Category Archives: Democratic vs. Republican Presidents

President Joe Biden neutralizes Republicans at State of the Union

President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden once again rose to the occasion and gave an extremely effective State of the Union speech last night. But what was so successful, and perhaps unexpected, is the way Biden took apart the Republicans. The President did this in a deft, almost surgical way, alternating between touting his impressive accomplishments, pushing his Democratic agenda (something we have advocated here since Day One), and co-opting pro-American ideas that the Republicans falsely try to claim that they promote. Essentially, Biden set a trap for the GOP.

Most reviews and many posts and comments about last night’s State of the Union speech seem to focus on the ugly outbursts from a small number of House Republicans in the audience. That’s just what those attention-seekers want. Instead, a good exercise is to avoid the videos of President Biden’s speech (too late if you already watched it last night, of course), and read the transcript in the second link above. What you get is an impressive picture of patriotism, an appeal to unity, and some good sharp contrasts with the Republicans. Here are some memorable lines and passages from the speech, which paint a clear picture of what President Biden accomplished:

What President Biden and Democrats need to say on the debt ceiling

Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer, Jan. 2019

Once again, with a Democratic president in the White House, Republicans are playing a dangerous game of chicken with America’s debt ceiling. The GOP did this under President Barack Obama in 2011 as well. This article from the Brookings Institution lays out some of the possible scary consequences of a U.S. debt default, including:

–A deep recession
–A big drop in the stock market
–Higher interest rates
–Failure to pay Social Security and Medicare recipients
–Failure to pay our U.S. Treasury obligations

The pain of such a failure likely would be felt by every American family, and America’s place as the go-to safe harbor for foreign investment and the go-to currency (and thus, our influence in the world) could be jeopardized. Once again, therefore, Republicans correctly need to be blamed for this crisis of their making. But to get there, and solve the crisis, there is something that President Joe Biden and leading Democrats should be saying:

Democrats co-opt Republican meme as “Dark Brandon” goes viral

The attack that turned into a compliment

In an amazing flipping of the script, Democrats have taken back a Republican phrase used to denigrate President Joe Biden.

It all started last October, at the Sparks 300 NASCAR race at Talladega Motor Speedway in Alabama. During winner Brandon Brown‘s post-race interview, some in the crowd began chanting “Fu*k Joe Biden!” The interviewer instead claimed, either unknowingly or deliberately, that the crowd was chanting “Let’s Go Brandon!”

Soon, Republicans started saying “Let’s Go Brandon!” as a euphemism for the epithet against President Biden. Even a number of leading Republican politicians began uttering the phrase, wearing t-shirts and masks displaying the phrase, and referring to the Biden administration as “the Brandon administration.” The “Brandon” saying was going strong as recently as this past weekend, at Donald Trump‘s Saudi-sponsored golf tournament:

https://twitter.com/magatalker/status/1554112313887805441

However, over the past week or so, Democrats have suddenly taken the “Brandon” epithet back, and have turned it into an instant smash hit for President Biden.

List of culprits in the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade

Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins, not looking too good

On Monday night, the explosive news broke that the Republican-majority U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is about to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision granting a constitutional right to abortion, and indeed, that a draft of the decision is already being circulated on the Court. The likely result of this imminent decision will be to leave abortion to the states, where it is estimated that at least half of them (primarily the ones with Republican governors and/or legislatures) will outlaw abortion completely, even in the case of rape, incest, and possibly he health or life of the mother.

To many observers, the news about this decision is shocking but not surprising, given the Court’s 6-3 majority of conservative Republicans. These Republican justices were put on the Court for the very purpose of overturning Roe, and perhaps many other decisions granting rights to women, blacks, LGBTQ Americans and other minorities; as well as protections for consumers, workers, the environment, wildlife, etc. However, the list of culprits that led us to this day goes well beyond the six current Republican SCOTUS justices and the Republican presidents who put them there. Here are some additional parties who share responsibility for the impending loss of a woman’s right to choose:

Superstar Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin discusses January 6 insurrection

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin

Last night, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland’s 8th Congressional District appeared on a monthly national call by the advocacy group American Promise. Raskin, former law professor at American University, wrote the book Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy about the extraordinary events after his 2020 re-election to Congress. On December 31, 2020 Raskin lost his son to suicide. One week later, Raskin witnessed the January 6, 2021 Republican terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol while Congress was trying to complete the Electoral College vote count to certify the election victory of President Joe Biden. Rep. Raskin is now a member of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. Raskin was also Lead counsel for Donald Trump‘s second impeachment trial for inciting what Raskin calls the January 6 “coup.”

