As usual, Colleen’s opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the OB Rag.
By Colleen O’Connor
Odds are against either Biden or Trump being sworn in as President in January 2025.
Why?
Already, a majority of voters do not want either Trump or Biden in a 2024 redo.
Likewise, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted from Dec. 9 to 12 found a similar majority of voters opposing a Biden and Trump 2024 run.
And Trump has already declared the next election “rigged” and held a dress rehearsal for an extended run of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capital.
Put bluntly, Americans want someone, almost anyone, else. The reality is omnipresent.
Neither candidate is physically or mentally fit enough to serve. Take away the teleprompters, the notecards, the guttural exchanges, the threats of violence and abuse, the swirling confusion, the tiresome stagecraft, and the result is a nation pleading for someone or something better.
A just released ABC News/Ipsos poll finds President Biden’s approval rating is just 33% — worse than Trump’s low as president (36%) and the lowest since George W. Bush from 2006-2008. Add Trump’s 91 indictments, serial lying, support of violence, numerous court trials pending verbal threats, and abusive behavior. The result, not an ideal occupant of the Oval Office, let alone Commander in Chief.
Leaving the country with a 3-way divide. One-third for Trump. One-third for Biden. And one-third looking elsewhere. Hardly majority rule.
Even Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, agrees. Find new candidates. “Both big parties look set on making a mistake, but there’s time to turn it around.” Find someone better.
Yet, as Robert Frost wrote, we still have “miles to go before we sleep.” So, something needs to change.
What has changed thus far? Things have gotten worse.
Biden has seemingly given up on aid to Ukraine’s defense against the Russia invasion; has refused to opt for a ceasefire in Israel/Hamas war—now deemed a humanitarian crisis” by the U.N. and “genocide” by others; and after a China foe wins the Presidential election in Taiwan, Biden’s response, ‘We do not support independence for Taiwan.”
Trump’s recent Hitlerian quotes, support of Jan. 6th rioters storming the Capital (with promises of pardons to all convicted), bombastic behavior and his frequent displays of ignorance, are daily headlines. Violence as a repeat strategy?
If not Trump or Biden, then who or what?
New ideas, inventions, imagination are hallmarks of U.S progress.
Speaking of Ronald Reagan, how about going “Back to the Future” with a little history for an answer.
Enter Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s famous football coach and a thinker who changed the game forever. He thought the long game. The long pass. A different approach. Something that energized not just his team but roused the nation.
He imagined a better strategy. A better outcome. A real chance at a spectacular advance.
He answered his own question. How can you win against an opposing team whose linemen averaged 20 pounds more than your guys? Keep running into that human brick wall?
No?
Then go over their heads. A long pass. Something heretofore was only a pitch off, an under the arm catch. Rockne imagined a long overarm pass (lofting over the heads of the opposition) gliding towards the goal line, with an over the shoulder catch by his best runners.
In short, today’s touchdown pass. Lots of them.
That is how Notre Dame defeated the unbeatable Army team of 1913 and became “the game that changed football over 100 years ago.”
Knute Rockne gained fame for modernizing a pass and thrilling the country.
“Rockne is credited with refining the forward pass, developing formation innovations that still exist today and modernizing protective equipment. This despite dying at age 43.
In the 1920s, he was one of the three most significant celebrity voices in the country along with Will Rogers and Babe Ruth.”
Rockne’s most famous receiver/player was George Gipp, a devil-may-care star, who died after contracting pneumonia and, as legend has it, (while ailing in the locker room with his team losing on the field), told Rockne “to go tell the team to win one for the Gipper.”
He did. They did. Rallied and won the country’s hearts and mind. It continues to this day.
That famous Notre Dame football coach provided a huge applause line for former actor, then President, Ronald Reagan. Using his starring role as the ‘Gipp” in the film, Knute Rockne)—Reagan, as a candidate repeated, “Win one for the Gipper,” as his winning motto.
Where is today’s winning motto? Winning theme? Winning candidate? Nowhere to be found among the majority of Americans.
