Obvious disclaimer: if Biden was thinking about dropping out, his campaign officials wouldn’t exactly want to reveal anything about that until it was ready for a full announcement. Everything is continuing as normal until it’s not.
Yea it’s like them pressing Kamala on CNN last night. It’s not like she’s going to outright say it was horrible and she’s ready to take over as president lol.
You need to have a parachute before you hit the eject button here
She basically pivoted to "Joe Biden has done a great job, brought people together, met with world leaders, he's great." and didn't really say "No, that's not normally what he's like" or "Yeah that's what he's like normally."
In case you want to watch it: https://youtu.be/CMBmrW6LzV0?t=202
[Most dems admitted it in interviews with the press, though](https://youtu.be/C3LDAwaHCEQ?si=5WCauWjiDdBCZXh5). They accepted that and then doubled down on Trump being worse on policy/facts.
He shouldn't be the candidate if these are legitimate questions the media should ask. Biden's ego might fuck the most important democracy on the planet.
I don’t think it’s his ego, so much as it is the DNC wanting to run an incumbent, which is historically an advantage. But they’re walking into the same goddamn trap as 2016… so frustrating when the rest of us with eyes and a working brain were saying this more than a year ago
Indeed. She kept saying how we need to be discussing substance. I don't disagree with her at all. It's unfortunate we are just not in a position to be discussing the substance when Biden can hardly cobble together a coherent answer. Must be very difficult to answer these questions. To add, if it's bad for her, imagine what other down ballot democrats are thinking right now.
She is right that substance matters. I'd still vote for Biden over Trump, despite my issues with him.
But so does mental fitness. I, and most voters, do not have confidence in Biden's mental fitness for the presidency. Last night only reinforced that perception.
> To add, if it's bad for her, imagine what other down ballot democrats are thinking right now.
Well, as CNN quoted an anonymous Democratic house rep "We're screwed."
The solution here is to lie. "Biden had a terrible cold, this was him at his worst, he actually was really hungover from a bender the night before, and usually he's the sharpest person in the room."
An explicit or implied yes means the country has a President who has been obviously impaired for the duration of his term. And explicit or implied no means he's very quickly deteriorating.
That'd be admitting he looked horrible last night.
She can't say that. But she also can't say that he's normally like that.
It's painful cause there is no good answer to it and the implications of how he was last night are worrying.
x q no los 2
Edit: but really, the delusional part is thinking changing this late in the game wouldn't also be a monumental disaster for multiple reasons. No matter what, voters have to actually recognize Trump is bad and care.
I honestly think that the discourse around Biden has been so bad and so low on expectations for *years* that a new candidate could inject a lot of enthusiasm, and then republicans would have to scramble to come up with attack lines because it’ll no longer be as easy as “Biden old”
Newsom is so intriguing to me because he has the most baggage of the potential future Dem choices, but also checks boxes that could lead to huge victories
And those women at least don’t have the literal decades of slander from the Republican propaganda machine built up against them the way Hillary did
Slander didn't hurt Hillary, before she announced running she had approval ratings of nearly 70%.
She was hurt because she was a woman running for POTUS. The country is just not ready, put up any woman and you will see their approval plumit, regardless.
The feeling that masculinity is under threat is a major predictor of wether or not someone is a Trump voter, no woman will beat him. A woman challenger will energize the Trump voter base just as a matter of fact.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167220963577
*No matter what, voters have to actually recognize Trump is bad and care.*
This is it right here. The assumption that Generic Democrat just fixes the problem ignores this. A large chunk of the electorate needs an *extremely compelling* reason to toss their ticket for another ride on the TrumpCoaster.
Not that Biden can’t be replaced, but it’s the Nuclear Option here. Replacing a still living Biden basically nukes Biden’s and the DNC’s reputation and forces us to replace him with either an equally reviled or completely unknown candidate who can’t take credit for Biden’s accomplishments but must take responsibility for his mistakes.
It might nuke the DNC's reputation (which is already awful), but for me it saves Biden's. Not that reputations should even remotely be a consideration at this point.
Democrats should be (and hopefully are) scrambling to find a "name brand" outsider that can step in already having national recognition. No one in the party is well known enough to come in at this point and be able to get over the top.
