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Chill out!

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Not surprising that the next day was given to all the anguish among liberal pundits over the debate, who are demanding Biden step down for the good of the party.  As usual, John Fetterman had the perfect response, "Chill the fuck out!"  

As bad as Biden's performance was, it wasn't without precedent.  Obama gave a lackluster performance in his first debate with Mitt Romney back in 2012 that left many Democrats deep in anguish over the Republicans returning to the White House. Romney surged in the polls by as much as 12 percent.  Obama didn't panic.  He pulled up his bootstraps and delivered better performances in the succeeding debates and all was forgiven.

Joe was back on the campaign trail the very next day and gave an excellent summation of his debate performance.  Fact is he was never a very good debater.  All you have to do is look back to the 2020 Democratic primary debates, where he was often outflanked by his opponents, with Kamala dropping this zinger on him.  Joe was just as tongue-tied then as he was the other night, yet he ended up winning the nomination and ultimately the presidency.  He showed no animosity toward Kamala by selecting her as his vice-president.

This is vintage Joe and why he is such a better choice than the abomination the Republicans have put up for a third time.  Joe forgives.  Trump never forgives.  His is a campaign built entirely on a vendetta.  Even when his best choice for vice-president is Nikki Haley, who would actually help overcome the bitter divisions in the GOP, he will not choose her because he would never forgive her running against him in the primaries, or the fact that she continues to poll 15-20 percent after dropping out three months ago.

Joe will be the Democratic nominee despite all these calls for a replacement. and most likely he will win a second term because the alternative is so vindictive and mean that it is hard for any reasonable person to consider him a legitimate alternative.  More importantly, we know the type of administration Joe brought to the White House.  The alternative is a group of neo-fascists promoting an agenda they call Project 2025.  

This is nothing less than a power play to put all national authority in the executive, essentially rendering Congress moot.  Not much unlike what Putin has done in Russia.  They claim it is vested in Article II of the Constitution, but this is nothing more than a delineation of duties of the three branches of government.  What they want is to install wartime measures similar to what Lincoln did during the Civil War.  This should scare the bejesus out of people, but it is hardly talked about in the media.  If Trump were elected we would essentially end up with a bloodless coup.

I suppose for many conservatives that is just fine.  They have long felt our liberal democracy allows way too much leeway, especially on social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and academic curriculums.  The name itself is seen as an antidote to The 1619 Project, which Republicans have long vilified as promoting a liberal agenda, even though it was nothing more than a historiographical work that reinterpreted American history through the lens of slavery.  This "agenda" never went beyond articles published in the NYTimes and had no impact on federal government.  But, conservatives are desperate to impose their "core values" on America as a whole.

Just as Republicans have so often perverted the meaning of liberal institutions, so too should Democrats go after what is a blatantly religious nationalist agenda that would bring ruin to the founding principles of this country.  James Madison adamantly stressed the need for separation between church and state so that the young country could avoid the fratricidal wars of Europe.  Already we see similar divisions in the US with state governors imposing their religious will by placing the Ten Commandments in all public schools.  Do we really want to go down this road?

Biden turned in a bad debate performance but it isn't the end of the world.  At least not yet.  We all have to chill out and remind ourselves just how much is at stake in this election and that the only option we have to save this country from the bloodless coup the Trump campaign is proposing is to vote for Joe Biden!

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