Quote (Black XistenZ @ Sep 3 2022 08:55am)
It's unheard of in modern times, but not necessarily an escalation if you ask me. It's been over a century since a former president was neither termed out, nor politically done. Trump is still the dominant figure of the GOP and the Republican with the highest likelihood of becoming the 2024 nominee. What Biden did was essentially hold a 2024 campaign rally before the midterms, because talking about his presumed 2024 opponent is more advantageous to him than talking about his own track record.
The political strategy on both sides is fairly obvious: Democrats want to turn the midterms into yet another referendum on Trump, Republicans want to turn it into a referendum on Biden's track record.
Its a fair point that looking historically there are probably examples of sitting presidents who had to be in political tussles with their resurgent predecessors, just not post-war. And even Brooks on PBS last night was criticizing his beloved Biden by calling it a campaign rally and was more concerned that his divisive tactics were actually going to drive more moderate republicans back into Trump's camp by antagonizing them with such a wide label as "MAGA Republicans".
But as I was saying, this hearkens back to the tea party and BLM- cynical political exploitation designed to win votes in the next election, by playing with dangerous forces. But the totalitarianism Joe Biden is playing with right now is vastly more dangerous than anything from the previous examples. His administration is trying to imprison his predecessor, so trying to ride that movement for political gain goes far beyond the normal exploitative process. Since we were just looking historically- what has happened to countries when they are wracked by economic failures, food shortages, war, disease, civil strife- and then had palace intrigue and power struggles with leaders trying to depose and condemn each other? I'd say it doesn't bode well for the American experiment.