Trump cannot get a majority in polls in Texas against Biden. Neither is losing bad enough to give a shot to a legitimate third party, but it does show that the current status quo of both parties is not enough to command a lead.
People don’t love Biden, and people don’t love Trump. They have small bases.
We must consider what type of candidate or campaign would win a large majority. Neither Biden nor Trump is that candidate.
The issue dominating the headlines is inflation because we had a spike last year. Here is the inflation graph since November 2018.
As you can see, inflation spiked to over 8% in 2022. This is the fault of spendthrift socialists like Biden, according to Faux News. We need to stop giving handouts to poor people and instead give tax cuts to hard-working billionaires.
But I lied slightly because that graph is not of the United States. This graph is of Canada. Here is what inflation looked like in the United States over the same period.
Notice how similar the graphs are? Our inflation episode is from a source bigger than the US or Canada. Inflation has been global and is bigger than what the President can control. I don’t blame Biden directly for the inflation, which started as soon as the invasion of Ukraine began.
If we look at the President’s approval rating, however, it doesn’t track inflation.
Source: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/joe-biden/
President Biden had a positive approval rating until the Afghanistan withdrawal and has remained negative ever since. Being the second President to lose a war in history put him under, and there has been no major victory to bring him back to positive approval. The victories he has had since he failed in Afghanistan, after clearly stating that he did not believe the Taliban would take over, show a poor choice in foreign policy and military advisors on his part, and he has no one to blame but himself for selecting such unqualified individuals. Still, his attempts to broadcast the good things he has done have been too small to matter, and he has failed to remind Americans they even happened. Biden is a bad politician.
Having a negative approval in the first term is not unheard of either. Bill Clinton was unpopular in his first term, and then got more popular in his second term. 
Source: https://news.gallup.com/interactives/507569/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx
Biden can win if he sees a major victory, such as Ukraine regaining its territory or a treaty signed in Palestine recognizing their rights. Since he gets so horny over the two-state solution, the Biden administration needs to recognize the Palestinian Authority or seek other solutions. It is unlikely anything will pass through Congress, but he can still leverage power through diplomacy. Biden got into his situation through a foreign policy blunder. He can start to recover by leveraging a foreign policy victory.
Here are a few ideas on how Biden can win:
- Pass an aid package to give Ukraine the support they need to win the war by the Fall. This is half of the reason why Republicans refuse to pass a Ukraine aid bill.
- Pressure Israel to sanction Russia.
- Pressure Israel to resolve the situation in Gaza to protect civilian lives and stop sending them blank checks.
- If Israel continues to be a money laundromat for Russian oligarchs and continues their genocide in Gaza, we need to sanction them heavily.
- Negotiate an agreement with the European Union to reinstate mutual visa-free travel between our regions on the path to a customs-free zone encompassing all of the Arctic except Russia.
- Lower tensions with China and pressure them to sanction North Korea.
- If Putin loses the Ukraine War and there is a revolution in Russia, support the democratic activists so Russia can change.
- Campaign on a carbon tax and dividend. Such a policy would provide direct cash payments to families, offsetting inflation, which is now down to around 3%.
- Campaign on streamlining regulations to approve the construction of transit to save money.
There are a few pressing issues that are harder to deal with politically. The most obvious of these to me is the cost of housing. It is a simple supply and demand problem, but getting cities to build housing as fast as our population grows and people want to move to new places is a major challenge. There are a few ways the President can push cities to be more urbanist, namely giving lip service, but short of streamlining regulations so we can build transit more efficiently and ending Buy America requirements, there is little the President can do to impact housing costs and improve transit around the country.
Biden supports AMTRAK, but by not supporting the full nationalization of railroads, most of the improvements will be limited to the Northeast Corridor. This is not horrendous but falls far short of what we need.
Biden is seriously out of touch with reality on most foreign policy issues. I fear he always has been.
The most absurd thing about Biden’s entire campaign is that his website, joebiden.com, doesn’t even have an issues page. Come on, man, this is embarrassing!
