I am starting to get really frustrated with liberal politicians I've grown up admiring for the good work they've done just... not releasing their hold on power when they're extremely old and then...
I am starting to get really frustrated with liberal politicians I've grown up admiring for the good work they've done just... not releasing their hold on power when they're extremely old and then fucking up the whole country, either getting sick (Feinstein), dying (Ginsburg) or losing to a fascist (Biden, potentially).
Just let the next generation take over when you're 80. JFC.
Yeah RBG really stings in hindsight. At the time her decision was considered to be a sign of strength, of unwillingness to compromise principles. But in practice, it turned out to just be a...
Yeah RBG really stings in hindsight. At the time her decision was considered to be a sign of strength, of unwillingness to compromise principles. But in practice, it turned out to just be a decision that ultimately played into the scummy agenda of the right.
She's probably the best example because her refusal to stand aside let to a replacement that has set out to undo every hard won victory she spearheaded. Just foolish, and selfish.
She's probably the best example because her refusal to stand aside let to a replacement that has set out to undo every hard won victory she spearheaded. Just foolish, and selfish.
It's mind boggling to think that a person can come that close to an essentially perfect legacy and throw it all away at the end. I still admire her, but would hold her in such a higher regard if...
It's mind boggling to think that a person can come that close to an essentially perfect legacy and throw it all away at the end. I still admire her, but would hold her in such a higher regard if she'd stepped down. Nobody's perfect.
I disagree strongly with this. The echo chamber sure claimed it was, but it was exactly the kind of stupid arrogance that is why these people are not actually good for any cause. None of this...
At the time her decision was considered to be a sign of strength,
I disagree strongly with this. The echo chamber sure claimed it was, but it was exactly the kind of stupid arrogance that is why these people are not actually good for any cause. None of this matters if you're too selfish to give up the reigns and pass the torch, but having the clout was more important to her, and we now see the consequences of that.
Even then people knew this exact outcome was likely, and it's a major issue in politics and the parties that this stuff is celebrated rather than called out.
with liberal politicians
Am with you on this point, however I would just say, politicians in general. I am no spring chicken thus my analogy but the average age of Senators is 64. Oldest is Grassley (R) from Iowa at 90! I don't know how but I wish there was a law or an amendment that forced retirement on all federal employee/politician to be no later than let's say 67 which is SSN's retirement number. I had that wish from very early on in life, maybe one day.
Practically, Trump had a more superficially professional performance, in that if you had no idea what the actual facts of the world were you might think of him as more competent because he can say...
Practically, Trump had a more superficially professional performance, in that if you had no idea what the actual facts of the world were you might think of him as more competent because he can say whatever he wants with a straight face. But he just lies continually about everything and could never give a straight answer. He's a dumb man's smart man.
I'm disappointed to not see Biden smash him in the debate, but it didn't change my opinion on how I'm going to vote. Biden made things better. That's enough to vote for him even if Trump wasn't his opponent.
The average age of Democrats in the House & Senate is 3 years above the average age of Republicans. I'm all for the changing of the guard, but this is a concern across the board.
The average age of Democrats in the House & Senate is 3 years above the average age of Republicans. I'm all for the changing of the guard, but this is a concern across the board.
I'd almost forgotten about it, but in retrospect this reminded me a lot of the 2022 Oz-Fetterman debate for the pivotal Pennsylvania Senate race. It was a similar dynamic: on one side you had Dr....
I'd almost forgotten about it, but in retrospect this reminded me a lot of the 2022 Oz-Fetterman debate for the pivotal Pennsylvania Senate race. It was a similar dynamic: on one side you had Dr. Oz, a glib, smooth-talking reality TV bullshitter, and on the other you had Fetterman, an experienced, populist reformer hobbled by serious health concerns (a stroke and attendant brain damage, in his case). For months leading up to the debate Fetterman's team kept him largely out of the spotlight and put on a brave face about how well he was recovering, but when the time came his performance was absolutely abysmal -- he was slurring words, speaking incoherently, and generally sounding like a person with brain damage. He knew his stuff and was clearly the better candidate on paper, but the optics were cringeworthily terrible.
Flash forward to election day, and Fetterman won by nearly 5%.
It's not entirely a 1:1 comparison, given the difference between midterm and general electorates, Trump's cultlike base, and the dynamics of a presidential vs. senatorial contest. But it does show that even an awful debate performance that magnifies a candidate's most glaring flaw does not guarantee a loss.
If Dr. Oz won that would have been an embarrasment even greater than Trump. And I do not make that statement lightly. The man is a disgrace to medical science, and is in no small part responsible...
If Dr. Oz won that would have been an embarrasment even greater than Trump. And I do not make that statement lightly.
The man is a disgrace to medical science, and is in no small part responsible for the surge in the antivaxxer movement.
I can't tell if the NYT is simply extremely distressed or if there's something else going on, but the front page is absurd right now. They're running four op-eds about how disastrous this is.
I can't tell if the NYT is simply extremely distressed or if there's something else going on, but the front page is absurd right now. They're running four op-eds about how disastrous this is.
Frankly, op-eds are a scourge on our society. They used to be relegated to the back pages of the printed newspapers. Now they are being touted about in headlines indistinguishable to the laymen...
Frankly, op-eds are a scourge on our society. They used to be relegated to the back pages of the printed newspapers. Now they are being touted about in headlines indistinguishable to the laymen from fact. I despise it.
Honestly haven't looked at the NYT. But I listened to Ezra Klein's podcast this morning. He's a pretty rational guy, pretty even keeled. He's been a pretty vocal proponent of Biden's policies and...
Honestly haven't looked at the NYT. But I listened to Ezra Klein's podcast this morning. He's a pretty rational guy, pretty even keeled. He's been a pretty vocal proponent of Biden's policies and efforts while in office. It's clear today that Ezra is a bit shooketh. Which tells me there is possibly something there.
Ezra Klein is generally thoughtful, but on the Biden age thing he’s been the chief bed wetter. Political pundits in general have a lot of insane fantasies about what actually moves elections. They...
Exemplary
Ezra Klein is generally thoughtful, but on the Biden age thing he’s been the chief bed wetter.
Political pundits in general have a lot of insane fantasies about what actually moves elections. They all imagine it’s some kind of West Wing show where the President can win votes by giving a speech that is simply so good that everyone has tears welling up in their eyes and an eagle cries in the background as the American flag begins waving majestically in the wind.
But what it actually comes down to is organizing. Obama gave great speeches, but the reason the speeches were useful was because they motivated people to get out and organize for him. The organizing is what gets the votes, but not a single TV pundit will talk about that because they get paid based on people watching TV, so all they know how to do is theater criticism.
Klein’s fantasizing about a brokered convention is just complete nonsense. There is no way a Presidential candidate comes out of a brokered convention without being damaged goods. There are plenty of problems with our candidate selection process, but the time to fix those is after an election when people can be more dispassionate about things and design the rules with fairness and utility in mind instead of whatever feelings they have about the present situation. Whatever problems we have now should be incorporated as feedback to rebuild Democratic Party infrastructure to improve candidate selection and grooming new talent for leadership. By no means does Klein’s fantasy about just being able to wing it and host a brokered convention on the fly that only gives the emergent nominee 4 months to repair all the butt hurt among the party factions who lost out and ALSO send a message to the general electorate as well. It is a moronic proposal and I refuse to entertain historical analogies to times before the existence of mass media. The last time something like what Klein is proposing happened was 1968 and it was an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats that put Nixon in charge and set the stage for the Southern Strategy and the clusterfuck we deal with today.
All the energy and hand wringing people put into being upset about Biden being a lackluster nominee would be better put towards attacking the actual things they’re worried about instead of “the Democrats” for not being sufficiently good at stopping them. If Trump and creeping fascism are the problem, figure out how to play the hand you’ve been dealt to fight them instead of wishing you were playing a different game.
Putting it another way, there’s really several questions here:
1.) How badly would Biden need to perform for you to not crawl over broken glass to vote for him? Because for me, I’d happily do so even if his staff was going to Weekend at Bernie’s a corpse in light of what the alternative is. Yes I know people will be like “But muh undecided voters!” But I’m tired of people acting like voters are some strange inscrutable animal that must be analyzed like an anthropologist. Cable TV pundits do this because they’re all Ivy League nepo babies for whom this actually is an anthropological exercise. You and me don’t need to do this because it’s us. We’re the voters! We just need to talk about the reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing and hope our logic and values make an impression. I wish the so-called “analysts” on TV were capable of this but they’re, sadly, not.
2.) Is Biden actually unable to make critical decisions or did he just have trouble thinking on his feet on a debate stage while Donald Trump spouted off a bunch of un-fact checked lies? Most indicators are the latter. He’s not quick on his feet anymore, but literally everyone who works for him says he’s pretty sharp and engaged on policy stuff. We can take their word for it or just observe the happenings in government right now where it certainly seems like the various Federal departments are continuing to do their work pretty well.
3.) Is it actually a big deal if the President is senile? Obviously it’s bad, but TBH we’ve had basically catatonic Presidents before including both Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan. As long as their various coattail riders are competent then, for the most part, things seem to proceed pretty normally. The downside is he dies and then you get President Harris. Which brings me to point 3.
4.) Who would actually replace him on the ticket? I’ll spoil it for you, it’ll be Kamala Harris. She’s not really a top choice for me, but I’d also be fine with it. But I think she’s just strictly a worse campaigner than Biden even at this stage. Her own campaign was a managerial disaster from top to bottom. So if your worst fear is realized and Biden is unable to complete his 4 years in office you get President Harris. If Biden steps down now then you also get. . . President Harris. As far as the basic facts on the ground are concerned nothing much changes.
5.) Debates don’t matter much aside from the ways in which Obama’s great speeches mattered. They get people motivated to donate and organize. But if Biden’s weak performance scares you there’s no reason to succumb to fear. You don’t strictly need an Aaron Sorkin moment to motivate you to organize, you can just organize out of realization that the stakes are high and Biden doesn’t have the power to hold the line on the weight of his personal charisma alone. Just go and organize. Yes Trump has his die hard 20%, but Trump became President because of Mitt Romney voters who somehow found an excuse to vote for him in spite of his manifest unfitness for office. In spite of the Access Hollywood tape. In spite of his abominably racist and misogynistic rhetoric. They wanted their tax cuts and they wanted to extend the long arm of the law to our collective uteruses and they would pay any price to do it. I don’t have any such misgivings about Biden.
It’s possible to vote for a guy without wanting to vote for him. In fact, this is probably the most healthy and clear headed way to engage with any politician. Everyone is looking for Biden to do something that makes them “want to want to vote” for him. This is a childish impulse that people try to dress up as something serious by putting the thought in the mouth of some mythical “undecided voter” by asking “what might this ‘Jimbo at the diner’ construct I made up in my head think?” But Jimbo is me. I am Jimbo. We both need to grow up and just do the needful. And I don’t think Jimbo is that dumb either. I think Biden’s age is pretty much priced into his approval rating already. People are open to being pleasantly surprised, but a few gaffes on a debate stage aren’t gonna do it.
That makes sense, I didn't mean to insinuate that he is an ardent supporter. I just find his opinions change based on new information and are generally well thought out.
That makes sense, I didn't mean to insinuate that he is an ardent supporter. I just find his opinions change based on new information and are generally well thought out.
A number of publications including the Atlantic responded to the debate with a call for Biden to step down. I can't predict what will happen, but this is not unique to the NYT
A number of publications including the Atlantic responded to the debate with a call for Biden to step down. I can't predict what will happen, but this is not unique to the NYT
I haven't seen anything posted here regarding tonight's cringe fest. Here's a link for those who missed it. On one hand, I feel vindicated seeing reports of Democrats freaking out after years of...
I haven't seen anything posted here regarding tonight's cringe fest. Here's a link for those who missed it.
On one hand, I feel vindicated seeing reports of Democrats freaking out after years of telling us not to worry about his age despite the obvious decline on display and poll after poll showing voters felt uneasy about Biden. On the other hand...I don't know...yikes?
The problem is there is no man behind the curtain... The DNC is a hollow funding apparatus that hasn't handpicked candidates in decades. Prominent party members didn't want Biden to run for...
The problem is there is no man behind the curtain... The DNC is a hollow funding apparatus that hasn't handpicked candidates in decades. Prominent party members didn't want Biden to run for re-election, and they have no real influence. Incumbents generally cruise through primaries. Plus, Biden's funding is locked to his campaign.
This is the political pundit equivalent of fanfiction. It’s a ridiculous fantasy that they only like because they’re nerds who get off on political spectacle. It is not going to produce a...
This is the political pundit equivalent of fanfiction. It’s a ridiculous fantasy that they only like because they’re nerds who get off on political spectacle. It is not going to produce a Presidential candidate who can win an election. It will result in a nominee who came out of a bruising intra-party fight that leaves them as damaged goods that can’t rally the support of the factions of the party they had to defeat to get there.
Yeah people have this idealized view where some young candidate rises and unites the party. The reality is the exact same death by focus group crypt keeper power holders that got us in this mess...
Yeah people have this idealized view where some young candidate rises and unites the party.
The reality is the exact same death by focus group crypt keeper power holders that got us in this mess are going to tear each other apart trying to get THEIR slice of the pie
There is also the Ohio situation (in short, the ballot deadline for Ohio is before the DNC, so Biden will be officially nominated before the convention), so if they were to choose someone at the...
There is also the Ohio situation (in short, the ballot deadline for Ohio is before the DNC, so Biden will be officially nominated before the convention), so if they were to choose someone at the convention instead, then that nominee would not be on the ballot in every state.
This is crazy to me and should be crazy to anyone who remembers how upset Bernie Sanders supporters were in 2016 because their claim was exactly that the DNC was hand picking a candidate and that...
This is crazy to me and should be crazy to anyone who remembers how upset Bernie Sanders supporters were in 2016 because their claim was exactly that the DNC was hand picking a candidate and that their votes didn't matter.
Nobody likes that Biden is old, but always in these discussions there isn't a really viable alternative even if we hand wave away totally ignoring the party primary process. Whitmer hardly held on in her own state and doesn't have good national name ID, and cold as it is you can't just run a woman when the most popular democratic woman candidate lost in 2016.
Prtizker also suffers from the name ID issue, even worse that Whitmer does. You'd have to be looking at someone like Newsome, who carries his own baggage with moderate voters after a decade of "Commiefornia" rhetoric. All three of these folks are gearing up for 2028 which makes sense because it gives them time to establish themselves and their platforms.
The only way to swap is if Biden drops out, and that's just not a realistic option. Democrats, instead, need to stop the fretting and buckle down hard on running a campaign that breaks though a media apparatus that is obsessed with Trump. And they need to fire whoever prepped Biden for the debate.
It's possible that the debate prep wasn't the problem and Biden simply doesn't have capacity to give snappy comebacks anymore. If Biden died or had a disabling stroke they would find another...
It's possible that the debate prep wasn't the problem and Biden simply doesn't have capacity to give snappy comebacks anymore.
If Biden died or had a disabling stroke they would find another candidate.
I only watched a bit, and it seemed pretty terrible. At the same time I have known 1-2 habitual liars in my life, and his reaction kind of reminded me of my own. Just a sort of stunned confusion...
I only watched a bit, and it seemed pretty terrible. At the same time I have known 1-2 habitual liars in my life, and his reaction kind of reminded me of my own. Just a sort of stunned confusion because both people know the liar is lying, and you can't think of what to say because it is so blatant.
This one dude for example:
"Yeah, I usually drive a BMW"
..."Dude you're a freshmam, live in the dorms, are on the meal plan, and have driven a fucking Civic for the entire first semester"
"Well, the BMW is in the shop".
Stunned gutteral noises are kinda the only remaining reaction after hearing blatant lies every day.
Fair. Like the rest of us I am waiting to see what happens and hoping that Trump is defeated by any means necessary. I don't want Biden to lose because he seems more fragile and less dominant but...
Fair. Like the rest of us I am waiting to see what happens and hoping that Trump is defeated by any means necessary. I don't want Biden to lose because he seems more fragile and less dominant but everyone is reading tea leaves and no one can predict the swing voters.
