895 Comments
Comment deleted
Jul 2
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I'm not sure that's accurate about what Republicans are thinking; from https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/29/us/politics/trump-youngkin-virginia-rally.html:

"But beneath the jubilation, there was a low-grade panic stirring. It was the kind of panic that one sometimes feels when everything in life seems to be going … a little too well.

Throughout Mr. Trump’s comeback campaign, his supporters have told anyone who would listen that Mr. Biden was nothing more than the tool of a shadowy establishment that would, at the right moment, pull him to insert a more formidable candidate. Now, as they see it, this exact plot is playing out before the eyes of the nation."

It might be that some Republicans are unable to suppress the impulse to gloat, but it seems pretty obvious that Biden is in a perilously weak position and any replacement candidate would at least introduce more uncertainty into the race, which is not what you want if you're ahead.

Expand full comment

If true Democrats are rallying behind Biden, and it is only Republicans who have the sense to see reality, that's the worse for true Democrats.

Expand full comment

Democrats would be surprised that you're using the words "Republicans" and "reality" in the same sentence.

Expand full comment

Given they were surprised by the slap reality just handed them in the debate, maybe they should update their beliefs.

Expand full comment

I've been reading the assessment of lies and distortions of the debate (both sides). It seems to me that Trump isn't so much lying as he is living in an alternate reality.

Expand full comment

I suspect that's mostly because Trump isn't talking to you, and he isn't speaking in your language.

In terms I think will make more sense to you, Trump doesn't speak in coordinates in concept-space - he doesn't "say what he means". He speaks directionally; this is the -direction- of the thing he's referring to. In linguistic terms, it's kind of like the difference between directions to a place which list distances and road names, and directions to a place which rely entirely on landmarks. The landmarks in this case are emotional.

It's like how there's a bunch of people who before Roe v Wade said they were against abortion who, if asked now, will say they are for it. They aren't telling you what the policy they support is, they're telling you what direction to go from the current policy is, to arrive at the policy they support. People within the culture understand what is being said; people outside the culture consistently misunderstand what is being said.

He's speaking in a language that the left refers to, when it is spoken by groups of people they approve of in contexts they approve of, as "lived experience". This shouldn't be taken to imply that it is his lived experience, because the term "lived experience" is one the left made up, and that's just the way the left refers to this form of communication.

Plausibly you may have more luck understanding him if you try to understand him through that framework.

Expand full comment

I appreciate your cogent explanation, and have never doubted the emotional component of politics, and Trump's talents for that ALL-CAPS-exclamation-point stuff. When you say "directionality" I get it -- that lies, mistakes, equivocations are all the tools of directionality. In and of themselves it's a part of politics, but in Trump's case I detect a toxic comorbidity. I see it to be similar to the George Santos delusions, that the entire world has got it wrong. Spoiled, whiny, exceptionalism that only takes root in delusion. Trump's firm denials of an encounter with Stormy Daniels give me the impression of self-delusion rather than lies. I don't find the encounter offensive, so that's not the issue, nor do I find it improper, nor do I blame him for denying it. It's more though. His downplaying the Jan 6 aggression at the Capitol may be "directionality", too, but his comments strike me as being comorbid with delusion.

Expand full comment

I think this is a very good analysis and that you're right.

Expand full comment
Jul 3Edited

if i go on tv and say my daughter is perfect, half of the country would go, 'i guess she is pal!', and the other half would tell you the cnn fact checker says i'm a liar - no one's perfect, especially not his daughter!

too many democrats are living in a fantasy land now, can't decide on genders can't decide on what the pride flag means anymore and can't admit my daughter is perfect

Expand full comment

But Trump didn't tell anyone to drink bleach.

He did make a silly suggestion that medical researchers should look into whether some disinfectant like bleach might make a good Covid treatment, but if anyone took that as saying they should drink bleach, it's because the media and Democrats lied about what Trump said.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Jul 2
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. But I take it you're not at all concerned that you've been lied to and didn't have the wit to realize you were being lied to?

Expand full comment

You just blindly repeated an obvious lie and then changed the subject. Can you just acknowledge that the drinking bleach thing was a lie?

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Jul 2
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Jul 2
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Here is the actual clip, or at least part of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zicGxU5MfwE

I think most people are going to see what they want to see. Personally, i dont see him recomending injecting disinfectant, just kind of musing about what people 'should check'.

