But What About Trump?
Biden is old and in diminished capacity. His opponent is old, in diminished capacity, and a horrible human being.
In “Varying Treatment of Biden and Trump Puts Their Parties in Stark Relief,” NYT chief White House correspondent Peter Baker notes the obvious:
One of America’s political parties has a presidential candidate who is really old and showing it. The other has a presidential candidate who is a convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser, business fraudster and self-described aspiring dictator for a day. And also really old.
One of the parties is up in arms about its nominee and trying to figure out how to replace him at the last minute. The other is not.
The spectacle of the week since the nationally televised debate between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump has thrown into sharp relief two political parties that agreed to be led by flawed putative nominees whose vulnerabilities have become even more painfully apparent just months before the election.
None of this is new, of course. Because Trump has been so off-the-charts terrible for so long, his awfulness is just baked in. Because we expect Biden to be a competent politician, we hold him to a much higher standard.
Fair? No. But it’s reality. (See also: Israeli and Hamas.)
But there’s also something else going on.
But the distinction of recent weeks has been striking. After Mr. Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies by a Manhattan jury in May — a verdict that came after civil judgments against him for personal and professional misdeeds — there was no significant groundswell within the Republican Party to force him out of the race in favor of a less-tainted candidate. Even though many Republican officeholders and strategists privately loathe him, they fell in line and made clear they would stick with him no matter how many scandals piled up.
Until last week, Democrats had also resigned themselves to a candidate many considered far from ideal. Mr. Biden and his allies had effectively squelched any internal dissent, forcing Democrats to stay quiet despite fears that his age would ultimately undercut his campaign. After last week’s debate showcased concerns about his mental sharpness, however, the conspiracy of silence was broken. Suddenly, a wide swath of Democrats concluded that he was no longer viable and mounted an effort to pressure him to step aside for a younger candidate.
The Democrats have a functioning political party, with viable factions fighting to control the agenda. The Republicans have a cult of personality around a single candidate. While a significant number of GOP officials want Trump gone, they’re quite rightly afraid to challenge him, as almost everyone who has been ousted for others will fall in line.
Relatedly, Trump remains considerably more popular with his base than Biden does with his. There’s simply less cost to challenging him.
Beyond that, Trump has been narrowly leading in the polls for the entire campaign. Democrats are scared that he’ll win and the debate pushed many of them over the edge, panicking that Biden’s infirmity will guarantee a Trump win and all that comes with it.
Neither party should have been surprised by what would follow. It was eminently predictable that by the time voters began to cast ballots, Mr. Biden would have aged further and had more senior moments, and Mr. Trump would be found guilty of various acts of misconduct. Both parties knew the minefields they were heading into by sticking with Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, and neither took enough action to head it off.
“We used to worry that partisanship would mean choosing the party over one’s country,” Mr. Engel said. “Now it appears to mean, again increasingly for both sides, choosing the man rather than the nation’s needs.”
Baker knows better than this. Biden and Trump are their party. Both won their primaries without much of a fight, and there is no magical entity that can kick them off the ticket.
If the election were between Biden and say, Mitt Romney, I might have a problem. Or if he were still alive, John McCain. I would have no doubt that either of them would understand the oath of office and commit to serving the country, while pursuing policies I don’t agree with as well.
That’s not the scenario we are in. Biden’s opponent has demonstrated himself manifestly unfit for office in the way he has neglected, ignored, and well, trampled on his duty to the country. He’s somebody who thinks “duty” is for suckers.
So, I’ll vote for a dead fish before I vote for Trump.
@Jay L Gischer: Well, sure. But the question is why is Biden being treated so differently by his party than Trump.
You would think that Trump being awful but the overwhelming majority of Republicans/conservatives and nearly half the country STILL preferring him to whomever James Joyner likes would at some point cause James Joyner to ask “Why?”
But we’re nearly 9 years into this and…nope! (Hint: It’s NOT that Trump supporters are dumber or less righteous than James Joyner)
The term “narcissism” gets thrown around far too casually now but I’m not sure what other term could possibly apply.
@James Joyner:
Trump’s party is a cult of personality. It isn’t really any more complicated than that. The cultists are smart and righteous – just ask them. The rest of us are narcissists and we’re too obtuse to see that fanatic populism is better than democracy.
It’s not that the awfulness is baked in. They hate those who oppose them more than anything, so the awfulness is a virtue not a vice.
