I feel like I’m going insane. How is this even happening right now? One of two presidential candidates is so old, that his own party is asking him to not run because he looked like an elderly person that got lost at the grocery store during a live presidential debate. The other is a deranged narcissist that was the previous president, clearly colluding with Russia, has be found guilty of 34 felonies, attempted to overthrow the previous election, and has explicitly stated he will be a dictator.
Biden is only like 18mos older than Trump. They’re essentially equally old. Like a 2% difference in their ages.
Sure, but Trump didn’t sound like he was lost at the grocery store. Most of what Trump said was nonsense he made up on the spot but he said it with confidence. Trump knows his supporters won’t fact check him; Biden is burdened with the truth. It’s not fair but we unfortunately need someone who can spar with Trump on stage. If someone flusters Trump on stage he will spiral out of control.
Out of two old men, I would prefer a bald man with a stutter who’s burdened by truth, than a bald man who’s such a compulsive liar he can’t remember which lie he told which group.
Great could you convince the rest of the nation or are we just taking about you here?
Never will get the point of infighting in politics, if one sides willing to ignore the faults of their candidate, why in the world would you risk losing for pride and principle? It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.
You didn’t get it. Sure I’ll vote for Biden but what in the world makes you think the average American will? Most Americans are legit illiterate (and as racist and greedy as can be).
I swear some people seem to legit have no idea what’s going on in this country or who our fellow citizens and noncitizens are
Bingo bingo bingo bingo BINGO
Dems be bringing a paper straw to a lightsabre fights and somehow we’re the bad people for mentioning we’d like a candidate that could win
No I get it… just not sure why you think running around in a public forum exclaiming like a chicken with its head cut off will accomplish anything but divisive panic. It’s like throwing gas on a fire, and crying out you’ve been helping.
That wasn’t a stutter.
Describing it as such is such a “Don’t believe your lying eyes” comment that it does more to dissuade people from your viewpoint.
Trump sounds like he’s lost all the time. He constantly wanders into deranged tangents. Why do we have to pretend otherwise.
Not saying he didn’t seem more “with it” or energetic or whatever, but he is basically just as old and makes even more gaffes - but people don’t care because he does it almost non-stop.
There are plenty of people talking about Biden as if he’s the crypt keeper and Trump as if he’s a stunning specimen of youth and vitality, which is just silly.
What happened is team Trump caught Biden with the drug test business. Trump got a full syringe of Executive Juice and Biden opted out from personal pride or fear there would be a surprise piss test sprung on him.
(I don’t have insider knowledge but this seems pretty likely based on what we all saw)
Biden is 5 months short of being 4 years older than trump. Almost an entire presidency. I hate trump also but we have to stop saying Biden isn’t THAT old.
They could’ve gone to high school together. Maybe his campaign should just spray paint him orange and yellow too.
Being in the White House drastically ages the president, VP, and senior staff due to the insane amounts of stress and long hours that come with the job.
It’s not easy.
Biden has been in the WH for 12 years.
trump for four, but he’s too fucking stupid to be worried. So the stress never got to him. If he saw something he didn’t like, he ripped up the paper, tried to eat it, then flushed it. And trump would have 100% forgotten about it immediately.
Which is why they can be essentially the same age (18 months is nothing in your 80s) but Biden seems so much worse. Biden is used to thinking about what to say, trump just opens his mouth and rambles like he always has.
But with all that being said:
We need higher standards to get Dem voters onboard. A bad candidate that’s better than trump is still a bad candidate. We don’t need someone who tries to think of what to say but can’t say it, we need someone that can think of a competent response and then communicate that effectively.
but Biden seems so much worse
I don’t get this take. Trump has been shouting incoherent word salad and confabulations for years at this point. Biden seems like a decent man who is too old for the job. Trump is a treasonous piece of shit rapist criminal who is also old and senile, and backed by actual fascists who want to take the US back to the dark ages.
I don’t think voting will be enough, they tried a coup once and now they’re being invited to try again since there were no consequences last time.
Trump has been shouting incoherent word salad and confabulations for years at this point
Exactly…
He’s never put thought into what comes out of his mouth, he just opens it.
So while both are experiencing normal effects of aging, Trump’s never made it a habit to use his frontal lobe, and that’s where this shit hits first.
So there’s no observable difference in his behavior.
Like, imagine you suffered a stroke and lost the ability to ride a bike. If you’re Lance Armstrong it’s a huge deal. If you’re some 80 year old fat fuck who thinks exercise lowers your “battery” it has zero effect on your life because you dont ride a bike.
