in the legislatures.

[cradleandshoot]

you needn't wait, Petey. I didn't see Joe be mean to anyone, including the woman who clearly remains a Trump voter as of this town hall, quite the opposite. He spoke directly to her issue, it was clear he understood her concern. She may not have been persuaded that his policy responses are what she wants, but he didn't dismiss her or put her down or say he was concerned about himself not her, ala Trump facing a tough questioner.

But sure, I thought some of his answers were unnecessarily long. Did he need to go into such detail in his responses, explaining his views thoroughly, whether what shapes them or the policy facts? No, not all the time...but the overall impression that came through as a result was that he's actually thoughtful and well informed...and, perhaps most importantly, his views are genuine.

Of course, a Trump Cultist will see it differently.

" But sure, I thought some of his answers were unnecessarily long"

Rule #1 for any politician answering a question... keep it simple. BHO was a prime example of this. The man could have a one hour presser and only answer 2 questions.

I dunno, Obama was a pretty darn successful "politician"...

But yes, he could be pretty darn long winded.
But no one doubted he knew the details, had thought thoroughly about it.
You didn't necessarily agree with his conclusions, but you knew he was serious.
Worked for him.

I am not doubting BHO was one smart cookie as POTUS. My point that you referenced was sometimes the man could never shut up when answering a question. i think he had an aversion to the phrase... "next question"

[cradleandshoot]

Very Good Analysis On The Upcoming Election

NOT TRIPE.

Delaware can reasonably claim to be the most innocuous state in the US. The tax-advantageous peninsula seldom incurs hatred, its opposite, or even a second thought from those outside its nearly 1m residents. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, in which a man seeks deliverance from a life of desk-bound averageness, has Wilmington, its largest city, as an implied setting.

Not all politicians take after their states, but despite being Pennsylvania-born, Joe Biden is Delaware incarnate. In half a century of public life, the Democratic candidate for president has never assembled an intense fan base or many dedicated enemies. His politics are middle-of-the-road and his charisma is of the functional, baby-kissing sort. The polls suggest that President Donald Trump’s supporters are fewer but incomparably more zealous. This “enthusiasm gap”, with its supposed implications for turnout, disturbs the sleep of some of Mr Biden’s supporters.

It is also the most precious thing about him. The US has had two consecutive presidents with messianic followings, and it is worse off for the 12-year surge of emotion. No democracy is riper for a period of tepid leadership.

The problem with the politician as hero is that even well-meaning ones can damage civic life in all sorts of ways. The most corrosive is the raising of impossible expectations. Barack Obama touted his presidency as the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow”. Others read into his election the end of America’s racial schisms. What transpired — a conscientious, flawed, mildly reformist administration — inevitably struck millions as a grievous betrayal. No one who grew up in Tony Blair’s UK will fail to recognise the dive in mass sentiment from ecstatic credulity to embittered cynicism. By not starting so high, Mr Biden cannot fall so low.

Then there is Newton’s law on equal and opposite forces. One side’s enthusiasm for a leader is the other side’s alienation. Republicans who diagnose liberals with “Trump derangement syndrome” are citing a case in point. But it is as nothing against their own conniptions about Mr Obama a decade ago. In fact, the current president is best understood as a howl against the previous one.

Given that hatred of Bill Clinton and George W Bush were also mass-participation sports, Mr Biden promises to be the first president since the latter’s father whom a large majority of Americans could more or less live with. What he cannot command in enthusiasm he makes up for in what we might call legitimacy. Had he lost the nomination to Bernie Sanders, a Democrat with a fervent flock, America would be in line for another dialling up of partisan tension, whoever wins in November.

Political enthusiasm is not just the cause of problems, but also the symptom of them. It can sometimes seem that, as the US has atomised, citizens have returned to politics as a means of emotional expression and human belonging. Partisan tribe fills in for family, neighbourhood, romantic love and friendship. A generation has passed since the Harvard professor Robert Putnam traced the decline of associational life in his “Bowling Alone” essay. Cause and effect are nightmares to establish, but, starting with the new congressional Republicans of 1994, it has been a generation of “my party right or wrong”. It follows that one’s leader is not just an executor of policies but the object of blind loyalty. “Enthusiasm” can be a euphemism for something altogether weird and pernicious.

The problem, in other words, is not Mr Biden’s failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one’s whole identity.

