Election 2024 Part III: Out with the old!

[Sommerswerd]

It'll only take about four weeks of programming, you'll see.

I'm taking the over on that four weeks.

All the "free thinkers" will start talking (all at around the same time) about how she grew up in a house, and isn't really from a working-class background because, implicitly, only white men can be "workers"

I don't follow this. I certainly get the idea that phrases like "blue collar" often get used as a euphemism for rural and suburban white folks, but what I'm not following, is the notion that AOC can't also have grown up as part of the working class because she "grew up in a house". I also don't know about the idea that only white men can be workers. If we're speaking strictly in terms of race/ethnicity... surely Hispanic/Latino folks can be viewed as being able to be "working class". Remember Trump making those quips about "black jobs"? He didn't make those comments in a vacuum. He instinctively knew that his supporters would know what "black jobs" meant.

and how she is a "Democrat insider" who insisted that Joe Biden had to be the nominee even as his lifeless corpse collapsed into a pile of dust on live tv.

I'm not convinced voters are going to remember or even care about something like this. Why would they? Who is going to vote against AOC because she advised against replacing Biden so late in the race? Harris lost. So AOC looks like Nostradamus for warning against replacing Biden. At least that's how I think most voters will look at it, especially since most voters voted for Trump. AOC didn't want to dump Biden for Harris? So what? I mean if Harris had won, AOC would have some crow to be eating right about now... but Harris lost, so I think AOC is OK on that front.

In fact, as I think I may have mentioned a while back... of all the possible outcomes, Harris losing is probably the cynical/strategic best for AOC, because now she doesn't have to kiss up to Harris for her backing Biden and she gets to run for POTUS in a completely open field in 2028, likely against J.D. Vance as the Republican nominee... that is of course, unless the unlikely happens, and the Republican party dumps the VP and nominates someone else... or, the more likely happens and Trump just installs himself as dictator for life, or concocts some other pretense to stay in office... which...

God only knows what Nancy Pelosi might have threatened him with (she said she will take their conversation to the grave, so I expect Bob Woodward to publish a book that will detail the whole thing in the next eight months).

Maybe... although I think Pelosi has more discipline than Trump. My understanding is that the relationship between Pelosi and the Bidens is completely ruined however... which was one of the points I was making about what it was going to take in terms of a prominent Democrat willing to sacrifice themselves to "bite the one ring off Biden's finger".

But Biden didn't exactly 'give it up'; the circumstantial evidence certainly indicates that he was forced out.

Sure, Pelosi "forced" him out, but then, to my earlier point... why couldn't she have done so sooner. My view is that the Democrats, Pelosi included couldn't "force" Biden to do anything. They could yell, scream, make faces, threats, shame him on the news, whatever... but ultimately only Biden himself could make the decision to drop out. In 20/20 hindsight, I don't know that we are any better off from him dropping out. If he had gone scorched earth and sent Trump and Clarence Thomas to Guantanamo, cut Israel off from all weapons, launched a full scale US-led counter-attack in Ukraine and then lost the election... would the world be any worse off? I guess its nothing but a thought exercise at this point.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'm going on a four-year cruise to avoid the Trump presidency in my mind!

I'll send y'all a post card now and again

 

[Kyriakos]

They could have forced him out. There is the 25th amendment. Given they treated him like trash, it's not impossible that they also threatened him.
Biden didn't magically do a 180 and from being adamant he will run, didn't run.
I doubt we will ever know what happened.

Besides, in the end it didn't even matter. Maybe Biden even felt happy that his forced replacement lost.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We are talking about the Villa Vie Odyssey, flagged with Bahamas? That means on the high seas they would be the ones to go to with "things the captain cannot handle".

The "four year Anti-Trump cruise" is a gimmick anyway. Every cruise ship in the fleet of any major cruise line is on a "four year cruise"... more specifically, the boats are cruising, indefinitely. It's way too expensive to port those massive ships for any significant period of time. They need to be constantly at sea making money. The ship reaches the final port of call for one particular cruise, the guests/passengers get off, the crew cleans the rooms, restocks the ship with food, drink, goods, etc., they perform maintenance and inspections and then load up another group of passengers and head right back out to sea on the next cruise.

The whole process only takes a few hours, and most cruise ships are underway again on the same day that they kicked the prior batch of passengers off. If you have ever overstayed your time on the ship after the designated disembarkation time, you know how pushy the crew gets about you getting the eff off, because they literally have to leave on the next cruise in only a matter of hours and have to scramble to get the ship ready.

