What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Cal I think is one of the rare American Presidents who fell into the Presidency by accidency, and did not have the level of ego or obsession with power that leads most politicians to try and grab the brass ring. He was an effective Governor of Massachusetts and got a lot of press, was then tapped for Harding's ticket--I think he intended the Vice Presidency to be his swan song in politics with retirement to follow.

Biden is quite different in that he would be quite happy to die whilst in elected office, if he had never been raised to the Vice Presidency, he would have probably remained a Senator until he died in office. Unlike Cal Biden clearly and desperately has wanted the Presidency much of his adult life--the man first ran for it in 1988, and was still trying for it in '08, even though by all odds he had 0 chance of the nomination in '08 (while forgotten now, Biden was an early frontrunner in '88 before a series of hilariously quaint by modern standards political speech plagiarism scandals rocked his campaign, as well as revelations he had embellished his academic resume.)

I will be deeply shocked if Biden does not run again--and Biden has repeatedly said, without formally declaring candidacy, that he "plans to run again." I'd believe him.

[Sheilbh]

Because the GOP likes to present Joe Biden as being a near gibbering idiot, there's a counter-narrative that Biden is absolutely fine and healthy.

From where I sit though, while Biden is still certainly competent, he's not the man he was even back when he was Obama's VP.  Age is definitely taking its toll.  Whether that counts as "running on fumes" or not I'll leave to you.

I totally agree - I just think recent successes and a sense of purpose, that he's the best man for the job etc seems to be energising him a bit.

Ultimately whether he's running in fumes or not is irrelevant - what matters is whether he thinks he is, or whether there's someone in the Democrats ruthless enough to run against him. I'm not convinced on either of those.

[OttoVonBismarck]

From where I sit though, while Biden is still certainly competent, he's not the man he was even back when he was Obama's VP.  Age is definitely taking its toll.  Whether that counts as "running on fumes" or not I'll leave to you.

Yeah, my read on Biden is he is clearly diminished by age. He is not what I would call senile. Again--do I want someone that old? Nope. But this is the situation we have, not the situation we might want to have. What I don't want is a Trump Presidency again, and I see little obvious replacement for Biden that will be more likely to beat Trump in a general election.

FWIW Trump is also diminished by age--he is noticeably frailer and less energetic to me in 2022 than he was in 2020 and especially 2016, and if you see videos of his interviews in the 1990s he almost seems like an entirely different human being cognitively.

I don't think Trump is senile either, though--just belligerently hateful and stupid.

Ugh. Not heard that story

I find the Senate to be a disgrace in terms of gerontocracy, Byrd is neither the first or most embarrassing person to have held on in the chamber to be honest.  Byrd at least was still able to appear in the Senate, we have had a few Senators who have won reelection and served out entire six year terms in which they are genuine invalids who cannot appear on the floor except to be wheeled in for the most important votes. These "ghost ship" Senators so to speak are usually ran by powerful aides who have a vested interest (their own jobs) in not seeing their man resign, and usually represented states with very strong partisan leans so there was no threat of losing a reelection.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The United States seems somewhat unique to me in that it has such a huge % of national legislators of extremely advanced age. Why do we think that is? I would honestly think some of our parliamentary cousins like Canada or Britain would have some of that same stuff going on--there are constituencies in both countries that are unassailably held by a certain party, and with the party list systems (in all their complex 21st century permutations), it is still generally the party bosses who pick nominees--in theory I'd think that would make it even easier for someone of extreme age to hold on to a seat.

[Barrister]

I will be deeply shocked if Biden does not run again--and Biden has repeatedly said, without formally declaring candidacy, that he "plans to run again." I'd believe him.

Biden well knows that the moment he introduces doubt that he's going to run again he becomes a lame duck.  Hence the "plans to run again" line.

I don't think there's anyone in the Dem party who would be able to successfully primary Biden, and that a primary challenge would only weaken Biden in the general election.

But will Biden step down on his own, or be convinced by advisors to step down (including perhaps his wife)?  I really couldn't say.  Also what factor will the inevitable, never-ending congressional investigations of Hunter Biden have on Joe's decision?

I would think that he only declines to run if he thinks he can pass the torch to a worthy successor, and not just leave it to a wide-open Primary process though.

