You’d think that the many progressive folks who were hoping that Trump would win the primary in 2016 under the theory that he’d be easy to beat would have learned their lesson by now.
Even when the odds of victory look very good going into a race you never know what factors may appear suddenly out of left field. Random natural disasters or unexpected wars that wreck the economy, political assassinations, or medical issues that suddenly make your own candidate less appealing to a slice of the voting public.
If Biden runs again he’ll be almost 82 years old by the 2024 election. If he were to, for example, suffer an ill-timed stroke or other serious but non-fatal medical issue a few weeks before the election who knows how that could affect the outcome.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he just throws a temper tantrum and say he’s not running or hasn’t decided yet because something something incoherent babbling.
I’d put a couple bucks on that scenario but I always come home from the casino with less money that I started with so don’t listen to me.
There has never been so much coverage of a US midterm election on the CBC before. The whole world was on the edge of our seats, fingers crossed on this one. Most of all Canada, for whom the stability of the US is a pretty existential question. So thank you Americans, for showing up and voting. Even if the House is lost, holding the Senate is a huge deal and turning what is traditionally a rout for the sitting party into a hold is pretty amazing. If the House is lost, the result will probably be two years of legislative paralysis, but considering some of the alternatives, we’ll take it.
I’m not a believer in that anymore. The “moderate” Republicans have had six years to move away (Democratic, Libertarian, Independent, Communist, I don’t care where), but they have stayed with the party and adopted the MAGA culture war rhetoric.
They are Team Red supporters, and will follow them wherever they go. The kind of person who would vote for Lenin as long as he had an (R) next to his name.
We can wish for what could be, but we need to deal with what is. One underappreciated aspect of voting for the less-bad is that, after a bunch steps of less-bad, we may approach sorta good. For now, it realy was, is, and will continue to be a Red Queen situation, while the Boomers are replaced by Gen Z as the dominant voting block. We need hold that ground for our kids.
Considering that there are 180-odd million Americans who are, legally, potential candidates for President, time and again the big question seems to be “WHY, OH WHY THOSE TWO???”
This is the country that sent people to the moon and back. Shouldn’t America be able to find better-qualified candidates to put on the ballot than the prime specimens who end up there every time? One keeps wondering.
The duopoly is effectively built into the American system and both party establishments are in no rush to change that. This is the natural outcome of such a system. As I noted in an earlier Topic where we were discussing the lack of things like making election day a civic holiday:
If I was betting, it would be an announcement that’s right up to the line, but not enough, to cause financial campaign laws to kick in. Just a dog whistle about running, a wink wink nudge nudge but not currently running yet.
If he’s not over that line, and just asking for donations to “something something own the libs”, that sounds like free money. Cross the line to an actual campaign, and now campaign finance laws apply. Could still skirt those, but that’s a bunch of extra overhead. People aren’t donating to the campaign, just the own the libs fund. But without actually running, that’s less of an issue.
I also think it is worth noting that America has not been doing lesser-of-two-evils voting. The most horrific trash candidates still get a ton of votes and even win – though of course the latter is with a very unbalanced scale. Still is it any wonder the system doesn’t converge on good when so many people have been choosing worse a signficiant portion of the time?
OK but in 2016 it was Trump vs. a dozen people and the establishment (Fox etc.) couldn’t rally round a particular one until it was too late. In 2024 it seems quite likely to be DeSantis vs. Trump for the nomination, with DeSantis supported by the establishment, and Trump peeling off a few percent. That’s enough to make DeSantis lose, which is maybe why he’s reportedly thinking to wait until 2028.
Well the flipside of that is that every great thing America has ever accomplished (moon landing included) took place under terribly flawed leadership so I guess one takeaway is you gotta do the best you can with whatever you get.
I’m rather confused by the graphic on the guardian website… it looks like they called Georgia for the republicans… which seems odd considering if there were no runoff Warnock would be ahead currently by 40,000 votes.
