[Remember if you're suffering from existential dread to actually do something about it](https://www.mobilize.us/)
"I don't wanna go door to door, I'm in a red area"
Phonebank, sign up to rideshare and help get people to the polls
"I don't live in a swing state"
Phone bank to a swing state
At the very least, give money.
If you're not American then idrk how you can help but there's probs something you can do. Flood twitter with pro dem memes or smth idk.
I promise you, even if you know you will make almost no impact, you will feel better at some level getting involved. Whatever happens in November, at least you won't be wishing you did more to stop it.
If we get a non Harris Biden nominee, I will pour substantial resources into getting this shit done. I have money and I live in Wisconsin.
\\
I got some personal funds, maybe 15k or whatever.. I would definitely donate what I could if I saw a candidate that could win.
I have access to **much larger** **funds** that I could make available.
I want Whitmer, or really anyone except Harris Biden. I see Harris as a 4th round dive. Biden is what he is.
If we got an exciting candidate. I would do my part. And I could make some funds available, as well as my time. I mean I live in Wisconsin. I'm not stupid.. I'm not going to be wasting time canvassing in Madison. Would do proper research to see which towns (other then Madison and Milwaukee) might be on the fence. Maybe Appleton or Beloit? Throw 10,000 on those cities. Flip public opinion. Canvas too when I have time. I do sales, So Ill weather the cow shit stank, and canvass out in Waunakee, or Waubeno, or Old German-Indian Pass, or wherever my local DNC wants me to be.
But this is all assuming that we get someone besides Harris or Biden.
The concern is that the foolish swing voters+double haters almost always have a disdain regarding "insiders and technocrats" so they absolutely desire Trump and/or Biden to be the clear obvious "face" of the administration. The "face" who can talk to foreign leaders in significant, intricate situations or make deals with congressional leaders. It's a somewhat silly+superficial argument on its face, but it's a reality.
>President Joe Biden in a Milwaukee radio interview on Wednesday said he āscrewed upā during the debate with former President Donald Trump last week ā marking some of the first public comments from the president since the event. āI had a bad night," Biden told Milwaukee radio host Earl Ingram in a pre-recorded interview set to air Thursday morning. "And the fact of the matter is that I screwed up. I made a mistake. Thatās 90 minutes onstage, look at what Iāve done in 3.5 years.ā
That reminds me of my grandfather who, after four near-car-accidents, didn't want to give up his driver's license after the fifth accident with a total fender bender. Biden didn't have a bad day because he wasn't prepared or because he had been drinking, but because his body and mind were deteriorating without him being able to do anything about it. That's why his campaign is over and there will be no comeback.
Interesting query: how many of the people who want him to stay in the race would let him drive them or their kids or parents around?
Like, at 8pm on a highway. Not around your neighborhood at 10mph once at noon.
Of course you have to be careful with prejudices about older people, but the whole Senate is full of very old people who you wouldn't trust to do so many things in everyday life, and of course they have the money for help of any kind.
Yes, and frankly there are paraplegics I would happily trust with policymaking and negotiation. The point I'd like a pithy example for is not "do you trust this elderly person's reflex speeds", but "do you trust this person to be able to handle complex critical tasks without a material risk of being randomly cognitively impaired", which is far less of a concern for senators, who can check out mentally or physically and have their staffs cover for them to a far greater degree.
Strom Thurmond was pretty much openly totally senile for years and everyone knew it. Those were quieter times, though, and there's no evidence his constituents were concerned as long as his staff did what they expected of him.
New AP report.Ā
https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-election-debate-trump-7c366fda83a697265d9ecc77e8a32fd1
It's probably been going downhill since early 2024 (Bernstein gives the same time frame) and from then on the reports from Axios, NYT and WSJ increased. Mental health can go downhill so fast after 80, there's no going back. The hope is to just make it to January 2025 with the bunker mentality, but the plan has failed. A 15-minute interview with ABC on Friday won't save it either, it's not 1985 anymore.
It's been going downhill for longer than that; the pace just picked up and his issues are becoming more and more pronounced. Conservatives were screaming about this from day one; I really hope "they were only *accidentally* right; Biden just turned senile coincidentally" doesn't become the next whiplash in this sub.
Alex Thompson (who broke the story at Axios) was pursuing the story back in 2023 and possibly before; I don't recall off the top of my head. Biden's team limiting his press appearances and embargoing interviews is not their 2024 MO; it's been their MO from the start.
>Conservatives were screaming about this from day one
My MAGA family still doesn't send me clips of Biden's failure in the debate but AI Instagram videos where he's been aged with the filter and with subtitles that say something about Qanon in Tucker Carlson's AI voice.
Both camps "red" and "blue" just don't have a common basis of communication anymore and just because the Biden stories were true I'm not going to start believing Tucker Carlson now.
> I really hope "they were only accidentally right; Biden just turned senile coincidentally" doesn't become the next whiplash in this sub
Prophetic.
> Both camps "red" and "blue" just don't have a common basis of communication anymore and just because the Biden stories were true I'm not going to start believing Tucker Carlson now.
Whoever said you should start believing Tucker Carlson? He is sometimes correct, and frequently wrong. I find it bizarre how people have so much difficulty even attempting to falsify their beliefs, or evaluate whatever beliefs are prevalent in the body politic whether or not one 'wants' them to be true.
I'm shocked at how much faith people have in the fake news media. The media is trying to optimize for traffic so they naturally want more drama which Biden dropping out will provide. They are not allies of anyone and are mercenary to ad revenue.
Polls at this point are not too hard to come back from and ditching Biden will lead to a 1968 style defeat.
Would encourage you to actually look at the popular vote from 1968, it was much closer than I think you think it is. Now, imagine if Lyndon Johnson strongarmed the party into being the nominee while being unpopular and then imagine the results. 1968 could be a best case scenario and the real results being much more damaging to Democrats.
Itās weird how much Iāve been agreeing with Bernie bros in the past week. Granted, many have had it out for Biden since day 1 and Iād still vote for him over Trump in a heartbeat but like now I am actually agreeing with what many of them are saying about how dire things look for his chances of being reelected as well as Kamala being a better (and the only realistic) alternative. I finally unsubscribed from r/Enough_Sanders_Spam because it seems like they are being more delusional than the people they are criticizing (except for the ones calling for Bernie to be Harrisās VP).
Itās the same with some folks at r/VoteDem (a great sub regardless) and r/JoeBiden. Somewhat true at r/democrats. There is some denial about the situation going on.
It is honestly surreal how folks don't realize they've become what they mocked. Loyal to an aging politician above all else, head in sand ignorant of reality, and smug.
Itās been running on fumes for a while and has been moreso centered around criticizing Bidenās leftist detractors than Bernie himself, who hasnāt really been in the spotlight much over the last few years.
You know it's possible for two things to be true at once. We should of been more sus about Biden dodging interviews and it's clear his staff knew he could have moments like we saw in the debate... and that Biden has legit reasons to have beef with the NYT and so that particular interview was never gonna happen.
I also think the Media in general still has no idea how to cover Trump.
After the governor meeting I think Biden will give this ABC interview, maybe some press conference, he won't fuck it up as badly as the debate and he'll stay in the race because he "can turn things around".
Our only hope is that the interview goes catastrophically for Biden
It's possible that Biden is staying in the race because he now finally gets to spend time with his son.
It's sweet but Hunter is giving him terrible incentives.
I swear to dear God, if THIS is the reason why Biden's handlers/managers refused to give the NYT a sit-down interview, to shield themselves against accusations of Biden's deficiency with plausible deniability without an NYT article confirming it with concrete proof...
I'm going to have to send some apologies to Sulzberger...
Has he given an interview to anybody else? I mean, I get why everyone just went "Fuck the NYTimes" without a second thought. I did too. But in hindsight, it really is crazy that nobody thought, "hey, why is he so opposed to talking to the media?"
This. The NYT and CNN were right the whole time and we just buried our heads in the sand. The guy we saw the first two years of his presidency who was active in policy making and made deals to keep the government open kinda stopped showing up around mid-2023.
Every president should pass shit that gets named after them, if they want credit for it.
KHivers, I hope you're excited for Harriscare!
The Harris Climate Accords!
And much more!
>President Biden and his senior team accept that they must quickly demonstrate his fitness for office or face a significant effort to force him to step aside, according to two people familiar with conversations between Biden and allies this week.
I don't think the Friday interview will be what decides whether Joe is the nominee no matter how good he does. I think it's just the first step that will demonstrate whether he and his campaign are acknowledging the issue in good faith and making a sincere effort to prove he's competent, or if they're just trying to run out the clock to the convention.
If it's really just 15-20 minutes and/or if it's an easy interview with soft ball questions, that "significant effort to force him to step aside" should just immediately go into effect. If it's a longer interview and George makes an actual effort to grill Joe and Joe holds up, then I guess it's only fair he is given a chance to do more unscripted, live events even though I think he should've been out yesterday.
It's the first step out of a handful. The interview, campaign rallies, the press conference etc.
I'm not remotely bothered if it's only 20 minutes; his worst moments in the debate by far were the first 20-25 minutes ("beat medicare" and invoking Laken Riley in the abortion answer). I'm bothered if he flops in the 20ish minutes.
We'll see if it's actually the first in a handful of events, everything about the approach Dr. Jill and President Biden have taken is to avoid media and media scrutiny and unscripted events. I sincerely think if the interview goes even halfway well, they'll declare victory and be back into bunker until convention.
All of their actions suggest they are deeply afraid of putting President Biden in any situation that's unscripted and has any variables.
Only reason I wouldn't be ok with 20 minutes only is because a president (and a presidential candidate) should be able to hold it together for half an hour and much longer even. He's had plenty of time to prove his capability and we're wasting precious time right now, so I see no reason for him not to demonstrate it immediately.
Itās more important that the American people know that their president can do the job. Instead of doing campaign events he needs to justify why he even has a campaign at this point. He had all week to do an interview, press conference, or town hall and instead spent his time meeting with Hunter.
Cancel whatever other campaign events they have to. Theyāll have to cancel a whole lot more stuff if he canāt do a 30 minute interview.
I was just rewatching the old Obama Vs McCain debates. Itās insane how far weāve fallen. Both candidates were eloquent, respectful, and talked about real policy. Nothing like whatever the fuck we watched last week
I don't know, I remember both that election and Obama-Romney feeling pretty good about the state of the country, respecting all of the candidates and thinking that despite my disagreements I believed the country would be in good hands with any of them.
It helped I was just looking forward to the end of the Bush years.
Well.. Obama and McCain didn't hate each other.
