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Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 15
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Trump names Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as vice presidential running mate
I'm constantly befuddled by how this blatant pandering works on a significant chunks of Americans. It's just so over the top boilerplate blind patriotism that doesn't actually mean anything. Not to mention the irony of Vance going on Fox News and saying the Trump presidency opened his eyes to how corrupt the media is and how the media lies.
I mean nothing about this quote is that much different from any other candidates boilerplate position + catchy slogan that's been going on for a century.
Never said it was unique to Trump, it's befuddled me for as long as I've been old enough to start grasping the world and understanding politics.
At this point I don't wonder if people are being bribed in order to get them to pivot from condemning Trump to whole-throated supporting him, I only wonder about the exact nature of the bribe. What was Vance's weakness? Money? Promises of power? Something darker?
He's being named as the candidate for vice president, by the guy who is pretty openly going to try and cause another coup if he loses. What more is there? It's the same story as all of the other GOP politicians who were against Trump but changed their tune very quickly once they saw the tides changing in his favour. Bunch of people who want money and power, and they're chasing the guy who has it.
I'm sure it's a much simpler "fall in line and you will be supported" notion. In primaries (both republican and democrat ones), the candidates will be at each other's throats. But once one emerges as the presumptive nominee, they work together and support them. No one took Trump seriously originally, and politicians on both sides of the isle were rightly calling out how inherently toxic and harmful his rhetoric was. Once it became clear the general public was eating it up and made him the nominee, (also thanks to media for giving him unprecedented coverage due to how captivating his brashness was for clicks and outrage bait), the rest of the party mostly fell in line. Vance is no exception.
I don't disagree. What I was driving at was less about why he flipped, and more about why did he flip and then go several steps further and insert himself into the VP hot seat. I have a hard time believing that anyone in that position at this point did it as True Believer. They did it both for the reasons you mention (pragmatic reasons) and because they think it leaves them in a better position after the race ends in Nov (one way or another).
I absolutely believe promises were made, in both directions. I'm morbidly curious what they are, but it's unlikely we'll ever know.
No bribes, no shady deals,
Just people taking opportunities.
Sadly I was hoping it'd be his son or something else quasi inbred so that there remained the hope that this insanity would end, or at least dial back, with Trump, as a "successor" has been something the republicans have struggled to figure out.
Do you think that's the play JD is going for? Both at the time and now, picking Mike Pence as VP seems like a play to counter-balance Trumps chaotic nature and make him more broadly appealing. JD doesn't seem like that kind of a pick, at all. So I wonder why he got picked, and I wonder why he thinks he got picked. And I wonder if the Republican party would fall in line behind him when Trump eventually exits the stage.
Probably, the old guard doesn't seem to mind the culture stuff as long as their itch gets scratched, and Trumpism doesn't have to begin and end with Trump anymore.
Honestly, a lot of the GOP Old Guard many of us think of is gone. Only 21.4% of Representatives were elected before 2010 (the Tea Party Wave), and less than 5% before 1994 (The Republican Revolution). The Tea Party is the Old Guard now. Most of the Reaganites and Eastern Establishment folks are long gone.
More details about this choice. Vance is an astute manipulator and has venture capital connections to Silicon Valley (including Peter Thiel) for funding. He has deep ties to the revanchist Christian right via Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA, and claims to be a Catholic "social conservative". If you tried to manufacture a young candidate to appeal to the current MAGA spectrum while being able to sound plausible to the general electorate, you couldn't do better. He's done an amazing job of creating himself.
Why Vance? Trump doesn't have to assure the party faithful that there is an adult in the room anymore, and reports are that he likes the guy enough to give him the edge. Maybe it's a successor play because a demographic grab makes no sense, but the first rule of Trumpland is to not suck up more limelight than Donald Trump, and he can't resign the guy if things don't work out. Trump up to this point has done a pretty controlled (for him) campaign, maybe he had a vibe about Vance and was willing to put his foot down? Idk.
There's no electoral strategy here.
Trump thinks he is decently far ahead at this point, he can prioritize what he wants for after the election And what Trump doesn't want to is to end up with another Pence who might let pesky things like the law or the constitution get in the way of what he wants.
My (admittedly very uninformed) read of the pick is that Vance was probably chosen because he’s 39 years old.
Choosing a young running mate makes strategic sense when the primary and most salient criticism of Biden has been his age.
Frankly this was my reading of it too, especially to counter accusations of Trump and Biden being too old. "Look, we've got a young guy!"
I think Vance is a wrong choice for this election, but as others said, it doesn't matter. Trump could've nominated me as his VP, a non-American, the constitution be damned, and it wouldn't make much of a difference. I think he picked Vance because he's young, knows how to speak, and a good populist. He seems to truly embrace the spineless politics of Trumpism and he could be the person to advance it after Trump's gone (both politically and otherwise). I think of it as a legacy move1. In that long view, I think it's smart, given his options. If it were a tight election and he had to make a pick for solely for helping him win this election, it'd have been a lot smarter to go with Rubio, but he's already got the presidency in the bag.
Also, I didn't think this through too much, but I think people underestimate how much votes or at least sympathy Vance can get from some liberals. Maybe not for this election but for the future ones. I think some liberals do like some of Trump's politics, but they're too proud to admit it because he doesn't package them very well. Vance can.
1: One short term advantage Vance has is he's a politician whose made his name solely by being Trump's lackey, so as long as Trump's alive, he needs to kiss his ass. So whatever unconstitutional thing Trump will attempt during his term, he will get Vance's support where he didn't when Pence was his VP.
JD Vance is the right's Obama and the perfect foil to Trump. I read his book a long time ago and quite enjoyed it.