I don't think they can, the majority of people attending the convention are going as Biden Delegates, meaning the reason they were sent was to nominate Biden. The debate was bad, but not coup...
I don't think they can, the majority of people attending the convention are going as Biden Delegates, meaning the reason they were sent was to nominate Biden.
The debate was bad, but not coup worthy. Also now I'm thinking part of the reason why it was so early was to let people forget about it by November.
I love your use of the word "coup" here, I think it really hits at what's happening. There's been a lot of people on the left who have been very unsure about Biden, with good reason. They were...
I love your use of the word "coup" here, I think it really hits at what's happening. There's been a lot of people on the left who have been very unsure about Biden, with good reason. They were waiting though for some unifying moment where if they started shooting, they'd know they'd have backup. Everyone already had their arguments and hit pieces polished up.
I'm not trying to dismiss his bad performance, this is a legitimate issue for Biden. But there are a host of other reasons as well, this is just the fuse lighting moment. The big question for me is who puts their ass on the line and says "nominate me instead".
Nobody with the political instincts to actually be good at it unfortunately. It’s a poisoned apple. They’re likely to lose and be held responsible for a world historical catastrophe. If they’re...
The big question for me is who puts their ass on the line and says "nominate me instead".
Nobody with the political instincts to actually be good at it unfortunately. It’s a poisoned apple. They’re likely to lose and be held responsible for a world historical catastrophe. If they’re any good they’d be better off waiting for 2028 when they’ve had a chance to build a national profile instead of trying to speedrun it from scratch in a month.
I didn't vote for Big Gretch in the primaries the first time around, but after these past few years I'd put her on the presidential ticket in a heartbeat.
I didn't vote for Big Gretch in the primaries the first time around, but after these past few years I'd put her on the presidential ticket in a heartbeat.
I am probably the most satisfied person I know with Biden’s performance in office over the past 4 years, but that debate was abysmal. I will still vote Joe in the fall if he’s the only option, but...
I am probably the most satisfied person I know with Biden’s performance in office over the past 4 years, but that debate was abysmal. I will still vote Joe in the fall if he’s the only option, but I really think someone else needs to step in.
Absolutely. Heck, swap it around: vote for the HARRIS Biden ticket! Get that first woman president in US history energy. Anything but someone who should have retired before the youngest voters...
Absolutely. Heck, swap it around: vote for the HARRIS Biden ticket! Get that first woman president in US history energy. Anything but someone who should have retired before the youngest voters were even born.
They're stuck between a nearly dead guy against Trump or Harris against Trump, that's the way I see it. It wouldn't be upping their chances to switch out Biden, but it could potentially be...
They're stuck between a nearly dead guy against Trump or Harris against Trump, that's the way I see it. It wouldn't be upping their chances to switch out Biden, but it could potentially be devastating if they don't. We all played Pokemon as kids right? When you need to switch out when you know your pokemon can't even take the lighting tap is crucial.
Here's a WaPo analysis piece on that very subject So, uh, how would Kamala Harris do against Trump? A look at polling in an effort to answer a newly popular question. We're likely going to see...
Pollsters have only sporadically asked voters who they would prefer in a Harris-Trump contest for the obvious reason that they would be burning a poll question (and therefore money) on an unlikely hypothetical. But we have data from February New York Times-Siena College polling and a November Fox News poll that provides some insight.
The question isn’t really how Harris fares against Trump, though we can answer that easily: Trump led her by six points in the Times poll and five points in the Fox News one. What’s important, instead, is how that compares to Biden. Biden trailed Trump in both those polls, too: by four points in each. So Harris fares only one or two points worse than Biden in polls with margins of sampling error that are much larger than that.
We're likely going to see better focused polls on this exact question this week
She's not doing that terribly against Trump, and
In both the YouGov and Times polls, Harris gets more favorable net favorability ratings than Biden among younger and non-White Americans — both groups with which Biden has struggled.
They need to find a different high level job for Harris to be able to leave while saving face, and get Whitmer on the ticket. Let people get excited about her, and feel better about who's next in...
They need to find a different high level job for Harris to be able to leave while saving face, and get Whitmer on the ticket. Let people get excited about her, and feel better about who's next in line. I don't know what that would do to the black vote, though.
I'm going to sound incredibly out of the loop, but why is Whitmer suddenly being considered for the ticket? I've never heard of her until this comment thread and am just curious to know what has...
I'm going to sound incredibly out of the loop, but why is Whitmer suddenly being considered for the ticket? I've never heard of her until this comment thread and am just curious to know what has happened that would put her above more nationally known politicians like Warren or Newsom?
Whitmer was a big reason why the Michigan Dem Party got whipped back into shape after Trump won it back in 2016. She flipped the Governor seat from Republican to Democrat in a swing state. And...
She's also relatively charismatic, likeable, and attractive. Back in 2022, when it was assumed Biden wouldn't go for a second term and that we would have an Open Primary, she was considered one of the better proposed candidates even by progressive members of the party.
Wow, I had no idea Whitmer was the kidnapping target! From what everyone is saying I'm actually getting quite excited at her prospective nomination. I'll keep a lid on it until I do a deeper dive...
Wow, I had no idea Whitmer was the kidnapping target! From what everyone is saying I'm actually getting quite excited at her prospective nomination. I'll keep a lid on it until I do a deeper dive on her history with policy but in recent years it's been a rare event to find someone new in politics to get excited about! Thanks for sharing!
Warren is older and an intellectual, former professor. Newsome is actually getting suggested in these discussions but is from California and might alienate swing voters as being too left. He also...
Warren is older and an intellectual, former professor. Newsome is actually getting suggested in these discussions but is from California and might alienate swing voters as being too left. He also is from a very moneyed elitist connected background, as is Pritzker, another possibility.
I love how Newsom is perceived as being too far left when Warren is about a mile further. Excited to hear about Whitmer, I'll have to dive into her career and policy history! Thanks for sharing!
I love how Newsom is perceived as being too far left when Warren is about a mile further.
Excited to hear about Whitmer, I'll have to dive into her career and policy history! Thanks for sharing!
He's only perceived as being too far left because he's from California. In my experience he's happy to say the right things on social issues, but is basically a classic business Democrat. Decent...
He's only perceived as being too far left because he's from California. In my experience he's happy to say the right things on social issues, but is basically a classic business Democrat. Decent enough, perhaps, but not leftward groundbreaking in any way.
As a big Warren supporter from 2020, she is too old at this point. I see no point in replace one Silent Generation pol with another. Worse yet, she showed she didn’t have the juice to cross the...
As a big Warren supporter from 2020, she is too old at this point. I see no point in replace one Silent Generation pol with another.
Worse yet, she showed she didn’t have the juice to cross the finish line in 2020. When it became clear she was struggling to convert her policy proposals into votes I switched my support to Biden. Warren actually is the reason Biden’s administration has been as effective as it is. The scuttlebutt is that many of Biden’s appointees were handpicked by Warren, so they have a good working relationship at least.
She was leading the polls at one point in October 2019, but then tanked right after. Instead of admitting defeat and endorsing the other progressive candidate she ended up attacking him, which...
Worse yet, she showed she didn’t have the juice to cross the finish line in 2020
She was leading the polls at one point in October 2019, but then tanked right after. Instead of admitting defeat and endorsing the other progressive candidate she ended up attacking him, which lost her a lot of credibility and support among progressive voters.
She never really had the broad appeal to win anyway, both Biden and Bernie had appeal among the less educated and less white in a way that Warren never did.
She definitely had the best odds of bridging the gap between centrist and progressive Democrats. Personally, I blame Sanders for her fall -- she hit her peak in polling and tied with Biden after...
She definitely had the best odds of bridging the gap between centrist and progressive Democrats. Personally, I blame Sanders for her fall -- she hit her peak in polling and tied with Biden after he had his heart attack, which would have been a logical moment for him to gracefully withdraw for a face-saving reason and vocally back her in order to unite the left while the moderates were still divided. Instead he stayed in, which gave tacit permission to his angrier supporters to turn on her (supercharged by the "women can't win" thing, which was a complete mess for both of them). I say all this as somebody who supported Sanders in 2016 (and in hindsight, I think Trump would have beaten both of them).
I had this exact argument on Twitter. So I’m not gonna get into all that. But Warren would not have been a uniting figure. She had no working-class appeal, she had the most white and educated base...
I had this exact argument on Twitter. So I’m not gonna get into all that.
But Warren would not have been a uniting figure. She had no working-class appeal, she had the most white and educated base of the candidates running at the time. Biden’s and Bernie’s support was more diverse and more working class.
She was almost every candidate supporter’s second preference, including Biden’s and Sanders’. If the primaries were ranked choice she’d have won in a landslide. It was Sanders who had a hard...
She was almost every candidate supporter’s second preference, including Biden’s and Sanders’. If the primaries were ranked choice she’d have won in a landslide.
It was Sanders who had a hard ceiling of 30-40%. Their strategy was explicitly to bank on the field being divided enough to run away with only a slight plurality. It was a boneheaded strategy that bit them in the ass because they alienated the supporters of all their adversaries to the point where they wouldn’t consider Sanders when their guy/gal dropped.
The classic blame the player and not the game reasoning. There's a number of ways that the system can be changed to keep someone from winning on a slight plurality rather than discouraging people...
It was Sanders who had a hard ceiling of 30-40%. Their strategy was explicitly to bank on the field being divided enough to run away with only a slight plurality. It was a boneheaded strategy that bit them in the ass because they alienated the supporters of all their adversaries to the point where they wouldn’t consider Sanders when their guy/gal dropped.
The classic blame the player and not the game reasoning. There's a number of ways that the system can be changed to keep someone from winning on a slight plurality rather than discouraging people from running at all.
Yeah ranked choice voting. Though I think maybe in a primary, whose point is to stress test whether a candidate is cut out for a general, having a first past the post might not be the worst.
Yeah ranked choice voting. Though I think maybe in a primary, whose point is to stress test whether a candidate is cut out for a general, having a first past the post might not be the worst.
Bernie had a ceiling of support he couldn’t clear. He should have dropped out sooner too since he had no chance. He sucked ip all the oxygen for a dead end campaign that wouldn’t have been able to...
Bernie had a ceiling of support he couldn’t clear. He should have dropped out sooner too since he had no chance. He sucked ip all the oxygen for a dead end campaign that wouldn’t have been able to clear the post.
…and third-party candidates shouldn't run their vanity campaigns in the general election since they distract voters. I've heard those sour grapes as long as I've been politically aware (since Bush...
He should have dropped out sooner too since he had no chance.
…and third-party candidates shouldn't run their vanity campaigns in the real general election since they distract voters. I've heard those sour grapes as long as I've been politically aware (since Bush v. Gore).
Third parties shouldn’t run presidential tickets at all. They’re vanity campaigns at best and outright grifters more typically. And they lack the talent pool or contacts to actually enact anything...
Third parties shouldn’t run presidential tickets at all. They’re vanity campaigns at best and outright grifters more typically. And they lack the talent pool or contacts to actually enact anything they’re talking about even if they do win by some miracle.
Third party wank voting is the ultimate expression of consumeristic politics as brand identity. It’s deeply unserious and borderline comical how many people insist on being holier than thou about their willingness to follow around professional campaign grifters.
The #1 reason to vote third-party isn't to ensure their vision is enacted, but to deliver an L to one of the major parties. Force them to court your faction next time.
The #1 reason to vote third-party isn't to ensure their vision is enacted, but to deliver an L to one of the major parties. Force them to court your faction next time.
Bold of you to assume they’ll court a faction of perpetually aggrieved sore losers who don’t organize voters at all instead of organized interest groups in the center who actually demonstrate a...
Bold of you to assume they’ll court a faction of perpetually aggrieved sore losers who don’t organize voters at all instead of organized interest groups in the center who actually demonstrate a willingness to be persuaded and negotiated with.
That's not really a response to the prior comment. You dismissed candidates you don't like running in the primaries and claim they were making it harder for other better (in your eyes) candidates...
That's not really a response to the prior comment. You dismissed candidates you don't like running in the primaries and claim they were making it harder for other better (in your eyes) candidates and that they shouldn't have run in the primary. Yet that's the most common response to people who are dissatisfied with the two 'choices' in the general election, that they should have voted for someone else in the primary and that's the proper venue for voting for your ideal candidate.
You have some seriously petty grievance with people who don't toe the company line and look down your nose at anyone who doesn't do what you think is best. The elitism is fucking insane.
I like this idea. At this point it's likely too late to sub in someone for Biden (likely too late to actually win I mean), so getting someone on the ticket who excites at least a portion of the...
I like this idea. At this point it's likely too late to sub in someone for Biden (likely too late to actually win I mean), so getting someone on the ticket who excites at least a portion of the electorate would be a win in my book.
So, I'm refreshing my memory of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate, famously, the first Presidential debate that was widely televised. The people that listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon...
So, I'm refreshing my memory of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate, famously, the first Presidential debate that was widely televised. The people that listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had "won" the debate; the people that watched it, overwhelmingly, thought Kennedy had "won"; and in retrospect, Kennedy ultimately winning the Presidency is largely attributed (even by Kennedy himself) to that first debate.
And pundits and prognosticators across the country predicted that television would be the death of rational political discourse in the US. The phrase that kept popping up was "the rise of the abominable showman".
FWIW, here is that debate. I'm rewatching it now. It's worth checking out, especially if you've never actually taken the time to watch it before. Because, holy crap ... I'd take Nixon (let alone Kennedy) in a heartbeat, over either of the two guys I just watched debating today.
I actually like Biden a lot, and think he’s been an extremely effective President. But I always thought it was a mistake that the Dems didn’t push back harder against him running again, we really...
I actually like Biden a lot, and think he’s been an extremely effective President. But I always thought it was a mistake that the Dems didn’t push back harder against him running again, we really needed a primary.
I think that was bound to happen, but then the midterms happened and Democrats did really well so they decided to stick with Biden (even progressive members like Jayapal began endorsing a second term). But the Biden 2020 campaign made allusions to the idea that he would be a single term president, and they should have kept it like that.
It’s too late to do that anyway. Replacing him with a committee choice is a worse decision that will just alienate all sorts of fractions within the Dem party.
The decision to run again was always going to be up to Biden. It is a terrible look to have your party come out and tell you not to run again, especially when you had a very successful first term....
The decision to run again was always going to be up to Biden.
It is a terrible look to have your party come out and tell you not to run again, especially when you had a very successful first term.
And to be clear we did have a primary, but no one (noteworthy) chooses to run against him, because primary voters would have still ended up re-electing Biden because the incumbent will always win unless something major happens.
The incumbent advantage is not merely that people see the word incumbent on the ballot and vote for that guy. It's also that you get all of the media oxygen and have the entire party's...
The incumbent advantage is not merely that people see the word incumbent on the ballot and vote for that guy. It's also that you get all of the media oxygen and have the entire party's institutions organized around you. If last year he had 10% of the press he's been getting in the last 12 hours, someone else would have run, and he might not have! Either way you get a debate where this happens 6 months ago and it's far easier to figure out who the candidate is actually going to be.
Instead, yeah, nobody else ran, so there wasn't a primary, so he's the candidate. The selection of candidates is not just a process where people announce they want to be president and then voters decide among all of the options equally. You can only become a "noteworthy" candidate when you're taken seriously by the media and/or legitimized by figures in the party. It was made clear a year ago that Biden was the guy, and that no other candidates would be taken seriously by the media or be legitimized by any figures in the party.
I just don't buy into the thinking that it's a bad look to have a primary against an incumbent. The primary gives a chance to battle harden the candidates and test messaging strategies for the...
I just don't buy into the thinking that it's a bad look to have a primary against an incumbent. The primary gives a chance to battle harden the candidates and test messaging strategies for the general.
That is how it has played out in the past. When Kennedy ran against Carter in the 1980 Democratic primaries he didn't win, but it badly damaged Carter's chances. When Reagan challenged Ford in the...
