It’s A Struggle

It’s a struggle writing about politics when every single political story leaves you feeling worried for the future of the country.  That’s especially true when it comes to the stories about the upcoming Trump indictment.

I don’t have much more to say about any of this, other than I don’t think there’s a hero to be found anywhere in this situation, not in the DA’s office and certainly not in the Trump campaign.  The case against Trump is obviously a partisan prosecution, with the idea being to keep Trump in the news for as long as possible because as long as people are paying attention to Trump, they won’t be paying attention to Biden.  At the same time, if you don’t want to run the risk of having stuff like this happen to you, don’t cheat on your wife and then use campaign funds to pay off a porn star.  It’s not that difficult.

I’m frustrated with the lot of them and quite frankly tired of the whole thing.

Twilight of the Kennedys

Robert F. Kennedy Jr ‘thinking about’ launching Democratic challenge to Biden for 2024 White House nomination

That RFK, Jr. has presidential ambitions has never exactly been a secret.  Right now, he’s best-known for being an outspoken opponent of vaccines but people forget that, before he embraced that particular cause, he was one of the most strident environmentalists in the country.  He was promoting the Green New Deal long before AOC ever made her way to Congress.  Before he was encouraging parents to leave their children vulnerable to deadly diseases, RFK, Jr. was arguing the the CEOs of companies that pollute should be tried as war criminals.

Before even that, a young RFK Jr. was a member of the Manhattan DA’s office.  Like his brother David, RFK Jr. developed an addiction to heroin.  David would die of an overdose.  RFK Jr. was merely arrested and spent two years on probation.  If not for his name, RFK Jr. would probably just be another unknown activist with a difficult personal history.

But RFK Jr. does have the name and, as a result, he is treated as serious person despite his history of spreading conspiracy theories.   And now, RFK Jr. appears to be poised to be the latest Kennedy to enter a presidential race.  In some ways, it would be a case of history repeating itself.  The last time a Democrat as incompetent as Joe Biden ran for reelection, he was challenged by a Kennedy.  Ted Kennedy won at least a few primaries against Jimmy Carter.  I doubt RFK Jr. will be able to make that claim.

But I have no doubt that he will try and it will be interesting to see where his votes come from.  Will RFK, Jr. be the candidate of the Green New Deal or the candidate of vaccine skepticism?

A Frustrating Few Weeks

If you’re like me and you follow politics and you think a second Joe Biden term would be disastrous for the country, the past few weeks have been frustrating.

Among my problems with the Democrats, two of the big ones were that 1) the Democrats have consistently refused to strongly call out anti-Semitism in their own ranks and 2) the Democrats have no problem shredding the Constitution to get what they want.

So, of course, Donald Trump goes off and has dinner with two of America’s best-known anti-Semites (yes, Milo was there as well but I’m not sure anyone who isn’t very online has the slightest idea who Milo is) and then he demands that the Constitution be shredded so that he can be president again.  Thanks, Don!

(For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think Trump is himself an anti-Semite.  I just think he’s a man in his mid-70s who isn’t really in touch with modern pop culture and who can’t let go of a grudge and who will have dinner with anyone who sucks up to him.)

Myself, I’ll be voting for DeSantis.  Or Kemp.  Or Youngkin.  Or even Larry Hogan!  (I like Larry Hogan more than most Republicans and I think he was effective as any Republican governor could be in a state as blue as Maryland.  But I know there’s no way a Hogan presidential campaign would get beyond New Hampshire.)  In 2024, vote for a governor.

Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet

Especially if you’re these three.

Say what you will about John Fetterman, at least he was smart enough to keep quiet at his rally with Biden.  Biden, meanwhile, was even more incoherent than usual.  If there is a red wave in November, I’ll be curious to see if the whispers about Biden’s diminished abilities becomes louder amongst Democrats.

Changing The Narrative

Of course, on the same day that a truly terrible inflation report comes out, the J6 Committee tries to change the narrative by issuing a subpoena that Trump is going to ignore and which will never be enforced.

At this point, most people just want to be able to wake up with some sort of confidence in the future of the country.  Biden and his people don’t seem to understand that and that’s why they’re about to lose the House and probably the Senate as well.

What If Armageddon Was Coming And No One Cared?

Biden Says Putin Threats Real, Could Spark Nuclear ‘Armageddon’

Does anyone even pay attention to anything that Joe Biden says anymore?

I have never seen a more generally blasé reaction to a president declaring that the end is nigh.  It either means that people are eager to get this over with or everyone knows better than to pay attention to Biden’s ramblings.  When Biden was in the Senate, he was famous for going on, at great lengths, about absolutely nothing.

To be honest, Putin and his nukes do worry me.  This is a time when you need strong world leadership but I don’t think there’s anyone around who can provide that anymore.  On the one hand, you can’t just give Putin whatever he wants because ultimately, Putin is going to want it all.  At the same time, if there’s any world leader who I could imagine launching a nuclear attack out of spite, it’s Putin.

It was just one year ago today

The Cure For The Political Blues

Whenever I’m feeling down about the state of American politics and the upcoming midterms, I go over to the Internet Archive and I use the old President Elect game to simulate the election 1984, replacing Walter Mondale with Joe Biden.

(Little known fact: Biden set up an exploratory committee to run for President in 1984 because Biden has been around forever.)

Watching Reagan crush Biden cheers me up every time.  In the real world, Mondale at least managed to carry Minnesota and D.C.  In the simulation, Biden has yet to even manage to win Delaware or get more than 29% of the popular vote.

It’s nice to see.

The Worst Kept Secret In Politics

From The Wrap:

Gavin Newsom Is ‘Unequivocally’ Running for President in 2024 if Biden Doesn’t

That Gavin Newsom wants to be president is probably the worst kept secret in politics.  Newsom has been positioning himself to run ever since he was mayor of San Francisco.  As much as I enjoyed the spectacle of the recent California recall election, Newsom’s easy survival would definitely be one of the main talking points of his campaign.  Then again, Scott Walker also tried to turn surviving a recall into a presidential campaign and look at how that worked out for him.

As much as I don’t like Joe Biden, it might be worth it to have him run again if it means being spared a Gavin Newsom campaign.  Newsom is like some sort of unholy combination of Joel Osteen and Martin O’Malley.  Where’s the Biden ’24 website?  I’m going to go donate.

On Approval Ratings

Biden’s approval rating has improved, there’s no reason to try to deny that.  He was in the mid-to-low 30s.  Now, most polls have him in the low to mid-40s.  But polling also shows that most voters don’t have much confidence that things are going to get better in the future and that they think the country is heading in the wrong direction.  Overwhelming majorities continue to say that they don’t think Biden should run for reelection.

To me, that indicates that people are now used to Biden being incompetent.  When Biden first started screwing up, it was a shock to those who had bought into the media narrative that Joe Biden was some sort of empathetic statesman.  Now that everyone knows he’s a mediocre hack, it’s a lot easier to just shrug him off.