Biden was pretty unanimously labeled “the greatest modern political orator” back in the 80s. It wasn’t even really debatable.
Seriously, he was at the absolute peak of his game and no one could touch him. But he lost it a long time ago, it didn’t start recently. Look at the 08 debates and he’s more than serviceable still, but already a shadow of his former self.
And to add to this, it’s not always obvious that a dementia patient is having an episode if you don’t have the context and structure to recognize what they’re saying is nonsense. They can string together a perfectly coherent story and what tips the listener off is that they’re referring to someone who is long dead or an activity they couldn’t possibly have done recently.
And Trump isn’t tripped up by forgetting things, because his statements are already made up. He can just flow through and keep telling his story because it’s already all just stream of consciousness bullshit. He never needed facts in the first place because he can just say whatever he wants or divert into talking about sharks and electrified boats.
Auto-coups are a lot easier than coups of a rival, because you control the police/military that would defend the government and can delay them from responding, like Trump did.
The fact that anyone (let alone half the country) would pick a literal traitor who failed in every way possible as president over a guy that had a bad interview while sick, with a B+ resume is ridiculous. Just a week ago the right was accusing him of doing drugs because of how well his State of the Union went. We avoided a recession and we’re recouping from the pandemic better than any other country.
Hell, just look at the debate itself. Biden memorized 90 minutes (or 45 minutes) worth of facts and used them to back up every claim he had while Trump literally lied the entire time and took credit for everything Biden (or Obama) did.
Between all that and literally being the only thing that kept the Republicans from throwing the US into default with clever negotiations (seriously, the dude fucking manipulated McCarthy so bad he lost his job), the only thing crazy is that people pay so little attention to politics over the last 8 years that all they know is that he sounded weak during a debate.
TIME TO GET YOUR CLOWN SHOES AND HONKY NOSE READY WE’RE IN FOR THE GOOD TIMES
That’s exactly what I will expect him to say, right up until he leaves.
It is extremely disappointing that he didn’t take this opportunity to gracefully step back. People who watched the debate saw his performance and him trying to say “Nah bro, I got this” is really stupid.
This is bigger than me, so I’ll step aside to beat Trump.
Would pretty much guarantee whoever filled his spot became president.
But moderates demand 100% loyalty. Even if Biden thinks they’re right eventually, he’s not going to change his mind for “the left”. Even when it’s other moderates. He’s been turning on a lot of allies immediately after they even questioned if he should stay in, and claiming CNN and the NY times all sorts of shit despite them backing him all the way up till now.
Biden has never been good at accepting criticism or dealing with confrontation. It’s what torpedoed his first primary back in 88. If someone isn’t with him, Biden considers them against him.
He’s a lot like trump in that regard, loyalty is a one way street.
Would pretty much guarantee whoever filled his spot became president.
100%. Biden is and has been the worst possible candidate.
Yeah, I can think of an oranger, worster candidate…
I mean do you even know a what you mean by that?
A “good” candidate is one that can win.
I don’t think this is really a moderates thing, I think this is a Biden ego thing and the Democrats being paralyzed by their deference to established leaders even when they’re clearly in the wrong. The only Democrat on record saying he should step down is some nobody. And there’s a whole lot of moderates damning him with faint praise of “that’s something Joe Biden will have to decide” rather than “no, of course he should stay in”.
I don’t expect Biden to be replaced by someone not thoroughly bland and plotting a triangulating path through the electorate. Hell, it’s entirely possible Biden’s fits and starts of throwing the left a bone occasionally will be “the good times” for progressives. But what I do know is the Joe is almost certain to lose and we need someone who can win. Sub in Kamala or Buttigieg or (ugh) Newsome, it’ll still let me breath a sigh of relief.
There is literally nothing that guarantees a replacement candidate becomes president. Wishful thinking at best.
Would pretty much guarantee
CNN maybe, but the NYT has been hammering him on the age issue for years at this point.
I don’t know why people are looking at both of their performances at a debate when people can look at their performances as presidents.
It’s honestly infuriating how everyone is struck on that like it means anything. All presidential debates gave always been awful. This is no exception and this time we have an alternative POV.
People probably are looking at their performances as president.
The polls have barely budged since the debate. That tells you people aren’t really using debates to decide who to vote for.
I think Biden would make a pretty passable president because he’d be surrounded by a competent cabinet… but my opinion doesn’t determine the president (otherwise, we’d be on like year 16 of a Sanders administration).
