Before we get going, as of 7:40 PM EST/2;40 AM local time in Ukraine, all of eastern and central Ukraine, minus Odesa Oblast, are under air raid alert due to drone swarms.
One additional note: I know there’s a lot of buzz bouncing around that a retired KGB official is claiming that he was in the 6th Directorate in Moscow when Trump was recruited as an actual formal asset of the Soviet Union. This has been bouncing around for years, especially as trying to provide some logic to Trump suddenly paying $100,000 for full page ads in US newspapers establishing his only long held policy position: that the US (under Reagan) was being ripped off by its allies and partners. There is no way to know, unless the former KGB official actually provides documentation, whether this newest reporting is accurate. The question, of course, is the same as it was before the most recent allegations: what would Trump be doing differently if he actually was? Two final points. First, this excerpt from Luke Harding’s 2017 book dealing with this topic is a good history of what can actually be verified. Second, the alleged codename given to Trump is the family name of a long line of white Cossacks who were imperial Russian generals. The last of them who served in World War I and let anti-Bolshevik forces during the revolution, was a NAZI collaborator during World War II.
Last night in comments, one of the trolls that have not yet been banned (that I am not yet allowed to ban) asked the following:
I haven’t been paying too much attention to these posts lately.
Is everything still Joe Biden’s fault? Dumbasses.
The answer yes. Joe Biden is a good man who mean well, but he failed to meet the moment. As a result we got feckless leadership, and absolutely terrible senior appointments. As a result of his and his team’s inability to meet the moment, we got a failure of a four year interregnum that established the conditions for the return of Trump. At every stage, every single one, Biden stated that Trump, his trusted agents and surrogates, and the Trump movement were an existential threat to the Republic and also the global system. And at ever stage, every single one he, his senior appointees, and almost every other Democrat in federal elected positions never matched their actions to their rhetoric. In regard to domestic, US politics, it is why Biden, at the advice of his execrable politics advisors – Anita Dunn and her husband – left Chris Wray in place at the FBI and appointed Garland, another FedSoc member in good standing, as the Attorney General. He followed their advice to establish a bullshit committee on federal judiciary reform that was designed to produce no actual reforms. In regard to Ukraine, the failure to put the defense industrial enterprise on a war footing and ship everything possible because his senior natsec advisors, especially Sullivan, decided that Putin should get a veto over US policy made it impossible for Ukraine to consolidate gains when they made them. The inability to actually articulate a clear US policy and strategy in regard to Ukraine and Russia was strategic malpractice. The lack of any actual legislative strategy, meant that Ukraine went for over half of 2024 without any actual US support.
Everything that Trump, his trusted aides and surrogates, his actual owner Musk, and the Trump movement are now doing is only possible because of the failure of Biden and his senior people to match action to rhetoric. Musk, via Trump, is only able to do what he is doing because of Biden’s failures.
If you, and you know who you are, ever show up in comments and call anyone here – me, another front pager, another commenter – a dumbass again and I will ban you on the spot.
I want to also make a point about the news that the US is threatening to cut off Ukraine’s Starlink access if Ukraine doesn’t just sign whatever deal the US gives it. These are not contracts between the US government and Starlink, rather they are contracts between Ukraine and Starlink. The US stepped up and provided funding/paid for some of these contracts when Musk quickly changed his mind about supporting Ukraine and providing the service either for free or at a deep discount. What we have here is a further fusion of Musk’s interests/desires and those of the US government. Which makes sense given he didn’t spend a third of a billion dollars to not see some return on his investment.
Starlink in Ukraine operates based on paid contracts. If it’s being used as an extortion tool, then other countries should consider it a potential security risk – just like Russian gas used for blackmailing. If Ukraine is cut off, it would be wise for Europe to reconsider its use
— Tatarigami (@tatarigami.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 7:59 AM
In Ukraine, Trump is trying to strong-arm a guy who, back in the day, strong-armed none other than Ihor Kolomoisky, of all people.
Just saying.
if you know, you know.
— Illia Ponomarenko (@ioponomarenko.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
We Are Taking Concrete Steps to Ensure That Talks About Ukraine and All of Europe Happen With the Participation of Both Ukraine and Europe – Address by the President
22 February 2025 – 20:36
I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!
Today, we continue our international activities with new and highly useful negotiations with partners. There will be greater support in Europe and stronger cooperation. Right now, we are taking concrete steps to ensure that talks about Ukraine and all of Europe happen with the participation of both Ukraine and Europe. I am grateful to every partner for their support in this effort in particular.
Today, I spoke with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and thanked him – the Netherlands is ready to continue support, and to make it even greater. This is important. It will contribute to greater stability and security. We are counting on strengthening our F-16 fleet, and the Netherlands is one of those who help the most in this effort. Thank you!
Today, I also spoke with the Prime Minister of Albania. A very good conversation with wise proposals. Thank you, Edi! We share the same vision on the need to defend the interests of all of Europe and uphold international law.
I spoke with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. We coordinated our positions and diplomatic efforts. We appreciate Britain’s commitment to maintaining its leadership in protecting lives and simply defending normality.
Additionally, I had a conversation with the Prime Minister of Greece. I thanked him for the support from the very beginning of the full-scale war. We truly value Greece’s solidarity with us on security issues and on how to bring a reliable peace closer – one that is lasting and guaranteed.
Security guarantees are what unite the vast majority. Europe, America, and all our partners in the world need a shared understanding of how to ensure that Putin can never deceive anyone again and that Russia can no longer bring death to other nations – from Ukraine and Europe to Syria, the Middle East, and Africa. Over the past thirty years, we have seen far too much devastation and loss of life, the blame for which lies with Russia – the Russian army, their special services, their mercenaries. The world needs guarantees – and I am grateful to everyone who supports this effort. Right now, we are talking with all our partners about security guarantees and concrete forms of support – actions, assistance, decisions, and messages.
As we approach the third anniversary of the full-scale war, it is crucial for all Ukrainians to see that the world stands with us, remains strong, and upholds the fundamental goals and principles of the UN Charter regarding the sovereignty of nations, the territorial integrity of each state and the protection of every nation in the world from aggression. Justice must not be an empty word – it matters for every nation.
And one more thing. Reports from our military and special services. I thank everyone for carrying out combat missions.
As we conclude this week, I would like to especially commend the warriors of the 425th Separate Assault Regiment for eliminating occupiers, the warriors of the 59th Separate Assault Brigade of the Unmanned Systems Forces for their actions on the Pokrovsk front, and the steadfastness and bravery of our warriors in the Kursk region – the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade and the 95th Separate Air Assault Brigade. Simply outstanding, warriors!
Thank you to everyone standing with Ukraine – because that means standing with the truth.
Glory to Ukraine!
And here are First Lady Zelenska’s remarks to the international forum held in Lithuania yesterday.
Georgia:
Day 87 continuous. Rustaveli blocked.
Without new elections, there will only be continued instability and crisis, since the dictatorship will find it hard, resource-wise, to stabilize into business-as-usual mode.
With sanctions, you can aid us avoid costs. #GeorgiaProstests
— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Rustaveli is blocked by the protesters again.
#GeorgiaProtests
Day 87— Publika.ge (@publikage.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:52 PM
La Marseillaise is often performed at the #GeorgiaProtests on salamuri, a Georgian recorder.
Demanding new, free and fair elections and sanctions against violence, many see it as a tune of justice. 🇬🇪🇫🇷— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Anti-Russian, pro-European protests continue despite freezing cold.
#GeorgiaProtests
Day 87— Publika.ge (@publikage.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:45 PM
The very vulgar anti-regime song amid a beautiful snow protest. #GeorgiaProtests
— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:53 PM
“Dare to protest everywhere” — People are protesting against GD’s actions in the small town of Chkhorotsku every day. The flag of Ukraine 🇺🇦 is also there.
