Tag Archive: Richard Nixon

Five historic reasons why Biden is the one to beat Trump

An “impaired” president and his wife

Since President Joe Biden‘s debate against Donald Trump on June 27, there has been a media feeding frenzy about Biden’s “performance” on TV. First, that kind of framing turns the position of president into something superficial, and leads to having actors and reality TV hosts vault to the top of voter preferences. No wonder Trump got himself elected once.

Fortunately, in the current presidential election, we have actual experience from history indicating that Joe Biden, who is not only the incumbent president but also the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, is once again the best choice to beat Trump again. That experience can be boiled down here to five lessons from history. The first three such lessons  were mentioned in our post from a few days ago, and we can simply repeat them here:

Moreover, changing presidential nominees — or worse yet, presidents — in the middle of an election is a prescription for disaster. In March 1968, for example, with the country in turmoil over the Vietnam War and amid harsh criticism from Democrats, incumbent President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election. The result was Republican President Richard Nixon. Likewise, in 1972, a lack of vetting of the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. Thomas Eagleton, led to surprise revelations about his mental health. After a tumultuous period, Eagleton was forced off the ticket and hastily replaced. The result was a massive Republican landslide, and the re-election of Republican President Richard Nixon. Then in 1980, Sen. Ted Kennedy launched a vicious primary challenge to incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter. The Democrats lost to Republican Ronald Reagan in another landslide. While the mainstream media may love political instability, American voters do not.

These three lessons can be considered cautionary tales, i.e., reasons not to dump incumbent President Joe Biden just four months before the election. Biden was subject to primaries during the first half of this year, and obviously, that would have been the time to challenge his fitness to serve another term. President Biden won those primaries, and more than enough delegates to capture the Democratic presidential nomination, easily.

Joe Biden and Mark Cavendish — a tale of two old warriors

Bike racer Mark Cavendish, the Manx Missile

Right now, the Tour de France bicycle race is taking place. It is considered one of the most grueling of all sports events; essentially the equivalent of running several marathon races a day, every day, for 21 days straight. The terrain and conditions include mountains, cobblestones, headwinds, rain, and oppressive summer heat. Such a sport is, naturally, a young man’s game. Age 39 in the Tour is considered ancient.

Yet, one of the biggest stories of this year’s Tour de France is the return, out of retirement, of 39 year-old racer Mark Cavendish. A sprinter from the Isle of Man, known as the Manx Missile, Cavendish was tied for the record for most Tour de France stage wins (34), and desperately wanted to break that record. Last year, Cavendish entered the Tour with the hope of breaking the record, and announced that he would retire afterward. Unfortunately, he crashed and broke his collar bone during the early stages, without the win. Cavendish has had many bad days as a bike racer, including a number of serious crashes and injuries, but he has always gotten back up on his bike. He ended his retirement to come back this year, and, with strong team supporting him, he won the stage yesterday and broke the all-time record.

If the parallels to President Joe Biden are not apparent, let’s name them:

Time for Democrats to boost Kamala Harris

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris

At President Joe Biden‘s State of the Union address last Thursday night, many viewers noticed Vice President Kamala Harris seated behind Biden’s right shoulder, looking radiant, mature, and even presidential. This visual was a good reminder that the time for Democrats to raise Vice President Harris’ profile, and to boost her future presidential prospects, is now.

First, it should be noted that being Vice President is often a thankless job. Nearly 100 years ago, then-Vice President John Nance Garner stated that the vice presidency “isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit,” although many historians have indicated that the real word Garner used was not “spit.” More recently, biographer Robert Caro described in detail how Lyndon Johnson went from being one of the most powerful people in America as U.S. Senate Majority Leader, to being left out of nearly all important meetings and decisions as Vice President under President John F. Kennedy.

However, according to Caro, Johnson accepted the job of Kennedy’s vice presidential running mate in large part because he researched and determined that a significant number of presidents did not complete their full terms, usually because they died in office, and that, accordingly, numerous vice presidents had succeeded to the presidency. That is in addition to the vice presidents who went on to win election for president after their predecessors completed their terms. This is exactly what happened to Lyndon Johnson in November 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated. Johnson served the remainder of Kennedy’s term, then went on to win re-election in 1964 by a huge landslide. Since Johnson’s presidency, one Vice President, Gerald Ford, automatically became president in 1974 when President Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment and removal by Congress, and another Vice President, George H.W. Bush, won the presidency after serving two terms in his job. Joe Biden also was elected president after he had completed two terms as vice president under President Obama, with Donald Trump‘s single term taking place after the Obama presidency.

All of this is relevant because, if and when President Biden gets re-elected this November, he will be 81 years old, turning 82 that same month (it should also be noted that Trump is almost the same age, turning 78 this June). Therefore, as a simple actuarial matter, Kamala Harris needs to be prepared for the possibility that she might be called on to step into the presidency at a moment’s notice sometime before January 20, 2029. Additionally or alternatively, Harris will be the likely Democratic presidential front-runner in the 2028 elections.