So the point is that they don't need to change anything to do this "four year" cruise. That's what they do anyway. The only difference is after they kick you off for a few hours for them to resupply and conduct maintenance, you will just get back on the boat, instead of going home. They aren't going to be sailing around the ocean non-stop for four years, because they can't possibly have enough supplies for that. They are going to be stopping at ports of call at regular intervals to restock, and kicking the passengers off at regular intervals to do maintenance, inspections and cleaning/sanitizing. Some passengers will go home, others will get back on and go on the "next" cruise.

Its actually not unheard of for people, particularly retirees, to do exactly this... basically living their lives on cruise ships, just going from one cruise to the next, often on the same ship. They just get off, go get lunch at the port of call and then come right back on the same boat. As an added perk/bonus, its astronomically cheaper to do it that way, because you get points and freebees and deep discounts for booking cruises way in advance, particularly while you are still on the boat.

So like @amadeus says, this is just a gimmick to bait in impulse buying from folks that are angry about Trump winning.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

The "four year Anti-Trump cruise" is a gimmick anyway. Every cruise ship in the fleet of any major cruise line is on a "four year cruise"... more specifically, the boats are cruising, indefinitely. It's way too expensive to port those massive ships for any significant period of time. They need to be constantly at sea making money. The ship reaches the final port of call for one particular cruise, the guests/passengers get off, the crew cleans the rooms, restocks the ship with food, drink, goods, etc., they perform maintenance and inspections and then load up another group of passengers and head right back out to sea on the next cruise.

The whole process only takes a few hours, and most cruise ships are underway again on the same day that they kicked the prior batch of passengers off. If you have ever overstayed your time on the ship after the designated disembarkation time, you know how pushy the crew gets about you getting the eff off, because they literally have to leave on the next cruise in only a matter of hours and have to scramble to get the ship ready.

So the point is that they don't need to change anything to do this "four year" cruise. That's what they do anyway. The only difference is after they kick you off for a few hours for them to resupply and conduct maintenance, you will just get back on the boat, instead of going home. They aren't going to be sailing around the ocean non-stop for four years, because they can't possibly have enough supplies for that. They are going to be stopping at ports of call at regular intervals to restock, and kicking the passengers off at regular intervals to do maintenance, inspections and cleaning/sanitizing. Some passengers will go home, others will get back on and go on the "next" cruise.

Its actually not unheard of for people, particularly retirees, to do exactly this... basically living their lives on cruise ships, just going from one cruise to the next, often on the same ship. They just get off, go get lunch at the port of call and then come right back on the same boat. As an added perk/bonus, its astronomically cheaper to do it that way, because you get points and freebees and deep discounts for booking cruises way in advance, particularly while you are still on the boat.

So like @amadeus says, this is just a gimmick to bait in impulse buying from folks that are angry about Trump winning.

Sounds nice. I would rather buy my own sail ship for that money though.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't follow this. I certainly get the idea that phrases like "blue collar" often get used as a euphemism for rural and suburban white folks, but what I'm not following, is the notion that AOC can't also have grown up as part of the working class because she "grew up in a house". I also don't know about the idea that only white men can be workers. If we're speaking strictly in terms of race/ethnicity... surely Hispanic/Latino folks can be viewed as being able to be "working class". Remember Trump making those quips about "black jobs"? He didn't make those comments in a vacuum. He instinctively knew that his supporters would know what "black jobs" meant.

My entire point is that none of this makes sense. The right does not define "working class" in a material, consistent way, they rather define it by a series of cultural signifiers, which themselves change according to the tactical needs of the moment. Those signifiers in turn tend to map onto race and gender in such a way that our imagined "working class" consists of white men while everyone else is an "identity" of some kind (and identity issues are coded as frivolous, of no material importance, thus something that no 'real' worker would ever spend any time worrying about). This ultimately just functions as another way to make whiteness (and maleness to lesser degree) the invisible default.

We have already seen right-wing media running essentially with a picture of AOC's childhood home and saying "she claims to be working class but grew up in a palace!"

E.g.

Ocasio-Cortez fires back at conservative TV host who shared photo of her childhood home

John Cardillo tweeted that the home was "a far cry from the Bronx hood upbringing she's selling"

www.cbsnews.com

This is the sort of thing you will see a lot of, probably also with derisive comments about how bartending isn't a real job because it isn't making, harvesting, or building anything.