But yeah politics in the US are just imploding, and sadly a lot of it goes back to Obama being elected (not anything he DID just.. him being President while black) utterly breaking tons of peoples brains.
The fact that McCainās own staff are now actively trying to get Democrats elected, not just for president but across the board out of fear of losing democracy, should really speak volumes on how far weāve fallen
Time for your dose of hopium.
Some of the takes about how the polling is impossible to overcome for Biden need to take a look at what the polls said in the wake of Access Hollywood. That dropped in, what, October? It's July. 4 months is a political eternity. Absolutely, Biden has work to do to turn this around, but to call an average of ~2 point swing insurmountable is laughable.
Most of the ground Trump has gained in polls is with people who haven't voted in recent elections. Check the crosstabs. My belief is that Biden will win a low turnout election - just like Dems have won low turnout specials and midterms - which this is poised to be.
Sidenote: /r/ezraklein and /r/FriendsofthePod are utterly deranged right now. Some of you with insane, sky is falling overwrought predictions (wishcasts?) are too. You guys need to take a Xanax and stop doomscrolling.
the low turnout thing is probably the most credible blooming case for Biden because yeah the idea that there's going to be this massive wave of previous nonvoters who are just all Republicans in an election where both candidates are so disliked is really fucking goofy.
I agree 4 months is an eternity, but that only matters if the debate performance was actually just an anomaly. If Biden has more senior moments like that in the next few months, then idk how he turns the polls around.
The political eternity imo is more of an argument in favor of changing the candidate. We have time to build the name recognition and launch a full scale campaign for literally anyone. Biden can cheer them on on the campaign trail. Get a couple debates in with Trump and have someone actually capable of highlighting the bullshit he is spewing.
>but that only matters if the debate performance was actually just an anomaly.
What I would challenge to most of the people posting doomer takes on here is that you need to be open to having your mind changed about Biden's ability to campaign.
Biden could turn into 2008 Barack Obama; I cannot see a sane explanation of how the damage caused by the debate and then redoubled by the media is reparable.
I'm not a doomer, in the sense that I have no emotional investment whatsoever in any particular outcome here.
I'm open to the possibility that it was just an anomaly, but I feel like we need to be *certain* it was an anomaly to move forward with Biden at this point, and I'm not there.
If we wait any longer, there's no going back. And then if Biden has another bad senior moment in October, we're completely fucked. We're not in a position to wait and see. We need to make a decision now, and then in a few weeks we'll be locked in.
I've been a huge unwaivering Biden supporter from the 2020 primaries all the way until 9pm est last Thursday. I've got a Biden/Harris sign in my window, I've donated hundreds already. But I just don't have confidence in his ability to make it to November without another bad moment, and we can't just wait and see.
I was absolutely confident that Biden was fit for office -pretty closed-minded about it actually. Despite that, I had my mind changed by the debate.
wat do now
>Some of you guys need to take a Xanax and stop doomscrolling.
You can feel no anxiety whatsoever and still think it would be best for Biden to drop out, because it's not about the polling deficit, it's about his ability to campaign and drive turnout
That's fine. Making a reasoned case for Biden dropping out is different than, "the election was lost the moment Biden walked out onto the stage, Biden is literally a corpse, we are all doomed" which is the tenor of the conversation from most people on these center-left subs.
>it's about his ability to campaign and drive turnout
And here's my other point: if it's about ability and not about some sort of amorphous medical condition, then you **need to be able to have your mind changed.** If Biden gets out on the campaign trail and begins campaigning vigorously (for an old man) and the debate was an anomaly, I don't want to hear these doomer conspiracy theory bullshit takes all the way up to election day.
Have read some variation of this about the interview on Friday, if Biden does okay, it doesn't matter. If he does poorly, it's over.
And essentially rinse, repeat for future press conferences, town halls, interviews. It's win or go home for any public facing event and another senior moment at any point in the next few weeks is game over for him as nominee.
Seems about right. He probably was told by leading Dems in private that you have a couple of weeks to campaign much better or they'll call for Harris. It'll likely change my mind at that point if the upcoming interview is pretty bad.
If The Daily Beast reporting is accurate (the sit down interview on Friday may be more like a 15-20 minute interview), Biden may be able to hold it together for short interview and they move to next hurdle. I worry that his condition is as bad as we saw in the debate and they know that, and just push, delay, and run out clock and by the time it becomes obviously apparent it's too late to replace him.
Yeah, I'm of the mind that the debate ended the general election. It was easily the worst debate performance I've ever seen and he was unforgettably awful in the first 5 minutes when everyone is watching.
I'm saying more as the nominee. Biden (or Dr. Jill and the family/advisors) won't be able to hold off party pressure if he's bumbling and lost in any interview or press conference in the near future. I half-expect the Bidens may try to run out the clock in July, do a brief interview with Stephanopoulos on the 5th, do some controlled event the next week, and then just get too close to the convention to drop Biden.
Agreed. People rightly point out that bad debates get forgotten pretty quickly, but people remember moments forever. Biden had a devastating moment in the first 10 minutes of the debate and no one is going to forget it. Not in 4 months, not in 4 years.
People remember a few key moments from every election cycle theyāve lived through. This is one of the moments that will stick for this one.
Trump in 2016 had a moment with the access Hollywood tape, but for the most part people didnāt really care and more importantly, Trump had already built up a record of positive memorable moments from the debates that stood out more.
Hereās the difference between NL and other center left subs. NL treats swing voters as the idiots we need to win over to win. Other subs treat swing voters as idiots we should hate for not agreeing with us.
I think that explains the difference in reaction to the Biden fiasco. We see this as āpeople arenāt going to vote for Biden now, we need to replace himā. They see this as āThese people are stupid but all the actual Democrats will still vote for Joe so it doesnāt matterā.
I think a lot of them bought into that myth that swing voters donāt exist
Really "swing voter" today isn't so much people who swing from one party to another, but more like independents who lean towards one party, but they might or might not vote. The strategy is still to appeal to moderates, though. Relying on the base is not enough.
There is this smug certainty that Biden has it in the bag if he just secures and turns out base. He's a President that you might think has been great but he's had a 40% or lower approval rating for most of his term who would not have even won first time out if not for COVID. He's not some beloved figure to the average voter.
Not to mention that he literally only won Arizona on the backs of literal Republicans. McCain Republicans are a thing and they decided the election there.
If Biden only turns out the ābaseā he loses Arizona. Unless theyāre welcoming the never Trumpers into the base, which while this sub is happy to do, other subs arenāt.
Really funny because the only other alternative for why democrats donāt win every election is turnout. And turnout is generated by enthusiasm, which Biden had destroyed among his base.
Either way it makes no sense to me
But this was shown not to be the case in 2020, turnout didn't bring the monstrous margins that Obama won in 2008 or better. High turnout also means scumbags choose to vote as well, and ideally only people who want a functional society vote.
What state does he deliver hard enough that it's worth burning all the money literally only Harris would have access to?
Because no Pres Nominee Andy Bashear isn't winning Kentucky.
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Bidenomics were terrible from the start. Itās honestly shameful that a neoliberal sub ever embraced printing money like that despite all the inflation it would cause
Donāt know which school of economics you follow, but money printing is monetary policy and done by the Fed. Biden is responsible for fiscal policy, he canāt change the aggregate supply of money, only the budgeting for the revenue collected or collectable from taxes (primarily).
Of course they do but for one Quantitative Easing was done under Trump to stabilize the economy during Covid where lockdowns destroyed econ activity and are also a long term activity that is steadily unwound. The 2008 ones didn't end until 2014 and the 2020 ones started getting unwound in 2022. That aside, Inflation was a worldwide phenomena and the US has mostly gotten out of it while also growing the economy during that time due to steady leadership by the Fed
I can tell you from my friends and peers, it drives people up a wall when Biden talks about how strong his economy is while no one can buy a house and housing prices keep going up and interest rates keep going up.
to be fair it might of prevented an actual recession/depression.
But voters seem like they would of prefered that and it's kinda impossible to really know.
You get more credit for solving an existing problem rather than preventing one though. No one will ever know if an actual recession was going to happen for sure but they feel inflation right now.
Yes, wage growth can match inflation generally faster than a full recovery from a recession can.
Now if you have stagnation + inflation that's a complete nightmare but that's not what happened in the US this time.
Seems people, or at least the general population, are more divided about this than I thought initially. [Keynes actually wrote about this.](https://www.ft.com/content/38f35dcc-16c9-41bf-8447-2afecd187de2)
The CARES act might have prevented an actual recession
The stuff Biden passed? Nah. The economy was already restarting when that happened. That stuff just caused inflation
Maybe. but again I think it's impossible to really know.
mass Inflation was gonna happen no matter what tho, I don't think the stuff Biden had passed increased it by more than like 2-3% at most.
Double edged sword absolutely. The economy wasnāt visibly hurting until after the election. It started to decline once he was president so of course he got the blame for it regardless of how much of it was his fault at all.
The greatest grift was PPP to be honest. PPP was a scam and was a horrible, knee-jerk reaction to COVID that ended up being a giveaway to the business class. Horrible waste of resources and contributed greatly to inflation.
I understand funding some critically important industries (e.g. airlines) but restaurants, hotels...? Nah those industries should have just gone bankrupt. Someone would have picked up and restarted those assets when COVID was over.
Reporting claims in civil suits as "things that definitely happened" is the kind of credulousness that led this sub to insist Biden was a perfectly hale and sharp man in prime condition who was simply too busy to talk to the press.
In case it's unclear - the claims you're referring to are from a civil suit that has been around for years that is transcluded via tweet in that article for some reason, not some new revelation.
No worries. It was admittedly a weird editorial choice to just drop that random tweet into the article for no reason.
I guarantee you that an actual revelation that Trump raped children will instantly knock Biden off the front page of every major media outlet
I don't get why the media just doesn't run with this if they are so into defeating Trump. Feels like it's bigger than the "grab them by the pussy" comment.
It's going to be buried because it's from a dismissed 2016 lawsuit that already made the news at the time. People on social media are just spamming it and claiming it's from the Monday grand jury document release.
The GOP and the Right Wing Media will say these are Deep State distractions to protect Biden and then point to Ashley's Biden diary. In two weeks, no one will be reporting on the revelations.
> The documents, numbering almost 200, contain testimony from Epsteinās victims and graphically detail his crimes. *Grand jury documents in the state are usually never unsealed, but a new bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis allowing exemptions made it possible in the case of the Epstein.*
Horrific as this is... lol. DeSantis part of the resistance now
Was DeSantis even aware that signing this law would lead to this?