His debate performance was weak enough that I’m concerned Biden won’t beat Trump. Trump absolutely cannot win this election or any future one, he must be kept out of office. My concern isn’t about Biden’s performance once in office, it’s about Biden’s ability to gain the office.
Honestly, I’m not going to give Biden a 10/10, but his last administration was pretty solid, like 7/10 level. He reacted extremely poorly to Gaza and has been underwhelming on labor but he’s gotten a lot of good shit done.
Anthony Blinken is the worst secretary of state in my lifetime.
He is so incompetent that William Burns, the head of the CIA has been traveling all over the world for negotiations. Because Blinken is so bad, and not respected internationally.
Biden’s foreign policy has been an absolute disaster. Aided, in part, by his choice of an incompetent cabinet.
So, I guess what I’m saying is I’d like some of what you’re smoking. It seems like it is really really good for denial.
You can be a good president by hiding in your office and approving good policy made by your excellent team, but you can’t become president by doing those things, especially when you’re down. The nominee needs to be able to be coherent in public a lot, doubly so after having what appears to be a very public senior moment. People who have been around old people know that a few good days doesn’t mean their loved one is better, it just means they were good days.
a few good days doesn’t mean their loved one is better, it just means they were good days
You say that as if he has dementia, which he does not. Why can’t we accept that maybe the debate was a “bad day”? Why are we pretending it’s now the norm for how he behaves?
by hiding in your office and approving good policy
Has he ever been that, though? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him speaking as much as any other president. I mean, the Dark Brandon stuff didn’t come out from him sitting behind his desk.
Why are we pretending that Biden is a whole different person than he was even one year ago over this? It’s so insidious.
You say that as if he has dementia, which he does not. Why can’t we accept that maybe the debate was a “bad day”? Why are we pretending it’s now the norm for how he behaves?
Because it isn’t a bad day. It was the standard for any time he isn’t in front of a teleprompter.
Has he ever been that, though? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him speaking as much as any other president. I mean, the Dark Brandon stuff didn’t come out from him sitting behind his desk.
This is just delusional. Biden has given the least number of news conferences since Reagan. Huh, do you remember what they were covering up with Reagan again?
Why are we pretending that Biden is a whole different person than he was even one year ago over this? It’s so insidious.
We’re not. Most people just got to see what has been apparent for a while now.
You say that as if he has dementia, which he does not. Why can’t we accept that maybe the debate was a “bad day”? Why are we pretending it’s now the norm for how he behaves?
Why are you so sure he doesn’t have it? That sure looked consistent with early dementia. And we don’t need this to just not be the norm, we need it to be a single solitary event that never happens again. Uncommon bad days are too many bad days. He needs to be “on” too often to trust to chance that he’s never going to do this again.
I mean, the Dark Brandon stuff didn’t come out from him sitting behind his desk.
Dark Brandon was a meme coopted by his social media team for in-your-face policy. It had nothing to do with him speaking. And again presidents can just do policy and speeches at their own pace, candidates need to be interactive and ready.
Why are we pretending that Biden is a whole different person than he was even one year ago over this?
You haven’t had to have frequent contact with an elderly relative have you? A person that old absolutely can go from sharp as tack to having noticeable cognitive difficulties in a year. That’s a long time for an elderly person.
Why are you so sure he doesn’t have it?
Huh??
He needs to be “on” too often to trust to chance that he’s never going to do this again.
Like the 4 years in office haven’t been enough. Did the debate wipe your memory or what? That’s so cynical.
It had nothing to do with him speaking.
It had everything to do with him speaking. Remember this from not too long ago? Even if this “social media team” coopted it, it had been around and memed about before that. Just because his aides did the awkward fellow kids salute doesn’t mean they’re the ones behind it.
candidates need to be interactive and ready.
This candidate is already in office and doing presidential things every single day.
You haven’t had to have frequent contact with an elderly relative have you?
You don’t know me and you’re already talking down to me like I haven’t had that terrible life experience. I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you. Especially when you say things like “That sure looked consistent with early dementia.” Like, bruh, you either know dementia from serving at a mental health center enough to diagnose people by their gait and to scold people off about it, or you don’t.
Why are you so sure he doesn’t have it?
Huh??
Maybe if I bold it you’ll answer the question. Why are you sure he doesn’t have dementia? You said he definitively doesn’t have it.