This stuff hasn't been, like, done at scale in a nationally-concerted way because AOC is just a junior Congresswoman in a safe D district, but if she becomes a Presidential nominee then the right-wing machine will coordinate bigly to push these narratives about her to a national audience.

I'm not convinced voters are going to remember or even care about something like this. Why would they? Who is going to vote against AOC because she advised against replacing Biden so late in the race? Harris lost. So AOC looks like Nostradamus for warning against replacing Biden. At least that's how I think most voters will look at it, especially since most voters voted for Trump. AOC didn't want to dump Biden for Harris? So what? I mean if Harris had won, AOC would have some crow to be eating right about now... but Harris lost, so I think AOC is OK on that front.

The context in which this topic came up was folks speculating that AOC would be a good candidate for 2028 because the MAGA voters think that she, like Trump, is an outsider. All I'm saying is I think this perception of her as an outsider will be annihilated by right-wing media and the Biden support is just one of the avenues they'll use to do it. It's less about any of the issues in themselves, it's about that outsider street cred.

My view is that the Democrats, Pelosi included couldn't "force" Biden to do anything. They could yell, scream, make faces, threats, shame him on the news, whatever... but ultimately only Biden himself could make the decision to drop out.

Without knowing what actually happened behind the scenes I can't really offer anything on this.

 

[really]

That ship was stuck in Belfast for about five months. They're probably just trying to sell off cancelled bookings.

 

[Sommerswerd]

They could have forced him out. There is the 25th amendment.

No, they didn't use the 25th Amendment and they couldn't have forced him out with the 25th Amendment. You keep bringing this up and I'm not sure why you are so fixated on it but Section 4 of the 25th Amendment (the Section people are usually referring to when they say "25th Amendment") does not work the way you seem to think it does.

Most importantly, Section 4 of the 25th Amendment would not work on a POTUS who was not either fully willing to leave office, or incapacitated/comatose, whereby they could not speak up for themselves. The 25th Amendment states that even if the VP and Cabinet tries to invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, all the POTUS has to do is send a letter to Congress, saying "Nah, I'm Good, I can continue my duties" and he can't be removed, unless a two thirds majority in both Houses of Congress overrules his desire to stay in office.

Just thinking about it logically... as @Lexicus and I have pointed out... Not even AOC wanted Biden out. So there was no way they could even get all the Democrats to support a 25th Amendment removal, let alone the Republicans. The Democrats aren't even a majority in Congress... speaking of which... again, thinking logically... Why would the Republicans ever go along with a 25th Amendment removal of Biden? They would get ZERO Republicans to vote for that, because the Republicans were eager to keep Biden in the race, because Trump was leading him in the polls and they thought he was a weak candidate. Trump himself lamented that he shouldn't have debated Biden because if he hadn't debated Biden, then Biden would have stayed in the race. All the Trump supporters and Kamala haters were whining and complaining about Biden dropping out, because they were having so much fun mocking his age and senility.

So then, as soon as the Cabinet's attempt to remove the POTUS fails, which it will absolutely fail, because they aren't going to get a Two Thirds Majority of Congress to support it, the POTUS will obviously fire everyone in their Cabinet who tried to betray them. Invoking the 25th Amendment against a POTUS who isn't comatose is political suicide. It won't work. It can't work. Its not designed to work against a POTUS that is awake, ambulatory and remotely verbal. Its only for POTUS'es who are coma patients. To paraphrase BraveHeart, a two thirds majority of both Houses of Congress couldn't agree on the color of [dogsqueeze]. So the 25th Amendment would NEVER work on a POTUS who was awake and able to speak and refusing to leave office. The 25th Amendment isn't designed to remove an old POTUS just because he is old and senile. Its to remove a POTUS who is in a coma or otherwise incapacitated.

Other reasons the 25th Amendment argument isn't realistic:
1. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment only provides a process to remove a POTUS from office. It has no power whatsoever to remove a candidate from the campaign. Biden would had to have dropped out of the campaign voluntarily, regardless of them invoking the 25th Amendment, which as I've already explained, was impossible anyway. The 25th Amendment was never a viable threat to get Biden out of the race.
2. Pelosi has nothing whatsoever to do with the initial invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment because she isn't a member of the Cabinet. She isn't even Speaker of the House anymore. She isn't even the House Minority Leader anymore. She can't credibly threaten Biden with the 25th Amendment.
3. Invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment against an unwilling POTUS is going to be viewed by the voting public as a coup d'etat and the Republicans would successfully characterize it as such. Hell, folks are describing Biden willingly (begrudgingly) dropping out and endorsing Harris as a coup, can you imagine the uproar if he was really "forced" out by an invocation of the 25th Amendment? It would have been political malpractice, even if it could have worked, which it absolutely could not have.