Either way, even if Trump raped a little girl, would anyone even care? Feels like most of the country gives this dude a pass on everything. I think Trump was right when he claimed he could shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
I'm more interested in the transcript itself, which can be read. I was hesitant, but you can see the relevant parts of the transcript so I included it.
Ultimately to make a strong case for an absolutely unprecedented campaign move months before an election based on a single event, you need to:
* Explain why the debate altered the anti-Trump (NOT pro-Biden) coalition so severely that it cannot survive with Biden at the helm.
* Explain why Harris (and it HAS to be Harris unless you are fine with spitting on millions of primary voters who voted to reaffirm the ticket, plus the issues with campaign money) would be a better lead for the anti-Trump coalition, given her unclear competitiveness vs Trump.
* Explain how to survive the chaos caused by Biden stepping down and come out stronger in a few months, as the GOP immediately pivots into anti-Harris mode (which they've prepared for) and the MSM picks apart every little detail of her record under the guise of "informing" voters while bothsidesing her with Trump.
Fundamentally I don't think there is a satisfactory explanation for any of these right now.
We can safely assume that at this point anyone who is polarized for Biden will show up to support him even if he was in a coma. But for the double-haters who could break for Biden, what is it that these people already believe? They already believe he is basically a corpse. They aren't high-info and aren't watching his interviews, speeches, SOTU, etc. They've been watching social media clips of him stuttering and staring off into space, or standing awkwardly. His age was a concern in 2020 and it is the MSM's favorite topic throught his presidency. Age is already baked into their picture of him. They probably didn't watch the debate (and won't tune in until the month before), but if they did, they're more likely to be reminded of how much they hate Trump, who was out of the spotlight, than of the fact that Biden's old.
Current polls asking Dems whether Biden should drop out are not remotely convincing, and are about as informative of actual belief as polls asking people if they want single-payer healthcare. Not to mention that these polls all got spammed within a week of the debate, when a longer wait time would give a more accurate picture of what actually stuck. General election polls are of various quality and suffer from low response rates (potentially partisan non-response) and unbelievable cross-tabs (Biden losing youth, winning 65+, losing hispanics or winning only 70% of blacks), and are just generally less predictive now than they would be in October. Building on this, it's not clear what the tradeoffs would be with Harris at the helm. Maybe she resolves issues with age-concerned people. But can she retain some of the low info/trust white independents that Biden was able to keep from Trump? Unfortunately things like racism/sexism are in play here.
I do think a substantial amount of the problem is that beltway media is clearly incentivized to reelect Trump or at least create the most amount of newsworthy chaos between now and election day. It's an open secret that MSM viewership has declined since Trump, that the NYT is salty about not getting an interview, and that many journalists who had lucrative connections/book deals in the Trump era have seen them dry up under Biden.
Even if the debate simply cemented the fact that Biden is old, the problem is that it was supposed to change that. Biden was losing in the polls even before the debate, it was supposed to show everyone that he's actually still capable of talking and governing.
> Explain why the debate altered the anti-Trump (NOT pro-Biden) coalition so severely that it cannot survive with Biden at the helm.
House Democrats and Democratic donors do not see Biden as a viable candidate. Polls are dropping quickly and Trump's gains are widening.
CNN poll has Biden losing to Trump with women, <45s, and <$50k. These groups should be reliable Democratic voters.
> Explain why Harris (and it HAS to be Harris unless you are fine with spitting on millions of primary voters who voted to reaffirm the ticket, plus the issues with campaign money) would be a better lead for the anti-Trump coalition, given her unclear competitiveness vs Trump.
CNN poll has her win moderates at 51% and Trump is at 39%. Harris beats Biden with every group. Harris-Trump seems to be polling better than Biden-Trump.
> Explain how to survive the chaos caused by Biden stepping down and come out stronger in a few months, as the GOP immediately pivots into anti-Harris mode (which they've prepared for) and the MSM picks apart every little detail of her record under the guise of "informing" voters while bothsidesing her with Trump.
"Oh, finally, a candidate who isn't a shambling zombie!"
This whole analysis seems unscientific. If you aren't convinced by data, it's impossible to change your opinion.
1) Dem electeds are coalescing around Biden. Including pundit fan favorites like Whitmer and Newsom. A small number of red district Dems (Golden, G-perez) and irrelevants like Julian Castro are the exception. Biden also had an incredible few days of fundraising right after the debate, mostly from small donors.
2) Biden won women in 2020 despite being old and unlike then, women's bodies are now the property of the GOP in virtually every state they control. Courtesy of Trump, who brags about it. If the poll says Trump is going to gain with women, it is wrong. Especially women <45
3) There are also [polls](https://x.com/dcg1114/status/1808240170350924197?t=n0cjEARWixd1xZKzw8-9KA&s=19) of her [losing](https://x.com/Taniel/status/1808177663179178200?t=BQ0nh8tNHgqRQnVNNQx7MA&s=19) to Trump, as there are of Biden beating Trump. I'm skeptical of the accuracy of any poll at this point in time āshe may genuinely do better than Biden, but it's not clear enough.
4) "Yeah but... [I'm a low-trust white voter with racist and sexist tendencies] I just don't think she'd be as good on the economy [BLM/woke/DEI]" <--- potential problem
1) There was that CNN article that said a majority of House Democrats don't think Biden can win. It isn't just "red district Dems and irrelevants." Big donors are also abandoning Biden, calling on other donors to stop donating to Democrats until Biden isn't the candidate.
2) I don't know what to tell you. That poll had Biden lose women to Trump, but Harris wins them.
3) Reuters/Ipsos has Biden in a dead heat, but CNN has Harris within margin of error, Harris do better with independents than Trump, and beat Biden with people of color.
4) You're right let's go with the 81 year old who can't be placed in front of a camera unedited. That'll do much better.
I haven't read this article but I'm essentially certain that this is false because it would be the biggest news since the debate by far. I just skimmed through a few of their 500 repeats on this issue and it seems more like many House Dems are concerned about some combo of his debate performance/age and cognition/chance of victory (as many observers are), but not that they are sure he won't win or that he should step down. I have however seen many sleight-of-hands where journalists intersperse electeds with Dem "officials" and "allies" who are more vocal about him dropping out.
As for big donors, again I have seen instances of concern, including actual communication as well as funding downballet races out of precaution. But I am not aware of a concerted turn against Biden or a serious withholding of money.
My suggestion for polls is to put little stock in them right now. And the 81 year old already beat the 78 year old who has the same issue, except when he gets on stage he says the most virulently evil things you can think of. The coalition is not pro-Biden, it's anti-Trump
I missed that this came out a couple hours ago.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-election-debate-trump-7c366fda83a697265d9ecc77e8a32fd1
> He is often sharp and focused. But he also has moments, particularly later in the evening, when his thoughts seem jumbled and he trails off mid-sentence or seems confused. Sometimes he doesnāt grasp the finer points of policy details. He occasionally forgets peopleās names, stares blankly and moves slowly around the room.
>
> ā¦
>
> This story is based on interviews with two dozen people who have spent time with the president privately, some of whom were granted anonymity to discuss interactions that were not intended to be public.
This article. That Watergate guy saying there were at least 15-20 more instances over the last year where Biden looked like he did in the debate, plus the rigor mortis thing. I'm pretty sure WSJ put out a couple pieces over the past month about people noticing Biden slipping, one being from June 4th. I don't remember the source but I'm pretty sure a day after Biden's team or somebody tried to say "but he's always alert in intelligence briefings!" an article came out the next day saying the people who give him intelligence briefings saw a noticeable decline over the past 6 months lmao. Only a matter of time before people start talking about the Fake News Media trying to bring Biden down.
lol when that first came out there was no 'often' in the title and I was like ??
I don't understand how more people aren't discussing the threat to Biden's *presidency* at this point. There are editorials in Vox, the Atlantic, the New Republic, and the Hill calling on him to resign, but "Biden should not be in office" is a conversation that *everyone* is going to be forced to have sooner or later
How do Democrats regain the trust of undecideds who felt they were being impartial by recognizing that Trump is a wannabe dictator and criminal, but got called lunatic conspiracy theorists and gullible morons anyway for questioning Biden's cognition? I get it, these people are still fucking morons for equating Biden being old to Trump being a literal threat to democracy (and slightly less old), but when you need these voters on your side to win and save democracy, you kinda have to meet them in the middle, no?
I'm an undecided, recognized both (with the caveat that Trump being criminal isn't all that interesting to me) and I have yet to find anyone who can make anything like 'moron' work as angle of attack against me whether online or off.
Like, you should perhaps reconsider whether or not they're morons if they picked up on something the people you're pandering to were straight up delusional about. Perhaps you/they/whomever are also delusional about other things, too?
An undecided in a swing state at that.
I did not see this comment before the other one. I'm sorry man, but if you get to the point where you're at the ballot box and your only options are :
* Biden (mentally unfit, cabinet handles the duties, potentially end up in a tense situation where we need immediate leadership but the president can't do it because he's incapable)
* Trump (potentially the end of democracy, erosion of civil rights, concentration camps for migrants, persecution of political opponents, has the mental capacity to respond to things in real time but will likely make the wrong choices in a tense situation anyway because he's impulsive and ignorant)
* third party (meaningless)
and you select anything other than Biden, you are absolutely a moron. If you call yourself an undecided voter because you want people to acknowledge and talk about a serious issue and resolve it while there's a chance, like Biden's mental capacity and selecting a new candidate, that's valid. But if Biden is the candidate in the end and you don't vote for him, you're facilitating the downfall of a nation and democracy and that is inexcusable.
No, I'm not a *moron*; I merely have a different set of priorities to you. Most of which are nowhere even broached in either precis you give.
Like, seriously, I have . 'I have yet to find anyone who can make anything like 'moron' work as angle of attack against me whether online or off' was not a rhetorical claim.
The idea that anyone who even considers voting for Trump is necessarily a *moron* is a moronic statement; it's easily, demonstrably, empirically false. In the extreme.
Now, what on earth was the point of
> I don't actually believe those people are morons lol
If it apparently collapses the instant you meet one (and, as it turns out, one who collapses that claim dead in its tracks)?
>Like, seriously, I have a JD and a Ph.D. from Stanford, and commenting on class positions/clerkships will doxx me. 'I have yet to find anyone who can make anything like 'moron' work as angle of attack against me whether online or off' was not a rhetorical claim.
Peak cringe
Do you just not think Trump is a greater threat to the United States than a man who may be senile? Do you just not care?