Expand full comment

Clearly, "would be interesting to check that" is a suggestion for medical research, not a recommendation that people drink bleach.

If there was an increase in bleach poisonings after Trump's comment, it would be due to the FALSE REPORTING of his comment as a recommendation to drink bleach. Some people prioritized scoring a cheap, dishonest political point over people's health.

Expand full comment

How do you separate the noise here? Clearly poisonings are up 93% from March 2019 before Trump says anything. I assume because everyone is paranoid about covid and using bleach excessively? Attributing the rise in April to Trump is highly speculative, since the poisoning rate was rapidly growing anyway in the previous months. Further, it would be helpful to post the actual source for this instead of just the text.

Also, going from Trump's rambling and coming up with drinking bleach is quite a stretch.

Expand full comment

My “Not Biden for DNC nominee”contracts on Predict are up $0.10.

🎵We’re in the money!🎶

Expand full comment

Damn it! I knew I should have bought in!

Scott's confusion over what Biden's coterie was thinking seems to miss an obvious explanation: they wanted to pull Biden all along, and this was to be the spark; thus why the time (come on, who doesn't know about sundowning?! why, it was used in the Simpsons even, years ago!); thus why two strangely early-in-cycle debates (if one went okay, the next could be bad)...

I had been musing on this possibility long before the debate, but — since I don't really have friends (one) and don't keep up with the media at all, I had no idea this was a conspiratorial theory already... well, that explains the reaction I got the one time I aired the idea—

Expand full comment

I support pressuring Biden to resign and replacing him on the 2024 ticket through some kind of process at the Democratic Convention.

Having said that, while I think Biden has certainly slowed down, I certainly don't think he's senile or unable to function as as effective President. Debates are a uniquely challenging environment, where there is tremendous pressure to have a vast set of facts and arguments at the ready, to be able to summarize key arguments quickly and cogently in a matter of seconds, and to be able speak effectively extemporaneously depending on what one's opponent says.

Failing in this environment doesn't mean one's senile or unable to function effectively in the day to day work of being President.

Expand full comment

The questions are fairly obvious, if not provided on the sly, so I don't buy this. Similarly, Trump may often rant to some strange degree, but his basic positions are fairly well known. These aren't debates, but chances to summarize your key talking points. Biden couldn't do that at all well.

Expand full comment

I actually think he did that fine. He just lost his train of thought or couldn't retrieve a fact a few times.

Expand full comment

This really understates the disastrous performance Biden had. When given the chance to pounce on abortion, Roe vs Wade etc. (with Trump saying that Dobbs was a great and universally popular thing to do!), Biden instead... brought up crimes by immigrants against young women. That's not losing your train of thought or not retrieving a fact. That's completely misunderstanding the logic and sequence of arguments and counter-arguments. Like, he heard "young women" and this triggered a memory of an argument brought up in prep - except it was supposed to be Trump's talking point.

Expand full comment

Don't forget that he then pivoted from rapes by illegal immigrants to rapes by in-laws, brothers, and sisters. That's a helluva train of thought.

I would like to know why Biden's mind associates "rape" with "in-laws". Yes, I'm looking at you, Hunter and Hallie.

Expand full comment

Debates are challenging but not uniquely so – POTUS can reasonably expect to be asked demanding questions requiring the synthesis of old and new knowledge late at night in the Situation Room, for example. There might be two compelling courses of action and he could be the only one with the authority to choose, and that requires understanding context and specifics in the moment.

Expand full comment

Mostly agree that "debating" shouldn't necessarily map to the ability to do the job of president. With the exception of a black-swan nuclear event, the job consists mostly of choosing from a few options presented by aides who have filtered out the truly awful decisions, and signing stuff that Congress sends you.

But it is notable that nearly everyone clears the bar for basic debate competency. Some performances are better than others, but no one totally embarrasses himself. Obama had a notability weak first debate in 2012, but that was because he was wonky and low-energy. Clinton clobbered Dole in 1996 but the old guy didn't look like he didn't know his own name. Ronald Reagan had a notably bad first debate in 1984, but that's not really a helpful counter-example given that he was suffering from early Alzheimer's by the time he left office.

