Matt Stoller, who was a Congressional aide, wrote an important article on Biden back in April.
… Biden is a bad candidate. Obama was exceptionally disciplined, and Biden is not…
…Basically, Biden combined two traits that work against each other. He’s lazy. Staffers can deal with that, if the lazy person is willing to delegate. But Biden doesn’t delegate important decision-making authority. He won’t write a speech beforehand to clear it with political allies, and he also won’t just read the damn talking points.
This means important things don’t get done, because he won’t do them, and he won’t let others do them. It is a nightmare to work for someone like this, because the staff never knows if there’s going to be a scandal. They never know if the boss is going to straight out lie to their own staff about it and have them ruin their own reputations and connections with political allies. They will not be able to defend Biden because it’s impossible to defend someone who isn’t trustworthy, unless people go full Trump and deny reality openly.
Given that Biden has a decent shot at being the President of the United States, I’d suggest reading the whole article.
(I am fundraising to determine how much I’ll write this year. If you value my writing and want more of it, please consider donating.)
The obvious similarity is, actually, Trump. The same type of mismanagement and laziness. Biden’s politics are different, and essentially the same as Obama’s, but a bit more retrograde: Biden is a neoliberal corporatist.
He’s less retrograde on social issues than many people think, mind you. Obama was against gay marriage until gay activists and donors took him out to the curb (something people forget). But Obama would bow to pressure on things that didn’t matter to him, like social issues.
He wouldn’t bow on key items, like making sure bankers were made whole, though, and Biden will be similar.
But Biden will also be, effectively, incompetent, even though Stoller notes he’s talented. All the talent in the world means little when he won’t do the work and won’t let anyone else do it.
So, not that anyone who reads me was likely to do so, I’d suggest not supporting Biden in the Democratic primaries.
450.org
There’s that, and there’s this.
We may not have to worry about the worst effects of climate change.
Biden’s Blank Check To The Baltic states: US Will Wage War On Russia In Your Defense
450.org
Sorry, I know this off-topic, but it’s important and something to put on your radar.
Europe Awaits Record-Smashing June Heat Wave
Stirling S Newberry
Biden also picks the wrong audience, some that Trump doesn’t do. MIT comes to mind, Biden should never talk there.
Hugh
LAZY?!?!? Just because he couldn’t get off his ass to enter the race until 20 other candidates had announced and only because the country, or his class anyway, was facing such an existential crisis? Seems pretty nitpicky to me. At the rate he’s going he will almost certainly have some of his agenda up by 2030. And why does he need a campaign for what he presumes to be his coronation? I mean when has that ever gone wrong.
As I said in another thread, the Establishment is desperate for a knight in shining armor. Biden came along with the right credentials and immediately got the role.Thing is Biden is the same airhead corporatist he has always been and the rust on the armor is already showing through. The Establishment if they weren’t so desperate should have realized this long before he did eventually announce and quietly smothered his candidacy. But they didn’t. So now they are starting to hedge their bets with Warren and Buttigieg.
S Brennan
Worth repeating;
“Obama was against gay marriage till gay activists and donors [slammed] him to the curb (something people forget.) But, Obama would bow to pressure on things that didn’t matter to him, like social issues. [Obama] wouldn’t bow on key items, like making sure bankers were made whole [by US Taxpayers]…Biden will be [the same].” – Ian Welsh
Temporarily Sane
Biden is to 2020 what Hillary Clinton was to 2016. He’s Mr. Neoliberal with a fake folksy charm and a penchant for gaffes that give away his absentmindedness and bigotry. Oh and the media will shill for hm while ignoring or smearing his rivals. (Imagine if Sanders had a compulsive hugging issue and a history of dropping bigoted comments…we’d never hear the end of it.)
It’s very interesting how the liberal feminist types and the identity politics thought police, who usually mob and pillory anyone, particularly if he’s an old white dude, who doesn’t adhere to liberal speech codes and show the proper affected ‘concern’ for the usual oppressed identity groups, seem to be making an exception for good ole’ Uncle Joe.
ef
@Hugh
The Establishment may BUY the dems primary for Joe, but there\’s one problem: he\’ll lose. MSM will blame the white working class again. He\’ll win Pennsylvania, but lose places like Nevada and Oregon, Ohio, Florida, places with enough whackos who will come out of the woodwork, show up and vote.
Just like 2016.
If Joe is on the ticket, all Trump needs is one dead US soldier somewhere….
Z
Biden’s probably been feeding on amphetamines for decades now. He’s running on fumes. Wonder why he appears to have no impulse control? Why he keeps saying and doing stupid things and can’t seem to be able to keep his hands to himself? Why he lacks discipline? Well, there you go.
Joe Biden, very likely pharma amphetamine junkie, undoubted corporate and Wall Street pimp, and supposed democratic party primary front runner.
