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Daily thread - United States 2021 transition of power - January 20
This thread is posted daily - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
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He’ll give us an actual pandemic response. For that I don’t give a shit how centrist he is.
Here are the 143 pardons (including 70 commuted sentences) they granted on the way out: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/
Still looking through, but some highlights I've noticed so far:
No self pardon.
No pardon of family members.
No pardon of anyone who stormed the Capitol.
Color me surprised.
Nothing for Assange, Manning, or Snowden either. Pardons are for criminals, not whistleblowers.
I would argue Assange falls under both of those categories—but I'm sure that's a contentious discussion I don't want to have.
Per Axios' "Off the rails" reporting Barr blocked this one right before resigning.
On a positive note, it seems from quickly scanning through the list for what the offenses were, it seems like a number of these pardons were for people who actually seem to deserve it - people tried for drug charges as first-time offenders with exemplary disciplinary records.
I'm choosing to ignore the voice in my head that's telling me that he probably has an ulterior reason for most of them and just focus on the good parts.
The lack of pardon for Joe Exotic while Joe's lawyer had made arrangements for a limo to pick him up from jail is absolutely hilarious. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/joe-exotic-with-limo-waiting-outside-prison-fails-to-get-pardon/ar-BB1cVnou
He also made one more almost-literally-last-minute pardon of Jeanine Pirro's ex-husband Albert.
Right-wing talk radio host Jesse Kelly:
Dude has "anti-communist" in his bio and he's advising people to "Begin where Mao began".
Maybe he just really, really hates his landlord.
Sorry. The momentum is in the other direction. Cities will increasingly outweigh rural counties. Texas will flip to blue.
Not this again...
There's a talking head-less livestream from PBS and it's an awesome way to watch the festivities today.
At one point earlier in the AM they were doing B-roll, and then they showed shots of Air Force One with Sinatra's "My way" playing. I thought it was a nice subtle jab.
That song ended as Air Force One was lifting off, I cannot believe they had it so well timed too
I spent a long time trying to figure out what I wanted to say about today. I find myself in the unusual position of being at a loss for words.
As COVID continues to ravage our country unabated, it is hard for me to be thrilled or happy at all, and it is hard for me to find anything in my feelings but contempt for Trump. While he has many misdeeds, I believe his worst and most inexcusable actions were in directly creating the conditions that have allowed this virus to take such a deadly, devastating hold on our nation. He is not solely responsible, certainly, but I believe that the losses and suffering of this country would be far, far less had we not been lead through this pandemic by his darkest of hearts.
Today wasn't about contempt though, and I think there is harm in allowing Trump's influence to persist past the point of relevance. His story is not over, and I'm sure we'll see more news about him in the coming weeks and months, but his term is over. His hold on power is over.
In thinking about what I want to say about today that speaks truth to my feelings, I'm left with only this at the moment: I am genuinely relieved that I, as an American, am no longer obligated to give any attention to Trump because he is no longer the face and mouth of our nation. I believe he was a fire for whom attention was oxygen, and he no longer inhabits a role that demands my attention out of necessity. I no longer have to feed his fire against my will.
I don't think it's necessarily a fair summary of the day, or even fair to the incoming administration, as this is ostensibly a day to look to the future and honor those who are new to their positions rather than focus on the people who once held them, but today didn't feel like the first of a new line of days for me -- it felt like the last of a long line of old ones. I'm choosing this day to live in that last moment, because this is the moment where I can relish the feeling of letting go and sink into its relief. I once had to give my time to Trump because he, by the authority of my country, held power over me. No longer. Today was my last day with him.
Tomorrow will be my first day without him. I haven't found forgiveness for him in my heart, and I doubt that I ever will, but his absence from my life will allow my contempt to abate, and that alone is improvement. Tomorrow will be the day I can let my frozen anger begin to thaw.
You really do have a wonderful way with words.
Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb" was absolutely incredible to listen to. I'm trying to track down a transcript now, because it was a hell of a thing to hear.
Yeah I was blown away, the poem was fantastic and her delivery was incredible.
Re: the comment about Biden being an uninspiring speaker, contrast that with Gorman and her mention that she'd like to run for president in 2036. So we have that to look forward to maybe.
Absolutely agreed. It was wonderfully written and wonderfully spoken. What an incredible talent she is.
Public radio interview with her from October
Trump Fails to Ascend as God Emperor, Leaving Diehard Fans Adrift
Wow.
This is what worries me though:
Over the next few weeks and months, they're going to simmer and stew. They're going to find something new to rally around. The question is, will that something be an idea or person that attracts the majority of Trump supporters into a new force that will need to be reckoned with? Or will the various groups fracture and follow their own conspiracies, and slowly dwindle?
If a savvy enough actor wades into that cesspool now that Trump is out of power, I fear what they can be directed into doing. Trump might be able to retain their attention for awhile if he starts the oft-rumored media company, or runs for office again. But I think he's only got a few years left.
Photo gallery from The Atlantic of the inauguration.
#13 shows that Bill Clinton is apparently a mask-not-over-nose person.
They ran a similar gallery yesterday showing the preparations being made in DC.
#16 is a pretty haunting shot. People my age and younger in the US grew up learning that "school shooting drills" were a normal part of life. This kid is growing up with a normal part of his life being wearing a mask to go outside because of a pandemic, and with large groups of uniformed military in the streets to prevent a violent insurrection.