You don’t know me and you’re already talking down to me like I haven’t had that terrible life experience. I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you. Especially when you say things like “That sure looked consistent with early dementia.” Like, bruh.
That’s a “how dare you”, not a no. Anyone saying that an old person will be the same one year to the next hasn’t experienced that they very much can change over the span of a year. Like, that’s a crazy statement to make with regards to the aging of the elderly.
Look at the names saying Biden should drop out because of this. It’s the same people in every thread. It looks coordinated.
Friday. His interview with Morning Joe.
If the president of the US is going to step down from an incumbency race, I’ma bet that’s an Oval Office or White House press briefing room announcement - with the full White House press pool invited. That needs as much attention as possible so the maximum amount of people know what’s up on the Nov ballot.
I hope? He could also just be using the opportunity to double down.
I’m making a called shot at a distance.
He had his meeting with the Governers today. I expect the announcement maybe Thursday evening, then the interview to explain Friday. The test balloons went out and came back this weekend. The goose is cooked.
The aftermath of the governor meeting will be a signal. If we get a statement from them of widespread support for Biden to stay in, it means he’s holding on. If we get radio silence, I’d say that’s a strong indicator you’re right.
Thursday is July 4, I doubt Biden will announce that night while the fireworks are going off. But if things continue to be this bad, it could be Friday or Monday.
Friday is the best day to drop bad news - since it delays the major news networks from getting live pundit reactions on it. If he stepped down on Friday they could potentially get a replacement announcement (and media circuit on late night spots) running starting on Monday next week.
Holding off until Friday makes a lot of sense though my gut says an announcement immediately after the debate would likely have been more effective. That may have possibly created optics that Trump “won” the debate though.
He might want it to not be such a big story. It will be regardless.
And who is going to take his place? There’s no Dem who could pull enough moderates at this point in the race to win. Biden never wanted to run to begin with, but was pressed into it because was the only possible candidate with enough appeal to beat trump (except Bernie, but Dem leadership messed that one up).
The only reason his debate performance matters is because all the never Trumpers who spend too much time doom scrolling are forcing it into the news cycle.
If Biden bows out now, Trump wins.
Whitehouse is my personal pick, but both Buttigeig and Whitmer seem like likely establishment picks - both have been pushing a lot of media presence lately.
Whitehouse to the whitehouse… I like the sound of that
Biden definitely is thinking about Johnsons disastrous late departure from the race in 1968 leading to brawls on the convention floor and competing slates of delegates that ultimately led to Humphrey getting nominated. His loss was blamed on the chaos at the convention.
if he leaves at all it wouldn’t be right before the convention.
This can’t go all the way to the convention, because they made the convention so late. They actually have to make the formal nomination before the convention, in time to meet Ohio’s deadline.
The only path forward is for Harris to take over the nomination. This is far easier if Biden resigns totally. He can say he’s doing it for medical reasons, even if all he has is a chronic case of notgonnawinatall, complicated by inflammation of the opeds.
I was thinking about Ohio too. Plus the lawsuits the Heritage Foundation is already loading to keep Biden on the ballot.
But if he resigns, it would likely make things easier.
I’m still not convinced he is going to do that though.
The most obnoxious part about Ohio is that it was an entirely self-inflicted wound. We could have just scheduled our convention before the deadline and not trust Republicans to go out of their way for Democrats. And in the end it’s not even because we think we can win the state, we just want to give local politicians a boost because people turn out to vote for president.
Plus my understanding is, the way campaign financing works, the Biden-Harris campaign funds stay with that org. They can’t transfer it to an entirely new ticket. If she stays on and he drops out, they could use it, otherwise they’d have to fundraise from scratch.
Yup. You need to project complete confidence until the moment you drop out, once you say “This is a hugely important decision, the hardest one I’ve ever had to make, so I’m taking my time” Boom you have lost control and it’s over.
However it appears the writing is on the wall at this point. The next question is, once he decides to no longer run should he resign? If he isn’t up for the job of running how does he instill confidence that he can remain president? Plus it hands the nomination to Kamala no question.
I could see trying to spin it as “As an elder statesman, I don’t have it in me to simultaneously run a national campaign and govern the country, so I’ll be putting 100% of my focus on finishing out my term and passing the torch to the next generation of blah blah blah.”
I suspect it’s probably too late for the Democrats to switch horses now, but I hope that this finally pile-drives some smidgen of a lesson into them that they need to actually try to win elections rather than just assume that since they’re not crazy or evil like the Republican candidates people will naturally prefer them. They need to pick candidates that the people like and put in the effort to run those candidates well.
