I am in no way confident that the Democrats will learn from this. It was clear Biden was impaired by 2020 and the party still coalesced around him to stop Sanders.
The denial was so entrenched when the entire establishment and media thought that Biden’s 2024 State of the Union was some masterstroke of oratory skill. He looked and sounded like a weak old man.
Fast forward to 2025 and Hakeem Jeffries constant denials and non-answers of Biden’s infirmity or knowing about it tells me the party will do nothing.
In a party that seems to discuss representation quite a bit, it does not seem to extend to young people. It's frustrating given I want some level of opposition to the Republicans and I do not think this gerontocracy is up to the challenge. I hate bringing everything back to the Israel lobby, but I'm sure they do not want any of their supporters in Washington leaving when the support drops the younger you get.
Nice piece. I'll point out that objectively, Fetterman has actually improved since his election. Just watch the videos from then to now. It seems the Democrat Party only noticed his issues when he started to break ranks. Which leads me to my second point: I don't think the younger members are much of an improvement over the older members. They're just, well, younger. They still think in lockstep. That's what kept their elders in power, and that is what will always drag the party down.
Joe Biden's deterioration was evident for all who cared to pay attention even when he ran from his basement in 2020. When John Fetterman (at age 53) ran for Senate in 2022, he debated his opponent. Fetterman's infirmities were evident then, but he won. I could probably conjure up more examples, but my point is the Democrat voter may not care about the fitness of the candidate more than they care about defeating the opponent. Run any unfit Democrat and the Democrats are still going to vote for that candidate over the other candidate. This is one of the failures of the 2-party system.
Bruh. This is NOT the only problem, what?? It’s the fact that our party doesn’t stand for anything and works for corporate donors JUST as much as the republicans! And we focus way too much on culture wars. Economic populism is the only way forward. And that will never happen as long as corporations still own all of our politicians on BOTH sides.
Well it can be a related problem. The incumbents tend to be close to corporate interests as it's a way to protect their incumbency. The challengers have a hard time raising money.
Yep. But again, focusing on JUST the geriatric aspect steers attention away from the real problem. Bernie is one of the oldest ones in there and he hasn’t sold out. It’s possible to be old and be ‘good’
Why are there no widely popular podcasters on the Left? Because they are inauthentic and avoid speaking about truths. They only can speak about ‘policies’ and too much of that is downright boring. Until Democrats fall on the sword, admit to peddling falsehoods and ask forgiveness - they can remain on the sidelines.
I’m unsure at this time if current Republican Party, is that (grand ‘ol party) party in name only. It’s full on Populist now. I see shades of Bernie coining through. There is still the meme coin bullshit that is showman Trump. But no wars + America first vibes is new and refreshing to me.
Well to that I say, they’re fake populists. They’re ‘anti-war’ yet they completely funding to Israel to carry out this genocide. And they just passed a $5.5 trillion tax cut for the richest people in the country while gutting most social safety nets for working class Americans. If there’s one thing you should remember, it’s if a politician is speaking, 99.9 percent of the time they are lying. And that goes for both sides.
Ezra is decent. I still think he’s pro-establishment to a degree though. Haven’t looked into him enough though honestly. The Young Turks is the main place I get my news. They’re always honest.
If establishment media had did their job when they KNEW that he was infirm, and possibly invoked the 25th Amendment, this debacle could have been averted. Conservative media, as you can imagine, was all over his condition years ago.
They need to confront their institutional failures, demolish those institutions, and rebuild with a new framework of honesty and transparency. That would mean acknowledgement of not only the Biden mental acuity coverup, including the media participation, but also the Hunter Biden laptop, leaning on social media during COVID, the actual state of youth gender medicine, all of it.
The institutions who have severely violated the public's trust of late seem to think they will simply get a re-do on their mistakes next time around, and that that will take care of the problem for them.
Public health authorities, for instance, think that the next time there's a global pandemic, they might give not lying about everything all the time a try, as if the conditions of their starting point with the public will basically be re-set to the beginning of March 2020. Because they think this way, they have NO IDEA what the public's reaction to their proclamations is going to be, and the consequences of their disconnect won't be pretty.
Same thing with the Democrats and voters. It does no good, next time in 2028, to suggest that the party and the press actually not engage in a massive coverup of the health of their candidates. No one (outside of the fully propagandized base) will ever trust them (the party or the press) on the topic ever again. It's over. And it's a symptom of their overall cluelessness that they don't realize how completely over it is for them.
Zaid…completely unrelated to the article. I mean way odd topic. Just wanted to say I love your commentary on spicy foods. Your recent take on the Jalapeño pepper and Texas A&M had me cracking up. Keep up the efforts in the spicy foods world.
The kings on the throne till morbidity, it’s the cabinet & appointments! FDR’s administration included his opponent during the war years, exceptional functionaries fighting Fascism on all fronts. Remember Camelot? Kennedy brought in the best & the brightest. Now look@sycophants, lackeys, boot&taint lickers. Deconstructing the state, cause they hate oversight. A diminished Biden would have still kept the nation on top with the capable hands sharing the load-we’re Doomed now, and the cognitive decline will be gaslighted all throughout the collapse.
I am in no way confident that the Democrats will learn from this. It was clear Biden was impaired by 2020 and the party still coalesced around him to stop Sanders.