 

[Kyriakos]

If you wish to think about it logically, you could also factor in that even the official attempt to oust Biden, without passing the legislative bodies, would be a rather awful mark on his legacy. So theoretically the threat would be enough, and could (same dictionary link) work
Anyway, Biden didn't run, the party lost the same. In a few years neither Biden nor Kamala will mean much.

 

[Sommerswerd]

As an aside... since now I'm thinking about it... In the Harrison Ford movie Air Force One the Secretary of Defense attempts to convince Harrison Ford (POTUS James Marshall)'s VP (a woman, ironically Kathryn Bennett), played by Glen Close, to join the Cabinet in invoking the 25th Amendment, Section 4, when Ford is captured by hijackers on Air Force One. Walter Dean, the Secretary of Defense (played by Robert dean Stockwell)'s argument, is that since the President has been kidnapped, he is technically incapacitated and "unable to discharge the duties of the office" as outlined in the 25th Amendment.

In that scenario, the President would be unable to contest his removal via the 25th Amendment, because he would be out of contact with Congress, and therefore unable to attest to his own capacity to fulfill his duties as POTUS. So POTUS would be replaced by the VPOTUS until he escaped (or was rescued/ransomed) from the hijackers and was able to return to his duties. The main reason the Secretary of Defense wanted to invoke the 25th Amendment, was because the hijackers (led by actor Gary Oldman in a tour de force) were trying to extort the release of their leader, the evil, murderous, communist, fascist, etc., dictator, General Radek (played by Jurgen Prochnow) from a Russian prison. POTUS was being forced to ask for the release of the dictator, with the hijacker holding a gun to his daughter's head. So the Secretary of Defense was trying to invoke the 25th Amendment, to strip POTUS of his office, in order to have VPOTUS overrule the order to release General Radek.

The irony, was that even if they had succeeded in invoking the 25th Amendment, it wouldn't have stopped Radek from being released, because the POTUS had no authority to order a Russian prison to release him. The release was being done as a personal favor by the Russian President, based on her personal affinity and loyalty to POTUS Marshall. In fact, earlier in the movie, the VPOTUS asked for the release of Radek and the Russian President told her to kick rocks, because he would only do it for POTUS Marshall. So even if they had stripped Marshall of office via the 25th Amendment, the Russian president would likely still have gone through with the release of Radek (which had already been requested by Marshall at that point).

Anyway it was an interesting depiction of the (unsuccessful, because VPOTUS refused) attempted invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment in a movie. I don't think Biden (or Trump) is going to be fist-fighting any bad-guys anytime soon, so I don't think we will see any application of the 25th Amendment like this.

 

[Sommerswerd]

My entire point is that none of this makes sense. The right does not define "working class" in a material, consistent way, they rather define it by a series of cultural signifiers, which themselves change according to the tactical needs of the moment.

I don't think that's limited to right wing media though. I think you are right about the ultimate impact regardless. However, I also think that people have their own internal feel about what constitutes "working class" and i don't think its limited to white males.

We have already seen right-wing media running essentially with a picture of AOC's childhood home and saying "she claims to be working class but grew up in a palace!"

E.g.

Ocasio-Cortez fires back at conservative TV host who shared photo of her childhood home

John Cardillo tweeted that the home was "a far cry from the Bronx hood upbringing she's selling"

www.cbsnews.com

This is the sort of thing you will see a lot of, probably also with derisive comments about how bartending isn't a real job because it isn't making, harvesting, or building anything.

This stuff hasn't been, like, done at scale in a nationally-concerted way because AOC is just a junior Congresswoman in a safe D district, but if she becomes a Presidential nominee then the right-wing machine will coordinate bigly to push these narratives about her to a national audience.

I took a look at the tweet embedded in the article, and if that guy thinks that showing the house in the picture ruins AOC's "working class" cred, I think he's misguided... again, as you point out, to the extent the voter has any consistent concept of "working class" in their mind. But that house is certainly a pretty regular looking, modest, suburban home. Anyone who has family in NYC (or any city FTM) knows that there are suburban homes all around the outskirts of cities and in certain neighborhoods of cities. And the guy backpedaling to putting up pictures of bigger homes in the neighborhood doesn't land... it just makes him come off as dishonest. Everyone knows that towns and cities have different neighborhoods with different size and value homes.

