President Biden told a Democratic lawmaker and members of his Cabinet after the State of the Union address that he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they will need to have a “come-to-Jesus meeting.”
Biden’s comments, captured on a hot mic as he spoke with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) on the floor of the House chamber, came after Bennet congratulated the commander in chief on his speech and pressed him to keep pressure on Netanyahu over increasing humanitarian issues in Gaza.
I greatly enjoy that Biden is this way.
When he was campaigning, he was in an interview about Turkey, and he said more or less if Erdoğan gets out of line we might have to get rid of him. Then he realized what he said wasn’t a “say out loud” type of statement, and tried to walk it back by saying well, I don’t mean with a coup or anything, just, you know, we’ll have to see what we can do. Which only made it 10 times worse. The US press didn’t really notice but it was a shit storm in the central-Asian press for like 6 months.
But the thing is, every US president has thoughts and plans like that. I’m not saying it or the neoliberal empire are good things. I’m just saying that Biden has those thoughts and then sometimes actually says them out loud which I actually prefer over the “I’m so self-aware that every statement is preanalyzed and often kind of indirect” Washington standard.
They’re generally more interested in chasing down the next story, vs. spending more time on a current one.
To your last point, compare and contrast with Obama, whose speech patterns were chock-full of long pauses where you could just tell he was doing higher-order political math on the next phrase. To an extent that’s because that’s what Obama had to do or else the Hannities and Carlsons of the world would find some minute quibble they could build out into an elaborate conspiracy with which to fan the right-wing outrage machines for another week… but for all the other problems I have with the man I do appreciate the no-fucks-given mindset Biden’s brought to the job. The right wing media hate machine has become fully decoupled from reality at this point; there’s no reason to soft-shoe around things that might set them off anymore.
That’s a super apt description of Obama speeches. Higher-order political math, lol
Now I wanna see a gif of Obama using the math overlay from this.
Which is something that MAGAs say they like about Trump, but they’re always trying to cover for his most outrageous nonsense by saying “no, that’s not what he meant.” And in actuality, what he really does is say what he thinks will get the most applause at the time; and sometimes he overshoots.
Whereas with this, it’s like…reasonable stuff that has been caught slipping out of Biden’s mouth, just reasonable stuff that most politicians won’t say.
Though I have to say, I really wish some reasonable stuff about a cease-fire and stopping arms shipments would’ve slipped out a few months ago.
Yeah. With Trump it’s a little different. I actually get it kind of. He’s authentic to himself in a way most politicians are not. He’s just a big fat mean asshole who likes shouting and cheeseburgers and raw-dogging porn stars. He doesn’t like paying taxes and he doesn’t like smart people who try to get one over on him. For the most part, what you see is what you get.
I think a lot of rural America has an absolute hatred for Washington, because Washington for the most part hasn’t given a fuck what happened to them for the last 50 years. And I think they see Trump, and say well, he’s an asshole, but he’s not one of those weird plastic people who’ve been stealing from my pension fund and making sure my health insurance doesn’t work, and he seems to hate them too and not afraid to get violent with them. Hey, that sounds pretty fuckin’ good from where I’m standing. He’s got my vote.
I’m not saying their assessment of the impact of Trump on their pension fund is accurate. But their read of him as a person, I think, is actually the root cause of why they like him and I think that part is true.
Yes. 😢
You may get this then:
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about
After all these years, I’ve never read anything that explains Trump supports so perfectly.
Yeah. They want a strong man to hurt all of the people that the alt-right media has told them are the cause of their problems. Only…
…is the exact opposite of true (he’s plastic, but angry plastic instead of bland plastic). Which brings me to…
I don’t think he is, though. I don’t even think he knows what that would look like. I don’t think he likes giving speeches, he just likes applause. I don’t think he wants to be president (and I don’t think he did in 2016 or 2020 either), he’s just terrified of what’ll happen if he’s not in the limelight anymore. I don’t think he likes Coca-Cola or Big Macs, I think he just does whatever will make the person/people in front of him say how great he is. I don’t think he has a self outside of what other people tell him it is.
Incidentally, that’s why he has a quarter million indictments.