That is how it has played out in the past. When Kennedy ran against Carter in the 1980 Democratic primaries he didn't win, but it badly damaged Carter's chances. When Reagan challenged Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries, the same thing happened. The incumbent prevailed, but was severely weakened in the general election.
Perhaps the incumbents were just weaker than expected? Carter and Ford were both badly poised for reelection anyways, and the primaries probably just revealed that reality sooner than later.
Perhaps the incumbents were just weaker than expected? Carter and Ford were both badly poised for reelection anyways, and the primaries probably just revealed that reality sooner than later.
Perhaps. The fact remains that in every modern example of an incumbent president being challenged in his party’s primaries, the only result has been to weaken the incumbent in the general election.
Perhaps. The fact remains that in every modern example of an incumbent president being challenged in his party’s primaries, the only result has been to weaken the incumbent in the general election.
Even if that's the case (which I'd contest to some extent, since the mere existence of a credible primary challenge I'd say is a sign of an already weak incumbent), I'm convinced that it's...
Even if that's the case (which I'd contest to some extent, since the mere existence of a credible primary challenge I'd say is a sign of an already weak incumbent), I'm convinced that it's beneficial and necessary for the party in the long run to have to primaries. Reagan challenging Ford in 1976 did a lot to build momentum for Reagan's landslide victory in 1980.
If Trump wins in November, there is no “long run” for the Democratic Party. Haven’t you been paying attention to what Trump and his cronies have been saying? They have outright said that they are...
If Trump wins in November, there is no “long run” for the Democratic Party. Haven’t you been paying attention to what Trump and his cronies have been saying? They have outright said that they are going to arrest their political opponents once they take power. The choice is between Biden and fascism.
Everyone younger than Biden would have been seen as a radical firebrand even if they had the same exact policies as Biden. My parents are voting on name recognition, and a general distrust of...
Everyone younger than Biden would have been seen as a radical firebrand even if they had the same exact policies as Biden. My parents are voting on name recognition, and a general distrust of people younger than them.
Same conversations happened when Obama was trounced by Romney in the first debate. Obviously VERY different circumstances, but I don’t think this performance will change the race much. Still...
Same conversations happened when Obama was trounced by Romney in the first debate. Obviously VERY different circumstances, but I don’t think this performance will change the race much.
Still stings though; really wish there had been a clear Democratic superstar that Biden could’ve stepped aside for before this election began.
Edit: I’m very happy to have been very wrong about this one
I thought that in 2020 it was a monumental political mistake for the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party to have reacted so strongly to the racial zeitgeist (George Floyd protests) in deciding...
I thought that in 2020 it was a monumental political mistake for the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party to have reacted so strongly to the racial zeitgeist (George Floyd protests) in deciding that they will narrow the VP search to Black women:
“There is a feeling of urgency and history — and Black women are tired of being considered the help,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist who signed that letter and led the writing of a third open letter to Biden earlier this year urging him to pick a Black woman. “In politics, we have carried so many on our backs across the finish line, and in this moment in our history, we believe that it is time for a Black woman.”
...
The Black women Biden has considered include Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.); Reps. Val Demings (D-Fla.) and Karen Bass (D-Calif.); former U.N. ambassador Susan E. Rice; former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams; and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. All have faced sharp criticism and scrutiny in recent weeks that the letter writers pressuring Biden to select one of them say has been unfair.
It artificially narrowed his options down to a pool of candidates who frankly did not possess political superstar potential. Stacey Abrams lost the same race twice. Kamala Harris couldn't even get her own primary campaign off the ground due to lack of funding — a proxy for interest from the powers that be; she only became senator in an uncompetitive senate race.
Now fast forward to today: Biden is too old, and the successor he's groomed clearly does not possess the political skills or charisma for anything beyond state-level politics. It was a wasted opportunity to anoint someone else with more potential.
Which is super dumb because if " Black women are tired of being considered the help,” then picking any of them for VP is precisely "the help". The nation didn't reject Hilary Clinton because she...
Which is super dumb because if " Black women are tired of being considered the help,” then picking any of them for VP is precisely "the help".
The nation didn't reject Hilary Clinton because she was a woman, they rejected Hilary Clinton and also James Comey made a bad call.
The powers that be only want candidates they own and control, which already narrows down option to this corrupt puppet vs that corrupt puppet. The biggest winning candidate every single year had been "stay home don't vote" for a reason.
I’m not actually sure that was ever the plan. Harris’s 2020 campaign crashed and burned, she was the first one to drop out. And once she actually was VP her popularity dropped among her party, so...
I’m not actually sure that was ever the plan. Harris’s 2020 campaign crashed and burned, she was the first one to drop out. And once she actually was VP her popularity dropped among her party, so I don’t think she was ever considered a viable option. It’s why there was better buzz for Gretchen Whitmer.
It's a terrible time to choose a Democratic Presidential candidate other than Biden. There are so many ways in which the U.S. does a uniquely poor job of cultivating candidates for national...
It's a terrible time to choose a Democratic Presidential candidate other than Biden. There are so many ways in which the U.S. does a uniquely poor job of cultivating candidates for national office...
Neither Senator nor Governor roles offer exposure to all the concerns of the country. I'm not even going to count the House of Representatives, with its two-year terms, comparatively tiny electoral regions, and zillion hyper-specialized committees.
Gubernatorial positions are all about regional concerns - agriculture, manufacturing, urban vs rural... There are only a few states that have routine involvement with international relations and trade (beyond Canada or Mexico), defense, intelligence, or other national-scale policies. New York, Texas, California, Florida... And all but California and Florida have constitutionally weak Governors. The politics of populous states create fatally compromised leaders who balance on the whims of rich donors. With few exceptions, the record of governors who won election to the presidency isn't stellar.
As much as I like Michigan's Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, for her leadership performance during the pandemic, charisma, comparatively clean funding, and her subsequent policies, I can't see that she has the name recognition, vision, or broad competencies for national leadership (yet). California's Governor, Gavin Newsom, is fatally compromised by his funding, the messy politics of the state, and San Francisco's self-made tech real estate chaos. A Newsom/Harris ticket would have a technical problem with receiving any of California's electoral votes. Kathy Hochul of New York isn't anybody's idea of a resolute leader; she's too dependent on a conservative suburban/rural New York constituency and New York's famously corrupt political institutions. J. B. Pritzker of Illinois is a born-with-a-silver-spoon plutocrat who's been deeply embroiled in everything wrong and corrupt about Illinois politics.
The delicate political balance of the U.S. Senate is a compelling reason not to run any sitting Democratic Senator. The current Democratic Senators are also a very mixed bag. Aside from the impending felon, Robert Menendez, they're from small, very liberal states, or otherwise poorly situated for national name recognition. I might have been pleased if Ron Wyden ran, since he's shown a considerable amount of savvy on human rights, technology, foreign policy, and defense issues, but he's otherwise a typical liberal, and age 75 to boot. Elizabeth Warren was more to my taste, but is now also too old. Bernie Sanders is a fine gadfly, but again too old. Mark Kelly of Arizona has a picture-perfect U.S. pre-Presidential biography (former military service, ex-astronaut, etc.), but I reflexively distrust the "moderate Democrat" label. He has too little experience in elected office and no signature policies.
Outside of the traditional elective offices, there's a mostly terrible record for Presidential candidates who came from Cabinet positions, the military, or business.
I'd have a difficult time with Pete Buttigieg (Secretary of Transportation) because of his overweening sense of technocratic (Harvard/McKinsey) self-importance (small city mayor to failed DNC chair run to failed Presidential campaign?). There's nothing in his current record to suggest policy vision with results.
Jennifer Granholm (Secretary of Energy) was a perfectly competent Michigan Governor. She was born in Canada, which was what stopped her from a Presidential campaign in the first place.
I don't think any of the other cabinet members have sufficient general experience of elected office or name recognition. There's no "business" candidate I'd trust because we don't need more plutocrat vs. plutocrat politics. As for the military... yikes.
If for no other reason than that he's self-effacing enough to know he doesn't know shit, and would put together a bunch of experts who do actually know wtf they're talking about to advise him.
Draft Jon Stewart?
If for no other reason than that he's self-effacing enough to know he doesn't know shit, and would put together a bunch of experts who do actually know wtf they're talking about to advise him.
Yeah, it really is no more complicated than that party leadership and the media act like you're a real candidate and this gets you all the name recognition and credibility you need. Qualifications...
Yeah, it really is no more complicated than that party leadership and the media act like you're a real candidate and this gets you all the name recognition and credibility you need. Qualifications aren't really a factor as far as actually doing the job goes. It's just not a job that requires you to know or be capable of very much. It's an executive position. Everything can be and has been delegated. Qualifications do of course come into play in the election, but that's because we are expected to have a complete fantasy-world idea of what the job entails. We're supposed to want a Nobel Prize winning economist, but that really makes you better suited for one of the roles under the president that actually has qualifications and is responsible for planning or carrying out policy.
If they went that route, I'd call it the most monumental blunder so far, considering she's likely just as unpopular as before, still up there in age, and has already lost once to Trump. Should...
what the odds are of Hillary jumping back into the fray
If they went that route, I'd call it the most monumental blunder so far, considering she's likely just as unpopular as before, still up there in age, and has already lost once to Trump. Should Biden decide to step aside (which, let's be real, it's not happening - this is all just for the sake of discussion), they need to put a younger, left/center candidate there who could stand next to Trump and show the sharp contrast.
This is the craziest part to me, and it completely confirms all of those articles about the deep delusion inside the Biden campaign. They rehearsed with him for a week -- they should have known it...
If Biden’s campaign had just put out a statement, a tweet, ahead of time that the president ... was suffering from a mild cold
This is the craziest part to me, and it completely confirms all of those articles about the deep delusion inside the Biden campaign. They rehearsed with him for a week -- they should have known it wasn't going to be okay. They should have responded accordingly! The fact that they didn't come out with (or come up with) the cold thing until halfway through the debate is unexplainably baffling. Somehow they really did convince themselves he might pull it off. I guess that explains (or is at least consistent with) their already mystifying decision to run him in the first place. He's acted like this for over four years and has been getting markedly worse over time. This was literally the only way it could have gone. They should have known his candidacy wasn't going to be okay, and they should have responded accordingly!
Instead we're just now getting Joe's first real election appearance, where we can see him talk off a teleprompter (though his answers were still scripted, which is of course always true of these debates but was made obvious here by the robotic learned-it-phonetically intonation he had on the rare occasions when he could both remember the words in the script and successfully communicate them from his mind to his mouth). And predictably this first real appearance is already a complete disaster to the point that every single TV channel, newspaper, news site, and political operative in the entire country is completely freaking out and calling for him to drop out. Anyone involved in his campaign who couldn't see this coming last year when he changed his mind on running is just not competent and/or intelligent enough to work in politics.
In my experience, elderly people can have large ranges of cognitive ability. My guess at a reasonable explanation is that they could have been getting like ~50+% reasonable rehearsal performances...
In my experience, elderly people can have large ranges of cognitive ability. My guess at a reasonable explanation is that they could have been getting like ~50+% reasonable rehearsal performances and gambled rather than hedged. Probably not what I would have done, but maybe this level of performance was like a 5% outlier they were hoping to avoid.
Yeah, I guess I wasn't in the room when he was rehearsing, so I didn't see what they saw, and they must have seen something that allowed them to rationalize the delusion that it was even possibly...
Yeah, I guess I wasn't in the room when he was rehearsing, so I didn't see what they saw, and they must have seen something that allowed them to rationalize the delusion that it was even possibly going to go well. I'll grant that typically he has a higher ratio of language to not-language in most of his public appearances. But if he had the capacity to get through 90 minutes in public without doing something like this, wouldn't we have seen him get through literally any single public event in far more controlled circumstances in the last five years without doing something like this? Sure, technically this could be a 5% outlier from their rehearsals, but only if we believe the stuff his staffers leak every other week about how he only regresses to non-verbal catatonia like this in public, and behind closed doors he's a charismatic mega-genius. But even if we believe that, the debate isn't behind closed doors, so that doesn't do you much good.
The only way I can make it make sense is that they assumed Trump would scream and rant the whole time, and their strategy was oriented around Biden snapping back with short lines he could memorize and say properly like "something broke in you donald..." and "you're a whiner!" etc. If he had successfully landed a few of those on Trump in a debate where Trump's insanity was the focus, you could plausibly sell it as a Biden win. Instead Trump just let Biden ramble for his full time while mostly taking it seriously and acting "presidential" or whatever (for Trump anyway lol).
While it was unfortunate to see Biden's performance at the debate, the biggest reason why the Biden campaign never said anything about a cold ahead of time is probably that he never had a cold to...
While it was unfortunate to see Biden's performance at the debate, the biggest reason why the Biden campaign never said anything about a cold ahead of time is probably that he never had a cold to begin with. His performance was pretty consistent with what his non-promptered appearances have been for a while now.
As an outsider looking in, I just cannot fathom anyone being convinced by that at this point. Letting it get this far is at both Biden's and the democratic party's detriment.
If Biden’s campaign had just put out a statement, a tweet, ahead of time that the president was still feeling confident and eager but was suffering from a mild cold and had almost lost his voice
As an outsider looking in, I just cannot fathom anyone being convinced by that at this point. Letting it get this far is at both Biden's and the democratic party's detriment.
I find myself lacking the mental and emotional energy to watch the debate. I know what each candidate represents. There's the narcissist who publicly states his love and admiration for dictators...
I find myself lacking the mental and emotional energy to watch the debate. I know what each candidate represents. There's the narcissist who publicly states his love and admiration for dictators and autocrats and wants to be President for Life of the United States, and then yes, there is the ageing democrat who is now having difficulties with public speaking.
I have said it before and will restate: the US cannot afford to sustain the damage another 4 years with Trump would cause. He would pull support from Ukraine and possibly sabotage or withdraw from NATO. Between Russia and China we have the spectre of WWIII looming - we are already slow walking into it. The potential for world-spanning damage is really hard to understate here.
Oh, there's a bajillion other issues a trump presidency would turn into disasters. Climate policy for one is internationally crucially important. The US is a big country with a big footprint, if...
Oh, there's a bajillion other issues a trump presidency would turn into disasters. Climate policy for one is internationally crucially important. The US is a big country with a big footprint, if they're doing the right thing that is both a large slice of the cake already taken care of and a massive incentive for other countries to follow suit.
The prospect of a authoritarian US is also decidedly dicey for the rest of the free world. Sure, right now our position globally is solid: Europe, the US, various east asian democracies and decent swaths of the old commonwealth, plus a few more all share broadly similar values, supporting each other and trading. Take the US away and that loose alliance looks a lot more shaky.
For all the terrible press about the debate, I'm still voting "D" because the alternative is horrifying. It's worth noting that Kamala Harris is not a bad Vice President, and it's arguable that...
For all the terrible press about the debate, I'm still voting "D" because the alternative is horrifying. It's worth noting that Kamala Harris is not a bad Vice President, and it's arguable that there's been rotten coverage of her actions in office. If Biden dropped out, there's evidence she'd do as well as or better than he is.
I very very very much doubt that "don't worry, we're replacing our incumbent super late at the last minute, because he's too old, with another ancient option that's even more radical" is going to...
I very very very much doubt that "don't worry, we're replacing our incumbent super late at the last minute, because he's too old, with another ancient option that's even more radical" is going to carry the election.
If the dems had any brains at all they would've run someone under 60 already, but it's way way way too late to fix that now. This is all performance talk.
Honestly I don't know if any other candidate would have enough sway and pull for this particular election. It's easier to reelect an incumbent than replace them with a new candidate, and I don't...
Honestly I don't know if any other candidate would have enough sway and pull for this particular election. It's easier to reelect an incumbent than replace them with a new candidate, and I don't think any other Democrat stands out enough right now to overpower that advantage.
The same goes for Republicans. Trump has a disturbingly devoted and fervent fan base, who would likely riot and vote for him even if they put forward another candidate. He's become the party's face to the point no other Republican really stands out as potential president material right now, so pitting anyone else against Biden would be a challenge.
