Could JB Pritzker Consider a Run for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 2024?
That’s not the first, second, or seventh most important question related to the July 4 massacre in suburban Chicago. But Politico raised itat least implicitly, the next day, noting that the Illinois governor took advantage of the national spotlight on him to model a gun violence rage that President Biden does not always project†
The Washington Post made the same observation† “According to many distraught Democrats, the country is facing a full-blown crisis on several fronts, and Biden seems unable or unwilling to respond with the appropriate force,” wrote Ashley Parker and Matt Viser, who identified Pritzker as one of several. Democratic leaders are taking on a more combative tone. They named Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, another. Like Pritzker, Newsom is the subject of speculation about 2024† And he’s only fueled it in recent days by running television ads in Florida, a pivotal presidential election battleground, that targeted that state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who could be a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
As if November 2022 didn’t give Democrats enough grief, November 2024 won’t wait. Biden’s age† bleak approval rating and apparently inability to instill confidence in the ranks of the party have created an extraordinary situation where there is no rock-solid belief that he will run for a second term, no universal agreement that he should and a growing number of Democrats whose behavior can be read as preparation to challenge or intervene. I’ve never seen anything like it.
That’s not to say incumbent presidents haven’t faced competitive primaries before. Jimmy Carter did that in 1980, against Ted Kennedy. George HW Bush did that in 1992 against Pat Buchanan. Carter and Bush overcame those challengers—only to be defeated themselves in the general election.
The doubts swirling around Biden are reminiscent of the doubts swirling around those men, but they’re reinforced by our frenzied news environment. They are also compounded by Democrats’ sense that the stakes of a Republican victory in 2024 — especially if the Republican is Donald Trump — is immeasurable.
And the persistent and operatic expression of these doubts is very concerning, because I can’t see how they can be easily put to rest, not at this point, and they are self-destructive to some extent.
Pointing out Biden’s shortcomings and cataloging his failures is one thing — and arguably constructive, as it points him and his administration to correction — but the kind of doubt, contingency planning and clothes-ripping that many Democrats are currently dealing with is one. Others . It threatens to seal the fate of Biden and his party.
Republicans are so much better at putting a smiley face on their misadventures, marketing trash as gold and pantomimizing unity to a point where they actually achieve it. Their moral elasticity confers tactical advantages. Democrats shouldn’t imitate it, but they could learn something†
Biden won the party’s nomination in 2020, not for random, fickle reasons, but because Democrats thought he was a wiser, safer bet than many alternatives. Are the Democrats so sure, two difficult years later, that the alternatives are much wiser and safer than he would be?
He’s dimmed since his inauguration – that’s for sure. And the crisis of confidence around him is a difficult environment to campaign for a second term. If that gives him a break, if he at least hesitates, he should announce that he is limiting himself to one term as soon as possible after the midterms so that Pritzker, Newsom, Kamala Harris or any number of other prominent Democrats have enough time to their cause to succeed him.
And if he’s all in? Then the Democrats can’t take out their knives like they do now. Our president is already bleeding profusely.
For the love of lyrics
After celebrating women in the previous episode of this feature, Michael Ipavec of Concord, NH wrote, “No love for Laura Nyro?” Manhattan’s Anita Nirenberg asked the same question.
Michael, Anita: Have faith. There is infinite love for it Laura Nyroz here.
During my studies I pretty much dedicated my vinyl LP of ‘Eli and the Thirteenth Confession’. Then I moved on to “New York Tendaberry” and hung on to my favorite song, “You don’t love me when I cry‘, which has the most melodramatic vocal performance this side of Jennifer Holliday’s ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’.