#GeorgiaProtests
Day 87📸 Oto Shengelia
— Publika.ge (@publikage.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:57 PM
From Berlin to Tbilisi: Free all political prisoners” — protest banner in Kreuzberg, Berlin.
#GeorgiaProtests
— Publika.ge (@publikage.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Back to Ukraine.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty did some person on the street interviews in several Ukrainian cities about holding elections during war time:
Yes, this is definitely the first case in human history that a nation bleeding out under attack has a knife by its throat from yesterday’s biggest friend in need that went bonkers and switched to Al Capone-style racketeering amid war.
— Illia Ponomarenko (@ioponomarenko.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 3:59 PM
As hurtful as it sounds, the United States is siding with Russia by demanding Ukrainian resources and threatening with action for refusal to comply. We are being robbed by the world’s two largest nuclear powers. Welcome back to the 21st-century Molotov-Ribbentrop reality
— Tatarigami (@tatarigami.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Despite what Trump officials are saying, US & Ukraine aren’t close to agreeing a mineral deal.
“The draft on the table now needs more work,” said a person involved. “We see many obligations of Ukraine and very weak things [offered] from the American side.” on.ft.com/4gSgeG0— Christopher Miller (@christopherjm.ft.com) February 22, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Here’s treasury secretary Scott Bessent arguing in an op-ed that Ukraine should just sign up to the Trump mineral proposal as offered. Kyiv says it needs a lot more work still. on.ft.com/4k4uRsB
‘Economic partnership will protect the Ukrainian people and the US taxpayer’— Christopher Miller (@christopherjm.ft.com) February 22, 2025 at 2:39 PM
From The Financial Times:
The US Treasury secretary has defended Donald Trump’s push for an agreement with Ukraine to develop its natural resources and critical minerals, saying the plan would fuel postwar growth in the country and did not involve any coercive economic pressure.
Scott Bessent’s comments in an op-ed for the Financial Times come as Trump administration officials are trying to clinch what they claim is an economic partnership with Kyiv as part of their broader diplomatic push to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have so far rejected US demands for such an agreement, but US officials are applying intense pressure on Kyiv in their push for a deal.
Officials in Kyiv believe that Trump’s onslaught against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week, describing him as a dictator and suggesting Ukraine, not Russia, had started the war, are ways of strong-arming Kyiv into a mineral deal.
In the op-ed, Bessent laid out some of the details of the US proposal. He said Ukraine’s revenue from “natural resources, infrastructure and other assets” would be “allocated to a fund focused on the long-term reconstruction and development of Ukraine where the United States will have economic and governance rights in those future investments”.
However, Bessent did not say how much of the proceeds from mineral extraction would be allocated to the fund or how much would be paid out to the US. Trump has presented the mineral deal as a way of ensuring Ukraine pays back previous US military aid.
The most recent draft agreement, dated Friday and seen by the Financial Times, calls for a reconstruction investment fund in which the US “maintains 100 per cent financial interest”.
Ukraine would contribute 50 per cent of the fund’s revenues through mineral resources until its contribution reached $500bn. That figure, described as unacceptable by Ukrainian officials, is being negotiated.
Ukraine’s speaker of parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk said on Saturday that Kyiv could begin finalising the deal starting Monday.
Another Ukrainian official stressed that it would be signed only once Kyiv had been given security guarantees.
While US officials including Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, have said they believe a deal is close, Ukrainian officials are more guarded.
“The draft on the table now needs more work,” said a person involved in negotiations. “We see there many obligations of Ukraine and very weak things [offered] from the American side, so the draft, as for today, is not ready to be accepted on the president’s level.”
Negotiations went early into the morning for the third day and will continue on Saturday and probably into Sunday.
Zelenskyy has said that Bessent’s original proposal was not in Ukraine’s interest, as it demanded 50 per cent of the rights to the country’s rare earth and critical minerals in exchange for past military assistance, and did not contain any offers of future assistance.
Senior Ukrainians officials said they had spent the past week drawing up a counterproposal, which they discussed with the US special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in Kyiv on Thursday and Friday.
Zelenskyy wants the Trump administration to provide security guarantees in a new proposal before they agree to sign on.
Bessent also suggested the US was not trying to seize control of Ukraine’s natural resources coercively. “Let’s also be clear as to what this is not. The United States would not be taking ownership of physical assets in Ukraine. Nor would it be saddling Ukraine with more debt. This type of economic pressure, while deployed by other global actors, would not advance American nor Ukrainian interests,” he wrote.
More at the link.
“The suggestion stunned Kyiv, which refused to withdraw its resolution, which is set to be released on the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale anniversary on Monday”
This should have stunned any sane person.
— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Aftermath of a Ukrainian HIMARS rocket hitting a Russian base, likely in their rear. One strike flattened half the building. Now the Russians are scratching their heads, figuring out how to fish their socks out of the wreckage.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Kostintynivka:
In the afternoon, russian troops attacked Kostintynivka again, destroying apartment buildings, killing one civilian, and wounding three others. I hate to say it, but it seems russia has chosen a new city to destroy and make uninhabitable.
— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:58 PM
After today’s russian glide bomb attack on a residential building in Kostiantynivka, rescuers retrieved the body of a woman from under the rubble.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Kyiv:
A fascist Russian/Iranian Shahed flying bomb audible from my home. Not very near, but not far enough away. Sleepless night in Kyiv as a swarm if Russian killer drones sweeps into the city.
— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Moment a fascist Russian/Iranian flying bomb drone is downed in Kyiv. The Ukrainian capital is under heavy drone attack tonight.
— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 5:17 PM
30+ drones incoming to Kyiv from Chernihiv Oblast, monitors say.
— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Kupiansk:
Russian troops attacked a civilian car with an FPV drone as it was heading out of Kupiansk, injuring two people.
— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 5:58 AM
Kharkiv:
I’m living in a city that was brutally bombed for years, and I mean YEARS, every day from just across the border while we were denied the ability to return fire to defend ourselves.
We’re still bombed, but it’s not nearly as intense as when russian missile launchers and
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 7:09 PM
planes were allowed to shoot at us from the safety of a line on the map. Our lives were sacrificed so that democrats could gain some more votes. It didn’t help.
Imagine how that feels. How would you feel? I still kept telling my American friends that some of the
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 7:09 PM
best people I know are from the US. That is true. That we still need each other.
Now America is trying try to bully us into submission. After everything. I don’t know, I’m just struggling to understand how do we move forward from this.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Kryvyi Rih:
Several loud explosions in Kryvyi Rih. Turn the sound on!
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Toretsk:
This is Toretsk. Once a vibrant town in Ukraine, now ruins.
russia did this.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 21, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Pokrovsk:
Birds of Magyar unit continues to deplete Russian AFV reserves. 3 T-80BVM, MT-LB, BTR-82. More in a full video: youtu.be/VTNfD38LeR4?…
— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 1:43 PM
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron skeets or videos today. Here is some adjacent material.
My mood from reading all the news is Stepan the cat
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Open thread!
AlaskaReader
Thanks Adam
Eos
A question — brought to mind by tomorrow’s German election, which, regrettably, seems unlikely to affect the answer — who is now the leader of the free world?
In 2017, the last time the position fell vacant, there was Angela Merkel, and, beyond her, Hollande and May could at least be counted on not to make things worse.
But now? Starmer would seem to require several hours with a bicycle pump just to be an empty suit; Macron remains a jumped-up middle-manager, all process and no principle; Trudeau and Scholz are exiting the stage, and neither of the their probable replacements look like improvements.
(It might be different if Chrystia Freeland were likely to succeed Trudeau, but (a) the Liberals appear likely to select Mark Carney (a central banker whose principal qualification seems to be not being an actual politician, and (b) the Liberals’ objective can only be to deny Pierre Poilievre a Conservative majority.)
And as for Germany: unless something really weird happens, Friedrich Merz will be the next Bundeskanzler (with the CDU/CSU taking 30% of the vote), and, again, that will not represent a step in the positive direction.
