coup biden, coconuts in our lifetimes

(secretly do be hoping copmala desire for power is greater than her husbands commitments)

  • LocalOaf [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    It’s ridiculous how the DNC has admitted he’s unfit to run a campaign, but somehow accept him staying in office for the remainder of his term. Has he even been seen in public since the announcement?

    If he’s too cooked to give campaign stump speeches and go to debates, he’s definitely too cooked to “focus all of his energy on his duties as president” or whatever the statement they put out said. I don’t think they’ll do it because Democrats are inherently cowardly and conflict averse, but shouldn’t the cabinet 25th amendment his ancient demented ass so Kamala can have her and her running mate campaign as incumbents and have like 3 months to push a bunch of executive actions on shit like student/medical debt, abortion clinics in federal lands, price caps on medications/waiving patents to make generics, stimulus checks, etc? When the 6-3 SCOTUS inevitably shoots that shit down, pivot to running on court packing and term limiting judges and putting in ethics requirements and full mandatory financial audits and disclosures for justices.

    As juiced up as Trump’s base is since the debate and shooting, they’re still a relatively small chunk of the electorate of diehards despite how bad polling is, and a lot of that is how uniquely terrible Biden was. Doing good and popular shit while you still have the opportunity to now before the election would do a lot to warm hesitant/checked out reachable potential voters and should be an urgent priority for Kamala’s team if they actually want to win. Do they actually believe all the “Joe’s such a good and moral and decent man” horseshit? That’s the only reason I can imagine not using the 25th amendment immediately and pivoting to “the Harris administration” immediately unless the donors are planning on swapping her out at the convention for Newsom/Whitmer or whatever.

    I know the Dems don’t really give a shit and just want to maintain their donor network and guard their left flank against “populism,” but this makes me feel like I’m going fucking insane. They have a wide open layup opportunity and they’re sitting around picking their noses and acting like Kamala’s their mom and hiding under her dress is gonna make all the problems go away now instead of actually governing or building a platform to run on other than Harris idpol+we got rid of the old senile guy+we’re not Trump.

    pepe-silvia

    • LocalOaf [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I don’t really even give a shit about American electoral politics and know that this shithole country is irredeemable and fucked no matter what the outcome this year and will never vote for a Democrat the rest of my life, and I STILL feel like I could do an immeasurably better job running a campaign than they do. Why am I sitting here getting pissed off about this shit when I know long term it’s all meaningless?! FUCK

      screm

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Has he even been seen in public since the announcement?

      He’s scheduled to give a public statement from the Oval Office tonight 8ET, however I’m not sure if it’ll be pre-recorded, or if it’ll be a live speech.

  • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    Stupid question but if Kamala did take over for the next 6 months and actually won in November (I said it was a stupid question) would that be her second term or could she run again in 28?

    Not that there’s any chance Biden steps down especially now that all thenopini8n pieces are about how brave and patriotic he is for not running again.

    • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      22nd amendment:

      No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

      • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Consider term limits. The US Constitution was amended to enforce term limits in direct response to FDR’s popular 12-year presidency (he died in office, going on for 16). As a policy, it is self-evidently quite anti-democratic (robbing the people of a choice), but nevertheless it has been conceptually naturalized to the extent that the 2019 coup against Evo Morales was premised explicitly on the idea that repeated popular electoral victories constituted a form of dictatorship. If rotation was important to avoid corruption or complacency, corporations and supreme courts would institute term limits too. Term limits ensure that in the miraculous scenario that a scrupulous, charismatic, and intelligent individual becomes a rebellious political executive, they won’t be in power long enough to meaningfully challenge the entrenched power of corporate vehicles manned by CEOs with decades of experience. Wolfgang Schäuble, a powerful advocate of austerity policy in Europe, succinctly summarized the extent to which electoral democracy is subordinate: “Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy.” One Party States and Democratic Centralism are not the result of lack of sophistication or cronyism, they are a proven bulwark that acknowledges that political power will often need to be exerted against the will of Capital, and so the wielders of said power must necessarily undergo a much more serious vetting process than a popularity contest.

        from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/

    • DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      Ascending to the presidency from the chain of succession does not count as a term for the purposes of term limits. Technically you could serve a functionally unlimited number of terms so long as you find enough people willing to run for president, win, and then hand over the reigns to you as VP.

      Edit: Ignore me, I’m wrong.