mtutiger

Amazing... I've been assured by @usernamebunchanumbers over and over again that Joe Biden is incapable of being up past 8:00 PM Eastern.

It's not the thing people focus on about Biden, particularly in today's politics, but it's really one of his best and most genuine qualities... he loves to work a line and has to be pulled away from it. Whether it's with pols or people on the campaign trail. I remember one of his town halls in late 2020, he ended up staying at the amphitheater for almost an hour after it ended just so he could talk to the crowd. Just a tremendous (and underrated) retail politician.... he may be one of the last of his kind even.

Meanwhile...

His age added an extra challenge to the moment, and he delivered.

This thing is Truman-esque... using the Republican Congress as a foil

Mike Johnson seems like a stick in the mud... didn't even clap for removing lead from drinking water lol

I loved the shoutout to Belvidere... he literally went there and rallied the workers one day after Nate Silver wrote a blog saying he never leaves The White House lol

Utah's votes from their caucus continue to be counted... It won't vote Biden, but there could be a lesson here for states like Nevada and Arizona (who both have not-insignificant Mormon communities)

Oh my

I also think that, as frustrating as it is almost baked into the cake in this era that various GOP pols will engage in this kind of rhetoric, this is an area where higher standards have to be set. "Rigging" is a very loaded word that is often used to imply votes being casted illegally, thrown out, etc. Using it in this context really cheapens the word and lacks memory for how that word was thrown around at the end of 2020 and the consequences that resulted from that.

Again, Citizens United sucks. You will get no argument from me on that, and I'm gonna guess most people here would agree. But I'm talking about her two statements that she made where she shifted blame for why she lost and made the choice to use the word "rigged" in order to describe it. And the fact that also sucks. People can be sophisticated enough to acknowledge both of these things. And can also say the latter without having to qualify it with the former.

Reminds me of Casablanca.... "I'm shocked, SHOCKED, there's gambling going on here" lol

Sure, I don't like Citizens United. I think it sucks. You know what else sucks? Her statement, which defers any blame for her loss from her own campaign strategy and, in Trump-like fashion, blames it all on a "rigged" system. You don't have to love how campaign financing works in the United States to understand how undignified and ugly her two statements post-election were. Nor should her statement have to be qualified either.

Yes. She lost by 20 points, you cannot boil her loss down to "billionaires rigging the outcome" And if one purports to be angry about Trump using that kind of language (as people should), you cannot turn around and then use the same language when an election doesn't go your way. Take your loss with a little bit of dignity and move on.

A lot of reporters today calling out the full context, and I get it.... but anytime you're talking about going back to the way things were back in the late 1800s, that's probably not going to be seen ideally regardless.

75%

Another part of going back to the way things were - can we please give up this "rigged" bull****?

Uday and Qusay aren't Presidential material, it ain't happening.

For the most part it hasn't affected friendships, but COVID made things rocky family wise, although I was lucky that (at least until last year) I was living pretty far away and it mostly manifested in phone calls. The 2020 post election period, which happened in tangent with COVID, was an additional strain.... conversations would get steered in that direction and hearing about conspiracy theories about the TCF Center and Antrim County and whatnot (none of them made any sense) and I just didn't want to deal with it. I try my best to listen and reason and whatnot even in areas of disagreement, but when you can't even agree on basic facts, what's the point? Overall, life is a lot better in my case as I've moved up in my career and make close to double what I made four years ago. Although I reckon that may not comport to everyone's experience.

Four years ago:

Some of it may just be getting older and being more guarded in discussing politics, but the Trump years (especially post-COVID) has kinda made discussing anything political with parts of my family similar to walking on nails. I don't have too much of an issue avoiding those topics, I just don't care enough to engage anymore.... but it becomes difficult when it comes up organically with another family member and you have to diplomatically manage it in a way that doesn't cause anything to escalate or anything like that. I just wish it could go back to the days when it wasn't like that.... when politics was a lower stakes topic that you chatted about for a few minutes before moving off onto football or baseball. And while we can all try to be the change we want to be in our own lives, in the bigger picture, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Yeah, we can debate whether he's the cause or a symptom (probably more the latter), but in terms of societal cohesion, we were so much better off before Trump descended from that escalator. Everyone knows it, even if they won't openly admit it.

Yeah, for as much attention as Joe Biden has gotten about media availability, it's really been striking how much Trump has really avoided debates or interviews with outlets outside of the conservative sphere. It does become a lot harder to avoid those settings starting today, one would think.