Joe Biden Archives - Page 2 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Project 2025: Personnel and staffing

Christian nationalism

I have looked at Google Trends. Since the week of June 3, there has been a definite upward trend in the number of searches for the term Project 2025, “the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration.” That’s good. Maybe djt is one of them since he claimed he doesn’t know about it but is opposed to many of its aspects. How are both possible?

Leading up to the election, I’ve decided to reiterate its tenets. Regarding Personnel and staffing, “Project 2025’s goals for staffing the next GOP presidency reflect Trump’s idea to gut civil service staff and replace them with potentially tens of thousands of MAGA loyalists. The New York Times describes this plot for a second Trump administration as an ‘expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government’ that would reshape “the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.”

When I first searched for Schedule F, I discovered the IRS Form 1040 to report farm income and expenses. That’s not what we’re looking for.

Here’s an article from The Brookings Institute, a hardly liberal think tank, titled The Risks of Schedule F for Administrative Capacity and Government Accountability.

“Weeks before the 2020 election, President Trump unveiled an executive order that would have created a new class of political appointee, Schedule F. The order would have allowed a president to turn any career official with a policy advisory role into a political appointee, removing job protection and opening the door to vastly politicize the federal workforce.

“President Biden rescinded the order, but Trump has made it a central feature of his re-election campaign as part of his effort to take control of “the deep state…”

“Deep state”

“First, let’s understand the scale of what is being proposed. Among developed countries, the U.S. is an outlier in terms of its existing level of politicization. We use about 4,000 political appointees to run the executive branch, an increase from about 3,000 in the early 1990s…

“Supporters of Schedule F have proposed converting 50,000 career civil servants into political appointee status. That is a massive degree of additional politicization and the most fundamental change to the civil service system since its inception in 1883. Increasing the number of political appointees would create a new venue where political polarization would undermine the quality of governance by replacing moderates with extremists.”

Or, put another way, the cabal would replace people who know how to do their jobs with political hacks. Naturally, the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) supports legislation to stop it. Unsurprisingly, it was introduced in the House in February 2023, where it languishes.

Pushback

However, back in April 2024, the “Office of Personnel Management issued the final version of its regulation meant to safeguard the civil service from the return of a Trump-era policy that sought to convert most federal employees to at-will workers.”

In a statement, Joe Biden said, “‘My administration is announcing protections for 2.2 million career civil servants from political interference, to guarantee that they can carry out their responsibilities in the best interest of the American people’… Day in and day out, career civil servants provide the expertise and continuity necessary for our democracy to function.”

“The final rule states that an employee’s civil service protections cannot be taken away by an involuntary move from the competitive service to the excepted service; clarifies that the ’employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating positions’ terminology used to define Schedule F employees means noncareer, political appointments and won’t be applied to career civil servants; and sets up an appeals process with the Merit Systems Protection Board for any employees involuntarily transferred from the competitive service to the excepted service and within the excepted service.”

So djt and his people could reinstate Schedule F, but implementing it would be more difficult.

Christian nationalism

Another tenet of Project 2025 is Christian nationalism. It claims that “centralized government ‘subverts’ families by working to ‘replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatural ones,’ utilizing the biblical language of natural versus the unnatural.”

More specifically, “Former Trump official Jonathan Berry’s chapter on the Department of Labor states that ‘the Judeo-Christian tradition, stretching back to Genesis, has always recognized fruitful work as integral to human dignity, as service to God, neighbor, and family’ and claims that Biden’s administration is ‘hostile to people of faith.'”

As a person of faith, I trust my antipathy for Christian nationalism and Christofascism is abundantly clear.

Assassination attempt

conflicting conspiracy theories

After the assassination attempt on the now-Republican candidate, there was a fairly low bar established that suggested that one should make statements abhorring that type of violence. Joe Biden did that, even apologizing for using “bullseye” to describe how we should focus on his opponent’s record. He also called for tamping down such rhetoric in the campaign.

As the Boston Globe [likely paywall] noted, “The shooting created the ‘perfect storm of misinformation,’ said Katherine Ognyanova, an associate professor of communication at Rutgers University in New Jersey, because of the event’s significance, the lack of immediate information about the motive, and the level of polarization in America.”

