Biden presidency and 2024 election campaign

[watt price tully]

Well,I think Biden has got off to a good start already,overturning many of Trump’s most odious policies.The ban on Muslim travlellers,the stupid wall with Mexico,withdrawing from the Paris climate change accord,withdrawing from WHO.And that was only the first day!Soon there will be nothing left of Trump,except for he stench he left behind.

Yep and after 400,000 deaths actually doing something about CornaVirus especially not calling it a cold or a flu, not suggesting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment and not suggesting IV bleach as Dr Donny was suggesting.

[doriswilgus]

Good point^.I forgot about Biden’s response to the Coronavirus.But that’s the most important change he has made so far,and one that needs to be addressed urgently.

[Lazza]

Biden is reuniting the mothers and children separated at the Border. As a retired Social worker, I found this to be a vile cruel act of bastardry even by Trumpian standards of gutter right wing policies perpetrated on the vulnerable and the poor. By geez Trump was truly an Arsehole

[PyreneesPie]

[quote="Lazza"]Biden is reuniting the mothers and children separated at the Border. As a retired Social worker, I found this to be a vile cruel act of bastardry even by Trumpian standards of gutter right wing policies perpetrated on the vulnerable and the poor. By geez Trump was truly an Arsehole

[David]

When has Biden ever showed courage? Serious question.

I have no problem with people liking him and being relieved that Trump is gone, but seeing such superlatives being thrown at a lifelong right-wing politician, tormenter of the disadvantaged and dedicated servant of big money interests is a little bewildering. He’s not Trump, sure, but beyond that...

[Pies4shaw]

^ He's not Trump.

[pietillidie]

When has Biden ever showed courage? Serious question.

The very question shows how narrowly you're approaching the matter. This is a bloke who has nearly lost an entire family to tragedy. His young wife and daughter in one, suddenly. One of his sons in another very different type of tragedy, gradually, and still relatively young. That for a start would finish most of us, you included, let alone deter us from making a third presidential bid.

Meanwhile, his other son, Hunter, lost his mother, sister and later his brother while very young himself. His struggles are hardly surprising, the conflict of interest problem notwithstanding.

Compare that sort of courage to its fraudulent counterpart, Trump's pathological dissociative form of 'never admitting you're wrong', 'never admitting defeat' and 'never giving up'. The latter's disease is rooted in a complete inability to introspect honestly; in a permanent Big Lie to self and others.

Whatever else Biden might be, and agree with him or not, he is clearly empathetic and strikes a good balance between vision and realism, toughness and sensitivity. That's why Sanders is able to be central to his government and why he remains close to the eminently sane and decent Obama, a one-time opponent who beat him in 2008. Neither Sanders nor Obama would be allowed near an administration led by a self-glorying narcissist like a Clinton or a Blair, let alone a vicious malignant narcissist like Trump, no matter how much they have to offer.

Sure, after so many years in politics he's, well, a politician, but he has important strengths, and was the right person at the right moment. There's still plenty of time for him to disappoint and deserve our wrath, confirming your assumptions. But if you can't see that his empathy is intrinsic, even if played up, and stands in stark and welcome relief to Trump's malignant narcissism, then you're no longer even trying to challenge your own assumptions.

One should never get too excited about any human, let alone a politician, but it's okay to accept strengths where they genuinely exist. He certainly lacks the obvious psychiatric flaws of a mental case like Trump, so his strengths have a chance of nudging things in a better direction beyond simply cleaning up the chaos Trump left behind, which itself will be difficult.

[think positive]

Well said PTID, not to mention spending his twilight years in a very high pressure job knowing full well his life is now fair game to everyone.

Hopefully the numbers of virus victims takes a steep turn.

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

Hopefully, he's a proper career-politician and will just play to his new constituency. If he does, he'll do the right thing because his advice will be markedly different in this present role. He doesn't have to be "courageous", "smart" or even "awake" - he just has to sign what sensible advisers tell him to sign.

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

Yes, he's scarcely Voltaire. I was hoping, rather, for Danton on a good day.

[pietillidie]

That for a start would finish most of us, you included, let alone deter us from making a third presidential bid.

You can’t possibly know that, though.

I think most of us know a heck of a lot about this. In case you haven't noticed, much less than that weighs incredibly heavy on most people's lives. You're surely experienced enough in life to conclude that unless Biden is a psychopath (and we've ruled that out already), such events will have weighed on him enormously.

I have never accepted simplistic (particularly beloved of Americans) narratives about personal adversity and success because doing what Biden did can just as much be a narrative of suppression as catharsis. Particularly as what he did with his life afterwards was not noble and fearless but so often mean, dishonest and opportunistic.

I also don't disagree with P4S, but you're the one who asked about 'courage'. If you mean 'the neurochemistry which motivates action', the realm of pure science rather than embedded human behaviour, then say it and we can discuss the pure science. By your subsequent definition there is no such thing as courage, empathy, goodwill, or selflessness, and every single act can be reduced to catharsis or the self-serving. Every single last act, indeed, including your concern with fairness, expressions of empathy, support of the underdog, scepticism of power, etc. All that goes with it, if that's what you're really arguing.

Honestly, you're getting dragged into the leftist abyss of wanting to be purer than the rest of humanity. So much so that you can't, after the severest personal tragedy imaginable, after two failed attempts at something incredibly stressful, in old age, concede to common culture and agree that most people including yourself are unlikely to push through that to lead a government in a dire predicament. Jeebus me.

You don't need to buy Hollywood storylines to accept it's fortuitous and indeed optimistic that this character Biden is about at this time. He's not perfect. He won't give you everything you want (although he's already elevated Sanders beyond his likely standing otherwise). But we do need better global leadership to deal with critical problems from the death and destruction of the pandemic to climate change, and fast.

[David]

[pietillidie]