Biden and Trump Secure Their Party Nominations
The inevitable is all but official.
WaPo (“Biden and Trump secure their parties’ presidential nominations“):
President Biden and Donald Trump on Tuesday both secured their parties’ nominations for the presidency, formalizing a general-election rematch that many voters dread but that had appeared virtually inevitable for months.
Biden won a critical mass of delegates to the Democratic National Convention with a victory in Georgia, hours before Trump clinched the Republican delegates he needed with a victory in Washington state. The Associated Press quickly projected wins for both men in Georgia, Washington and Mississippi on Tuesday evening. Trump was also projected to win Hawaii’s GOP caucuses.
While I’ve paid rapt attention to American politics for some 45 years now, I must confess that I had all but forgotten that there were primaries yesterday, much less that both candidates were in striking distance of hitting their delegate threshold. Then again, both went into the day unopposed, so the outcome was not exactly in doubt.
And, so, the rematch begins in earnest.
The general election is effectively well underway, with Trump and Biden sparring over immigration, the economy, abortion and each other’s fitness for office. Biden’s State of the Union address last week resembled a campaign curtain-raiser as he sought to reassure voters about his age and reinvigorate swaths of the Democratic coalition that are not enthused about 2024. Trump’s campaign this week took control of the Republican National Committee and fired dozens of staffers as it sought to function as a single operation and catch up to Biden’s fundraising.
Biden is attacking Trump’s antiabortion record and disdain for many U.S. commitments abroad, and he argues that Trump poses a unique threat to American democracy after attempting to overturn the 2020 election. “Donald Trump is running a campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday after winning the nomination.
This is unlikely to excite the electorate but it is what it is.
After a primary race that took the candidates across the country to places including Iowa, South Carolina and California, the general election is expected to be waged largely in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, with the possible addition of North Carolina. In 2020, Biden won six of those states, narrowly losing North Carolina to Trump. Recent polling, however, has shown Trump leading in many of the battleground states, as well as nationally, as Biden faces low approval ratings.
“Biden’s biggest challenge is consolidation of the base,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne said. “Obviously, Biden is going to do a pretty robust outreach to moderates and Republicans — but the first thing he needs to do is consolidate his base.”
Squaring that circle is, of course, tricky. How does one energize progressives and minority voters while persuading conservatives who disdain Trump to vote for you?
Joe reached the finish line first.
No matter what Trump says publicly, that fact will eat at his soul for the rest of his days.
Progressives and minorities may not like Biden, and “consider the alternative” is simultaneously a compelling and off-putting stance. A national abortion ban is a sure thing under Trump, student debt relief is a dead letter, and Trump will happily send Bibi the asphalt to turn Gaza into a parking lot. The Dems’ challenge is to convince the disaffected that staying home is a vote to make a corrupt, mentally ill, wannabe dictator the most powerful man in the world, and that a vote for Biden is a vote for sanity and competence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
One thing worth noting: According to the NY Times, Biden won 95% of the Democratic vote in Georgia. Trump won 85% of the Republicans. In Washington Biden won 87% of the Dems. Trump won 74% of the Republicans. Both men running unopposed (although Nikki was still on the ballot).
I keep hearing about an enthusiasm gap for Biden, but it’s hard to see that in these two very different states…
The only people paying any attention who are surprised it’s Trump v Biden again are our well paid MSM political knowers. Within what, two weeks, the Hunter Biden allegations and Hur’s “poor old Joe” document investigation report seem to have evaporated.. Meanwhile Joe gave an impressive SOTU, the economy remains strong, and Biden’s campaign is just now starting to spend ample money. I’m wondering if the winds of the media narrative aren’t shifting.
@gVOR10: Following Hur’s hitjob, how many Biden’s age posts were there here at OTB and elsewhere? Multiple.
Now that Hur’s transcript and testimony have shown reports of Biden’s senility were grossly exaggerated, how many posts will we see? I’m guessing zero to far fewer.
This is how the vast rightwing smear machine works. The DOJ and the press owe Biden an apology — but he won’t get one. And in a few weeks, the media will be lapping up the next Republican disinformation campaign, per usual.
The Illinois General Primary Election will be held next Tuesday, March 19, 2024. Besides the contest for Democratic Presidential USA nominee, which has already been decided, and the selection of delegates who will represent him at the convention in Chicago (none are uncommitted) there is only one race that has two candidates. Preston Gabriel Nelson and Brian Roberts are vying to take second place to the Republican candidate for the Illinois 12th district seat in the United States House of Representatives in November. Presumably Republican incumbent Representative Mike Bost. All other Democratic Primary races on my ballot have one or no candidates.
I want to show support for President Biden so I will go to the polls and put my mark on the ballot.
Democracy in action!
@Mister Bluster:
You are a gentleman and a scholar, sir.
@DK:..
Thank you. I am humbled by your words.