There’s still five months until the election, there’s plenty that Biden can do between now and then to show people that he’s a good choice. And then maybe this time once it’s all over the Democratic Party can do a major rethink of what exactly they’re doing with all this. Like they should have the last time they ran a candidate against Trump that they thought simply “deserved” to win.
I’m starting to think the best move might not be to replace Biden, but to swap out Kamala… Kamala has lower approval than Biden and missed her chance to make an impact during this term. If Biden had a strong VP, the question of his health wouldn’t be as big.
A progressive VP would make me a lot more excited about voting Biden.
Especially since whoever’s VP in Biden’s next term would have a big leg up on running for president in 2028.
I’m not sure that’s true. Typically, the other party wins after a two term president.
A leg up on running for president.
Fair enough.
Democrats don’t need to learn anything. You’re forced to vote for them because of First Past The Post voting.
Or alternately you vote for Trump, either directly or by wasting votes on third-party candidates because the Democrats were insufficiently compelling.
Yes, I know it’s idiotic. But a lot of the American electorate are idiots, or more charitably are not familiar with the game theory behind all this stuff. The Democrats do need to learn how to get the support of those people.
If we used a voting system like Ranked Choice voting, it wouldn’t matter! Biden could run all he wants and we could vote for someone else and if they didn’t win… our vote would get transferred to the next in line (in this example biden).
That’s probably why we’ll never get ranked choice voting. It could mean a win for the general public in electing who we actually want, instead of what the establishment forces on us.
The sheer audacity and hubris of this admin is negligent and infuriating.
“Democracy is under threat, but not enough for us to listen to any feedback about stopping genocide, forgiving student loans, or running a candidate who isn’t terrifyingly out of it. None of your feedback matters to us.”
Fuck this guy. The country and freedom are more important than his ego and hubris. A real leader would work to facilitate onboarding a capable candidate so we can avoid devolving into a christo-fascist hellscape.
Then you’ll be remembered as the egotistical, arrogant piece of shit that doomed our Republic when you had the last best chance to save it. Like RBG but worse.
The Franz von Papen of his time.
Well, that’s on him, and so is his loss and all the consequences that come from it. All to try and satisfy his ego. Insanity.
Could be that he’s trying to save America from falling into the hands of a fascist traitor to his country.
He sad before that he wasn’t planning on running again unless it’s to keep Trump from taking over.
Now that that Trump is trying to take over- it’s his duty to protect America. And so he’s running. I know this upsets the bots and MAGA trolls, but that’s where we are now.
If he was trying to save American democracy he’d step down, this is about his bloated sense of self importance.
He’s going to lose if he runs. He’s the single worst option for Democrats.
ROFL… you seem quite certain of this. Care to share what you know that the rest of us don’t?
No, the rest of us know, you don’t know because you haven’t been paying attention. Polling shows Biden losing by almost 10 points. Even Kamala Harris has better numbers.
So if you actually wanted the best chance, you’d be wanting him to step down. But I’m guessing you don’t.
Polls…. ROFL. The person that is suggesting someone that’s not even running to be the one to defeat Trump…. believes in polls.
How fitting.
How it feel to be wrong, tto have been wrong the entire time, and have every body know it but you knowing it.
Who says I’m wrong? Your fellow bots? I’m certain they don’t count for anything. And speaking of being wrong….
How about we compare mod logs to see who’s had posts removed for misinformation and trolling, shall we? I’m putting my money on you winning that one.
So… I ask you:
How it feel to be wrong, tto have been wrong the entire time, and have every body know it but you knowing it?
Everyone that disagrees with you isn’t a bot. You know this, right?
I absolutely know this. Which is why I don’t accuse everyone that disagrees with me. But if you’re trying to say that there aren’t bad actors among the far left (like the one was responding to) then you’re either blind, or one of them.
Its about how well your world view predicts the future.
Yours doesn’t.
Realistically, you are the one whose been putting out the misinformation and has been trolling; its what history will show and how this will all shake out.
You are in the wrong; they are in the wrong.
And someone who’s constantly having comments removed and banned is the voice of reason here?
Everyone knows what you’re up to. You’re not fooling anyone.
There it is.
The automatic assumption anyone disagreeing with you is a bot.
That last desperate cry of the boomer.
There it is.
The automatic assumption that some equals all.
The annoyingly frequent desperate cry of the uninformed and easily manipulated.
