Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation’s Post

🏛️ Let Your Voice Be Heard: Biden Impeachment Inquiry Authorized 🏛️ Big news! The House has just authorized an impeachment inquiry into President Biden amidst claims of an evidence vacuum. What are your thoughts on this move? We want to hear from you! Do you think this inquiry is warranted, or do you have reservations about the timing and evidence presented? Share your opinions, questions, or concerns below. Considering the current political landscape, how might this impact the nation's stability and future governance? Engage in the conversation and let's explore different perspectives. Have you been following the developments closely? What key points do you think should be considered during this inquiry? Feel free to bring up any relevant information. This is a platform for open dialogue, so respect each other's views and let's stay connected! #ImpeachmentInquiry #BidenAdministration #PoliticalAnalysis #CommunityVoice #InteractiveDiscussion #StayConnected

Missed this prescient and soberingly realistic but perhaps overly fatalistic essay from Robert Kagan back in November last year. A few issues with it: (1) He uses the words "illegitimate" and "extralegal" to describe violent political action in response to the coalescence of a Trump dictatorship. "Extralegal", yes; "illegitimate", no. (We might recall that the American Revolution was also extralegal.) If one side tosses the Constitution, the other side is no longer bound by it either--that would be just silly--making violent action to overthrow his regime perfectly legitimate; the only question is what would be the most strategic course of action. Arguably that would be to strike him immediately and give him no chance to organize his regime, though of course that would require leadership, planning, and organization. Care should be taken to minimize harm to innocent civilians--the key word there being 'innocent'--but Trump, his loyalists, and anyone who stood in the way of the American people laying down the law on them the good old-fashioned way would absolutely be fair game. (2) He writes, "Those who hope to be saved by a U.S. military devoted to the protection of the Constitution are living in a fantasyland." This is baffling. If the US military is genuinely devoted to the protection of the Constitution, it will support the American people or remain in barracks and let us have it out properly. If it backs a Trump dictatorship, it will obviously no longer be devoted to the protection of the Constitution and a vital part of our work would be to disintegrate the bonds of loyalty between senior military officers and enlisted troops through low-tech information warfare. (3) "....we continue to drift toward dictatorship, still hoping for some intervention that will allow us to escape the consequences of our collective cowardice, our complacent, willful ignorance and, above all, our lack of any deep commitment to liberal democracy. As the man said, we are going out not with a bang but a whimper." Let us hope for the best but if the worst comes, may we relish the confrontation and may it end with him gunned down by a firing squad, hung from a noose on the National Mall, or whatever would be the best way of putting an end to him without being overly gratuitous about it. #Trump #2024election #FirstAmendment #freespeech #SecondAmendment #democracy #authoritarianism #fascism

Trump's strong win in the Republican Party's Iowa caucus hints at a potential comeback. MEED reports that the expected standoff between Joe Biden and Trump promises little and will deliver even less for the Middle East. There are three foundations to the Middle East’s view of the battle for the White House in 2024, writes former MEED editor Edmund O'Sullivan: ➡️ There is little that regional powers can do to influence it. ➡️ Whoever wins will invariably default to the prevailing wisdom and doctrine in Washington. ➡️ The region’s future is mainly in its own hands. It is this – not who wins or loses in November – that is the more important realisation. Analysis here: https://lnkd.in/d_fTy3ur #usa #election2024 #trump #biden #middleeast #business #intelligence

Here is a summary of Trump’s governance in 2017-2020. If he is elected in 2024 (in spite of having disqualified himself by inciting an insurrection against the Constitution), he promises to do more of the same, like getting rid of the people in charge of our pandemic response, but this time the experts in our agencies will have been replaced by donors and sycophants. Donald Trump’s First Term Is a Warning https://lnkd.in/erH6GNUy

There’s no question that Joe Biden had a terrible night, but I don’t know that I agree with the instant analysis that he seemed cognitively impaired — he actually displayed lots of factual recall and reasoning on a wide range of matters of policy. No doubt though that he did seem impaired at times in his ability to communicate all that he knows. But the context no one should forget is that this wasn’t a debate between a Democrat and a Republican. It was between a Democrat and an autocrat, between a Democrat and the greatest domestic threat to the Republic since the Civil War. Trump’s relative fluidity in speaking allowed us to hear flowing out of his mouth disrespect for the most defining and sacred institutions and values that have in fact made America great – accepting when you lose an election and supporting the peaceful transition of power, and the rule of law, which requires the independence of the justice system from political control and respect for the crown jewel of that system, which is the power and wisdom of juries. Incessant lying ain’t great either. So, as I’ve said many times before the crucible of this debate, the election is a banquet to which we have all been invited, where there is only chicken and fish on the menu. We may want steak or pasta or sushi but unless something changes, and there’s no good reason to think it will, we’re not getting any of those. The situation is that we still have to choose between the stinking, venomous fish — Donald Trump — and Joe Biden. The 3rd party “options” aren’t real. And in this choice between something maybe not so great and something much worse, we have a moral duty to choose the one that’s not the worst.

