Chalk this up as one more thing both sides don’t do: turn the presidency into a monarchy. But, now that John Roberts’ clown car of craven conservative corruption has turned America’s president into America’s king, Democrats might as well get with the program – since it’s a Democratic king now occupying the throne.
Joe Biden was the perfect POTUS for the 2020 moment. 2024 is a different moment entirely.
Project 2025
Team Trumpistan is now The 2025 Project, run by a very different group of people hell bent on killing America’s democracy dead. The one fly in their ointment – on their way to replacing America’s President with a right wing orange Casesar – was that a Democrat was President when the Supreme Court went and changed the rules.
That IS what happened. The rules as they were are gone. To pretend otherwise is folly. A better approach – accept the new rules. And accept the power that has been placed in Presidential hands.
This makes Joe Biden’s age even more an issue. As healthy as he is, he’s still the age he is. Things can happen unexpectedly. We – and Joe Biden – need to put that on the table.
As a line of succession hasn’t been clearly established yet – don’t assume under the new rules that the veep steps in when the POTUS checks out – it’s incumbent on Democrats to keep their incumbent the incumbent. And don’t go throwing your 22nd Amendment at me. You’re living in Old America where the Constitution mattered.
Make Kamala POTUS Today!
If Joe Biden stepped aside today and made Kamala POTUS right NOW, Kamala could stay POTUS (just like Donald Trump would have) until we’ve fixed this mess caused by those conservative justices. IOW, Kamala Harris could pull a Donald Trump and declare – as part of her Presidential duties – that in order to preserve our government – she had to work alongside the DoJ (just as the SCOTUS would have it!) to prosecute the crap out of every single person who is attempting to overthrow our government.
Every single person involved in any way shape or form with the January 6 insurrection – from the very top to the very bottom and including every dollar spent on the insurrection – must be prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows. And any judge interfering with the prosecution of these crimes – looking at YOU, Aileen Cannon – must also be seen for what they are: co-conspirators to commit treason.
Donald Trump: CONVICT
Let’s be real: Donald Trump needed to win in 2020 to keep from being prosecuted for the way he won 2016 – with the express assistance of Vladimir Putin and Russian Military Intelligence. Remember Paul Manafort? That’s why we prosecuted him – for handing Oleg Deripaska proprietary polling data that the GRU turned into personalized Facebook ads on the pages of Black Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Those ads told those voters that Hilary Clinton was a racist on the downlow – so don’t vote for her; stay home!
That’s what they did – and Trump won those three states by a combined 70,000 votes. For the record? Campaigns receiving donations in kind from foreign governments? That’s strictly illegal!
But then, even before the GOP nominated Trump, they knew Putin owned him. They even agreed that was the case during a meeting they held on June 25, 2016 – a month before the Republicans nominated Trump. But, then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan demanded that every Republican keep it a secret – that “Putin paid Rohrbacher and Trump – swear to God!” because that’s what “families” do.
What Exactly Are Pro-Putin Republicans?
Can anyone explain a “pro-Putin Republican” in a way that doesn’t make them sound like traitors?
The Supreme Court may have made prosecuting Trump for the insurrection harder, but there’s still plenty of prosecuting to be done where Donald Trump and Russia are concerned. And we haven’t even started down that fifty lane super duper highway – all of it leading straight to the Land of Treason.
We need more than a presidential candidate, we need a prosecutor for democracy. We need someone unafraid to speak the words “CONVICT”, “RAPIST”, “INSURRECTIONIST” and even “TRAITOR”.
Accomplishments Galore
Kamala Harris has often been the first Black woman filling her position and regardless of whether she was the first or not, she succeeded. How do we know? She got re-elected. That was as California AG and as Senator. There’s a ton of cleaning up to do here on Aisle America – and I like the idea of a former prosecutor taking the reins of government in her teeth.
Being veep demands being heard from only as necessary. But, there’s a shit-ton of work to be done behind the scenes – if the veep is so inclined. Not all are. But Kamala – being the right kind of team player – did it. By all accounts (by those who actually know), Kamala Harris has been as good a vice president as Joe Biden has been a president.
Her record of accomplishments is remarkable. If she was a white, Christian man…
Now, the tremulous among the Democratic fold will – as they always do – worry first about how racist, misogynists and scumbags will react. Democracy says “never mind those people”, save Democracy. Those are the people we’re fighting – and to the bitter end.
That’s how struggles work. You don’t stop just because the recent vicissitudes went the other way.
Ignore The RW Noise Machine!
Also worth noting – bullshit sells easily. The truth requires way more effort.
The right wing noise machine churns out “Kamala’s unpopular” and ‘Kamala’s incompetent” memes like stale farts. That’s all it is. That’s what conservatives do to the people they fear most. They attack the aspects they most fear. Kamala’s popularity and her competence.
As for the polling – it hasn’t been even remotely right since 2016. Why is a whole other blog post. But, each cycle, it misses by a wide mark and yet, each cycle, the news media treats it like the Oracle at Delphi.
So – to repeat: Democrats (and I say this as one), if we want to not just win this election but win DECISIVELY (because just winning is never good enough), then the time to switch horses is now – mid-stream. Before the convention ideally.
That way we’d give Kamala time to get everyone on board. Remember, with Democrats, we’re about the ideas we want our elected reps to manifest into law on our behalf. The actual person is a lot less important than the idea. Republicans OTOH have no ideas other than getting more money and power. Nothing else matters except the king.
You know – that thing Republicans want and Democrats don’t. Everything now hinges on what the Democrats will do instead of dithering.