We've had what, probably north of thirty presidential-level debates since 1960, along with many more primary debates, and no one has ever been this bad. So I would say that the ability to draw a clock has nothing to do directly with the job of president, but if you can't clear that low bar you shouldn't get the job.

Expand full comment

I agree. It's why I support replacing Biden.

My objection was really to the claim that Biden is senile. And that we were "lied to" about his condition. I think Biden has lost his fastball (one that was never that fast to begin with), but I still don't believe he incapable of being an effective president.

I am fully convinced, however, that he can't be an effective presidential candidate.

Expand full comment

I guess that depends a lot on what the job of the president is. If we think the president is primarily told what to do by wonk types in your party tell you to do, then just about anyone can be president. A good president would be someone who picks the right people to listen to, and resists pressure to do the wrong thing.

I hold presidents to a much higher standard. I think Obama met my higher standards, as did pretty much all of the presidents in my lifetime. Trump may be an exception, and I think Biden is also an exception (more now than when first elected).

There's also a big question here of whether Biden is capable of vetting who he listens to. There's a good chance that he listens to his wife, his brother, his son, and other family and friends. Those are not at all who I would hope are advising a president. He probably also listens to top aides and cabinet members, but the highest position in the country, maybe the planet, hinging on "probably" listening to good advice is not okay. That's far too low of a bar for a sitting president.

Expand full comment

> With the exception of a black-swan nuclear event

"Black-swan" implies randomness. Nuclear events, and other such high-stakes geopolitical conflict situations, aren't random -- they happen when some other nation-state decides to make them happen. If e.g. Xi or Putin believes that the US is internally too dysfunctional to take the kind of action that requires the guy at the top to make a tough decision, they will be emboldened to create such a situation.

Expand full comment

The whole point of the term black swan is that all the swans in Europe were white, but Europeans did eventually come across black swans in Australia. This is also "non-random" in a similar sense--no one set out to find black swans specifically, but it was pretty inevitable once such long-range voyages became possible. But also, from the point of view of someone without perfect information (so, everyone) these events are still effectively random.

Expand full comment

> these events are still effectively random

Which is why it's a bad metaphor in this case. Black swans either exist or they do not. But geopolitical conflicts do not just spontaneously happen, or not happen, at random times. They are instigated by some party, at a time of that party's choosing, because that party expects to benefit somehow from calling the other side's bluff.

The poster I was responding to, referred to a "black-swan nuclear event" in a way which suggests that such events are too unlikely to worry about, so it's not a big deal if the President does not have the mental capacity to deal with them. But that's wrong, because the probability that such an event will happen is not independent of the potential instigator's knowledge about the American President's mental capacity.

It's like making a big-money bet that black swans do not exist -- with an expert bird-breeder. Maybe they would not have otherwise existed, but the chance that they *will* turn out to exist in the future, just became a bit bigger.

Expand full comment

I agree that a country deciding deliberately to use nuclear weapons might not count as a 'black swan'. But what about a situation where, through accidental circumstances, nuclear-armed countries come to think someone else is going to use nukes? Or launch a full invasion which would require a nuclear response?

Those kind of things have happened before - ABLE ARCHER, Stanislav Petrov etc. There are books describing plausible scenarios where countries go nuclear through confusion e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_2020_Commission_Report_on_the_North_Korean_Nuclear_Attacks_Against_the_United_States

A black swan is not an event that's "too unlikely to worry about", it's something you didn't anticipate that has a major effect.

I don't think it's unlikely that some sudden crisis that might lead to nuclear escalation could happen leaving a president to make a snap decision.

Expand full comment

We are in a proxy war with nuclear power. Is this the guy you want being told "you have 15 minutes to make a decision".

Expand full comment

It sounds like a better choice then the guy who will give away 50 years of hard won strategic gains because he's afraid of going broke personally.

Expand full comment

You must have in mind some specific example of this from his first term, right?

Expand full comment

The time in 2017 when he disclosed Israeli intelligence sources in Syria to Putin in what appears to be simply a boast comes to mind. Using Mar-a-Lago to host important and sensitive meetings, both domestic and international, despite warnings it was insecure, quite possibly for profit, may be another example.

And I'm not pro-Biden these days, overall. And I'm not even going into the whole secret documents thing because that would derail the sub-thread.

Expand full comment

Fair but weak. Hard to see that really fits An Engineer’s pearl-clutching, and the whatabout writes itself.