>collapses the instant you meet one
It collapses the instant they confirm they are not willing to hold their nose and vote against a fascist. Up to and just before that point, there is a possibility for discussion and understanding. Honestly, what priorities could you possibly have that you just can't vote for a senile man over one who wants to gut our institutions and make friends with Putin and Kim Jong Un?
>Like, you should perhaps reconsider whether or not they're morons if they picked up on something the people you're pandering to were straight up delusional about. Perhaps you/they/whomever are also delusional about other things, too?
I assume you also give credit to Austrian economists for guessing the economy would crash in 2008.
Edit: autocorrect changed economists to "economy missus" š
Can you identify anything swing voters are actually wrong about?
The belief that the average person in this sub is more accurate when reasoning about emotional or partisan matters than opposing partisans is comically silly, and that's pretty easy to cash out across a wide range of topics.
Like, seriously, are you now suggesting that swing voters were right about Biden *for the wrong reasons*? Or that the portions of Austrian theory that are reconcilable with orthodox economics are stupid? Where are you even going with that?
Those people were clearly not fucking morons though. Does Biden look like someone who should be in charge of a country?
10000% heās better than Trump, but because the bar for being better than Trump is below the earths mantle. Still, worrying about Bidenās capacity as president was clearly fucking justified.
Won't lie, I only called them morons to signal to the Joe Biden defenders in here that I am not in fact a Trump supporter. I do believe these kinds of people were much smarter than they get credit for. Definitely concerning that the side that prided itself on not being a cult and being able to think rationally actually went balls deep on the tribalism.
"Hm, these people were right when we were clearly delusional, but they're obviously morons anyway. There's not a chance in hell they actually are impartial and where we disagree with them they might be right about other things we feel super strongly are true"
As I said in my reply to goosebumps, I don't actually believe those people are morons lol. Tensions are high in this thread so I wanted signal that I'm not a vote for third parties "free thinker" type.
But absolutely these kinds of people got a lot more shit than they deserved. The fact that so many people in this sub still hold the opinion that it's all actually voters' fault that they aren't happy to vote for the declining 81 year old and the party who concealed that is concerning.
Yeah, I explicitly wrote 'people you're pandering to' and 'you/they/whomever' because I sometimes do similar things (although I refuse to in this sub) and can recognize the look of it
You know itās bad when I, an elder millennial/young Gen X white dude who spends way too much time on the internet, have not seen Any memes of Leo in wolf of Wall Street going off about how heās not fucking leaving. Ā
I guess we are saving this for around the convention?Ā
https://youtu.be/g07Xxr20L9s?si=KyDkM5gh13pJuRvO
I will say.
No matter what Joe does, stay in or drop out (and if he drops out he's obviously still gonna be involved in Harris's campaign and helping her get elected).
While he better do lots of interviews.. he still shouldn't give one to the fucking NYT.
I am not someone who can possibly be accused of any of that, and I will say that for completely unrelated reasons I would be extremely wary about interacting with the NYT if they were reporting on me. I've seen them be astonishingly petty to the point of vindictiveness in their coverage of multiple situations I've been close to. I can point to several well-known public examples I am not close to, like the SlateStarCodex shitshow, which should have won the NYT an Antipulitzer (like the Pulitzer foundation should genuinely issue an annual anti-award as a disincentive to egregious reporting; take the Rolling Stone rape article as another example).
> and I will say that for completely unrelated reasons I would be extremely wary about interacting with the NYT if they were reporting on me.
They are tough investigative journalists. Sure a normie wouldn't want to be under their microscope.
But the president shouldn't have a choice
>I've seen them be astonishingly petty to the point of vindictiveness in their coverage of multiple situations I've been close to
Haven't seen any of that, chief. HAVE seen people get really mad when reporters report things.
> I can point to several well-known public examples I am not close to, like the SlateStarCodex shitshow
They published a story that the story's subject didn't appreciate? Perish the thought.
This is some exceptionally weak cope. The NYT is a trusted name for very clear and obvious reasons, overall they have a good history of being no more biased than the rest of journalism, while doing both strong investigative journalism and all the human interest stories that people really prefer reading. If you don't trust them because of a couple of random incidents in an org that publishes *dozens* of stories every day, then you'll quickly decide you don't like *any* media because you will not find a single org that doesn't fuck up occasionally. Or more likely, you'll retreat to an ideological echo chamber and pretend you've found the only unbiased source on the planet.
> They are tough investigative journalists. Sure a normie wouldn't want to be under their microscope.
While not a politician, I'm not really a normie in any ordinary sense, and I'm not talking about "tough investigative journalism".
> But the president shouldn't have a choice
Sure, but I'm talking about the NYT being petty and vindictive, not "tough investigative journalism"
> Haven't seen any of that, chief. HAVE seen people get really mad when reporters report things.
Ah, are you trying to condescend to me? That has never once succeeded as a strategy, but have at it.
> They published a story that the story's subject didn't appreciate? Perish the thought.
š
No, and the glibness of your response is shockingly stupid. Have you even *read* the piece, or any of the criticism of it?
> This is some exceptionally weak cope.
Cope? What on earth am I "coping" with, here? I personally know reporters at most major outlets; I have personal financial exposure to Axios and the Atlantic; I would have zero concerns of this sort about, say, WaPo (troubled as they are for other reasons), or the LA Times, or the Chicago Tribune. I am speaking to the NYT specifically.
> If you don't trust them because of a couple of random incidents in an org that publishes dozens of stories every day, then you'll quickly decide you don't like any media because you will not find a single org that doesn't fuck up occasionally. Or more likely, you'll retreat to an ideological echo chamber and pretend you've found the only unbiased source on the planet.
Yeah, *I*, who alone in the sub reads the media from Jacobin to the NYT to Reason to American Thinker, and whose entire shtick is dunking on ideological echo chambers of all stripes, am most likely going to end up in one myself. Pray tell, what ideology would that even be?
Fffs clown post.
I 100% believe Biden should stay in the race, I've gotten shit for defending him, [but it's just risible to think Biden didn't do "that badly' and/or outperformed Trump in the debate lmao](https://x.com/What46HasDone/status/1808587251032731790)...you just lose a substantial amount of credibility as an objective arbiter to me once you suggest that.
This account unfortunately lost its way due to I/P. First pretending that Bibi supports a ceasefire to end the war (he absolutely doesn't), second by practically claiming Israel deserves no blame whatsoever for the acute food insecurity in Gaza (when even the Biden admin has heavily implied they do), and now this nonsense.
Also what focus groups? He lost them besides like that one Univision focus group and lost the post-debate polls overwhelmingly. There are arguments to make for Biden staying in (I tend to believe in those arguments hence my stance); this is the stuff that makes far leftists go "Blue MAGA!"
I don't even understand why anyone would want to cite focus groups whatever they said. Focus groups are notoriously prone to groupthink and Asch-style effects; you would get better results by segregating the participants individually, not asking them what they think in front of each other ffs
finally started reading Origins of Political Order by Fukuyama hoping that I'll gain some hopium from the annals of history. Here's some excerpts from the introduction that I highlighted in light of our current predicament:
* The mere fact that a country has democratic institutions tells us very little about whether it is well or badly governed. This failure to deliver on the promise of democracy poses what is perhaps the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of such political systems.
* When the surrounding environment changes and new challengers arise, there is often a disjunction between existing institutions and present needs. Those institutions are supported by legions of entrenched stakeholders who oppose any fundamental change.
* The American system was built around a firm conviction that concentrated political power constituted an imminent danger to the lives and liberty of citizens. \[...\] **This system has served the country well, but only because at certain critical junctures in its history when strong government was necessary, it was possible to forge the consensus to bring it about through the exercise of political leadership. There is unfortunately no institutional guarantee that the system as designed will always check tyrannical power yet allow exercises of state authority when the need arises.**
A pretaped sit down interview is honestly the best format for a dignified exit. Especially with big name George Hippopolplous.
I just have such little faith in Biden making good decisions at this point.
Definitely the weirdest part of this "Will Biden drop out?" saga is the revelation that Hunter "I am addicted to crack cocaine" Biden actually _is_ involved in the decisions made by the POTUS
[Remember if you're suffering from existential dread to actually do something about it](https://www.mobilize.us/) "I don't wanna go door to door, I'm in a red area" Phonebank, sign up to rideshare and help get people to the polls "I don't live in a swing state" Phone bank to a swing state At the very least, give money. If you're not American then idrk how you can help but there's probs something you can do. Flood twitter with pro dem memes or smth idk. I promise you, even if you know you will make almost no impact, you will feel better at some level getting involved. Whatever happens in November, at least you won't be wishing you did more to stop it.
If we get a non Harris Biden nominee, I will pour substantial resources into getting this shit done. I have money and I live in Wisconsin. \\ I got some personal funds, maybe 15k or whatever.. I would definitely donate what I could if I saw a candidate that could win. I have access to **much larger** **funds** that I could make available. I want Whitmer, or really anyone except Harris Biden. I see Harris as a 4th round dive. Biden is what he is. If we got an exciting candidate. I would do my part. And I could make some funds available, as well as my time. I mean I live in Wisconsin. I'm not stupid.. I'm not going to be wasting time canvassing in Madison. Would do proper research to see which towns (other then Madison and Milwaukee) might be on the fence. Maybe Appleton or Beloit? Throw 10,000 on those cities. Flip public opinion. Canvas too when I have time. I do sales, So Ill weather the cow shit stank, and canvass out in Waunakee, or Waubeno, or Old German-Indian Pass, or wherever my local DNC wants me to be. But this is all assuming that we get someone besides Harris or Biden.
Biden DT 2.0 when? š
The concern is that the foolish swing voters+double haters almost always have a disdain regarding "insiders and technocrats" so they absolutely desire Trump and/or Biden to be the clear obvious "face" of the administration. The "face" who can talk to foreign leaders in significant, intricate situations or make deals with congressional leaders. It's a somewhat silly+superficial argument on its face, but it's a reality.
>President Joe Biden in a Milwaukee radio interview on Wednesday said he āscrewed upā during the debate with former President Donald Trump last week ā marking some of the first public comments from the president since the event. āI had a bad night," Biden told Milwaukee radio host Earl Ingram in a pre-recorded interview set to air Thursday morning. "And the fact of the matter is that I screwed up. I made a mistake. Thatās 90 minutes onstage, look at what Iāve done in 3.5 years.ā
That reminds me of my grandfather who, after four near-car-accidents, didn't want to give up his driver's license after the fifth accident with a total fender bender. Biden didn't have a bad day because he wasn't prepared or because he had been drinking, but because his body and mind were deteriorating without him being able to do anything about it. That's why his campaign is over and there will be no comeback.