Democrats are not a cult of personality, that’s why we react to reality, and they don’t. We are not pathological liars. We are not indifferent to the needs of our people, our country, or the wider world. We are not them. We are better people.
@TheRyGuy: This reminds me of when Republicans try to pull a gotcha with something awful Bill Clinton did.
For instance Trump was palling around with Epstein and there are reports of him raping children. When confronted they point out that Bill Clinton went to Pedophile Island and don’t know how to respond when everyone says “yeah, if there’s evidence that he raped children, throw his ass in jail along with Trump”
We have radically different relationships with our leaders — by and large Democrats consider them public servants rather than anything special. Republicans get very devoted to the people (Trump is by far the most flagrant example of this)
It’s why everyone other than Republicans were baffled when Republicans were claiming that Democrats thought Obama was the messiah or whatever.
Who is the “we” you’re talking about here?
@TheRyGuy: Trump voters are not “nearly have the country” first of all. ~74 million or so is nowhere near close to half of ~350 million.
I doubt most need to ask “Why?” vis a vis your preference for someone you know is “awful.” Birds of a feather flock together, we been knew what’s wrong with the basket of deplorables et al. Y’all are not a mystery, y’all just dislike being recognized for what you are.
@Andy: The political commentariat writ large, I think. The mainline reporters and pundits do. I think I do, in terms of what to write about. For a very long time, I’ve had a policy of not writing “Known idiot says/does something stupid” posts. They’re just tiresome. And I eventually tired of writing “Trump is awful” posts because, frankly, everyone who is persuadable already thinks that, and no one who doesn’t think that is persuadable.
I don’t write a lot of “Biden is old” posts because, well, same. But we’re in new territory here: there’s a very good chance that he’s simply no longer up to the job. Will I still vote for him if the alternative is Trump? Sure. But that Biden is only occasionally lucid is worth noting.
Thank you for this!
“I Am Your Justice…I Am Your Retribution”
Convicted felon, private citizen Donald Trump.
The term “narcissism” gets thrown around far too casually now but I’m not sure what other term could possibly apply.
Want to change the subject to Felon trumps rambling, incoherent lies? Replace Joe as the candidate. Biden is no longer the safe or less risky choice, that ship sailed last Thursday. Harris and it can only be Harris, has her deficits, but she also has an upside that Biden doesn’t have. None of that matters though, if Biden refuses to step aside.
@Mister Bluster:
No, not my justice, nor my retribution. *
* Him, and the people who surround him, are likely to ensure I die as an enemy of the state (either being taken into custody, or on my way to the camps).
Fortunately, I’m too old to be picked up in the first wave.
@TheRyGuy:
I can explain a number of reasons that Trump supporters support him, but righteousness is not on the list.
Trump is objectively one of the least righteous, if not the least, who has ever run for the office. You can rationalize lower taxes, fewer regulations, and the end of Roe as worth having to vote for him, but it is impossible to make a case for the righteousness of voting for Trump.
And, I would note, you never do make a positive case for Trump. Instead, pretty much all of your comments are essentially sneers.
James: “Well, sure. But the question is why is Biden being treated so differently by his party than Trump.”
IMHO, it’s largely because Trump is treated with kid gloves by the press. Use the same standards, and Trump would have been toast years ago.
Multiple angles/reasons for this:
– Republicans have long been the “fall in line” party. They could have a duck at the top of the ticket and the support would be solid.
– Democrats represent a wider spectrum of ideological constituencies, and there have been issues with Biden (indeed, anyone seen as mainstream/moderate) from the beginning.
– What’s going on in Israel likely contributes somewhat.
– Press treatment has been waaaaaaaaay overboard. I don’t know if this is a result of right-leaning ownership, or panicky newsrooms, or a stampede for clicks, or all three. The press knows they can report on something stupid or horrible Trump has done and everyone yawns. Biden has to be perfect. He stumbles once and the pile-on begins.
– Democrats are really, really good at the circular firing squad.
@James Joyner:
Simple. Retribution. Democrats don’t fear voicing their opinion on their candidate, and their candidate likely listens and considers those opinions. The latter are scared. They know anything they say could lead to the hounds being released and God knows what else against them and their family.
@Steven L. Taylor:
It’s a bit difficult to make any positive case for Trump.
