"violent crime, while up relative to a decade ago, is still far below where it was in the 1990s"
I'm a Democrat, I'll probably vote for Biden, but even I have had it with this deflection. It is appalling when people dismiss this very serious issue just because things aren't as bad as they were at the very worst point. We are already far far worse than every other wealthy country.
I'm not a Democrat, and I won't vote for Biden. To be fair however, the crime problem is to be blamed on local politicians. Whether it's lax law enforcement, lax prosecution, or lax sentencing, the problem will not be resolved until the local leaders abandon the "woke" approach to crime.
But truly, we are becoming a Banana Republic. I'm not that happy with either party, but more unhappy with Dems.
I agree that the woke approach to crime is a disaster, and we need to embrace law and order, meaning policing, prosecution, and incarceration and execution as necessary. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.
The Biden administration has embraced the 'gender ideology' agenda with a vengeance. For the people actually running the Biden administration, cheating at sports is a 'fundamental human right'. Of course, the Biden administration has also embraced the 'structural racism' agenda. In the past, Democrats called for 'equality'. Biden calls for 'equity'. 'Equity' is the modern version of 'states rights'. What 'equity' really means is racism (PC racism). The Biden administration has supported racism essentially across the board. Of course, the Biden administration has also failed at the border.
America has to choose. It can supported the party of racism and mutilating children (the Democrats) or the party of anti-racism and not mutilating children (the Republicans). The author supports the party of racism and mutilating children. I don't.
I think the idea of of an equity policy for energy is just PC insanity. However, the female crash test dummies may be money well spent (I don't know either way). Women have quite different internal anatomy than men. In a crash, that could make a difference. Let me use an easy example (with no facts to support it). Perhaps conventional seat belts could hurt women (and not men) in a crash. This kind of thing warrants careful, non-ideological examination.
"I will vote for him because I consider the Republican Party a malignant force in American politics."
Naw. You, as a Joe Biden voter, are the malignant force in American politics. And to prove it, you make your list of platform positions and ideas of the Republican party that you consider malignant, and I will do the same with the Biden Democrat party... and let's assess the level of cancerous malignancy.
Let's start with First Amendment rights. You know, that thing that crunchy coastal media libs like yourself used to put at the top of the list to protect?
For his fourth term, FDR replaced Wallace with Truman. Does Biden have the energy and courage to replace Harris with someone more competent and appealing to the electorate?
It's a cliché that all politics is local. However, there is truth to that cliché. When will the Democrats compete for statehouse and congressional seats in red seats. Of course, the same could be said, albeit to a lesser degree, for Republicans in blue states. Our constitutional democratic republic is best served when there is competition for public office.
The question is not what Biden has the energy and courage to do, it's what the Democrat machine wants to do. Running Biden again is bad enough, but keeping Harris is nuts.
It's true, and that is what Linker misses here. Biden may have been personally a moderate in many ways, at the age he is now it is pretty clear he is only at most partially in charge of his administration.
Do you have any evidence of this. I assume he is in charge of his policy until proven otherwise, so what is pretty clear to you, totally escapes me, as I dont believe in things that are only conjecture.
I have been a geriatrician for 30 years yet would be unable to judge his cognition other than that he screws up words some of the time, which might be decline or lifelong, but hardly reflects serious cognitive decline and he is more intelligible than Trump who is tangential and never speaks in sentences.. I wont rule it out, and most 80 year olds might have some issues, but to all these people who easily say he is demented- you dont win two difficult elections with dementia and I think he is politically smart. He would not be my choice for nominee and I dont agree with his leftward initial tilt, glad he is now moving center, or his choice of Harris, but I dont expect the Rs will nominate anybody that isn't either a liar or a hater so I am on for Joe.
It's more than just screwing up words. He loses his train of thought completely. He seemingly endorses dramatic policy changes like assassinating Putin or sending troops into Ukraine that his staff has to frantically walk back. To say nothing of the fact that I don't believe for a second that he personally has any idea about the extreme, cutting edge gender-ideology that he purports to embrace.
I find the reference to the machine as determining everything as more conspiratorial than real.
I too would have liked a better candidate, but it is hardly attributable to some machine when no Dem has yet had the cajones to actually stand up and declare. Obama was not a machine candidate or Carter or Clinton yet they won.
And on the R side,, Trump was the anti establishment candidate. The DNC or RNC do have some influence but hardly the reason people get nominated.
The more likely reason Biden is the candidate is that no incumbent president of either party has ever lost the nomination since at least 1930.
I dont know re energy or courage, but I think as Mr. Linker noted it would come with too much rancor to take her out, unless she chose to not run.
Democrats imo, and I am one though on the conservative side, will only be competitive in red states when they challenge the Dem unpopular positions on crime, immigration, inflation. Maybe Manchin did this, and we will see if Tester and Sherrod Brown can survive.
For the Dems to succeed they have to regain their position as the party of working people and stick to the issues they are popular on- social security, healthcare, environment and give up the Identarian morality play.
There is another (very important) issue that the author fails to address. Biden is wildly profligate. Trump and Bush (43) were not exactly fiscal conservatives. However, Obama and Biden were/are wild spenders. Obama's deficits (as a percent of GDP) were comparable to Lincolns' with no Civil War in sight. Biden has no excuses (no Civil War, no GFC., etc.) but is running massive deficits anyway.
I have two words to explain why Biden running is a problem: Kamala Harris. It's really silly that he didn't change running mates. She's a huge liability.
"violent crime, while up relative to a decade ago, is still far below where it was in the 1990s"
I'm a Democrat, I'll probably vote for Biden, but even I have had it with this deflection. It is appalling when people dismiss this very serious issue just because things aren't as bad as they were at the very worst point. We are already far far worse than every other wealthy country.