(The campaign (aside from Merz’s appalling attempt to broach the blue (AfD) cordon sanitaire) would seem to have been simultaneously completely static (neither surges nor collapses for any of the seven notable parties) and completely unpredictable (with three parties hovering at the 5% cut-off line, the actual composition of the Bundestag remains opaque). So the result might be a comparatively uncomplicated black-red (Union/SPD) or black-green (Union/Greens) coalition, or it could be much messier…)
So, again, who is the leader of the free world? Donald Tusk? Claudia Sheinbaum? Anyone?
(Yes, there is one leader who has certainly proven himself over the past several years, but, regrettably, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a more important job to do.)
zhena gogolia
You would ban someone for saying that?
funlady75
thanks Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@AlaskaReader: You’re welcome.
wjca
Thank you, Adam
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: It’s an ongoing pattern of behavior. Why they decided to reappear last night, I have no idea.
Adam L Silverman
@funlady75: @wjca: You’re welcome.
Nukular Biskits
Evenin’, Adam.
WRT this:
my answer is a qualified “Yes”.
While I supported President Biden, I definitely believed he and his foreign policy team were far too timid dealing with Russia and placing the priority on Russia “going nuclear”, which, while possible, was never likely. Because of this, Biden refused to allow Ukraine to use US weaponry offensively against targets inside Russia.
That was a grave error and one that has prolonged this war.
SpaceUnit
“Troll” here. For the better part of an election year this post and many of its frequent commenters demonized Biden for every awful thing that was playing out in Ukraine.
It was the kind of talk that was gleefully welcomed by media outlets like the NYT who took delight in publishing opinion pieces about Dems Bitterly Divided by Biden’s Ukrainian Policy or Biden’s Gaza Policy or The Democratic Party’s Position on Trans Rights, thus giving the purity ponies permission to sit out the election on “principle” or to vote third party or to vote for a write-in candidate.
Whatever one thinks of Joe Biden there are critical points in a hostile and divisive political struggle where it is necessary to unify behind your party’s leader and presumptive candidate and hold your damn fire. We failed that task at quite possibly the most critical point in our nation’s history. And so now here we are.
I do apologize for the “dumbass” thing though. It was entirely unnecessary and rude. Just really really salty right now.
Carry on. I’m out of here.
glc
I’ll offer my thanks today – implicitly, every day, as this is required reading. I’ve been using the pie filter a good deal but yesterday’s comment came through. If it had been in another place, on another topic, it would be more or less par for the course around here, but it came across as remarkably callous in this context.
New Deal democrat
In re your criticism of Biden, here’s a part of what I wrote on January 20, summing up Biden as “the last Institutionalist president:
———
not because there will not be future Institutionalist politicians, but because by four years from now I believe those Institutions will similarly [to the very late Roman Republic] be “dead on their feet,” understood to be hollowed out forms that have proven themselves unable to withstand raw power grabs. While Biden had a number of impressive policy triumphs, I believe it is his ultimate complacency about American “norms” that will be his legacy.
Last week Qasim Rashid wrote:
“Here’s a harsh truth. [Biden] ran in 2020 on the promises to ‘save the soul of America’ and to ‘protect American democracy. …. Now as he leaves office, white supremacy and Christian nationalism ar the official policies of a fascist returning to the White House with full control of the House, Senate, and SCOTUS. The harsh truth is Biden failed his promises.”
Let’s leave aside the outline of Trump’s policies, and any assignment of fault to Joe Biden. The simple *fact* is that the ultimate *outcome* of Biden’s Presidency has been that the American “soul” has not been saved, and “American democracy” has not been protected.
At the beginning of his term in office, Joe Biden had a choice: he could either emphasize playing hardball going after the myriad transgressions of Donald Trump and his allies during his Presidency, or he could emphasize restoring the prior norms and “guardrails” that historically allowed the American Republic to function. He chose the latter.
That choice was epitomized by the choice of Merrick Garland as Attorney General. In his farewell speech last week, Garland said “It is the obligation of each of us to follow our norms, not only when it is easy, but also when it is hard, especially when it is hard …. and especially when the circumstances we face are not normal.” Voting rights attorney Marc Elias said of that speech, “From start to finish, he brought norms to a Trump fight and democracy suffered.”
The next four years are likely to demolish what is left of the “guardrails” upholding the Republic. The next liberal President, presuming there is one, will almost certainly not make that same choice.
——
In case it isn’t clear, I agree with your criticism of Biden’s legacy.
Jay
Thank you, Adam.
TONYG
For what it’s worth … I’m a longtime reader and admirer of this fine blog, and an occasional commenter here. I disagree with the sentiment of blaming Biden (or Harris or Schumer or any other Democrat) for the reappearance of Trump. Sure, they all could have and should have done better. But I blame the majority of white Americans (I myself am classified as “white”) for being racists, fascists and fucking idiots. In 2016 and again in 2024 Trump lied his ass off to those idiots and now they (and the rest of us) are paying the price.
Jay
@Eos:
Freeland is out because of how she left the party and lying about her Grandfather’s past.
Carney is in because as Bank of Canada Governor he stabilized the economy through several turbulent economic periods with careful management, such that he was appointed the Governor of the Bank of England, (UK) and did the same.
More and more, Dolt 45 and the US’s actions are making Carney the leader.
TONYG
@TONYG: “Anecdotes are not data”, but here’s an anecdote. Last month — coincidentally during the first week after Trump’s inauguration, I was in Knoxville, Tennessee (of all places) for the wedding of an extended family member (who for some reason had moved there from New Jersey). Driving around the area I saw real rural white poverty — just dilapidated shacks and trailers. I did see one business that was thriving though — a “Donald Trump Superstore” where people could use their disability checks (soon to be terminated by “DOGE”) to buy posters and other paraphernalia honoring their hero.
Gvg
I think the Garland is a Federalist Society member has been debunked. it’s been awhile but I found it convincing. He can be criticized for what he didn’t do.
TONYG
@TONYG: These fucking morons — idiots who value their racism more than the well-being of their families, the descendants of people who fought for slavery (even though they were too poor to own slaves) — are to blame for the fact that Donald Trump is anything more than a bankrupt former real estate cheat. Biden could have done better, but he is not the root cause of the problem. Just my opinion.
TBone
I was about to say I thought the dumbasses comment was a reference to MAGA always blaming President Biden for everything, but I now will STFU and not let my inner sweet, summer child take over for her nemesis, my ever present, inner Wednesday Addams.
Wednesday knows better; I should listen to her more often.
TONYG
@TONYG: I have no answers, of course. As far as I’m concerned, the majority of Americans (the ones who voted for Trump and the ones who have made the choice to just tune out of the political process while shutting down all rational thought) have demonstrated that they are shit people. I have no answers.
TBone
@TONYG: welcome to my rural PA world.
Adam L Silverman
@SpaceUnit: You were lied to. You were lied to by at least one front pager here who is still lying to you. You were lied to by Biden and his senior appointees. You were lied to by almost all Democrats holding federal elected office. You were lied to by those peddling hopium on MSNBC.
Accurately describing by what was and is happening may be unpleasant, but it is not deceitful. If you’d rather be lied to that’s your business and your problem. Don’t make it mine.
Adam L Silverman
@glc: You’re welcome.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the “rant”. Dem leaving behind a set of powerful tools for the Repubs to do terrible things at home & abroad, w/o a thought of putting constraints on their use (or maybe not grab that ring of power to begin with/).l, has been an ongoing theme for decades now.
It’s like Dem Administrations don’t think they can be succeeded by Repub ones. Dem aligned FP elite also believe they are in broad agreement w/ the Repub aligned ones on US FP, which was indeed true to a large extent until MAGA.
Parfigliano
@SpaceUnit: Purity ponies were never going to vote for Biden no matter what he did/didn’t do. They can’t be pleased or appeased by anything any DEM does because reasons.