Expand full comment

I don't care about "strategic gains" a fraction as much as I care about not dying in a nuclear exposion

Expand full comment

Is there evidence that he is still competent, that would create reasonable doubt in a moderate Republican voter?

Expand full comment

It's not just a question of if he can handle being president now. It's a question of if he can handle it for the next four years. And I think it's important for the president to be able to function in especially challenging environments.

Expand full comment

Oh man, where were all the "mental acuity is not that important for being President" Democrats during the Bush presidency?

Expand full comment

I don't understand. Firstly, I assume you mean W as opposed to H. W. Secondly, though you may have disapproved of his policies, did you seriously doubt his mental acuity for making them?

Expand full comment

Slamming George W. Bush's mental acuity was a major Democratic theme throughout his presidency. He was often depicted as Alfred E. Neuman. I have a magnet showing him in a Cat in the Hat hat, with text surrounding that reads "I can lead it all by myself".

Expand full comment

Depending on how hard you want to take "seriously", there's an entire Wikipedia article on "Bushisms":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushism

"Bush's use of the English language in formal and public speeches has spawned several books that document the statements. A poem entitled "Make the Pie Higher", composed entirely of Bushisms, was compiled by cartoonist Richard Thompson. Various public figures and humorists, such as The Daily Show host Jon Stewart and Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, have popularized Bushisms.

....British journalist Christopher Hitchens published an essay in The Nation in 2000 titled "Why Dubya Can't Read", writing:

I used to have the job of tutoring a dyslexic child, and I know something about the symptoms. So I kicked myself hard when I read the profile of Governor George W. Bush, by my friend and colleague Gail Sheehy, in this month's Vanity Fair. All those jokes and cartoons and websites about his gaffes, bungles and malapropisms? We've been unknowingly teasing the afflicted. The poor guy is obviously dyslexic, and dyslexic to the point of near-illiteracy. [...]

I know from my teaching experience that nature very often compensates the dyslexic with a higher IQ or some grant of intuitive intelligence. If this is true for Bush it hasn't yet become obvious."

Others were "No, he's not naturally stupid, he's chosen to be stupid":

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/05/how-bush-chose-stupidity.html

"The question I am most frequently asked about Bushisms is, “Do you really think the president of the United States is dumb?”

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is yes and no.

...What’s more, calling the president a cretin absolves him of responsibility. Like Reagan, Bush avoids blame for all manner of contradictions, implausible assertions, and outright lies by appearing an amiable dunce. If he knows not what he does, blame goes to the three puppeteers, Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld. It also breeds sympathy. We wouldn’t laugh at FDR because he couldn’t walk. Is it less cruel to laugh at GWB because he can’t talk? The soft bigotry of low expectations means Bush is seen to outperform by merely getting by. Finally, elitist condescension, however merited, helps cement Bush’s bond to the masses.

But if “numskull” is an imprecise description of the president, it is not altogether inaccurate. Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor. What makes mocking this president fair as well as funny is that Bush is, or at least once was, capable of learning, reading, and thinking. We know he has discipline and can work hard (at least when the goal is reducing his time for a three-mile run). Instead he chose to coast, for most of his life, on name, charm, good looks, and the easy access to capital afforded by family connections.

...As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he’s something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool."

Expand full comment

I didn't, but Democrats did, they spent the whole eight years harping on about how Bush Jr was a drooling moron, based on the (very weak) evidence of his occasional verbal malapropisms.

So it's amusing to see Democrats suddenly sliding into "ehh it's fine if the President has a few roos loose in his top paddock, it's basically just a ceremonial role anyway..."

Expand full comment

This talking point was very real and persistent across left wing circles, though often it got more of the meme treatment than anything serious -- but focus groupers and pollsters found that there was a net effect, and it actually *hurt* Al Gore. In the first debate, watchers went in with such low expectations that they came away impressed at how normal W sounded.

Expand full comment

From what I've read, Bush also deliberately cultivated the image in order to appear more relatable to ordinary voters.

Expand full comment

Yes, it was very much a thing. I think it was a combination of the generic "Republicans are a bunch of dumb hicks" stereotype, Bush's tendency towards malapropisms, and his (mostly affected) folksy good-old-boy public persona.

