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The Race For 2024

Then Dems have a long history of eating their own, while the Republicans will support a psychopathic, malignant narcissist who several renowned psychiatrists have said has obvious signs of cognitive impairment, regardless of the potential harm he might do to the country. ( Look it up on your own ) Sure, it would be nice if some charismatic, experienced Democrats had challenged Biden about a year ago, but nobody did, but I'll take, as Bill Maher has said, Biden's head in a jar of blue fluid over Trump and Maher has been saying Biden needs to step down for over a year. Hopefully, most people will feel that way and realize that an older man who sometimes stutters, due to life long problem with expressing himself, who has been an excellent president, who has a younger, experienced VP who can fill in just in case, who will appoint decent people to his cabinet and advisors is better than a criminal who is also old and showing signs of cognitive decline.

To me, Biden looked exhausted during the debate. Perhaps he practiced way too much, leaving him tired with a raspy voice. The next day he was sharp as a tack. Plus, nobody fact checked all of Trump's lies during the debate and I think Biden made a good point when he said that it's hard to debate a liar. Anyway, all of the news pundits that are saying he should step down are only helping Trump. They should be ashamed, but plenty have also said that the Dems need to be more like Republicans and support their own candidate. One who wrote today was a former Republican who was really angry at how the Dems are currently treating Biden. it's not the politicians who are doing this. it's the media. I don't have time to post that article, but I might do it later.
 
Okay. I found the former Republican who supports Biden and is giving some advice to the Dems.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/29/...e_code=1.3k0.puWN.5ess16zoTexJ&smid=url-share

As a former Republican who spent decades pointing out flaws in the Democratic Party, I watch the current Democratic panic over President Biden’s debate performance with a mix of bafflement and nostalgia.

It’s baffling that so many Democrats are failing to rally around a wildly successful president after one bad night. But it does remind me of why Republicans defeated Democrats in so many races Republicans should have lost.

Donald Trump has won one presidential election. He did so with about 46 percent of the popular vote. (Mitt Romney lost with about 47 percent.) The Republican Party lost its mind and decided that this one victory negated everything we know about politics. But it didn’t.

One debate does not change the structure of this presidential campaign. For all the talk of Mr. Biden’s off night, what is lost is that Mr. Trump missed a great opportunity to reset his candidacy and greatly strengthen his position.
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He could have reassured voters who are horrified, in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise, by the stories of young girls who become pregnant by rape and then must endure extremist politicians eager to criminalize what was a constitutional right for two generations. But Mr. Trump bizarrely asserted that a majority pro-abortion-rights country hated Roe v. Wade and celebrated his role in replacing individual choice with the heavy hand of government.

He could have said he would accept the outcome of the next presidential election. He refused.

For 90 minutes, Mr. Trump unleashed a virulent anti-American rant. The America he lives in is a postapocalyptic hellscape of violence, with people “dying all over the place” — more “Mad Max” than “morning in America.”

Is this how Americans see themselves? When we watch the American flag carried at the Olympics in Paris, are we to feel ashamed, not proud? When Ronald Reagan was president, he believed that to be born in America was to win life’s lottery. Now, in Trump’s America, are we victims, chumps, losers?
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Gov. Gavin Newsom of California showed Democrats how to fight after the debate: “You don’t turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”

Unfortunately, for the moment, it’s much of the Democratic Party establishment. Many of the same people wrote off Mr. Biden in the 2020 Democratic primaries after he was crushed in Iowa and New Hampshire. Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina refused to panic, stuck by Mr. Biden and helped save the campaign. Let his courage and steadiness be a model. My one plea to my new friends abandoning Mr. Biden is simple: Suck it up and fight. It’s not supposed to be easy.
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There's a bit more in the article, but as I've said before, t the Democrats are doing the country a great disfavor by criticizing Biden's poor performance in the debate when Trump did nothing but lie and he often rambles mindlessly, yet some Dems, mostly the media, are doing nothing but knocking their own guy, which will only help Trump.
 
https://news.cornell.edu/media-rela...-frequent-phonemic-paraphasia-are-signs-early

Harry Segal is a senior lecturer in the Psychology Department at Cornell University and in the Psychiatry Department at Weill Cornell Medicine. His research focus includes the study of personality disorders, future life anticipation and young adult development.