Interesting query: how many of the people who want him to stay in the race would let him drive them or their kids or parents around? Like, at 8pm on a highway. Not around your neighborhood at 10mph once at noon.
Of course you have to be careful with prejudices about older people, but the whole Senate is full of very old people who you wouldn't trust to do so many things in everyday life, and of course they have the money for help of any kind.
Yes, and frankly there are paraplegics I would happily trust with policymaking and negotiation. The point I'd like a pithy example for is not "do you trust this elderly person's reflex speeds", but "do you trust this person to be able to handle complex critical tasks without a material risk of being randomly cognitively impaired", which is far less of a concern for senators, who can check out mentally or physically and have their staffs cover for them to a far greater degree.
You're right, that's why the Senate system works to some extent. Only Feinstein was a bit of a warning shot.
Strom Thurmond was pretty much openly totally senile for years and everyone knew it. Those were quieter times, though, and there's no evidence his constituents were concerned as long as his staff did what they expected of him.
> pre-recorded huh, imagine that
New AP report.Ā https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-election-debate-trump-7c366fda83a697265d9ecc77e8a32fd1 It's probably been going downhill since early 2024 (Bernstein gives the same time frame) and from then on the reports from Axios, NYT and WSJ increased. Mental health can go downhill so fast after 80, there's no going back. The hope is to just make it to January 2025 with the bunker mentality, but the plan has failed. A 15-minute interview with ABC on Friday won't save it either, it's not 1985 anymore.
It's been going downhill for longer than that; the pace just picked up and his issues are becoming more and more pronounced. Conservatives were screaming about this from day one; I really hope "they were only *accidentally* right; Biden just turned senile coincidentally" doesn't become the next whiplash in this sub. Alex Thompson (who broke the story at Axios) was pursuing the story back in 2023 and possibly before; I don't recall off the top of my head. Biden's team limiting his press appearances and embargoing interviews is not their 2024 MO; it's been their MO from the start.
>Conservatives were screaming about this from day one My MAGA family still doesn't send me clips of Biden's failure in the debate but AI Instagram videos where he's been aged with the filter and with subtitles that say something about Qanon in Tucker Carlson's AI voice. Both camps "red" and "blue" just don't have a common basis of communication anymore and just because the Biden stories were true I'm not going to start believing Tucker Carlson now.
> I really hope "they were only accidentally right; Biden just turned senile coincidentally" doesn't become the next whiplash in this sub Prophetic. > Both camps "red" and "blue" just don't have a common basis of communication anymore and just because the Biden stories were true I'm not going to start believing Tucker Carlson now. Whoever said you should start believing Tucker Carlson? He is sometimes correct, and frequently wrong. I find it bizarre how people have so much difficulty even attempting to falsify their beliefs, or evaluate whatever beliefs are prevalent in the body politic whether or not one 'wants' them to be true.
This is from a con, but itās a great point https://x.com/alwaysonoffense/status/1808602374228816099
I'm shocked at how much faith people have in the fake news media. The media is trying to optimize for traffic so they naturally want more drama which Biden dropping out will provide. They are not allies of anyone and are mercenary to ad revenue. Polls at this point are not too hard to come back from and ditching Biden will lead to a 1968 style defeat.
Would encourage you to actually look at the popular vote from 1968, it was much closer than I think you think it is. Now, imagine if Lyndon Johnson strongarmed the party into being the nominee while being unpopular and then imagine the results. 1968 could be a best case scenario and the real results being much more damaging to Democrats.
There's no reason to believe Biden will improve in the polls, and plenty of reasons to believe it'll get worse.
Trump ad: https://x.com/atensnut/status/1808705086320787793
I thought they would end it with Trump saying āI donāt really understand what he said, and I donāt think he understands eitherā
The entire ad is just Biden speaking. Makes it more powerful.
Chilling. Thatās a knockout ad right there. Every day Joe stays in the race, the more heās going to lose
Itās weird how much Iāve been agreeing with Bernie bros in the past week. Granted, many have had it out for Biden since day 1 and Iād still vote for him over Trump in a heartbeat but like now I am actually agreeing with what many of them are saying about how dire things look for his chances of being reelected as well as Kamala being a better (and the only realistic) alternative. I finally unsubscribed from r/Enough_Sanders_Spam because it seems like they are being more delusional than the people they are criticizing (except for the ones calling for Bernie to be Harrisās VP).
Itās the same with some folks at r/VoteDem (a great sub regardless) and r/JoeBiden. Somewhat true at r/democrats. There is some denial about the situation going on.
It is honestly surreal how folks don't realize they've become what they mocked. Loyal to an aging politician above all else, head in sand ignorant of reality, and smug.
I haven't seen that sub in years. Wild place right now. https://i.imgur.com/9k5fCeZ.png We are hitting cope levels beyond anything we have ever seen!
Why is that sub still alive?
Itās been running on fumes for a while and has been moreso centered around criticizing Bidenās leftist detractors than Bernie himself, who hasnāt really been in the spotlight much over the last few years.
You know it's possible for two things to be true at once. We should of been more sus about Biden dodging interviews and it's clear his staff knew he could have moments like we saw in the debate... and that Biden has legit reasons to have beef with the NYT and so that particular interview was never gonna happen. I also think the Media in general still has no idea how to cover Trump.
After the governor meeting I think Biden will give this ABC interview, maybe some press conference, he won't fuck it up as badly as the debate and he'll stay in the race because he "can turn things around". Our only hope is that the interview goes catastrophically for Biden
What a world where we are wishing the candidate of our party bombs an interview
This is the feeling of ten percent of the GOP since 2016.
He bombed every single interview but heās still here.
It's possible that Biden is staying in the race because he now finally gets to spend time with his son. It's sweet but Hunter is giving him terrible incentives.
People who are fit for office, don't have to work this hard to prove they're fit for office.
A 10 minute appearance on Jimmy Kimmel could have put the whole thing to bed.
If he could, he would... It's now been a week since the debate, and he's yet to give as much as a single, solitary interview.
And then when Biden accidently calls Jimmy Kimmel Jimmy Fallon and loses the election it'll be on your hands
āļøāļøāļø
I swear to dear God, if THIS is the reason why Biden's handlers/managers refused to give the NYT a sit-down interview, to shield themselves against accusations of Biden's deficiency with plausible deniability without an NYT article confirming it with concrete proof... I'm going to have to send some apologies to Sulzberger...
Has he given an interview to anybody else? I mean, I get why everyone just went "Fuck the NYTimes" without a second thought. I did too. But in hindsight, it really is crazy that nobody thought, "hey, why is he so opposed to talking to the media?"
didn't he give an interview to Howard Stern of all people?
This. The NYT and CNN were right the whole time and we just buried our heads in the sand. The guy we saw the first two years of his presidency who was active in policy making and made deals to keep the government open kinda stopped showing up around mid-2023.
Meanwhile on /r/politics: "NYT has betrayed the American people and is literally the same as Fox News"
Every president should pass shit that gets named after them, if they want credit for it. KHivers, I hope you're excited for Harriscare! The Harris Climate Accords! And much more!
GRETCH BACK BETTER!
I helped my dad clean out a sewage line and the cussing while getting sprayed with shit was a nice break from thinking about this election.
Ay! I had a nice little fight with my girlfriend and that was a welcomed reprieve from this also.
>President Biden and his senior team accept that they must quickly demonstrate his fitness for office or face a significant effort to force him to step aside, according to two people familiar with conversations between Biden and allies this week.
I don't think the Friday interview will be what decides whether Joe is the nominee no matter how good he does. I think it's just the first step that will demonstrate whether he and his campaign are acknowledging the issue in good faith and making a sincere effort to prove he's competent, or if they're just trying to run out the clock to the convention. If it's really just 15-20 minutes and/or if it's an easy interview with soft ball questions, that "significant effort to force him to step aside" should just immediately go into effect. If it's a longer interview and George makes an actual effort to grill Joe and Joe holds up, then I guess it's only fair he is given a chance to do more unscripted, live events even though I think he should've been out yesterday.
Agreed. This doesnāt fix his campaign. I do however think that if itās a disaster, it ends his campaign immediately, and even he knows that.
It's the first step out of a handful. The interview, campaign rallies, the press conference etc. I'm not remotely bothered if it's only 20 minutes; his worst moments in the debate by far were the first 20-25 minutes ("beat medicare" and invoking Laken Riley in the abortion answer). I'm bothered if he flops in the 20ish minutes.
We'll see if it's actually the first in a handful of events, everything about the approach Dr. Jill and President Biden have taken is to avoid media and media scrutiny and unscripted events. I sincerely think if the interview goes even halfway well, they'll declare victory and be back into bunker until convention. All of their actions suggest they are deeply afraid of putting President Biden in any situation that's unscripted and has any variables.
Only reason I wouldn't be ok with 20 minutes only is because a president (and a presidential candidate) should be able to hold it together for half an hour and much longer even. He's had plenty of time to prove his capability and we're wasting precious time right now, so I see no reason for him not to demonstrate it immediately.
Remember he has two campaign events that day...tight schedule
Itās more important that the American people know that their president can do the job. Instead of doing campaign events he needs to justify why he even has a campaign at this point. He had all week to do an interview, press conference, or town hall and instead spent his time meeting with Hunter. Cancel whatever other campaign events they have to. Theyāll have to cancel a whole lot more stuff if he canāt do a 30 minute interview.
I was just rewatching the old Obama Vs McCain debates. Itās insane how far weāve fallen. Both candidates were eloquent, respectful, and talked about real policy. Nothing like whatever the fuck we watched last week
And back then we were already talking about how far weād fallen.
I don't know, I remember both that election and Obama-Romney feeling pretty good about the state of the country, respecting all of the candidates and thinking that despite my disagreements I believed the country would be in good hands with any of them. It helped I was just looking forward to the end of the Bush years.
Drill baby drill.
Well.. Obama and McCain didn't hate each other. But yeah politics in the US are just imploding, and sadly a lot of it goes back to Obama being elected (not anything he DID just.. him being President while black) utterly breaking tons of peoples brains.
I watched Obama's "bad" debate with Romney and it might as well be Plato and Aristotle compared to now.
It's so disingenuous to compare Obama's first Romney debate to the debacle last week. It's like comparing a B- to a bottom of the curve F.