[alfred russel]

It would be nice if Biden decided to retire for the good of the country, but he spent most of his career in the senate. Where people don't retire in their 90s when they need to wear diapers. Grassley just got reelected to a term that ends when he is 95. Biden's mentor Bob Byrd famously died at 92 just days after pooping his pants while giving a speech on the senate floor, and tragically didn't even notice he pooped himself so kept talking, despite the poop running down his leg onto the floor to the horror of the galleries and television audience.

I'm not counting on it.

Ugh. Not heard that story

I did make it up. But it could be true.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My guess is Biden isn't overly concerned about Hunter being investigated. It will be embarrassing for Hunter but they have had plenty of time to prove Biden was complicit in Hunter's misdeeds and likely if such evidence existed would have come up years ago. It is already out there that Hunter is a sleeze, drug addict, fucked prostitutes, banged his dead brother's wife, and a number of other unsavory things that are all public record--I question how much more Hunter feeds anything meaningful outside of the MAGAsphere which has long been obsessed with him. Note this is "controversy de jour" territory for that wing of the GOP, just like Benghazi was (something that also lasted for 6 years and generated seemingly no meaningful political gains for the GOP.) The congressional investigations will seek to harm Biden, but in this era of hyper-polarization I question how much they will succeed at that, they will certainly help keep the GOP base riled up but that isn't something that takes too much effort these days.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My main issue in thinking up a Biden replacement is literally no Democrat with any national relevance strikes me as being nearly as electable as Biden, this goes back to the oft-remarked upon "weak bench" problem that the Democrats have. There isn't an ecosystem built around minting new Democratic "stars" like there is for the Republicans, and it shows.

I honestly think if there is a Democratic candidate who could both replace Biden and be just as likely to beat Trump (or even more likely), it will be a strange outsider candidate that is outside of the mainstream thinking who would come in and surprise us. That'd be cool if it happened but hoping for it seems a bit like wishing on a shooting star.

[alfred russel]

I find the Senate to be a disgrace in terms of gerontocracy, Byrd is neither the first or most embarrassing person to have held on in the chamber to be honest.  Byrd at least was still able to appear in the Senate, we have had a few Senators who have won reelection and served out entire six year terms in which they are genuine invalids who cannot appear on the floor except to be wheeled in for the most important votes. These "ghost ship" Senators so to speak are usually ran by powerful aides who have a vested interest (their own jobs) in not seeing their man resign, and usually represented states with very strong partisan leans so there was no threat of losing a reelection.

When you think about whether Biden will run, he is not only in a position he has coveted for a very long time, but he is also surrounded by people that are in powerful positions because of Biden, and stand to lose them with another president. Just like the aides for the brain dead senators.

I think there is danger in teh mid term results. There was a big swing in the vote toward republicans, in some degree covered up by Trump getting some really terrible candidates for the GOP nominated in the most competitive districts. Biden commented earlier that he isn't planning to change after the midterms, sort of declaring victory, but the risk is htat people really aren't happy, and staying the course because people didn't want to vote for a few nutcase GOP guys in 2022 is courting disaster if the GOP gets its act together in 2024 (maybe not much risk of that though).

[OttoVonBismarck]

Every President since the early 70s has had some level of shift to the other party in their first midterm, if all of them took that as a clear reason not to run again they would all have been one termers--but quite a few of them sailed to reelection (Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Obama.) I think someone would be foolish to think Biden isn't at serious risk of losing, but my belief is that someone like a Kamala Harris, or a Gavin Newsom would be just as likely and likely moreso to lose.

I think Biden is seen as non-threatening which somewhat helps him in a matchup against Trump. I think it does not help him against DeSantis, but I don't think DeSantis can get the nomination (I don't think Biden can beat DeSantis period, other than some sort of deus ex machina level collapse for DeSantis.)

I think both parties have a lot of signs of bad troubles ahead, but one of them will have to be the winner when the time comes.