I'm not a Democrat, and I won't vote for Biden. To be fair however, the crime problem is to be blamed on local politicians. Whether it's lax law enforcement, lax prosecution, or lax sentencing, the problem will not be resolved until the local leaders abandon the "woke" approach to crime.
But truly, we are becoming a Banana Republic. I'm not that happy with either party, but more unhappy with Dems.
I agree that the woke approach to crime is a disaster, and we need to embrace law and order, meaning policing, prosecution, and incarceration and execution as necessary. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.
The Biden administration has embraced the 'gender ideology' agenda with a vengeance. For the people actually running the Biden administration, cheating at sports is a 'fundamental human right'. Of course, the Biden administration has also embraced the 'structural racism' agenda. In the past, Democrats called for 'equality'. Biden calls for 'equity'. 'Equity' is the modern version of 'states rights'. What 'equity' really means is racism (PC racism). The Biden administration has supported racism essentially across the board. Of course, the Biden administration has also failed at the border.
America has to choose. It can supported the party of racism and mutilating children (the Democrats) or the party of anti-racism and not mutilating children (the Republicans). The author supports the party of racism and mutilating children. I don't.
My personal favorites are the Energy "Equity" policy and the 25 million to be spent on female crash test dummies.
I think the idea of of an equity policy for energy is just PC insanity. However, the female crash test dummies may be money well spent (I don't know either way). Women have quite different internal anatomy than men. In a crash, that could make a difference. Let me use an easy example (with no facts to support it). Perhaps conventional seat belts could hurt women (and not men) in a crash. This kind of thing warrants careful, non-ideological examination.
"I will vote for him because I consider the Republican Party a malignant force in American politics."
Naw. You, as a Joe Biden voter, are the malignant force in American politics. And to prove it, you make your list of platform positions and ideas of the Republican party that you consider malignant, and I will do the same with the Biden Democrat party... and let's assess the level of cancerous malignancy.
Let's start with First Amendment rights. You know, that thing that crunchy coastal media libs like yourself used to put at the top of the list to protect?
For his fourth term, FDR replaced Wallace with Truman. Does Biden have the energy and courage to replace Harris with someone more competent and appealing to the electorate?
It's a cliché that all politics is local. However, there is truth to that cliché. When will the Democrats compete for statehouse and congressional seats in red seats. Of course, the same could be said, albeit to a lesser degree, for Republicans in blue states. Our constitutional democratic republic is best served when there is competition for public office.
The question is not what Biden has the energy and courage to do, it's what the Democrat machine wants to do. Running Biden again is bad enough, but keeping Harris is nuts.
It's true, and that is what Linker misses here. Biden may have been personally a moderate in many ways, at the age he is now it is pretty clear he is only at most partially in charge of his administration.
Do you have any evidence of this. I assume he is in charge of his policy until proven otherwise, so what is pretty clear to you, totally escapes me, as I dont believe in things that are only conjecture.
My evidence is his repeated obvious displays of serious cognitive decline.
Plus, do we really believe Joe picked Harris to begin with, and still wants to keep her?
I think Joe Biden did pick here and now regrets it. Do I have proof? Of course, not.
I have been a geriatrician for 30 years yet would be unable to judge his cognition other than that he screws up words some of the time, which might be decline or lifelong, but hardly reflects serious cognitive decline and he is more intelligible than Trump who is tangential and never speaks in sentences.. I wont rule it out, and most 80 year olds might have some issues, but to all these people who easily say he is demented- you dont win two difficult elections with dementia and I think he is politically smart. He would not be my choice for nominee and I dont agree with his leftward initial tilt, glad he is now moving center, or his choice of Harris, but I dont expect the Rs will nominate anybody that isn't either a liar or a hater so I am on for Joe.
It's more than just screwing up words. He loses his train of thought completely. He seemingly endorses dramatic policy changes like assassinating Putin or sending troops into Ukraine that his staff has to frantically walk back. To say nothing of the fact that I don't believe for a second that he personally has any idea about the extreme, cutting edge gender-ideology that he purports to embrace.
I find the reference to the machine as determining everything as more conspiratorial than real.
I too would have liked a better candidate, but it is hardly attributable to some machine when no Dem has yet had the cajones to actually stand up and declare. Obama was not a machine candidate or Carter or Clinton yet they won.
And on the R side,, Trump was the anti establishment candidate. The DNC or RNC do have some influence but hardly the reason people get nominated.
The more likely reason Biden is the candidate is that no incumbent president of either party has ever lost the nomination since at least 1930.
I dont know re energy or courage, but I think as Mr. Linker noted it would come with too much rancor to take her out, unless she chose to not run.
Democrats imo, and I am one though on the conservative side, will only be competitive in red states when they challenge the Dem unpopular positions on crime, immigration, inflation. Maybe Manchin did this, and we will see if Tester and Sherrod Brown can survive.
For the Dems to succeed they have to regain their position as the party of working people and stick to the issues they are popular on- social security, healthcare, environment and give up the Identarian morality play.
Yes, and it's all about winning elections, gaining majorities, and then doing the possible.
There is another (very important) issue that the author fails to address. Biden is wildly profligate. Trump and Bush (43) were not exactly fiscal conservatives. However, Obama and Biden were/are wild spenders. Obama's deficits (as a percent of GDP) were comparable to Lincolns' with no Civil War in sight. Biden has no excuses (no Civil War, no GFC., etc.) but is running massive deficits anyway.
I have two words to explain why Biden running is a problem: Kamala Harris. It's really silly that he didn't change running mates. She's a huge liability.