It was inevitable that some people would conclude that Biden put a hit on djt. For instance, Representative Mike Collins (R-GA) wrote on X: “Joe Biden sent the orders.” Politico notes, “The court’s decision in Trump v. United States really does appear to immunize a hypothetical president who directed the military to commit murder, though a president might be hard-pressed to find someone to carry out such an order.

“In her dissent…, Justice Sonia Sotomayor painted a grim portrait of a commander-in-chief now ‘immune, immune, immune’ from criminal liability and free to exploit official presidential power against political opponents. ‘Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?’ she wrote. ‘Immune.’

The next Veep?

In 2016, J.D. Vance went “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.” But in 2024, the once-never-Trumper who has gone full MAGA is blaming 46 for the shooting. Katherine Ognyanova in the Globe said, “If political leaders are actually fanning the fire and kind of spreading conspiratorial, violent rhetoric, that’s going to be very detrimental.” I told my wife that I thought Vance’s recent statement was disqualifying. Naturally, he was named DJT’s running mate.

Conversely, others believe the victim’s “blood was fake. The Secret Service clearly anticipated the shooting. [His]triumphant, clenched-fist pose was just a little too photogenic to be real.” Indeed, the first email I received after the shooting described that scenario.

Perhaps I lack sufficient imagination of how to pull that off, though the Secret Service’s apparent lapses feed into the conspiratorial blather.

Incidentally, the guy from Weekly Sift believes “that just about everybody, at one time or another, fantasizes about doing violence to someone who symbolizes absolute evil to them. I know I do, and I try not to feel guilty about such fantasies. As long as they stay in our heads, they’re relatively harmless indulgences.”

History

On April 11, 2016, three Presidential candidates were in downtown Albany. As I wrote here, my daughter wanted to see djt. I vetoed it, fearing the violence that had taken place towards people of color and reporters at rallies, often encouraged by the candidate from the stage. We ended up seeing Bernie Sanders, her preferred choice.

His rhetoric of violence has been constant. Most infamously, he boasted in January 2016, “‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” This was at a campaign stop at Dordt College, a Christian college, in Sioux Center, Iowa. Axios has a tidy, though incomplete, list of his comments in office.

The Weekly Sift guy quotes Jemele Hill: “The Republican Party in general is graded on a curve, but Trump especially. They’ve normalized his buffoonish bigotry. If you watched American news coverage, you would have no idea that Trump often threatens violence, promises to weaponize the DOJ against his ‘enemies,’ is a felon, has been found liable for rape, tried to overturn an election, and incited an insurrection, among other things.”

So, shortly before the shooting, when the NY Times calls on Republicans to reject djt ahead of the Republican National Convention, describing him as ‘dangerous’ and ‘unfit,’ 1) I totally agree with the assessment, but 2) no way it’ll happen.

As Howard W. French wrote in Foreign Policy, Biden’s Age Is a Problem. Trump’s Agenda Is a Bigger One. “I have been puzzled by the dearth of vigor shown in post-debate coverage toward a question of far greater import: Can America survive another Trump presidency? In other words, if Trump is reelected, what will remain of U.S. democracy, of civil and human rights in the country, of its economic health and its alliances, and of Washington’s prestige and influence around the world?”

Call it

Regardless, several folks have opined that djt is nearly a lock on November 5, whether Biden stays in the race or not, and I tend to concur. (America: prove me wrong. PLEASE.)

I cannot recall such adulation towards a political candidate since RFK ran for President in 1968 before he was assassinated that June. George Wallace had some of that pull, but it tended to be more regional; he was shot and seriously wounded in May 1972. Reagan had a taste of that; after he was shot in March 1981, his legislative agenda was propelled.

I’ll be voting for the Democratic nominee, whoever it is. And folks should also start concentrating on the down-ballot races. djt with a GOP House, Senate, AND SCOTUS is a terrifying thought.

Dean Phillips was right

the debate

I’m sure he’s not gloating, but Dean Phillips was right. You don’t remember him, do you? He’s the guy who engaged in a quixotic campaign to be the Democratic nomination for President in 2023/24.

In October 2023, he wrote: “I didn’t set out to enter this race. But it looks like on our current course, the Democrats will lose and Trump will be our President again. President Biden is a good man and someone I tremendously respect. I understand why other Democrats don’t want to run against him, and why we are here. This is a last-minute campaign, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and courage is an important value to me. If President Biden is the Democratic nominee, we face an unacceptable risk of Trump being back in the White House. I know this campaign is a long shot, but that is why I think it is important and worth doing.”

