I feel like I’m going insane. How is this even happening right now? One of two presidential candidates is so old, that his own party is asking him to not run because he looked like an elderly person that got lost at the grocery store during a live presidential debate. The other is a deranged narcissist that was the previous president, clearly colluding with Russia, has be found guilty of 34 felonies, attempted to overthrow the previous election, and has explicitly stated he will be a dictator.
Biden is only like 18mos older than Trump. They’re essentially equally old. Like a 2% difference in their ages.
Sure, but Trump didn’t sound like he was lost at the grocery store. Most of what Trump said was nonsense he made up on the spot but he said it with confidence. Trump knows his supporters won’t fact check him; Biden is burdened with the truth. It’s not fair but we unfortunately need someone who can spar with Trump on stage. If someone flusters Trump on stage he will spiral out of control.
Out of two old men, I would prefer a bald man with a stutter who’s burdened by truth, than a bald man who’s such a compulsive liar he can’t remember which lie he told which group.
Not saying he didn’t seem more “with it” or energetic or whatever, but he is basically just as old and makes even more gaffes - but people don’t care because he does it almost non-stop.
There are plenty of people talking about Biden as if he’s the crypt keeper and Trump as if he’s a stunning specimen of youth and vitality, which is just silly.
What happened is team Trump caught Biden with the drug test business. Trump got a full syringe of Executive Juice and Biden opted out from personal pride or fear there would be a surprise piss test sprung on him.
(I don’t have insider knowledge but this seems pretty likely based on what we all saw)
Biden is 5 months short of being 4 years older than trump. Almost an entire presidency. I hate trump also but we have to stop saying Biden isn’t THAT old.
Being in the White House drastically ages the president, VP, and senior staff due to the insane amounts of stress and long hours that come with the job.
It’s not easy.
Biden has been in the WH for 12 years.
trump for four, but he’s too fucking stupid to be worried. So the stress never got to him. If he saw something he didn’t like, he ripped up the paper, tried to eat it, then flushed it. And trump would have 100% forgotten about it immediately.
Which is why they can be essentially the same age (18 months is nothing in your 80s) but Biden seems so much worse. Biden is used to thinking about what to say, trump just opens his mouth and rambles like he always has.
But with all that being said:
We need higher standards to get Dem voters onboard. A bad candidate that’s better than trump is still a bad candidate. We don’t need someone who tries to think of what to say but can’t say it, we need someone that can think of a competent response and then communicate that effectively.
but Biden seems so much worse
I don’t get this take. Trump has been shouting incoherent word salad and confabulations for years at this point. Biden seems like a decent man who is too old for the job. Trump is a treasonous piece of shit rapist criminal who is also old and senile, and backed by actual fascists who want to take the US back to the dark ages.
I don’t think voting will be enough, they tried a coup once and now they’re being invited to try again since there were no consequences last time.
The fact that anyone (let alone half the country) would pick a literal traitor who failed in every way possible as president over a guy that had a bad interview while sick, with a B+ resume is ridiculous. Just a week ago the right was accusing him of doing drugs because of how well his State of the Union went. We avoided a recession and we’re recouping from the pandemic better than any other country.
Hell, just look at the debate itself. Biden memorized 90 minutes (or 45 minutes) worth of facts and used them to back up every claim he had while Trump literally lied the entire time and took credit for everything Biden (or Obama) did.
Between all that and literally being the only thing that kept the Republicans from throwing the US into default with clever negotiations (seriously, the dude fucking manipulated McCarthy so bad he lost his job), the only thing crazy is that people pay so little attention to politics over the last 8 years that all they know is that he sounded weak during a debate.
That’s exactly what I will expect him to say, right up until he leaves.
It is extremely disappointing that he didn’t take this opportunity to gracefully step back. People who watched the debate saw his performance and him trying to say “Nah bro, I got this” is really stupid.
This is bigger than me, so I’ll step aside to beat Trump.
Would pretty much guarantee whoever filled his spot became president.
But moderates demand 100% loyalty. Even if Biden thinks they’re right eventually, he’s not going to change his mind for “the left”. Even when it’s other moderates. He’s been turning on a lot of allies immediately after they even questioned if he should stay in, and claiming CNN and the NY times all sorts of shit despite them backing him all the way up till now.
Biden has never been good at accepting criticism or dealing with confrontation. It’s what torpedoed his first primary back in 88. If someone isn’t with him, Biden considers them against him.
He’s a lot like trump in that regard, loyalty is a one way street.
Would pretty much guarantee whoever filled his spot became president.
100%. Biden is and has been the worst possible candidate.
I don’t think this is really a moderates thing, I think this is a Biden ego thing and the Democrats being paralyzed by their deference to established leaders even when they’re clearly in the wrong. The only Democrat on record saying he should step down is some nobody. And there’s a whole lot of moderates damning him with faint praise of “that’s something Joe Biden will have to decide” rather than “no, of course he should stay in”.
I don’t expect Biden to be replaced by someone not thoroughly bland and plotting a triangulating path through the electorate. Hell, it’s entirely possible Biden’s fits and starts of throwing the left a bone occasionally will be “the good times” for progressives. But what I do know is the Joe is almost certain to lose and we need someone who can win. Sub in Kamala or Buttigieg or (ugh) Newsome, it’ll still let me breath a sigh of relief.