It is hard to convey the coolness — in truth, the resentment — with which Mr Biden’s candidacy was met by many Democrats upon its launch 18 months ago. After their long tryst with Mr Obama, there was something bathetic about the man from Wilmington. The urge to worship a leader is often framed as rightwing, and the Trump base is unsurpassed in its intensity. But the itch is ultimately cross-partisan.

It was not conservatives who made West Wing, the syrupy television drama about a near saint of a Democratic president. It was not conservatives who built the now faltering cult of the Kennedys. Mr Biden is the corrective to an unhealthy trend in his party and country. Nothing commends him to national leadership as much as the mild feelings that he arouses. Whatever enthusiasm has achieved this past decade or so, it is not an America at peace with itself.

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

POTUS Biden would have one very large IOU to the extreme radical base of the party. They will come knocking at his door on 1/21 expecting payment in full with interest. I can see them camping out on the White House lawn already with their list of "demands" WH police better get the porta poddies ready.

I doubt they'll get much for their trouble. Most Democrats understand that the party is center to center-left and has been since Clinton's presidency. The narrative being pushed by the Trump folks and the shills for Trump is simply untrue: the Democratic Party isn't a radical force for European style democratic-socialism.

I don't know coaster, my impression is these folks want big changes ASAP. I don't believe patience is a virtue for them at this point in time.

I actually think a Biden Administration will attempt to govern from the center, and will include Republicans in his cabinet. He will owe as much or more to Independents and Republicans for his election. Some of you guys busily mock MDLaxfan, but he is the center-right type of guy that have remained true to what Conservatives used to at least say they believed: strong defense; commitment to multilateral alliances and institutions; fiscal restraint at home; states' rights; careful and slow movement on social and cultural issues that land in the legislatures.

I agree, if elected Biden certainly will work with the Republicans. He knows most of these folks and has worked with them for years. That is a solid foundation for some sort of progress.

[MDlaxfan76]

Very Good Analysis On The Upcoming Election

NOT TRIPE.

Delaware can reasonably claim to be the most innocuous state in the US. The tax-advantageous peninsula seldom incurs hatred, its opposite, or even a second thought from those outside its nearly 1m residents. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, in which a man seeks deliverance from a life of desk-bound averageness, has Wilmington, its largest city, as an implied setting.

Not all politicians take after their states, but despite being Pennsylvania-born, Joe Biden is Delaware incarnate. In half a century of public life, the Democratic candidate for president has never assembled an intense fan base or many dedicated enemies. His politics are middle-of-the-road and his charisma is of the functional, baby-kissing sort. The polls suggest that President Donald Trump’s supporters are fewer but incomparably more zealous. This “enthusiasm gap”, with its supposed implications for turnout, disturbs the sleep of some of Mr Biden’s supporters.

It is also the most precious thing about him. The US has had two consecutive presidents with messianic followings, and it is worse off for the 12-year surge of emotion. No democracy is riper for a period of tepid leadership.

The problem with the politician as hero is that even well-meaning ones can damage civic life in all sorts of ways. The most corrosive is the raising of impossible expectations. Barack Obama touted his presidency as the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow”. Others read into his election the end of America’s racial schisms. What transpired — a conscientious, flawed, mildly reformist administration — inevitably struck millions as a grievous betrayal. No one who grew up in Tony Blair’s UK will fail to recognise the dive in mass sentiment from ecstatic credulity to embittered cynicism. By not starting so high, Mr Biden cannot fall so low.

Then there is Newton’s law on equal and opposite forces. One side’s enthusiasm for a leader is the other side’s alienation. Republicans who diagnose liberals with “Trump derangement syndrome” are citing a case in point. But it is as nothing against their own conniptions about Mr Obama a decade ago. In fact, the current president is best understood as a howl against the previous one.

Given that hatred of Bill Clinton and George W Bush were also mass-participation sports, Mr Biden promises to be the first president since the latter’s father whom a large majority of Americans could more or less live with. What he cannot command in enthusiasm he makes up for in what we might call legitimacy. Had he lost the nomination to Bernie Sanders, a Democrat with a fervent flock, America would be in line for another dialling up of partisan tension, whoever wins in November.