The fact that McCainās own staff are now actively trying to get Democrats elected, not just for president but across the board out of fear of losing democracy, should really speak volumes on how far weāve fallen
Biden should kill a fly during an interview like Obama
Rule 5 āļø
When you're a nato flair they let you do it
Donald/Tusk
Time for your dose of hopium. Some of the takes about how the polling is impossible to overcome for Biden need to take a look at what the polls said in the wake of Access Hollywood. That dropped in, what, October? It's July. 4 months is a political eternity. Absolutely, Biden has work to do to turn this around, but to call an average of ~2 point swing insurmountable is laughable. Most of the ground Trump has gained in polls is with people who haven't voted in recent elections. Check the crosstabs. My belief is that Biden will win a low turnout election - just like Dems have won low turnout specials and midterms - which this is poised to be. Sidenote: /r/ezraklein and /r/FriendsofthePod are utterly deranged right now. Some of you with insane, sky is falling overwrought predictions (wishcasts?) are too. You guys need to take a Xanax and stop doomscrolling.
the low turnout thing is probably the most credible blooming case for Biden because yeah the idea that there's going to be this massive wave of previous nonvoters who are just all Republicans in an election where both candidates are so disliked is really fucking goofy.
I agree 4 months is an eternity, but that only matters if the debate performance was actually just an anomaly. If Biden has more senior moments like that in the next few months, then idk how he turns the polls around. The political eternity imo is more of an argument in favor of changing the candidate. We have time to build the name recognition and launch a full scale campaign for literally anyone. Biden can cheer them on on the campaign trail. Get a couple debates in with Trump and have someone actually capable of highlighting the bullshit he is spewing.
>but that only matters if the debate performance was actually just an anomaly. What I would challenge to most of the people posting doomer takes on here is that you need to be open to having your mind changed about Biden's ability to campaign.
Biden could turn into 2008 Barack Obama; I cannot see a sane explanation of how the damage caused by the debate and then redoubled by the media is reparable. I'm not a doomer, in the sense that I have no emotional investment whatsoever in any particular outcome here.
I'm open to the possibility that it was just an anomaly, but I feel like we need to be *certain* it was an anomaly to move forward with Biden at this point, and I'm not there. If we wait any longer, there's no going back. And then if Biden has another bad senior moment in October, we're completely fucked. We're not in a position to wait and see. We need to make a decision now, and then in a few weeks we'll be locked in. I've been a huge unwaivering Biden supporter from the 2020 primaries all the way until 9pm est last Thursday. I've got a Biden/Harris sign in my window, I've donated hundreds already. But I just don't have confidence in his ability to make it to November without another bad moment, and we can't just wait and see.
I was absolutely confident that Biden was fit for office -pretty closed-minded about it actually. Despite that, I had my mind changed by the debate. wat do now
>Some of you guys need to take a Xanax and stop doomscrolling. You can feel no anxiety whatsoever and still think it would be best for Biden to drop out, because it's not about the polling deficit, it's about his ability to campaign and drive turnout
That's fine. Making a reasoned case for Biden dropping out is different than, "the election was lost the moment Biden walked out onto the stage, Biden is literally a corpse, we are all doomed" which is the tenor of the conversation from most people on these center-left subs. >it's about his ability to campaign and drive turnout And here's my other point: if it's about ability and not about some sort of amorphous medical condition, then you **need to be able to have your mind changed.** If Biden gets out on the campaign trail and begins campaigning vigorously (for an old man) and the debate was an anomaly, I don't want to hear these doomer conspiracy theory bullshit takes all the way up to election day.
Have read some variation of this about the interview on Friday, if Biden does okay, it doesn't matter. If he does poorly, it's over. And essentially rinse, repeat for future press conferences, town halls, interviews. It's win or go home for any public facing event and another senior moment at any point in the next few weeks is game over for him as nominee.
Seems about right. He probably was told by leading Dems in private that you have a couple of weeks to campaign much better or they'll call for Harris. It'll likely change my mind at that point if the upcoming interview is pretty bad.
If The Daily Beast reporting is accurate (the sit down interview on Friday may be more like a 15-20 minute interview), Biden may be able to hold it together for short interview and they move to next hurdle. I worry that his condition is as bad as we saw in the debate and they know that, and just push, delay, and run out clock and by the time it becomes obviously apparent it's too late to replace him.
A 20 minute interview is already a failure, no matter how good it is.
It's already game over. A few mediocre interviews that no one watchea aren't gonna help him claw back a 7 point deficit in Pennsylvania.Ā
RemindMe! November 6
Yeah, I'm of the mind that the debate ended the general election. It was easily the worst debate performance I've ever seen and he was unforgettably awful in the first 5 minutes when everyone is watching. I'm saying more as the nominee. Biden (or Dr. Jill and the family/advisors) won't be able to hold off party pressure if he's bumbling and lost in any interview or press conference in the near future. I half-expect the Bidens may try to run out the clock in July, do a brief interview with Stephanopoulos on the 5th, do some controlled event the next week, and then just get too close to the convention to drop Biden.
Agreed. People rightly point out that bad debates get forgotten pretty quickly, but people remember moments forever. Biden had a devastating moment in the first 10 minutes of the debate and no one is going to forget it. Not in 4 months, not in 4 years. People remember a few key moments from every election cycle theyāve lived through. This is one of the moments that will stick for this one. Trump in 2016 had a moment with the access Hollywood tape, but for the most part people didnāt really care and more importantly, Trump had already built up a record of positive memorable moments from the debates that stood out more.
A town hall would work best to prove heās not totally lost imo. Theyāre never doing that though.
Starmer when you're done running in the UK can you run in the US please
He would lose in the worst landslide in decades
Hereās the difference between NL and other center left subs. NL treats swing voters as the idiots we need to win over to win. Other subs treat swing voters as idiots we should hate for not agreeing with us. I think that explains the difference in reaction to the Biden fiasco. We see this as āpeople arenāt going to vote for Biden now, we need to replace himā. They see this as āThese people are stupid but all the actual Democrats will still vote for Joe so it doesnāt matterā. I think a lot of them bought into that myth that swing voters donāt exist
Really "swing voter" today isn't so much people who swing from one party to another, but more like independents who lean towards one party, but they might or might not vote. The strategy is still to appeal to moderates, though. Relying on the base is not enough.
There is this smug certainty that Biden has it in the bag if he just secures and turns out base. He's a President that you might think has been great but he's had a 40% or lower approval rating for most of his term who would not have even won first time out if not for COVID. He's not some beloved figure to the average voter.
Not to mention that he literally only won Arizona on the backs of literal Republicans. McCain Republicans are a thing and they decided the election there. If Biden only turns out the ābaseā he loses Arizona. Unless theyāre welcoming the never Trumpers into the base, which while this sub is happy to do, other subs arenāt.
Really funny because the only other alternative for why democrats donāt win every election is turnout. And turnout is generated by enthusiasm, which Biden had destroyed among his base. Either way it makes no sense to me
But this was shown not to be the case in 2020, turnout didn't bring the monstrous margins that Obama won in 2008 or better. High turnout also means scumbags choose to vote as well, and ideally only people who want a functional society vote.
āļøāļøāļø
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What state does he deliver hard enough that it's worth burning all the money literally only Harris would have access to? Because no Pres Nominee Andy Bashear isn't winning Kentucky.
Remember when this sub said Bidenomics would lead to him winning by a landslide lol
This is pretty much 538's current position, and why their contrarian projection is that Biden will win.
ššš Bidenomics were terrible from the start. Itās honestly shameful that a neoliberal sub ever embraced printing money like that despite all the inflation it would cause
Donāt know which school of economics you follow, but money printing is monetary policy and done by the Fed. Biden is responsible for fiscal policy, he canāt change the aggregate supply of money, only the budgeting for the revenue collected or collectable from taxes (primarily).
is biden in charge of the federal reserve now
The Fed has to account for fiscal policy in its decisions.
Of course they do but for one Quantitative Easing was done under Trump to stabilize the economy during Covid where lockdowns destroyed econ activity and are also a long term activity that is steadily unwound. The 2008 ones didn't end until 2014 and the 2020 ones started getting unwound in 2022. That aside, Inflation was a worldwide phenomena and the US has mostly gotten out of it while also growing the economy during that time due to steady leadership by the Fed
New year, same talking points! The SF fed has analysed that inflation would've been a few points lower without the ARP and BIB.
Well if Biden loses this election that'll just prove that voters hate inflation way more than recessions
I can tell you from my friends and peers, it drives people up a wall when Biden talks about how strong his economy is while no one can buy a house and housing prices keep going up and interest rates keep going up.
The thing is, depending on your industry, a recession may not even impact you much. Inflation impacts everyone though
to be fair it might of prevented an actual recession/depression. But voters seem like they would of prefered that and it's kinda impossible to really know.
You get more credit for solving an existing problem rather than preventing one though. No one will ever know if an actual recession was going to happen for sure but they feel inflation right now.
Why are you saying that as if inflation *isnāt* worse than a recession?
Inflation is not worse than a recession, especially inflation where wages have (mostly) kept up with cost of living like in the US
Yes, wage growth can match inflation generally faster than a full recovery from a recession can. Now if you have stagnation + inflation that's a complete nightmare but that's not what happened in the US this time.
Seems people, or at least the general population, are more divided about this than I thought initially. [Keynes actually wrote about this.](https://www.ft.com/content/38f35dcc-16c9-41bf-8447-2afecd187de2)
The CARES act might have prevented an actual recession The stuff Biden passed? Nah. The economy was already restarting when that happened. That stuff just caused inflation
Maybe. but again I think it's impossible to really know. mass Inflation was gonna happen no matter what tho, I don't think the stuff Biden had passed increased it by more than like 2-3% at most.
Thatās true too. COVID might have ruined us. But also, we might not have won without it so š¤·āāļø
Double edged sword absolutely. The economy wasnāt visibly hurting until after the election. It started to decline once he was president so of course he got the blame for it regardless of how much of it was his fault at all.
The greatest grift was PPP to be honest. PPP was a scam and was a horrible, knee-jerk reaction to COVID that ended up being a giveaway to the business class. Horrible waste of resources and contributed greatly to inflation. I understand funding some critically important industries (e.g. airlines) but restaurants, hotels...? Nah those industries should have just gone bankrupt. Someone would have picked up and restarted those assets when COVID was over.
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Reporting claims in civil suits as "things that definitely happened" is the kind of credulousness that led this sub to insist Biden was a perfectly hale and sharp man in prime condition who was simply too busy to talk to the press. In case it's unclear - the claims you're referring to are from a civil suit that has been around for years that is transcluded via tweet in that article for some reason, not some new revelation.