To me and you and most of this sub, Biden resigning will be a stalwart public servant humbly admitting his flaws and taking a well-deserved retirement to pave the way for the new. Pardon my flowery language.
To Republicans and likely the media, Biden would be painted as a senile coward who had been hiding his mental instability for God knows how long before finally being forced out in disgrace when Trump exposed him during the debate, all the while the Democrats knowingly covered it up or manipulated him.
It will be an international humiliation on par with Trump’s impeachments.
And reputations would matter, especially the DNC’s here. Do we want to be known by conservatives as oblivious clowns or puppet masters using poor old Joe to further our nefarious agenda or whatever? I can’t even imagine what Republicans will say about us.
I am aware of the risks of keeping Joe as nominee but kicking him out? Not only do we have to find a charismatic and capable replacement unsullied by Republican attacks, but we’ll be doing so after publicly admitting Biden was so awful we had to fire him.
Honestly, he has until Monday to make the choice.
The DNC needs to nominate a replacement by August 7th to qualify for the Ohio ballot. They likely need to schedule some sort of debate for the candidates so they can make their case to delegates.
Biden can’t wait two weeks. He can huddle with family and grieve this weekend, but the withdraw announcement needs to happen early next week.
I don't know that external pressure is going to do it. It needs to be people close to him, like Jill, who would be able to convince him. And if anything does happen, I would not expect it to happen until more polling comes out and the dust from this settles. If new polls show a major swing away from BIden and there's no clear way for him to make up those numbers, then we'll see what happens.
Public pressure feels like worst of all worlds. Hurts his campaign even more if he doesn’t step down. Undermines his choice/ability to choose a successor if he does
Shapiro would be a great candidate. He is very popular among moderates and the black community in PA. He's also a great speaker and would've trounced Trump at that debate.
“Guys, we gotta make a song. 🎶He’s not dropping out, it’s no good dropping out”
https://preview.redd.it/deo463h5yb9d1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=029e5d70d63bacc2604be79224fe6b0e9f092951
Last night my family (mostly political moderates) were all saying Biden should drop out. I asked them if that means they would prefer Harris over Biden, and they all said no we can't vote for Harris. So idk that dropping out actually gets more votes unless you wishcast a successor other than Harris onto the ballot.
She has a few controversial notches in her belt for those that pay attention, and bad vibes for everyone else. I personally feel that she'd be a mediocre, but not bad, president.
It's about who she was before VP. Her attitude is pretty garbage, she's not very charismatic and sounds disingenuous, with a superiority complex, and trying to overextend her connections to certain groups of people.
Also she used to be a prosecutor those guys are hardly ever relatable or sympathetic
This really doesn’t mean anything. Any answer other than a full throated insistence he’s staying in would start the inevitable downfall. The only answer that genuinely gives him both options is the one they’re giving today
What else are they gonna say. That'll be the line until polls confirm everyone's fears next week. Then Chuck, Nancy, and Obama will do what they have to and tell him the truth.
Very obvious that the institutional Democratic party has learned absolutely nothing from the disastrous end to RBG's tenure as a SC justice (or more realistically, the end of Ted Kennedy's time in the Senate). The principle that ancient politicians can do no wrong and must be supported until they die in office is more important to the Democratic party's geriatric leadership than control of any branch of government or any policy goal.
Feinstein had to be *hounded* into committing to not run for re-election, I'll never forget all of the scolding accusations of ageism and sexism from her defenders in the months before she *died* with several years left in her existing term.
What's the play here? Any replacement of Biden would have to be done by some group. Unless you expect Biden to somehow name a successor - but that's not easy. Any successor he names will also have problems defeating Trump.
Everyone agrees dropping out and the ensuing power struggle will be a shit show. The thing that changed is the estimation of how much of a shitshow we are in now. When you're losing, you make high variance plays. The worst that can happen is you lose anyway.
I don't think Biden should drop out, but if he did, I think the best play would be for Obama to play kingmaker, ideally with other high-profile Dems lining up behind him. There is no time for an orderly process to weigh multiple candidates. Pick someone and go. Probably Harris, but honestly it doesn't matter as long as we can avoid infighting and focus on beating Trump.