Political enthusiasm is not just the cause of problems, but also the symptom of them. It can sometimes seem that, as the US has atomised, citizens have returned to politics as a means of emotional expression and human belonging. Partisan tribe fills in for family, neighbourhood, romantic love and friendship. A generation has passed since the Harvard professor Robert Putnam traced the decline of associational life in his “Bowling Alone” essay. Cause and effect are nightmares to establish, but, starting with the new congressional Republicans of 1994, it has been a generation of “my party right or wrong”. It follows that one’s leader is not just an executor of policies but the object of blind loyalty. “Enthusiasm” can be a euphemism for something altogether weird and pernicious.

The problem, in other words, is not Mr Biden’s failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one’s whole identity.

It is hard to convey the coolness — in truth, the resentment — with which Mr Biden’s candidacy was met by many Democrats upon its launch 18 months ago. After their long tryst with Mr Obama, there was something bathetic about the man from Wilmington. The urge to worship a leader is often framed as rightwing, and the Trump base is unsurpassed in its intensity. But the itch is ultimately cross-partisan.

It was not conservatives who made West Wing, the syrupy television drama about a near saint of a Democratic president. It was not conservatives who built the now faltering cult of the Kennedys. Mr Biden is the corrective to an unhealthy trend in his party and country. Nothing commends him to national leadership as much as the mild feelings that he arouses. Whatever enthusiasm has achieved this past decade or so, it is not an America at peace with itself.

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

POTUS Biden would have one very large IOU to the extreme radical base of the party. They will come knocking at his door on 1/21 expecting payment in full with interest. I can see them camping out on the White House lawn already with their list of "demands" WH police better get the porta poddies ready.

I doubt they'll get much for their trouble. Most Democrats understand that the party is center to center-left and has been since Clinton's presidency. The narrative being pushed by the Trump folks and the shills for Trump is simply untrue: the Democratic Party isn't a radical force for European style democratic-socialism.

I don't know coaster, my impression is these folks want big changes ASAP. I don't believe patience is a virtue for them at this point in time.

I actually think a Biden Administration will attempt to govern from the center, and will include Republicans in his cabinet. He will owe as much or more to Independents and Republicans for his election. Some of you guys busily mock MDLaxfan, but he is the center-right type of guy that have remained true to what Conservatives used to at least say they believed: strong defense; commitment to multilateral alliances and institutions; fiscal restraint at home; states' rights; careful and slow movement on social and cultural issues that land in the legislatures.

And there's going to be more and more of folks like this coming forward:

https://youtu.be/f0j6adNroo4

Lincoln Project, Bloomberg, Republican Voters for Biden, etc...

[CU88]

The Biden Town Hall was offensively soft.

What Biden should do is go on Chris Wallace's show, at the very least. You need to be challenged by an adversarial questioner, not get fluffered by some lib lunatics.

'Tell me Mr Vice President, just how great are you on a scale of 10 to 10?'

Challenge yourself, you birdbrain. America is dumb enough than to get dumbed down even more by an event like last night.

It's you knuckleheads who have set the low bar for Biden, the notion that he's senile, mentally addled, incapable of coherent thoughts.

He crushes that bar and much more, he communicates, with integrity, real empathy.

Taking direct questions from voters, many of whom had voted for Trump and either weren't committed this year or are still in the Trump camp, he addressed all with coherence and empathy. You don't have to agree with him, but you didn't doubt that he knew a lot about a very wide range of topics, lots and lots of detail, and that he understood where the person was coming from, what he or she was experiencing.

The contrast with Trump's town hall couldn't have been more stark. Bumbling, stupid, inarticulate, and often clueless on detail, certainly unable to communicate with empathy...indeed exhibiting only concern about how issues impacted himself and his campaign. Throw in a bunch of whopper lies...yikes, the contrast was huge.

So, let's move the bar, right?
Too late, it's been set.
Great campaign strategy Fox/Trump.

I agree, stunning that the IMPOTUS o d camp has set the bar so low for Biden, and then rush to raise it every time he crushes their ill conceived projections.

Any high school level student council campaign knows this basic concept, EXPECTATIONS. A concept in which one defines one's own capabilities or performance in such a way as to easily meet or exceed them to generate good media coverage. And you never want to set them low for an opponent for the above reason.

Petey and his like are all flustered that Joe can talk like a normal person, walk down a ramp, drink a glass of water with one hand, ride a bike, answer tough questions, etc...

[Peter Brown]

The Biden Town Hall was offensively soft.