Basically, both parties are kinda stuck in a stalemate with Trump and Biden as the primary candidates. So long as one is a candidate, the other party would be making a BIG gamble by changing theirs.
Even if the Democrats could let Biden step down while saving face, he would have to want to step down. Could he reasonably go from being hyped as "the only guy who could win an election against...
Even if the Democrats could let Biden step down while saving face, he would have to want to step down. Could he reasonably go from being hyped as "the only guy who could win an election against Trump and get Congress to pass bipartisan infrastructure" to "actually I resign after a bad debate, you were all right about me being too old, but Harris is pretty cool, ya know?"
To be fair, Bernie also hasn't demonstrated nearly the same level of degradation during high profile media events. I do generally agree, and is ultimately why the DNC failed when they lined up...
To be fair, Bernie also hasn't demonstrated nearly the same level of degradation during high profile media events.
I do generally agree, and is ultimately why the DNC failed when they lined up behind Hillary in 2016. Remember one major reason Bernie ran back then was because she was unchallenged in the primary and he thought that undemocratic.
It should have been a gigantic wakeup that almost all of the major states that she lost in the primary were swing states that went Trump. The DNC would do well to give less weight to their voters in NY and CA, because they're disproprtionately influencing the party which makes it blind to the desires from the other states.
The only reason Trump lost in 2020 was because a historic voter surge that hadn't been seen in over 40 years. Here's hoping lightning strikes twice.
I love Bernie but he'd be one of the most totally wrong candidates in this situation. To beat Trump Democrats need to win center undecideds who are mostly low information voters, not the far left...
I love Bernie but he'd be one of the most totally wrong candidates in this situation. To beat Trump Democrats need to win center undecideds who are mostly low information voters, not the far left who are already voting for Biden, unless they're stupidly sitting this out to make a statement about Gaza.
And that's why the Democrats are Center-Right. Because the moment anyone who's not is proposed, people tumble out of the woodwork claiming "but all those undecideds won't vote for a Left...
And that's why the Democrats are Center-Right. Because the moment anyone who's not is proposed, people tumble out of the woodwork claiming "but all those undecideds won't vote for a Left candidate."
Funny how everyone just assumes undecided means "Center" or "Right." Somehow, there's zero chance for a Left candidate to make any headway. Only a Right candidate can stand for election among Democrats.
I swear, I'm starting to feel more and more like I just don't care. And if I don't care, I might as well vote Trump since he's more likely to blow everything up so there's some change. Because Biden, or whoever comes after Biden, is just gonna be Conservative-lite at best.
Undecideds are having a hard time picking between a known business fraud, rapist, and 33 count convicted felon, and a career politician with four or five decades of relatively good performance....
Undecideds are having a hard time picking between a known business fraud, rapist, and 33 count convicted felon, and a career politician with four or five decades of relatively good performance. Left candidates continually get pummeled by the right as being extreme / radical / Communist / whatever, and the public in general eats it up. Sure, I'd love to have some left candidate like Bernie shake things up, but left Democrats need to realize right now it's about keeping Trump out of the Oval Office, not proving left wing street cred.
I'm going to lose it if I see this mentality keep popping up. In what world do you live that you think "Trump blowing it up" leads to change that is in any way even remotely similar to a world you...
And if I don't care, I might as well vote Trump since he's more likely to blow everything up so there's some change
I'm going to lose it if I see this mentality keep popping up. In what world do you live that you think "Trump blowing it up" leads to change that is in any way even remotely similar to a world you want to live in? When it gets "blown up", you aren't going to be the one that gets to rebuild it.
Because Biden, or whoever comes after Biden, is just gonna be Conservative-lite at best.
This makes me believe that you indeed don't care, because if you've been paying attention at all, you'd realize Biden is far from Conservative-lite.
These people’s primary political motivation is hatred of the institutional Democratic Party. They’re single issue voters, but the single issue isn’t a policy it’s whether or not they’re...
This makes me believe that you indeed don't care, because if you've been paying attention at all, you'd realize Biden is far from Conservative-lite.
These people’s primary political motivation is hatred of the institutional Democratic Party. They’re single issue voters, but the single issue isn’t a policy it’s whether or not they’re rhetorically deferential enough to the one guy they fell in love with 8 years ago and whatever ecosystem of hangers on have rode those coattails since. It’s pure culty campism.
*Edit: grammar Breaking a personal rule here, and at some level of risk since your posts have been on the aggressive side. The DNC and Democrats are Center-Right. More Right than Center, and they...
Exemplary
*Edit: grammar
Breaking a personal rule here, and at some level of risk since your posts have been on the aggressive side.
The DNC and Democrats are Center-Right. More Right than Center, and they continue to slide Right. The RNC and Republicans are Right, and continue to run full-tilt towards increasingly extreme Right as each day passes.
The incredibly offensive assumption of Democrats is "well, anyone who's not already MAGA has to vote for us. Who else they gonna vote for?"
Fuck that, and fuck anyone who feels that's the end of the conversation.
At some point, a person gets super tired of being taken for granted. Because I'm Left, but ignored. Actual Lefties are taken for granted. It's just assumed we're a vote for Dems. All without ever doing anything to address our concerns.
The DNC and Democratic political strategy is to ignore the Left. They count Lefties as a For vote that's already in the bag, so they ignore us. Instead, they focus all their attention on trying to become more palatable or more acceptable to someone who's leaning Right. Who's thinking "hell, maybe I will vote R."
You see it throughout this thread, much less in the real world if one goes back through the years looking at the actions of the DNC and prominent Democrats as they articulate and execute their campaign strategies. That "who else you gonna vote for" energy that's always the assumption. So the DNC continues to become more Right, constantly hoping to steal a Rightie from the Right, rather than looking to become something Lefties can be proud of.
Today's DNC and Democrats are basically Regan Republicans. That's how far the country has slid Right.
Maybe I'm tired of being the assumption? And, for the record, I lived through Regan. He was a disaster for the country and for ordinary people, for anyone who isn't or wasn't already wealthy. And that's what the DNC and Democrats do, that's how they act, that's how they govern; they shape everything to supporting wealth and ignoring anyone who isn't rich.
Do the Dems ever roll any of that conservative stuff back? The economic changes? Not the social distraction stuff that's just there to suck all the air out of every room in the country so it keeps focus on a safe issue, but the things that actually affect the paychecks and lives of ordinary people who aren't rich and don't have powerful personal friends?
Nope. And there's always an excuse. Always. Always. It's never the right time, their position is too precarious, they don't have the votes, they're afraid of offending non-Democrats and being less attractive to non-Democrats. And of course, to be attractive to anyone who isn't a core Dem voter, you're supposed to go Right to appeal to them.
Trump is a dangerous narcissist, a criminal, a convicted felon, deeply unintelligent on an astonishing scale for someone with a public platform ... and he's the favored candidate of the MAGA core of the Right. Why? How? If it's so obvious he's such a fucking idiot and utter disaster, why does he collect votes?
The easy, lazy, usual answer is "all those MAGAs are racists." A slightly more verbose answer is "they want to bring back the old days, when everything was racist." Still lazy, but just more words.
Trump doesn't care about his base. He just doesn't. Which probably doesn't even qualify for his top-ten fundamental political flaws, he has that many problems and issues as a human being.
But he says shit they want to hear. He verbalizes their pain and suffering. He talks about things they think would make their lot in life better. He talks about rolling back regulations and sticking it to "the other side". He doesn't talk in non-speak, in non-answers.
One of the few things you can say that might count as a credit to Trump, he tells you what's in his head. It won't be in his empty, desolate head very long, but he'll tell you what is there. As opposed to "professional politicians" who specialize in non-answers, in equivocation and lack of engagement.
"We'll have to see." is a typical response a Democrat would give in response to a question about low wages or rising rents and mortgages. "Hopefully we can work something out." would be another. Mealy mouthed BS. Non-committal, uninspired, lacking in drive or urgency.
There's a fundamental flaw a lot of non-Right make about the MAGA Right. The racist assumption. It's a thinking point, a talking point, designed to shut the issue down at that moment so no one goes deeper. "Oh, they're just racist douchebags, fuck them" is as far as most people ever go with it. Usually said with disgust and disdain.
Are there racists in MAGA? Of course. Is each and every MAGA racist? Unlikely. Are most? Arguable either way, but I'd argue not.
They're desperate. That's why they cling to him.
Most of that MAGA core are poor, squeezed, struggling, and terrified of that one problem which'll bring it all crashing down on them in a life ending disaster. They cling to someone like Trump not because he says what they want to hear, but because they hope him saying those things means he'll do some of those things. That some of those things will improve their lots in life a bit.
When he talks, they hear a life line. A line he just might toss out for them to grab and hold onto and be safer, be maybe just a bit less likely to avoid their financial houses disintegrating into ruin thanks to what they hope he'll do for them.
Trump is absolutely not intelligent or crafty or generous enough to recognize any of that. All he cares about is that they worship him.
People are starving to death. In the wealthiest, most powerful country in history. People are homeless, in this great nation that rules the globe. People who are often ready to work. Who are working in a lot of cases.
But they can't find jobs with actual income, that pay a living wage. If one wishes to ignore someone who refuses to help themselves, okay I even see your point. But when you have people who are burning their candles at both ends week in and week out, who lurch from one unpaid bill to the next, who live in fear of a minor hiccup that'll put them on the street or skipping meals or being forced to leave a medical issue untreated just out of cost reasons, I don't agree with any point that argues it's okay and should be acceptable.
What leads headlines? Bathrooms, sexuality, BS as far as the headlines can see.
I'm supposedly a "safe" vote for Democrats. And in American politics, safe means ignored. It means they don't have to appeal to me, to convince me. They just assume, and I'm supposed to fall into line.
How do I get anyone to listen to me then? Because they aren't. That's for damn sure. I've been furious with wealth inequality since the 80s, since Regan. And it's just ... gotten .... worse. Horrifically worse. Catastrophically worse.
Every single election that rolls by, same line and same plea. "You have to vote for us. We're not them (points at the Republicans)." And that's the sum total of what they offer me. "We're not Republicans."
Well, that's not enough. It just isn't, and it's embarrassing I listened to it all these years. I'll call it six elections, now the seventh, from and including 2000. Each one, same line. "We're not Republicans. Do you want them to win? Then vote for us."
Insanity is doing the same thing the same way each time expecting a different outcome.
Obama was (and presumably still is) a gifted and charismatic orator. Which is the primary most advantageous quality a professional politician can have; charisma. What's charisma? That mysterious ability to make other humans like and believe you. He talked about Change every single day when he wanted my vote. He used his high Charisma to sound great and be appealing and it got him elected twice.
And the moment the elections were over, no change. No nothing. Business as usual. Shoveling money out of Federal coffers to the Rich as fast as they could wield the shovels. Gratefully being drawn into social debates over social issues so no one had time to notice (or affect) the economic realities of wealth inequality.
At some point, it's too much and has gone too far. Maybe now's that point.
This thread proves my point. As a Leftie, I'm just an ignored "part of the Democratic Base." I bring up how angry I am over how Progressive or Left candidates are treated, how they're boxed out of the process, and "good loyal Democrats" roll their eyes in disgust at me.
But the moment someone hears I might not be that safe vote, that ignored supporter who can be counted on, all hell starts breaking loose.
Now people are listening. If Lefties have to withdraw support to get listened to, to receive any sort of actual progress and true economic change, then I'm pretty much at that point. If that's what it'll take to be treated like a real person with real concerns that really need to be addressed, in exchange for my vote, then so be it.
The fact that we're apparently arguing about it at all proves my point. If I'd just done the same tired "MAGA bad, racist Right, fuck Trump, vote Dem to save us all" post everyone, including here, usually does then no one would've thought a thing about it. Invisible. Ignored.
Now though, the moment I come out and explain that I might be so angry that I'm willing to see things erupt if it'll force some actual Goddamn change into a process that is unacceptable and sliding further Right each year, now suddenly people are upset. Outraged. Offended.
Because I'm supposed to just fall into line and be the safe vote. People are upset that they might have to actually consider how to make their party appealing to someone like me. Someone who wants to consider supporting them, but who wants a bit of something in return.
If that pisses off anyone who considers themselves a Democrat, then the question logically should be "how can we bring these wayward Lefties back into our camp?" A self evaluation of what could be done to address those concerns, to make the Democrats more appealing and palatable to these voters they want support from. That's how democracy is supposed to work after all; we all have our values and needs and concerns, and the 'leaders' are supposed to compete to address them in exchange for our support.
Instead, the accusation is "how dare you defy Democrats."
If Trump is so bad and so obviously evil, how can he be in consideration for the Presidency? How can it be at all possible for a Democratic candidate to lose to him?
One way is ignoring the base. Another of Trump's accidental political pluses is he caters to his base. Again, he's an idiot, unintelligent, dishonest fool, but he at least pretends like they matter. Of course he's doing it because he's a vainglorious narcissist, and it's sad his base can't recognize that, but at the end of the day he talks like they matter. Flattery will absolutely get you everywhere, and Trump does butter his base up constantly.
If the Democrats lose, it's because They Fucked Up. Period. And one of the ways they're fucking up is by ignoring the Left. When they, and indeed when their supporters, run around eager to coax Righties into the camp, it's offensive to be surprised that Lefties might find that enraging.
Maybe if the Left is so important to Democrats, they should be running around eager to reassure us we matter. That we count. Except we don't. Because where the Democrats want to go isn't Left. They're happy being Republicans with better PR. And if that's how they're going to act, if that's how they're going to govern, it's absurd anyone should be shocked when they lose Left support.
It’s not an assumption. There’s plenty of data from all levels to suggest what kind of candidate would and wouldn’t break through. If a Leftist candidate wants to prove they have “it” they’d need...
Funny how everyone just assumes undecided means "Center" or "Right." Somehow, there's zero chance for a Left candidate to make any headway.
It’s not an assumption. There’s plenty of data from all levels to suggest what kind of candidate would and wouldn’t break through. If a Leftist candidate wants to prove they have “it” they’d need to demonstrate the ability to win the primaries. Presidential candidates need to be able to reach a broad cross section of everyone.
Undecided voters aren’t undecided because their preferred candidate isn’t left or right enough. They’re undecided because their preferences fall on an axis that’s cross cutting the parties. So they want welfare AND racism or they’re would be plutocrats who want tax cuts but they’re also gay.
Bernie can't win the center is exactly what they said when it was between him and Hillary. They were wrong. People want something different, Trump was different, Hillary wasn't, Biden isn't. Not...
Bernie can't win the center is exactly what they said when it was between him and Hillary. They were wrong. People want something different, Trump was different, Hillary wasn't, Biden isn't.
Not that I think it makes sense to run someone besides Biden this late in the game. If it was earlier then I think Bernie, or really almost anyone, preferably someone younger, would have a great shot at beating Trump.
I think Bernie is too much of a socialist for even America's non-political mainstream community to accept, let alone the political factions. As a nation, America is highly tilted against that...
I think Bernie is too much of a socialist for even America's non-political mainstream community to accept, let alone the political factions. As a nation, America is highly tilted against that particular ideology and as much as Bernie has clout and respect there, he has been almost reduced to what Richard Stallman is in the technology space. A sort of legend, story, cult, narrative, etc. around a chad figure but nothing tangible or actionable on the actual ideals they preach.
Wild bet time: Trump's health fails disastrously before the republican convention (in two weeks) and they scramble to pick a new person. Meanwhile, Democrats given some breathing room and actually...
Wild bet time: Trump's health fails disastrously before the republican convention (in two weeks) and they scramble to pick a new person. Meanwhile, Democrats given some breathing room and actually consider an alternative candidate people would be excited to vote for, no just hold their noses or stay home. They'll still pick some oligarchy approved groaner over Bernie of course.
Otherwise it's crazy how close it's going to get to second trump term. Disaster on an international level. If Trump remains alive to be sworn in as president I will forsake all remaining semi conspiracy belief in a shadowy world cabinet.
This sounds like pure wishful thinking. I mean, I can't blame you, but no, don't bet on it. FWIW, I do think there's a very good chance (I'd say 25-30% -ish), that at least one of them will not be...
