The Wild Reed: Progressive Perspectives on the Crisis in U.S. Electoral Politics

As the United States barrels towards another presidential election pitting Joe Biden against Donald Trump, a somber reality is setting in for many observers: despite the stark differences between the two men and their visions for America, their rematch represents a broader shift in how democracy functions in the 21st century. Increasingly, elections have become competitions between the ambitions and personalities of individual “great men” rather than contests of ideas or visions for society.

This phenomenon reflects a contemporary belief in the outsized power of elite individuals – whether CEOs, celebrities, or political leaders – to drive change and shape the world around them. It’s a worldview that has its roots in neoliberal ideology but has morphed into something more extreme: a “cult of personality” that justifies massive inequality and the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a small oligarchic class.

The recent Trump-Biden debate served as a grotesque apotheosis of “great man” politics, laying bare the dangerous fallacy of entrusting democracy to the outsized personalities of flawed individuals. What viewers witnessed was not a substantive exchange of ideas, but a sad spectacle of two men desperately clinging to the illusion of their own indispensability.

Trump, the self-styled political outsider, once again displayed his mastery of demagoguery. His performance was a masterclass in manipulative rhetoric, weaving lies and exaggerations to inflame passions and sow doubt. This wasn’t leadership, but a naked display of ego – a man willing to risk democratic norms and institutions to maintain his grip on power and protect his wealth.

Opposite him, Biden struggled to articulate coherent responses, his words often faltering and confused. The toll of age was unmistakable, raising uncomfortable questions about his fitness for office. Yet Biden’s insistence on seeking reelection, despite these obvious challenges, betrays the same hubris that drives Trump – a belief that he alone can guide the nation through troubled waters.

This debate didn’t showcase great men rising to meet history’s challenges. Instead, it revealed the bankruptcy of personality-driven politics. Here were two deeply flawed individuals, propped up by cults of personality, vying for the right to single-handedly shape America’s future.

In its most degenerate form, as we’re witnessing now, this results in the sad spectacle of a democratic election devolving into little more than the narcissistic desire of two powerful old men to cling to power and relevance, even as they and the system they represent show clear signs of terminal decline.

– Peter Bloom
Excerpted from “The Biden-Trump Rematch
Reflects Democratic System
in Terminal Decline”
Common Dreams
July 9, 2024

We warned about most of this in 2020 but we were told to shut up and fall in line so we could get the “lesser” evil elected. Many of us did that. In fact, much of the left has made that compromise time after time. We’ve compromised our way to fascism.

– Dana White
via Instagram
July 10, 2024

In the system of government envisioned by America’s founding fathers, political leaders exist to represent and serve the people. This can be a fragile ideal. George Washington could have shattered it right from the get go had he wanted to hang onto power. But instead he relinquished his position and retired with honor when the time was right, a choice that – more than any other – made him a foundational hero of American democracy.

Though this principle has survived many crises since then, today it faces arguably its greatest threat yet. Donald Trump has already tried to roll back our democracy once. Now he’s running with an explicit plan to do so, and with the twisted authority of the Supreme Court to back him up.

Of course, to realize his dark vision, Trump needs to win in November. So the most terrifying thing about our current moment is that the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden, is by every objective measure, on track to lose reelection. His 37% approval rating makes him historically unpopular, three quarters of Americans do not believe he has the cognitive health to be president, he is consistently losing in swing state polls (where he is polling far behind other Democrats), and his disastrous debate and interview performances show that he is not up to the task of effectively prosecuting the case against Donald Trump.

In this context, it’s easy to understand the anger many Americans have felt at the Democrats – some at high levels within the party but also worryingly large numbers at the grassroots – who’ve been insisting that President Biden deserves our unconditional support.

This is a dangerous claim to make on behalf of any political leader. In a democracy, no individual politician deserves unconditional support. That’s the whole idea behind a government “deriving [its] just powers from the consent of the governed.” Our leaders serve us, not the other way around.

. . . Being president is not a sacrifice. Certainly it’s a tough job, one that requires a lot of energy and endurance. But it’s also the most plushy, prestigious, privileged thing someone could ever do. That’s why Trump wanted the position in the first place, and I understand why Biden, his family, and his team would want four more years with all that power and prominence.

But they aren’t entitled to it. We have a hell of a lot more on the line in this election than one man’s ambitions and ego. The minority of Democrats insisting otherwise resemble nothing so much as a blue-shaded MAGA, not just in their conspiracies and increasingly unhinged perspective on the race, but also because they, too, are trying to drag us down a path that will very likely end in a second Trump presidency.