What Biden should do is go on Chris Wallace's show, at the very least. You need to be challenged by an adversarial questioner, not get fluffered by some lib lunatics.

'Tell me Mr Vice President, just how great are you on a scale of 10 to 10?'

Challenge yourself, you birdbrain. America is dumb enough than to get dumbed down even more by an event like last night.

It's you knuckleheads who have set the low bar for Biden, the notion that he's senile, mentally addled, incapable of coherent thoughts.

He crushes that bar and much more, he communicates, with integrity, real empathy.

Taking direct questions from voters, many of whom had voted for Trump and either weren't committed this year or are still in the Trump camp, he addressed all with coherence and empathy. You don't have to agree with him, but you didn't doubt that he knew a lot about a very wide range of topics, lots and lots of detail, and that he understood where the person was coming from, what he or she was experiencing.

The contrast with Trump's town hall couldn't have been more stark. Bumbling, stupid, inarticulate, and often clueless on detail, certainly unable to communicate with empathy...indeed exhibiting only concern about how issues impacted himself and his campaign. Throw in a bunch of whopper lies...yikes, the contrast was huge.

So, let's move the bar, right?
Too late, it's been set.
Great campaign strategy Fox/Trump.

I agree, stunning that the IMPOTUS o d camp has set the bar so low for Biden, and then rush to raise it every time he crushes their ill conceived projections.

Any high school level student council campaign knows this basic concept, EXPECTATIONS. A concept in which one defines one's own capabilities or performance in such a way as to easily meet or exceed them to generate good media coverage. And you never want to set them low for an opponent for the above reason.

Petey and his like are all flustered that Joe can talk like a normal person, walk down a ramp, drink a glass of water with one hand, ride a bike, answer tough questions, etc...

"Flustered"?

Rewatch the video. Joe is not coherent like you'd want in a POTUS. He also evidenced a flash of anger for that one Republican woman.

Let's see how he handles Trump in the debates...and I make no predictions. For all I know, he'll get better. But for now, he is a doddering old man, and any honest appraiser would say the same.

[CU88]

It only took 3 years, thank goodness for the election cycle of PR would never get the much need funds approved by Congress, from IMPOTUS. And the F'er will take credit for it too...

Today the White House announced several major disaster aid packages for Puerto Rico, amounting to the largest allotment of disaster aid in U.S. history. Most of the money will be used to rebuild the power grid that was destroyed by Hurricane Maria, 3yrs ago today.

[MDlaxfan76]

The Biden Town Hall was offensively soft.

What Biden should do is go on Chris Wallace's show, at the very least. You need to be challenged by an adversarial questioner, not get fluffered by some lib lunatics.

'Tell me Mr Vice President, just how great are you on a scale of 10 to 10?'

Challenge yourself, you birdbrain. America is dumb enough than to get dumbed down even more by an event like last night.

It's you knuckleheads who have set the low bar for Biden, the notion that he's senile, mentally addled, incapable of coherent thoughts.

He crushes that bar and much more, he communicates, with integrity, real empathy.

Taking direct questions from voters, many of whom had voted for Trump and either weren't committed this year or are still in the Trump camp, he addressed all with coherence and empathy. You don't have to agree with him, but you didn't doubt that he knew a lot about a very wide range of topics, lots and lots of detail, and that he understood where the person was coming from, what he or she was experiencing.

The contrast with Trump's town hall couldn't have been more stark. Bumbling, stupid, inarticulate, and often clueless on detail, certainly unable to communicate with empathy...indeed exhibiting only concern about how issues impacted himself and his campaign. Throw in a bunch of whopper lies...yikes, the contrast was huge.

So, let's move the bar, right?
Too late, it's been set.
Great campaign strategy Fox/Trump.

I agree, stunning that the IMPOTUS o d camp has set the bar so low for Biden, and then rush to raise it every time he crushes their ill conceived projections.

Any high school level student council campaign knows this basic concept, EXPECTATIONS. A concept in which one defines one's own capabilities or performance in such a way as to easily meet or exceed them to generate good media coverage. And you never want to set them low for an opponent for the above reason.

Petey and his like are all flustered that Joe can talk like a normal person, walk down a ramp, drink a glass of water with one hand, ride a bike, answer tough questions, etc...

"Flustered"?

