Trump Could Be the Next President of the United States
Day after reflection on the first presidential debate of 2024.
Note: Happy Friday, and enjoy the weekend. Drink plenty of water! I wanted to write down my thoughts about the debate before the weekend. A lot is changing at a rapid pace. It is sad the state of our nation. Today, I’m reverent for everyone’s support and love. The tools needed to stay informed are more important than ever.
The state of the union is bad when we are not able to stave off an authoritarian moment and preserve their democratic achievements. Last night’s debate performance by Joe Biden was less than par, which is more concerning. It seemed that Biden wasn’t able to conjure the energy he needed to vigorously defend his agenda and passionately call Trump out for all the ways he has shamed and attacked this nation.
It must be pointed out that President Biden has been a valuable and productive head of state. The Biden administration passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provided 1.2 billion dollars in funding for road, broadband, and transit upgrades nationwide by supplying jobs, especially in red states that oppose him and claim to overlook Trump’s destabilization due to personal economic anguish. He rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, even if that pact could be more robust in its climate action. But it’s a symbol of America rejoining a global consensus, even if it calls for us to reassess and self-reflect. Biden’s administration has also influenced and encouraged bipartisan legislation like the CHIPS Act (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act), which features components of the United States Innovation and Competition Act. This legislation is meant to inspire and facilitate innovation within U.S.-based industries and revitalize our nation’s defenses as global economic competition with the People’s Republic of China continues to ramp up.
The administration has also provided a better vision for America, including multicultural achievements that include unparalleled promotions of diverse candidates to the federal judiciary, support for making Juneteenth a federal holiday, and executive orders supporting LGBTQ+ rights and protections. In general, Biden’s “American Families Plan” calls for investment in childcare, paid family leave, and education to support life in the wake of an unfair economy and austere attempts by the opposing party to cut quality of life support for struggling Americans. The plan happens as the GOP reckons with its abortion agenda, which simultaneously bans abortion and cuts aid to impoverished families. Biden has pledged to restore reproductive rights and offers a policy agenda to uplift struggling families through public accountability and spending rather than through the shadowy promises of tax cuts that will never trickle down from higher-income Americans.
Numerous other achievements can be cited…but one must articulate those achievements electrically in a society that wants to be inspired and entertained. The calls for Biden to step down are complex and not easily digested. On the one hand, the incumbent has the advantage of running in a national election as they actively do the executive's job. On the campaign trail, they can show this and use it to their advantage. For Democrats to dethrone Biden in the middle of his first term can suggest weakness and a lack of confidence.
The party is still haunted by how Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts challenged Jimmy Carter, former Governor of Georgia, who was surviving a turbulent first term in office but was still an incumbent president. The intra-party challenge suggested a lack of conviction within the Democratic coalition and added more difficulties for a party losing support from its Southern wing. In 1979, Kennedy famously couldn’t answer why he wanted to be president. The intra-party chaos was one factor in Carter’s loss and opened the doors to the “Reagan Revolution.”
BBC Newsnight Archives:
So, forcing an incumbent president not to run (or even questioning it) can be disastrous for party unity, just as it was when Reagan challenged Ford in 1976 and left a bad taste in the mouth of Republicans (thus leading to Carter’s victory). The 1976 Republican National Convention featured Ford’s Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, ripping up a Reagan sign on the convention floor. Since this period, there has been a strident effort by the parties to have their first-term president run again for a second term and with confidence.
On the other hand, we have a megalomaniacal candidate running for high office with his party’s endorsement and who has already proven himself unfit. America knew this in 2016, 2020, and again in 2024. Trump has neither the temperament, intellectual interest, or reverence to protect American democracy for all of the citizens, not just some.
His agenda calls for replacing experts within our civil service with unqualified loyalists and the deportation of millions of undocumented citizens, which could easily slide into deporting documented citizens with opposing views. The former GOP president wants to become president to shield himself from legal accountability and continue to use the office of POTUS (President of the United States) in a self-aggrandizing manner. Still, this is public knowledge, and Trump’s unfitness won’t stop many from voting for him. Last night’s debate performance by Biden will be used as an excuse for many not to vote at all or vote for the person who inspired the January 6th insurrection and directed extra-legal attempts to subvert the voice of the American people in 2020.