Again, as Noonan notes:
“Biden hasn’t provided the sentence that makes the case for his being kept in office, he hasn’t painted what a second term might look like, what its Great Intention might be.”
Trump has “MAGA”. And a simple version of the “End Times” that eclipses all. Megalomania.
Be prepared. Start looking for new leaders. Ideas, imagination, innovation. It has worked before. And it is desperately needed now.
Go back to the future with Knute Rockne. Time to “Win one for the Gipper.” And one for all of us.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
My biggest concern is that Robert Kennedy Jr. hurts Biden more than his Republican opponent in the tossup states. But Uncle Joe’s opponent will be Nikki Haley, not the Orange Monster. I hope that I am wrong about that prediction, so we will see. Although I think Biden has done a good job overall, the average American is not as politically hip as readers of The OB Rag, so we have our work cut out for us as far as getting our friends and families both registered and helping them to vote. As a country we have probably chosen the WRONG person as President as many times as we have made the better choice. We need to do everything that we can to make sure that we do not make another mistake.
And this just in today:Trump, DeSantis, Haley ALL leading Biden in new CBS poll.
Just the Iowa, Iowa, Iowa effect. The starved media gets to pump politics. Just a snapshot of a moment. Like talking about the game the next day, it fades over time.
“Whether by hook or by crook, a majority of Americans—56%—are willing to see Donald Trump kicked off some or all state ballots, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday. “
While we sleepwalk our way through poll after poll, Biden/ Trump seems the likely reality. And outside of a dictator, the two should be out the door after 24. But then what’s left? More run of the mill liars and manipulators. Newsome? DeSantis? Two more extremists. It’s going to take a centrist for change without distortion. One with truth and honesty as values.
“One with truth and honesty as values.” AKA a Unicorn.
Actually, I’m quite favorably minded to having Katie Porter for President. Or that Raskin fella who has also been stuffing Marge Trainwreck back into her Georgia round file. How about that young and highly intelligent Ms. Crockett who always does her homework before she opens her mouth and just devastates whatever idiot she sets her sights on that day?
As for the Hollywood B-Grade actor slimeball Reagan using ‘the Gipper’ as his own, imagine it you will of another 4 years of Carter and what he possibly could have accomplished if Reagan’s boys wouldn’t have bribed the Iranians to ‘hold onto’ the embassy hostages. Would solar panels still be on the White House roof and Reagan in obscurity where he belonged.
Imagine right wing neoliberal Bill Clinton staying in Arkansas with his floozies along with his ‘Nothing will Change’ 1/4 million dollar speeches to the wealthy bankers of Wall Street wife that murdered Libya… Imagine Ralph Nader as President instead of the War Criminal/Mass Murderer Wbush and his puppeteer Dick ‘Shotgun’ Cheney never leaving trails of slime in every hallway in the White House who did FAR WORSE to Iraq and Afghanistan than Putin has done to Ukraine. And no neoliberal Obama that continued Reaganomics since he said he ‘admired’ the bastid. No Trump, no Biden, both would be in rest homes by now…well, maybe Trump would be in jail since maybe he would have been prosecuted years earlier under the RICO statutes…
There was a turning point for this country in 1980, we fell off the cliff towards Fascism then because the wrong people stole it and took control and that mindset is still very much apparent in where the politics and war mentality are today….
We need a COMPLETE MAKEOVER here, folks, and sorry to say I don’t see there being an ice cube’s chance in hell of anything changing with two extremely corrupt owned-by-the-wealthy political parties/bankers/corporate Oligarchy all clashing for who gets to be the mafia boss this time around… Hasn’t worked out before has it? And what’s the definition of insanity?
Oh, yeah, doing repeating something over and over expecting a different outcome.
Big sigh.
sealintheSelkirks
The article’s discussion on the challenges of clearing rubble and unexploded ordnance in the Gaza Strip after the Israel-Hamas conflict is interesting. It sheds light on the magnitude of the task ahead and emphasizes the need for extensive cleanup efforts. Thank you for providing this insightful perspective.