Rewatch the video. Joe is not coherent like you'd want in a POTUS. He also evidenced a flash of anger for that one Republican woman.

Let's see how he handles Trump in the debates...and I make no predictions. For all I know, he'll get better. But for now, he is a doddering old man, and any honest appraiser would say the same.

I watched the whole thing, Petey, just as I did for Trump's disaster of a town hall.

Is he old? Yes.
"doddering"?
Keep setting those low bars and he'll keep crushing them each time.
So dumb.

Biden didn't 'flash' any anger at any questioner, but he sure as heck got passionate about Trump, indeed exhibiting anger and outrage at him. And it was effective.

Of course, TrumpCultists will disagree.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Very Good Analysis On The Upcoming Election

NOT TRIPE.

Delaware can reasonably claim to be the most innocuous state in the US. The tax-advantageous peninsula seldom incurs hatred, its opposite, or even a second thought from those outside its nearly 1m residents. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, in which a man seeks deliverance from a life of desk-bound averageness, has Wilmington, its largest city, as an implied setting.

Not all politicians take after their states, but despite being Pennsylvania-born, Joe Biden is Delaware incarnate. In half a century of public life, the Democratic candidate for president has never assembled an intense fan base or many dedicated enemies. His politics are middle-of-the-road and his charisma is of the functional, baby-kissing sort. The polls suggest that President Donald Trump’s supporters are fewer but incomparably more zealous. This “enthusiasm gap”, with its supposed implications for turnout, disturbs the sleep of some of Mr Biden’s supporters.

It is also the most precious thing about him. The US has had two consecutive presidents with messianic followings, and it is worse off for the 12-year surge of emotion. No democracy is riper for a period of tepid leadership.

The problem with the politician as hero is that even well-meaning ones can damage civic life in all sorts of ways. The most corrosive is the raising of impossible expectations. Barack Obama touted his presidency as the “moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow”. Others read into his election the end of America’s racial schisms. What transpired — a conscientious, flawed, mildly reformist administration — inevitably struck millions as a grievous betrayal. No one who grew up in Tony Blair’s UK will fail to recognise the dive in mass sentiment from ecstatic credulity to embittered cynicism. By not starting so high, Mr Biden cannot fall so low.

Then there is Newton’s law on equal and opposite forces. One side’s enthusiasm for a leader is the other side’s alienation. Republicans who diagnose liberals with “Trump derangement syndrome” are citing a case in point. But it is as nothing against their own conniptions about Mr Obama a decade ago. In fact, the current president is best understood as a howl against the previous one.

Given that hatred of Bill Clinton and George W Bush were also mass-participation sports, Mr Biden promises to be the first president since the latter’s father whom a large majority of Americans could more or less live with. What he cannot command in enthusiasm he makes up for in what we might call legitimacy. Had he lost the nomination to Bernie Sanders, a Democrat with a fervent flock, America would be in line for another dialling up of partisan tension, whoever wins in November.

Political enthusiasm is not just the cause of problems, but also the symptom of them. It can sometimes seem that, as the US has atomised, citizens have returned to politics as a means of emotional expression and human belonging. Partisan tribe fills in for family, neighbourhood, romantic love and friendship. A generation has passed since the Harvard professor Robert Putnam traced the decline of associational life in his “Bowling Alone” essay. Cause and effect are nightmares to establish, but, starting with the new congressional Republicans of 1994, it has been a generation of “my party right or wrong”. It follows that one’s leader is not just an executor of policies but the object of blind loyalty. “Enthusiasm” can be a euphemism for something altogether weird and pernicious.

The problem, in other words, is not Mr Biden’s failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one’s whole identity.

It is hard to convey the coolness — in truth, the resentment — with which Mr Biden’s candidacy was met by many Democrats upon its launch 18 months ago. After their long tryst with Mr Obama, there was something bathetic about the man from Wilmington. The urge to worship a leader is often framed as rightwing, and the Trump base is unsurpassed in its intensity. But the itch is ultimately cross-partisan.

It was not conservatives who made West Wing, the syrupy television drama about a near saint of a Democratic president. It was not conservatives who built the now faltering cult of the Kennedys. Mr Biden is the corrective to an unhealthy trend in his party and country. Nothing commends him to national leadership as much as the mild feelings that he arouses. Whatever enthusiasm has achieved this past decade or so, it is not an America at peace with itself.

