The View from Right Field

The Biden Watch: And the Beat Goes On

As I watch more and more Democratic leaders try to push Joe Biden out of his race for re-election, all I see them saying is that he will lose to Donald Trump and/or his staying in will result in the Democrats losing the Senate and more House seats in November.  Nobody seems to be talking about whether Joe Biden is capable of being President for another four years.  That is what the American people are thinking.  We see Joe Biden and think to ourselves: This guy can’t be president for four more years.  We wonder whether he can do the job for the next six months.  And yet the Democrats just talk about whether he can win in November and whether he will hurt the election chances of other Democrats. 

Maybe their theory is that they have a better chance of getting Biden to withdraw if they talk about the politics of it, as opposed to telling him that he just can’t do the job anymore.  But while that might be the best way to get him out, how about some honesty with the American people?

Biden? Trump? The Biden Watch – It’s Not About Whether He Can Win, It’s About Whether He Can Be President – For Four and One-Half More Years

I didn’t watch Joe Biden’s press conference tonight because it’s not relevant.  The question is not whether Joe Biden could do okay tonight.  And it definitely is not whether he can beat Donald Trump in November.  The question is whether he can be President for four and a half more years. 

Even if you think he is okay right now, do you think he will be okay a year from now?  Two years from now?  How about three years from now?  Do you think he will be fully with it and able to be President three years from now?  Because three years from now, he will still have another year and a half to serve as President. 

Biden? Trump? The Biden Watch.

I have lots to do (even if I am retired), and yet I keep reading articles about Joe Biden.  Is he leaving?  Is he staying?  How bad did he do today?  What’s going to happen?

To me, it’s obvious Joe Biden cannot be President for “four more years”.  I’m not even sure he should be President for six more months, but we can probably get through that.  Four more years?  Of course not.  Even if the debate was a bad night and even if Joe Biden was never all that articulate, he is on a downhill slide.  Even if he hasn’t gone down very far, it’s not going to get better.  And the concern is that it will be like what Ernest Hemingway said about going bankrupt: “Gradually and then suddenly.” 

Biden? Trump? The Heck With It – A Post-Debate Follow-Up

I watched the debate last night – or at least as much of it as I could until I had to turn it off.  Unfortunately, I missed the golf handicap segment.  Which is amazing.  We had the world, including people like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, i.e., people who have nuclear weapons, watching, and the two candidates for our top job are arguing about their golf handicap?

Donald Trump was his normal fact-free self.  Nothing new.  As for Joe Biden, I’m only surprised by how many people were surprised.  I don’t know what the Democrats are going to do vis-à-vis November.  But, more importantly, I don’t know what the United States is going to do until January.  Who is making the decisions in the White House?  Who is Joe Biden’s Edith Bolling Galt Wilson?

Biden? Trump? The Heck With It.

Readers of this blog may have noticed (they have even been grateful) that I have not been posting as much lately.  After getting back from our break and seeing that things are pretty much the same as they were before we left (which was to be expected), I can see why: Biden v. Trump, again.  Progressives v. right-wing populists constantly. 

When George W. Bush was president and while Barack Obama was president, I posted a lot because there were things I wanted to say.  That even continued, for a while, under Doanld Trump.  But then I got tired complaining about Trump, especially when the other side didn’t seem any better. 

When Joe Biden came in, I posted things, but the number of them has dropped.  He’s been bad, his policies have been bad, but so many on the other side seem bad, too.

The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024 – And American Foreign Policy

In a recent news review,¹ one of the commentators said that, because Trump has made the world part of our political fracas, the political rhetoric now, during the campaign. may be more dangerous for America, and foreign relations. than what comes after November, when the election is over.

I disagree.  I’m afraid the result won’t be known – or, perhaps more accurately, won’t be accepted by the “losing” side – and the things will heat up even more after November 7.  I worry that the election will result in a constitutional crisis greater than any we have seen since 1860-61 – because, no matter who wins, the other side won’t accept it.² 

If Trump loses, he and his supporters will say the election was stolen.  Former President Trump is already saying the election will be rigged.  We know what some Trump supporters did on January 6, 2021.  Who knows what they may do this time.  I understand that last time Mr. Trump was President and that gave him things he could try to do.  But this time, his people may be more upset.