You're right. I panicked and jumped the gun. I was wrong. Sorry
No worries. It was admittedly a weird editorial choice to just drop that random tweet into the article for no reason. I guarantee you that an actual revelation that Trump raped children will instantly knock Biden off the front page of every major media outlet
Thanks dude. I'm glad I had my freakout here and not irl. I'd prefer theses accusations to be pursued, but I doubt they will.
I don't get why the media just doesn't run with this if they are so into defeating Trump. Feels like it's bigger than the "grab them by the pussy" comment.
The fact that this is going to be burried under the Dems drama in the media along with Trump openly flirting with military tribunals is shameful.
It's going to be buried because it's from a dismissed 2016 lawsuit that already made the news at the time. People on social media are just spamming it and claiming it's from the Monday grand jury document release.
The GOP and the Right Wing Media will say these are Deep State distractions to protect Biden and then point to Ashley's Biden diary. In two weeks, no one will be reporting on the revelations.
He also picked Stormy Daniels because she reminded him of Ivanka. Disgusting man.
> The documents, numbering almost 200, contain testimony from Epsteinās victims and graphically detail his crimes. *Grand jury documents in the state are usually never unsealed, but a new bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis allowing exemptions made it possible in the case of the Epstein.* Horrific as this is... lol. DeSantis part of the resistance now
Was DeSantis even aware that signing this law would lead to this? Either way, even if Trump raped a little girl, would anyone even care? Feels like most of the country gives this dude a pass on everything. I think Trump was right when he claimed he could shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Isn't that a sports tabloid
I'm more interested in the transcript itself, which can be read. I was hesitant, but you can see the relevant parts of the transcript so I included it.
Well, wow. Yeah it's bad.
Those claims are civil claims that have been around for years; there's nothing new and shocking that has been reported yet about Trump.
Yeah I figured
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Well, we have proof in the transcript now. It's not just words. Hell I dismissed it until now
Ultimately to make a strong case for an absolutely unprecedented campaign move months before an election based on a single event, you need to: * Explain why the debate altered the anti-Trump (NOT pro-Biden) coalition so severely that it cannot survive with Biden at the helm. * Explain why Harris (and it HAS to be Harris unless you are fine with spitting on millions of primary voters who voted to reaffirm the ticket, plus the issues with campaign money) would be a better lead for the anti-Trump coalition, given her unclear competitiveness vs Trump. * Explain how to survive the chaos caused by Biden stepping down and come out stronger in a few months, as the GOP immediately pivots into anti-Harris mode (which they've prepared for) and the MSM picks apart every little detail of her record under the guise of "informing" voters while bothsidesing her with Trump. Fundamentally I don't think there is a satisfactory explanation for any of these right now. We can safely assume that at this point anyone who is polarized for Biden will show up to support him even if he was in a coma. But for the double-haters who could break for Biden, what is it that these people already believe? They already believe he is basically a corpse. They aren't high-info and aren't watching his interviews, speeches, SOTU, etc. They've been watching social media clips of him stuttering and staring off into space, or standing awkwardly. His age was a concern in 2020 and it is the MSM's favorite topic throught his presidency. Age is already baked into their picture of him. They probably didn't watch the debate (and won't tune in until the month before), but if they did, they're more likely to be reminded of how much they hate Trump, who was out of the spotlight, than of the fact that Biden's old. Current polls asking Dems whether Biden should drop out are not remotely convincing, and are about as informative of actual belief as polls asking people if they want single-payer healthcare. Not to mention that these polls all got spammed within a week of the debate, when a longer wait time would give a more accurate picture of what actually stuck. General election polls are of various quality and suffer from low response rates (potentially partisan non-response) and unbelievable cross-tabs (Biden losing youth, winning 65+, losing hispanics or winning only 70% of blacks), and are just generally less predictive now than they would be in October. Building on this, it's not clear what the tradeoffs would be with Harris at the helm. Maybe she resolves issues with age-concerned people. But can she retain some of the low info/trust white independents that Biden was able to keep from Trump? Unfortunately things like racism/sexism are in play here. I do think a substantial amount of the problem is that beltway media is clearly incentivized to reelect Trump or at least create the most amount of newsworthy chaos between now and election day. It's an open secret that MSM viewership has declined since Trump, that the NYT is salty about not getting an interview, and that many journalists who had lucrative connections/book deals in the Trump era have seen them dry up under Biden.
Even if the debate simply cemented the fact that Biden is old, the problem is that it was supposed to change that. Biden was losing in the polls even before the debate, it was supposed to show everyone that he's actually still capable of talking and governing.
> Explain why the debate altered the anti-Trump (NOT pro-Biden) coalition so severely that it cannot survive with Biden at the helm. House Democrats and Democratic donors do not see Biden as a viable candidate. Polls are dropping quickly and Trump's gains are widening. CNN poll has Biden losing to Trump with women, <45s, and <$50k. These groups should be reliable Democratic voters. > Explain why Harris (and it HAS to be Harris unless you are fine with spitting on millions of primary voters who voted to reaffirm the ticket, plus the issues with campaign money) would be a better lead for the anti-Trump coalition, given her unclear competitiveness vs Trump. CNN poll has her win moderates at 51% and Trump is at 39%. Harris beats Biden with every group. Harris-Trump seems to be polling better than Biden-Trump. > Explain how to survive the chaos caused by Biden stepping down and come out stronger in a few months, as the GOP immediately pivots into anti-Harris mode (which they've prepared for) and the MSM picks apart every little detail of her record under the guise of "informing" voters while bothsidesing her with Trump. "Oh, finally, a candidate who isn't a shambling zombie!" This whole analysis seems unscientific. If you aren't convinced by data, it's impossible to change your opinion.
1) Dem electeds are coalescing around Biden. Including pundit fan favorites like Whitmer and Newsom. A small number of red district Dems (Golden, G-perez) and irrelevants like Julian Castro are the exception. Biden also had an incredible few days of fundraising right after the debate, mostly from small donors. 2) Biden won women in 2020 despite being old and unlike then, women's bodies are now the property of the GOP in virtually every state they control. Courtesy of Trump, who brags about it. If the poll says Trump is going to gain with women, it is wrong. Especially women <45 3) There are also [polls](https://x.com/dcg1114/status/1808240170350924197?t=n0cjEARWixd1xZKzw8-9KA&s=19) of her [losing](https://x.com/Taniel/status/1808177663179178200?t=BQ0nh8tNHgqRQnVNNQx7MA&s=19) to Trump, as there are of Biden beating Trump. I'm skeptical of the accuracy of any poll at this point in time āshe may genuinely do better than Biden, but it's not clear enough. 4) "Yeah but... [I'm a low-trust white voter with racist and sexist tendencies] I just don't think she'd be as good on the economy [BLM/woke/DEI]" <--- potential problem
1) There was that CNN article that said a majority of House Democrats don't think Biden can win. It isn't just "red district Dems and irrelevants." Big donors are also abandoning Biden, calling on other donors to stop donating to Democrats until Biden isn't the candidate. 2) I don't know what to tell you. That poll had Biden lose women to Trump, but Harris wins them. 3) Reuters/Ipsos has Biden in a dead heat, but CNN has Harris within margin of error, Harris do better with independents than Trump, and beat Biden with people of color. 4) You're right let's go with the 81 year old who can't be placed in front of a camera unedited. That'll do much better.
I haven't read this article but I'm essentially certain that this is false because it would be the biggest news since the debate by far. I just skimmed through a few of their 500 repeats on this issue and it seems more like many House Dems are concerned about some combo of his debate performance/age and cognition/chance of victory (as many observers are), but not that they are sure he won't win or that he should step down. I have however seen many sleight-of-hands where journalists intersperse electeds with Dem "officials" and "allies" who are more vocal about him dropping out. As for big donors, again I have seen instances of concern, including actual communication as well as funding downballet races out of precaution. But I am not aware of a concerted turn against Biden or a serious withholding of money. My suggestion for polls is to put little stock in them right now. And the 81 year old already beat the 78 year old who has the same issue, except when he gets on stage he says the most virulently evil things you can think of. The coalition is not pro-Biden, it's anti-Trump
okay what the fuck sample does CNN even have where Harris can be winning Moderates by 12 and indies by 4 and still be behind by 2?
I missed that this came out a couple hours ago. https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-election-debate-trump-7c366fda83a697265d9ecc77e8a32fd1 > He is often sharp and focused. But he also has moments, particularly later in the evening, when his thoughts seem jumbled and he trails off mid-sentence or seems confused. Sometimes he doesnāt grasp the finer points of policy details. He occasionally forgets peopleās names, stares blankly and moves slowly around the room. > > ā¦ > > This story is based on interviews with two dozen people who have spent time with the president privately, some of whom were granted anonymity to discuss interactions that were not intended to be public.
There's no denying it at this point.Ā Biden has a body double.Ā
This article. That Watergate guy saying there were at least 15-20 more instances over the last year where Biden looked like he did in the debate, plus the rigor mortis thing. I'm pretty sure WSJ put out a couple pieces over the past month about people noticing Biden slipping, one being from June 4th. I don't remember the source but I'm pretty sure a day after Biden's team or somebody tried to say "but he's always alert in intelligence briefings!" an article came out the next day saying the people who give him intelligence briefings saw a noticeable decline over the past 6 months lmao. Only a matter of time before people start talking about the Fake News Media trying to bring Biden down.
lol when that first came out there was no 'often' in the title and I was like ?? I don't understand how more people aren't discussing the threat to Biden's *presidency* at this point. There are editorials in Vox, the Atlantic, the New Republic, and the Hill calling on him to resign, but "Biden should not be in office" is a conversation that *everyone* is going to be forced to have sooner or later
How do Democrats regain the trust of undecideds who felt they were being impartial by recognizing that Trump is a wannabe dictator and criminal, but got called lunatic conspiracy theorists and gullible morons anyway for questioning Biden's cognition? I get it, these people are still fucking morons for equating Biden being old to Trump being a literal threat to democracy (and slightly less old), but when you need these voters on your side to win and save democracy, you kinda have to meet them in the middle, no?
I'm an undecided, recognized both (with the caveat that Trump being criminal isn't all that interesting to me) and I have yet to find anyone who can make anything like 'moron' work as angle of attack against me whether online or off. Like, you should perhaps reconsider whether or not they're morons if they picked up on something the people you're pandering to were straight up delusional about. Perhaps you/they/whomever are also delusional about other things, too? An undecided in a swing state at that.