Expand full comment

So imagine being a firefighter. 99% of the time there isn't a fire and you're either playing cards with your colleagues or doing some busy-work around the station which doesn't require any specific competence. But you've not been hired for that; you've been hired for the times when there *is* a fire and you need to be able at a moment's notice to slide down the pole, jump in the truck and get ready to run into a burning building and carry someone on your shoulders down six flights of stairs.

If a firefighter isn't able to do the actual firefighting part of his job, or is only able to do that job on some days but not on others, it's not much of an excuse to say "well, he can do the other 95% of the day-to-day work just fine".

Expand full comment

Instead of 99% of time busy-work, 99% of the decisions that will effect the daily life of the country, and the other candidate being interviewed is wearing an "I love arson" T-shirt.

Expand full comment

We do remember who started most of the bad fires over the last eight years…

Expand full comment

Let me guess, you are blaming Biden for the Ukraine war?

Expand full comment

No, I was talking about the burning cities in the U.S. But since you mention it...

Expand full comment

I seem to recall Putin starting the Ukraine war. Are you one of those that think Putin wouldn't have started it if Trump were in office? And if so, why not? Other than Trump's rhetoric about it, him basically being too scary?

Expand full comment

At this point it would outperform both candidates, so the rock has got my vote. Also, being a non-binary silicate-American, it gets a lot of diversity points !

Expand full comment

Lol

Expand full comment

Are silicate-Americans exclusionary to, say, slate-Americans?

Expand full comment

The most rational voting strategy, truth be told, is to weight foreign policy higher than almost anything else (except maybe general economy stuff), because that's the one part where the president has actually an incredible amount of latitude.

Expand full comment

Abortion is another, or at least it was eight years ago.

Expand full comment

The man probably can't do his own laundry. The idea he is fit to be President is a joke.

Expand full comment

Do you think Trump knows how to do his own laundry? I've encountered people who have been rich since birth, and they are often completely ignorant of basic everyday stuff since someone else has always handled it for them. I'd be surprised if Trump had any idea how to work a laundry machine.

Expand full comment

At least the leading replacement candidate knows French laundry.

Expand full comment

Yes, as has been noted elsewhere many times, the job of being President is much different than the job of running for President.

Expand full comment

"Debates are a uniquely challenging environment, where there is tremendous pressure to have a vast set of facts and arguments at the ready, to be able to summarize key arguments quickly and cogently in a matter of seconds, and to be able speak effectively extemporaneously depending on what one's opponent says."

And that's not the case when meeting with Vladmir Putin, or when trying to pressure centrist Democrats or even Republicans into supporting his agenda, or when trying to avert the next Cuban Missile Crisis that could turn into a nuclear war?

Expand full comment

On an off-topic, Vladimir Putin would probably perform really bad at debates. He didn't have anyone disagree with him for a long time – it doesn't sound he'd be able to form a cohesive argument outside of metaphors and long stories. Even Tucker was telling about how nervous Putin seemed to be talking to him.

Expand full comment

This is a great point, but didn't Nixon and Khrushchev have a famous series of debates about capitalism vs. communism in some sort of fake kitchen? And Khrushchev appeared to hold his own. Maybe he came up in a much more vigorous debate culture inside of the USSR, but that seems hard to imagine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate

Expand full comment

Debates are less trying than being the chief executive of the US.

Expand full comment

I kinda feel bad about joining what's a bit of a pile-on, but come on....

> Failing in this environment doesn't mean one's senile or unable to function effectively in the day to day work of being President.

This is a horrible take. Not sounding literally demented for a couple of hours is OBVIOUSLY an easier job than being president of the USA.

Expand full comment

I think this is mostly an argument that we don't need a President at all in most cases. This might be true but since we do get to choose a President we should test and choose one who is competent at President-y leadership-y things.

Expand full comment

This is a naive take. We know Biden's history, he has shown his entire career that he's an effective and confident communicator. He is a natural at public speaking, debates are his literal strong suit. You think he got overwhelmed by the pressure? No, he's clearly in the early stages of dementia/senility. Slowing down a bit would be talking slowly and maybe not getting all the points across as vigorously as he'd like. He lost his train of thought and spit out gibberish on multiple occasions. That's not slowing down a bit.

Expand full comment

Biden was never a good communicator nor a good debater. Part of that, likely, was his stutter. Part of it was that he was never that bright. Biden's strength has always been that he is good with people. The combination of that, the sense of loyalty he built as a good VP to Obama, and his good fortune in the rest of the Dem candidates running too far to the left in 2020 is what made him the nominee.

