Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) went after former President Trump for his legal woes in an interview on MSNBC Saturday.
“I’ll take the individual who’s 81 over the guy who has 91 felony counts,” Swalwell said, making a reference to President Biden’s age in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show” on Saturday.
“It’s not about two individuals,” Swalwell continued, speaking about the 2024 election. “It’s about the idea of competence versus chaos, or even greater, freedom versus fascism. If we make it about those ideas, and what they mean in our daily lives, we’re gonna win.”
Swalwell’s comments come after Trump was ordered to pay almost $355 million in penalties in a civil fraud case and amid increased scrutiny faced by the president on his age and memory in the wake of a special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report noted that Biden had problems with memory and recall.
Fair point by Swalwell.
Well done to the press staffer who came up with that line.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) went after former President Trump for his legal woes in an interview on MSNBC Saturday.
“I’ll take the individual who’s 81 over the guy who has 91 felony counts,” Swalwell said, making a reference to President Biden’s age in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show” on Saturday.
Swalwell’s comments come after Trump was ordered to pay almost $355 million in penalties in a civil fraud case and amid increased scrutiny faced by the president on his age and memory in the wake of a special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” special counsel Robert Hur wrote in the report.
Ezra Klein, a columnist and podcast host for The New York Times, made an argument that Biden should stop running for reelection due to the scrutiny the president is facing over his age and memory Friday on his podcast “The Ezra Klein Show.”
Trump still faces several other legal challenges heading into the 2024 election season, including in the ongoing Georgia probe.
The original article contains 357 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 43%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Obviously Biden is better than Trump but I really think a much younger President would be the best thing for the USA in the near future.
How is someone younger in any substantive way better?
Biden isn’t just old, he’s very old. Have you ever spent much time around an 85 year old? They may not be totally senile, but they are almost all losing language skills by this point. Pretty important skill for someone who speaks on behalf of their country.
What if we had more choices? Why does our choice have to an old ass man and an old ass man with felonies.
They are all missing the point.
You have plenty of choices, none of them are viable other than R vs D because there are 350 million people in the US and they’re mostly all going to vote based on established branding of the big 2 parties. Convincing everyone to vote 3rd party in a FPTP electoral system is literally impossible.
most people don’t vote
Then we will die till it changes.
What if we lived in a Utopia? What if “What-Ifs” were more productive uses of our time?
Have you ever contacted your representative with these concerns? They accept emails, these days. I once sent my Representative 38 pages split among 3 peer reviewed studies because her stance on immigration and crime conflicted with mine, and she thanked me for sharing my concerns.
I don’t see how someone younger is any better just by dint of being young. That’s what a VP and a line of succession is for.
This is going to get all the more confusing if/when life extension rears its head.
What’s a realistic way to get out of a 2-party system?
Keep in mind that any change will require that the party in power enacts it, and they’re one of the two parties in the two party system. Also, keep in mind that US elections are “first past the post”, so voting for a third party weakens the candidate you otherwise would have considered.
Violence, coup d’etat, revolution, and civil war. This is the history of the change in human civilization.
A good first step would be to pass HR 1 For The People Act and then from there elect members of the party of progressive reform.
A realistic way to never get out is to elect conservatives who by definition do not want reform, at least 34 or enough to stop any supermajority votes so they can filibuster nonstop for days, but for good measure enough for them to elect a majority leader who never calls things to vote such as Mitch “The Legislature Reaper” McConnell who let countless bills die on the senate floor having never been called to vote.
So, the best way to get third parties is by voting for one of the two main parties?
As long as one of them is committed to electoral reform. But no, if not, you’re trying to vote for the least destructive person. Biden is the least destructive person. Best not let Trump have America just because you can’t get electoral reform this election cycle.
As long as one of them is committed to electoral reform.
They’d have to be more committed to electoral reform than to their survival as a party. I don’t know of any cases where that has actually happened.
Women’s suffrage. Men voted to reduce their own power by giving women the right to vote.
How will women ever get the right to vote without the right to vote? If that can be achieved, I think there are ways to ditch FPTP.
Universal suffrage was inevitable. It was only a matter of time until indigenous people, black people, and women, were considered people.