The candidate I want is someone who does the following:
- Can do basic campaigning goddammit. Announce your victories loud and clear, make it clear where you stand, and stand by your values jesusfuckingchristthisissosimpleicantevenrightnow.
- Stands up to bullies domestically and abroad. This means treating Republicans, Netanyahu, and Putin equally with derision and all the respect they deserve, which is none.
- Campaign on a carbon fee and dividend to solve climate change.
- Opposes genocide in Gaza.
- Supports Ukraine.
- Is not a mercantilist.
The thing is, I like a lot of Biden’s domestic policies, from what I can remember because he doesn’t make his stances clear on his website jesusfuckingchristhowdidweelectthisguytothewhitehouseinthefirstplace. But if you don’t campaign on them, even if the majority of Americans agree with you, it does not matter.
But when it comes down to it, he is not Trump, even though Trump and Biden agree on most economic issues, immigration, and almost every foreign policy issue. Please prove me wrong, Joe. Send enough aid to Ukraine to drive the Russian horde out of Ukraine. Biden’s social values are fundamentally different from Trump’s. Trump opposes abortion rights. Biden supports abortion rights.
Biden is an institutionalist. Trump wants to upend our system.
Suppose you decide that the disasters in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Palestine are so egregious that you cannot vote for Biden. Honestly, I do not blame you. But there are many other races on the ballot this year that you do need to vote for. You need to vote in your House of Representatives election for the Democrat. Vote in the primary for the progressive who opposes Netanyahu and Putin. Ensure that if your state has a Senate election, you vote for the Democrat to prevent a Republican trifecta.
While we could do so much better than Biden, you should still vote for him despite his disastrous foreign policy. His foreign policy decisions are largely the same decisions Trump would make. But when it comes to preserving our imperfect yet functional system of government Biden offers a path to the future. Trump repeatedly says that he won’t accept election results if he loses. His court appointments are responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. They are coming for other rights in time. CNN
There are far too many issues where Biden and Trump agree with each other while disagreeing with the American people. But there are many issues where they differ, and unfortunately, until we reform our election system and replace the Electoral College with a functional election system or elect a progressive as President, many of these issues will continue to be dominated by loud voices with lots of money contrary to what the majority of people and basic morality dictate.
Electing Trump will not get more progressives elected. If it could, Biden would not be President. The fact that Biden is President disproves accelerationism—it’s time to do what works. Vote Progressive in every primary and Democratic in the general. New Democrats are highly flawed, but they are equally better than Republicans. This is the path to electing more Progressives.
Get ranked voting everywhere. It doesn’t guarantee progressives will win, but it makes it more likely that progressive candidates can run against moderate Democrats. We need to run in every primary, everywhere, every time. We lose 100% of the races we don’t run in.
Get involved in local politics, electing people of strong moral fiber to your city, county, and state governments. If you want to have people with values in line with the majority of Americans elected who represent our values. The most common background of members of the House are previously serving in the state legislature and lobbying or activism. 44 Senators have previous experience as Representatives in the US House. 16 previously served in state Houses, 27 previously served in State Senates. 61 Senators have served in the US House or their state legislature. The other Senators are mostly former governors, state attorneys general, lieutenant governors, and mayors. The only non-appointed Democrats who did not have previous elected experience were Mark Kelly, Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, and Elizabeth Warren. All of whom are exceptional individuals.
Support policies like mandatory vacation as a right and true visa-free travel. The more people who travel abroad, the more people who have face-to-face interactions with people from other countries, and the more likely we are to have politicians and voters who understand issues beyond our borders. Interact with people from other countries and talk about politics. The United States is the most powerful country in the world. In our increasingly interconnected world, face-to-face interactions outside social media only become more important. As travel barriers continue to increase, the ability of radical extremists to push for policies like supporting genocidal regimes becomes more possible. Travel is the path to peace.
That is the only realistic path to getting people involved in politics with strong moral fiber and a good understanding of global politics. You can study international relations, I believe you should to an extent, but nothing can substitute the power of a good trip visiting places and people while interacting with locals. Learn about our world, and elect people with these qualities to your local and state governments.
