Joe Biden Should Be F*cking Proud
Another one to clip and send to the grandkids!
President Joe Biden gave a primetime Oval Office speech last night to explain his decision to step aside from the 2024 presidential campaign and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate to carry on the task of, as he put it, defending democracy.
Here’s video of the brief 11-minute speech.
Biden got to the point pretty quickly, explaining why he’d decided it was time to
I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term, but nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy, and that includes personal ambition.
So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation.
And yes, you were right, that torch metaphor is borrowed from JFK. Biden made clear that he’s not just going to lame-duck around the Rose Garden; he’s still going to be presidenting full time between now and January, working on combating gun violence and moving forward with his agenda on climate (here’s where we remind you the EPA plans to release a huge rule regulating emissions from existing fossil gas plants after the election).
And then Joe got into the performance review part of the speech, where he pointed out all the things he’s achieved in his term, and it’s a hell of a lot. He noted that when he took office, America was still deep in the pandemic and the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” and that he was sworn in following “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” — but that winter of our discontent has largely passed because Americans came together, most of us, to get things done.
If you don’t mind, we’ll add some Wonkette (and other) links to the transcript, because everyone loves annotations, don’t they?
Today, we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16 million new jobs — a record. Wages are up, inflation continues to come down, the racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We’re literally rebuilding our entire nation, urban, suburban, rural and tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America.
Oh yes, we can keep going.
We’re leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma after all these years, to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, and I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone, not just seniors.
Sigh … so “We finally beat Big Pharma” was the line he meant to say during the debate, but jumbled it into “We finally beat Medicare.” No, we won’t spend eight paragraphs explaining the differences between senility and getting words mixed up; that’s water over the damned now. But again, he’s right about how making Medicare drugs cheaper can have a knock-on effect: After the Inflation Reduction Act capped insulin prices at $35 a month for seniors, multiple major drug manufacturers capped prices on several of their popular insulin products too, for people with and without private health insurance.
OK, one more paragraph, shall we?
More people have health care today in America than ever before. And I signed one of the most significant laws helping millions of veterans and their families who were exposed to toxic materials. You know, the most significant climate law ever, ever in the history of the world, the first major gun safety law in 30 years. And today, violent crime rate is at a 50-year low.
Gosh, that was a lot of linking and notes! Thing is, we could have done even more!
Now here’s the thing, and this is no hyperbole: Joe Biden has every reason in the world to be proud of his achievements in office, particularly since he and Kamala Harris got them all done with one of the narrowest congressional majorities ever (and since the 2022 elections, with one House tied behind their backs). And hell yes, we share his frustration that he doesn’t seem to have gotten the credit he deserves for it, for a ton of reasons we won’t go into here (superficial media coverage and an intense rightwing lie machine being only two factors). Now it’s up to Kamala Harris to sell those achievements and tell Americans how she’ll build on them.
Biden closed the speech by looking forward, reminding us that the real work of protecting democracy falls, as it always has, to the American people, citing once more Ben Franklin’s caution that the Founders had given the country “a Republic — if you can keep it.”
The great thing about America is here kings and dictators do not rule, the people do. History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. We just have to keep faith, keep the faith and remember who we are.
Well then, we know what we have to do. Get everyone you know out to vote, and keep this experiment in self-rule going. And if we can laugh out loud and dance goofily while doing it, so much the better!
Heck, even the skies in Boise look a little clearer after last night’s rain.
[NPR / White House]
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This has got to be one of the best rope a dope's in political history. First make your opponent make his entire campaign about age, then step aside and make him the oldest nominee in history.
I'm motivated even more after this speech, if it were possible. No matter the circumstances of how he left, unappreciated, he put country over personal ambition. The opponents - not President Klan Robe....not Senator Butthair Sculpture, have the integrity—the morality to do such a thing.
Make sure you do this critical work, because it is up to us.
1. First and foremost, make sure your voter registration is all set. Go to www.vote.org or www.vote.gov and make sure. Republicans sue and do everything possible to make sure you can not vote, because they know how powerful it is. Every barrier they put in the way of voting cements their rule in numerous unreconstructed locales. Because the vote is incredibly powerful. When you use it against the agents of this unreconstructed party, great things happen. And this is important up and down the ballot. So many races are decided by single digits...YOUR vote could make the difference!
2. Defend Kamala Harris and back up her offense. This is a team effort. We are not going to allow what happened to Hillary Clinton to happen to Kamala Harris this time. We're also not going to let her get Abrams Paradoxed. This is a full court press because everything we hold near and dear is on the line.
* When you see disinformation in your feeds, swat it down where conditions permit.
* Be mindful of rumors, as well as sudden eruptions of FUD. There should be no surprises about Kamala Harris as her record is out there and in the open, and she's been Vice President for four years. If there really was anything damaging it would've come out against her in the three statewide + national ticket elections she's won. (Not to mention local elections)
* Remember, the business of chaos agents is chaos. And when a Democratic administration is fighting for us, and fighting to continue, business is good. Remember that there are still chaos agents out there looking to derail the campaign—notably Lowly Worm, Dean "Who?" Phillips and Chakra Con.
* And of course beware of sudden wedge grenades thrown in. Consider the source: if they do not have receipts backing up long-term advocacy for the issue; it's almost surely inauthentic and designed to fracture the Democratic coalition.
With that, all I can say now is "Mount up!"