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Here's what we're facing and why trashing President Biden and D leadership is a dumb idea [1]

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Date: 2022-07-08

President Biden is a good but imperfect man and he has been a very good albeit imperfect president and he will make blunders. We are fighting for our democracy and trashing him and the rest of the leaders of the Democratic Party six months out from a midterm election that is likely to determine if we keep our democracy is a really bad idea.

The people we are up against have no morals at all. That’s why they supported a lying bigot and why they supported the insurrection. Cassidy Hutchinson simply verified what we already knew: most of the major players backing Trump knew that his election claims were a lie, but they valued staying in good graces in Trump world and with Trump voters more than their integrity. They have zero character, zero integrity. The reason we narrowly escaped a coup in the last presidential election is because a handful of republicans overseeing elections in key states stood up to Trump. Federalism actually helped us to some extent. However, they learned from their failures last time. They now have full on Trumpers running for positions overseeing elections who will certify Trump won regardless of whether or not it’s true. They have demonized the Democratic Party to the extent that they can justify it to themselves and they simply care about retaining power. We can’t afford to be attacking our own leadership when we are facing this kind of opposition and the consequence of losing is losing our democracy.

Person behind viral anti-Biden tweet admits it's misinformation — but is keeping it up 'because it's Biden' Brad Reed July 08, 2022 As CNN's Daniel Dale reports, the tweet in question used grainy footage of Biden awarding the veteran the Medal of Honor to falsely claim that he placed it on backwards, even though clearer footage shows that the medal was placed correctly. "The post that generated more than 2.9 million video views was published on Twitter on Wednesday by an obscure account that has sharply criticized Biden and promoted conspiracy theories," notes Dale. "Anti-Biden commentators with six-figure followings then amplified that account's inaccurate tweet, some of them adding their own assertions about how the video supposedly demonstrated that Biden is declining." Dale tracked down the person who made the viral tweet and they acknowledged that "it's the way the medal is and it's not backwards." The person who pushed this said that it was justified “because it’s Biden and he deserves the scrutiny”.

Henry Cuellar and the Eastern District of Kentucky aren’t going to determine whether choice is the law of the land. It appears that an awful lot of people here somehow believe that choice is going to come down to Henry Cuellar’s vote and the Eastern District of Kentucky. That belief is almost certainly false. President Biden and D leadership should have realized that optics would be more important than reality to an awful lot of people who would say that they are democrats or lean left or are progressives. It was a bad decision.

Until Trump and republicans added these extremists and SCOTUS gave its disastrous decision, we believed that SCOTUS was where abortion rights would be decided. Now, it will be decided by Congress. I backed Cisneros over Cuellar in numerous diaries because the US House of Representatives is close and with redistricting and gerrymandering, and it is possible that codifying Roe might not pass the US House of Representatives by one vote. It has a non-zero probability, and, therefore, it is NOT a risk that leadership should have taken, especially when we saw a leaked copy of the draft. The right of full bodily autonomy and reproductive rights should not be risked at all. I understood the reasons I suspect leadership relied upon to lead them to back Cuellar and I refuted them in my diaries. Cuellar holds a powerful position because of his seniority which is decisive in appropriating funds for important projects or policies and it would be helpful to not have an opponent in this position, but couldn’t he be booted from there if he refused to back important policies? It was a mistake and I don’t doubt that. However, the likelihood that it would be decided upon one vote is tiny and how tiny is based upon what our voters choose to do.

I don’t claim that the deal President Biden backed is a good one. Obviously, the position involved is lifetime and US attorneys have a four year term. Let’s be clear, simply because a woman happens to live in a really backward area should not and must not mean that she doesn’t have full bodily autonomy, full reproductive freedom period. While these deals aren’t uncommon, republicans wouldn’t have made such a deal with choice on the line. However, choice is likely to be decided nationally by Congress if our voters show up. President George W Bush was / is an avid forced birther and nominated similar judges. Caldwell was nominated by President Bush and she is not a great and heroic judge who rules for choice. The different between two anti-choice judges isn’t great. She was born in 1956. Barring an actuarial anomaly, she may live another 16 plus years. She has said that she won’t leave her post until she can get it filled by Chad Meredith. While it is possible that the Democratic Party will hold the White House for the next 16 years, it seems pretty unlikely. At this point, it is certainly much more likely than not that Meredith will replace Caldwell whether it happens now or later. However, later, we won’t get anything for it. Now, we can get something for it. Remember, the way that the composition of the US Senate is determined greatly favors the Republican Party. It is not easy or likely for the Democratic Party to hold the US Senate. If our voters don’t show up in sufficient numbers because we decided to trash the party and its leaders, then the Eastern District of Kentucky will have a voice in deciding choice there. However, if that happens, then we have this problem in many places and we have an even greater issue confronting us.

We can’t absolutely determine what our leaders do. They have agency. Our voters vary. Some are progressive, some are pragmatic progressive and others are more moderate or even conservative. Some will like decisions that others vehemently disagree with. Our leaders are weighing complex policy choices and options with information that we don’t have and with a responsibility that we don’t have. We can decide what we do. We will NOT be completely happy with our leadership. Some people are DETERMINED to be unhappy with our leadership because they believe it keeps the leadership motivated. It is irresponsible to decide to not do everything we can to get as many democrats elected as possible and to not choose the most progressive democrat who is likely to win or who has the best chance of winning. This includes voting.

We self-identify as democrats or progressives or people who generally lean toward the left. If we trash our political party or our party’s leadership, then those who are less political but open to persuasion will think, “if person A who is a democrat doesn’t support or like their party or its leadership, then why should I support and vote for the Democratic Party and its candidates?” They will understand that the members of the Democratic Party choose its leaders and if democrats think these leaders are terrible, then it implies that the members of the Democratic Party are terrible or at a minimum made terrible choices for leaders. Trashing the Democratic Party when it is all that is standing between us and fascism, when it is all that can keep us from losing our democracy is a really bad idea. Promoting a primary for President Biden if he chooses to run for re-election is almost certain to lead to a republican winning the White House. We have already seen the damage that can happen when a republican holds the White House.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/8/2109195/-Here-s-what-we-re-facing-and-why-trashing-President-Biden-and-D-leadership-is-a-dumb-idea

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