What is this 2005? Been so long since I’ve seen “ROFL” lol
ZOMGWTFBBQ
You.
What you don’t know.
No, that’s a blatantly selfish and ego driven motivation. “I’m too important to waste my time on the presidency unless I get to be seen as some kinda savior.”
But he really has absolutely no chance of being remembered that way. Even if he wins. Especially if he wins. He has allowed pride to rob him of any chance of having a legacy with remembering. Ironic I think…
Maybe it’s that he knows he can win. It’s called confidence. I get that everyone wants the democratic vote divided, but some of us just want to keep Trump from winning.
When a disease is killing its host within a few months, you don’t spend years trying to cure the disease, you try and buy time by treating the damage so as to keep the just alive while working on a cure.
This is something that shouldn’t need to be explained.
Jan 1st, 2029, neither Trump nor Biden will be president of the United States.
If Biden wins this year, I’m pretty sure trump is both stupid and stubborn enough to run again in 2028 if he’s still alive, and I’m pretty sure the republicans are both stupid and stubborn enough to nominate him again.
And if Trump wins, he probably won’t be stepping down until he dies.
Which I hope is before he takes office
One of them probably will, since the term ends on the 20th, not the 1st.
That is what I was saying. I don’t think either will last the full term.
Oh, I see. Possibly, but Biden’s dad made it to 86, which is how old Biden would be at the end of his term, and Trump’s made it to 93.
I think he’s gonna end up fucking off.
Into the afterlife
Good.
This is just the “I won’t vote for Biden because Israel refuses to sign a ceasefire” bullshit all over again.
Notice how literally none of these people have any problem whatsoever with any of Trump’s gaffes?
They have no problem whatsoever with Trump’s policies. They have no problem whatsoever with project 2025. They have no problem at all that Donald Trump is 79 years old.
But they have a huge fucking problem with the fact that Joe Biden is two and a half years older than Donald Trump.
You would think if they actually gave a damn about the welfare of the country they would be concerned about Donald Trump in the least, yet crickets.I think it might be a bit of a bold assumption that everyone who thinks Biden is too old to do an effective job and should step aside is a huge Trump supporter.
There are plenty of people who hate Trump with a passion that thinks Biden isn’t up to the task of winning this election.
And I’m sure that’s not who they’re talking about. We all know there are many people her that suggest that no one vote for Biden. I’m sure most can name them.
Sure, there absolutely are bad faith arguers but there is also a significant slice of the population that is deathly afraid that Biden will pull a fucking Hillary. He has worked with the DNC to effectively eliminate any other candidates from entering the primaries and if his fucking hubris gets Trump elected he should bear all the blame.
What other candidates were trying to enter the primaries?
You mean which candidates publicly announced an intent to challenge a sitting president in a primary and torpedo their political career?
So then how did he keep them from running? You need to choose a lane and stick with it. Either he purposefully stopped them from running, or they chose not to because of Status-quo.
He didn’t invite challengers or step back in advance of the primary. There is such a thing as soft power and he used it to make sure there wasn’t a real primary.
No, it isn’t. Biden is letting his fucking pride erode our chances of avoiding a dictatorship.
We’ll see how future appearances are but he was incoherent at the debate and if that keeps up it makes another Trump presidency much more likely.
Also, fuck off for blindly assuming what everyone else thinks and assuming everyone who disagrees with you is arguing in bad faith.
We saw this recently with Ruth Bater Ginsberg, too, unfortunately - she could have chosen to step down when Obama was president and secured a democrat nominee in the SCOTUS for 50+ years, but she didn’t, and now look where we are.
We’re also, unfortunately, seeing this with Sotomayor right now. Though she may also be holding out because she assumes the senate would just block her replacement.
She’s an awesome jurist but she has serious health issues.
It’s not good. Biden stands the worst chance against Trump, which is why concern trolls are so desperate to shut down and dismiss any discussion of replacing him.
Most of the people I hear who are bothered by Biden’s chances aren’t talking about Trump’s policies, age or lack of cognitive ability not because they support Trump, quite the opposite. They are scared of a second Trump presidency and are scared that the DNC will drop the ball again, fumble the election by sticking with a poorly liked candidate and they’ll have to suffer the consequences of America veering headfirst towards fascism. There’s no point to mentioning Trump’s similar or more dire issues, because he was never an option to them to begin with.
I don’t have faith that the DNC actually cares about the looming threat of fascism, the threat to civil liberties, etc, I think they saw how much in donations they got during the last Trump presidency and the surge in popularity even their most milquetoast center left candidates got and they think they can ride the wave for 4 years.