This sounds like pure wishful thinking. I mean, I can't blame you, but no, don't bet on it.
FWIW, I do think there's a very good chance (I'd say 25-30% -ish), that at least one of them will not be able to run for President, by the time of the actual election -- whether that is due to health concerns (or, you know, dying), or criminal issues, or otherwise, IDK ... but, yeah ... we may well see some unprecedented scrambling to rapidly appoint/anoint a new Dem or GOP Candidate, last-minute, before the election.
I was thinking it's a matter of degrees, but thinking more on it, it's probably just that I'm from Florida and more aware of specific examples of DeSantis's awfulness, and I'm not as aware of...
I was thinking it's a matter of degrees, but thinking more on it, it's probably just that I'm from Florida and more aware of specific examples of DeSantis's awfulness, and I'm not as aware of like, Brian Kemp* to pick a random example. I'm sure he's horrifying too, and I'm just not a aware of it.
It was a hard thing to watch but not in a way I'm unaccustomed to. I don't mean I'm used to seeing anything specific from that debate (it is, as I will say in a sec, not normal), it's more a...
Exemplary
It was a hard thing to watch but not in a way I'm unaccustomed to. I don't mean I'm used to seeing anything specific from that debate (it is, as I will say in a sec, not normal), it's more a cosmic/existential familiarity - this doesn't matter. It's show, the movie, the aesthetic shit we got pulled into caring too much about long, long ago. The party freaking out and discussing replacements is not going to be anything if there's not both, a firm process for doing it and a strong coalition of people ready to do it. We'll hear this shit until the next debate happens, and if the next debate goes poorly it will be more intense. Biden isn't going to take himself out, dude sincerely believes in himself. So, if there's not a real action going on the speculation is meaningless and dreary.
Outside the show, Trump's mailing list is getting more unhinged and his rallies are weirder, polling already indicates the debate just wasn't a huge deal for anybody (which means Biden slowly creeping ahead, to say nothing of the inadequacies of how polling sometimes goes), Biden went to Waffle House after the debate was done, did a rally the next day and looked about fine for a dude as old as he is, shit is not the apocalypse. We've got a few months more and both Biden and Trump are in a state where that amount of time could make a significant difference to who they appear to be. None of this shit is normal, so imo, don't bother with "normal", the news speculating on what the debate means or parties freaking out. The only person I'm aware of around me who is even in a position to be convinced of anything, is someone who gets pulled along into anything, genuinely an idiot just to be straight with you. Everyone else, thus far, knows how they're going to play it.
In a weird way this time feels more democratic than in the past. The personalities don't matter as much. The policy is something folks are actually giving some attention. The vote appears to actually, for once, be about governance. Imo, watch what happens, we're on the ride and it's going to go up and down quite a lot before it's over. Freaking out before things happen is just going to mean feeling like shit all the time, imo that's a bad call while we live through history like this.
You don't have to care, I'm not appealing to you saying all that, all I mean is that it really is a time for settling on shit and just doing what you think is right and good. Regardless how this all shakes out, what comes next will be nothing like anything we've dealt with before, there are only more crises which will immediately follow this election. Big ones, small ones, of kinds and characters that mean we have to be in the present, not the past, with an eye toward what the future will actually look like, not what we wish it would be.
TL;DR I'm going to vote when that matters and just watch what happens. Take in the historical moment for what it is, because it ain't up to us, being in it.
I knew there was something funny going on (not simply because of clips, but because of what institutional Democrats / outlets were communicating via headlines over the past months), but had no...
I knew there was something funny going on (not simply because of clips, but because of what institutional Democrats / outlets were communicating via headlines over the past months), but had no idea how bad it would be (as in, was he 95% sharp as a tack and 5% out of it, or worse?). Seeing some of it now... if I were a donor, I'd be asking for a refund and audit. If I were an Democrat in power, I'd be firing a lot of self-interested campaign staffers who seem to not have been doing their duty to make a second term viable. Also, if I were Sulzberger, I would be feeling uh, very justified (and I don't even like The Times).
I think the interesting thing here is that I feel like there's a lot about not running, and very little about handing over the reins now. As a senator I think he's passable, you write policy as a congressman. A lot of staffers and lobbyists write policy for you too iirc, all you have to do is be lucid long enough to read and agree to vote for it. But for a head of state, being able to be sharp and focused in a free-form conversation matters. You are representing our country to world leaders, including leaders who may be hostile towards us. I'm not pleased with foreign policy over the past few years (hard decisions of course, but still) and the idea that Biden may not be fully there to understand that he's saying or doing to the world as all of this has unraveled is criminal. You can argue you vote for a president and his team, but you also vote for a president lucid enough to dismiss his staffers or call them on their shit. Propping up someone who isn't fully there should count as it's own kind of insurrection, especially if it has indeed been for close to a year. (As a side note, kind of impressive that they've mostly pulled this off for a year in this day and age; this is about as good as hiding FDR's condition or puppeting Wilson in his last term).
Even if he were interested in running, he's unfortunately already served two terms. It would have been something to watch him eviscerate Trump in debates, though.
Even if he were interested in running, he's unfortunately already served two terms. It would have been something to watch him eviscerate Trump in debates, though.
They added an amendment to the constitution immediately after to prevent a reoccurrence, feeling like 12 years with one man at the helm gave too much time to entrench in the halls of power....
They added an amendment to the constitution immediately after to prevent a reoccurrence, feeling like 12 years with one man at the helm gave too much time to entrench in the halls of power. There's now a 2 consecutive term limit, and no one's yet come back after a break and wanted another go at it.
The two terms don't have to be consecutive. The 22nd amendment only specifies that you can't be elected president more than twice, so it applies even to non-consecutive terms.
The two terms don't have to be consecutive. The 22nd amendment only specifies that you can't be elected president more than twice, so it applies even to non-consecutive terms.
I have a vague recollection of Biden claiming his intent to a one term, transitional presidency leading into the 2020 DNC primaries. Am I misremembering, or was that just speculation at the time?
I have a vague recollection of Biden claiming his intent to a one term, transitional presidency leading into the 2020 DNC primaries. Am I misremembering, or was that just speculation at the time?
He didn't say it as straightforward as that, but he did once say that he was a "bridge" to other younger candidates and another time said he was a "transition" candidate. The most reasonable...
He didn't say it as straightforward as that, but he did once say that he was a "bridge" to other younger candidates and another time said he was a "transition" candidate. The most reasonable interpretation of those remarks is that he was going to run for one term, especially with the reports that came out around that time that said his advisors saw him as a one term candidate.
Here's the thing, I suspect this got labeled and collapsed. But I fully agree. There's no world in which a last minute replacement, an open convention, any of that is somehow going to be...
Here's the thing, I suspect this got labeled and collapsed. But I fully agree. There's no world in which a last minute replacement, an open convention, any of that is somehow going to be successful and not just confusing and a mess. I'm so exhausted of people complaining every four years but not doing anything at all between election cycles.
I personally don't give a fuck about his debate performance at this point and I don't think anyone is an actual swing voter now. There have been excellent things done by this administration, and I don't think any of the shitty things would be better under Trump.
Why does it just feel like all the news outlets are like "Yeah Trump's a huge liar who will rubber stamp the Christian nationalist playbook, but doesn't Biden seem old? These things are of equal importance. Also we won't frame Trump as old and losing it because he's really vigorous about his lies. "
Look at all the clicks and views Trump gets. A lot of media is salivating at the thought of another Trump presidency, even if it ultimately means the end of their freedom to actually report on it.
Look at all the clicks and views Trump gets. A lot of media is salivating at the thought of another Trump presidency, even if it ultimately means the end of their freedom to actually report on it.
It's really sad to see what has happened to what was once one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world. It used to be considered the closest thing you could get to absolutely reliable.
It's really sad to see what has happened to what was once one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world. It used to be considered the closest thing you could get to absolutely reliable.
I am starting to get really frustrated with liberal politicians I've grown up admiring for the good work they've done just... not releasing their hold on power when they're extremely old and then fucking up the whole country, either getting sick (Feinstein), dying (Ginsburg) or losing to a fascist (Biden, potentially).
Just let the next generation take over when you're 80. JFC.
Yeah RBG really stings in hindsight. At the time her decision was considered to be a sign of strength, of unwillingness to compromise principles. But in practice, it turned out to just be a decision that ultimately played into the scummy agenda of the right.
She's probably the best example because her refusal to stand aside let to a replacement that has set out to undo every hard won victory she spearheaded. Just foolish, and selfish.
It's mind boggling to think that a person can come that close to an essentially perfect legacy and throw it all away at the end. I still admire her, but would hold her in such a higher regard if she'd stepped down. Nobody's perfect.
I disagree strongly with this. The echo chamber sure claimed it was, but it was exactly the kind of stupid arrogance that is why these people are not actually good for any cause. None of this matters if you're too selfish to give up the reigns and pass the torch, but having the clout was more important to her, and we now see the consequences of that.
Even then people knew this exact outcome was likely, and it's a major issue in politics and the parties that this stuff is celebrated rather than called out.
Practically, Trump had a more superficially professional performance, in that if you had no idea what the actual facts of the world were you might think of him as more competent because he can say whatever he wants with a straight face. But he just lies continually about everything and could never give a straight answer. He's a dumb man's smart man.
I'm disappointed to not see Biden smash him in the debate, but it didn't change my opinion on how I'm going to vote. Biden made things better. That's enough to vote for him even if Trump wasn't his opponent.
The average age of Democrats in the House & Senate is 3 years above the average age of Republicans. I'm all for the changing of the guard, but this is a concern across the board.
I'd almost forgotten about it, but in retrospect this reminded me a lot of the 2022 Oz-Fetterman debate for the pivotal Pennsylvania Senate race. It was a similar dynamic: on one side you had Dr. Oz, a glib, smooth-talking reality TV bullshitter, and on the other you had Fetterman, an experienced, populist reformer hobbled by serious health concerns (a stroke and attendant brain damage, in his case). For months leading up to the debate Fetterman's team kept him largely out of the spotlight and put on a brave face about how well he was recovering, but when the time came his performance was absolutely abysmal -- he was slurring words, speaking incoherently, and generally sounding like a person with brain damage. He knew his stuff and was clearly the better candidate on paper, but the optics were cringeworthily terrible.
Flash forward to election day, and Fetterman won by nearly 5%.
It's not entirely a 1:1 comparison, given the difference between midterm and general electorates, Trump's cultlike base, and the dynamics of a presidential vs. senatorial contest. But it does show that even an awful debate performance that magnifies a candidate's most glaring flaw does not guarantee a loss.
If Dr. Oz won that would have been an embarrasment even greater than Trump. And I do not make that statement lightly.
The man is a disgrace to medical science, and is in no small part responsible for the surge in the antivaxxer movement.
This is the biggest problem with the dis-analogy: a lot of conservatives think Dr. Oz is a fraud for completely non-partisan reasons.
I can't tell if the NYT is simply extremely distressed or if there's something else going on, but the front page is absurd right now. They're running four op-eds about how disastrous this is.
Frankly, op-eds are a scourge on our society. They used to be relegated to the back pages of the printed newspapers. Now they are being touted about in headlines indistinguishable to the laymen from fact. I despise it.
Absolutely. I hate that in an absence of dollars to pay reporters, columnists have become the news. A scourge is right
Whatever gets clicks! Ultimately, a lot of journalists are tacitly wishing for a return to the traffic they saw during Trump's term.
Honestly haven't looked at the NYT. But I listened to Ezra Klein's podcast this morning. He's a pretty rational guy, pretty even keeled. He's been a pretty vocal proponent of Biden's policies and efforts while in office. It's clear today that Ezra is a bit shooketh. Which tells me there is possibly something there.
Ezra Klein is generally thoughtful, but on the Biden age thing he’s been the chief bed wetter.
Political pundits in general have a lot of insane fantasies about what actually moves elections. They all imagine it’s some kind of West Wing show where the President can win votes by giving a speech that is simply so good that everyone has tears welling up in their eyes and an eagle cries in the background as the American flag begins waving majestically in the wind.
But what it actually comes down to is organizing. Obama gave great speeches, but the reason the speeches were useful was because they motivated people to get out and organize for him. The organizing is what gets the votes, but not a single TV pundit will talk about that because they get paid based on people watching TV, so all they know how to do is theater criticism.
Klein’s fantasizing about a brokered convention is just complete nonsense. There is no way a Presidential candidate comes out of a brokered convention without being damaged goods. There are plenty of problems with our candidate selection process, but the time to fix those is after an election when people can be more dispassionate about things and design the rules with fairness and utility in mind instead of whatever feelings they have about the present situation. Whatever problems we have now should be incorporated as feedback to rebuild Democratic Party infrastructure to improve candidate selection and grooming new talent for leadership. By no means does Klein’s fantasy about just being able to wing it and host a brokered convention on the fly that only gives the emergent nominee 4 months to repair all the butt hurt among the party factions who lost out and ALSO send a message to the general electorate as well. It is a moronic proposal and I refuse to entertain historical analogies to times before the existence of mass media. The last time something like what Klein is proposing happened was 1968 and it was an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats that put Nixon in charge and set the stage for the Southern Strategy and the clusterfuck we deal with today.
All the energy and hand wringing people put into being upset about Biden being a lackluster nominee would be better put towards attacking the actual things they’re worried about instead of “the Democrats” for not being sufficiently good at stopping them. If Trump and creeping fascism are the problem, figure out how to play the hand you’ve been dealt to fight them instead of wishing you were playing a different game.
Putting it another way, there’s really several questions here:
1.) How badly would Biden need to perform for you to not crawl over broken glass to vote for him? Because for me, I’d happily do so even if his staff was going to Weekend at Bernie’s a corpse in light of what the alternative is. Yes I know people will be like “But muh undecided voters!” But I’m tired of people acting like voters are some strange inscrutable animal that must be analyzed like an anthropologist. Cable TV pundits do this because they’re all Ivy League nepo babies for whom this actually is an anthropological exercise. You and me don’t need to do this because it’s us. We’re the voters! We just need to talk about the reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing and hope our logic and values make an impression. I wish the so-called “analysts” on TV were capable of this but they’re, sadly, not.
2.) Is Biden actually unable to make critical decisions or did he just have trouble thinking on his feet on a debate stage while Donald Trump spouted off a bunch of un-fact checked lies? Most indicators are the latter. He’s not quick on his feet anymore, but literally everyone who works for him says he’s pretty sharp and engaged on policy stuff. We can take their word for it or just observe the happenings in government right now where it certainly seems like the various Federal departments are continuing to do their work pretty well.
3.) Is it actually a big deal if the President is senile? Obviously it’s bad, but TBH we’ve had basically catatonic Presidents before including both Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan. As long as their various coattail riders are competent then, for the most part, things seem to proceed pretty normally. The downside is he dies and then you get President Harris. Which brings me to point 3.
4.) Who would actually replace him on the ticket? I’ll spoil it for you, it’ll be Kamala Harris. She’s not really a top choice for me, but I’d also be fine with it. But I think she’s just strictly a worse campaigner than Biden even at this stage. Her own campaign was a managerial disaster from top to bottom. So if your worst fear is realized and Biden is unable to complete his 4 years in office you get President Harris. If Biden steps down now then you also get. . . President Harris. As far as the basic facts on the ground are concerned nothing much changes.
5.) Debates don’t matter much aside from the ways in which Obama’s great speeches mattered. They get people motivated to donate and organize. But if Biden’s weak performance scares you there’s no reason to succumb to fear. You don’t strictly need an Aaron Sorkin moment to motivate you to organize, you can just organize out of realization that the stakes are high and Biden doesn’t have the power to hold the line on the weight of his personal charisma alone. Just go and organize. Yes Trump has his die hard 20%, but Trump became President because of Mitt Romney voters who somehow found an excuse to vote for him in spite of his manifest unfitness for office. In spite of the Access Hollywood tape. In spite of his abominably racist and misogynistic rhetoric. They wanted their tax cuts and they wanted to extend the long arm of the law to our collective uteruses and they would pay any price to do it. I don’t have any such misgivings about Biden.