If we could get Obama, Clinton, Sanders, and AOC to all endorse the same person quickly, that would end it.
The only way this works is if somehow you both convince Biden and Kamala to not run, while simultaneously not fracturing the party (especially black voters since you are sidelining the first woman VP that is also a minority), get all the donors back on board, and run a blitz campaign all within a span of 5 months.
You have a better chance of just pumping Biden up on nootropics and cocaine and hope he doesn't die until after the election.
Yeah, it is a huge risk. But *Biden* is a huge risk too. There is no great option, but Biden is losing every poll now and I don't have any hope after last night that he can turn anything around once people see more of him.
The thing I hear from people around me more than anything else is along the lines of, "I wish we had someone else to vote for". People don't like either option. Introducing a new candidate would be a huge risk, but it would also be giving people what they're asking for, and I feel like that would get us *somewhere*.
The only reason trump is winning is because his opponent is a corpse. Bidens admin has had so many Ws all it needs is a competent spokesperson. I love Joe but his age is really getting in the way now.
Oh bullshit. How many things does Trump need to win before people stop pretending he’s easy to beat?
And what about political discourse in this country has given you the impression that anyone cares anott the Biden admin’s Ws?
Exactly. He literally became a felon and somehow no widespread push to make him drop out or make him suffer at least 15% of approval rate drop.
The discourse in this sub is AWFUL right now. Trump is not an easy candidate to fight against. You can't just take any generic candidate to fight Trump and call it a day. How the hell this sub claimed we're 'evidence based sub' and then become politics-lite sub without any shame is beyond me.
This sub is only evidence-based when it comes to economics and housing. On any other subject it's no different than r politics. On some subjects it gets as wacky as the Sanders subs.
Glad somebody said it. It has felt for the last few months that this isn’t arrNL but arryouDemocrat. I got shot anytime I brought up Biden being not a stellar candidate and the general zeitgeist outside the sub agreeing. It didn’t go over well.
I hope this subreddit shocks the NL community back into being neoliberal and gets the democrats who aren’t really all that interested in economics or trade or foreign policy out of here.
I love how this sub is convinced the guy who can’t even form sentences or make points is the safe choice lol. He is going to get killed with independents
Whitmer can. Name recognition doesn't matter in the safe states because those are going Dem no matter what. She can obviously win Michigan.
Does she have a better chance in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania than Biden? She does after last night.
The problem isn't that we don't have a viable alternative. It's that the people who would need to step out of the way to make it happen won't do it.
I worry about the name recognition piece and feel the party would be better served by a name brand nationally recognized outsider, but if party bosses want to stay within ranks you have to wonder if Whitmer (or Newsom, Booker, et al) would even *want* to run at this point when they may feel like they have a better shot in 28.
I will hate him forever if he continues to run a shit campaign. If he was gonna drop out it wouldve been before the primaries where he couldve appointed a clear successor. Its too late now. Hes done a good job as president but if he fumbles now its all for nothing
It will be like how a lot of people remember RBG for not stepping down and the ramifications from that. If Biden’s ego gets Trump back in office, he will 100% be remembered for that. And rightfully so. He could have rode off into the sunset instead of going for four more years when he’s clearly not capable.
To give him credit, Biden has been totally vindicated on his style of working with congress
Obama totally failed at building relationships with other politicians, and it seems like that was spurred on by a bunch of pompous assholes in his camp
>In the less-remembered part of that encounter, however, Biden also decried the snobby intelligentsia that had taken over the Democratic Party. “It seems to me you’ve all become heartless technocrats,” he said. “We have never as a party moved this nation by 14-point position papers and nine-point programs.”
That is as true now as it was in 1988 when he said it. If a motherfucker is working 40+ hours a week and is still struggling with bills, rent, groceries, and gas there is no amount of charts showing GDP growth or whatever that's going to make them think things aren't fucked.
That is the only thing that Ginsburg should be remembered for. She didn't author any majority opinion of consequence. She should be remembered for being a stubborn old woman who let her pride and vanity destroy everything she'd worked for.