Harry Segal​


Senior Lecturer

“In the 2024 election, both party candidates have been accused by the other of having psychological deficits. This weaponizing of clinical concepts is no doubt confusing to voters and journalists. A careful consideration of these claims can demystify their use as ‘opposition research.’
“Objectively, Donald Trump has a documented history of lying that is so marked as to be considered 'pathological.' Politicians often say untrue things, but the frequency of Trump’s lying is so extreme as to meet criteria for sociopathic behavior, since he tells falsehoods across all life domains, from his personal relationships to business dealings and finally to politics. Recently, several clinicians have noted the ways he has begun to mistake words, lose his train of thought, confuse Biden with Obama, particularly during long rallies held in the evening. There are examples of phonemic paraphasia – swapping parts of words for others that sound similar; these are signs of early dementia, even though they are intermittent.
“The complaints about Joe Biden have been more vague – citing his advanced age, physical fragility and occasional mixing up of names. But there is no evidence of dementia onset, no ‘sun-downing,’ no reports from staff or cabinet members that he is failing to stay on top of legislative or international issues. This in contrast to Trump whose cabinet at the end of his term considered invoking the 25th amendment.
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Joe fucked up in a debate, but Trump has early signs of dementia and this was even reported in The Daily Mail, someone's favorite source of info.
 
https://deanobeidallah.substack.com/p/doctors-are-warning-of-trumps-dementiaits

When more than 500 licensed mental health professions—including best-selling authors and well-respected psychologists—sign a petition warning that Donald Trump has clear signs of dementia, you would think corporate media would cover the story. But of course that would conflict with the corporate media’s non-stop narrative that President Biden is the one with cognitive issues.

But thankfully that has not deterred Dr. John Gartner--the founder of “Duty to Warn” and a prominent psychologist who was a contributor to the New York Times bestselling book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President"—from raising alarm bells. In fact, Dr. Gartner reached out to me a few weeks ago via Twitter (now X) to share his work. It was jaw-dropping.

Consequently, I interviewed Dr. Gartner on my SiriusXM radio show last week to discuss why hundreds of mental health professionals are so deeply alarmed by what they are seeing with Trump. It was so compelling I wanted to share both what he warned and the video of the interview (below) so you can watch it for yourself—as well as hopefully share it with friends
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There's a lot more in the article, including a video of what some of these experts are saying about Trump's mental state, but some people seem to think they can diagnose dementia based on one bad night when a person who has suffered with stuttering and problems with language fucked up. Get over it!
 
unapologetic said:
Does anyone know if the BBC will be covering the US election, on election night? Or some other online source? I don't have a TV.
- Thanks.
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If? I imagine the answer is "yes."

I believe that one can anticipate that every news media outlet in the world of news media outlets will cover the US elections.

You may wish to read Reuters, too. Try NPR for a USA/progressive-style reporting.

ETA, regarding media bias and fact checks, there is an email source I use: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/2024...d-fact-checks-for-06-30-2024-weekend-edition/
 
ZiprHead said:
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Yeah, that was in my link, but we have someone here who thinks he is an expert on diagnosing dementia, despite not telling us where he received his medical degree and how he received his specialties in psychiatry and/or gerontology. If Biden really does have dementia, than we have two candidates with dementia. I'll take the one who isn't a psychopathic liar and who has a VP who is very capable of taking over his job if necessary. I'm sure the other guy will choose a very competent VP. /s. Well, maybe when hell freezes over.
 
