There’s a gathering sense that President Biden’s response to the war in Gaza may cost him the 2024 election. A recent Gallup poll showed that his support among Democrats has slipped 11 points in the past month to 75 percent, the lowest of his presidency. On Friday my colleagues in the newsroom reported on a growing backlash against Biden coming from young and left-leaning voters.
Does this mean that standing with Israel could be politically fatal for Biden? I don’t think so, and to understand why, it’s important to understand the core responsibilities of an American president.
In 2012, when I was a partisan supporter of Mitt Romney, there was one message from President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign that I thought made the most succinct and persuasive case for his second term. It was delivered most memorably by then-Vice President Biden, of all people, at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. He said that Obama had “courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and a spine of steel,” and then Biden delivered the key line: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”
I admit that I have been surprised by Biden’s strong leadership since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but part of the reason I’m surprised is that I don’t think it will help him much politically - I think he sees how important these things are right now and he prioritizes them over his own longer-term political prospects.
Exactly.
Dude is old. This next election will be the last of his career. He knows that. Doing what he thinks is “right” is way more important to him than the approval rating.
I’m not sure he even wants a second term (as opposed to doing it out of a sense of duty). I know that the sort of person who becomes president isn’t like normal people, but I still can’t see him eager for one of the most stressful jobs in the world up until he’s 86 years old.
Jill Lawrence: “Joe Biden is our oldest president, as everyone keeps saying, but he’s also—despite and possibly because of his age—an unusually forward-looking president"
Looking forward 5 years to when all those children being bombed become fresh recruits for Hamas or whatever even more radical organization takes their place.
3d chess over here
If you were an arms manufacturer (military industrial complex) and needed a controlled environment to test out various surveillance, antipersonnel, nonlethal (we all know these can be lethal) gear (and various software for face recognition, sigint, predictive modeling, etc) in various settings, it’s hard to imagine a “better” set up.
Where are they going to go?
How easy is it to control the supply of everything going in so you know what you are up against?
How simple to watch the area with satellite imagery?
How risky to get too involved know Israel has nukes and the US in its side?
My mind goes there sometimes. A lot of gear comes out of Israel “because they need it”.
Now, look, I am not antisemitic. I’m just a person who has seen enough to know that no normal person wakes up the morning and wishes the world they are raising their kids had more violence. That’s the work of sociopathic business people and their government pals craving power. It has nothing to do with the average persons culture, social status, or ethics.
The dnc/bidens message is basically, who cares. What are ya gonna do, vote for trump?
They know at the end of the day well plug our nose and darken the oval next to bidens name.
Is it? Ds have passed a lot given how fucked the GOP has made things.
FDR had a lot of bipartisan support, Biden has absolutely none. Yet Biden visited picket lines, still fighting for loan forgiveness, etc.
You make it sound like the dems are just sitting around and anytime you ask where are the promises you made they just point to the right and say be glad we aren’t doing that; that is absolutely not the case.
Yeah I’m no Biden fan either but he has done quite a good job overall given the chaos-saturated Congress. No he had t fulfilled every promise but he has tried, no that’s not good enough but it sure as hell ain’t a “who cares” either.
Biden has been surprisingly effective with the cards he’s been dealt, and swiftly fixed a lot of things trump fumbled with his handling of Covid.
I think people forget just how chaotic things were in 2020 leading up to the election.
There is also a real chance that Trump might not even be on the ballot in every state or that he might have to campaign from jail.
I really doubt Trump has a winning strategy, after losing 2022, 2020 and 2018.
Trump’s winning strategy is a bigger, better and successful Jan 6 that installs him as president.
He won’t have the support of the VP this time (actually, same as last time I suppose!) nor control of the national guard.
Sadly, I fear they will be a lot more willing to hang the VP because oh no, she’s a woman.
Thankfully, we’ve already witnessed january 6th 2021, and I imagine there will be better security, and someone willing to actually call the DC coos or national guard.
Not to mention the popular vote in 2016.
I’ll be honest, that’s good enough for me until Trump fades away like a bad odor.
Yeah, Joe Biden knows exactly what he’s doing, and that’s the problem. The resulting government, leadership, and progress, or lack thereof, is exactly what is intended.
He got medicare to negotiate drug prices which Dems have been trying to do for 30+ years
What The Hell Are You Talking About?!?!?
What does leadership look like, clown dick? .99 gas?
He’s doing a great job at not being Donald Trump lol This 2 party capitalist system is obviously producing the best leaders the US can offer (/s)
He’s doing well at putting smart people in positions of power.
What I mean is this show is less about Biden and more about the people behind the scenes.
Imagine Pompous Pompeo right now instead of Blinken.
Imagine John fucking Bolton instead of Jake Sullivan.
Forget the fact that UN appointments, ambassadors and court nominees scaled up massively in expertise, intelligence, and morality.
Forget the fact that UN appointments, ambassadors and court nominees scaled up massively in expertise, intelligence, and morality.
Rahm Emanuel?
But can you imagine if he was TRUMP?! Omg don’t imagine that!! (/s) this system is a joke and I’m not about to imagine it’s anything butt one
Yes, the system is a joke, but I’d rather it be run by competent bureaucrats than foaming-at-the-mouth violent theocrats.
Don’t forget the outright fascists!
So how many Republican voters are out for blood? (Which I can’t believe the about face done twice in rapid succession. That Iraq was a mistake, so/and can’t afford the war in Ukraine, but now it’s go time.)
Ukraine being slaughtered by Russia? Gotta hang in.
Israel committing genocide? LETS GOOOOO, oh… and I guess Ukraine can get a slice now.
Neo-progressive fascists are just as delusional as MAGA fascists.
I first read your user name as “malkuth.” Close enough.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He said that Obama had “courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and a spine of steel,” and then Biden delivered the key line: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”
Consider what he confronts: a brutal Russian assault on a liberal democracy in Europe, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and an aggressive China that is gaining military strength and threatens Taiwan.
If Hamas can wound Israel so deeply and yet live to fight again, it will have accomplished what ISIS could not — commit acts of the most brutal terror and then survive as an intact organization against a military that possesses the power to crush it outright.
This instinct is magnified when the combination of the fog of war and Hamas disinformation can cause exaggerated or even outright false claims of Israeli atrocities to race across the nation and the world before the full truth is known.
Asked at a news conference about Biden’s observation that innocents will continue to die as Israel presses its attacks, Kirby responded with facts we cannot forget: “What’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields.
If Biden can persevere in the face of the chaos and confusion of war abroad and polarization at home, all while preserving a level of economic growth that is astonishing in contrast with the rest of the world, he’ll have his own story to tell in Chicago, one that should trump the adversity of any given moment or the concern generated by any given poll.
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“Palestinian kids are dead, and Chevron is alive”
Let’s be honest, Biden is old and tired and is letting the admin get controlled by neolibs. Neolibs aren’t popular, unless you are a NYT oped writer.