Z
450.org
Ian’s right, Biden isn’t a Hillary redux, he’s Trump in Democrat’s clothing. He doesn’t grab pussy, but instead he grabs tits and smells their hair. He’s so much more polite and forgivable that way.
Biden made it clear in a speech this past week that the wealthy are his base just as the wealthy are Trump’s base and that NOTHING will fundamentally change. Both Trump and Biden are predictably capricious & impulsive. Both are stumbling & fumbling Keith Jacksons. Both are what America has come to be and perfectly reflect America in the early 21st century as civilization enters its final chapter.
I’m reading W. Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge right now, and Maugham’s description of Larry Darrel’s fiancé is a perfect description of what America was then and ultimately what it’s become per his prediction.
Republican or Democrat. Biden or Trump. Bernie or Trump. Warren or Trump. Harris or Trump. It doesn’t matter. Nothing will fundamentally change, Biden’s right. We can’t vote our way out of this predicament/conundrum. Whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see even though it’s crystal clear what that future will be.
American woman, get away from me eee….. American woman, this is what I see eee….
ponderer
I really think you are giving him too high of odds. Identity politics, reparations, wall street, there’s way too many issues that will brought up in the General. Creepy Joe doesn’t have a chance. He might win the Democratic primary, but that’s a reflection of democrats not his chances of being POTUS.
bruce wilder
Biden has so many negatives as a candidate of a supposedly left-of-centre Party that his candidacy becomes a test less of the candidate than of the Party.
How stupid are Democratic primary voters?
Willy
This could well wind up as the battle of the creepies. On which Uncles lap do you wish to sit? The one who embraces his creepiness, or the one who tries to keep it hidden? When we pull the finger will we get the humorous fart, or something much worse? I was hoping that Trump would be my poster boy for explaining sociopathy in power. But your average citizen seem to be far too rationalistically adaptive for that. Maybe with two creepies on stage power pathologies will easier to explain.
different clue
Trump would like Biden to be ” the opponent” in the election. Biden would be what I think I remember reading about in pro-boxing . . . the sacrificial opponent, sometimes known as the “tomato can”.
Trump is running a shrewd little double-double reverse psychology game by saying so right out in the open. He is gambling that the Catfood Democrats will think he is trying to trick them into thinking he is afraid of Biden. He is trying to trick them into thinking that if he is “really afraid” of Biden, then Biden is absolutely the Catfood Candidate they SHOULD pick.
So the Catfood Democrats will move heaven and earth to try getting their Credit Card Joe Precioussss coronated as the nominee. And then Trump will show that Joe was always the Tomato Can which Trump always understood Joe to be.
If the Catfood Democrats coronate creepy old Uncle Fester Joe as the nominee, Trump will win in a 35-state-or-better blowout.
And then the Decent Dems can keep working on purging, burning and exterminating all the Catfood Democrats out of the party, so that if another New Deal Restoration opportunity arises, there won’t be any treacherous DLC/Third Way/Clintonite/Obamazoid/ Wall Street/ Hamilton Project type Catfood Democrats left to subvert the New Deal Revival Democratic Party from within.
different clue
Here is a comment which is tangentially relevant to the subject of Biden because . . . umm . . . it is about primary electoral politics and so is Biden.
I saw a paragraph in Naked Capitalism’s “Water Cooler” round-up feature describing an article which is such a perfect specimen of its type that it can be copy-pasted with no further leading commentary from me. And here it is . . .
Sanders (D)(1): “Sanders: Warren Is Surging Because She’s Got Ovaries” [Vanity Fair]. (The headline is the editor’s contribution, since the URL is “bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-woman.” From the article, what Sanders said: “I think that there are a certain number of people who would like to see a woman elected, and I understand that. There are people who would like to see somebody who is younger, and I understand that also. There are a lot of factors out there.” And the part that Vanity Fair left out: “Elizabeth is a friend of mine, I think she’s running a good campaign.” • So, if you practice identity politics, you are permitted to say it works. If you do not, you are not. (Note, I think a “good campaign” includes Warren’s “plans” but does anybody believe that if Sanders had said “a good, issues-based campaign,” that Vanity Fair’s story and the editor’s headline would have been different? If so, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I have to sell you. The Clinton campaign only drove over it on Sundays.
There! Did you see it? Did you see the difference between what the headline of the described article claimed to quote Sanders as saying . . . versus what the body of the article actually described Sanders as saying? Do you think the after-the-fact writer of that headline had any particular motive for writing the headline it wrote?
different clue
Now that I think about it, I should have posted this to the “Bernie Sanders versus Elizabeth Warren” post, because it illustrates how hidden-hand black-advance ratfuckers are lying in wait to launch their secret ratfuck attacks from their places of hiding.
For example, the “editor” of Vanity Fair who fabricated that not-based-on-the-article headline for the article in Vanity Fair . . . fabricated it to heighten the hate between Sanderbackers and Warrenwanters. It would be interesting to know who and what this “editor” has supported in the past, and who and what it has worked for.