@TheRyGuy:
You would think that Biden being senile but the overwhelming majority of Democrats/Progressives and nearly half the country STILL preferring him to whomever TheRyGuy likes would at some point cause TheRyGuy to ask “Why?”
(Hint: It’s NOT that Biden supporters are dumber or less righteous than TheRyGuy.)
Did you really think you were making a coherent point? Did Joyner hurt your feelings in the past?
Also, delete “Republicans/conservatives” from your lexicon. They have never been synonymous, but they are currently at odds.
Joyner is an actual conservative. The GOP is deeply into right-wing territory–authoritarian, violent, fabulist, and focused on the will to power, nothing more.
@Kurtz:
Looking across the corpus of his posts, and the number of times he peppers them with attacks on James, I think the answer is yes.
(See also: Israeli and Hamas.)
Good Christ. James. I know this is just a throwaway line in a post about something else, but no one, anywhere actually supports Hamas. That isn’t what any of the protest is about. However, about half the country does support Trump. Not the biggest thing but that is just a cheap shot and poor analog.
I have had enough of this “cult” talk. It’s not that.
First, I will acknowledge that, yes, there are some Trump fans that follow him as the deadheads followed the Grateful Dead. This is a very small minority. (And it would likely be a great blow to them if we started calling them “deadheads”… but I digress.)
J.J.’s question was: “…why is Biden being treated so differently by his party than Trump?”
The answer is simple: The liberals of America have always had a broad platform that attracted many differing views. But ultimately the goal has been to keep capitalism in check and prevent people from starving to death homeless.
The conservatives have had a much narrower platform: Unchecked capitalism, with the ultimate goal of making as much money as possible and paying workers as little as possible.
A great oversimplification, to be sure, but not incorrect.
With the liberal wing of the USA, it has always been to expand democracy, individual rights, and voter power.
The conservative wing has worked to limit the power of others, to keep power in the hands of fewer, and do what they can to make sure only the “right” people have the ability to vote.
Liberals always found themselves with many people in the virtual campaign tent , but infrequently with political power.
That was status quo until mid-last century. Then the liberals broke out with many more voters (thanks to the civil rights act), and an expansion of their political power.
While they were able to make changes, internal bickering had become a tradition, and was viewed as “heathy”.
Conservatives realized that they were losing power and started to act on that. Talk radio, Conservative television, rat-fucking moves like Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Brooks Brothers revolution to name a few… all while telling their followers that “the liberals” were at fault for everything and that “the liberals” lived to undermine their way of life.
To a certain degree that last part is true. Liberals were definitely anti-robber barons.
But conservatives, with so many decades of being told that the only way to win is to consolidate power (bringing in the Christian right and integrating their faith as part of the platform), the conservative party was primed for a powerful leader that would regain their power.
They looked to Reagan, they looked to the Bush family, but they all wore the cloak of “companionate conservativism”… and the conservative power wanted much more than that.
They wanted power without compassion. They wanted… a Trump.
Trump was an idiot, but the conservative party looked at results. All those things that cause the liberals to gnash their teeth and rend their garments today are a direct result of what Trump could get done in his 4 years. Trump knew very little of what he did, but he was more than happy to pull out a sharpie and sign bills with great flourish and publicity.
Trump got attention; conservatives struck blows against democracy. An absolute win-win for both.
Having read this far, is there any question why the conservative power would not want 4 more years of that? Trump is the perfect Trojan Horse to forward their platform.
Trump loves to believe that the cloak of autocracy and presidential power is his and his alone, but it is only rented; it belongs to the conservative power.
The MAGA? Their views and goals (along with their Social Security and Medicare) will be ejected as soon as conservative power gets what they want.
Trump is the vehicle. Why would any robber baron conservative power allow any question of that?
I don’t think Trump supporters are all dumb. Smart people can still be weak-willed and succumb to social pressure, i.e. cults of personality. Or they might get their information from dishonest sources (Fox News or Russian bots). But there is an objective reality that they are not a part of, and it’s easy to tell because they are filled with cognitive dissonance.
The one thing we can bet on here is that the next President will be relying on advisers. Trump’s previous advisors were a malignant clusterfuck. The only partly competent ones don’t think he should be President because he has zero leadership qualities. On the other side, Biden or Harris will be supported by a solid staff who are actually allowed to disagree with each other or the boss. I know which organization I prefer.
@Stephen:
I considered point this out as well, but I decided to let the dog slumber.