Of course, his campaign went nowhere and was widely criticized among Democrats for running. I voted for him in the 2024 New York presidential primary, even though Biden had all but locked up the nomination. Heck, I voted for Elizabeth Warren in 2020 under similar circumstances. Warren, who is now 75, and Bernie Sanders, who will be 83 in September, and who I voted for in the 2016 primary, are too old in this political climate. I’ve never voted for Joe Biden in a primary, only in the 2020 general election.

JRB, Jr. v. djt

I hear there was a debate last week. The Democratic candidate didn’t fare so well. Frankly, I’m not convinced of the efficacy of debates in determining the worthiness of candidates for most political contests.

Still, it happened under rules approved by the Biden camp. Beyond the occasional lack of focus and volume, Truthout noted: Biden Offered No Alternative to Trump’s Pro-Policing Authoritarianism in Debate. “Biden did not put forth a progressive or convincing counterweight to Trump’s xenophobic and authoritarian tirades.”

djt didn’t win the debate. As is often the case, the Republican lied regularly, denying things he did and taking credit for things other presidents accomplished.

The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: “Lost in the hand-wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear-mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office. In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.”

The Weekly Sift guy said, They Both Lost. Now What?

But Joe did “lose” the debate. Did cold medications affect Biden’s debate performance, as MedPage theorized? Maybe, but after a barrage of Sleepy Joe memes, it doesn’t much matter.

For some time, there have been calls for Biden to step aside for some other candidate. I don’t need to get into that discussion since so many entities including the New York Times, Joe Scarborough, Boston Globe opinion, Albany Times Union, Frank S. Robinson, and many others have stepped in.

Nearly half of registered voters who support Biden supporters wish someone else were the Democratic nominee. Gavin Newsom, governor of California said, “We gotta have the back of this president. You don’t turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”

Ezra Klein of the NYT replies: “Perhaps a party that wants to win? Or a party that wants to nominate a candidate that the American people believe is up to the job?”

Money

The donor class of the Democratic Party is particularly concerned. Newsmax writes:

“A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance…

“Multiple committee members on the call… described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors, and other stakeholders.”

But what I’m more interested in is how the Democrats could move from Biden/Harris. Unless Biden decides to drop out of the contest, he will be the Democratic nominee, and the wondering is moot.

If he does leave the race, Kamala Harris is the most logical person to succeed Joe. But she has nearly as many political negatives as Biden does despite the fact that I believe that they’ve done a reasonably good job in office.

She IS the White House’s lead voice as a defender of abortion rights, which may prove pivotal in November. And dumping the nation’s first Black, asian, and woman vice president from the ticket is problematic.

Michigan!

My favorite candidate, should there be an open Democratic convention, would be Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan. The New York Times, in listing her as one of the likely choices:

She “has risen quickly as a national star of the Democratic Party, helped in part by Mr. Trump’s antagonizing her as “that woman from Michigan.” A two-term governor, Ms. Whitmer led a 2022 campaign that gave Democrats in the battleground state a trifecta — exercising full control of the legislature and state government — for the first time in 40 years.

“She has used that mandate to enact a laundry list of progressive policies. Her national profile also soared during the pandemic, when she was vilified by right-wing media and Republican officials for her lockdown measures. And Ms. Whitmer is a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, a top leadership position in the national party.”

Moreover, she has dealt with the nut cases from the COVID era of crazies, particularly when they try to kidnap her, and she’s come back stronger than ever, getting reelected with more than 54% of the vote in 2022.

California?

In contrast, I’m not feeling a campaign from Newsom. From the same article, “But — California. For one thing, Mr. Newsom would be saddled with explaining the problems California has had over the past decade: homelessness, high taxes, escalating housing costs.”

Ted Cruz repeatedly suggests that Michelle Obama will be the candidate. I believe her when she said that eight years in the White House is enough.

My preference for vice-president for either Harris or Whitmer would be a white guy from the current administration, Pete Buttigieg, the current transportation secretary. I think he has done a very credible job being front-facing in dealing with Boeing, the FAA, etc. He has held the airlines accountable for the bad holiday scheduling of a couple of years ago.

I can’t imagine that Democrats are going to put a gay man on the national ticket in 2024 but I think it would be a lovely idea.