Plus there’s a lot more “what’s in it for me” for politicians with those groups. You’re unlocking a whole new demographic of people who may want to vote for you, and certainly won’t want to vote for someone who is against their suffrage.
Now is the best time to make more parties. When one is really weak. The Republicans are ready to fracture. There just needs to be many to replace them. Same with the Dems. Once we have like 6 choices, then it will finally become like most Europeans and for the people. Because there is no other alternative but to be accountable and keep the job.
In many ways, now is the worst time to make other parties because elections are so close. If you elect a 3rd party senator or congressperson, you might tip the balance so your least favourite big party takes control.
But, say you think it is a great time to do it. What’s your realistic way to make it happen? The two big parties have control and they don’t want other parties.
I’m not saying for this election. I mean it’s a good time after this election. It takes time to build up steam for these things.
I also don’t care. I just look at how Europe has better options and how they run their elections. I would like to copy it. Because they also have the highest satisfaction as a citizen.
Europe has always had multiple parties. It’s possible to go from having multiple parties to functionally having only 2 parties. I don’t know of any case where it has gone the other way.
Look, for example, at how many parties were in the running for Germany’s first election after WWII:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_West_German_federal_election
The biggest party got just 30% of the vote. The 7th biggest party was still big enough to get 3% of the vote.
Or look at the history of French elections:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_elections_in_France
Even in the 1700s, there were never fewer than 3 strong parties. Since the 1870s, it’s more typical to have at least 6 parties splitting the vote.
You can’t just magic that up, it has to start like that. Once it gets down to 2 parties (or one party) those two parties make it so that any vote for a 3rd party is effectively a thrown-away vote.
Changing the voting system seems like a vital part of a solution.
Term limits may be anorher.
But the flood of money and influemce delivered by Citizens United has overwhelmed most checks and balances.
Despite how you may feel about Andrew Yang and his presidential bid, one of the ideas in his platform was meant to counteract some of it.
He called it Democracy Dollars and it was $300/yr of earmarked money, sepearte from his UBI money, that was provided to every voting citizen to spend on political donations - candidates, committies, etc. at local, state, or federal levels.
This would amount to over $1T of non corporate lobbying to help balance out the foriegn and/or corporare PAC sponsorships.
Term limits only work if the limits were applied to big money donors. Otherwise, they just end up putting money even more in control.
Changing the voting system seems like a vital part of a solution.
The trouble is that the people who could enact laws to change the voting system belong to parties that would suffer if the voting system were changed.
States where Referendums are a thing might be a good path forward.
Change the voting system. Preferential or many others, pretty much everything beats first past the post
The trouble is that the people who could enact laws to change the voting system belong to parties that would suffer if the voting system were changed.
Ranked choice voting.
Ok, so to get ranked choice voting, you’re going to…?
Vote for a member of a political party that claims they’ll implement it? In reality, they won’t, because ranked choice voting hurts the two main parties and helps small parties.
2-party system in reality seems even worse than 1-party. At least single party can’t point at each other and say “blame them”.
One of the key benefits of a democracy is that they are seen as relatively stable. In the systems that were common before (monarchies, theocracies, oligarchies, dictatorships, etc.) there were frequently rebellions or coups. One reason for that is that in a democracy, people feel like they have an option to change the system instead of just violence: voting. But, that’s a feeling that they can change the system. It isn’t necessarily true.
In a 2 party system where both parties claim to represent different views, people think that voting for the other party will result in the change they want. But, often it doesn’t, because that isn’t the change that the rich people and corporations want, and their money allows them to keep certain things off limits for both parties.
In a 1 party system, people might realize that if the party doesn’t want to make a change, the only way to have the change happen is a coup or a revolution. But, 2 parties and the illusion of choice keeps people voting instead of rioting or rebelling, so the system stays around longer.
Im just… So tired of this game. If we were even ever old enough to witness the zenith of the Democratic party, it is surely in its waning form.
“It’s not about two individuals,” Swalwell continued, “It’s about the idea of competence versus chaos, or even greater, freedom versus fascism. If we make it about those ideas, and what they mean in our daily lives, we’re gonna win.”