– Aaron Regunberg
Excerpted from “Biden Can Stop the
Terrifying Prospect of a Second Trump
Presidency – By Stepping Aside”
Common Dreams
July 10, 2024

A large percentage of this country didn’t want either [Trump or Biden]. And now, a little miraculously, they might get what they want after all. If the Democrats have an open convention and pick a new candidate, that person might win easily because he [or she] isn’t one of these two.

– Cenk Uygur
via Instagram
July 7, 2024

Just think: if the DNC had facilitated actual democracy via a robust primary season, including debates, we may well have determined a year ago President Biden’s cognitive limitations and decline. That would have allowed plenty of time for a better-equipped candidate to have emerged and be nominated by “the people” (registered Democratic voters, in this case). But, no, the DNC did what it believes it has the (undemocratic) right to do: anoint a candidate for us and rig the process to ensure his/her victory. That strategy failed in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, and it looks as though it’s going to fail in 2024 with Joe Biden.

– Michael Bayly
via Facebook
July 5, 2024

The same people who said we couldn’t consider anyone but Biden because we all had to stand in line, are now saying we can’t consider an open convention because we all have to stand in line. No deviation from the official line of thinking or we’ll lose, ya’ll!! In fact, once you have people convinced that we all have to stand in line, then we’ve lost already.

The moral flaw in all this from the beginning has been the idea that saving democracy is sooo important that we can’t possibly trust democracy to fight off its attackers. But the actual practice of democracy – really letting people have their say, giving everyone a fair shot in the media, allowing the people and not an elite few to determine the upshot of elections – is the ONLY way to fight off attacks on democracy, and those who don’t get that are subconsciously complicit in the attacks.

– Marianne Williamson
via Facebook
July 1, 2024

Almost everyone in Democratic politics and mainstream media owes Rep. Dean Phillips an apology. They claimed he was trying to hurt the Democratic Party by running against Joe Biden when he was doing the opposite. And to Marianne Williamson, who had the courage to say the truth first.

– Cenk Uygur
via Instagram
July 3, 2024

Almost as appalling as President Biden’s debate performance are the efforts of his loyalists to pretend that what 50 million viewers saw and heard didn’t happen or didn’t really matter. What has unfolded in the last few days amounts to a political gaslighting operation by the Biden campaign and supportive pretenders who’ve been trying to erase history as soon as it happened.

Apparently, Biden’s ego has proven to be much more resilient than his cognition, while loved ones and sycophants in concentric inner and outer circles cling desperately to talking points that are patently dishonest, often preposterous, and virulently dangerous for prospects of preventing a second Trump presidency.

By whistling past the graveyard of Biden’s credibility as a viable candidate in 2024, the pretenders are doing a huge disservice to all who want to avert a full takeover of the U.S. government by the fascistic Republican Party.

– Norman Solomon
Excerpted from “We Cannot Gaslight
Our Way Out of This”
Common Dreams
July 1, 2024

A new poll shows that 72% of Americans think Biden should drop out. If 7 out of 10 Americans think your candidate shouldn’t even be in the race, can anyone really be so deluded as to think that you have the right candidate? This is a slow-motion suicide of the Democratic Party.

– Cenk Uygur
via Instagram
June 30, 2024

Refusing to quit is not always heroic resilience. It’s often stubborn rigidity.

Walking away from a losing battle is not a failure of grit. It’s a triumph of wisdom.

Service is not only about stepping up to lead. It’s also about having the courage to step aside.

– Adam Grant
via Instagram
July 3, 2024

We have become, by the tens and tens of millions, deeply removed from nominal reality. Trump can say virtually anything and we will not flinch. If he came out with an executive order (after being installed to power) criminalizing public statements affirming the theory of evolution few would be startled. If he denies voting rights to the unemployed, or gives two votes to gun owners there might be a muffled response of dismay, but no sustained outrage.

The issue most confronting the U.S. is not Biden’s senility, but the fact that we live in a rhinoceros infested land. All that stands between the US and a consolidated fascist state is a senile, morally defective man who never had more than average talent to begin with. Are we okay with that?

The whole point should not be Biden’s cognitive capacity (he is fucking senile and was barely capable in his mediocre prime), but the lost ability of self-scrutiny. Why do we sleepily gaze at herds of fascist rhinoceros and pretend that we see nothing? [Note: In Eugène Ionesco’s 1959 play Rhinoceros, a staple of the post-war absurdist repertoire, the rhinoceros symbolize fascists.] The members of a sane society would be thundering angrily through the streets given the choice between a smoldering ghost and an aspiring Nazi monster.

