Don’t disagree, but George Wallace was big. He won 13.5 percent of the popular vote and five states.
It was a little like if DeSantis were to go third party, do surprisingly well, and Trump wins anyway. Or maybe even more as if DeSantis were to get the nomination, and Trump goes third party, and DeSantis wins anyway. Of course — not exactly, because those Wallace states were normally solid-south Democratic.
…I checked the headlines before I posted. It isn’t a matter of personal perspective. The culture stuff have dropped from the headlines.
Its related. They don’t have to do anything at the moment.
Because most Democrats aren’t dumb enough to listen to Republicans.
The idea that Biden should be replaced is just a story manufactured by Republicans. They’re hoping the Democrats will panic and dump Biden for some weaker candidate.
I suppose there is a low double-digit chance of Trump not being the nominee. I find it hard to keep posts short enough without implying a bit more certainty than is warranted.
Trump is an unpopular weak candidate. So, yes.
Given Trump’s reputation for wacky extremism, any other GOP candidate, even DeSantis, will be able to sell themselves as more presidential.
Or did I misunderstand your question?
James Carville says that the only policy his GOP wife got him to change his mind on is always bringing a gift when going over someone’s house.
But I suppose he could be lying.
No, you got the question right. It’s reality that I think you’re misunderstanding.
I was alive then, but I was born in 1967. However, my father was a professor of political science, and my mother was an anti-war activist. When I was older, we had many conversations about this. The anti-war wing of the Democrat party was anti-Vietnam, not pacifist. Both my parents think the second world war needed to happen. The pragmatic attitude toward war that my parents’ held is very hard to explain to people born after 2000, and really doesn’t exist anymore.
However, it is very true that at least half the Democratic party was not in favor or the way, albeit, there were a lot of different opinions on just how to withdraw.
I was 15 in 1968, and an anti-war activist, as much as one can be at 15 (which was quite a lot). One of the chief problems with LBJ was not only that he had waged a futile war but that he had been lying about how well we were doing for quite a few years by 1968. There was famously a gap between what the LBJ administration was claiming and what neutral observers (reporters, analysts, ex-soldiers) were saying. He’d used up all the credibility his 1964 supporters were now willing to give him. I for one refused to support Humphrey in 1968 because he was too closely allied with Johnson. My dad, a WWII veteran, couldn’t accept my position and I couldn’t accept his.
Now, at well past my dad’s age in 1968, I see the GOP as trying to exploit the so-called divide within the Democratic Party, but I don’t see it as being an actual divide. The differences between Democrats are petty differences, the kind that exist in every party since the dawn of parties. Some of us prefer potential candidates other than the front runner–so what? There’s not the white-hot glowing feeling of bitter resentment of the front-runner incumbent POTUS that I felt in 1968, and I don’t think that’s mainly because I’m 70, not 15.
Some of the opposition to the Vietnam War was opposition to the specific war. Some of it was from pacifists. There were quite a few in both categories.
As far as more modern manifestations, I’m reminded of Obama saying that he wasn’t against all wars, he was against stupid wars; and US attacking Iraq was a stupid war.
Upon reflection, I think the better question is why isn’t 2024 more like 1980. There we had a Democratic president whose popularity in the polls had taken a beating thanks to inflation and a mess in the Middle East.
Then a challenger arose. And Ted Kennedy was a REAL challenger - name recognition, a long and proven progressive record, and plenty of funding to run a full national campaign. Sure there was the lingering shadow of Chappaquidick, but that had happened 11 years earlier.
When the primary season was over, Carter had a thousand more convention delegates, 2.5 million more votes, and had won 36 states to Kennedy’s 12. But Kennedy’s campaign had torn the party apart, and progressives stayed home on election day. Carter, who had barely squeaked past Gerald Ford in 1976, received five million fewer votes in 1980. Carter almost certainly would have lost the election anyway, but the bruising primary battle with the progressive wing hurt him, just like it hurt Hillary in 2016.
Excellent analysis there @Kent_Clark.