Adam L Silverman
@TONYG: Correctly identifying the failure of those who when they had the power, as well as the responsibility and the opportunity to do something does not erase the culpability of Trump, his trusted aides and surrogates, his owner Musk, Republican elected officials, or those Americans who either voted for this, threw their votes away on third party candidates, write ins, or by not voting.
Jay
https://nitter.poast.org/Osinttechnical/status/1893154597390151801#m
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
As a Canadian & a woman, I really wish Chrystia Freedland could claim the leadership position she so richly deserves. But it ain’t going to happen, sadly. Freedland is the Hillary Clinton of Canadian politics & notice has been taken of what has happened to the 2 women who dared aspire to lead their country.
To those outside of Canada who blithely dismiss the threat that Pierre Poilievre presents, I say, politely, STFU. For Canadians the threat is existential. Poilievere is not only the Canadian version of the POS currently destroying the USA, there is evidence that he has had help from hostile powers to gain his current position & that those powers are why Trudeau was forced to resign. Sorry not sorry that you can’t be bothered to look into this before commenting. I could say more, but why bother?
Thank you Adam, as always & sorry about the mini rant. At least I didn’t call anyone names.
Adam L Silverman
@Parfigliano: I voted for Biden in 2020, would have voted for him in 2024, and did vote for Harris in 2024.
Moreover, I made it clear in posts before the 2024 election that I was doing so as the alternative would be devastatingly worse. The reality of which we are now living through.
If you’re going to describe me, you might want to find something more accurate than purity pony.
Chris
@TONYG:
You know, the real kicker is that if they were in Knoxville, Tennessee, their ancestors most likely didn’t even fight for slavery, but against it. (Eastern Tennessee was damn near as pro-Union as West Virginia, and I believe the state as a whole contributed just about as many volunteers to both sides).
A stupendous number of white people decided to join the Confederacy after the Civil War was over, in some cases decades and decades after.
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom: No worries, you’re good. Had the “dumbasses” not been included last night, I’d have just ignored the comment rather than answering it at the start of tonight’s post.
Jay
https://nitter.poast.org/Gerashchenko_en/status/1893375805218037879#m
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: Finding the Stars & Bars in Upstate New York NY was disconcerting, to say the least.
Gin & Tonic
@YY_Sima Qian: Most racist place in the US I’ve lived in was (is?) Boston.
WTFGhost
“Biden’s fault” is a bit strong, but, “he failed to meet the moment,” is accurate.
His problem was Obama’s problem, he thought there would be reasonable Republicans, willing to flush Trump out of the public eye. And, if you want to say Biden was really stupid about that, I’m willing to entertain that now, now that it’s not “let’s nick the home team with one of the thousand cuts that might bleed them.”
Republicans are the primary threat to this country; that Biden did not fight them effectively can be remembered, and learned from (again). Republicans, and Trump, probably greenlit the invasion of Ukraine, and, Biden was too cautious, forgetting you *must* hurt an aggressor, or why would they pull back, right? All that is true, but, remember, the fascists brought the fascist back.
Garland’s FedSoc membership should have doomed him. If the FedSoc is anything other than a breeding ground for people who will reliably rule Republican, I haven’t seen any evidence of it, and a FedSoc is just the right kind of moron who thinks you don’t need to prosecute an ex-President.
All that’s true, and all reflects badly on Biden as a wise and forceful leader, and he clearly made some mistakes (except Afghanistan – Trump lowered the force below force protection demands), but, you’re judging him with a bit of hindsight; there were a lot of horrible people each of whom could have been less horrible, and saved the country.
Hitler’s horror was he got other people carrying out his final solution, none of whom really thought about the lack of food, clothing, and medical supplies for all those prisoners. Well, Trump’s horrors is, he has all these Republicans who don’t realize that what he’s proposing is entirely without sense, evil, and irresponsible, and they don’t care.
“Biden didn’t figure out how to stop a takeover of this country, through lawless and nominally peaceful means, when the only other political party was bound and determined to achieve the takeover,” is true, and I think properly reflects the blame. Biden *should* have authorized US weapons in Russia *if* a red line, sure to be crossed, was crossed (since this is a Ukraine thread), so they could do real damage. But what if Republicans said they’d attack him, if he allowed weapons to be used in Russia?
(Yes, I know, “a primary might have saved us!” – and less evil Republicans might have allowed Biden two terms.)
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: While I agree with your analyses, I don’t think it is right or constructive to call other front pagers liers. We are all allies against the revanchist reactionaries here, & we all hang together or we hang separately. People can be wrong or naive, but I believe all of the front pagers and the vast majority of the community are good faith actors.
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: Why should Chrystia be held responsible for what her grandfather did or didn’t do?
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: No, we are not. Some are malignant narcissists that seek only attention and will do anything and everything to get it. And they will gaslight anyone who dares call them out.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gin & Tonic: Boston has competition from Chicago, & parts of NYC. The North was plenty racist toward blacks & other “Others” (then defined). Stars & Bars was/is the flag of treason & rebellion, however.
Jay
@Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom:
She is no Hillary,
Kim Campbell was PM for a moment, but that was like having Sarah Palin take over.
Freeland lied about her families past, and trashed the party and the PM on her way out the door.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: I missed this whe you 1st posted it. Good stuff! Completely agree.
New Deal democrat
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks.
Here is a link to the full piece:
https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2025/01/joe-biden-last-institutionalist.html
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
She publically lied about his past and his actions, rather than be honest, Being honest would have possible led to a open discussion about the difficult place between being a flavour of Ukrainian Nationalist and being under German Occupation.
She painted him as a war hero, pro Ukrainian and solidly anti-Nazi, and while he was a Ukrainian Nationalist, he was also and early Nazi Collaborator.
SpaceUnit
@Adam L Silverman:
And I’m the troll? Dang.
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: I view her, and him, differently, but I don’t think it would be fruitful to discuss that here. The circumstances that western Ukrainians had to live through before and during WWII were difficult beyond any of our abilities to imagine, but there has never been any opportunity to discuss that rationally – Deschenes Commission, OSI, whatever.
Adam L Silverman
@SpaceUnit: Again:
K-Mo
@New Deal democrat: Solid take.
TBone
What did the elephant say to the naked man?
“How do you breathe through that thing?”
SpaceUnit
Guess a hit dog will holler.
K-Mo
@SpaceUnit: I feel like the election was lost because extremely low info voters were bafflingly receptive to Trump’s BS. High-info Dems sitting out on principle were a minor story.
Adam L Silverman
@SpaceUnit: Hit the breaks or I’ll bin you. You’re done here.
SpaceUnit
@K-Mo:
Actually I think the problem was the low-information Dems.
SpaceUnit
@Adam L Silverman:
whatever, man.
NobodySpecial
Biden’s biggest fault was having a NatSec team built to fight the last war instead of the war they were in.
Gin & Tonic
This will be long. Feel free to skip it.
In Anne Laurie’s Ukraine-centered thread earlier today, there was some discussion of Ukrainian-American (and more generally Eastern-European-American) voting patterns. I commented briefly, but didn’t have a lot of time, and said I might come back to this. So here’s my take. It will be unburdened by statistics, since I don’t have any, but I know these people – they are my people.
Ukrainian immigration to North America has come in five major waves, each with different concerns and motivations, and each with distinct political inclinations.
The first wave was toward the end of the 19th Century, almost exclusively to Canada. Canada wanted people to settle the prairies, Ukrainians and others from the late-stage Russian Empire were dirt-poor and wanted a place to go. So many of them uprooted their entire families and settled in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta and started farms on the “section” they were granted. They built churches and communities and put down very strong roots, with no intention of ever going back, but they maintained (and many of their descendants still maintain) their language and culture. By Canadian standards they tend conservative, but not ridiculously so, and are not a very significant political bloc (other than locally.)