Nyro, who died in 1997 at the age of 49, was a prolific and extraordinarily talented songwriter, someone who, like Carole King and Karla Bonoff, was sometimes better known as the author of hits by other musicians than as the singer of her own. compositions. She was arguably more gifted with melodies than words, but”Wedding Bell Blues” and “sweet blindness“are perfect combinations of the two, and there are a lot of great lines in”And if I die”, which popularized the group Blood, Sweat & Tears:
I’m not afraid to die
and I don’t really care
If it’s peace you find in dying,
Well then let the time be near
So I’m hereby adding Nyro to our growing (but still woefully incomplete) pantheon of female lyricists, including Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann, Lucinda Williams, and others already. I’m also adding Joan Armatrading, another of my college favorites. I was excited about Armatrading’s uncomplicated desire and palpable pain”love affection(“Now if I can feel the sun in my eyes / And the rain on my face / Why can’t I feel love”), she always brilliant performance† I admired the humor and pun in “Drop the pilot,” with its Sapphic suggestiveness, and it must be the only American pop song with the word “mahout” in the.
I realize that the pantheon shows my age (57) and generation and makes short work of younger singer-songwriters. The one that comes to mind the fastest is Taylor Swift, whose extensive catalog belies her 32 years. I’m not well versed in her job, so I turned to a former Duke student of mine, Allison Janowski, the most dedicated Swift-stan I know. She gave me a brilliant mini tutorial, starting with the extended version of the song “All Too Well” and these lines, from various parts of it:
We sing in the car, get lost in the state
Autumn leaves fall into place like piecesBecause there we are again in the middle of the night
We dance through the kitchen in the light of the fridgeYou kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath
And you call me back to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
Allison, you have turned the teacher into a grateful student.
“For the Love of Lyrics” comes out monthly (ish). Email me to nominate a songwriter and song here, including your name and place of residence. “For the Love of Sentences” returns with the next newsletter; you can use the same link to suggest recent excerpts of prose.
What I’m reading
I can’t defend the color scheme. Purple and yellow? It’s like walking into a space for kids to play pranks on, not for adults to plank.
And the pun in the signage next to the weightlifting equipment is a bit much (even for the jokes, plank-ish like me). No “gym harassment”? I can think of better prohibitions against smoothing out looking at me than not-me-smart twitches.
But I love Planet Fitness, the gym I chose when I got tired of others, the gym that doesn’t have biometric airs (I’m looking at you, Orangetheory) or that promises or crows bootcamp brutality the washings in the dressing roomsthe gym that costs less per month than a movie with popcorn, the gym that is content to be just a gym.
I hesitate to write that because it sounds like I’m doing cardiovascular outreach (trust me, or just look at me – I don’t) or getting a commission (I would). What I’m really looking for is a metaphor. A moral. And for journalistic purposes, Planet Fitness offers just that.
It is an answer and an antidote to much of what is depressing and exhausting about American life. In a country and era so much focused on sorting us into layers of economic privilege and layers of cultural sophisticationPlanet Fitness is kind of a nowhere for everyone, blunt and tented, frequented for reasons of utility rather than vanity, with dozens of treadmills without bells and whistles serving a real diversity of customers.
I looked around the other day, which could have been any day, and saw several seemingly non-binary hipsters. An elderly woman in a tracksuit used walking sticks to move from one exercise station to another. There were white people, black people, brown people and as many body types as skin colors. No one wore Lululemon or Gymshark sportswear. Nobody took selfies.
Planet Fitness has been criticized because he does not do justice to the second word in his name. In the past, it apparently gave members free pizza and bagels.
And a few years ago the chief executive officer, Chris Rondeau, made political donations — both against Donald Trump and a conservative New Hampshire lawmaker with an anti-gay record — which contradicted the company’s inclusive reporting. I don’t like that.
But in my experience at Planet Fitness, you can rely on the “judgment-free zone” advertised in big letters on a back wall. That, I realize, is its own branding, its own shtick. And I suppose I’m making an anti-statement statement by going there.
So it will be. I find there a cross section of Americans that I don’t find in many other places. I find the opposite of an enclave. On reflection, maybe it’s purple and yellow because red and blue are too charged. Color me grateful.