Don’t they all just sound like ad execs? “Make it about X” and we “win”…
Or maybe they sound like your middle manager who brought all the team together for a pizza party on Friday afternoon? You know the speech I’m talking about, the one where “we gotta tighten our belts” and how “we’re all in this together” because we’re “lucky we even have jobs in this economy”?
They arent even doing the thing we’re used to anymore, where they tell comforting lies about future policies they don’t plan on implementing.
They don’t even pretend to talk about policy. It is clear isn’t even on their minds! Now it’s all like, “this isn’t the time to gripe, we’re all in this together.”
and
“You’re lucky we even have a democracy”
So fucking tired…
Unfortunately, they are kind of right at least in terms of this coming election. The best thing we can do is to try to get the fascists out, then come January 20th, 2025 at 12:01pm, take them all to task and demand that they make good on their promises. Protests, rallies…hell, riots even…just make them understand that they serve at our behest and make them earn their keep. But we have to get through November first.
Unfortunately, they are kind of right at least in terms of this coming election.
They told me that last time, and i don’t feel like they held up their end of the bargain. I know, i know, republicans. But we just did this. We swallowed and voted joe hoping to move fems left, orbat least get rid of trump, and here he is again. I just don’t see how my actions this time will have a different result than last time. In fact I have a sinking feeling in my gut that it won’t
Trump makes the DNC a lot of money, why would they give that up? They’re either too dumb to understand the danger or they’ve already got their foreign passports ready on their private jets. One side is useless and the other is stupid Hitler.
The US government has no future. Organize as though fascism is guaranteed, vote to delay it as long as possible so you have more time to organize.
The problem was the down-ticket candidates. There’s only so much a president can do when the legislature is polluted with or outright deadlocked by a bunch of sycophantic fascist toadies. That’s why I’m hoping that the RNC does blow its entire budget on Trump so that we can pack the House and Senate with candidates that aren’t hell-bent on executing every whim of a bloated, washed up reality TV personality.
Don’t be discouraged. Trump and covid was unexpected to me. I see recovery happening since Biden took office. Not solving my problems personally, but overall the country is moving. Trump has a lot of people who think like him. And some think even worse. Those gains the country has made are in the right direction. Those positive changes may be stopped or reversed if people are divided over who to choose. Progress is important and there is a whole system of government involved, voting in primaries is important, also the local and state elections set the stage you live in. Those actions are important. Don’t burn yourself out, it is stressful.
That’s a lot of saying nothing. The democratic party and Joe Biden are absolutely discouraging. Things have not improved. The us oil production is at an all time high and we are directly supporting genocide. Trump has not been put in jail and it seems like quite the coincidence that his trials will happen throughout the election cycle. Essentially as the DNC directly makes it campaign about stopping Trump.
Its not enough and the DNC is part of the issue.
I wish the Democrat would flaunt his accomplishment more. Lower drug prices, unions being major, infrastructure. These gains are good. The oil thing will isn’t something I control. He is an ex president and him in jail will occur. This is a new thing for America. Just compare day in and day out, before and after elections, which party is moving us forward. Which party isn’t. Which party has a project 2025. There is a bigger picture, and this election in America will matter globally. Other countries have spoken about it. Again, vote locally. Books bans happen locally. It won’t be the first mass murder of people in other countries we see, and it won’t be the last. I can’t offer you a kind world, but I can offer you kind words. Be best
We get through November a lot easier if Democrats could vote for somebody else besides Biden. I’m pretty sure the Democratic party has more than just one person in it.
That, and there is a succession if Biden becomes incapacitated and/or steps down. Harris takes over; most/all of his cabinet stays. BFD.
We can thank our stars that the “liberal media” does nothing to call out this bothsiderist/horse race BS. Tiny d is a criminal and a fascist bent on being a dictator. The other guy is, OMG, OLD (even though tiny d is nearly as old as him)! I cannot tell which is worse!
Republican: He has 91 felony charges and in debt for AT LEAST 355 million dollars. Let’s make him our president, make this country GREAT AGAIN! 🙏
HE’S FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE
Around $440MM if you throw in the $83MM he owes in that recent defamation suit
I’m sure being in so much debt wouldn’t influence the odds of him being corrupted by foreign interests…
100% odds cannot get any higher, so new debt won’t influence that.