He's young, handsome, and—unlike Trump who was born with a silver spoon—rose from an impoverished rural household, struggling with family addiction and abuse, to academic and political success. He's the late American Dream emerging from the opioid crisis era.
He knows the opioid crisis first hand: his mom was an addict. He knows how middle America has been hollowed out and left to social decay.
He's an extremely powerful pick as VP for Trump. He speaks to white middle America.
JD Vance is whatever Peter Thiel and company want him to be. Just a short tour of his history exposes him as a power-seeking chameleon without any underlying principles.
I have no doubt he'll be heavily featured in the Republican future but let's not hold him up as some authentic champion of middle america.
Edit: worth pointing out that Thiel and Musk reportedly pushed heavily for the pick to be Vance, with Musk's reported $45 million per month contributions being a carrot for said pick.
Here is some good reporting on Vance:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/18/jd-vance-world-view-sources-00168984
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/15/mr-maga-goes-to-washington-00147054
Ohio has gone for Trump in the past two elections but it is still something resembling a valuable swing state. Their 17 electoral votes are good for sixth overall and recent history suggests that the VP state will support the ticket. I am still learning about Vance but that seems to be the obvious play here
President Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid-19
Biden set to announce support for major Supreme Court changes
Bit late for that now lol, should've gotten on that at the beginning of his term.
The weight of the bad decisions on the part of SCOTUS has made it much more palatable to make changes than it previously had been. I don't think he could have gotten anywhere near as much support for the idea even 6 months ago.
This will unfortunately go nowhere. The right wing media will have a field day framing this as Biden trying to circumvent the separation of powers by trying to impose his will onto a supreme court he doesn't like. I don't see congress cooperating either.
The proposed reforms are very popular with the American people, though. I agree it won't go anywhere, but tons of policy proposals are good at revving the base and building coalitions but ultimately don't go anywhere. Look at most of the GOP platform for examples. This is 100% a campaign move, and not a bad one I think, and maybe one that lays the groundwork for reform down the road.
Like codifying proper abortion law instead of a Supreme Court decision was a down the road decision, or ending the filibuster or packing the courts? I understand not wanting to just throw political weight around because turnabout is fair play, but the naked cynicism of putting this out there now as an olive branch to the progressive wing when it's unactionable and can't do anything but contribute to election fundraising is really getting to me.
NYT: People Close to Biden Say He Appears to Accept He May Have to Leave the Race
More rumored info here (newsmax):
<Insert your favorite "I picked a bad week" quote from Airplane here.>
Assuming all this is true, an open convention with no heir apparent, this close to the general, with the Dems back bench either knees deep in the previous administration or excommunicated, this is going to be a poop show. I have my own opinions and Monday Morning Quarterbacking that I still have to sort out, but I do not envy anyone put into a decision making position on this one.
Democrats Donate More Than $50 Million Online After Biden’s Exit
Private efforts to nudge Biden to step aside continue
The same lawmaker speaking anonymously to CNN about the internal divisions also told CNN "that it was counterproductive to make additional public calls for Biden to step aside right now, because of the imperative of a unified party response". Yeah, good move there.
Who would Biden step down and hand over to ideally? No one who has a good chance any other year at the presidency would want to step in last minute with zero campaigning and take the black mark of losing. It's not like Trump's an easy candidate even if this hypothetical candidate had more time to campaign. So that leaves maybe Harris, who likely wouldn't get a better chance in 2028, so I could see her willing to step up. But she's not exactly popular either.
Calling for Biden to step down without a solid plan is "counterproductive", as the lawmaker wisely noted.
This infighting in the Democratic party is turning me off more than voting for a clearly geriatric Joe Biden does. If the party has some bulletproof plan to replace him, then bring it on. Show it to the public and let us decide. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.
Biden can fumble through his interviews and debates, but the rules on the ground are this: a second Trump term puts the Supreme Court even further out of the liberals' reach and Biden managed to stutter his way through his first term while getting through some impressive policy decisions. Ukraine is fucked if Trump gets back into office, since he loves to slurp on Putin's ballsack.
As crass as this is, I agree. I keep seeing articles on mid-high level democrats suggesting/implying Biden should step down, but no one's talking about what comes after that - who replaces him? Harris? Is there any reliable polling (as reliable as polling gets...) to suggest she'd be able to perform better? The last I've seen of that showed she was essentially the same as Biden, though slightly less unlikable.
They will continue to escalate if Biden doesn't step down. There is just far too much at stake to lose this election without ever having a fighting chance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/us/politics/schiff-biden-democrats.html
(https://archive.ph/wkaVq)
The thing is, Biden is way down in pretty much every battleground state right now despite outspending Trump. And that dynamic is going to flip soon, because Trump has a lot of money to spend and Biden donors are going to start jumping ship to try and save the Senate and take the House.
An underfunded Biden who is trailing in the polls (by 5-6 points in some needed states) and who 73% of voters think is too old to be president is just not going to win this race -- it's ludicrous to think otherwise.
If they continue to escalate once it's clear that Biden is set on running, they'd be doing their party a disservice. I don't feel great about either option, so I'm not disagreeing or agreeing here. I just hope that whatever they decide to do, they back 100% instead of sniping at each other in public. If there was an obvious candidate that would both be a good fit and accept, that would sway me, but we're only a few months away now.
Trump Wants GOP Reimbursed ‘For Fraud’ After Biden Exit, Wants Next Debate Aired On Fox News
I'd like to see them try that lawsuit, considering that everyday voters chose Biden in the primaries (did they commit fraud, too?) and he wasn't even the DNC nominee yet.