The second wave came after the Russian Revolution, partly due to anti-Bolshevism and partly for economic reasons. They came to the US and Canada, but did not end up as farmers, as there was little land available – in the US they went into coal mining in PA (the Deer Hunter crowd) and in Canada they mostly stayed in the eastern provinces and worked in industry. While some of these immigrants went back, and some actually traveled back and forth, they formed fairly insular communities in the US and Canada.
The third wave was the post-WWII “displaced persons.” This was the first explicitly political emigration, fleeing Soviet rule. Most ended up in DP camps for a couple of years before being scattered to the various Allied countries that would take them: the US, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Britain, France, and so on. Initially, these people thought their resettlement was temporary: the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was active through the late 1940’s and much of the 1950’s, and they imagined they’d be returning to an independent Ukraine before too long. By 1959 the UPA was wiped out, Shukhevych and Bandera had been assassinated, and they realized they weren’t going anywhere, so they had to adapt to political life in the US. Their sole driving force was anti-Communism – most still referred to the USSR as “Bolsheviks” – so they naturally gravitated to Nixon.
During most of the Cold War nobody traveled to or emigrated from Ukraine, so this generation by default became the controlling voice of the Ukrainian-American community. They worshiped Reagan, who knew exactly how to pander, with “Captive Nations” events, the Committee on the Present Danger, the Perle-Kirkpatrick neo-con axis, and even the Scoop Jackson wing of the Democrats. In the 1970’s Democratic Ukrainian-Americans were rarer than hen’s teeth. They passed this along to their children – some (like me, whose first Presidential ballot was for McGovern) were apostates, but many stayed on the right. (NB, this is a generalization, and may be read as unfair to my father, who was a pacifist and a liberal for reasons that didn’t become clear to me until long after his death.)
One key fact about the “third-wave” people is that even though they adapted to the necessity of life in the US/Canada, they are still pretty insular. It is not at all uncommon for their children and grandchildren to marry and rear children within the community, while maintaining lives/careers outside of it. But the children and grandchildren drift more Democratic, and the oldest cohort, still staunchly Republican is viewed as an oddity. Think of the south Florida anti-Castro community; these are the same people.
Some time in the late 1970’s (s) the USSR started allowing Jews to emigrate – the cohort known as the “refuseniks.” Some Ukrainians had (or claimed) Jewish ancestry to get out this way, but it wasn’t a significant number. The USSR also let out some long-term political prisoners, but these mostly ended up being people who’d been so damaged by their time in the GULAG that they were more harm to the diaspora than helpful.
After the breakup of the USSR, emigration started anew: the “fourth wave.” These were almost exclusively people leaving for economic opportunity, with no political leanings at all; many did not even identify as Ukrainians, and tended to assimilate very quickly. They were just coming here to work, and a fair number were/are undocumented (some are also part of the Russian Mob in NYC and elsewhere.) Once here, many took a very rightward turn, and many are now Trump supporters.
The “fifth wave” is refugees from the recent war years. Due to travel restrictions this is mostly women and children, with tenuous ability to stay in the US, and focused largely on survival. Not much politics going on.
Do those old Reaganaut anti-Bolsheviks who almost certainly voted for Trump last November feel betrayed? Like idiots? I don’t know yet, the time doesn’t seem ripe to ask. But my dear wife, who is active on FB/IG, and knows many of these people, has commented on the radio silence from them lately. Some have even actively scrubbed their earlier pro-Trump postings, so maybe they’re waking up. Sure, it’s late.
Gin & Tonic
@NobodySpecial: I think most everybody fights the last war. Only the Ukrainians are fighting the next war.
Gin & Tonic
@SpaceUnit: For you.
K-Mo
@Gin & Tonic: thanks- good write up
Jay
Reposted from below,
The EU Aid package announced 2 days ago as 8billion Euro’s has now grown to 20billion Euro’s in arms and money as European governments respond to America’s siding with ruZZia.
The “Merkin Putinist’s Putschists “Peace Deal” apparently includes abandoning all NATO members who joined after 1990. This effectively kills NATO, and it’s so cute that Amerikka’s Nazi’s don’t think they will be kicked out of the rest of Europe.
The EU is reported to be negotiating with Britain and France to come under their nuclear umbrella in the short term, while developing a pan EU domestically produced nuclear umbrella.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic:
Thank you for this write up, very interesting.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you for the detailed and fascinating deep dive! I imagine we can draw parallels to similar waves of immigration from other parts of the world to the New World.
Of courser, Chinese (including from Taiwan) immigration skipped a couple of waves due to the Chinese Exclusion Act.
TBone
@Gin & Tonic: I learned an interesting thing about that “encouragement.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
wjca
Except that, if you look at registered voters, Trump got approximately the same percentage as in 2020. What dropped was the percentage voting for the Democrat.
Why they didn’t vote, whether on principle, overconfidence, misogyny, or something else? Haven’t seen anything definitive. But that the percentage not voting at all went up is not really in dispute.
Eos
Another observation: isn’t it possible that Freeland didn’t expect Trudeau to fold so quickly after her resignation? Because it seemed like she was expecting him to lead the Liberals into the regularly scheduled election, with a leadership contest coming only after his inevitable defeat — and she would have been well-positioned and well-prepared for that.
But instead the Liberals are going to pick Carney, who, despite his managerial record, looks like the second coming of Michael Ignatieff — at best.
With one clear difference: the situation is so much worse now than then, as the Conservatives hadn’t completely abandoned the center-right, and the NDP was at its apex (as it turned out). But now, well, the phrase “existential threat” does seem to cover it.
(Another question that could use an answer: why is no one paying attention to the complete collapse of the center-right throughout the democratic world — from the US to the UK to France to Italy to Canada, there is no substantial center-right party any more. The lone survivor, for now, is the German CDU — yet another reason why tomorrow’s election is so critical.)
pajaro
@Adam L Silverman:
Garland, of course, did appoint a special prosecutor for both the 1/6 and documents case, although, like most people, I think he could have done the 1/6 appointment a good deal earlier. Whether, given the Supreme Court’s immunity case, it would have made a difference, is unclear, at least in my mind. The assertion that Garland was a Fed. Soc. member is, I believe, inaccurate. I don’t think there’s any evidence he held any office or put his name to any policy position on behalf of the Society. (Like me, he did appear in Fed. Soc. events as a guest). Had he been a reliable right-wing vote, it would have been insane for McConnell to have gone to the length he did to have denied Garland a hearing.when he was nominated by Obama for the Supreme Court.
AlaskaReader
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks, that post was very informative, your input is always appreciated, and adds much to what we learn from Adam and some few others in these posts.
I’m very grateful for this space that Adam maintains.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: Various people have described the state of the US from Trump 45 through Biden & now Trump 47 terms variously as late Roman Republic, late USSR, & late Qing Empire.
Here is a curious take from a right wing China analyst on the failure mode of Trump:
and
The above in response to JD Vance suggesting that the US needs to go through a “de-Ba’athification” program to root out the evil of “wokism” & “DEI”.
Quiltingfool
@zhena gogolia: Say, would you message me at my Etsy store – just click on my nym.
I’ve got a photo to show you!
Aziz, light!
@NobodySpecial: Biden wasn’t too old but was too old school. A cold warrior ill adapted for a much warmer conflict.
Medicine Man
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you for sharing this, G&T.
I’m 50yo and my paternal great grandparents came to Canada in one of those waves. I have no idea what they would think about any of this as I sadly never had the chance to meet them.
Parfigliano
@Adam L Silverman: Who said I was talking to you Adam L Silverman? I sure didn’t.
Aziz, light!
@Gin & Tonic: You left out a wave, perhaps minor in scope but relevant to me: Jews escaping the pogrom in the 1st decade of the century. Two of my grandparents were born in Kyiv. They were infants in their fleeing parent’s arms.