Can’t argue with that 😅
This is a funny take and yes we should vote for Biden if the alternative is an authoritarian. BUT, Biden still is old as fuck and the DNC is once again pushing a candidate that no one wants. Fuck the DNC and the Democrat institution that forced Hilary down our throats and started this mess in the first place. Biden should not be the candidate and will most likely be dead before the next four years are over. Fuck this
most likely be dead
Rich people with medical care tend to live a long time, look at Jimmy Carter.
It’s possible but why roll the dice?
Because he’s good, Harris is good. The other guy will take a wrecking ball to the nation’s institutions to enrich himself at the expense of his enemies.
Did you even read my original post? Who’s this “other guy”? The DNC and Biden didn’t even give us a choice lol. I clearly said I’m still voting for Biden over Trump but I also feel that I’m being held hostage and forced to vote for a guy who explicitly said he was going to run for 1 term only.
Since you didn’t seem to understand, it’s ok to support Democrats while also criticizing bad decisions.
Speak for yourself I’m happy to have Biden again.
The polling is astoundingly clear that you are in a vast minority with that opinion. It’s hardly a surprise that someone likes him, but he is not the democratic choice.
The democratic choice is the one people vote into office.
This is an extreme over-simplification.
Tinidril’s post is an oversimplification, so much so as to be misleading. My post I believe would fall into the technically correct bucket.
In an idealized, fictional world where america actually has democracy, sure. We could add frictionless, spherical cows and perfectly rational economic actors to this hypothetical fairyland, too.
The only kind of true choice that exists is informed choice. The establishment of both parties has captured mass media and to a large extent social media. Democracy in this country is a joke.
He’s done a fine job, he just told us he was planning on being a 1 term president and I don’t think he’ll still be alive 4 years from now. It’s silly and selfish just long how I appreciate RBG’s career but she screwed everyone by needing to stay in power way too long.
The Senate doesn’t confirm the next president for life. The VP is sworn into office if he were to die. I’d be happy to have Harris in the office too.
Lol? So all you got from my comment is that you think that I believe the President and a Supreme Court Justice are the same thing? You’re being purposely belligerent and I don’t know why.
And if you actually believe that Biden dying while in office isn’t a problem then I don’t know what to tell you. Your inability to see any grey area is a real issue. Dogmatic politics are bad for everyone.
What I got from your post was a false equivalence. I’m really tired of people shitting on a legitimately good choice because they aren’t getting exactly what they want. Or are Russian trolls, it’s hard to tell the difference these days.
The other guy has already said he wants to be a dictator. I’m hostile to people that will get him elected either through direct support, or trying to kill enthusiasm for the better candidate.
false equivalence
Then you didn’t read my post lol. I’m not disputing anything you’re saying and I will absolutely be voting for Biden but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve better or that I shouldn’t be allowed to point that out
Somehow old is the only bad thing you can say about him. I’m not going to say there aren’t other people I’d like as president, but I do think this is a dangerous game. We need unity against the other guy. We need solutions, not shitting on the best situated candidate. I’m sure you don’t have one.
Choosing between a maggot and a spider, I see.
Both instances are a huge fucking problem though. The first people who made the USA warned against a two party system.
Sorta. It was actually Washington who warned against a two party system, because one was already forming from everyone else.
It’s more like the first people who made the US devolved into this same tribalism, and Washington tried to warn them it was bad.
Mathematically, the system they set up - the first past the post system - will always devolve into a 2-party contest.
Strategically, it only counts for you to vote for one of the top two choices, and then only sometimes.
Even so, still vote against fascism. Every time.
The two party system is the “vote against” system.
In a multi-party system, you have multiple options you can vote for who are not fascists. Unfortunately, true multi-party systems are rare. Even when there are other parties, there are often two dominant parties and then lots of other small parties who are brought into coalitions.
I agree, but the reality is that it’s the system we have right now. We can try to change it. But sitting this election out or voting for a third party will only help Trump get elected. I said in another comment (and got downvoted for it) but I would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump.