We need the Democratic Party to be a confident and accountable arbiter of the majority opinion regarding the survival of democracy. This means unwavering messaging about the accomplishments of the Biden administration and solidly supporting its younger talent. Biden is a symbol of an older Democratic establishment that hoped the obtuse goodness of the American people would acknowledge collaborative governing over rancorous partisanship. However, our media-saturated world has distracted the public, lowered its attention span, and facilitated disinformation outlets dressed up as news organizations. The landscape is bleak and has been designed by plutocratic interests to make it nearly impossible for low-information Americans to understand their civic health. Suppose Biden isn’t able to conjure up the energy to be an aggressive supporter of his coalition and the democratic rights of the people. In that case, he probably shouldn’t have been the 2024 contender. Long before this moment, he should have greenlit a successor, and the party would have to work together to support that person’s journey.
That successor could be Vice President Kamala Harris. The worries about her political aptitude do not acknowledge the immigration portfolio she was given was mission impossible as well as ignore the racist tropes leveled against her by a well-funded, well-organized, and wide-reaching right-wing media machine that convinces mainstream media to give credibility to its revanchist news cycles that are built from proliferating far-right blog posts and provably race-baity commentary.
Yes, she didn’t run the best primary campaign. However, the nitpicking over Harris does more to dismantle her real achievements, minority representation, and a sense of youthful hope, which could be celebrated over grandfathering a process of lowering standards for the carnival barker twice-impeached former president to persist. At the same time, everyone else is treated as if it is still the before times, and Trump hasn’t yet revealed that persistent bigotry and anti-intellectualism plague our society. In my honest opinion, the unfair obsession and scrutiny of Kamala Harris opens up Trump’s path to the continued bastardization of the nation and reflects some politicos inability to reckon with how much her opposition is based on her identity and what that says about the subconscious, and for many, conscious motivations of one side of our political coin.
Harris is the administration’s main representative of diplomatic relations in many nations; she was key to the passage of the COVID-19 relief stimulus (as the tie-breaker vote in the Senate), and she is an outspoken advocate for women’s representation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields. As the Vice President’s role has expanded in this recent political era, she has been a key voice in the executive branch regarding increasing minority representation, funding HBCU development (as a graduate of Howard University herself), and calling attention to the harmful landscape regarding women’s health care after the Dobbs decision.
Complete exchange between Sen. Kamala Harris and Attorney General William Barr courtesy of CSPAN:
The vice president’s role has been mired with being overshadowed by the president and being held accountable for disapproval that is out of its control due to the role’s tamped-down powers regarding the personal agenda of the individual serving as VP. But non-far-right commentators launder far-right criticisms of Harris as intellectually incapable, unserious, or as incompetently mean. All of these are undergirded by racial fear, misogyny, and partisan loyalty.
Thus, the centrist commentariat continues to shoot itself in the foot, pandering to (in the bigger picture) minor criticisms of Harris that take time and attention away from the continued rise of a successful, antidemocratic, and bigoted movement.
It could have also been Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has displayed awesome political instincts and messaging skills. Buttigieg exudes a coolness under pressure and an ability to pinpoint the fact-free absurdity within his opponent's criticisms of him that he certainly would not have faltered on a debate stage.
But here’s the thing: the American populace is already stuck in this moment. The time has passed for 11th-hour changes. The stakes are clear in this upcoming election. The candidate (and administration) who will preserve multicultural democratic rights, who will create long-term economic support for working Americans, and who will protect the dignity and livability of families is the old guy mistakenly saying, “we beat Medicare.”
It’s a terrible situation to be in and a reason why the other part of this story is not just the radicalization and decades-long debasement of the party of Lincoln but also the unacceptable facilitation of that transformation (and irresponsible wavering) by the once-great party of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"The landscape is bleak and has been designed by plutocratic interests to make it nearly impossible for low-information Americans to understand their civic health."
This is probably the best statement I've seen on this phenomenon. We need anti-fascist candidates and platforms. Harris has an opportunity here to come out strongly as an anti-fascist.