Meanwhile, the interviews and press conferences he has done, although few in number, make it clear that he not yet senile. But I would certainly agree that he has slowed down too much to be an effective presidential candidate.

Expand full comment

Biden doesn’t have to leave willingly. They could 25th amendment him.

Would this mark Harris as a Kingskayer though?

Expand full comment

This would remove him from the presidency, but not actually prevent him from being nominated as the Democratic candidate for 2024.

Expand full comment

I’m overwhelmingly confident that Biden would drop out at that point. The humiliation would be unprecedented.

Expand full comment

I think it could also poison the well for any Democratic candidate and the Democratic brand in general.

Expand full comment

why? if anything its to little to late

Expand full comment

If 2024 is a lost cause the logical next step is to not throw 2028 away.

Expand full comment

why would doing the prudent and sensible thing of removing a senile man from office harm the brand in the long term?

Expand full comment

There is absolutely nothing they can do in 2024 that will kill their chances on the other side of four more years of Trump.

Expand full comment

I'm pretty sure the 25th is easy enough for Biden to challenge. It looks like he just has to send a letter, and if he does then at least two thirds of congress have to agree to invoke it to remove him. That's plausible, but I think highly unlikely unless Biden is in a coma or forgets his own name.

Expand full comment

Especially as the Republicans are likely to see prolonging the Democrat power struggle as being in their interest. They're not going to agree to apply a super-expansive definition of "incapacitated" for the benefit of the Democrats.

Also Congress has twenty-one days to determine whether the President is able to discharge his duties, during which they might be able to put him through all sorts of humiliating public tests.

Expand full comment

As a complete aside - the thread right above discusses Kamala murdering Biden. For a brief second, I read "this would remove him from the presidency but not actually prevent him from being nominated" as a reply in that thread. Oddly fitting.

Expand full comment

People have been posthumously elected to office before! In 2000, Mel Carnahan was posthumously elected to the Senate, defeating John Ashcroft. The seat was taken by his widow, Jean, while Ashcroft was appointed Attorney General.

Expand full comment

That would be dirty. Much cleaner to ask the CIA to "remove" him.

Expand full comment

And frame Trump/Russia? Now we're getting somewhere!

Expand full comment

There's probably "Whitmer kidnapping" style groups out there being kept in reserve, consisting of a couple of right wing loonies and half a dozen undercover FBI agents. Maybe you just steer these guys in the right direction at the right time.

Expand full comment

Kamala Harris could murder him and then pardon herself. Then she could get seal team 6 to assassinate all her rivals, including Trump. Since the Supreme Court has decided that’s okay. She could also get rid of the justices she doesn’t like. Poetic justice.

Expand full comment

If the President orders Seal Team 6 to assassinate all their domestic political rivals, and *Seal Team 6 is actually willing to do it*, we are already in a dictatorship and prosecuting the President will be functionally impossible regardless of what the law says.

Expand full comment

I’m not an expert on this, but the President is commander in chief, right? So he could presumably just appoint any psychopath to Seal Team 6 or create a new unit.

Expand full comment

Funnily enough, this isn't the first comment invoking Seal Team 6 I've seen in the wake of the decision, which is pretty quick off the mark.

Is this going to be the new Democratic, leftist, and progressive canned talking point? "The Supreme Court says the President can order Seal Team 6 to assassinate his rivals!"

How about directing that energy towards selecting an electable candidate in preference to coining snappy slogans?

Also, can somebody tell me what is so special about Seal Team 6 that they are a meme? Yes, I could look it up, but I'm lazy and prefer you nice people to explain things to me intelligently and wittily.

Expand full comment

It was discussed at length at the Court of Appeals hearing. One of the justices (Florence Pan) brought it up. It was part of the legal arguments not a ”meme” someone just made up.

As for what seal team six is, (I had never heard of it before the hearing) — it’s a special missions unit.

Expand full comment

I don't think the President's authority over the military extends to that level of detail, but I'm not an expert either.

At any rate, if we're assuming most of the military including all top-level officers are still loyal to America as a democracy and would vehemently oppose any attempt to impose a dictatorship, then assassin-team-6 will have a very serious problem. If anyone else finds out what they're up to, they'll all get locked up and court-martialled, and if they offer proof their orders came directly from the President then I'd expect Congress to conduct the fastest impeachment in history.