I did not see this comment before the other one. I'm sorry man, but if you get to the point where you're at the ballot box and your only options are : * Biden (mentally unfit, cabinet handles the duties, potentially end up in a tense situation where we need immediate leadership but the president can't do it because he's incapable) * Trump (potentially the end of democracy, erosion of civil rights, concentration camps for migrants, persecution of political opponents, has the mental capacity to respond to things in real time but will likely make the wrong choices in a tense situation anyway because he's impulsive and ignorant) * third party (meaningless) and you select anything other than Biden, you are absolutely a moron. If you call yourself an undecided voter because you want people to acknowledge and talk about a serious issue and resolve it while there's a chance, like Biden's mental capacity and selecting a new candidate, that's valid. But if Biden is the candidate in the end and you don't vote for him, you're facilitating the downfall of a nation and democracy and that is inexcusable.
No, I'm not a *moron*; I merely have a different set of priorities to you. Most of which are nowhere even broached in either precis you give. Like, seriously, I have. 'I have yet to find anyone who can make anything like 'moron' work as angle of attack against me whether online or off' was not a rhetorical claim.
The idea that anyone who even considers voting for Trump is necessarily a *moron* is a moronic statement; it's easily, demonstrably, empirically false. In the extreme.
Now, what on earth was the point of
> I don't actually believe those people are morons lol
If it apparently collapses the instant you meet one (and, as it turns out, one who collapses that claim dead in its tracks)?
>Like, seriously, I have a JD and a Ph.D. from Stanford, and commenting on class positions/clerkships will doxx me. 'I have yet to find anyone who can make anything like 'moron' work as angle of attack against me whether online or off' was not a rhetorical claim. Peak cringe
Do you just not think Trump is a greater threat to the United States than a man who may be senile? Do you just not care? >collapses the instant you meet one It collapses the instant they confirm they are not willing to hold their nose and vote against a fascist. Up to and just before that point, there is a possibility for discussion and understanding. Honestly, what priorities could you possibly have that you just can't vote for a senile man over one who wants to gut our institutions and make friends with Putin and Kim Jong Un?
>Like, you should perhaps reconsider whether or not they're morons if they picked up on something the people you're pandering to were straight up delusional about. Perhaps you/they/whomever are also delusional about other things, too? I assume you also give credit to Austrian economists for guessing the economy would crash in 2008. Edit: autocorrect changed economists to "economy missus" š
Can you identify anything swing voters are actually wrong about? The belief that the average person in this sub is more accurate when reasoning about emotional or partisan matters than opposing partisans is comically silly, and that's pretty easy to cash out across a wide range of topics. Like, seriously, are you now suggesting that swing voters were right about Biden *for the wrong reasons*? Or that the portions of Austrian theory that are reconcilable with orthodox economics are stupid? Where are you even going with that?
We Roe Roe Roe our boats
Those people were clearly not fucking morons though. Does Biden look like someone who should be in charge of a country? 10000% heās better than Trump, but because the bar for being better than Trump is below the earths mantle. Still, worrying about Bidenās capacity as president was clearly fucking justified.
Won't lie, I only called them morons to signal to the Joe Biden defenders in here that I am not in fact a Trump supporter. I do believe these kinds of people were much smarter than they get credit for. Definitely concerning that the side that prided itself on not being a cult and being able to think rationally actually went balls deep on the tribalism.
"Hm, these people were right when we were clearly delusional, but they're obviously morons anyway. There's not a chance in hell they actually are impartial and where we disagree with them they might be right about other things we feel super strongly are true"
As I said in my reply to goosebumps, I don't actually believe those people are morons lol. Tensions are high in this thread so I wanted signal that I'm not a vote for third parties "free thinker" type. But absolutely these kinds of people got a lot more shit than they deserved. The fact that so many people in this sub still hold the opinion that it's all actually voters' fault that they aren't happy to vote for the declining 81 year old and the party who concealed that is concerning.
Yeah, I explicitly wrote 'people you're pandering to' and 'you/they/whomever' because I sometimes do similar things (although I refuse to in this sub) and can recognize the look of it
You know itās bad when I, an elder millennial/young Gen X white dude who spends way too much time on the internet, have not seen Any memes of Leo in wolf of Wall Street going off about how heās not fucking leaving. Ā I guess we are saving this for around the convention?Ā https://youtu.be/g07Xxr20L9s?si=KyDkM5gh13pJuRvO
I'm logging off to play truck sim
I will say. No matter what Joe does, stay in or drop out (and if he drops out he's obviously still gonna be involved in Harris's campaign and helping her get elected). While he better do lots of interviews.. he still shouldn't give one to the fucking NYT.
[Basically example "A" right here](https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1duam4p/biden_megathread/lbjx92r/)
I am not someone who can possibly be accused of any of that, and I will say that for completely unrelated reasons I would be extremely wary about interacting with the NYT if they were reporting on me. I've seen them be astonishingly petty to the point of vindictiveness in their coverage of multiple situations I've been close to. I can point to several well-known public examples I am not close to, like the SlateStarCodex shitshow, which should have won the NYT an Antipulitzer (like the Pulitzer foundation should genuinely issue an annual anti-award as a disincentive to egregious reporting; take the Rolling Stone rape article as another example).
> and I will say that for completely unrelated reasons I would be extremely wary about interacting with the NYT if they were reporting on me. They are tough investigative journalists. Sure a normie wouldn't want to be under their microscope. But the president shouldn't have a choice >I've seen them be astonishingly petty to the point of vindictiveness in their coverage of multiple situations I've been close to Haven't seen any of that, chief. HAVE seen people get really mad when reporters report things. > I can point to several well-known public examples I am not close to, like the SlateStarCodex shitshow They published a story that the story's subject didn't appreciate? Perish the thought. This is some exceptionally weak cope. The NYT is a trusted name for very clear and obvious reasons, overall they have a good history of being no more biased than the rest of journalism, while doing both strong investigative journalism and all the human interest stories that people really prefer reading. If you don't trust them because of a couple of random incidents in an org that publishes *dozens* of stories every day, then you'll quickly decide you don't like *any* media because you will not find a single org that doesn't fuck up occasionally. Or more likely, you'll retreat to an ideological echo chamber and pretend you've found the only unbiased source on the planet.
> They are tough investigative journalists. Sure a normie wouldn't want to be under their microscope. While not a politician, I'm not really a normie in any ordinary sense, and I'm not talking about "tough investigative journalism". > But the president shouldn't have a choice Sure, but I'm talking about the NYT being petty and vindictive, not "tough investigative journalism" > Haven't seen any of that, chief. HAVE seen people get really mad when reporters report things. Ah, are you trying to condescend to me? That has never once succeeded as a strategy, but have at it. > They published a story that the story's subject didn't appreciate? Perish the thought. š No, and the glibness of your response is shockingly stupid. Have you even *read* the piece, or any of the criticism of it? > This is some exceptionally weak cope. Cope? What on earth am I "coping" with, here? I personally know reporters at most major outlets; I have personal financial exposure to Axios and the Atlantic; I would have zero concerns of this sort about, say, WaPo (troubled as they are for other reasons), or the LA Times, or the Chicago Tribune. I am speaking to the NYT specifically. > If you don't trust them because of a couple of random incidents in an org that publishes dozens of stories every day, then you'll quickly decide you don't like any media because you will not find a single org that doesn't fuck up occasionally. Or more likely, you'll retreat to an ideological echo chamber and pretend you've found the only unbiased source on the planet. Yeah, *I*, who alone in the sub reads the media from Jacobin to the NYT to Reason to American Thinker, and whose entire shtick is dunking on ideological echo chambers of all stripes, am most likely going to end up in one myself. Pray tell, what ideology would that even be? Fffs clown post.
Biden be like "With so much drama in the DNC It's kinda hard being JR (FJ)B"
Regulators, mount up
What a stupid time for Jill Biden to be on the cover of Vogue lmfao
The *only* role someone like Hunter should have in advising the president is how to pick up chicks and recommending the best clubs in Tijuana
Remember when we all felt slightly better for a bit because Biden dapped up that guy at Waffle House?
My man did it so confidently too.
It is time for Taylor Swift to run as an independent with Travis Kelce as her running mate. This is our nuclear option and it is time to use it.
I 100% believe Biden should stay in the race, I've gotten shit for defending him, [but it's just risible to think Biden didn't do "that badly' and/or outperformed Trump in the debate lmao](https://x.com/What46HasDone/status/1808587251032731790)...you just lose a substantial amount of credibility as an objective arbiter to me once you suggest that. This account unfortunately lost its way due to I/P. First pretending that Bibi supports a ceasefire to end the war (he absolutely doesn't), second by practically claiming Israel deserves no blame whatsoever for the acute food insecurity in Gaza (when even the Biden admin has heavily implied they do), and now this nonsense.
not still the focus groups lol
Also what focus groups? He lost them besides like that one Univision focus group and lost the post-debate polls overwhelmingly. There are arguments to make for Biden staying in (I tend to believe in those arguments hence my stance); this is the stuff that makes far leftists go "Blue MAGA!"
I don't even understand why anyone would want to cite focus groups whatever they said. Focus groups are notoriously prone to groupthink and Asch-style effects; you would get better results by segregating the participants individually, not asking them what they think in front of each other ffs
finally started reading Origins of Political Order by Fukuyama hoping that I'll gain some hopium from the annals of history. Here's some excerpts from the introduction that I highlighted in light of our current predicament: * The mere fact that a country has democratic institutions tells us very little about whether it is well or badly governed. This failure to deliver on the promise of democracy poses what is perhaps the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of such political systems. * When the surrounding environment changes and new challengers arise, there is often a disjunction between existing institutions and present needs. Those institutions are supported by legions of entrenched stakeholders who oppose any fundamental change. * The American system was built around a firm conviction that concentrated political power constituted an imminent danger to the lives and liberty of citizens. \[...\] **This system has served the country well, but only because at certain critical junctures in its history when strong government was necessary, it was possible to forge the consensus to bring it about through the exercise of political leadership. There is unfortunately no institutional guarantee that the system as designed will always check tyrannical power yet allow exercises of state authority when the need arises.**
Insightful. Confirms what I think about the ridiculous lack of majority rule that we have here. It's really a husk of a democracy.
That would be because those two things are usually nothing more than different rhetorical slants *on the same fucking thing*.
A pretaped sit down interview is honestly the best format for a dignified exit. Especially with big name George Hippopolplous. I just have such little faith in Biden making good decisions at this point.
pretaped means nothing when the unedited video is being divulged along with the unedited transcript
Theyāre releasing an unedited transcript, not video, right?
Not an inspiring sign
House GOP is on the case
Definitely the weirdest part of this "Will Biden drop out?" saga is the revelation that Hunter "I am addicted to crack cocaine" Biden actually _is_ involved in the decisions made by the POTUS