In this latest nine-minute comedy/news bit from Bill Maher’s “Real Time,” a show that included Rahm Emanuel and Fareed Zakaria, Maher suggests who the Dems should run for President and Vice-President in 2028.
Ths clip, called “New Rule: The next Democratic Star” proffers a solution to the waning popularity of the Democratic Party and the increasing desire of its members to move to the center. Maher suggests John Fetterman as a potential Prez, because he comes off as someone who understands the average American. He also notes that Fetterman shares some of the features that helped Trump win, the most important being “authenticity, balls, and charisma.”
Yes, Fetterman had a stroke and suffers from depression, but Trump is unhealthy and suffers from narcissism. Fetterman, however, has sensible and potentially winnable political views; as Maher says, “Fetterman says the four words that strike fear into the heart of every Republican who wants to hang onto power: ‘I am not woke’.”
Maher also suggests Mayor Pete as a possible VP candidate, and I’m for that, too. (He notes that a disabled President combined with a gay VP surely checks as many intersectionality boxes as one person of color.) If not Mayor Pete, than Gretchen Whitmer.
This is a very good one; watch it!
Yes, it was a good episode. I thought it was interesting that PB no longer uses pronouns in his signature.
Meh. Just meh. Meh, meh, meh. I want a Republican—just one that isn’t a raging narcissist. Is that too much to ask? I do not trust Democrats. Do you know how many people in Boston look down on me? That alone is enough reason to never vote again for the chattering class. I want a representative who actually gives a damn about the people, not just about climbing the social ladder of the NPR set. Democrats don’t represent the poor—they use them as set dressing in their morality play while catering to the whims of the upper middle class. Screw ’em. But I do like Fetterman. I’d have to be desperate to vote for him, though. I’m not there yet.
Beantown’s mayor is hardly an exemplar of sound governance!
Roz, you have my sympathy. The smugness and self-righteousness of many university-educated supporters of the Democratic party is very objectionable.
I just want to hit them over the had with this fine article:
Oren Cass: These Progressive Ideas Flopped. They’re Still Dangerous. New York Times, Oct 10, 2024
https://archive.ph/yoDfG
Excerpt:
So you are dismissing the whole party because they’re all raging narcissists? Yet you admit that Fetterman is not one?
Hey, I’ve always voted Democratic, but I too want a Republican of sound mind. I would dearly love both candidates be so acceptable we’d have a hard time deciding who we want most. A win/win rather than a lose/lose situation.
Come the next presidential election the Dems should be pretty desparate to nominate a centrist candidate who can actually win, and then govern from the center. (Biden was elected as a centrist, but then pushed a radical line when it came to cultural politics and immigration.)
Maher: When the fashion police come upon Fetterman, they get out their walkie-talkie “I’m going to need backup here. I repeat: Calling for backup.” – That is funny.
For people who need a laugh, I recommend watching the opening monologue of Connan O’Brien hosting Sunday nights Academy Awards show (it’s on YouTube).
The Dems problem, as I see it, is that they are a party in search of an agenda. They are trying to figure out how to stay relevant, which is really the wrong way to go about it. Parties are formed by people who have shared policy goals. Now they are a bunch of people looking for a “message” that will let them keep their jobs. But it has to be a good one, and it has to be one that people think they are being honest about. It may be that the Dems won’t solve the problem. They may go the way of the Whigs.
I don’t disagree with you, and I think the GOP has the same problem. MAGA isn’t a set of principled policy goals, it’s just a cult of personality. If any of the Republicans in national office had the courage of their convictions, there would be a chance to recover the party when Trump is done. What we see instead is that they all bent the knee to avoid MAGA backlash.
So we have two parties lacking integrity, each with the same goal of staying in power for no reason other than to be in power. There are enough anti-populist, anti-woke people to form a sane alternative from the ashes of the two, but the will and leadership are lacking.
I hope there will be a realignment and they both go the way of the Whigs.
The phrase “empty suit” comes to mind, repeatedly.
I am opposed to Fetterman. Not on policy grounds. Not on sartorial grounds. However, his health is not great. The Democrats should run someone with a clean bill of health. They have many choices.