The Trump Situation
Trump’s candidacy for president is a overwhelming issue, primarily because of the opposition’s strategies to stop him. No candidate in recent history has had such a virulent campaign against him. Two impeachments, four indictments, and a ton of media and other insults. Trump’s every word and phrase is carefully examined, taken out of context and used against him, and usually twisted, even as a majority of his listeners fully understand when he is kidding around, which he is prone to do.
The question is, how come he is still the leading opposition candidate for the 2024 election, and all of the sins heaped upon him seem to be either ignored or forgiven by what today appears to be a significant majority of potential voters?
The first answer is that most voters are willing to give Trump a pass on his pettiness, and bull-in-the-china-shop attitude, because of the real progress he made in his previous term in so many areas affecting the American people, and the excellent results he had in foreign affairs. Then too, MAGA as a slogan means a lot to many patriotic Americans, and not the least of reasons that the Biden and PMs have not promoted causes for the unity of the nation and its future, but only divisive policies. “The left abhors patriotism” is the message, and that sparks great resentment, along with trying to label conservatives to be terrorists. Really! Trump will fight this.
The second answer is the strong aversion to voting Biden into office for a second term. The public sees Biden as a demented old man that is not making his own decisions, but has one or more unknown
puppet masters or PMs that are the real decision-makers.
The decisions they have made with respect to leftist ideologies have sent the nation into a dichotomy of those who like their ideology and those who are totally against it, and it seems that the nays turn out to be in the majority. Thus, many voters are simply scared of the direction Biden and PMs are taking us, but believe Trump will set the right course.
But then, there are the other problems presented by Biden and his PMs. We have the woke people, the champions of political correctness, devotees of biasing our children in favor of socialism, critical race theory taught in lower schools, the trans movement that tries to influence children to convert without involving the parents, attempting to force straight people to use the preferred pronoun of trans persons, exposing children to LGBTQ persons in full drag in schools, and committing cancel culture on individuals of opposite thinking, plus the pro abortion policy that violates the Christian Decalogue. Just to name a few of the unacceptable practices and policies on the left.
Then we have Biden and PMs avidly searching for many, many places to dump 100s of millions of dollars or more, that have not been budgeted (where IS the budget?) into programs or nations seemingly at his own discretion, and promising more. The total of $14 trillion has been tagged as Biden’s contribution to the debt so far, thus raising the debt total to well into the $40 trillions. There is no plan by this administration to begin paying off this enormous debt, and we are now paying $1 trillion in interest per year to the debt-holders. In short, he and his PMs are spending us much further into poverty. The question arises as to whether all this addws money has been accounted for and spent wisely. So far, few answers are available.
A truly major problem with Biden and his PMs is the Open Border situation. Most Americans violently object to allowing some poorly known multiple millions of illegal aliens to come into the country, be checked out by the Border Patrol and then be released and allowed to be bussed to usually a sanctuary city of their choice! From then on their locations are not known, their motivations are not known, their capabilities are not known, and their intentions are not known. Doesn’t anyone see the problem here? They most often ignore their court hearing summons that is supposed to consider their desire to immigrate here.
Any fool can see the problem with all of this, and it is clearly the Biden and PMs policy that fosters it.
From all the reporting, Biden and his wayward son have had some very lucrative relationships with the Chinese government, and with the Ukraine government. The appearance of impropriety has been developed by successive revelations from outside sources and from Biden himself (Fire the Uktaine prosecutor now, or else no five billion dollars!). Many are left with the belief that China has Biden where they want him. Not good!
Then we come to the armed services. The effort to turn servicemen Woke is ludicrous. Soldiers, sailors and airmen train all of their careers to be courageous fighting men that focus on their duties and their fundamental loyalties that can be simply expressed for most as: Loyalty to God, Country, Family, and Service. Their strong immediate loyalty is to their comrades, upon whom they rely, especially in combat.
Webster defines Woke in its second definition as:
“ 2 disapproving: politically liberal or progressive (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.”
The national conservatives view today’s liberals as woke cultural warriors who pose an existential threat to the nation and its traditions.
That Biden and PMs want to convert our fighting men into woke cultural warriors is to seriously reduce their effectiveness as soldiers. To cashier men that refuse to adopt wokeness is to lose good fighting men. We will need many such well-trained and experienced men real soon now. One should ask why woke here! A bad policy.
A final problem addressed here with the Biden and PMs candidacy is the left’s ultimate desire to gut the Constitution, because it is a straight-jacket to their real desires for change in America. To what, may be asked? Some form of socialism, of course, which in its ultimate version is communism, and the slide from one to the other is well known, and eventually into totalitarianism. Americans do not want any part of this. As the nominal leader of the democratic party, with its total bent to the left, this is a huge problem for Biden, and should be a greater problem for patriotic democratic voters.
We thus have the prospect of a Trump win in the election and in the Electoral College, and four years more in the White House.