Here are some highlights from the call with Rep. Raskin:

President Biden goes on the offensive against Putin

President Biden: tough on Russia

It has been approximately 49 days since Russia attacked Ukraine at the direction of Vladimir Putin. In recent days, President Joe Biden has changed his approach to the invasion. Specifically, President Biden’s is taking a more aggressive tack towards Russia. Here are three things that Biden is doing and saying that show his new course of action:

Republicans overreach, fall on their faces in Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation

The U.S. Supreme Court just became more diverse

President Joe Biden‘s historic campaign promise came to fruition yesterday, as the U.S. Senate confirmed Biden’s nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, as the first black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. The final vote was 53-47, including three Republicans. However, Jackson’s confirmation process revealed as much about the Republican Party as it did about the supremely qualified judge. It would be an understatement to say that Senate Republicans in particular made themselves look really bad.

Of course, in any Supreme Court confirmation process of the past 30 years or more, Republican Senators (as well as Democrats to some degree) can be expected to score political points and serve red meat to their respective bases, often with written statements and purported “questions” during the confirmation hearing that read like speeches. These statements frequently are turned into campaign ads and fundraising requests. This time, however, the Republicans took that tactic far into Bizarro Land, and shot themselves in the foot.

The “expensive gas is the price of freedom” meme is b.s.

Relevant sign once more

Vladimir Putin‘s Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused oil prices to skyrocket. That has in turn caused gasoline prices at the pump to increase sharply. This was entirely predictable. We are having yet another war over oil. Apparently the world has learned little since both Gulf Wars. Indeed, even Japan’s attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor over 80 years ago was largely over oil.

But some folks are saying that “expensive gas is the price of freedom.” This meme can be seen all over social media. For example:

Deploy the Liberal Shock Doctrine against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Solar power, a better alternative to fascist Russian gas

The Shock Doctrine is the idea that, when disasters or wars strike, conservatives try to use the events to push their existing agenda, such as privatization of important government functions, in response. Republicans have foisted such policies in places as far-flung as Iraq and New Orleans. We have argued that, in turn, Democrats should institute their policies, i.e. a Liberal Shock Doctrine, when they are in power and disasters and wars occur. That might include, for example, stronger gun safety laws after the shock of a mass shooting, or the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, including government stimulus payments and other federal aid, which Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden successfully brought about in 2021 after Donald Trump‘s inaction in the face of the COVID pandemic plunged the U.S. into a recession in 2020.

Russia‘s shocking and tragic invasion of Ukraine presents another opportunity for the United States, and countries around the world, to create a liberal version of the Shock Doctrine. First, countries can promote the idea of democracy (which is well-represented by Ukraine) instead of fascist dictatorship, exemplified by Russia and Vladimir Putin. But in addition, there is one specific policy that the U.S. and the world should be pushing right now:

Internet finally blows up over January 6 U.S. Capitol attack

Scene of the Trump crime

Republican Mark Meadows is in the lead to be this week’s Villain of the Week, although he has competition from cohorts such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham of Fox “News,” and as always, Donald Trump. That’s because, after many months of the mainstream media ignoring or downplaying the January 6, 2021 terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol that sought to overturn the election of Joe Biden as President, regular folks finally got fed up enough to light up the airwaves and share incriminating information about the Republicans.

In particular, word got around very quickly on Tuesday, by a vote of 222-208, the U.S. House of Representatives held Meadows in criminal Contempt of Congress. The vote took place after Meadows, a former Republican Congressman and White House Chief of Staff to Trump, who had originally cooperated with the House Committee, suddenly stopped cooperating, defying a subpoena to appear for a deposition, and indeed sued the committee and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attempting to defeat the subpoena for both his deposition and phone records. Before that happened, Meadows had turned over to the Committee a Republican PowerPoint presentation recommending Trump to declare a “National Security Emergency” in order to remain in the presidency rather than turn over power to Biden on Inauguration Day. Meadows had also given the committee text messages he received on January 6 while serving as Trump’s Chief of Staff, including ones from Hannity, Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade of Fox, and several from Donald Trump, Jr. These texts all had the same desperate tone, begging Meadows to get Donald Trump to stop the insurrection at the Capitol. For example, one of Ingraham’s texts read:

Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.

Likewise, Hannity’s January 6 text to Meadows, talking about Trump, was:

Can he make a statement? … Ask people to leave the Capitol.