Avoiding “The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024”

Supposedly the voters don’t want a repeat of Trump-Biden (or is it Biden-Trump) in November.  I wonder.  While most voters don’t want Trump, it might be that a majority of Republicans do – or at least they think he is inevitable.  As for Biden, while his overall approval ratings aren’t good, it could be that a majority of Democrats want him, especially if the Republican alternative is Trump. 

But, if it is Biden and Trump again in November, well, I wrote about “The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024” last December.  As I said then, and I think it is pretty clear, if Trump loses a November rematch, he and many of his supporters won’t accept it.  It won’t be pretty.

On the other hand, if Biden loses, while he might accept it, I wonder about his supporters.  I raised this question in December and talked about it even more in January: If Trump is as big a threat to democracy as Biden says, how can Biden’s supporters accept him? 

If Trump Is a Threat to Democracy, What If He Wins?

President Biden is campaigning hard on the idea that former President Trump is a threat to democracy.  I understand why he is doing this.  President Biden does not have great approval ratings, so he has to play to his strength – which is how bad his supporters think former President Trump is.  Attacking Trump as a threat to democracy is not going to sway many Trump supporters, but it might help a little on the margin if Trump says something crazier than normal for even him or if he gets convicted.  That might sway a few people in the middle.  Also, attacking Trump as a threat to democracy might motivate Biden’s supporters to get and vote.  The two of those together might be enough for Biden to beat Trump again.

The question I have, however, is this: If Biden spends the whole campaign talking about Trump being a threat to democracy, what happens if Trump wins the election?  It’s a long way to November, and polls this early don’t mean much, but they do indicate Trump and Biden are just about tied (Trump is actually a little ahead in some polls).  And Trump doesn’t need to win the popular vote; he just needs to win the Electoral College.  He won the Electoral College in 2016 while trailing Hillary Clinton by almost three million votes.  In 2020, he lost to Biden by seven million votes and still got very close in the Electoral College.  He could lose the popular vote in 2024 and still win the Electoral College.  And based on what the polls say, he could even win the popular vote.  If he does that, the Electoral College might not even be close.

The Advantage of Living in Illinois

Sometimes I wonder why I keep living in Illinois.  What with the political corruption (do I really need to list it all?), the incompetent governments (see, inter alia, the mindboggling debt of the public employee pension plans and the “progressive paradise “of Brandon Johnson’s Chicago), and so much more, there aren’t all that many obvious advantages to living in Illinois (other than grandchildren and the Cubs, of course).

But as the 2024 Presidential contest proceeds, inexorably, it seems, to a repeat of 2020’s Biden-Trump horror show, there is one major advantage of living in Illinois: You don’t have to vote for either one of them – because Biden will win Illinois.  Even though even one vote can matter, and has (see here), one vote, or even one hundred thousand votes, isn’t going to make a difference in the 2024 Presidential race in Illinois.  Biden is going to win Illinois by a lot of votes, and he is going to get Illinois’s 19 electoral votes.¹  Which means I don’t have to vote for either Biden or Trump.  And that is the advantage of living in Illinois.² 
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¹ It says something about Illinois that, when John F. Kennedy “won” Illinois in 1960, he got 27 electoral votes.  When Joe Biden wins Illinois in 2024, he’ll get 19.
² It is also the advantage of the Electoral College.

The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024

The Colorado Supreme Court has held, in a 4-3 decision, that Donald Trump cannot appear on the Colorado primary ballot pursuant to section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.  There are arguments by people I respect on both sides of the question of whether section 3 applies to Donald Trump and what he did or did not do on January 6, 2021.  I’m not going into that question.  I assume this case will be going to the U.S. Supreme Court quite quickly and that they will probably decide the question of the Donald Trump and section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Which gets to the title of this post: “The Coming Constitutional Crisis of 2024.”  I give a hat tip to John Cochrane, “The Grumpy Economist,” for this title and the issue.  It comes not from Dr. Cochrane’s blog or his economic work.  Rather it comes from comments he has made on episodes of the “GoodFellows” podcast that he appears on with Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Niall Ferguson.