FYI you have a trailing / on the first link that causes a 404
#noise
Fixed, thank you.
Kamala Harris was escorted to the ceremony by the Capitol Police officer who led rioters away from Senate
Listening to Biden's speech, the only thing I could think of (except "thank God he's not Trump") was, what an extraordinarily uninspiring speaker. The writing of the speech itself was fine, it said all the right things, but the delivery was exactly what I expect an old man reading off a teleprompter would produce. Slurred words and an utter lack of transmitted conviction, even if I don't doubt that he meant what he said.
That said, being a great orator is hardly the one defining characteristic of a good leader. But it's tempting to contrast him with a guy like Obama, whose "yes we can" prompted the response "fuck yes we can!" while Biden saying the same thing would have me thinking, "but can we, though?"
Biden has dealt with a stutter since childhood. I think that is part of why his delivery generally isn't as dynamic, and he sometimes slurs words. It's impressive to me that he can speak in public as well as he does. Plus, I'm not nearly as concerned with his ability to get people excited as I am about his ability to affect real change and staff federal agencies with people who aren't actively trying to sabotage them.
The Atlantic released an in-depth article last year about Biden's history of struggling with stuttering that is well worth reading too:
What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say - His verbal stumbles have voters worried about his mental fitness. Maybe they’d be more understanding if they knew he’s still fighting a stutter.
I feel like that attitude is an endemic problem of the US electorate though, the focus on charisma and ability to look good to a crowd (although, for the life of me I can't understand how Trump manage to seem charismatic to half of the country).
Given the horribly janky transition the Trump administration provided, and the terrible state of the country, in both a health and economic crisis, someone who has experience in the white house is key. Biden alone among the democratic party has the best ability to run an administration from one that has actively hampered the transition.
Clearly wasn't an issue for Biden though.
I don't mean to say that charisma is more important than actual politics. But let's face it: today is a day of pageantry. It's about ceremonies and projecting power and sending a message. As a non-American, it was all I could do not to gag at all the "God bless America". That's why I chose to comment on this today, because this is what's going on right now. The actual politics will come later, and we can pass judgment on it when we see how it shakes out.
Isn't that that, then? I care about charisma in-as-much as it can allow a candidate to win a general election. Having won that, it's pretty whatever. Judging Presidents on the way they sound is part of what lets Trumpism thrive - support for a President who has 1 legislative "accomplishment" for his base, and has had 60% of his EOs overturned by courts, including things like DACA which by all means he should have full power to remove if he didn't fuck up the procedure, who utterly failed to do anything really except exist when court vacancies were there by chance - because he says things the base likes.
I don't want to perpetuate that. This inauguration was beautifully boring as fuck, as it should be.
See, I found it heartwarming are reassuring to the degree that I was tearing up. He's not an incredible speaker, but he means what he says and he says good things. That means a lot.
Biden has a stutter. I suppose a lot of his energy goes into avoiding stuttering.
Biden Has Already Fired Three of Trump’s Worst Appointees
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A bit fluff, but I still love this:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/20/twitter-creates-secondgentleman-account-for-kamala-harris-husband.html
There is still an interesting tidbit about how twitter is handling the transition in there though:
Edit: And out of curiosity, I decided to look up the previous Presidents too.
https://twitter.com/POTUS44 = Archive account of Barrack Obama's Official Tweets
https://twitter.com/POTUS43 = Floyd Pink, inactive account. Joined March 2010
https://twitter.com/POTUS42 = Corbett smith, account hijacked by spammer? Joined May 2009
https://twitter.com/POTUS41 = George HW Bush (not really, also a spammer). Joined March 2010
https://twitter.com/POTUS40 = Ronald Reagan, link to blog of his speeches? Site linked to 404s, and WayBackMachine is being too flaky again to check. Joined June 2009
https://twitter.com/POTUS39 = "A non-archive of our nation's greatest tweeter, Jimmy Carter", joke account. Joined November 2016
https://twitter.com/POTUS38 = Account suspended. So prob spammer as well.
You would think Twitter would have revoked the previous account names when they started this trend. :P
So, now that the power has been transitioned, are we winding down the daily threads for now?
I'll leave it going until this Friday anyway, and then see how it looks.
Personally, I'd like to try and reduce the amount of politics overall on the site in the near future. It's tiresome, exhausting, and the source of the large majority of the arguments and problems on the site in general. I don't know if I'll need to try to force that to happen or not—hopefully things will start going back to being relatively boring again.
Maybe switch it to a weekly thread?
When we had the daily George Floyd protest threads in the summer, and they started tapering down, I recall there was a time period when there wasn't really enough getting posted to make a daily thread feel active, but there probably was enough for a weekly thread.
For the next month or so there will definitely be lots of small little news items that individually aren't particularly in-depth or discussion-worthy, but taken all together make for interesting content. That's when I find the weekly threads the most useful.
Yeah I think a weekly “First 100 days” thread would probably have enough activity, and would be a nice place to discuss things
So I take it there is no pardon coming for alyaza
IMO it's probably worth keeping them going for at least a little while longer, since there is still bound to be plenty of news coming in over the next week/s related to the Impeachment, Capitol riots, Biden's first moves as President, etc.
Then how would I remember to read Episode 8 from Axios? (thanks @suspended)