Expand full comment

"Stop quoting laws to men with swords" - Paraphrased from a quote attributed to Pompey after the city he was conquering objected that his actions were illegal (!).

Expand full comment

This is untrue. It’s drummed into even lowly enlisted people that there is not only no obligation to follow an unlawful order, there is a duty to not obey it. Killing random civilians for political purposes is an obviously unlawful order.

(Yes, I am aware of Anwar al-Alwaki, no that was not unlawful.)

Expand full comment

What specifically is untrue?

Military people do carry out unlawful orders sometimes, so the president would only have to ask enough people.

Also, you know, my comment was kind of a joke.

Expand full comment

“Then she could get seal team 6 to assassinate all her rivals, including Trump. Since the Supreme Court has decided that’s okay.”

That part is untrue. She can’t get Seal Team 6 to do it (unless they’re willing to break the law and commit murder, but then we’re not talking about Presidential powers, just crimes) and the Supreme Court never decided that was okay.

What unlawful orders do you think military people carry out? Do you have examples?

Expand full comment

You know, this Seal Team 6 scenario is something that has been discussed publicly for months now, in the Court of Appeals and in the Supreme Court and by various media commentators. It was mentioned in Justice Sotomayor’s dissent. So you don’t need to be offended by my bringing it up (and again, I was obviously making a joke - after all I don’t think Kamala Harris would murder Biden).

Expand full comment

This seems like the kind of question where one can reason circularly that whatever orders they DID (and DO) follow may be deemed "lawful" because, of course, the US military would never follow "unlawful orders." You did precisely this in passing, as a parenthetical remark.

And of course, no one is going to try the president in court for his orders to the military, so arbitrating precisely what laws he ISN'T being subjected to is a silly exercise.

Expand full comment

The Supreme Court did not “decide that’s okay”. Stop repeating this lie.

Expand full comment

You're watching too much MSNBC.

Expand full comment

Beyond their ever agreeing to do this, you grossly overestimate the CIA's competence. If they asked the CIA to remove Biden, they'd end up removing the entire rest of the cabinetiaside from Biden.

Expand full comment

This opens up the possibility of the funniest (albeit extremely unlikely) possible outcome: the Democrats attempt to invoke 25th Amendment on Biden, and the Republicans refuse to give them the 2/3rds majority needed to do it.

Expand full comment

I can understand their possible reticence, given Harris would then be President.

Expand full comment

I was checking up on the 2/3 majority of Congress - turns out that requirement comes into play if the VP and majority of cabinet declare the presidency disabled, the president declares there is no disability, and Congress needs to ratify the decision by the VP and cabinet.

Expand full comment

How does the 25th Amendment (and the legal discussion surrounding the 25th Amendment) operationalise disability?

Alternatively phrased: Since the VP, the Cabinet members, and the President him/herself are not professionally qualified to make a disability assessment, how do they choose the professionals that make the evaluation? Also: What is the procedure if the President refuses to be examined by the professionals?

These questions could become rather important, if Biden wins the election and then experiences further functional decline.

Side note:

...although according to the radical version of the social model of disability, disability is just a social construct. if so, perhaps non-medical Cabinet members - and Congress members - are just as qualified as anyone else to make the assessment:-)

Expand full comment

The 25th Amendment very specifically states that all that matters is whether the VP and a majority of the leaders of executive departments have determined that a disability would prevent fulfillment of the role of the Presidency. I think it is for the best that it leaves it up to their judgment as human beings about what sort of expert testimony or diagnosis would be relevant, rather than spelling out some particular concept of expertise.

I don't think the social model of disability disagrees with any role of expertise in determining whether or not someone has a disability. They'll agree that whether or not someone's eyesight is acute, or their motor control of their legs has certain features, is likely to be evaluated more effectively by people with certain kids of professional expertise. The social construction is rather on the other side - whether acute eyesight or motor control of legs counts as a "disability" that might cause problems with ordinary life, or are just within the realm of variance that don't cause problems, depends on social factors, like how easy and accepted it is to wear corrective lenses everywhere, and whether buildings are often constructed to have a step before entering the front door.

