Notices by Democrats Abroad (democratsabroad@mastodon.social), page 6

#Biden needs to do more to assure the public about his energy level, and we also need to see the polls.

Any decision should be based on the paramount thing — the thing that should be getting 72-point headlines: stopping #dictatorship.

As Justice Ketanji #BrownJackson wrote Monday in her #dissent, this is a “five-alarm fire that threatens to consume #democratic self-governance.”

🧵 13/19

And look, I’m not going to argue that #Biden’s health is not an issue. His #debate performance was troubling, but I also think those of us determined not to see Donald Trump become #president again should take a deep breath — even if that’s not the #clickbait headline that many are eager to write.

🧵 12/19

Other papers jumped on the bandwagon, including the swing state #Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which in the 1950s and ‘60s won #Pulitzer s for its courage in taking on #Southern #racist s before deciding instead to appeal to their grandchildren.

🧵 11/19

They think calling for Trump to drop out would make them look foolish now that the #Republican Party has devolved into a dangerous #cult. But a demand for #Biden to drop out might actually happen — so that’s savvy, right?

Except maybe the dangerous cult is the more important crisis, especially when it carries a printed guide to #dictatorship and holds six #justices in its back pocket.

🧵 16/19

Maybe people who in one way or another know the horror of being treated as a second-class citizen understand the risk of #dictatorship in a way that #white dudes who’ve always been OK do not.

Most #journalists want to be seen as savvy (or not naïve, essentially the same thing) and influential. Many #editorial #writers and #columnists are still hurting from the fact that Trump was elected in 2016 with zero major #print endorsements.

🧵 15/19

The power of Monday’s dissents by #Jackson and #Sotomayor form quite the contrast with the speculative flights of fancy about a brokered #convention in #Chicago, which, it’s worth noting, have largely come from white male #boomer types. Many #Black and #brown and #female voices, on the other hand, are urging #Biden to stay as the only realistic hope — warts and all — of beating Trump in #November.

🧵 14/19

The current president is walking slowly, but it’s the #American Experiment that’s on a ventilator. #Journalists aren’t doing their job: performing basic triage and focusing on the sickest patient in the room.

With fear for our #democracy, I dissent.

🧵 19/19

End #THREAD of Will Bunch column DO NEWSPAPER COLUMNISTS KNOW THAT DEMOCRACY IS SICKER THAN #BIDEN?

#Expats: This thread brought to you by http://VoteFromAbroad. GO THERE RIGHT NOW to #register to #vote and request your #ballot.

The reality of what’s happening in July 2024 — that an #authoritarian-minded president, with help from a politicized and unethical #SupremeCourt, is on track to lead a nation where all power is being vested in him, his #MAGA movement, and the #corporate #polluters — is THE story, and #Biden’s health is a subplot in that drama.

🧵 18/19

To focus on the actual threat we are facing, I wish #America’s top #pundits would spend less time watching reruns of The #WestWing and maybe pick up a copy of The Rise and Fall of the #ThirdReich.

🧵 17/19

Here is the link to Will Bunch's must-read wake-up call to complacent #journalists, DO NEWSPAPER COLUMNISTS KNOW THAT #DEMOCRACY IS CLOSER TO DEATH THAN #BIDEN?

Please #boost.

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/biden-trump-presidential-debate-supreme-court-immunity-chevron-clarence-thomas-20240702.html

If you hit a paywall, no worries: we've created a thread with the entire column here: https://mastodon.social/@democratsabroad/112732782023624937

#journalism #law @journalismandcomment #Philadelphia #Pennsylvania #PA #Inquirer #Project2025 #SupremeCourt #SCOTUS #dissent #legal #ruling #immunity @blackmastodon #BlackMastodon

🧵 #THREAD

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a column we wish all the members of the media had to read word-for-word, out loud, before they could log on to their computer systems.

Since that seems unlikely, we're giving you a multi-post thread that reproduces the column in its entirety.

Why? Because #Democracy is worth protecting.

#Expats: This column has been brought to you by http://VoteFromAbroad.org. Please #boost it widely.

@journalismandcomment @history #law #tiktok

Dropping names — #Whitmer! #Shapiro! #Warnock! — like a groupie backstage at a heavy-metal concert, floating wildly implausible scenarios, stretching so hard for historical analogies that several probably blew out a hamstring, America’s pundit class managed to achieve a level of groupthink that surpassed the brainwashers of The Manchurian Candidate.

🧵 4/19

...saving #America by giving chief of staff Leo McGarry the best words to convince an ailing #President Bartlet that it’s time to step down.

The soft clacking of these keyboard commandos turned into a stampede as the nation’s pundits, its editorial-page poobahs, mega-rich but anonymous donors, & Democratic horse whisperers competed to outdo each other on The Daily Rip or in “the paper of record,” or wherever they thought the actual frail president, Joe #Biden, might be paying attention.

🧵 3/19

Clearly, this is not something that is taught in journalism school.

Over the course of a remarkable weekend, I saw the best minds of my boomer generation destroyed by madness — newspaper columnists and other big shots convinced they were cosplayers in a real-world episode of The #WestWing...

🧵 2/19

DO NEWSPAPER COLUMNISTS KNOW THAT #DEMOCRACY'S CLOSER TO DEATH THAN #BIDEN?

Will Bunch

One of the first things they teach doctors in medical school is the imperfect but necessary art of triage, the technique used on a battlefield or during some other mass-casualty event to determine who is most gravely wounded and who needs immediate attention during a crisis when the system is overwhelmed, and clear-headed thinking will save lives.

🧵 1/19

First, there is #TFG — desperate to avoid his sentencing for his 34 felony convictions, firing off #racist insults about “#Black jobs” and “bad #Palestinians,” and carrying around a 900-page blueprint for #American #dictatorship called #Project2025 — streaking into the cosmic void of our troubled republic.

Meanwhile, #dontlookup but a thoroughly corrupt and compromised #SupremeCourt is blazing a second trail toward #American #autocracy.

🧵 6/19

#Project2025

All argued that for the good of the country he loves, #Biden — hoarse, barely audible, and visibly confused a few times during Thursday’s Atlanta presidential debate — must immediately end his candidacy.

Meanwhile, in the actual America that less resembles The #WestWing than the disaster flick #DontLookUp, two comets simultaneously bore down on America in the hours leading up to its 248th — and possibly last — birthday as a democratic republic.

🧵 5/19

Dr. Allan Lichtman's 13 presidential keys.

If the incumbent party can answer YES to SEVEN or more of these questions, the incumbent party wins.

Lichtman has correctly predicted 9 out of 10 of the last presidential elections w/this system. His one miss was 2000, which, let's face it, was an outlier. His system did align with the popular-vote outcome then.

Here's the point. #Biden currently checks SEVEN Lichtman boxes.

Thank goodness we're not changing horses in mid-stream!

AND WE'RE NOT.

"Every woman should be able to make decisions about her own body and her life without government interference. " -- Vice President Kamala Harris

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