Z
The Neo-Liberal Times is in on the anybody-but-Bernie movement:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/politics/jane-omeara-sanders-burlington-college.html
Jane Sanders and the Messy Demise of a Vermont College
Before Bernie Sanders ran for president, his wife, Jane, had a bold plan to save Burlington College.
Within six years, it was buried in debt, and federal prosecutors were on the case.
Z
Z
Different Clue,
That VF article was a hatchet job. The content was just as bad as the headline. The writer used to cover Wall Street and wrote at one time and while claiming to be edgy and bold against Wall Street admits that she likes Jamie Dimon, but everybody like Jamie Dimon.
“”I don’t take any shit from them,” Levin says of her subjects, who range from interns to CEOs, some of whom she favors (“I like [JP Morgan Chase’s CEO] Jamie Dimon, but that’s a boring answer. Everybody likes Jamie Dimon”) and others whom she, well, doesn’t.”
“Levin’s pieces can be bitingly frank (which is what her die-hard fans love most about her—as one commented on the site, “Bess, you are a hero”). But the Amherst College grad, who says her dream job in college was “to write funny stuff,” swears that it’s all in good humor, even admitting that at times she feels protective of “her guys.””
https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a11040/my-brilliant-career-bess-levin-440677/
Can you imagine believing that everyone like Jamie Dimon?
Z
Bill Hicks
Why support ANYONE in the primaries? What’s the friggin’ point?
russell1200
I didn’t view Obama as being a particularly energetic president. I am assuming the discipline is a reference to his campaigning.
different clue
He was very task-disciplined about staying on the task of destroying the New Deal Restoration opportunity he had been presented with.
He was very on-task about conspiring with the Republicans to make the Bush Tax Cuts permanent. He was very on-task about immunizing and impunifying the FIRE sector perpetrators from any legal exposure for their outlaw actions. He was very on-task about immunizing and impunifying the BushAdmin major players from legal exposure for their International War Crimes and International Crimes Against Humanity. ( Which by the way makes me think that the NPR Tote-Bag Liberals who did NOT want the BushAdmin impeached “then” but DO want the TrumpAdmin impeached “now” . . . are motivated strictly by social style-and-status considerations and by impotent butthurt seeking revenge for the non-elevation of Queen Hillary to her rightful throne).
He was very on task about forging a Republican- Catfood Democrat coalition to destroy Social Security . . . with the Catfood Commission being the first step.
And etc.
Oh, and . . . he was very disciplined about maintaining the facade of being “black”. He pulled it off very convincingly. Millions of American Black Americans still think he is “one of them” even unto this very day.
Ché Pasa
So now the anti-Democrats are developing a “Coronation of Biden” narrative to jinx his chances (not that I think he has many, but that’s another issue altogether.)
Because he does lead the polls — polls we should be skeptical of — Biden is a potential threat to the continuation of the Chaos Regime that seems to be entrenched in a certain powerful faction of the elites. They like the Chaos, they like the money they’re receiving for nothing — tax cuts included — and the liberation from responsibility/regulation, and the whole hoopla of the regime that keeps the rabble distracted from anything beyond running faster and faster on the hamster wheel. Most of all, they like the power they’re consolidating at every level of government, but particularly in Washington, DC, where their lock on the levers of government, especially the courts, looks fair to become permanent.
Biden, bless his heart, isn’t jeopardizing any of that. In fact, through his overt appeals to Rs who dislike the appearance and behavior of the current WH power faction, he’s a possible god-send. Better than nothing. But Biden’s day has passed. Long since.
No coronation for him, no sir. Nor is there anyone in the Democratic field at this point who might rise to the occasion and claim the prize.
If Biden succeeds somehow, just watch, nothing much will change except style. A lot of clean-up will have to take place, but none of it will be a threat to People Who Matter. In fact, most of it will be cosmetic. Instead of a constant shit-show in and from and through the White House, placid disinterest will reign in the media. No one will care. Interest will shift elsewhere, maybe, finally, to the looming catastrophes of climate change and global warming.
And the story will be the millions and millions of people ‘on the move’ and what, if anything, to do about it. Hm.
But something tells me Biden will not succeed because the Dems won’t nominate him. Who they nominate, I think, will be a surprise.
different clue
@ Bill Hicks,
Why support anyone in the primaries? What’s the frickin’ point?
The organizing effort itself may leave behind bunches of organized people staying in touch with eachother in a movement-organized way. They may devote themselves to doing something real about some real something-or-other.
For example, the Sanderbackers may stay in touch with eachother and stay organized to do this and that even if/after Sanders is defeated for nominee.
different clue
Some predictions are easier than others. If Sanders becomes so visibly popular among potential DemPrimary and DemCaucus voters as to appear close to the magic 50% + 1 on the first ballot, then I dare not predict anything.
If things keep looking like they look now, the Catfood Democrat Party will nominate a Catfood Democrat. That’s not hard to predict.