 Trump’s Coup and Insurrection: Biden’s Challenge and Opportunity. Insight Turkey, 23(1), pp. 35-50. doi: 10.25253/99.2021231.4 || PDF: https://lnkd.in/guRum2QK Link to published version: https://lnkd.in/gXnaD2vB Permanent repository link: https://lnkd.in/g938gxZt President Donald Trump’s attempted coup and insurrection’s political effects are set to continue in the future because the enabling conditions have deep historical roots, its support reaches far into the U.S. state, broad sections of the Republican Party and electorate, military, and law enforcement. It will have national and global implications. There is a feeling that the imperial homeland is on the brink of a descent into the abyss. Although the U.S. political system appears to have squeaked through a major stress test, the political reverberations of Trumpism will remain for some time to come. There is no ‘return to normalcy’ the country craves for, without reforms to a system that advantages the politics of extremism in the Republican Party. President Biden has the challenge and opportunity to extirpate Trumpism and white supremacy from the U.S. body politic –but does he have the political will?

This was written in March, when Biden was at 44% approval. Today, with the same poll averaging? 39%. If the presidential election was today, the odds of a Trump win seem to be pretty high. Steering toward the center hasn't worked for Biden. I've started to believe he needs to roll the dice. In terms of approval ratings, federal criminal cases against Trump have been a wash, or even backfired. (We saw early signs of backfiring with the first impeachment: Trump actually gained a point in approval.) So: Biden could just issue a blanket pardon. This would tank his popularity even more, I'm sure. Gerald Ford, in pardoning Nixon, suffered one of the most precipitous drops ever, for a sitting president. What to do about nuking his own popularity? Resign. He could say he started his term feeling like he could go the distance, but just can't see it anymore. He could say his doctors gave him a clean bill of health, but if you're as old as you feel, he just feels too old now. A majority of Americans think so anyway. He said from the beginning he'd be willing to go just one term, then turn the reins over. So, why not a little earlier? That would handing the job to Kamala Harris. It doesn't seem like a solution to the popularity problem, on the face of it. She doesn't really poll any better than Biden. But after a few months, people might normalize her. The right would explode: "This is the far-left revolution we warned you all about!" The far left would explode: "Unacceptable! Kamala's a cop!" Her actual performance in office, however, could go a long way toward making such positions look as ridiculous as they both are. Her veep seat would be vacated. Who to pick to make a point? Nominate Joe Manchin. Whoa, stop screaming! Manchin keeps relatively warm relations with the GOP despite voting far more as a Democrat. He probably won't run for the Senate again--he barely squeaked through last time, and it's not getting better. West Virginia is the second or third Trumpiest state of the Disunion, and that's finally really hitting. But if he was vice-president, he's still effectively in the Senate, as a tie-breaking vote. And his very nomination would tell Americans, "We leave the communication channels open." It could sway enough Independents away from Trump, where many are right now. If I was Biden, I'd do it on Jan 6, and say, "I'm turning it all over to someone I picked partly because she really understands law enforcement."

I apologize for my emotional response to the current political situation. I support a woman being president but am concerned about potential loopholes. When Biden dropped out, it created a path for a woman to become president. Our Constitution doesn’t specify gender, allowing one spouse to serve two terms (8 years), and the other spouse could also serve two terms, totaling 16 years for one family. This undermines the system of checks and balances and could lead to a dictatorship. To prevent this, we should consider amending the Constitution to limit a married couple to one term each or one spouse to two terms. This would uphold democratic principles and prevent potential dictatorship. Biden’s withdrawal seems strategic, like a chess move. Revelation 13 describes a beast with great authority, symbolizing complex political maneuvers. America’s strength lies in unity. We must vote wisely and consider the “other” option to demonstrate our unity. Choosing the lesser of two evils is not a good choice, and we need to take a stand. It’s crucial to advocate for candidates who genuinely represent our principles and vision for the future. This can send a powerful message about the need for integrity and unity in leadership. Come November, I for one will be voting in the other spot on the ballot: “No One”!

Media: In @TheAtlantic's new issue "on the threat a second #DonaldTrump term poses to American democracy": ► Here is the landing page for this special edition, If #Trump Wins. New articles are being added as published. https://bit.ly/3RCItzb ► And here is @JeffreyGoldberg's editor's note, in which he writes: "#TheAtlantic, as our loyal readers know, is deliberately not a partisan magazine. 'Of no party or clique' is our original 1857 motto, and it is true today. Our concern with Trump is not that he is a #Republican, or that he embraces—when convenient—certain conservative ideas. We believe that a democracy needs, among other things, a strong liberal party and a strong conservative party in order to flourish. Our concern is that the Republican Party has mortgaged itself to an antidemocratic demagogue, one who is completely devoid of decency." https://bit.ly/3Teb9PZ

The latest piece on my Substack, provoked by a typically insightful but infuriating article by Simon Jenkins, challenges liberals to get real about the reasons for the rise of populist politicians and the very real possibility of a second term for Donald Trump. https://lnkd.in/e_QPcqex