It’s possible to vote for a guy without wanting to vote for him. In fact, this is probably the most healthy and clear headed way to engage with any politician. Everyone is looking for Biden to do something that makes them “want to want to vote” for him. This is a childish impulse that people try to dress up as something serious by putting the thought in the mouth of some mythical “undecided voter” by asking “what might this ‘Jimbo at the diner’ construct I made up in my head think?” But Jimbo is me. I am Jimbo. We both need to grow up and just do the needful. And I don’t think Jimbo is that dumb either. I think Biden’s age is pretty much priced into his approval rating already. People are open to being pleasantly surprised, but a few gaffes on a debate stage aren’t gonna do it.
Klein was a vocal supporter of replacing Biden months ago (though he did walk it back after the State of the Union). Not a huge surprise there.
That makes sense, I didn't mean to insinuate that he is an ardent supporter. I just find his opinions change based on new information and are generally well thought out.
A number of publications including the Atlantic responded to the debate with a call for Biden to step down. I can't predict what will happen, but this is not unique to the NYT
I haven't seen anything posted here regarding tonight's cringe fest. Here's a link for those who missed it.
On one hand, I feel vindicated seeing reports of Democrats freaking out after years of telling us not to worry about his age despite the obvious decline on display and poll after poll showing voters felt uneasy about Biden. On the other hand...I don't know...yikes?
The problem is there is no man behind the curtain... The DNC is a hollow funding apparatus that hasn't handpicked candidates in decades. Prominent party members didn't want Biden to run for re-election, and they have no real influence. Incumbents generally cruise through primaries. Plus, Biden's funding is locked to his campaign.
I think they could choose someone at the convention. I've seen Whitmer and Pritzker mentioned
This is the political pundit equivalent of fanfiction. It’s a ridiculous fantasy that they only like because they’re nerds who get off on political spectacle. It is not going to produce a Presidential candidate who can win an election. It will result in a nominee who came out of a bruising intra-party fight that leaves them as damaged goods that can’t rally the support of the factions of the party they had to defeat to get there.
Yeah people have this idealized view where some young candidate rises and unites the party.
The reality is the exact same death by focus group crypt keeper power holders that got us in this mess are going to tear each other apart trying to get THEIR slice of the pie
There is also the Ohio situation (in short, the ballot deadline for Ohio is before the DNC, so Biden will be officially nominated before the convention), so if they were to choose someone at the convention instead, then that nominee would not be on the ballot in every state.
This is crazy to me and should be crazy to anyone who remembers how upset Bernie Sanders supporters were in 2016 because their claim was exactly that the DNC was hand picking a candidate and that their votes didn't matter.
Nobody likes that Biden is old, but always in these discussions there isn't a really viable alternative even if we hand wave away totally ignoring the party primary process. Whitmer hardly held on in her own state and doesn't have good national name ID, and cold as it is you can't just run a woman when the most popular democratic woman candidate lost in 2016.
Prtizker also suffers from the name ID issue, even worse that Whitmer does. You'd have to be looking at someone like Newsome, who carries his own baggage with moderate voters after a decade of "Commiefornia" rhetoric. All three of these folks are gearing up for 2028 which makes sense because it gives them time to establish themselves and their platforms.
The only way to swap is if Biden drops out, and that's just not a realistic option. Democrats, instead, need to stop the fretting and buckle down hard on running a campaign that breaks though a media apparatus that is obsessed with Trump. And they need to fire whoever prepped Biden for the debate.
It's possible that the debate prep wasn't the problem and Biden simply doesn't have capacity to give snappy comebacks anymore.
If Biden died or had a disabling stroke they would find another candidate.
I only watched a bit, and it seemed pretty terrible. At the same time I have known 1-2 habitual liars in my life, and his reaction kind of reminded me of my own. Just a sort of stunned confusion because both people know the liar is lying, and you can't think of what to say because it is so blatant.
This one dude for example:
"Yeah, I usually drive a BMW"
..."Dude you're a freshmam, live in the dorms, are on the meal plan, and have driven a fucking Civic for the entire first semester"
"Well, the BMW is in the shop".
Stunned gutteral noises are kinda the only remaining reaction after hearing blatant lies every day.
Biden gave several snappy comebacks in the second half of the debate.
Fair. Like the rest of us I am waiting to see what happens and hoping that Trump is defeated by any means necessary. I don't want Biden to lose because he seems more fragile and less dominant but everyone is reading tea leaves and no one can predict the swing voters.
They would, but it’s likely that other candidate would lose
This speech seems to be Biden's answer to naysayers
If Biden somehow decided to step aside, they could and would. I just don't see that happening.
I don't think they can, the majority of people attending the convention are going as Biden Delegates, meaning the reason they were sent was to nominate Biden.
The debate was bad, but not coup worthy. Also now I'm thinking part of the reason why it was so early was to let people forget about it by November.
I love your use of the word "coup" here, I think it really hits at what's happening. There's been a lot of people on the left who have been very unsure about Biden, with good reason. They were waiting though for some unifying moment where if they started shooting, they'd know they'd have backup. Everyone already had their arguments and hit pieces polished up.
I'm not trying to dismiss his bad performance, this is a legitimate issue for Biden. But there are a host of other reasons as well, this is just the fuse lighting moment. The big question for me is who puts their ass on the line and says "nominate me instead".
Nobody with the political instincts to actually be good at it unfortunately. It’s a poisoned apple. They’re likely to lose and be held responsible for a world historical catastrophe. If they’re any good they’d be better off waiting for 2028 when they’ve had a chance to build a national profile instead of trying to speedrun it from scratch in a month.
They can (and would) if Biden ended his campaign, which is what a lot of folks are calling for at this point.
I didn't vote for Big Gretch in the primaries the first time around, but after these past few years I'd put her on the presidential ticket in a heartbeat.
I am probably the most satisfied person I know with Biden’s performance in office over the past 4 years, but that debate was abysmal. I will still vote Joe in the fall if he’s the only option, but I really think someone else needs to step in.
It's probably late to pick a new headline candidate but I think it needs to go from the BIDEN harris campaign to a Biden+Harris campaign at least
Absolutely. Heck, swap it around: vote for the HARRIS Biden ticket! Get that first woman president in US history energy. Anything but someone who should have retired before the youngest voters were even born.
Isn’t Harris polling very poorly against Trump? In that case, would it be smart? But then again, who else?
They're stuck between a nearly dead guy against Trump or Harris against Trump, that's the way I see it. It wouldn't be upping their chances to switch out Biden, but it could potentially be devastating if they don't. We all played Pokemon as kids right? When you need to switch out when you know your pokemon can't even take the lighting tap is crucial.
Harris would not win against Trump. We'd be better off sticking it out with Biden.
Here's a WaPo analysis piece on that very subject
So, uh, how would Kamala Harris do against Trump?
A look at polling in an effort to answer a newly popular question.
We're likely going to see better focused polls on this exact question this week
She's not doing that terribly against Trump, and
It's not as crazy as it sounds.
She comes with her own pile of problems but at this point it’s hard to see the election as anything other than voting for her
They need to find a different high level job for Harris to be able to leave while saving face, and get Whitmer on the ticket. Let people get excited about her, and feel better about who's next in line. I don't know what that would do to the black vote, though.
I'm going to sound incredibly out of the loop, but why is Whitmer suddenly being considered for the ticket? I've never heard of her until this comment thread and am just curious to know what has happened that would put her above more nationally known politicians like Warren or Newsom?
Whitmer was a big reason why the Michigan Dem Party got whipped back into shape after Trump won it back in 2016. She flipped the Governor seat from Republican to Democrat in a swing state. And advanced a liberal agenda in Michigan. She also made national news in 2020 when a group of guys plotted to kidnap her.
She's also relatively charismatic, likeable, and attractive. Back in 2022, when it was assumed Biden wouldn't go for a second term and that we would have an Open Primary, she was considered one of the better proposed candidates even by progressive members of the party.
Wow, I had no idea Whitmer was the kidnapping target! From what everyone is saying I'm actually getting quite excited at her prospective nomination. I'll keep a lid on it until I do a deeper dive on her history with policy but in recent years it's been a rare event to find someone new in politics to get excited about! Thanks for sharing!
Warren is older and an intellectual, former professor. Newsome is actually getting suggested in these discussions but is from California and might alienate swing voters as being too left. He also is from a very moneyed elitist connected background, as is Pritzker, another possibility.
Whitmer is from the midwest, very pro labor.
Who also committed political suicide with her claims and bloodtest results. Warren is done.
I love how Newsom is perceived as being too far left when Warren is about a mile further.
Excited to hear about Whitmer, I'll have to dive into her career and policy history! Thanks for sharing!
He's only perceived as being too far left because he's from California. In my experience he's happy to say the right things on social issues, but is basically a classic business Democrat. Decent enough, perhaps, but not leftward groundbreaking in any way.
As a big Warren supporter from 2020, she is too old at this point. I see no point in replace one Silent Generation pol with another.
Worse yet, she showed she didn’t have the juice to cross the finish line in 2020. When it became clear she was struggling to convert her policy proposals into votes I switched my support to Biden. Warren actually is the reason Biden’s administration has been as effective as it is. The scuttlebutt is that many of Biden’s appointees were handpicked by Warren, so they have a good working relationship at least.
She was leading the polls at one point in October 2019, but then tanked right after. Instead of admitting defeat and endorsing the other progressive candidate she ended up attacking him, which lost her a lot of credibility and support among progressive voters.
She never really had the broad appeal to win anyway, both Biden and Bernie had appeal among the less educated and less white in a way that Warren never did.
She definitely had the best odds of bridging the gap between centrist and progressive Democrats. Personally, I blame Sanders for her fall -- she hit her peak in polling and tied with Biden after he had his heart attack, which would have been a logical moment for him to gracefully withdraw for a face-saving reason and vocally back her in order to unite the left while the moderates were still divided. Instead he stayed in, which gave tacit permission to his angrier supporters to turn on her (supercharged by the "women can't win" thing, which was a complete mess for both of them). I say all this as somebody who supported Sanders in 2016 (and in hindsight, I think Trump would have beaten both of them).
I had this exact argument on Twitter. So I’m not gonna get into all that.
But Warren would not have been a uniting figure. She had no working-class appeal, she had the most white and educated base of the candidates running at the time. Biden’s and Bernie’s support was more diverse and more working class.
She was almost every candidate supporter’s second preference, including Biden’s and Sanders’. If the primaries were ranked choice she’d have won in a landslide.
It was Sanders who had a hard ceiling of 30-40%. Their strategy was explicitly to bank on the field being divided enough to run away with only a slight plurality. It was a boneheaded strategy that bit them in the ass because they alienated the supporters of all their adversaries to the point where they wouldn’t consider Sanders when their guy/gal dropped.
The classic blame the player and not the game reasoning. There's a number of ways that the system can be changed to keep someone from winning on a slight plurality rather than discouraging people from running at all.
Yeah ranked choice voting. Though I think maybe in a primary, whose point is to stress test whether a candidate is cut out for a general, having a first past the post might not be the worst.
Bernie had a ceiling of support he couldn’t clear. He should have dropped out sooner too since he had no chance. He sucked ip all the oxygen for a dead end campaign that wouldn’t have been able to clear the post.
…and third-party candidates shouldn't run their vanity campaigns in the
realgeneral election since they distract voters. I've heard those sour grapes as long as I've been politically aware (since Bush v. Gore).Third parties shouldn’t run presidential tickets at all. They’re vanity campaigns at best and outright grifters more typically. And they lack the talent pool or contacts to actually enact anything they’re talking about even if they do win by some miracle.
Third party wank voting is the ultimate expression of consumeristic politics as brand identity. It’s deeply unserious and borderline comical how many people insist on being holier than thou about their willingness to follow around professional campaign grifters.
The #1 reason to vote third-party isn't to ensure their vision is enacted, but to deliver an L to one of the major parties. Force them to court your faction next time.
Bold of you to assume they’ll court a faction of perpetually aggrieved sore losers who don’t organize voters at all instead of organized interest groups in the center who actually demonstrate a willingness to be persuaded and negotiated with.
That's not really a response to the prior comment. You dismissed candidates you don't like running in the primaries and claim they were making it harder for other better (in your eyes) candidates and that they shouldn't have run in the primary. Yet that's the most common response to people who are dissatisfied with the two 'choices' in the general election, that they should have voted for someone else in the primary and that's the proper venue for voting for your ideal candidate.
You have some seriously petty grievance with people who don't toe the company line and look down your nose at anyone who doesn't do what you think is best. The elitism is fucking insane.
I like this idea. At this point it's likely too late to sub in someone for Biden (likely too late to actually win I mean), so getting someone on the ticket who excites at least a portion of the electorate would be a win in my book.
So, I'm refreshing my memory of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate, famously, the first Presidential debate that was widely televised. The people that listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had "won" the debate; the people that watched it, overwhelmingly, thought Kennedy had "won"; and in retrospect, Kennedy ultimately winning the Presidency is largely attributed (even by Kennedy himself) to that first debate.
And pundits and prognosticators across the country predicted that television would be the death of rational political discourse in the US. The phrase that kept popping up was "the rise of the abominable showman".
FWIW, here is that debate. I'm rewatching it now. It's worth checking out, especially if you've never actually taken the time to watch it before. Because, holy crap ... I'd take Nixon (let alone Kennedy) in a heartbeat, over either of the two guys I just watched debating today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbrcRKqLSRw
I actually like Biden a lot, and think he’s been an extremely effective President. But I always thought it was a mistake that the Dems didn’t push back harder against him running again, we really needed a primary.
I think that was bound to happen, but then the midterms happened and Democrats did really well so they decided to stick with Biden (even progressive members like Jayapal began endorsing a second term). But the Biden 2020 campaign made allusions to the idea that he would be a single term president, and they should have kept it like that.
It’s too late to do that anyway. Replacing him with a committee choice is a worse decision that will just alienate all sorts of fractions within the Dem party.
The decision to run again was always going to be up to Biden.
It is a terrible look to have your party come out and tell you not to run again, especially when you had a very successful first term.
And to be clear we did have a primary, but no one (noteworthy) chooses to run against him, because primary voters would have still ended up re-electing Biden because the incumbent will always win unless something major happens.
The incumbent advantage is not merely that people see the word incumbent on the ballot and vote for that guy. It's also that you get all of the media oxygen and have the entire party's institutions organized around you. If last year he had 10% of the press he's been getting in the last 12 hours, someone else would have run, and he might not have! Either way you get a debate where this happens 6 months ago and it's far easier to figure out who the candidate is actually going to be.
Instead, yeah, nobody else ran, so there wasn't a primary, so he's the candidate. The selection of candidates is not just a process where people announce they want to be president and then voters decide among all of the options equally. You can only become a "noteworthy" candidate when you're taken seriously by the media and/or legitimized by figures in the party. It was made clear a year ago that Biden was the guy, and that no other candidates would be taken seriously by the media or be legitimized by any figures in the party.
I just don't buy into the thinking that it's a bad look to have a primary against an incumbent. The primary gives a chance to battle harden the candidates and test messaging strategies for the general.
I'm not even suggesting that someone should have primaried Biden. I think Biden should have stepped aside for the Dems to have an open primary.
That is how it has played out in the past. When Kennedy ran against Carter in the 1980 Democratic primaries he didn't win, but it badly damaged Carter's chances. When Reagan challenged Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries, the same thing happened. The incumbent prevailed, but was severely weakened in the general election.
Perhaps the incumbents were just weaker than expected? Carter and Ford were both badly poised for reelection anyways, and the primaries probably just revealed that reality sooner than later.
Perhaps. The fact remains that in every modern example of an incumbent president being challenged in his party’s primaries, the only result has been to weaken the incumbent in the general election.
Even if that's the case (which I'd contest to some extent, since the mere existence of a credible primary challenge I'd say is a sign of an already weak incumbent), I'm convinced that it's beneficial and necessary for the party in the long run to have to primaries. Reagan challenging Ford in 1976 did a lot to build momentum for Reagan's landslide victory in 1980.
