MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2024
Donald Trump won in a landslide: Jimmy Carter was elected president in November 1976.
In terms of Red/Blue party politics, the United States was a different nation then.
Candidate Carter swept "the solid South," winning every state from North Carolina on over to (and including) Texas. Meanwhile, as with Candidate Nixon in 1960, so too here:
Gerald Ford swept the west coast, winning Washington, Oregon and California. He won Illinois—and he won Vermont! Nationwide, the popular vote ended up looking like this:
Nationwide popular vote, 1976
Jimmy Carter (D): 40,831,881 (50.1%)
Gerald Ford (R): 39,148,634 (48.0%)
He won by a little bit more than two points. Last night, on the Fox News Channel, Bret Baier described this matter correctly, as you can see by clicking here:
BAIER (12/29/24): When he announced plans to run for president in 1974, Carter was largely an unknown. But he managed to win his party's nomination and edge out incumbent President Gerald Ford by just two percent of the popular vote, one of the closest margins in recent history.
He started as a complete unknown. He ended up defeating President Ford, the incumbent.
We'd say that Baier's account of President Carter's victory margin was accurate. More on that matter below.
As for the current state of affairs, one part of Tyler Pager's report on President Biden's leadership style is being widely cited. Pager covers a lot of ground in his essay for the Washington Post. Here's the part people are citing:
Biden’s lonely battle to sell his vision of American democracy
[...]
Biden’s aides, in praising his tenure, often contend that history will remember him kindly, an assertion that provides little comfort to Democrats now staring at an additional four years of Trump. Some Biden allies point to a recent survey of historians that ranked Biden the 14th-best president in American history while putting Trump last. Yet it is Trump, not Biden, who is preparing for his second inauguration on Jan. 20.
“He accomplished a hell of a lot in a very difficult situation,” Kaufman said in an interview, noting that Biden pushed through several monumental bills at a time when the Senate was split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking tie votes. “Coming in after Trump with a bad economy, he still pulled people together. He did all this on infrastructure, and all the stuff he did with a one-vote majority in the Senate. Joe Biden did it with one vote.”
Biden and some of his aides still believe he should have stayed in the race, despite the rocky debate performance and low poll numbers that prompted Democrats to pressure him to drop out. Biden and these aides have told people in recent days that he could have defeated Trump, according to people familiar with their comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Aides say the president has been careful not to place blame on Harris or her campaign.
Could President Biden have won this year if he had stayed in the race? According to Pager's report, Biden and some of his aides have been saying they believe that.
Everything is always possible, at least until it's tried. But whatever you may think of President Biden's accomplishments in office, that reported belief strikes us as an apparent delusion.
Because of the obvious decline in his public presentations, we find it extremely hard to believe that President Biden could have won this year. That said, we managed to chuckle when we heard Baier describe President Carter's victory margin in 1976.
In fact, it actually was a narrow win—a win by just over two points. That said, Candidate Trump's recent win over Candidate Harris is constantly being described as "a landslide" on the Fox News Channel from which Baier hails—and Trump vanquished Candidate Harris by less than 1.5 points!
Full disclosure! In our current American Babel, it's propaganda around the clock and pretty much all the way down.
On Fox, they're even decided to accept the new math. Two points makes for a narrow win. 1.5 points is much bigger.
Less is more, the Stepfords now say. Can this be the discourse we've chosen?
ReplyDeleteWho's been running the country during the last 4 years, Bob? Is he/her at least an American citizen?
Who pardoned 8000+ (and counting) criminals?
Is this being discussed by your dumb-and-dumber state-run media? Please tell.
The "8,000 criminals" you mention includes 6,500 grants of clemency to people charged with simple marijuana possession. It also includes sentence commutations which impose a lesser penalty like life in prison in place of a harsher penalty like execution.
DeleteBut do go on.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/claims-biden-number-pardons-commutations-183353196.html
DeleteBrilliant move by Biden, pardoning 8,000 criminals.