Citizen Alan
Well, no. The most critical point in our nation’s history was in 2016, when whichever candidate won the Presidency would set the course of the Supreme Court for the next 50+ years, and a sizeable chunk of the Left mocked–literally mocked–the idea that that should play any part in their voting considerations. Everything that has happened since, up to and including Shitgibbon’s reelection was an, IMO, inevitable and foreseeable result of the Nazification of SCOTUS between 2017 and 2020.
If you don’t believe me, let me remind you that if Rausch v Common Cause (5-4 in favor of the bad guys) had gone the other way, every gerrymandered red state would have been required to draw fair and nonpartisan voting districts and the entire electoral map would have tilted in the Dems’ favor. But, you know, something Hillary something emails.
SC54HI
Adam – thank you.
@Gin & Tonic – thank you for that write up. Makes a lot of sense.
SpaceUnit
@Citizen Alan:
Not going to argue with you about 2016 (because I’m a troll now!), but it seems the 2024 election was our last stand.
jonas
Honest question: How much of the Biden admin’s too-timid response on Ukraine was due to what they saw at the time as the need to keep the EU/NATO alliance on board with everything? Biden and his advisers weren’t just trying to calibrate the US’s response, but that of an entire international coalition whose own views of the situation/interests were often at variance with one another’s, esp. countries like the UK, France, Poland, and Germany (and of course assholes like Hungary and Turkey). In the end, didn’t this just end up being the response of the alliance’s most timid members? By default?
I suppose Biden could have gone in and just knocked heads together and told everyone to fall in line, grow a pair and square up against Russia, but for whatever reason, that’s not what he did. Was it a mistake? Maybe. Or perhaps that would have just fractured the coalition right out of the gate and we’d be in an even worse position now than we already are. I don’t know.
frosty
@Gin & Tonic: I agree completely. “Everybody fights the last war” can be seen throughout history. Ukraine’s use of drones for tactical warfare instead of manned aircraft is completely new. If our military has any sense they’ll be taking notes.
Of course after the purges they won’t have any sense, will they?
Birdie
@Adam L Silverman: Thin skin much? I am not a big commenter but wow, this place has changed.
xephyr
Thanks Adam for doing such a great job of staying on this.
Birdie
@pajaro: I’ll note that this is twice in 24 hours that a poster has been called on a specific factually incorrect statement, and ignored the correction. Interesting to see how people respond to stress, I guess.
Adam L Silverman
@Birdie: the statement is not incorrect. It has been widely remarked on/reported that Garland is or was a member.
You may see your way out of the comments to my posts. I’m no longer tolerating passive aggressive trolls.
chemiclord
@Birdie: I’m noticing a lot of thin skins and power trips going on in left-leaning blogs lately. I suspect everyone is on edge, and it’s bringing out frustrations on each other.
Hell, Erik Loomis over at LGM dropped a transsexual slur in one of his recent posts, and when confronted about it, he just started banning people (disclosure; I was one of those people) for it. It seems like more and more bloggers are behaving like him (at a time where they really, really shouldn’t be).
John S.
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks for that! A very interesting story of immigration to North America.
I presume many of the Ukrainians here in Washington are “5th wave”. My wife is a teacher, and there are quite a few refugee children in her classes, some with interpreters because they speak no English.
I suspected as much in the other thread. Makes perfect sense to me having lived amongst that community for 40 years.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: I’m sorry, which front pager are you referring to?
Llelldorin
I blame, more than anything, the fact that the 1930s are now out of living memory. That decade cemented in the minds of those who lived through it the key concept that a lot of the rich are vicious, small-minded idiots who left to their own devices will bankrupt their employees, the country, and then finally themselves.
Now that that’s out of living memory, the propaganda that the rich pay for is much more effective at convincing a lot of people that they’re our brilliant betters.
Trump II may play the same role for the next 100 years that the depression did for the previous century. Unfortunately, that’s because it’s likely to be ghastly to live through.
Citizen Alan
@SpaceUnit: Yes, but it didn’t have to be. If Hillary had won and appointed Scalia’s replacement (or even if McConnall had blinked and let Obama appoint Garland to replace Scalia), Rausch alone would have dramatically changed the political landscape in our favor, possibly to the point of making 2024 a non-issue. But I suppose we’ll never know.
K-Mo
@wjca: I’m not reading the numbers the same as you. Voter turnout was down compared to 2020, but not in the battleground states, and not compared to any other recent year. It looks to me like a lot of people who voted for Biden in 2020 voted for Trump in 2024.
K-Mo
@jonas: I wonder if the Biden approach can be explained by not wanting to get too far ahead of US voters. It seems like what Adam is saying is, since we lost the election anyway, we should have been much more aggressive when we had the chance.
SpaceUnit
@Citizen Alan:
I’ll not argue, but 2024 was the year voters definitively decide to jump off the cliff into fascism. Up until then there was still hope.
YY_Sima Qian
@K-Mo: That describes the Biden team’s approach across a range of domestic & foreign policies.
SpaceUnit
@K-Mo:
I think Biden and his team were entirely aware of Cleek’s Law.
They were hoping for a low-key path to stability and didn’t want to push every essential American and world interest entirely into the sphere of the crazy right-wing culture war nonsense.
They did not succeed. Not sure God himself could have.
Geminid
@jonas: I’m not neccesarily disagreeing with your general premise here, but I take issue with your lumping Turkiye and Hungary together.
This is why.Turkiye was pushing badly needed armaments to Ukraine right up.until Feb. 32, 2022. One of the Turkish Air Force cargo planes hauling them was stranded on a Ukrainian air field for months. Russia didnt blow it up, but they wouldn’t let it fly out until R.T. Erdogan worked it out with his frenemy Vlafldimir Putin.
The arms shipments continued after this war began. Stijn Mitzer published an article about this in Oryx: “The Stalwart Ally: Turkish Arms Supplies to Ukraine,” November 23 2022. Mitzer said that Turkiye was among the top Nato countries in terms of arms supplies to Ukraine. But unlike the others including the US, Turkiye and Ukraine kept on the downlow, which was likely Turkiye’s choice.
Mitzer said that Turkiye suppplied Ukraine Roketsan MRLS systems before the much ballyhood Himars made the scene. And Ukraine was killing Russians with Baraktar-2s in 2021.
Mitzer said something else in that article that was very interesting. Unlike other Nato countries, Turkiye did not restrict the use of weapons it supplied Ukraine to Ukrainian territory. I’d like to know why, but Turkiye didn’t say, and neither did Ukraine
Turkiye pushed the Black Sea Grain deal through in August of 2022. Then, when Russia tried to terminate it in October of 2022, Turkiye backed them down. The deal expired the next year and Russia wouldn’t renew it; since then Turkish minesweepers have helped clear the coastal route Ukraine uses. The Romanian and Bulgarian militaries help also– its a joint operation– but Turkiye supplies most if not all of the minesweepers. And the Turkish Air Force– Nato’s second largest– plays its part in the air patrols protecting the route.
Russia hasn’t been able to move warships in or out of the Black Sea since the war began, and Turkiye exercised its rights under the Treaty of Montreux to bar their passage through the Turkish Straits.
I have seen a lot of complaints about Turkiye’s role in this war, both here and elsewhere. I don’t see them coming Ukrainian officials, or President Zelensky either. And they know their relationship with Turkiye better than we do.
I realize this a lot verbiage about what was a minor point you made, but Turkiye’s role in this war is very important. And Turkiye’s role in the Black Sea region going forward will be important also, because unlike the US, Turkiye is there to stay.
bjacques
Thanks as always, Adam and thanks for the extra content to Jay, G&T, New Deal Democrat, Geminid, YY_Sima Qian, Eos, and others. I already learn a lot in these posts but comments tonight (last night where I am) have been especially illuminating.