>But sitting this election out or voting for a third party will only help Trump get elected.
only a vote for trump helps trupm get elected
The issue is that we’re not in this situation accidentally. Every 4 years we say “I know it sucks, but for now we just have to vote out the lesser evil, then we can focus on change” then go 4 more years without making any changes. We’ll always just be voting for the lesser of 2 evils, whether for this election or the 2064 election. Everyone with any real say in the government loves how things are working out right now, and has no intention to allow us to truly vote for anyone other than 2 candidates that have been vetted by the oil companies.
Push for ranked choice voting for your state, and if we can get that implemented nationwide then we might be going somewhere.
Ranked choice voting is great because it enables votes to go to smaller parties. To get it passed, you’d need to get lawmakers to alter the laws. Those lawmakers are either Republicans or Democrats. Both benefit from first-past-the-post, and neither benefits from ranked choice. Good luck getting ranked choice passed.
I absolutely agree with pushing the issue at a local level, however we should probably be aiming for approval or STAR voting:
https://dividedwefall.org/star-and-approval-voting/
RCV is way better than our current system, but even RCV has flaws.
We also need regulation requiring election reform within party primaries, because as of right now it is a clown show.
however we should probably be aiming for approval or STAR voting:
RCV is way better than our current system, but even RCV has flaws.
It’s already going to be a hugely heavy lift to get RCV, so no need to complicate the effort by suggesting alternatives to RCV.
Just don’t think there’s room for that conversation in our political environment today. And yes, I hated saying what I just said, but still.
Arguably, RCV is just as complicated as STAR, and approval is simpler than RCV. And part of the difficulty in the heavy lift to get RCV is that it has some pretty rough flaws, flaws that don’t exist within the alternatives.
And the political environment is easing up to the idea of moving towards better voting methods. I’m not saying we should let perfection be the enemy of progress. All I am saying is that if we are going to be making changes, we should at least attempt the better options.
Arguably, RCV is just as complicated as STAR, and approval is simpler than RCV.
I’ll take your word for it, sincerely, as I’m not familiar with STAR, but was speaking more from a social ‘selling it’ point of view. Simplicity tends to sell better than complexity, and RCV is the one that’s known of already.
What we citizens need to do now is get our elected officials to start talking about the pros and cons of STAR versus RCV, etc. So far they’ve been more than happy to ignore everything except the status quo, unfortunately.
Isn’t Trump 77? It’s not like he’s some young buck. The argument against Biden’s age is quite strained when your own candidate is almost just as old.
It isn’t a comparison between 81 and 77 I’m concerned about. They are both too old to run for presidency!
Two candidates pre retirement age would be great about now.
It isn’t a comparison between 81 and 77 I’m concerned about.
Tell that to all the trumpsters who complain about Biden’s age. They don’t seem to be particularly concerned about Trump’s age.
They can’t detect hypocrisy and much less spell it.
It’s a hard concept to grasp, but the vast majority of people critical of Biden’s age don’t like Trump either.
Damn, those are your choices? You okay america?
Please help us.
No. Send help.
OTOH in some countries choice was poisoned with chemical weapon twice and then killed in prison.
Damn, that’s your standard? Russia?
Typical “Our system is perfect because it’s not the worst” thinking, the kind that leads you slowly to the end of democracy
I know. It’s called говнохранительство(shitkeeping). Our system between first and third worst systems in Europe. Just saying that here there even less choice.
No 😭😭
It’s worse than you think. Point out how we don’t actually have two choices and the party front liners come out and say a vote not for their party is in reality a vote for the other party. Then they say, “[blah, blah, blah] vote like us or the world will literally end.” I’m not sure if they are serious anymore.
Already polling at >20% wanting to vote for neither party. Going to get much worse here pretty soon.
If only you had at least two-round system.
No. But we have to work with what we got.
All this news is nada if Trump is still leading ahead. Or better yet, put him in prison.
On balance, the relative recklessness of actuarial tables VS. Trump is kind of a laughable comparison. Would it be better to have someone more likely to survive, sure, but… what are the options here? Lunatic, or someone who according to some tables has a bigger chance of dying than someone younger? Why is this even a question? If there was some viable 45 year old candidate running against Biden, then maybe it’s a point worth making, but that doesn’t even exist.