Can a Hippie-era song help the Democrats in 2024?

Jefferson Airplane’s 1969 “Volunteers” album

“We Can Be Together” was not Jefferson Airplane‘s most popular song, but it’s one of their most controversial. Released in 1969 as the B-side to the better-known “Volunteers” and included on the album of that name, the song is a hippie call to action in the face of the Vietnam War and other oppressive actions of those in power at the time, including Republican President Richard Nixon. Here are some of the lyrics to “We Can Be Together”:

 

We are all outlaws in the eyes of America
We are obscene, lawless, hideous, dangerous, dirty, violent
And young

We should be together
Come on all you people standin’ around
Our life’s too fine to let it die
We should be together
All your private property is
Target for your enemy
And your enemy is we
We are forces of chaos and anarchy
Everything they say we are, we are
And we are very proud of ourselves
Up against the wall
Up against the wall, motherfuckers!
Tear down the wall
Tear down the wall

The speech that set off the MAGA terrorists — in 1992

Right wing terrorists erect gallows and noose at U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021

If you do not recognize the name Patrick Buchanan, he is the right wing Republican extremist who years ago helped motivate the MAGA types whose successors are harming America and threatening U.S. government officials today. Buchanan’s long background in Republican politics encompasses work for GOP presidents from  Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan. This work included writing speeches filled with red meat for the Republican base, and coining the term “Silent Majority” for Nixon, a white power dog whistle. In between these White House stints, Buchanan was the co-host of CNN‘s Crossfire (note: the author worked on the Crossfire program), pioneering the “food fight” format that is so prevalent on cable TV news today, where Buchanan bullied many liberal guests. When Buchanan went to work for President Ronald Reagan, he caused controversy by criticizing Israel “and its amen corner in the United States,” and continued a long-running apology campaign for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The Buchanan Nazi apology tour reached its nadir when Buchanan encouraged Reagan to visit a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany where members of the Waffen-SS were buried, and to say that these Nazi soldiers “were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.”

No surprise as mainstream media fall short in Trump impeachment coverage

Protesters share their opinion on Donald Trump impeachment

While many mainstream media outlets have aired the Donald Trump impeachment hearings that began in the U.S. House on Wednesday, the commentary by some of the media afterward was cringeworthy. Special mention goes to NBC News and Reuters, who faulted the hearings for not being scintillating enough. According to NBC News:

Reuters followed up with “Consequential, but dull: Trump impeachment hearings begin without a bang.” Sadly, this is the kind of circus coverage that we have come to expect from our news media.

Tax returns become an issue for 2020 presidential candidates

Tax returns, now a presidential campaign issue

House Democrats yesterday formally requested Donald Trump‘s 2013 through 2018 personal tax returns, as well as the tax returns of eight Trump business entities, from the Internal Revenue Service. At the same time, an increasing number of Democratic presidential candidates have already released multiple prior years of tax returns, but U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders remains the outlier.

The reason for requesting presidential candidates’ tax returns comes down to one word: transparency. According to McClatchy DC, “[t]he returns provide voters a look into the personal finances and charitable contributions of candidates and gives insight into whether he or she has any potential conflicts of interest.” Paraphrasing Joseph Thorndike, author and Director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts, McClatchy indicates that, “[w]ithout the full returns, voters can’t see such items as sources of income, which tax breaks they claimed, what they might have deducted as business expenses or how much they gave to charity.” Accordingly, while releasing tax returns is not required by law, it has become a tradition for presidential candidates to do so since Richard Nixon in the early 1970s.

Democratic leadership and base talk Trump impeachment differently

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Much hay was made this week from Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s answer to a Washington Post interviewer’s question about impeaching Donald Trump. Here’s the question and Pelosi’s response:

There have been increasing calls, including from some of your members, for impeachment of the president.

I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.

Many Democrats took to blogs and social media to express their disappointment with Speaker Pelosi’s answer. For example, here’s author and MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance:

However, what this episode really shows is that the Democratic Party’s base (including a few House members) and its leadership have different considerations that allow them differing degrees of freedom in what they can say publicly at this time.

What’s in a politician’s nickname?

U.S. Senator Raphael Edward “Ted” Cruz

There’s some big name news this week on the Republican side, involving both Donald Trump (and his alleged side woman, porn star Stormy Daniels), as well as Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz. The news brings to mind some of the nicknames politicians use, and why.

2018 brings calls for Democrats to focus on winning Congressional elections

U.S. Senate under Republican control

2018 has begun, and it is an election year. While so-called “off-year” (Congressional, state and local, but not presidential) elections often garner disappointingly low voter turnout on the Democratic side, calls have already emerged for Democrats to focus, and work hard, on winning back one or the other houses of Congress, or both. For example, yesterday, progressive website Crooks and Liars published a piece entitled: Take Back The House In 2018, But Don’t Forget The Senate! At the same time, former Nixon White House counsel John Dean tweeted:

Both of these suggestions, focusing primarily on the House or the Senate, have merit.