Last year Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, was on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show (I guess she had a book to hawk). I was blown away of how telegenic she was. (The interview is on YouTube.) She’s is also a centrist, and has the right age (54). So I hope she will be a candidate in the Democratic primary for president in 2027.
I live in Michigan, and I can heartily agree. I have not seen where “Big Gretch” (as we like to call her) has shown any interest in running.
And I really hate myself for saying it, but a woman candidate has less of a chance on the national stage.
Come on Mark. Why do you think a woman candidate has less of chance on the national stage? Hilary Clinton won the national vote in 2016 (she just lost in the electoral college). There are also a number of state governors who are women. It ain’t 1980 or 1990 anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_governors_in_the_United_States
“Just lost in the Electoral College” means she lost. Full stop.
She was playing by the same rules that Donald Trump was — none of this, “Well, he can try to win the EC but I’m going for the popular vote” — and he beat her.
Once the left was about decent wages and living conditions. Now it’s about letting a rapist self-declare as a woman and being sent off to a woman’s prison. Get back to basics and get back to normal.
I am reminded of the bitter comment made by liberal/leftist (not me) who said.
“We are going to hear a lot more about trans issues, than the minimum wage over the next year”
Of course, he was right.
Josh Shapiro would be good.
Yesterday, Fetterman voted against the bill that would ban males from participating in female sports. As would have Buttigieg. As would have Whitmer. Can anyone name me one Democratic politician of even remotely national prominence that will not support every Woke issue, excepting Hamas and Gaza, that is readily denounced or argued against on these pages?
Indeed: https://x.com/WomensLibFront/status/1896765433849811260/photo/1
Thank you for this list. I should have been paying closer attention to what’s going on in my own backyard. Time to write a couple letters.
And this list proves Roz’s point about the Democrats.
Yes, that is bad. But I wonder what Fetterman would say if you ASKED him if he really did oppose trans-identified males competing in women’s sports.
And elsewhere, from Mount Doom, comes a griping voice that the Dems should not back away from their progressive platform but should instead double down on it even more harder.
(sigh. or meh) That’s all I’ve been seeing so far, too.
The Democratic response to Seth Moulton’s (D-MA) rather mild comments, was particularly unhinged
Good one! I have written at least three thank-you notes to Senator Fetterman for his strong support of Israel in its effort to destroy the terrorist group Hamas. I am not a constituent of his, but my mother is. In contrast, I have tried to contact Pramila Jayapal—the district adjacent to mine—but Jayapal does not accept communications from those who are not in her district. Consequently, I have had to send my comments to my own congresswoman and ask her to convey them to Ms. Jayapal. (I am probably not making friends with her either, since I put her on the spot with Jayapal.) Fetterman will need to buy a suit when he becomes President. Actually, he’ll probably need to have one custom made, as his size isn’t normally available off the shelf. 🙂
Maher mentions Democrats need someone with charisma like Reagan, Obama, Clinton, and trump. I understand trump must have charisma but it completely escapes me. I recall watching him snarl “yah fired!” on his TV show and finding him repulsive. I had no idea what his politics were, but his persona was repellent. Reagan I disagreed with often but clearly he was a terrific communicator. I don’t understand trump’s appeal at all.
Agreed! I’m not sure his being obstinate counts as having balls, either.
He’s an asshole. Other assholes love it when he acts like an asshole.
Fetterman/Torres, maybe. Democrats like Buttigieg who have now removed their “preferred pronouns” (yes it’s a minor thing, but suggestive of things far more sinister about who they are as people) remind me of those Eastern European Communist politicians who softened their stance upon those regimes’ collapse but stuck around for subsequent elections: they are the same people they were, just looking for the next way to advance their own power.
I can’t believe that Fetterman is seriously being considered as a Presidential candidate. He has cognitive deficits from his stroke…I’m sorry, but I want my President to be firing on all cylinders intellectually and to have a strong executive presence. The job is too important and too demanding for anything less. That’s a minimum standard mind you…before looking at character, experience, etc.
I do not think that it’s too much to ask in an advanced economy of 350 million to produce someone like that. The last thing the Democrats need is another presidential candidate that is constantly fending off legitimate questions about his/her mental competency.