Editorial: Biden is a One Termer...

Damocles

Damocles

Accedo!
Staff member
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-one-term-president-opinion-1844382

There are so many murmurs about replacing Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee that a more central question can get sidelined: what are his chances of winning a second term if he is not removed from the ballot?

Democrats are in a singularly unenviable position, eyeing a troubled nation led by a president in obvious decline, with no alternative nominee in sight. Everyone is free to mull some scheme featuring Gavin Newsom riding to the rescue, or the spectacle of Michelle Obama lowered from the rafters at the Chicago convention to accept the anointing of delegates filled with joyful relief.

Right now those are amateurish movie screenplays. Team Biden shows no sign of awakening to the reality the rest of us can see every day—a president struggling with cognitive clarity and unfavorable poll numbers in swing states. There is no sign he plans to appear on our TV screens as Lyndon Johnson did in the spring of 1968 to say "I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

Vietnam and other deep national divisions had damaged LBJ's reelection chances, but the announcement still stunned the nation. If Biden were to deliver a similar moment of clarity, the overwhelming reaction of his party would be relief. The reason is clear: a second Biden term is simply not a sustainable concept.

This is not a partisan barb. Increasing numbers of Democrats recognize the bleak optics of Biden asking to remain in the Oval Office past his 86th birthday. Few in the party's power structure are able to give voice to such concerns, so they plow forward amid hopes of facing a Donald Trump campaign damaged enough that even Biden can beat it.

More at link...
 
It's actually kind of infuriating. Just about any other candidate would stand a MUCH better chance of beating Trump. Biden/Harris is a gift to MAGA.

He absolutely should do the LBJ thing, but I don't think he will.
 
BartenderElite said:
It's actually kind of infuriating. Just about any other candidate would stand a MUCH better chance of beating Trump. Biden/Harris is a gift to MAGA.

He absolutely should do the LBJ thing, but I don't think he will.
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Shocked that Republicans don't like Democrats. Shocked, I tell you!
 
A Biden second term is a national nightmare.

He is not in control of the complexities of governing this Constitutional Republic. Even a majority of Democrats do not want him to run again. Biden at 86 is a far worse nightmare than Biden at 81.

The Democratic bench is thin as a rail.

"Americans love a winner." (G. Patton). Biden is not a winner.
 
BidenPresident said:
Shocked that Republicans don't like Democrats. Shocked, I tell you!
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Democrats don't like Democrats (Biden).

The salient part of the OP:

"The 2024 vote will be a referendum on Biden whether he faces a resilient Trump or a miraculously ascendant Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. Any GOP nominee will be able to ask voters the question Ronald Reagan asked as the 1980 campaign drew to a close: "are you better off than you were four years ago?"
 
McCarthy said that Biden was reading from his beloved crotch notes during negotiations for the continuing resolution that eventually got McCarthy ousted as Speaker. This man cannot function, let alone act as the leader of the Free World.
 
Earl said:
Democrats don't like Democrats (Biden).

The salient part of the OP:

"The 2024 vote will be a referendum on Biden whether he faces a resilient Trump or a miraculously ascendant Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. Any GOP nominee will be able to ask voters the question Ronald Reagan asked as the 1980 campaign drew to a close: "are you better off than you were four years ago?"
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don't get lured into a false sense of security.
 
When any man loses his cognitive ability, it evokes pathos.

When the leader of the free world and the person with the nuclear codes loses his cognitive ability, it is terrifying.
 
Oh, Damo hears murmurs. All is lost for Biden. Trump has several court cases and more to come. He will lose voters as the truth of who he is is revealed. Trump is a one termer.
 
To be, or not to be? That is the question—

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. —Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! —Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

A modern English translation of Hamlet’s soliloquy
The speech is a stunning work of art and the most-studied of all of Shakespeare’s plays. It is best untampered. However, a modern English rendering can untangle some of the puzzling lines and Elizabethan turns of phrase.

Ben Florman, LitCharts’s co-founder, wrote the following modern English translation of Hamlet’s soliloquy:

To live, or to die? That is the question.

Is it nobler to suffer through all the terrible things

fate throws at you, or to fight off your troubles,

and, in doing so, end them completely?

To die, to sleep—because that’s all dying is—

and by a sleep I mean an end to all the heartache

and the thousand injuries that we are vulnerable to—

that’s an end to be wished for!

To die, to sleep. To sleep, perhaps to dream—yes,

but there’s there’s the catch. Because the kinds of

dreams that might come in that sleep of death—

after you have left behind your mortal body—

are something to make you anxious.

That’s the consideration that makes us suffer

the calamities of life for so long.

Because who would bear all the trials and tribulations of time—

the oppression of the powerful, the insults from arrogant men,

the pangs of unrequited love, the slowness of justice,

the disrespect of people in office,

and the general abuse of good people by bad—

when you could just settle all your debts

using nothing more than an unsheathed dagger?

Who would bear his burdens, and grunt

and sweat through a tiring life, if they weren’t frightened

of what might happen after death—

that undiscovered country from which no visitor returns,

which we wonder about and which makes us

prefer the troubles we know rather than fly off

to face the ones we don’t? Thus, the fear of

death makes us all cowards, and our natural

willingness to act is made weak by too much thinking.

Actions of great urgency and importance

get thrown off course because of this sort of thinking,

and they cease to be actions at all.

But wait, here is the beautiful Ophelia!

[To OPHELIA] Beauty, may you forgive all my sins in your prayers


https://www.litcharts.com/blog/shakespeare/hamletssoliloquy/


yes. it's simpy at the end.
 
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