Though a diehard fan of Biden up to now, I’ve not been able to frame misgivings as well as you all have here. Thinking about his apprenticeship under Obama—it seems to me that, though Biden watched Republicans and many Democrats sandbag his mentor, he still couldn’t shake Barack’s cautiousness and vain hope of full party support and bipartisanship—especially the latter.
I’m watching the German elections play out today. It will be ironic if it’s Germany that leads the global pushback on the Nazis. If the AfD take enough of a beating, then Merz of the CDU (with the CSU, the likely winner of a plurality) may not be so fash-curious in forming the next government as he was trying to jam through the anti-immigration law not long ago. Fingers crossed.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: just so. Similar, here.
chemiclord
@SpaceUnit: Biden campaigned and was elected to be a “return to normalcy” President. I think the electorate didn’t want a bloody fight with MAGA (as that is a fight that would tear apart entire families).
Had the American people (or even Democratic voters specifically) wanted a firebrand, they had plenty of options. Instead, they voted for the soft-talking old white guy who reminded them of Obama’s presidency.
If I’m being entirely honest, Biden put up more fight against the GOP than I was expecting (admittedly, I wasn’t expecting much), and even that was too much for some centrist voters, while simultaneously too little for progressive ones.
YY_Sima Qian
@bjacques: I am not sure it is right to characterize Obama as Biden’s “mentor” in “Presidenting”. Biden had felt ready to be President since the ’80s. He had definitely ideas of what he wanted to accomplished in his term, so much so that he drew on relatively few veterans of the Obama Administration & instead relied upon his own confidants at senior positions in domestic & especially foreign policy arenas.
Biden was always an institutionalist, as a decades old creature of the US Senate inevitably would be. Obama was much less of an institutionalist (being a relative outsider in more ways than one), but he felt he had to conform to the mainstream so as to avoiding having White America become frightened of the black man in the WH. The same dynamic was a play, IMO, in how the Obama family presented themselves to the public. They did nothing that could be deemed threatening, or become foddering for “Otherization”.
Or, at least, that was & is how he justified his choices during his Presidency. In any case, despite Obama’s sincere & persistent efforts, he failed to avoid the allergic reaction from much of White America to a black man & a black family in the WH, & we ended up w/ Trump in the WH.
Likewise, Biden failed (as NDD & Adam have stated) to make the choices that could have prevented Trump’s return. Post-election, a bunch of senior officials from the Biden Administration made the rounds in MSM for “exit interviews”, trying to justify their choices & burnish their legacies. A common theme was how much their efforts made the US head & shoulders above all others (friend or foe) economically, & strengthened the US’ position vis-a-vis the PRC in their Great Power Competition. Both assertions IMHO were highly debatable even if Harris had won. but utterly unhinged in light of the outcome of the election, & doubly so given the developments since Trump’s inauguration, where decades have elapsed in the mere 5 weeks.
If the Biden team did so well at home & abroad, Trump would not be in the WH.
BellyCat
Really dismayed by the groundless ban hammer threat, Adam. This is the kind of abuse of power that silences people.
MomSense
@bjacques:
I am so sick of the way Obama’s legislative strategy and successes are characterized by people on this blog and by liberals/progressives generally. I worked directly on passing the stimulus and on the ACA. The fact is that Obama’s legislative success rate was in line with LBJ’s except he only had a few months and a much more challenging Congress.
Regarding the stimulus, the economy could not have waited until Franken was seated in July. We got 3 Senate Republicans to vote for it. Two of them were in Maine. My house was a volunteer phonebanking office. We started meeting during the transition so we campaigning could begin right after the inauguration. It didn’t just happen. It was a ton of work.
The ACA was incredibly difficult. I was a volunteer with both Organizing for America and with HCAN (the organizing arm that multiple unions put together). I was an SEIU volunteer. I spent more than 20 hours a week (and most weeks a lot more) for months. I wrote a memo with important information about Snowe ann Baucus and then had direct conversations with HCAN’s Chief legislative advocate. I also talked with the White House because our OFA organizer’s family and the Emmanuel family were close friends. Aside from Obama, I was the only person to have an in depth conversation with Olympia Snowe. I spoke with her at the airport right after she met with Baucus. She didn’t mention his name but we met with her CoS right before we got on the same plane to return to Maine and he told us who she was meeting with. She gave me valuable information about where Baucus stood.
From the beginning we knew that the version of the ACA that would become law was the version that would be voted out of the Senate Finance Committee. Snowe was trying to keep the public option alive against the objections of Baucus. Snowe was not the ranking member but she was the person going between the Democrats and Republicans on that committee.
The biggest obstacles we faced in the fight to pass the ACA were the blue dogs especially Baucus. Go look at the composition of the Senate Finance Committee. Then you will see the challenge we faced. Refresh your memories on who the blue dogs were and how many of them we had to deal with.
Some of you have no political experience and it shows. It couldn’t possibly be true that Obama talking about working with Republicans (popular with the public) was also giving cover to Democrats who were being obstructionist just like Manchinema were for Biden. Nope, the first black president was naive. That is nonsense. Biden coming out early saying he would only work with Dems was both a tactical and messaging blunder. It brought so much negative attention to Democrats especially since it took so damned long to pass the recovery act.
We can and should discuss Obama’s failings with respect to Putin/Russia and foreign policy.
There is so much I want to say about Biden but I can’t without betraying confidences. I will never get over the extent to which he and his family betrayed our country. Never. I don’t care how much hate I take on this blog. I was called so many horrible things and bullied here for my opinion after the debate.
I don’t know if the full story will ever come out, but a lot of credible reporting has already been published about his mental state. It has been carefully avoided on this blog.
I’m furious that Ukraine is suffering for Biden’s failings.
I will leave you with one question. Why did Biden’s campaign call for the June debate? First time a presidential debate had been held BEFORE the convention. The timing is relevant and it wasn’t just about his abysmal polling.
BellyCat
@MomSense: I feel you. My girlfriend is a geriatrician. She has known many wise people in her life and eventually, we all suffer varying degrees of decline in different ways at different points. The wisest among these realize when they should stop “driving the car“.
YY_Sima Qian
@MomSense: I thought Obama & the Congressional Dems did an awesome job w/ the brief window during which they had a veto proof majority in the Senate, & the ACA was the best that could pass Congress at the time. Where I now feel Obama was too timid on was treatment of Wall Street, too big to fail rather than riding the populist anger put greater constraints on the over-financialization of the US economy, although Dodd-Frank was a positive & so was the CFPB. Once he & the Congressional Dems lost the House to a scorched earth Repubs, they chose to run on technocratic competence, establishmentarian predictability, non-threatening middle of the road policies, & defense of the natsec state & US primacy abroad, rather than recognizing & seizing the populist/anti-establishment moment, & heightening the contradiction that was already on offer. Same dynamic as during the Biden term.
I identify w/ Obama far more than any other national level politician, due to background, upbringing, temperament, & even values & worldview. More than any other senior leaders of either party, Obama could truly empathize w/ countries & peoples outside of the dominant West, & saw the trend toward the multipolar world, & tried (w/in the limitations imposed by the “Blob” & self-imposed by his temperament/conservatism) to adjust the US to accommodate the trend. He constrained the DOD’s eagerness to pursue Great Power Competition w/ the PRC at the end of his 2nd term, & tried to strike a balance between competition & cooperation & keep the relationship positive sum, which Trump turned zero to negative sum, & Biden inexplicably maintained largely zero sum. Anyone remember the deal he struck w/ Xi to keep a lid on commercial hacking, which largely held until Trump launched his trade war? He closed the JPCOA w/ Iran, which Trump unilaterally abrogated, & Biden inexplicably failed to reinstate. Despite the lack of success, he tried much harder to push Israel on the issue of 2SS, while Biden has been loath to put any space between the US & Bibi in public. He normalized relations w/ Cuba, which Trump reversed, & Biden inexplicably failed to re-normalize. He tried to keep global trading regimes somewhat positive sum & somewhat rules based w/ the [admittedly highly problematic] TPP, which Hillary Clinton, Trump & Biden all ran away from, & Biden inexplicably embraced economic nationalism. He tried to made global discourse somewhat more pluralistic w/ the including of Global South powers in the G20, & adjusting the voting share of the IMF to increase that for the PRC & India, while Trump went unilateral, & Biden preferred minilateralism of very small ad hoc groups of largely US allies/partners that could remain in lock step w/ the US’ preferences on specific issues. Trump broke the WTO & Biden kept it broken. Trump waged traded wars in many directions & Biden ended few of them.