Bidens admin has done a lot of good and the DNC has been dogshit at demonstrating that with effective messaging. He’s also done a lot of things I find abhorrent and in a just world, neither candidate should be eligible as they’d be locked away in The Hague. But that isn’t the case, this is America, and I think the powers that be are willing to risk the election to save face.
This is just the “I won’t vote for Biden because Israel refuses to sign a ceasefire” bullshit all over again.
This is incredibly disingenuous. More like “Because he is arming, supporting and diplomatically protecting a genocidal government.” We know it’s not his fault Israel are assholes, it’s the stuff he is doing that is the problem.
They have no problem whatsoever with Trump’s policies. They have no problem whatsoever with project 2025.
My brother in christ why do you think we want Biden to actually be a good candidate?
Genocide supporting, doddering old Biden is a much better candidate than the unhinged far right felon that wouldn’t know the truth if it pissed on his face, BUT HE NEEDS TO WIN THE ELECTION FIRST. If being not as bad as trump was enough Hilary would have won.
It is precisely because I hate trump so much that I want Biden to be better. If you are in a debate with Trump and most people watching think you lost, you fucked up big time. The pigeon you’re playing chess with might have shit on the board and felt like he won, but you should have at least done enough so that the audience watching this didn’t fucking agree with him.
“I won’t vote for Biden because Israel refuses to sign a ceasefire” bullshit
Fun fact: support in the form of weapons and political cover from the governments of the UK, Germany, and ESPECIALLY the US is why the fascist apartheid regime hasn’t been FORCED to stop the genocide several months ago.
He knows this and even though the majority of his prospective voters are IMPLORING him to stop participating in a genocide in their name, even though he KNOWS that it’s likely to cost him the election and even though he KNOWS that it’s likely to be the last one ever if he does lose, he still refuses.
He’s putting his Zionist ideology and his stubborn inability to admit fault ahead of not just Gazan lives, but also the survival of American democracy and the universality of international law.
Even KAMALA would be a better choice than someone so completely out of touch with and devoid of respect for the ideals and institutions he’s supposed to be protecting.
Still better than Trump, though, so we just have to keep pretending that the old war criminal is perfect, lest the Blue No Matter Who apparatchiks lob spurious allegations of fascist loyalties at us 😮💨🤦
Yes, this is scary, the media are basically all working for Trump, even those who claim the opposite. But they are falling for the Trump foghorn, just as much as any average Joe, where the media are supposed to be professionals and above that.
Falling for NOTHING the trump campaign is going to give the media millions of dollars for advertising spots. The media have a vested interest in keeping the horse race going.
Notice how literally none of these people have any problem whatsoever with any of Trump’s gaffes?
What? Which people?
Trumps a client of a pedophile sex trafficking ring that had his dealer assassinated. He built his political career on the racist conspiracy that Obama was born in Kenya, colluded with Russia to become president, appointed climate change deniers to head the EPA and Dept of Energy, appointed public education deniers to head the Dept of Education, oil isnt bad enough for the environment for him so he endorses coal, was antivax before republicans thought it was cool, and nothing else on this world is closer to convincing me of the Bible than the idea that Trump is the antichrist.
But no trump supporter is going to see this
Something I’ve noticed is that if something is posted with a positive view of Biden there’s a fairly consistent pattern where it gets up voted initially but as the day gets later and more into the daytime hours of your Russia/China side of the world the down votes start to come in. One can speculate on that for what it’s worth I guess…
You mean like how the one guy who disagrees and thinks Biden should step down went up 8 points in the last 2 minutes and we all went down?
Yeah I noticed that too.I’m a real person downvoting you because you’re delusional. This is a massively wide concern reflected in polls and being expressed by Democratic cheerleaders like Pod Save America. I have a hard time believing any of you live in a world so insulated that you think this is just trolls and media manipulation.
The only polls that matter are Biden vs Trump, and those haven’t really changed post-debate.
Sentiment polls absolutely do matter when the question is whether the sentiment is only coming from trolls and biased media.
I know Finland isn’t exactly friendly with Russia, but the fact that you argue this from an instance run by someone a hop and a skip from Moscow is a beautiful irony…
All trolls, no, but given the notorious prevalence of media manipulation seen out of the region it’s a given that some not insignificant portion of the loudest voices are here looking to cause trouble.
Wait, do you actually think everyone on a Finnish instance is from Finland? That’s really really stupid.