I found this editorial from Ezra Klein painfully insightful:

Opinion: This Isn't All Joe Biden's Fault
In February, I argued that President Biden should step aside in the 2024 election and Democrats should do what political parties did in presidential elections until the 1970s: choose a ticket at their convention. In public, the backlash I got from top Democrats was fierce. I was a bed-wetter living in an Aaron Sorkin fantasyland.

In private, the feedback was more thoughtful and frightened. No one tried to convince me that Biden was a strong candidate. They argued instead that he couldn’t be persuaded to step aside, that even if he could, Vice President Kamala Harris would lose the election and that if a convention didn’t choose Harris, passing her over would fracture the party. They argued not that Biden was strong but that the Democratic Party was weak.
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I do not quite agree with Klein's ultimate conclusion. It's too late to do anything now, and that being the case, these "top donors" should really call ix-nay on the elated-bay oubts-day. But his analysis of what happened and why is right on the money. I sure hope someone is paying attention to what happened to derail this election for the Democrats, and taking some notes for the future. If there is a future. Well, there will be. I truly and genuinely believe that for as complacent, cynical, apathetic, and old as we have admittedly become, Americans will not tolerate a Trump dictatorship for very long at all. I'm not sure he can even keep his people, or his own brain, organized for long enough to make a serious attempt.
 
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unapologetic said:
southernhybrid said:
I'm sure the other guy will choose a very competent VP.
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The Republican party doesn't care that Rump has dementia, because the party will choose his VP, who will implement coup 2025 regardless.
(even if they have to stage a "weekend at Bernie's")
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The real problem is that regardless of the evidence, they will never accept that Trump is a malignant narcissist, a pathological liar, a psychopath, who is probably in the early stages of dementia. I've spoken to one who denies all of the evidence I've tried to present to her and she's a rather decent person, as far as I know. I'm not a close friend, but I've known her for years, but considering the t-shirts she wears, she's also a conservative Christian. I guess if one can believe that bullshit, one can believe anything.

I've read that Trump is choosing his VP, based on how many billionaires he has connections with and that doesn't surprise me at all.
 
southernhybrid said:
I've read that Trump is choosing his VP, based on how many billionaires he has connections with and that doesn't surprise me at all.
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They certainly seem to think those are the criteria! I suspect Trump has already effectively chosen, though, and on no grounds other than who the news says will be willing to kiss the most ass. He truly believes all the nonsense he says about himself, and he doesn't want another traitor like Pence on his staff.
 
Politesse said:
I found this editorial from Ezra Klein painfully insightful:

Opinion: This Isn't All Joe Biden's Fault
In February, I argued that President Biden should step aside in the 2024 election and Democrats should do what political parties did in presidential elections until the 1970s: choose a ticket at their convention. In public, the backlash I got from top Democrats was fierce. I was a bed-wetter living in an Aaron Sorkin fantasyland.

In private, the feedback was more thoughtful and frightened. No one tried to convince me that Biden was a strong candidate. They argued instead that he couldn’t be persuaded to step aside, that even if he could, Vice President Kamala Harris would lose the election and that if a convention didn’t choose Harris, passing her over would fracture the party. They argued not that Biden was strong but that the Democratic Party was weak.
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I do not quite agree with Klein's ultimate conclusion. It's too late to do anything now, and that being the case, these "top donors" should really call ix-nay on the elated-bay oubts-day. But his analysis of what happened and why is right on the money. I sure hope someone is paying attention to what happened to derail this election for the Democrats, and taking some notes for the future. If there is a future. Well, there will be. I truly and genuinely believe that for as complacent, cynical, apathetic, and old as we have admittedly become, Americans will not tolerate a Trump dictatorship for very long at all. I'm not sure he can even keep his people, or his own brain, organized for long enough to make a serious attempt.
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The party has been fractured for a long time. Dems don't support their own when something happens that they don't agree with or when somebody isn't perfect. Regardless of Biden's faults, or possible mental decline, the Dems shouldn't have started all this panic. The Republicans would never do that to a candidate come hell or high water. That's why they support Trump. It's primarily the media who has been writing all these negative articles about Biden. I wish they would have just shut the fuck up and kept their opinions to themselves.