The context in which this topic came up was folks speculating that AOC would be a good candidate for 2028 because the MAGA voters think that she, like Trump, is an outsider. All I'm saying is I think this perception of her as an outsider will be annihilated by right-wing media and the Biden support is just one of the avenues they'll use to do it. It's less about any of the issues in themselves, it's about that outsider street cred.

That's another angle. The outsider cred versus the working class cred. I guess they will attack both, but I am thinking their main line of attack will be painting her as a radical leftist woke SJW, etc.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Having lost with two lady candidates (Hilary and Kamala) I doubt that the Democrats will choose another woman e.g. AOC for a long time.

She might have a chance in 2032, but I doubt it for 2028.

 

[Gorbles]

Correlation doing a lot of work as usual.

 

[Voidwalkin]

The outsider cred versus the working class cred. I guess they will attack both, but I am thinking their main line of attack will be painting her as a radical leftist woke SJW, etc.

Yes, she will be attacked as an SJW first and foremost. The first two are unlikely to be effective, a benefit of a long alignment with noted curmudgeon Bernie Sanders, who has beat the working class drum so consistently and powerfully, it establishes her by proximity.

She follows a different set of social protocols than is customary. It's the most obvious angle to create an us vs. them dynamic, because said protocols are not commonly found in most actual working class spaces. It's not perfect alignment, but this can be worked around.

The effectiveness of will be limited by the skill of her communication, which is actually quite good, at least in my estimation. She seems empathetic. This could be rallied to rouse a rabble and makes it hard to genuinely dislike her.

 

[amadeus]

She might end up being old hat. Who thought of Bill Clinton in 1980? Jimmy Carter in 1972? Who was Barack Obama in 1996? You do have a few names that get in the news and stay in there—Reagan was talked about as early as ‘68, but I think these tend to be the outliers rather than the norm.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Who was Barack Obama

FWIW I remember talk of Obama long before he was nominated. Can't possibly remember the article. It stuck me because as he began to establish his prominence it seemed clairvoyant, it was so far back, and he was at that time so obscure.

Talent flashes, I guess.

AOC does have some. Newsom too. Who knows who will be better suited to the moment.

 

[amadeus]

FWIW I remember talk of Obama long before he was nominated. Can't possibly remember the article.

He was a speaker at the ‘04 Dem. convention. I’m sure the party machine gave him some other odd jobs too to raise his profile.

Cortez? Don’t see it happening myself.

 

[Sommerswerd]

If you wish to think about it logically, you could also factor in that even the official attempt to oust Biden, without passing the legislative bodies, would be a rather awful mark on his legacy. So theoretically the threat would be enough, and could (same dictionary link) work
Anyway, Biden didn't run, the party lost the same. In a few years neither Biden nor Kamala will mean much.

Nope. As I already addressed, none of what you say is remotely a factor. The threat is completely idle, Biden would know that, and anyone who even pretended to go along with the limp threat would be political toast. Also, even if they did a failed attempt to remove him via the 25th Amendment, which they didn't ...Biden's legacy couldn't have been hurt anymore by that then what actually happened... he dropped out, endorsed Harris and she lost anyway to Trump.

I know that for whatever bizarre reason, you have this fascination/fantasy/desire that Biden got threatened with forced removal via the 25th Amendment, but it just didn't happen. It doesn't make any sense and I've explained why. But by all means continue with your fantasy, if it gives you joy.

On a related note... the most likely reason Biden dropped out, was because after he figuratively pooped the bed in the debate, Pelosi and others were able to reason with him about the polling, and convince him that he had no chance to beat Trump. Prior to the debate, he was already losing to Trump in most polls, but his ego was probably telling him that the polls were wrong, or that he could turn it around... but once he fell on his face in the debate, he probably became more receptive to the notion that he didn't have it anymore and needed to step aside, at a minimum... to avoid being blamed for the Democrats' loss... which ironically, he is still being blamed for anyway.

 

[Kyriakos]

I guess, I mean that post was a while ago, and you already posted after it. I think we will survive if we move on, speaking of bizarre reasons and fascinations ^^

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sure... if you don't bring it up again, we can "move on"