I’ve had people think since my mastodon account ends in
todon.euthey think I’m like a secret agent, but too stupid to notice that the.euwould give me away. It’s Qanon-level of thinking, of how there’s secret clues everywhere that only they can see but the shadow cabal left them there for the truthers to find.All the best Russian influence agents join servers that are in close proximity to their office. I moved from lemmy.world to sopuli after .world’s performance was unreliable because they seemed to have a reasonable block list and were in the goldilocks zone of neither too big nor too small. And my mastodon account is hosted on an EU server because I don’t think the US has good data privacy rules. Turns out internet services still work when it’s overnight in their home time zone.
I’ve been pointing all of this out for a while now. Ask any of them about these issues and they have no answer at all. They just divert the discussion back to gEnOciDe jOe.
Everyone needs to hold these trolls accountable for what they’d say. Ask them to answer why they seem to not care about Trump and what he’s promised to do.
There’s rational criticism to be against Biden but most the critical mass of outrage over his debate performance is hysterical * and takes air time from valid concerns regarding his ability to preserve the Union. *
Just to save someone a click… the news article doesn’t have a video of biden saying this. It was apparently a quote in a conference call between DNC leadership or something
The way things are going he is either going to leave before the election or shortly after the election.
Did both parties want to have these two old president candidates? Feel to me like the system is not good designed here. Be proud of yourself - you have been the president of the United States of America! That should be enough.
Let the vice take over. No shame in that they got old.
We made our bed, now we gotta sleep in it.
“We” nothing. Biden and the Democratic powerbrokers being unable to see that he was going to be too old made this bed. I wasn’t given any input into it. This is, by design, literally the first time he’s been tested all campaign.
The rumored plan that came out of his campaign in 2020 was right, do a term stabilizing the nation as the oldest president in history, then pass it on to the next generation.
I wasn’t given any input into it.
Sure you were, as was everyone else who was eligible to vote in the 2020 primary. That’s the “we” in this scenario. Anyone who could do simple math knew how old Biden would be in 2024, yet a majority of those who voted picked him anyway.
Anybody with eyes can see that the DNC primaries are rigged.
Rigged how? Did the DNC falsify vote counts? Stuff ballot boxes?
John Podesta’s email leaks lays it out in detail for one of the elections (2016). Hillary did the best she could to spin the leaks trying to discredit the source (blaming Russia and WikiLeaks) rather than talking about the actual content of the leaks.
In 2020, the DNC heavilly convinced all the establishment candidates other than Biden to drop out right before Super Tuesday in a cordinated effort while making sure Elizibeth Warren stayed in the race to ensure that Bernie had as small of a chance as possible of winning, since he was winning big-time until then, not to mention the news-media falsely calling one of the elections for Mayor Pete when Bernie won that race.
In 2024, the DNC did all they could to hide the fact that there was even a primary at all, working with the news-media to ensure that they didn’t even mention the competing candidates.
None of this prevented democratic primary voters from voting for a younger candidate. The voters still had the opportunity and the agency to make a different choice.
Voter shaming accomplishes nothing, especially when the system itself is rigged.
Voter shaming is the game that the DNC plays, and we’ve seen how that plays out.
What will work is actually inspiring voters, which the DNC hasn’t done since FDR.
the DNC heavilly convinced all the establishment candidates other than Biden to drop out
That’s not rigging an election, that’s just politics.
It’s literally the same thing Macron is doing right now to stop Le Pen’s fascists from winning.
In 2020 the prevailing wisdom was he was going to be a one-term president who couldn’t say it because he’d be a lame duck. And by the time I was able to vote there were only two options, Biden and someone older than him. 80-90% of the party wasn’t proactively choosing to have an 85 year old president when voting in those later states, they were voting for who they wanted to be president in 2020. A second term isn’t a forgone conclusion for the oldest president in history.
Nobody who was paying attention thought he would be a one term president. He said nothing of the sort because that was never his plan. He literally said so at the time:
I don’t have plans on one term
And his campaign emphasized the same thing at the time:
Lots of chatter out there on this so just want to be crystal clear: this is not a conversation our campaign is having and not something VP Biden is thinking about
This is not a conversation we are having among people who actually are running the campaign
And yet people still want to believe a bunch of anonymous “senior advisers” over what Biden actually said. Pure wishcasting.
The DNC made our beds
This is our last chance to pressure him into retirement. If Biden runs, he’s going to lose. The “get over yourself” isn’t enough to push a win.