Who chose these two? Why are 50 million people curled up on couches, wrapped around plastic bowls of popcorn while these terrible, inept, and heartless fools cough up lies and trivial asides? We reflect upon levels of dementia and Nazi wannabe evil as if they were existential givens. Of course we all must decide on November 5th which genocidaire we prefer, the one who bombed the children of Gaza or the one vowing to deport up to 20 million innocent people. Do we pick the one who can barely remember his own name or the guy with a swirling vortex of hatred orbiting his eyeballs?

Who in the press watched the debate and screamed “What the fuck?!” Which pundits ask the public to take to the streets and demand a do-over? This election is a farce – the dying throes of a criminal society, the death spasms of a plundering oligarchy that once devoured most of the world and now cannibalizes its own.

– Phil Wilson
Excerpted from “Nobody for President:
This Absurd Election Choice Should Have Us
Thundering in the Streets”
Common Dreams
July 9, 2024

A new survey released Wednesday found that with days to go until former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to be formally nominated as the GOP presidential candidate, a majority of Americans believe the far-right Project 2025 agenda represents what Trump stands for – and shows how a victory by the Republican would endanger people across the country.

The progressive messaging firm Navigator Research conducted the survey of 1,000 registered voters from June 20-24, with the goal of learning how Democrats and rights advocates should frame Project 2025 ahead of the November election.

The group found that opponents of the right-wing project, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, may have an uphill battle to ensure American voters are aware of the policy blueprint, which calls for a nationwide abortion ban, mass deportation of immigrants, the repeal of climate safety regulations, elimination of the Department of Educations and shrinking of other agencies, and consolidation of power within the presidency. The survey described Project 2025 as “a series of conservative policy proposals aimed at reshaping the executive branch of the federal government if a Republican is elected president in 2024,” and found that 77% of respondents had heard “little” or “nothing” about the agenda.

But after hearing two one-sentence descriptions of the plan – one in support and one opposing – the respondents opposed Project 2025 by an 18-point margin, with 49% in opposition.

Sixty-three percent of Americans surveyed said the agenda represents Trump’s policy priorities, even though the former president has taken pains to distance himself from Project 2025 in recent days, saying last week that he knows “nothing about” the plan and has “no idea who is behind it.” Nearly 90% of Democrats said they believe Project 2025 reflects the top priorities of Trump, who said late last year that he plans to be a dictator only on “Day One” of his second term, should he win the election. Sixty-two percent of independents and 42% of Republicans who do not identify with the MAGA movement led by the former president said Project 2025 represents Trump’s agenda.

The top concern expressed by respondents from across the political spectrum was that Project 2025 is “an unprecedented, extreme Republican plan that will fundamentally alter the American government, making Trump even more dangerous in a second term by granting him presidential powers like no president before him has ever had.”

Ian Smith, director of polling and analytics for Navigator Research, said the poll reflects that Americans were “concerned by the conservative push to consolidate presidential power around Trump” even before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that presidents have “absolute immunity” for actions they take in relation to their “official” duties.

“What’s behind the fears of how Project 2025 would change the presidency is what Trump would do with that power,” said Smith. “As Americans learn about the extreme anti-abortion, economic, and administrative policies proposed by Project 2025, independents almost universally oppose it, and even Republicans are divided on whether they support this vision for the country.”

Sixty-two percent of Americans said Project 2025 would have a negative effect on their family, including 70% of independents and nearly half of non-MAGA Republicans.

– Julia Conley
Excerpted from “Majority in U.S.
Say Project 2025 Is Exactly What Trump Represents”
Common Dreams
July 10, 2024

Just stop with the “But Trump is worse so shut up” nonsense. Everyone, and I mean everyone calling for Biden to step down thinks Trump is worse. That’s WHY they want someone with a fighting chance of beating him. They are actually taking the threat of Trump MORE seriously.

– S.E. Cupp
via Instagram
July 10, 2024

Authoritarianism and Donald Trump aren’t the only threats our democracy faces. An arthritic status quo, unable or unwilling to respond to in any way to the concerns of voters, who just received new and urgent information about their candidate, also erodes confidence and faith in the system of government.

“Get on board or shut the fuck up” is not a particularly compelling pro-democracy bumper sticker.

– Jon Stewart
Excerpted from “Jon Stewart Examines Biden’s
Future Amidst Calls For Him to Drop Out”
The Daily Show
July 8, 2024

“Look at Project 2025, pay no attention to our zombie candidate” isn’t gonna fly. If the Dems actually wanna stop Project 2025, they need to find a new candidate. Immediately.

