Re: <nettime> nettime-l Digest, Vol 9, Issue 6

[Ted Byfield via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

On 6 Mar 2024, at 13:11, Francis Nowak wrote:

> "Beer brew here is used to [unintelligible] to make the brew beer
> [unintelligible] ooh earth rider thanks for the great Lakes" - Joe Biden,
> 2024. I mean, he's a pretty old guy, like a lot of the guys packing the
> upper reaches of the US political scene. You remember Mitch McConnell
> freezing mid-speech a while back? Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died at the
> wheel at age 87, leaving the Republicans with an absolute majority in the
> Supreme Court, to the terrible detriment of women across America.

Of course. And as much as I respected RBG, it was clear (and I argued) for years before her all too timely demise that she should step down to avoid that all too predictable result. And I've said the same about every other gerontocrat in the party and beyond, Biden included. But that's just one part of a forward-looking, pragmatic assessment of how the Dems can and should actively embrace shifting demographics and, with that, dramatically new policies. Not, like the above, ChatGPT-esque "old old old" noise with a cherrypicked quotation on top to make it seem lifelike.

> Trump's also pretty old (77 to Biden's 82), but I think he's lived a more
> relaxed kind of life, and his general speaking style (remember Covfefe?)
> makes a virtue out of unintelligibility, digression, left-field
> interjection, as the relentless chaos-machine of Trump's subconscious
> steers him through. You remember all those quotes you used to read from
> Trump where he came across as unhinged? If you watch him speak, it's not so
> much that he's mad, as it's just all ad-libs, off-the-cuff, like a slime
> mold reaching out a tendril one way and the next, hoping he'll find
> something.

I don't see anything useful in this.

> For me, I don't get why anybody feels obligated to close ranks around
> Biden. Nixon had it right: the whole mechanism of politics in a two-state
> America is about who hates who. It is not a system where people vote for a
> good candidate - it's a system where people vote for keeping the worse
> candidate out. And that's why Biden is there in the first place: if the
> electoral system strongly biased towards charismatic, competent candidates,
> nobody could imagine Biden coming out on top. I mean, would he even be in
> the top fifty percent of US citizens? Would Mitch McConnel? Would Nancy
> Pelosi?

I don't see anything useful in this either, but I do see "Nixon had it right." 🧐 When you start with that premise, without also considering how the right's subsequent embrace of his lawless cynicism shaped its growing extremism, it's no surprise you'd see what came as inevitable. But it wasn't and it needn't be.

> Practically, you have to hold your nose and vote for the guy, but do you
> have to pretend you're voting *for* him? Half of the USA would vote for a
> dog with mange if it was on the ballot, and it meant Trump wouldn't get in.
> Half of the USA voted for *Trump*, so Clinton didn't get in.

So concerted efforts to, let's see here... turn the aircraft carrier of student debt... ramp up antitrust enforcement... "onshore" major industries like microchip manufacture... roll back the rise of "junk fees"... rein in the excesses of crypto... not give the fossil-fuel everything it wants... none of that matters because mumble mumble hold your nose mumble mumble Hillary Clinton mumble mumble mangy dog? the Biden admin has done 👉🏼 far 👈🏼 more to redress generational injustices than any president in my lifetime, and that matters because *all* issues are generational now.

But (1) nettime isn't really the place to debate domestic US issues, and (2) even if it were I'm not sure how to debate an argument like BUT GRANDPA'S GOT MORE WRINKLES THAN DAD. I don't see much worth debating here. I try to be more generous and less acerbic than this, but your reply sounded more than anything else like a Daily Mail opinion piece. You're hardly alone in that respect.

Ted
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