[Sheilbh]

The United States seems somewhat unique to me in that it has such a huge % of national legislators of extremely advanced age. Why do we think that is? I would honestly think some of our parliamentary cousins like Canada or Britain would have some of that same stuff going on--there are constituencies in both countries that are unassailably held by a certain party, and with the party list systems (in all their complex 21st century permutations), it is still generally the party bosses who pick nominees--in theory I'd think that would make it even easier for someone of extreme age to hold on to a seat.

I wonder if part of it is the importance of fundraising in the US. I suspect an individual's network of supporters makes it more difficult to challenge them and how they're able to leverage that support for other candidates makes others reluctant to challenge them?

In the UK there's strict spending limits on campaigns and most of the fundraising is institutional - it's to the party. Broadly for the Tories from the wealthy and for Labour from the unions (though since Blair they've also tried to court business/rich people). It's less that established politicians bring in the money and more that when a party is raising money, they bring in the established politicians.

I also think the party structures are possibly stronger? I think that means less that the politicians become more entrenched and more that they can get more easily be put under pressure to retire for the good of the party. They need to renew, bring in new blood/talent etc.

Also in the UK at least - seniority doesn't matter. Committees chairs are allocated by party - so some go to Labour, Tories and, I think, SNP, but voted on by MPs. Chairs are voted by the entire house including opposition MPs and even government MPs tend to revolt if the government tries to put a strong loyalist as a chair. I think the membership of committees is voted on by each party (again the number of seats are allocated proportionally). So simply lasting a long time does not come with increased power and privileges.

I also think that wealth and corruption might be part of it - possibly linked to fundraising. We don't have great statistics in the UK so it's not entirely clear but, for example, Cameron's cabinet was unusually wealthy because two thirds of its members were millionaires. My understanding is almost every Senator is. MPs generally don't have large other sources of income (though some do) and their salary isn't enough to make them millionaires. While I find the lack of a ban on insider trading for Congress shocking and stories like. For example I think it was Richard Burr who entered Congress having worked in a lawnmower company and is now a multi-millionaire who has, I believe, vastly increased his wealth being in the Senate.

But it is really striking - both that MPs in general are younger but also that I'd say if an MP is older than probably 60-65 then they're most likely in "party grandee" territory. They'll be a "senior backbencher" and possibly do work on committees but they're relatively unlikely to be in leadership role.

[Barrister]

Why does Canada not have any extremely old MPs?

Bunch of reasons come to mind.  First of all the party infrastructure is stronger, and the name ID of individual candidates much weaker.  The Party leader has the ability to refuse to sign someone's nomination papers, which prevents them from running within the party.  Most parties also allow the leader to directly appoint someone into an individual riding.

The name ID of any individual candidate for Parliament is pretty low.  Most people vote for the party and/or the party leader, not the individual MP.  You can occasionally get exceptions to that, where a popular individual MP can survive in an election that otherwise goes against their party, but they are just that exceptions.

You can get some very long-serving MPs though.  One that comes to mind is Eric Neilsen, MP for Yukon from 1957 to 1987 (and also brother to actor Leslie Nielsen).  But despite being in Parliament for 30 years he was still only 67 when he stepped down. 

Finally there's just not that much money for politicians, so there's definitely a desire after a point to go and try to make some money in the private sector, in particular if you've been a prominent or long-serving MP.

[Sheilbh]

One other thought is that a career in politics here basically requires getting elected. There's under 150 political appointments in government (the Spads) and most MPs have relatively few aides. There's no route to being a senior Labour or Tory foreign policy adviser - you basically need to become an MP/MSP etc. And it's terrifying how many of the Spads or aides around politics are basically 20-something grads or in their early 30s.

So the idea of very powerful aides is relatively limited here and basically only exists around the PM and Chancellor. There's no career path that looks like, say, Jake Sullivan who is an incredibly powerful and influential man.

If they don't go down the politics route then they might get appointed to quangos and NGOs, so may have influential and important establishment careers but it's very different from the role someone unelected can have in the US.

[Jacob]

Looks like Taylor Green is going all in on "auditing funds to the Ukraine" and generally pushing a Putinist line in Congress.

[celedhring]

Looks like Taylor Green is going all in on "auditing funds to the Ukraine" and generally pushing a Putinist line in Congress.

I want to believe that the GOP majority is narrow enough that Dems can still pass Ukraine bills with enough bipartisan support.