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

I thought it had some good insight. People keep shouting that Biden is FLP or controlled by FLP and nothing could be further from the truth. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden are radical socialists...... It almost makes you laugh. We will see what the election results show. I believe people want to tack back to something that resembles normal. I try to stay away from Tripe. I can only imagine the rabbit holes these people go down to find what they find.

[Typical Lax Dad]

The Biden Town Hall was offensively soft.

What Biden should do is go on Chris Wallace's show, at the very least. You need to be challenged by an adversarial questioner, not get fluffered by some lib lunatics.

'Tell me Mr Vice President, just how great are you on a scale of 10 to 10?'

Challenge yourself, you birdbrain. America is dumb enough than to get dumbed down even more by an event like last night.

It's you knuckleheads who have set the low bar for Biden, the notion that he's senile, mentally addled, incapable of coherent thoughts.

He crushes that bar and much more, he communicates, with integrity, real empathy.

Taking direct questions from voters, many of whom had voted for Trump and either weren't committed this year or are still in the Trump camp, he addressed all with coherence and empathy. You don't have to agree with him, but you didn't doubt that he knew a lot about a very wide range of topics, lots and lots of detail, and that he understood where the person was coming from, what he or she was experiencing.

The contrast with Trump's town hall couldn't have been more stark. Bumbling, stupid, inarticulate, and often clueless on detail, certainly unable to communicate with empathy...indeed exhibiting only concern about how issues impacted himself and his campaign. Throw in a bunch of whopper lies...yikes, the contrast was huge.

So, let's move the bar, right?
Too late, it's been set.
Great campaign strategy Fox/Trump.

I agree, stunning that the IMPOTUS o d camp has set the bar so low for Biden, and then rush to raise it every time he crushes their ill conceived projections.

Any high school level student council campaign knows this basic concept, EXPECTATIONS. A concept in which one defines one's own capabilities or performance in such a way as to easily meet or exceed them to generate good media coverage. And you never want to set them low for an opponent for the above reason.

Petey and his like are all flustered that Joe can talk like a normal person, walk down a ramp, drink a glass of water with one hand, ride a bike, answer tough questions, etc...

"Flustered"?

Rewatch the video. Joe is not coherent like you'd want in a POTUS. He also evidenced a flash of anger for that one Republican woman.

Let's see how he handles Trump in the debates...and I make no predictions. For all I know, he'll get better. But for now, he is a doddering old man, and any honest appraiser would say the same.

[seacoaster]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-f ... f-covid-19

https://mobile.twitter.com/BillKristol/ ... 54945?s=20

[ggait]

Here's some good news on voting procedures that I hadn't focused on before.

Despite its reputation (hanging chads), Florida actually seems to have its voting act fairly pulled together:

lots of prior experience with mail/remote voting
lots of prior experience using drop boxes (although being open 24/7 would be better than 9-5)
ballot delivery deadline is poll close on Election Day -- 7PM ET (so ballots can't trickle in via mail over the next several days)
they can start processing/counting votes three weeks in advance

So unless it is Bush/Gore close, FL (unlike Mich, WI, OH, PA) should be able to release results fairly early on election night. If it goes to Joe, that's pretty much ballgame. If it goes for Trump, then the game continues into the other swing states.

AZ should also be able to release results on election night, although it runs on Mountain time.

NC might be able to announce if it isn't too close. They do start counting early, but allow post-marked ballots to dribble in for three days.

WI cuts off ballots on election day (good) but don't start counting until election day (bad/dumb).

Mich, OH, PA allow ballots to dribble in (bad) for several days and they don't start counting (under current law unless changed) until election day (bad/dumb).

Let's hope Mike's cash dump nails FL down for Joe.

[cradleandshoot]

It only took 3 years, thank goodness for the election cycle of PR would never get the much need funds approved by Congress, from IMPOTUS. And the F'er will take credit for it too...

Today the White House announced several major disaster aid packages for Puerto Rico, amounting to the largest allotment of disaster aid in U.S. history. Most of the money will be used to rebuild the power grid that was destroyed by Hurricane Maria, 3yrs ago today.

There is better late and then there is never. From what I have read the government of Puerto Rico did a terrible job distributing the aid that was given to them. How much aid was found in that warehouse not having been distributed? I don't know for a fact but maybe it took 3 years for the leaders in Puerto Rico to prove they finally had their chit together.