Of course, Obama got rolled by Gates & the DOD on the Afghan surge, & the massive escalation of the droning campaign abroad & the staunch defense of the Patriot Act at home further entrenched an increasingly unaccountable natsec state. US FP stayed primacist, & it related to the ROW remained highly militarized. I do not blame Obama for not responding more forcefully to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in ’14, but he never truly appreciated the revanchist & nihilist nature of Putin
Ultimately, the kind of politics offered by Obama, Hillary Clinton & Biden did not represent the kind of radical break that the moment called for.
MomSense
@YY_Sima Qian:
Great comment. I will add that there was a lot of discussion about how to deal with Wall Street. Unfortunately a lot of what went wrong was totally legal, unethical and in the end financially irresponsible, but legal.
In concert with state AGs they did get back the bailout funds with interest but I don’t think they communicated well enough how hamstrung they were in terms of prosecution.
RevRick
@WTFGhost:
@Adam L Silverman: I think the assertion that we got Trump because of Biden’s policy failings is dubious at best. As far as I can tell, policy choices have next to no impact on election outcomes. Post-election surveys show that Harris won big among those who read newspapers and get their news from cable TV (which would include Fox). If any made their choice because of policy issues, it would be people who are informed by those media.
Where Harris lost was among those who get their opinions from YouTube and Facebook and podcasts like Joe Rogan. In other words, the least informed people about policy voted for Trump.
I have a haunting suspicion that many voters of Ukrainian descent in PA and Ohio pulled the lever for Trump, and it was not because he promised an aggressive military response in their native land. Quite the contrary. He made it clear he was going to sell Ukraine out. No, it had to do with two things: inflation and whiteness.
Both the Trump and Harris campaigns agreed that his most devastating ad against her was the one where she declared, “Bidenomics is working!” That fell like a lead balloon with the “vibes” voters.
I see zero evidence that Biden’s Ukrainian policy or Merrill Garland explains why the one age demographic Trump won was Gen X or the rightward shift by Hispanics and the under 30s. I see a lot of evidence that race and gender and the ravages of inflation was decisive.
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
I tend to go kinder on Obama’s interactions with the security state than most, because one of the very first things he did when coming into office was try to close Guanatanamo Bay (something that, as insane as it seems now, seemed pretty much like a settled issue in 2008 no matter who won), only to find himself shut down by a huge bipartisan freakout, with basically nobody coming to his side. When it became clear he wasn’t going to be able to close it, he at least stopped the use of torture there and spent most of his term trying to move out as many inmates as he could.
I can’t blame him, given the number of problems we had in 2009 and 2010, for saying “I’m not going to keep picking fights with the security state when it’s basically unassailable in both public and elite opinion. I’m going to focus on battles we can actually win, like the ACA.” Unlike far too many presidents including Biden, Obama really did have an interest in curtailing the excesses of the security state, and he showed it right from the start. If there’d been a constituency for making it happen, it would’ve happened. There wasn’t.
New Deal democrat
@MomSense:
Dead thread, but hopefully you will see this.
I did not watch the June debate live, and wasn’t as devastated as others were by the first 15 minutes as others were. But then I watched the end of the LA fundraiser, where Biden stood on the stage vacantly until Obama grasped him by the wrist, gently tugged him, and then put his arm around Biden’s shoulders as he guided him off the stage.
*That* was devastating. Not only was it clear that Biden was sunsetting, it was also clear that Obama *knew* he was sunsetting, meaning Obama had seen this mental state in Biden before and recognized it.
The simple fact is, had Biden announced in early 2023 that he was not seeking another term, we might be in very different circumstances now.
Chris
@RevRick:
The elephant in the room is that Biden’s polls were essentially static from August 2021 until the day he resigned.
Nobody really wants to face up to this, because this would mean that his presidency was essentially sunk by the media from the very start, and nobody has any real idea how to get around that.
New Deal democrat
@RevRick:
I agree 90% with you. In particular, (Dan Guild dcg1114 on BlueSky) has been pounding the table about Harris coming up short with low information minority voters.
While I think the vast majority of Biden’s policy was laudable, the simple fact is that his #1 priority had to be keeping T—p from returning to power. As I have said here and elsewhere, that failure was either because (1) the institutionalists failed, or (2) the institutions themselves failed (I.e., even with perfect execution, the institutions could not have achieved resolution within 4 years). There are no other options.
Maybe Garland did all he could. But I think Biden’s biggest failure was not appointing an RFK style bulldog like Adam Schiff, or even Harris, to the AG post.
Anyway
Dems did really well in the 2022 mid-term elections and the red wave never materialized. I think that contributed to Biden’s decision to stay on. Might have led to some complacency among D strategists. Losing the House was a bummer of course — same with 2024. Everything went right for Drumpf and RThugs. Can’t believe they pulled off the house again.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: I don’t blame Obama for focusing on saving the economy & passing as much of his economic/social agenda through a narrow window as possible in the 1st 2 years of his 1st term. I do hold him responsible for continuing to defer to the natsec state so much after the immediate crisis had passed. Like Biden & so many Dems over the decades, his hands were often stayed (perceived to have been bound) by short term political expediency.
I don’t doubt his heart was in the right place, but that is not nearly enough for a POTUS.
Still my favorite President, though, albeit a purely personal opinion.
gene108
@MomSense:
One thing “normies” in my life expressed to me was concerns about his age (and a lack of enthusiasm about a rematch of 2020…the same two old men but four years older was not appealing).
We all knew people – parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. – who declined physically and/or mentally after hitting 80, when they were in mostly good shape earlier.
My opinion was if Biden dropped dead, Harris would become President, and I was cool with that. Not everyone shared my view.
WTFGhost
Merrick Garland was a horrible choice who did not do his job. No one failed to vote for Biden because of Garland, but they sure as hell supported Trump without the relentless march of “this lawless behavior is unacceptable to American democracy!” which, remember, was not mere political advertisement, but the actual truth.
Now, as for the rest: did Ukraine, alone, destroy Biden? No. Afghanistan, and the relentless series of undefended attacks took his polling underwater, and it never recovered. Everything else was his fault: Israel got attack, Gaza got demolished (R-activists stirred up crap nicely), Ukraine was attacked which never would have happened, inflations too high, OTHER PEOPLE don’t have good jobs (seriously: they pretended at *sympathy*), in a relentless march across popular and social media.
You can say a lot to me, but I don’t see anything you’ve said as actually discussing what *I* said. I was discussing Biden’s place in history, and how he failed to meet a critical moment.
You can take all the polls you want and do what you want with them. I’m talking reality – not elections. And a MORE EFFECTIVE Biden (or, since someone will insist, “an open primary”) would have had an actual chance, for him or his Veep, because it would have more effectively corralled an evil dictator-wannabe. Like a madonna-wannabe, only, you know, ugly and dangerous.
(“Madonna-wanna(be) was a thing once. I think it was the 80s, and I have no further explanation.)
I’m not talking elections. Just reality. Reality does have a result on elections, you know
(Sorry, my grammar and spelling are offline today. Also, I’m not angry, just annoyed to hear “I think Biden failed to the right thing” with “but we have no evidence it affected polling!” – I hope you understand that, and take my annoyance only as “damn it, now I must explain when writing is hard for me!”)