I hope you're correct about the Trump dictatorship, but it's not just him, it's the entire Republican Party that has gotten worse, starting in the days of Reagan. Nixon was a crook, although he denied that, but he was a saint compared to the current Republicans and at least he stepped down when appropriate, but the constant demonizing of Democrats by the Republicans got really extreme when Reagan ran. The same thing happened here in Georgia around that time, although we are fortunate to now have two Democratic Senators, even though I wasn't a fan of Warnock. We had better candidates who had more experience, but based on what I read, he was the only one who had a chance of winning, so I voted for him in the primaries.

Much of Europe is turning to the far right, so it's hard to be optimistic about the future.
 
A suggestion is being made on FB that we need someone older. I am older than both, I accept, and will probably do the right thing and die. Should I not, keep in mind who my VP selection is and that I would not be the first politician to renege on a campaign promise.

Maybe that VP thing is what we should be looking at even now? Trump ,may be somewhat more alert, but doesn't he look like a person who has had at least one stroke and likely to have another?
 
unapologetic said:
southernhybrid said:
I'm sure the other guy will choose a very competent VP.
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The Republican party doesn't care that Rump has dementia, because the party will choose his VP, who will implement coup 2025 regardless.
(even if they have to stage a "weekend at Bernie's")
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Now you say Trump has dementia and Biden does not???
 
southernhybrid said:
Much of Europe is turning to the far right, so it's hard to be optimistic about the future.
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WIth respect, for I love many of her languages and cultures greatly, I do not look to Europe to find the American future. These far right political schemes were European in origin, and fascism in its many masks and guises has long been Europe's "sleeping giant". Threatening to wake again as soon as memories of the World Wars finally faded. Did you ever see the movie Pan's Labyrinth? I think of it often, these days. Del Toro realized what was coming before the rest of us, as artists often do.

But we are not Europe, and though we struggle with many of the same bad political ideas and are prone to many of the same rhetorical traps, we do not have to follow their path in all things. We never fully embraced the extremes of European socialist democracy, more's the pity perhaps, but on the flip side, for many of the same reasons we will never fully embrace the extremes of state centralization and enforced racial chauvinism either. We as a whole nation don't trust our own government enough to hand it that kind of unchecked power over our lives, no matter who's in charge.
 
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I haven't honed these talking points yet, but the secular movement's deep connection with Western Civilization, to the exclusion of all others, has contributed to the USA's decline, politically.

It doesn't help that the movement is led by the likes of science-denying scientists like Dawkins and the wine-pouring Shermer; the atheist lawyers who care more about money than literally anything at all. Their continued authority is, say, their swords' gash in our side, as we hang on a cross that they got the wood for.

I spent a lot of time studying the Humanist movement specifically. I don't want to harsh on anyone's gig, but, have you not noticed how secular people have receded to tiny folds, deep inside the pockets of a movement that does not serve us?

We have our little internets; our forums and blogs. PZ opened Freethought Blogs again; EbonMuse of Daylight Atheism, a man I knew and liked (and still do), is over there. Like IIDB, it's a very white neighborhood. Online atheists have our own spaces, which is fine and in fact needed, and important.

But during the 20th Century, the architects of the movement chose only one Civilization to protect and promote. As if no others mattered.

We inherited that structure and framework for our own beliefs and worldviews.

Now we're here. Who is playing the violin 🎻 or fiddle? Is it the World's Smallest Violin? Is anyone fiddling while our Rome USA Western Civilization burns 🔥?

I think we posting here now got a bad hand of cards dealt to us. We wasted a lot of time and money defending untenable positions held by ridiculous nonsense people. We say we want to learn from history, yet, as a culture, we're not really into that.

How can we secular Americans harness whatever good values that our old Humanist ideals once intended, and save ourselves and our loved ones?

Project 2025 is more important than a dead man's wallet, but...
 
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