Which also suggests that for the 2024 Ds, any internal acrimony or primary fight is more likely to inflate the numbers of disaffected non-voting Ds than it is to raise up a new, more powerful, and more vote-attracting D champion to take on the propaganda fueled highly motivated lock-step voting hordes from the Right.
For those that believe that is what is happening now … thing is they ain’t voting now.
What will be happening next year? None of us know. That will be the now they will be responding to. By voting against someone, against someone else, or by staying home. And let’s be real: only voting against someone motivates many of these potential voters to get off their collective behinds.
If this election is Trump-Biden v.2 then the existential threat of Trump to everything that the marginalized in America care about will be the operative factor in that choice, especially as by a year the Israeli response to the Hamas will be way off the front pages and dealing with an unknown aftermath will be of note but not the leading concern of marginalized voters whose turnout must be optimized. (Without losing the equally important swing voters and conservatives against Trump.)
Current perception of the economy at that moment will probably be the first item driving votes in both those groups.
Sounds like a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. If somebody challenges Biden, it tears the Democratic party apart and Trump wins. If nobody challenges Biden, we have millions of disaffected Democrats unhappy with Biden’s age/performance, and Trump wins.
So the huge difference is there is absolutely no comparison between the current crisis in Gaza and the Vietnam war. There is absolutely nothing that can compare to sending 100,000s of drafted American to fight in an unpopular war. Other differences are:
So to me a better comparison (as I’m currently listening to the Fiasco podcast on the subject) is Florida in the lead up to the 2000 election. To me Biden’s reaction to the Gaza crisis is more similar to the two big issues that led to Gore being tied in with Bush in Florida combined (The reaction from Cuban Americans to the Elian Gonzalez drama combined with the reaction from environmentalists to the Homestead Airforce Base development). So a small population compared to the total electorate had a huge influence on the outcome of the election (and the issues they cared about had a far larger effect on the outcome than much more well known national issues). Where there comparison breaks down, is Gore was only VP in the lead up to 2000, so all he could do is say different things about those issues, he couldn’t actually change the government’s policy on them. Biden on the other hand is actually deciding the US response to the Gaza crisis, so whatever the temptation he should absolutely not be deciding policy based on who might decide the 2024 election.
I would be curious to see a poll that shows the issues weighing heaviest on voters minds, to see where Israel/Gaza ranks. If it’s anywhere remotely near the top I would be surprised.
It’s like @griffin1977 just said abut Cubans in 2000.
Israel/Hamas today matters relatively little to most people in America and matters massively to a (relatively) small number of people. If those small number of people are concentrated in the right place and this kind of emotive hyper-divisive event occurs at the right time, it can flip a state or two. Which in turn can flip the election.
National polls cannot usefully illuminate these highly local and highly time-sensitive questions.
But in the lead-up to Nov 2024 a powerful and astute enemy who had a preference for who wins would be looking very carefully at how it could foment events like this that play specifically well or badly in certain US swing states.
Is this the perfect time for OPEC to turn off (or open wide) the oil taps and swing prices massively? Maybe now is the time to create (or prevent) a mass refugee flow at the border. Or a couple of separatist attacks in Europe which forces the USA to take a position on e.g. Basque or Catalan separatism. Or Northern Irish independence. Or …
Remind me, which Democrat was elected to the presidency in 1968 after LBJ dropped out?
the difference between 1980 and 1968 is that the incumbent Democratic president was denied renomination in 1968 but in 1980 he got renominated but lost the election. No one (except RFK jr and West) wants to run against Biden, so it’s an entirely new ballgame, not really comparable to either 1968 nor 1980.
Yeah the reason to me its like that and the florida environmental issues that lead to so many votes going to Nadar, is the Cuban American vote was already dominated by the republicans in 2000 and there was noting Gore could do to that would change that. The environmental vote on the other hand was evidentially facing a far far worse option in an actual oilman like Bush than Gore. Similarly with Trump (or any GOP candidate) whatever policies Biden follows in Israel/Palestine, the GOP platform is openly far far worse (not to mention being openly Islamophic and racist in domestic policy).