If Trump wins in November, there is no “long run” for the Democratic Party. Haven’t you been paying attention to what Trump and his cronies have been saying? They have outright said that they are going to arrest their political opponents once they take power. The choice is between Biden and fascism.
Sabotaging the future to only debatably, marginally help the present is a losing strategy.
Helping Trump to win is sabotaging the future. Failing to support Biden is helping Trump. If Trump wins democracy in the US is finished.
Everyone younger than Biden would have been seen as a radical firebrand even if they had the same exact policies as Biden. My parents are voting on name recognition, and a general distrust of people younger than them.
Same conversations happened when Obama was trounced by Romney in the first debate. Obviously VERY different circumstances, but I don’t think this performance will change the race much.
Still stings though; really wish there had been a clear Democratic superstar that Biden could’ve stepped aside for before this election began.
Edit: I’m very happy to have been very wrong about this one
I believe the plan was that Harris would run for 2ndb term, but I think the fear is that she likely would lose against trump.
I thought that in 2020 it was a monumental political mistake for the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party to have reacted so strongly to the racial zeitgeist (George Floyd protests) in deciding that they will narrow the VP search to Black women:
It artificially narrowed his options down to a pool of candidates who frankly did not possess political superstar potential. Stacey Abrams lost the same race twice. Kamala Harris couldn't even get her own primary campaign off the ground due to lack of funding — a proxy for interest from the powers that be; she only became senator in an uncompetitive senate race.
Now fast forward to today: Biden is too old, and the successor he's groomed clearly does not possess the political skills or charisma for anything beyond state-level politics. It was a wasted opportunity to anoint someone else with more potential.
Which is super dumb because if " Black women are tired of being considered the help,” then picking any of them for VP is precisely "the help".
The nation didn't reject Hilary Clinton because she was a woman, they rejected Hilary Clinton and also James Comey made a bad call.
The powers that be only want candidates they own and control, which already narrows down option to this corrupt puppet vs that corrupt puppet. The biggest winning candidate every single year had been "stay home don't vote" for a reason.
I’m not actually sure that was ever the plan. Harris’s 2020 campaign crashed and burned, she was the first one to drop out. And once she actually was VP her popularity dropped among her party, so I don’t think she was ever considered a viable option. It’s why there was better buzz for Gretchen Whitmer.
It's a terrible time to choose a Democratic Presidential candidate other than Biden. There are so many ways in which the U.S. does a uniquely poor job of cultivating candidates for national office...
Neither Senator nor Governor roles offer exposure to all the concerns of the country. I'm not even going to count the House of Representatives, with its two-year terms, comparatively tiny electoral regions, and zillion hyper-specialized committees.
Gubernatorial positions are all about regional concerns - agriculture, manufacturing, urban vs rural... There are only a few states that have routine involvement with international relations and trade (beyond Canada or Mexico), defense, intelligence, or other national-scale policies. New York, Texas, California, Florida... And all but California and Florida have constitutionally weak Governors. The politics of populous states create fatally compromised leaders who balance on the whims of rich donors. With few exceptions, the record of governors who won election to the presidency isn't stellar.
As much as I like Michigan's Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, for her leadership performance during the pandemic, charisma, comparatively clean funding, and her subsequent policies, I can't see that she has the name recognition, vision, or broad competencies for national leadership (yet). California's Governor, Gavin Newsom, is fatally compromised by his funding, the messy politics of the state, and San Francisco's self-made tech real estate chaos. A Newsom/Harris ticket would have a technical problem with receiving any of California's electoral votes. Kathy Hochul of New York isn't anybody's idea of a resolute leader; she's too dependent on a conservative suburban/rural New York constituency and New York's famously corrupt political institutions. J. B. Pritzker of Illinois is a born-with-a-silver-spoon plutocrat who's been deeply embroiled in everything wrong and corrupt about Illinois politics.
The delicate political balance of the U.S. Senate is a compelling reason not to run any sitting Democratic Senator. The current Democratic Senators are also a very mixed bag. Aside from the impending felon, Robert Menendez, they're from small, very liberal states, or otherwise poorly situated for national name recognition. I might have been pleased if Ron Wyden ran, since he's shown a considerable amount of savvy on human rights, technology, foreign policy, and defense issues, but he's otherwise a typical liberal, and age 75 to boot. Elizabeth Warren was more to my taste, but is now also too old. Bernie Sanders is a fine gadfly, but again too old. Mark Kelly of Arizona has a picture-perfect U.S. pre-Presidential biography (former military service, ex-astronaut, etc.), but I reflexively distrust the "moderate Democrat" label. He has too little experience in elected office and no signature policies.
Outside of the traditional elective offices, there's a mostly terrible record for Presidential candidates who came from Cabinet positions, the military, or business.
I'd have a difficult time with Pete Buttigieg (Secretary of Transportation) because of his overweening sense of technocratic (Harvard/McKinsey) self-importance (small city mayor to failed DNC chair run to failed Presidential campaign?). There's nothing in his current record to suggest policy vision with results.
Jennifer Granholm (Secretary of Energy) was a perfectly competent Michigan Governor. She was born in Canada, which was what stopped her from a Presidential campaign in the first place.
I don't think any of the other cabinet members have sufficient general experience of elected office or name recognition. There's no "business" candidate I'd trust because we don't need more plutocrat vs. plutocrat politics. As for the military... yikes.
Draft Jon Stewart?
If for no other reason than that he's self-effacing enough to know he doesn't know shit, and would put together a bunch of experts who do actually know wtf they're talking about to advise him.
Yeah, it really is no more complicated than that party leadership and the media act like you're a real candidate and this gets you all the name recognition and credibility you need. Qualifications aren't really a factor as far as actually doing the job goes. It's just not a job that requires you to know or be capable of very much. It's an executive position. Everything can be and has been delegated. Qualifications do of course come into play in the election, but that's because we are expected to have a complete fantasy-world idea of what the job entails. We're supposed to want a Nobel Prize winning economist, but that really makes you better suited for one of the roles under the president that actually has qualifications and is responsible for planning or carrying out policy.
If they went that route, I'd call it the most monumental blunder so far, considering she's likely just as unpopular as before, still up there in age, and has already lost once to Trump. Should Biden decide to step aside (which, let's be real, it's not happening - this is all just for the sake of discussion), they need to put a younger, left/center candidate there who could stand next to Trump and show the sharp contrast.
This is the craziest part to me, and it completely confirms all of those articles about the deep delusion inside the Biden campaign. They rehearsed with him for a week -- they should have known it wasn't going to be okay. They should have responded accordingly! The fact that they didn't come out with (or come up with) the cold thing until halfway through the debate is unexplainably baffling. Somehow they really did convince themselves he might pull it off. I guess that explains (or is at least consistent with) their already mystifying decision to run him in the first place. He's acted like this for over four years and has been getting markedly worse over time. This was literally the only way it could have gone. They should have known his candidacy wasn't going to be okay, and they should have responded accordingly!
Instead we're just now getting Joe's first real election appearance, where we can see him talk off a teleprompter (though his answers were still scripted, which is of course always true of these debates but was made obvious here by the robotic learned-it-phonetically intonation he had on the rare occasions when he could both remember the words in the script and successfully communicate them from his mind to his mouth). And predictably this first real appearance is already a complete disaster to the point that every single TV channel, newspaper, news site, and political operative in the entire country is completely freaking out and calling for him to drop out. Anyone involved in his campaign who couldn't see this coming last year when he changed his mind on running is just not competent and/or intelligent enough to work in politics.
In my experience, elderly people can have large ranges of cognitive ability. My guess at a reasonable explanation is that they could have been getting like ~50+% reasonable rehearsal performances and gambled rather than hedged. Probably not what I would have done, but maybe this level of performance was like a 5% outlier they were hoping to avoid.
Yeah, I guess I wasn't in the room when he was rehearsing, so I didn't see what they saw, and they must have seen something that allowed them to rationalize the delusion that it was even possibly going to go well. I'll grant that typically he has a higher ratio of language to not-language in most of his public appearances. But if he had the capacity to get through 90 minutes in public without doing something like this, wouldn't we have seen him get through literally any single public event in far more controlled circumstances in the last five years without doing something like this? Sure, technically this could be a 5% outlier from their rehearsals, but only if we believe the stuff his staffers leak every other week about how he only regresses to non-verbal catatonia like this in public, and behind closed doors he's a charismatic mega-genius. But even if we believe that, the debate isn't behind closed doors, so that doesn't do you much good.
The only way I can make it make sense is that they assumed Trump would scream and rant the whole time, and their strategy was oriented around Biden snapping back with short lines he could memorize and say properly like "something broke in you donald..." and "you're a whiner!" etc. If he had successfully landed a few of those on Trump in a debate where Trump's insanity was the focus, you could plausibly sell it as a Biden win. Instead Trump just let Biden ramble for his full time while mostly taking it seriously and acting "presidential" or whatever (for Trump anyway lol).
While it was unfortunate to see Biden's performance at the debate, the biggest reason why the Biden campaign never said anything about a cold ahead of time is probably that he never had a cold to begin with. His performance was pretty consistent with what his non-promptered appearances have been for a while now.
Being misleading, exaggerating, or telling half-truths is one thing. Straight lying is an order of magnitude worse
As an outsider looking in, I just cannot fathom anyone being convinced by that at this point. Letting it get this far is at both Biden's and the democratic party's detriment.
I find myself lacking the mental and emotional energy to watch the debate. I know what each candidate represents. There's the narcissist who publicly states his love and admiration for dictators and autocrats and wants to be President for Life of the United States, and then yes, there is the ageing democrat who is now having difficulties with public speaking.
I have said it before and will restate: the US cannot afford to sustain the damage another 4 years with Trump would cause. He would pull support from Ukraine and possibly sabotage or withdraw from NATO. Between Russia and China we have the spectre of WWIII looming - we are already slow walking into it. The potential for world-spanning damage is really hard to understate here.
Oh, there's a bajillion other issues a trump presidency would turn into disasters. Climate policy for one is internationally crucially important. The US is a big country with a big footprint, if they're doing the right thing that is both a large slice of the cake already taken care of and a massive incentive for other countries to follow suit.
The prospect of a authoritarian US is also decidedly dicey for the rest of the free world. Sure, right now our position globally is solid: Europe, the US, various east asian democracies and decent swaths of the old commonwealth, plus a few more all share broadly similar values, supporting each other and trading. Take the US away and that loose alliance looks a lot more shaky.
For all the terrible press about the debate, I'm still voting "D" because the alternative is horrifying. It's worth noting that Kamala Harris is not a bad Vice President, and it's arguable that there's been rotten coverage of her actions in office. If Biden dropped out, there's evidence she'd do as well as or better than he is.
I couldn’t care less about the debate. Biden is doing a great job as far as I’m concerned. The choice is between more of the same or fascism.
The only somewhat sure win would be Bernie. Anything else would be a total crapshoot.
I very very very much doubt that "don't worry, we're replacing our incumbent super late at the last minute, because he's too old, with another ancient option that's even more radical" is going to carry the election.
If the dems had any brains at all they would've run someone under 60 already, but it's way way way too late to fix that now. This is all performance talk.
Honestly I don't know if any other candidate would have enough sway and pull for this particular election. It's easier to reelect an incumbent than replace them with a new candidate, and I don't think any other Democrat stands out enough right now to overpower that advantage.
The same goes for Republicans. Trump has a disturbingly devoted and fervent fan base, who would likely riot and vote for him even if they put forward another candidate. He's become the party's face to the point no other Republican really stands out as potential president material right now, so pitting anyone else against Biden would be a challenge.
Basically, both parties are kinda stuck in a stalemate with Trump and Biden as the primary candidates. So long as one is a candidate, the other party would be making a BIG gamble by changing theirs.
Even if the Democrats could let Biden step down while saving face, he would have to want to step down. Could he reasonably go from being hyped as "the only guy who could win an election against Trump and get Congress to pass bipartisan infrastructure" to "actually I resign after a bad debate, you were all right about me being too old, but Harris is pretty cool, ya know?"
To be fair, Bernie also hasn't demonstrated nearly the same level of degradation during high profile media events.
I do generally agree, and is ultimately why the DNC failed when they lined up behind Hillary in 2016. Remember one major reason Bernie ran back then was because she was unchallenged in the primary and he thought that undemocratic.
It should have been a gigantic wakeup that almost all of the major states that she lost in the primary were swing states that went Trump. The DNC would do well to give less weight to their voters in NY and CA, because they're disproprtionately influencing the party which makes it blind to the desires from the other states.
The only reason Trump lost in 2020 was because a historic voter surge that hadn't been seen in over 40 years. Here's hoping lightning strikes twice.
I love Bernie but he'd be one of the most totally wrong candidates in this situation. To beat Trump Democrats need to win center undecideds who are mostly low information voters, not the far left who are already voting for Biden, unless they're stupidly sitting this out to make a statement about Gaza.
And that's why the Democrats are Center-Right. Because the moment anyone who's not is proposed, people tumble out of the woodwork claiming "but all those undecideds won't vote for a Left candidate."
Funny how everyone just assumes undecided means "Center" or "Right." Somehow, there's zero chance for a Left candidate to make any headway. Only a Right candidate can stand for election among Democrats.
I swear, I'm starting to feel more and more like I just don't care. And if I don't care, I might as well vote Trump since he's more likely to blow everything up so there's some change. Because Biden, or whoever comes after Biden, is just gonna be Conservative-lite at best.
Undecideds are having a hard time picking between a known business fraud, rapist, and 33 count convicted felon, and a career politician with four or five decades of relatively good performance. Left candidates continually get pummeled by the right as being extreme / radical / Communist / whatever, and the public in general eats it up. Sure, I'd love to have some left candidate like Bernie shake things up, but left Democrats need to realize right now it's about keeping Trump out of the Oval Office, not proving left wing street cred.
How many of them are undecided between the candidates vs. being undecided about whether or not to show up?
I'm going to lose it if I see this mentality keep popping up. In what world do you live that you think "Trump blowing it up" leads to change that is in any way even remotely similar to a world you want to live in? When it gets "blown up", you aren't going to be the one that gets to rebuild it.
This makes me believe that you indeed don't care, because if you've been paying attention at all, you'd realize Biden is far from Conservative-lite.
These people’s primary political motivation is hatred of the institutional Democratic Party. They’re single issue voters, but the single issue isn’t a policy it’s whether or not they’re rhetorically deferential enough to the one guy they fell in love with 8 years ago and whatever ecosystem of hangers on have rode those coattails since. It’s pure culty campism.
*Edit: grammar
Breaking a personal rule here, and at some level of risk since your posts have been on the aggressive side.
The DNC and Democrats are Center-Right. More Right than Center, and they continue to slide Right. The RNC and Republicans are Right, and continue to run full-tilt towards increasingly extreme Right as each day passes.
The incredibly offensive assumption of Democrats is "well, anyone who's not already MAGA has to vote for us. Who else they gonna vote for?"
Fuck that, and fuck anyone who feels that's the end of the conversation.
At some point, a person gets super tired of being taken for granted. Because I'm Left, but ignored. Actual Lefties are taken for granted. It's just assumed we're a vote for Dems. All without ever doing anything to address our concerns.
The DNC and Democratic political strategy is to ignore the Left. They count Lefties as a For vote that's already in the bag, so they ignore us. Instead, they focus all their attention on trying to become more palatable or more acceptable to someone who's leaning Right. Who's thinking "hell, maybe I will vote R."
You see it throughout this thread, much less in the real world if one goes back through the years looking at the actions of the DNC and prominent Democrats as they articulate and execute their campaign strategies. That "who else you gonna vote for" energy that's always the assumption. So the DNC continues to become more Right, constantly hoping to steal a Rightie from the Right, rather than looking to become something Lefties can be proud of.
Today's DNC and Democrats are basically Regan Republicans. That's how far the country has slid Right.