DeleteHis "Make the Right Hate Criminals Again" policies are working like a charm, as shown by Mao at 1:40.
Rachel Maddow is doing important journalism:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqizgeyQyzA
Republicans only care about punishing those who have committed crimes before or after January 6, 2021.
DeletePresident Biden has been attending to business in the White House daily for the past four years and he, unlike president-elect Musk, is a natural born citizen of our United States.
ReplyDeleteBiden's pardons have indeed been discussed across a wide array of media outlets, but only partisan conservative outfits have feigned panic.
If you have any further right-wing propaganda you wish to have swatted down, serve it up!
"President Biden has been attending to business in the White House daily for the past four years"
DeleteThat's not what WSJ tells me. But thank you for comforting me; obviously "Quaker in a Basement" knows better.
“That’s not what WSJ tells me.”
DeleteWithout a quote and a cite we’ll assume you’re lying.
Who are the 1500 people pardoned for other than simple drug possession? What crimes did they commit? Was each of these pardons appropriate? Who knows? The huge number of pardons seems to have paralyzed the media .
DeleteBe my guest, Soros-bot, assume away. Obviously this sort of material is not on your reading list, and, alas, you don't know how to ask for a link.
Delete@David: Answer.
DeleteAlso, a quick Google search yields this list of news stories in the "paralyzed" media.
DeleteSee, 3:01? QiB shows how you build credibility - link to your supporting citations.
DeleteAlternatively, you can hide out as an Anon.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteNonny Mouse @3:01 is talking about this WSJ article that describes how White House procedures were modified to accommodate somoene of Biden's advanced age.
DeleteOr maybe @3:01 is talking about this WSJ opinion piece that grossly exaggerates what reporters wrote in that earlier news report.
It doesn't matter. In the years ahead, @3:01 will see what it's really like when a feeble president surrenders all of his responsibilities to unelected staffers.It won't look anything like what we've seen under Biden.
Dang hyperlinks. First article referenced is here.
Delete
DeleteI've seen Dementia Joe on TV, starting from 2016. I watch him speak. I don't need any links. There is no controversy: Brandon has been brain-dead for years.
Any Republican President could have given the nation a very low Unemployment rate, like Biden did, if they wanted to.
DeleteSomerby makes a good point here about both sides living in a bubble of babble. One side hears Trump won in a landslide, the other hears from the people who lied about and mismanaged Biden's failed candidacy that they want you to know that they feel he could have won. Both total bullshit planted by grifters.
ReplyDeleteWaylon, Somerby is trying to bothsides this and creating a false equivalence. He says:
Delete"Full disclosure! In our current American Babel, it's propaganda around the clock and pretty much all the way down. "
Fox is propaganda around the clock and all the way down. The mainstream or legacy media (CNN, MSNBC) are a reasonable attempt at objective reporting. They are not the blue equivalent of Fox because (1) they are not blue, and (2) they are not nearly as partisan, not creating false stories and spreading misinformation. They are much closer to being centrist than Fox. They are not an organ of the Democratic party the way Fox kowtows to Trump and the Republicans. There is no equivalence in terms of partisan reporting.
You can call Biden's assertion that he could have won "bullshit" but he was polling higher than Harris at the point when he was pushed aside, and he DID win in 2020, and he doesn't have the liabilities of being black or female, and he has a term full of solid accomplishments to run on, unlike Harris who had to distinguish herself from Biden and thus could not claim his achievements. That isn't bullshit at all. It is fact.
When you call someone a grifter, please specify what their grift is. That term refers to people selling things for their own benefit, such as autographed Gibson knock-off Trump guitars. It doesn't refer to candidates who just trying to win an election in the usual way, whether you believe their campaign materials or not.
What exactly does Harris or Biden have to gain from what you call grifting, now that neither of them is running for any office?
Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response. Let me clarify my use of "grift." I am referring to the anonymous Biden aides quoted in the piece who argue that Biden could have stayed in the race and won against Trump. I am claiming they are grifters who, with the help of the Washington Post, are propagandizing the public. The entire piece is primarily sourced by Biden aides. I believe their claim about Biden is strategically designed to deflect blame and counter recent negative press, such as the Wall Street Journal on the 19th of December that reported Biden’s aides shielded the public, the press, and even Biden himself from the realities of his decline and campaign challenges. A charge that, if true, puts the blame squarely on these aides for the Democrat's loss. By planting this new narrative, the aides can spin the story so that it protects their reputations and egregious ethical breaches (this is the grift) but deceive the public into thinking Biden's candidacy was undone by circumstances other than the mismanagement and poor decision making outlined in the Journal piece (this is the propaganda).
DeleteI recognize that you may not agree with my view and may think the anonymous quotes were sincere and that Biden was not suffering from a cognitive decline. But that recent reporting and timing of this article, Biden’s visible gaffes and the motivations I mentioned above leads me to think these quotes were self-serving, propagandistic grift. (Which was too strong a term to use if interpreted as only for monetary gain. Apologies for that.)
Also, regarding accusations of "false equivalence" by Somerby, I didn't see anything in the piece implying Fox News and legacy media are equal.
He lumped them together as babel.
Delete"the mainstream or legacy media (CNN, MSNBC) are a reasonable attempt at objective reporting."
DeleteTrump Trump Trump. Jail Jail Jail.
Objectively, Trump is a convicted criminal.
DeleteDon't be stupid. Everyone knows Trump belongs in prison, not jail.
Delete"On Fox, they're even decided to accept the new math. Two points makes for a narrow win. 1.5 points is much bigger."
ReplyDeleteOMG!! Talk about beating a dead horse!! The landslide refers to the Electoral Collage results. Only Democrats who can't admit the truth about the Trump's victory have to claim that they do not know this.
So Carter's 2 pt. win resulted him getting 297 electoral votes to Ford's 240. Had Carter lost Ohio 26 votes, he would have won 271 to 266.
While Trump's smaller 1.5 pt win resulted him winning 312 electoral votes to Harris' 226.
That's the friggin' landslide. Can you get that through your apparently thick skull?
Delete"Can you get that through your apparently thick skull?"
He can't: he is a Democrat.
And yet Trump lost "a close election" in 2020 when the Electoral College result was similar. How does that work?
DeleteQuaker:
DeleteAs I'm sure you can recall that Biden's margin of victory was determined by @50,000 votes in the swing states of PA, WI and AZ.
Good point about Biden's electoral vote landslide in 2020. I almost forgot that electoral voting results are what really matter.
Delete4:37 has a thick skull.
Delete@4:37 I do recall. And that's precisely the kind of argument that Nonny Mouse @3:07 says is a sign of a "thick skull." Trump's victory this year was also decided by a small number of votes in a handful of swing states--and yet @3:07 insists it was a landslide.
DeleteSince when can land vote?
DeleteBiden would have eked out a win.
ReplyDeletePrimarily because he is a White male.
Heather Cox Richardson is no partisan hack, she plays it straight, and she interviewed Biden during his campaign, and reported that he was sharp and cognitively "all there", lucid, coherent, and intelligent. Other's of similar reputation reported the same.
The neoliberals at the NY Times/WSJ/corporate media in general, had an axe to grind with Biden and his pro labor presidency. Republicans whine and cry constantly about the supposed "liberal" media, yet rush with breathless excitement to amplify anytime corporate media puts out any old garbage about their perceived "enemies".
Clowns are quitting their jobs en masse everywhere, our streets are overflowing with colorful wigs, bulbous red noses, and oversized shoes, claiming they just can not compete with Republicans.
Unlike Republicans who hide behind sectarian scapegoats, you liberals play it straight regarding the coastal elite and their smug Menorahs.
Deletesmug Menorah? on Hanukkah??
DeleteWho's excited for January 20? Congratulations to all Trump voters.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited for Trump to give it to his voters. Nice and hard.
DeleteTrump's open borders policy will be a boon for his real constituents, the corporate elites.
Delete