Expand full comment

"I think it is for the best that it leaves it up to their judgment as human beings about what sort of expert testimony or diagnosis would be relevant, rather than spelling out some particular concept of expertise."

... I did not really expect the legal texts regulating the 25th Amendment to be very specific, for the reason you mention. However, this sensible legal "openness" as to what kind of expert testimony (if any at all) that is necessary in order to invoke the 25th Amendment can create a rather delicate political situation if Biden wins, his situation deteriorates, and he - and his advisors - disagree with the opinions of the VP and the rest of the Cabinet concerning if he has become disabled (or how it can be decided).

So there is a risk associated with not having specific procedures and operationalisations; a risk worth discussing before the election in November.

(I am reminded of the situation in a student collective, where everyone agreed that we do not need specific rules of who owned what, since we were always going to be such good friends. It then turned out that you need to agree on specific rules at a time when you are still friends. Because when you have stopped being friends, it is too late.)

Expand full comment

Yeah, I think there's an essential tension between the advantages of spelling out conditions in formal detail in advance of when they are needed (because at the time they are needed, emotional and political conditions often overrule people's reasonable judgment) and the advantages of leaving conditions up to the judgment of the people at the time they are needed (because our imaginations in advance often misunderstand what the relevant considerations in the actual circumstance will be).

This is related to the tension between giving experts flexibility to make the judgments that they deem best, and requiring that experts explain their judgments in ways that can be understood by non-experts. (The people who are actually living in the unforeseen future circumstances are analogous to the experts, and the people writing the details of the rule are analogous to the people asking for explanation from the experts.)

Expand full comment

>These questions could become rather important, if Biden wins the election and then experiences further functional decline.

<mild snark>

Proposed bumper sticker:

25th in 2025!

</mild snark>

Expand full comment

Since you're quoting Nate Silver's estimate of 40-45% pre-debate, it's worth pointing out that he lowered that to 35% when he first published his model (which was still before the debate).

Expand full comment

The Dems seem to be in quite an unpleasant double-bind with how everything's going overall, it seems like

My impression is that a shorter-notice candidate is maybe a better idea than running Biden in the short term, but it's still fairly rare with an incumbent who's both willing and eligible to run again. This isn't Coolidge saying he chooses not to run and leaving a clean slate for his party, the Dems and Biden have very clearly positioned him to be the next candidate before the debate debacle. It feels like the risk they run isn't just losing (which is a very substantial risk they run no matter what at this point) - but also exposing someone like Newsom to a brutal mudslinging campaign in 2024 for no reward, lowering the "this guy is fresh and new" appeal of a more winnable 2028 run, when the whole situation could very easily be affected by the DNC trying to pull a bit of a Weekend-at-Bernie's with Biden this year. It's not just ditching the incumbent, it's doing so as basically a tacit admission that Biden hasn't been 100% for a long while and the Dems simply forgot to mention that - It isn't a good look, even with a good replacement candidate

On the other hand, if the choice is "take the inevitable L for 2024 and regroup with a fresh candidate for 2028", stuff like the Chevron deference overturn/Trump v. US and Project 2025 are scary from a liberal point of view. The idea of Trump as an existential threat has been a big part of the Dem platform for a while, it's the basis of their going "yes, Hillary and Biden might not be too inspiring but you gotta vote them in anyway", and the idea of rolling over and minimizing harm in the long-term would seem to be incompatible with that view + current events. Like him or not, Trump has already had long-reaching impacts in establishing a solidly conservative SCOTUS, so it seems like the Dems are basically forced to fight hard (potentially unsustainably so, in a way that makes 2028 less of a slam dunk than necessary) for a win that might simply not be there at all.

Also, I do get the "Biden isn't senile" thing - it's a weird comparison, but it kinda reminds me of how fight viewers treat Max Holloway. For years now, he's faced massive hitters and almost none of them have even gotten reactions by hitting him really hard - so every fight cycle, someone's like "maybe this is the one Max's chin is gone". And every time so far, they've been wrong, and Max just went up a weight class to clown on a huge hitter who's even bigger than the other guys he's tanked while everyone was worried about him. But eventually those people will be right, and it'll come as a shock to everyone - but they're not right through any particular small-scale prescience, just that everyone is eventually washed or senile, so you can be wrong 100 times but the fact that you've gotten 100 chances makes the next one more likely to be right

Expand full comment