There is literally nothing that guarantees a replacement candidate becomes president. Wishful thinking at best.
I don’t know why people are looking at both of their performances at a debate when people can look at their performances as presidents.
It’s honestly infuriating how everyone is struck on that like it means anything. All presidential debates gave always been awful. This is no exception and this time we have an alternative POV.
I think Biden would make a pretty passable president because he’d be surrounded by a competent cabinet… but my opinion doesn’t determine the president (otherwise, we’d be on like year 16 of a Sanders administration).
His debate performance was weak enough that I’m concerned Biden won’t beat Trump. Trump absolutely cannot win this election or any future one, he must be kept out of office. My concern isn’t about Biden’s performance once in office, it’s about Biden’s ability to gain the office.
Honestly, I’m not going to give Biden a 10/10, but his last administration was pretty solid, like 7/10 level. He reacted extremely poorly to Gaza and has been underwhelming on labor but he’s gotten a lot of good shit done.
You can be a good president by hiding in your office and approving good policy made by your excellent team, but you can’t become president by doing those things, especially when you’re down. The nominee needs to be able to be coherent in public a lot, doubly so after having what appears to be a very public senior moment. People who have been around old people know that a few good days doesn’t mean their loved one is better, it just means they were good days.
If the president of the US is going to step down from an incumbency race, I’ma bet that’s an Oval Office or White House press briefing room announcement - with the full White House press pool invited. That needs as much attention as possible so the maximum amount of people know what’s up on the Nov ballot.
And who is going to take his place? There’s no Dem who could pull enough moderates at this point in the race to win. Biden never wanted to run to begin with, but was pressed into it because was the only possible candidate with enough appeal to beat trump (except Bernie, but Dem leadership messed that one up).
The only reason his debate performance matters is because all the never Trumpers who spend too much time doom scrolling are forcing it into the news cycle.
If Biden bows out now, Trump wins.
Whitehouse is my personal pick, but both Buttigeig and Whitmer seem like likely establishment picks - both have been pushing a lot of media presence lately.
Biden definitely is thinking about Johnsons disastrous late departure from the race in 1968 leading to brawls on the convention floor and competing slates of delegates that ultimately led to Humphrey getting nominated. His loss was blamed on the chaos at the convention.
if he leaves at all it wouldn’t be right before the convention.
This can’t go all the way to the convention, because they made the convention so late. They actually have to make the formal nomination before the convention, in time to meet Ohio’s deadline.
The only path forward is for Harris to take over the nomination. This is far easier if Biden resigns totally. He can say he’s doing it for medical reasons, even if all he has is a chronic case of notgonnawinatall, complicated by inflammation of the opeds.
I was thinking about Ohio too. Plus the lawsuits the Heritage Foundation is already loading to keep Biden on the ballot.
But if he resigns, it would likely make things easier.
I’m still not convinced he is going to do that though.
Yup. You need to project complete confidence until the moment you drop out, once you say “This is a hugely important decision, the hardest one I’ve ever had to make, so I’m taking my time” Boom you have lost control and it’s over.
However it appears the writing is on the wall at this point. The next question is, once he decides to no longer run should he resign? If he isn’t up for the job of running how does he instill confidence that he can remain president? Plus it hands the nomination to Kamala no question.
I suspect it’s probably too late for the Democrats to switch horses now, but I hope that this finally pile-drives some smidgen of a lesson into them that they need to actually try to win elections rather than just assume that since they’re not crazy or evil like the Republican candidates people will naturally prefer them. They need to pick candidates that the people like and put in the effort to run those candidates well.
There’s still five months until the election, there’s plenty that Biden can do between now and then to show people that he’s a good choice. And then maybe this time once it’s all over the Democratic Party can do a major rethink of what exactly they’re doing with all this. Like they should have the last time they ran a candidate against Trump that they thought simply “deserved” to win.
I’m starting to think the best move might not be to replace Biden, but to swap out Kamala… Kamala has lower approval than Biden and missed her chance to make an impact during this term. If Biden had a strong VP, the question of his health wouldn’t be as big.
Especially since whoever’s VP in Biden’s next term would have a big leg up on running for president in 2028.
Democrats don’t need to learn anything. You’re forced to vote for them because of First Past The Post voting.
Or alternately you vote for Trump, either directly or by wasting votes on third-party candidates because the Democrats were insufficiently compelling.
Yes, I know it’s idiotic. But a lot of the American electorate are idiots, or more charitably are not familiar with the game theory behind all this stuff. The Democrats do need to learn how to get the support of those people.
If we used a voting system like Ranked Choice voting, it wouldn’t matter! Biden could run all he wants and we could vote for someone else and if they didn’t win… our vote would get transferred to the next in line (in this example biden).
The sheer audacity and hubris of this admin is negligent and infuriating.
“Democracy is under threat, but not enough for us to listen to any feedback about stopping genocide, forgiving student loans, or running a candidate who isn’t terrifyingly out of it. None of your feedback matters to us.”