Maybe I'm tired of being the assumption? And, for the record, I lived through Regan. He was a disaster for the country and for ordinary people, for anyone who isn't or wasn't already wealthy. And that's what the DNC and Democrats do, that's how they act, that's how they govern; they shape everything to supporting wealth and ignoring anyone who isn't rich.
Do the Dems ever roll any of that conservative stuff back? The economic changes? Not the social distraction stuff that's just there to suck all the air out of every room in the country so it keeps focus on a safe issue, but the things that actually affect the paychecks and lives of ordinary people who aren't rich and don't have powerful personal friends?
Nope. And there's always an excuse. Always. Always. It's never the right time, their position is too precarious, they don't have the votes, they're afraid of offending non-Democrats and being less attractive to non-Democrats. And of course, to be attractive to anyone who isn't a core Dem voter, you're supposed to go Right to appeal to them.
Trump is a dangerous narcissist, a criminal, a convicted felon, deeply unintelligent on an astonishing scale for someone with a public platform ... and he's the favored candidate of the MAGA core of the Right. Why? How? If it's so obvious he's such a fucking idiot and utter disaster, why does he collect votes?
The easy, lazy, usual answer is "all those MAGAs are racists." A slightly more verbose answer is "they want to bring back the old days, when everything was racist." Still lazy, but just more words.
Trump doesn't care about his base. He just doesn't. Which probably doesn't even qualify for his top-ten fundamental political flaws, he has that many problems and issues as a human being.
But he says shit they want to hear. He verbalizes their pain and suffering. He talks about things they think would make their lot in life better. He talks about rolling back regulations and sticking it to "the other side". He doesn't talk in non-speak, in non-answers.
One of the few things you can say that might count as a credit to Trump, he tells you what's in his head. It won't be in his empty, desolate head very long, but he'll tell you what is there. As opposed to "professional politicians" who specialize in non-answers, in equivocation and lack of engagement.
"We'll have to see." is a typical response a Democrat would give in response to a question about low wages or rising rents and mortgages. "Hopefully we can work something out." would be another. Mealy mouthed BS. Non-committal, uninspired, lacking in drive or urgency.
There's a fundamental flaw a lot of non-Right make about the MAGA Right. The racist assumption. It's a thinking point, a talking point, designed to shut the issue down at that moment so no one goes deeper. "Oh, they're just racist douchebags, fuck them" is as far as most people ever go with it. Usually said with disgust and disdain.
Are there racists in MAGA? Of course. Is each and every MAGA racist? Unlikely. Are most? Arguable either way, but I'd argue not.
They're desperate. That's why they cling to him.
Most of that MAGA core are poor, squeezed, struggling, and terrified of that one problem which'll bring it all crashing down on them in a life ending disaster. They cling to someone like Trump not because he says what they want to hear, but because they hope him saying those things means he'll do some of those things. That some of those things will improve their lots in life a bit.
When he talks, they hear a life line. A line he just might toss out for them to grab and hold onto and be safer, be maybe just a bit less likely to avoid their financial houses disintegrating into ruin thanks to what they hope he'll do for them.
Trump is absolutely not intelligent or crafty or generous enough to recognize any of that. All he cares about is that they worship him.
People are starving to death. In the wealthiest, most powerful country in history. People are homeless, in this great nation that rules the globe. People who are often ready to work. Who are working in a lot of cases.
But they can't find jobs with actual income, that pay a living wage. If one wishes to ignore someone who refuses to help themselves, okay I even see your point. But when you have people who are burning their candles at both ends week in and week out, who lurch from one unpaid bill to the next, who live in fear of a minor hiccup that'll put them on the street or skipping meals or being forced to leave a medical issue untreated just out of cost reasons, I don't agree with any point that argues it's okay and should be acceptable.
What leads headlines? Bathrooms, sexuality, BS as far as the headlines can see.
I'm supposedly a "safe" vote for Democrats. And in American politics, safe means ignored. It means they don't have to appeal to me, to convince me. They just assume, and I'm supposed to fall into line.
How do I get anyone to listen to me then? Because they aren't. That's for damn sure. I've been furious with wealth inequality since the 80s, since Regan. And it's just ... gotten .... worse. Horrifically worse. Catastrophically worse.
Every single election that rolls by, same line and same plea. "You have to vote for us. We're not them (points at the Republicans)." And that's the sum total of what they offer me. "We're not Republicans."
Well, that's not enough. It just isn't, and it's embarrassing I listened to it all these years. I'll call it six elections, now the seventh, from and including 2000. Each one, same line. "We're not Republicans. Do you want them to win? Then vote for us."
Insanity is doing the same thing the same way each time expecting a different outcome.
Obama was (and presumably still is) a gifted and charismatic orator. Which is the primary most advantageous quality a professional politician can have; charisma. What's charisma? That mysterious ability to make other humans like and believe you. He talked about Change every single day when he wanted my vote. He used his high Charisma to sound great and be appealing and it got him elected twice.
And the moment the elections were over, no change. No nothing. Business as usual. Shoveling money out of Federal coffers to the Rich as fast as they could wield the shovels. Gratefully being drawn into social debates over social issues so no one had time to notice (or affect) the economic realities of wealth inequality.
At some point, it's too much and has gone too far. Maybe now's that point.
This thread proves my point. As a Leftie, I'm just an ignored "part of the Democratic Base." I bring up how angry I am over how Progressive or Left candidates are treated, how they're boxed out of the process, and "good loyal Democrats" roll their eyes in disgust at me.
But the moment someone hears I might not be that safe vote, that ignored supporter who can be counted on, all hell starts breaking loose.
Now people are listening. If Lefties have to withdraw support to get listened to, to receive any sort of actual progress and true economic change, then I'm pretty much at that point. If that's what it'll take to be treated like a real person with real concerns that really need to be addressed, in exchange for my vote, then so be it.
The fact that we're apparently arguing about it at all proves my point. If I'd just done the same tired "MAGA bad, racist Right, fuck Trump, vote Dem to save us all" post everyone, including here, usually does then no one would've thought a thing about it. Invisible. Ignored.
Now though, the moment I come out and explain that I might be so angry that I'm willing to see things erupt if it'll force some actual Goddamn change into a process that is unacceptable and sliding further Right each year, now suddenly people are upset. Outraged. Offended.
Because I'm supposed to just fall into line and be the safe vote. People are upset that they might have to actually consider how to make their party appealing to someone like me. Someone who wants to consider supporting them, but who wants a bit of something in return.
If that pisses off anyone who considers themselves a Democrat, then the question logically should be "how can we bring these wayward Lefties back into our camp?" A self evaluation of what could be done to address those concerns, to make the Democrats more appealing and palatable to these voters they want support from. That's how democracy is supposed to work after all; we all have our values and needs and concerns, and the 'leaders' are supposed to compete to address them in exchange for our support.
Instead, the accusation is "how dare you defy Democrats."
If Trump is so bad and so obviously evil, how can he be in consideration for the Presidency? How can it be at all possible for a Democratic candidate to lose to him?
One way is ignoring the base. Another of Trump's accidental political pluses is he caters to his base. Again, he's an idiot, unintelligent, dishonest fool, but he at least pretends like they matter. Of course he's doing it because he's a vainglorious narcissist, and it's sad his base can't recognize that, but at the end of the day he talks like they matter. Flattery will absolutely get you everywhere, and Trump does butter his base up constantly.
If the Democrats lose, it's because They Fucked Up. Period. And one of the ways they're fucking up is by ignoring the Left. When they, and indeed when their supporters, run around eager to coax Righties into the camp, it's offensive to be surprised that Lefties might find that enraging.
Maybe if the Left is so important to Democrats, they should be running around eager to reassure us we matter. That we count. Except we don't. Because where the Democrats want to go isn't Left. They're happy being Republicans with better PR. And if that's how they're going to act, if that's how they're going to govern, it's absurd anyone should be shocked when they lose Left support.
It’s not an assumption. There’s plenty of data from all levels to suggest what kind of candidate would and wouldn’t break through. If a Leftist candidate wants to prove they have “it” they’d need to demonstrate the ability to win the primaries. Presidential candidates need to be able to reach a broad cross section of everyone.
Undecided voters aren’t undecided because their preferred candidate isn’t left or right enough. They’re undecided because their preferences fall on an axis that’s cross cutting the parties. So they want welfare AND racism or they’re would be plutocrats who want tax cuts but they’re also gay.
Bernie can't win the center is exactly what they said when it was between him and Hillary. They were wrong. People want something different, Trump was different, Hillary wasn't, Biden isn't.
Not that I think it makes sense to run someone besides Biden this late in the game. If it was earlier then I think Bernie, or really almost anyone, preferably someone younger, would have a great shot at beating Trump.
I think Bernie is too much of a socialist for even America's non-political mainstream community to accept, let alone the political factions. As a nation, America is highly tilted against that particular ideology and as much as Bernie has clout and respect there, he has been almost reduced to what Richard Stallman is in the technology space. A sort of legend, story, cult, narrative, etc. around a chad figure but nothing tangible or actionable on the actual ideals they preach.
Mirror: https://archive.is/s6a3k
Wild bet time: Trump's health fails disastrously before the republican convention (in two weeks) and they scramble to pick a new person. Meanwhile, Democrats given some breathing room and actually consider an alternative candidate people would be excited to vote for, no just hold their noses or stay home. They'll still pick some oligarchy approved groaner over Bernie of course.
Otherwise it's crazy how close it's going to get to second trump term. Disaster on an international level. If Trump remains alive to be sworn in as president I will forsake all remaining semi conspiracy belief in a shadowy world cabinet.
This sounds like pure wishful thinking. I mean, I can't blame you, but no, don't bet on it.
FWIW, I do think there's a very good chance (I'd say 25-30% -ish), that at least one of them will not be able to run for President, by the time of the actual election -- whether that is due to health concerns (or, you know, dying), or criminal issues, or otherwise, IDK ... but, yeah ... we may well see some unprecedented scrambling to rapidly appoint/anoint a new Dem or GOP Candidate, last-minute, before the election.
DeSantis is pretty horrifying and I feel that he's very "of this era", but I generally agree with you.
I was thinking it's a matter of degrees, but thinking more on it, it's probably just that I'm from Florida and more aware of specific examples of DeSantis's awfulness, and I'm not as aware of like, Brian Kemp* to pick a random example. I'm sure he's horrifying too, and I'm just not a aware of it.
*Couldn't even get his name right.
It was a hard thing to watch but not in a way I'm unaccustomed to. I don't mean I'm used to seeing anything specific from that debate (it is, as I will say in a sec, not normal), it's more a cosmic/existential familiarity - this doesn't matter. It's show, the movie, the aesthetic shit we got pulled into caring too much about long, long ago. The party freaking out and discussing replacements is not going to be anything if there's not both, a firm process for doing it and a strong coalition of people ready to do it. We'll hear this shit until the next debate happens, and if the next debate goes poorly it will be more intense. Biden isn't going to take himself out, dude sincerely believes in himself. So, if there's not a real action going on the speculation is meaningless and dreary.
Outside the show, Trump's mailing list is getting more unhinged and his rallies are weirder, polling already indicates the debate just wasn't a huge deal for anybody (which means Biden slowly creeping ahead, to say nothing of the inadequacies of how polling sometimes goes), Biden went to Waffle House after the debate was done, did a rally the next day and looked about fine for a dude as old as he is, shit is not the apocalypse. We've got a few months more and both Biden and Trump are in a state where that amount of time could make a significant difference to who they appear to be. None of this shit is normal, so imo, don't bother with "normal", the news speculating on what the debate means or parties freaking out. The only person I'm aware of around me who is even in a position to be convinced of anything, is someone who gets pulled along into anything, genuinely an idiot just to be straight with you. Everyone else, thus far, knows how they're going to play it.
In a weird way this time feels more democratic than in the past. The personalities don't matter as much. The policy is something folks are actually giving some attention. The vote appears to actually, for once, be about governance. Imo, watch what happens, we're on the ride and it's going to go up and down quite a lot before it's over. Freaking out before things happen is just going to mean feeling like shit all the time, imo that's a bad call while we live through history like this.
You don't have to care, I'm not appealing to you saying all that, all I mean is that it really is a time for settling on shit and just doing what you think is right and good. Regardless how this all shakes out, what comes next will be nothing like anything we've dealt with before, there are only more crises which will immediately follow this election. Big ones, small ones, of kinds and characters that mean we have to be in the present, not the past, with an eye toward what the future will actually look like, not what we wish it would be.
TL;DR I'm going to vote when that matters and just watch what happens. Take in the historical moment for what it is, because it ain't up to us, being in it.
I knew there was something funny going on (not simply because of clips, but because of what institutional Democrats / outlets were communicating via headlines over the past months), but had no idea how bad it would be (as in, was he 95% sharp as a tack and 5% out of it, or worse?). Seeing some of it now... if I were a donor, I'd be asking for a refund and audit. If I were an Democrat in power, I'd be firing a lot of self-interested campaign staffers who seem to not have been doing their duty to make a second term viable. Also, if I were Sulzberger, I would be feeling uh, very justified (and I don't even like The Times).
I think the interesting thing here is that I feel like there's a lot about not running, and very little about handing over the reins now. As a senator I think he's passable, you write policy as a congressman. A lot of staffers and lobbyists write policy for you too iirc, all you have to do is be lucid long enough to read and agree to vote for it. But for a head of state, being able to be sharp and focused in a free-form conversation matters. You are representing our country to world leaders, including leaders who may be hostile towards us. I'm not pleased with foreign policy over the past few years (hard decisions of course, but still) and the idea that Biden may not be fully there to understand that he's saying or doing to the world as all of this has unraveled is criminal. You can argue you vote for a president and his team, but you also vote for a president lucid enough to dismiss his staffers or call them on their shit. Propping up someone who isn't fully there should count as it's own kind of insurrection, especially if it has indeed been for close to a year. (As a side note, kind of impressive that they've mostly pulled this off for a year in this day and age; this is about as good as hiding FDR's condition or puppeting Wilson in his last term).
Even if he were interested in running, he's unfortunately already served two terms. It would have been something to watch him eviscerate Trump in debates, though.
The Constitution was amended after FDR to impose a hard cap of 2 terms.
They added an amendment to the constitution immediately after to prevent a reoccurrence, feeling like 12 years with one man at the helm gave too much time to entrench in the halls of power. There's now a 2 consecutive term limit, and no one's yet come back after a break and wanted another go at it.
The two terms don't have to be consecutive. The 22nd amendment only specifies that you can't be elected president more than twice, so it applies even to non-consecutive terms.
Damn, so no third term for Grover Cleveland I guess
Oh, thanks for the clarification.
I have a vague recollection of Biden claiming his intent to a one term, transitional presidency leading into the 2020 DNC primaries. Am I misremembering, or was that just speculation at the time?
That was speculation, biden never claimed it himself.
He didn't say it as straightforward as that, but he did once say that he was a "bridge" to other younger candidates and another time said he was a "transition" candidate. The most reasonable interpretation of those remarks is that he was going to run for one term, especially with the reports that came out around that time that said his advisors saw him as a one term candidate.
I’m hindsight it seems more like what he did was staff up his admin with younger people instead of the usual politically connected lobbyist Boomers.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever read.
Here's the thing, I suspect this got labeled and collapsed. But I fully agree. There's no world in which a last minute replacement, an open convention, any of that is somehow going to be successful and not just confusing and a mess. I'm so exhausted of people complaining every four years but not doing anything at all between election cycles.
I personally don't give a fuck about his debate performance at this point and I don't think anyone is an actual swing voter now. There have been excellent things done by this administration, and I don't think any of the shitty things would be better under Trump.
Why does it just feel like all the news outlets are like "Yeah Trump's a huge liar who will rubber stamp the Christian nationalist playbook, but doesn't Biden seem old? These things are of equal importance. Also we won't frame Trump as old and losing it because he's really vigorous about his lies. "
Look at all the clicks and views Trump gets. A lot of media is salivating at the thought of another Trump presidency, even if it ultimately means the end of their freedom to actually report on it.
It's really sad to see what has happened to what was once one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world. It used to be considered the closest thing you could get to absolutely reliable.