“Pence supporters see a lane for a reliable conservative who espouses many of the previous administration’s policies but without the constant tumult. While he frequently lauds the accomplishments of the ‘Trump-Pence administration,’ a Pence nomination in many ways would be a return to positions long associated with the Republican establishment but abandoned as Trump reshaped the party in his image. Pence has warned against the growing populist tide in the party, and advisers see him as the only traditional, Reagan-style conservative in the race.”
“As vice president, Pence had been an exceedingly loyal defender of Trump until the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump falsely tried to convince Pence and his supporters that Pence had the power to unilaterally overturn the results of the 2020 election. That day, a mob of Trump’s supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol building after being spurred on by Trump’s lies that the 2020 election had been stolen. Many in the crowd chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence!’ as Pence, his staff and his family ran for safety, hiding in a Senate loading dock.”
There are no official term limits for the office of VP. So, Biden could, even though he already held that office for 8 years under Obama. However, I don’t think he would… in my opinion, it’s ego that motivated him to run for re-election and that same ego won’t allow him to be someone else’s VP again, not now that he’s managed to land the job of POTUS.
If it looked like a Republican candidate was going to emerge from the field at this point who had a significant chance of beating Biden, I imagine the Democrats would urge him to do the responsible thing and step aside. Unfortunately, the Democrats seem confident that the Republicans aren’t going to nominate someone with a realistic chance of winning the election. They were similarly confident in Hillary in 2016, and that miscalculation is why we wound up with Trump. Like you, I think someone else would be better equipped than Biden to take the lead here, especially since he just gave the House GOP permission to burden student loan holders with even more debt.
Are you kidding? Well… I don’t mean that in an adversary way - but… while I don’t support either of these candidates, I think that if it ends up being Biden against Trump that Trump is going to steamroll the office again - I don’t even think it would be close!
Trump is not as popular as he was in 2016, when he promised to drain the swamp, build the wall, and lock Hillary up. He still has many deluded supporters, but a significant percentage took a look around when he left office and realized… none of those things actually happened. He never had a plan to fix Washington. He didn’t pardon the Jan. 6th rioters on his way out the door. There was no secret legal trick to reinstate him as President when Biden was inaugurated. JFK Jr. didn’t come back from the dead and anoint him as the messiah. I definitely think he would get fewer votes in 2024 than he did in 2020, because his utter failure to live up to those promises did damage his reputation to a measurable degree.
That being said, I’m not willing to take a risk on another Trump vs. Biden contest. If the reports are accurate, the Dept. of Justice has a recording of Trump admitting that he took classified material to Mar-A-Lago, and knew he couldn’t simply declare them de-classified. That’s a massive cherry on top of a layer cake of evidence turned over to DoJ by Congress. Trump needs to be indicted, convicted, and barred from holding public office as expeditiously as possible, so we never have to risk seeing that traitor in the White House ever again.
I wasn’t a fan of his personality - but hate to say that I think he did a better job than the current admin. IMO Biden needs to hurry up and make the right decision; to not run for POTUS in whatever way he wants to choose… he needs to pick some young rockstar that could keep the position w/ democrats. I don’t think Biden will do that - and while I understand what yer saying about Trump maybe losing some love from his supporters - but theres gonna be a lot of middle-lefters who are fed up w/ the left… IMO.
I think if Biden runs that we’ll have another 4/8 years of Trump.
What aspects you think were better under the last admin?
Whether you agree with the things he accomplished or not, he literally hit the ground running; slashing and smashing away the things he wanted to do in his presidency - I can’t think of one [good] thing that BIden, or his entire administration, has done for two years. The infrastructure bill, with what it has hidden away, is the worst thing that could happen to the US IMO.
The control and oversight via government that it has baked in is simply disgusting. Vehicle BAC detection - gotta sniff between the cracks… errr wait, maybe thats a bad euphemism.
Passing legislation is difficult, but the infrastructure bill floundered under Trump and was passed with bipartisan support under Biden. The Omnibus nature is an unfortunate side effect of what happens in a strictly separated congress.
You’ve got the Chips Plus bill that will take away China’s market segments of semiconductors and add jobs to the US. Something Texas is currently benefiting from with the opening of the new TSMC plant.
Student loan forgiveness is sorely needed and finally headed to the Supreme Court. Where I suspect it may pass despite the partisan court.
The expansion of NATO and its borders to Russia
Support for Ukraine and effectively destroying our historic adversary by proxy. This by the way Trump clearly does not support.
Seems a bit better than you may be giving credit for. Not perfect of course.
Yes, we disagree with a lot - the addition of the heavy spying requirements by automakers was introduced since Biden, and while I support supporting Ukraine I think we’re in way too deep already.
I agree, though - no one administration is perfect… I think that Biden is, literally, just not capable of performing at the level a POTUS needs to. Let alone that I think he already can’t, I think he should allow some other dem that would be viewed a lot stronger - is there any world where you really think Biden can go another 5 years?
I’d rather him not go another 5 to be honest, but to your point who else is there at the moment? I’m not at all a fan of any of the current republican candidates in the running either. Feels like we have the choice between two sets of shit where one is more runny than the other.
Getting the tax credit back up to 30% instead of 26% and trending downwards for individuals on solar and geothermal has been fantastic for me. That’s in the infrastructure act - The Inflation Reduction Act.
Actual dollar incentives in my pocket in order to dramatically increase my personal energy efficiency while reducing my fossil fuel consumption. All while in no way directly negatively penalizing fossil fuel consumption.
That’s pretty sweet.
Did the Trump administration sign any legislation to do anything in particular to incentivize renewable energy at the individual level?
So… I’m from Texas [living in OR…] and an entire industry was cut in half because of this admins cutback in oil - while some of this admins work might have saved you money and allowed you to build your personal infrastructure in a direction you agree with, the people of Midland and Odessa Texas lost 50% overnight.
And, all the workers who flocked and prospered are gone with no oil jobs to go back to.
How did the current administration “cutback” in oil? You’re speaking of a for-profit industry that is famously the most boom and bust of commodities, no?
It’s appropriate to flock to the future. I expect our government to be forward looking and invest in the future.
I would be disappointed to see the American government prop up the hydrocarbon industry and its move to single-use plastic production rather than incentivize the growth of renewable energy.
Is the current level of US government fossil fuel subsidies of $10-$50 billion per year too little?