The denial was so entrenched when the entire establishment and media thought that Biden’s 2024 State of the Union was some masterstroke of oratory skill. He looked and sounded like a weak old man.
Fast forward to 2025 and Hakeem Jeffries constant denials and non-answers of Biden’s infirmity or knowing about it tells me the party will do nothing.
In a party that seems to discuss representation quite a bit, it does not seem to extend to young people. It's frustrating given I want some level of opposition to the Republicans and I do not think this gerontocracy is up to the challenge. I hate bringing everything back to the Israel lobby, but I'm sure they do not want any of their supporters in Washington leaving when the support drops the younger you get.
It's always the Jews, isn't it? (I can't believe Jilani "liked" this comment!)
Nice piece. I'll point out that objectively, Fetterman has actually improved since his election. Just watch the videos from then to now. It seems the Democrat Party only noticed his issues when he started to break ranks. Which leads me to my second point: I don't think the younger members are much of an improvement over the older members. They're just, well, younger. They still think in lockstep. That's what kept their elders in power, and that is what will always drag the party down.
Joe Biden's deterioration was evident for all who cared to pay attention even when he ran from his basement in 2020. When John Fetterman (at age 53) ran for Senate in 2022, he debated his opponent. Fetterman's infirmities were evident then, but he won. I could probably conjure up more examples, but my point is the Democrat voter may not care about the fitness of the candidate more than they care about defeating the opponent. Run any unfit Democrat and the Democrats are still going to vote for that candidate over the other candidate. This is one of the failures of the 2-party system.
Bruh. This is NOT the only problem, what?? It’s the fact that our party doesn’t stand for anything and works for corporate donors JUST as much as the republicans! And we focus way too much on culture wars. Economic populism is the only way forward. And that will never happen as long as corporations still own all of our politicians on BOTH sides.
Well it can be a related problem. The incumbents tend to be close to corporate interests as it's a way to protect their incumbency. The challengers have a hard time raising money.
Yep. But again, focusing on JUST the geriatric aspect steers attention away from the real problem. Bernie is one of the oldest ones in there and he hasn’t sold out. It’s possible to be old and be ‘good’
Why are there no widely popular podcasters on the Left? Because they are inauthentic and avoid speaking about truths. They only can speak about ‘policies’ and too much of that is downright boring. Until Democrats fall on the sword, admit to peddling falsehoods and ask forgiveness - they can remain on the sidelines.
I agree 100%. And I am a progressive populist till the day I die. I’ve never voted republican but I am tired of the democrats too.
I’m unsure at this time if current Republican Party, is that (grand ‘ol party) party in name only. It’s full on Populist now. I see shades of Bernie coining through. There is still the meme coin bullshit that is showman Trump. But no wars + America first vibes is new and refreshing to me.
Well to that I say, they’re fake populists. They’re ‘anti-war’ yet they completely funding to Israel to carry out this genocide. And they just passed a $5.5 trillion tax cut for the richest people in the country while gutting most social safety nets for working class Americans. If there’s one thing you should remember, it’s if a politician is speaking, 99.9 percent of the time they are lying. And that goes for both sides.
Ezra Klein?
Ezra is decent. I still think he’s pro-establishment to a degree though. Haven’t looked into him enough though honestly. The Young Turks is the main place I get my news. They’re always honest.
If establishment media had did their job when they KNEW that he was infirm, and possibly invoked the 25th Amendment, this debacle could have been averted. Conservative media, as you can imagine, was all over his condition years ago.
They need to confront their institutional failures, demolish those institutions, and rebuild with a new framework of honesty and transparency. That would mean acknowledgement of not only the Biden mental acuity coverup, including the media participation, but also the Hunter Biden laptop, leaning on social media during COVID, the actual state of youth gender medicine, all of it.
The institutions who have severely violated the public's trust of late seem to think they will simply get a re-do on their mistakes next time around, and that that will take care of the problem for them.
Public health authorities, for instance, think that the next time there's a global pandemic, they might give not lying about everything all the time a try, as if the conditions of their starting point with the public will basically be re-set to the beginning of March 2020. Because they think this way, they have NO IDEA what the public's reaction to their proclamations is going to be, and the consequences of their disconnect won't be pretty.
Same thing with the Democrats and voters. It does no good, next time in 2028, to suggest that the party and the press actually not engage in a massive coverup of the health of their candidates. No one (outside of the fully propagandized base) will ever trust them (the party or the press) on the topic ever again. It's over. And it's a symptom of their overall cluelessness that they don't realize how completely over it is for them.
You are terribly naïve if you think that their goal is to serve the rank-and-file party members.
Zaid…completely unrelated to the article. I mean way odd topic. Just wanted to say I love your commentary on spicy foods. Your recent take on the Jalapeño pepper and Texas A&M had me cracking up. Keep up the efforts in the spicy foods world.
The kings on the throne till morbidity, it’s the cabinet & appointments! FDR’s administration included his opponent during the war years, exceptional functionaries fighting Fascism on all fronts. Remember Camelot? Kennedy brought in the best & the brightest. Now look@sycophants, lackeys, boot&taint lickers. Deconstructing the state, cause they hate oversight. A diminished Biden would have still kept the nation on top with the capable hands sharing the load-we’re Doomed now, and the cognitive decline will be gaslighted all throughout the collapse.