– David Sirota
via Instagram
July 5, 2024

[Biden’s] doubling down is really frustrating Democrats on Capitol Hill and in his campaign. . . . There’s an overwhelming frustration at the fact that he has decided that, no matter what, he is not going to get out [of the race]. It’s almost Trumpian in the way Biden has decided it’s either him or the party is going to go down.

. . . [Biden has] almost taken the path of Republicans – [saying] no matter what, I’m not going to change; I’m not going to course-correct; I’m just going to double down. It’s worked for Republicans, and I think Biden’s taken a blueprint from it.

[The voices calling for Biden to step aside] are only going to grow. . . . And if Biden doesn’t do well then down-ticket [Democrats] don’t do well. And so democracy’s on the line. And this idea that it’s Biden or nothing risks everything – from a national abortion ban to the implementation of Project 2025.

– Michael Starr Hopkins
Excerpted from “Democratic Strategist Says
He Doesn’t Believe Joe Biden Will Be
the Nominee in November”
CBC News
July 9, 2024

At the end of the day we’re going to have to take responsibility for this thing. We’ve got to stop out-sourcing the future of our country, the future of our democracy to politicians.

We’re going to have to take responsibility. And we have to understand that the choice may be between an “old” feeble man and a convicted felon, a crook, a fascist. We have to understand that and we have to do all the work that’s possible, all the work that is available to us to keep him out of office. And that is our responsibility. . . . At the end of the day it is our responsibility at the voting booth to save this country.

– Eddie Glaude Jr.
Excerpted from “Dems Privately Discuss
Replacing Biden on the Ticket”
MSNBC
June 28, 2024

And finally, here’s the interview that ABC News Live did last night (7/9/24) with progressive Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. As a supporter of Marianne’s candidacy, I’m elated to finally see her being interviewed by a mainstream media outlet. It’s a solid 10-minute interview, one in which Marianne’s on fire! I hope it’s the first of many more appearances by this Cassandra of U.S. politics, as we sorely need her wisdom and clarity.

I conclude this post by sharing the following YouTube comments on Marianne’s interview.

• Just compare this with Joe Biden’s ABC interview. There’s no question who’s more qualified for President.

• This is the single most succinct and well-articulated reasoning behind why Biden should not run that I’ve heard yet. Props to Marianne!

• Marrianne has eloquently conveyed everything I think majority of us Americans are feeling. Democrats stop gaslighting your base.

• Thanks ABC for finally acting like the 4th estate and allowing Marianne Williamson on. Bring her back often and watch your ratings climb.

• The powerful distinction Marianne made here about people voting for false hope over no hope gave me chills. The depth, clarity, and implications of that statement are profound. Thank you, Marianne, for all that you bring to the table. Every single time. You are certainly offering hope in these unbelievable times.

• I appreciate the knowledge of history Marianne shares with us. I also applaud how she separates the Soul of the Democratic Party from the Machine of the Democratic Party.

• There’s a reason why the corporate political machine despises this lady.

• This woman has an impeccable understanding of PR and politics.

• Wow! A major network just remembered that Marianne exists. Better late than never.

• Marianne nails it, and she is a running candidate. She has my vote. This is what we the world needs: a strong and well-spoken candidate that can take Trump down in a minute.

• Thank you, Marianne, for continuing to tell it like it is, with compassion, conviction, and integrity – everything we need in a leader!

• Her ability to maintain control and concisely convey her message is a crucial leadership trait.

• Damn, that was impressive, Marianne!

• This may be the best response I’ve read or heard to this crisis over the last 10+ days! Speaking the truth of how so many of us are feeling right now. Bravo!

• In a perfect world, Biden would step down, and Williamson would take his place as the nominee.

• As a disillusioned Democrat appalled by the White House and the president’s lies and behavior, I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here considering voting for (writing-in) Marianna Williamson. Guess I’m going to become an independent now.

• I am an Independent who leans right in my beliefs so I will be voting for Donald Trump. But I can always appreciate someone from the opposing party at least being sensible in what they are saying, and that is what this woman is doing in this interview, so she at least has my respect.

• I’m a Trump supporter but if she’s on the ballot, I’d consider it.

• Marianne, you can defeat Trump! You will motivate, inspire, and bring hope to our country when we need it most. You are a serious candidate and the only one who speaks to the needs of the American people. I want to hear you at an open convention in August. We have time!

• Please give me the chance to vote for this person.

• Marianne for President!

The Wild Reed

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Progressive Perspectives on the Crisis in U.S. Electoral Politics

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