Anyway, agreed.
Being hoarse, walking slowly and stuttering are not symptoms of dementia. Aging involves a variety of changes in cognitive capacity. Losses in some areas, gains in others. The wisdom gained with age has made Biden one of our most effective presidents. Forgetting about this, and over reacting to superficial changes, is ageism.
@Franklin:
Agreed. I think I’ve mentioned before that my BIL and MIL are both active Trump supporters. My father voted for Trump, and probably will again this year–despite disliking Trump intensely. None of these people are “dumb.”
They have been conditioned to think the absolute worst of Democrats. Some of it is Fox News, some of it is a well and truly embedded ideology that doesn’t allow for any new information to seep into their thinking. They literally cannot see, or refuse to see, how Democrats are the ones who are truly fighting for and protecting this country’s ideals. It’s incredibly frustrating.
@Stephen:
No, I’m making a very discrete point that, as with this one, applies to me as well us “them.” Trump is undeniably worse than Biden and Hamas is undeniably worse than Israel. But we treat Biden like a normal politician, so we simply hold him to a higher standard. Ditto Israel: Hamas is a terrorist group so of course they commit atrocities. We expect Israel to live up to the standards of the international community and call them out when they don’t.
@Richard Pohl:
Changes in gait can be a sign of dementia. Whether Biden’s gait is or is not, I do not know. But to make a blanket statement that dementia and gait have nothing to do with each other is incorrect.
@Liberal Capitalist:
A pundit that agrees with the perspective I laid out. America 2,0 is now, thanks to the Conservative Power / Oligarchs.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/far-right-violence-trump-supporters
@Kurtz:
There are specific gait changes that link to frontotemporal dementia, Donald Trump is exhibiting such changes.
ETA: Not the only symptoms specific to frontotemporal that TFG is showing.
@Liberal Capitalist: Just FYI, I appreciate your perspective and it has got me thinking.
My only real argument with it is that some of the unusual growth in Trump’s support, among young people, Hispanics, and even some blacks, is that they have little to no connection with the power brokers who are behind the vehicle of Trump. (Well, maybe Hispanics and religion are a connection.) But what is there motive? Are they mostly just the small amount of cultists you allow for?
Goldberg at The Atlantic on Trump
Robert Reich on Trump
Trump is wildly unwell – paranoia is the least of the concerns. It’s long past time to judge Trump because he’s been this way for many years.
@Franklin:
I don’t know if you will see this, Franklin, but here goes…
Consider this: Science for a few hundred years considered the atom, and the actions of atoms, the electrons and their behavior. It was all about the particle. But then suddenly physicists started to discuss the actions of some atoms as waves. This changed the conversation.
I look at politics and sociology very much from the wave theory perspective. Political power tends to ebb and flow depending on the environment it is in. Pundits often refer to the “undecided voters that will decide the election”… that is part of the mob of voters that are influenced by the flow of the political power wave
Rather than try to explain why one person may change their mind, it’s better to think of what we know about people: there are always those who are unsatisfied with the status quo, some who prefer anarchy, some easily influenced by wanting to be part the “winning” team. Some who just want to tear things down. You like what your buddies like. Get along go along. there are a lot of things than can influence the tide.
Those that know what is going on in America realize that Biden has been doing a great job. But face it: Biden is boring. Being effective is boring. it’s a big flat body of water that just sits there. And waves hitting the beach is a lot more interesting, right?
So what do we find? The other tent is banging the drums and talking of revolution. It’s a full-blown revival meeting with a preacher rallying with passion and emotion. They promise even better. They say that you could do better, but those others are holding you back. You deserve more! (Two chickens in every pot!) It pulls some in. The wave flows.
The Conservative power isn’t at the pulpit, but they are funding the cost of the tent like mad to ensure that they get what they want. Their message no longer attracts the undecided voter, so they need a new messenger.
And we saw in the Biden-Trump debate that Trump can Gish Gallop a message far better than anyone else. The uninformed don’t want facts. they want someone to tell them that tomorrow will be better than today.
That’s why we see some increases in groups that you would not think would be pro-Trump. They aren’t… they are just anti-boredom. And the show right now that Trump is throwing down is entertaining.
So, that’s it.
We should be very concerned. Conservative power realizes the middle class is an aberration, and they need to put an end to it. And they have been doing a bang-up great job of changing the environment in which the wave flows.