Orange is the new orange

people aren’t feeling it

He’s guilty, guilty, guilty! Lock him up! Orange is the new orange!

Having gotten that out of my system, why do I still believe that djt, who turns 78 today, will be President on January 20th, 2025, his conviction on 34 counts in a Manhattan courthouse notwithstanding?

It’s not just his Svengali-like pull he has over his MAGA supporters. Or his uncanny ability to try to delegitimize any transaction that doesn’t go his way. Before the 2016 election, he claimed that the system was rigged. (The League of Women Voters believes the system that year WAS rigged in favor of voter suppression.)

Of course, he made the same claim before and after the 2020 vote. Already, his followers feel Biden can’t win in 2024 unless the fix is in.

But this is de rigeur for djt. Why should the Manhattan trial be any different? He and several conservative news media members and lawmakers “on the right have spread false and misleading claims about the Manhattan case.” It bothers me greatly, as it undermines democracy, but it’s his script.

I’m more appalled by the vast majority of the Republican party that has become his sycophants, On January 7, 2021, most of them derided the attack on the Capitol as an assault on American democracy. Now, too many are, “Well, maybe it wasn’t SO bad.”

Cf. 1974/2024

I compare this with 1974, a mere half-century ago. Richard Nixon had been re-elected with a huge majority only two years earlier. Yet when it became clear that Nixon was deeply involved in Watergate, the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater and many others told RMN that it was time for him to go. The party believed more in the rule of law than they did in holding the presidency.

The Republicans of 2024, with far too few exceptions, have become apologists for a corrupt, vulgar, and potentially fascist presidency to maintain power. It’s disappointing and astonishing, but not surprising how morally bankrupt people like Nikki Haley and William Barr, both of whom served in djt’s Cabinet and have since pointed out the flaws of their former boss are nevertheless going to support him in the general election.

A Boston Globe opinion piece notes: “The fact that Trump’s running mate decision has morphed into a perverse version of his former reality show — call it ‘The Authoritarian’s Apprentice’ — is cause for alarm. If Trump wins and then becomes unable to serve for some reason (death, incapacitation, incarceration, whatever it may be), the winner of that race will ascend to the highest office in the land. It was bad enough when the criteria to hold such a consequential position was whether or not the candidate hailed from a swing state. Now, the test seems to be who can swing a sledgehammer at democracy as hard as Trump can.”

Pardon?

I was intrigued by Sen. Mitt Romney’s declaration that President Joe Biden should have pardoned djt. “Romney, who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, [said] that if he had been President, he would’ve pardoned Trump after a federal grand jury indicted him in connection with attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”

“‘You may disagree with this, but had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought on indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him,’ Romney said. ‘Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy and the person I pardoned a little guy.'”

Likewise, per Newsmax, “former Democrat presidential primary candidate Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., is calling on New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul to pardon presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump ‘for the good of the country.’

“‘Donald Trump is a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer, a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim,’ Phillips wrote on X. ‘@GovKathyHochul should pardon him for the good of the country.'”

In a normal universe, I might be inclined to embrace this. In 1974 President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon after he left the White House. If the Senate had convicted djt after his second impeachment, the pardon might be on the table. But they chose not to because he was no longer in office. Like a corroded penny, djt is back. A pardon would only “prove” to djt and his sycophants that the prosecutions were “political.”

My fear

Seven months ago, I thought Biden was vulnerable to defeat. Many people believe the United States is in a recession. It doesn’t matter that we’re not, and most people cannot define one.

A New York Times article, A ‘Laundry List’ or a ‘Feel’: Biden and Trump’s Clashing Appeals to Black Voters epitomizes the tension, and not just among that demographic. Biden “methodically ticked through more than a dozen accomplishments, executive orders, appointments, investments, and economic statistics.” djt says “African Americans are getting slaughtered.”

“Ashley Etienne, who worked on the 2020 Biden campaign… worried that the Biden campaign had yet to translate how the president’s agenda has actually improved the lives of most Black voters. ‘What is the message beyond a laundry list of accomplishments?’ If people aren’t feeling it in your lives, you can say it all day — it doesn’t penetrate.'”

“‘It’s a feel,’ said Ja’Ron Smith, one of the highest-ranking Black officials in the Trump White House, in explaining the former president’s appeal to Black voters. ‘They know what it’s like to live under a Trump economy rather than a Biden economy.'”

And there are plenty of similar articles. “Because of recency bias — a tendency to focus on recent events instead of past ones — people typically feel their current problems most sharply. And they tend to have a warmer recall of past experiences, which can lead to a sense of nostalgia. Like past presidents, Mr. Trump has enjoyed a higher approval rating of his time in office in retrospect.”

A clip from 1994 of Robert Reich is shown here as part of a larger conversation. djt is not the cause of the upheaval in the country; he is merely exploring it.

The only way Biden wins is if enough people are terrified by despotism. “To stop fascism, unite around the old guy.”

How do we not get djt 47?

a movement

I need your help. Please explain to me how we do not get djt 47. I do not see how this doesn’t happen on January 20, 2025. I’m certainly not happy about it.

Despite some successes (the infrastructure bill et al.), Joe Biden does not engender the necessary enthusiasm. The expected recession of 2023 did not take place. The inflation rate is down, but especially without those stimulus checks, it “feels” worse. (Frank S. Robinson explains “the big misunderstanding.”)

In 2011/2012, even when he seemed to be trailing in the polls, Obama could share his Spotify playlist and show how relatable he was. Joe is… Joe, grandfatherly, a policy wonk without the requisite swagger despite the aviator glasses.

October 7, the start of the Israel-Hamas war, has been a losing issue for Biden. Those who support Palestine feel betrayed by him. Specifically, Arabs and Muslims in places like Michigan have openly indicated that they will not vote for him in 2024 as they did in 2020. The Biden administration is navigating both support for Israel and the desire that the Israelis work to minimize Palestinian casualties. As someone said at a recent book talk, Joe is schmoozing. The problem is that neither position is palatable to a wide swath of voters.

Likewise, Foreign Policy magazine indicates that Biden has no good options in Yemen. “The decision to bomb the Houthis was likely the administration’s least bad path.”

The border crisis affects not just the border states but those cities where the migrants have been shipped to. Yet djt wants to scuttle bipartisan legislation to address the issue, and House Republicans might just fall in line to do just that.

Demographic slump

According to the polls, Biden’s job approval rating is down among black voters, especially the younger ones, even more than he’s losing Hispanic and non-Hispanic white voters.

It’s not that he’s too old to do the job, but he’s an old-generation public service guy who has been prone to malaprops for a very long time. An editorial in The Hill suggests that perhaps the President is a superager, “someone generally older than 80 who has cognitive and physical function higher than their peers, more akin to people decades younger — and argued that framing Biden in particular as “too old” is both ageist and politically motivated.

Meanwhile

Nothing that happens with djt seems to affect his core supporters. His presidency has been “defined by corruption, self-dealing, and abuse of power.” He fomented violent insurrection against democracy and called the criminals convicted for their actions on January 6, 2021, “hostages.”

His legal difficulties are part of his campaign. He uses the cases as “proof” that Joe and his allies are engaging in “election interference.” He’s practically begging judges to find him in contempt – see, “they’re denying me my right to participate in my defense.” A convicted sexual predator, also guilty of defamation of character, can win a caucus and a primary.

Maybe he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in NYC, and it wouldn’t affect his voters, as he said eight years ago.

So, in some bizarre way, it seems consistent that his attorney would speak before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding djt’s claims of absolute immunity. He posited that “a President could order the assassination of his political rival and not ever face prosecution unless the House successfully impeached him and the Senate convicted him for that crime.”

As Major Garrett of CBS News noted, djt can and does run simultaneously as an incumbent, an outsider, and a victim. djt support is a movement. If he is elected again, he’ll abuse the office of the presidency and has promised to use the government to punish his enemies.

Hope?

Joe’s only positives are negatives: djt is an existential threat to democracy. djt put those three SCOTUS justices on the court to gut abortion rights and women’s health. Is that enough? I see 2000/2016 again.

If djt isn’t convicted of something criminal by November 5, I fear the outcome of January 6, 2025. If djt didn’t think he should have had to leave office on January 20, 2021, his supporters would think he should be reinstated four years later.

So tell me, how don’t we get the return of the Orange? Please tell me how I’m wrong. I’d LOVE to be wrong.

Not entirely unrelated, here’s the trailer for a new movie called Civil War. i have no plans to watch the film.