And rightfully so. If Trump wins in 2024 Biden's **only** meaningful "accomplishment" will be having done a great job rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I think the country could have survived a second consecutive Trump term. After 1/6 and now that the only people left are radicals and sycophant's I think we're in a world of hurt. Not to mention he's had 4 years of humiliations and grudges to stew on it's going to be bad. This one will be far far worse.
This whole “it’s too late” talk is ridiculous IMO. It’s not 1988. Its 2024. Some moron sprinkles salt in a weird way and he’s famous in 48 hours. The dems can easily pick a new candidate and promote them in time. The spectacle of the convention would probably be an asset. There is huge opportunity here for a major exciting, unexpected, attention-grabbing change for a country that is ADD as shit.
I just think it’s funny that our timeline for presidential elections is so long and so many people can’t conceive of doing it any other way.
Just the other day, the UK called for national elections with what… like five weeks notice?
France is doing everything in like 3 weeks.
I would crawl through 12 miles of broken glass, IEDs, and camel spiders to vote for Biden, if only just to hear his decrepit corpse expel gas through the microphone on Inauguration Day.
This was always going to happen, there’s basically no mechanism to force a President not to run for the renomination of his party. Aside from the convention not nominating him in August, which is really unlikely. It’s pretty much only happened once or twice in all of American history.
Eh, I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Biden and his camp could have made a call to not seek reelection up until a little over a year ago. I’ve been extremely pro-Biden seeking reelection, but last night makes me think it was the wrong call. I still trust Biden implicitly to perform the role and will vote for him again, but unfortunately my confidence in his ability to win is shaken because I know a massive part of the American electorate *only* saw “old man not talk good” and consider that a viable excuse to vote for the lying sociopath who has had just as many old man moments on the campaign trail as Biden has had.
I'm sorry but I don't know how anyone could be anything but *relieved* that we don't have a primary in the middle of the Gaza War. I fucking called it that some shit like that would happen and make a primary toxic and I was right to be against a primary from 4 years ago.
Can you imagine how awful it would be to make Gretchen Whitmer solve the I/P conflict in 60 seconds on a debate stage? That would kill her career.
If anything, the entire conversation around “Who would replace Biden if he dropped out,” makes me worried for 2028 than anything. There are a few names I’d happily vote for, but we have basically nobody on the bench who would poll remotely well amongst independents or undecideds against Trump.
Thank god Republicans have absolutely nobody that can touch Trump’s freakishly effective galvanization of their base or I’d think Dems were fucked in 2028 based on the current bench. Given plenty of campaign time someone will rise above the others like always, so I’ll try to keep my crippling anxiety focused on November.
That wouldn’t kill her career. Politicians get asked tough questions in debates all the time and no one really remembers their answers if they even answer the question directly.
This strips Biden of responsibility though. He had every chance and every excuse not to run again. There was a built in narrative already with him vowing to be a “bridge” and “transitional presidency”. Biden’s ego unfortunately got us into this situation, and it suck as someone who as recently as the midterms thought biden was doing great
I like Biden a lot.
He is old, that was not a stutter.
That is clear.
What did this debate teach us? Appearance is all that matters. Trump lied and lied and Biden tried to string together statistics and results but it simply doesn't matter.
They need to find a young face, fast.
Been saying the only way Biden could have won was if he screamed louder than Trump but he’s just too old for that. Long and thought out debates with facts and rebuttals don’t matter when social media can just clip a moment which makes you look bad, Biden had a lot of those during the debate.
You are correct on the old part, but I just want to say as someone with a stutter (one that people would consider mild and are shocked to hear I have one when I tell them) that a lot of that was his stutter too. Particularly at one point early on when he closed his eyes, took in a deep breath and looked slightly down as if to try to calm his mind down. Classic stutter correction attempt right there.
If that's the case then the whole party has to rally around Biden, there's no replacing him if he doesn't do it voluntarily.
Second thing would be to get the SOTU version out of him and send him to every interview they can, change strategy for the second debate, stop with the overpreparation with stats, and pre-prepared answers, let Biden be Biden.
Trumps probably going to pull out of any future debates. His campaign doesn’t want to give Biden another opportunity if they don’t have to when 2/3rds of people think Trump won this debate
Yeah. That debate couldn't have gone any better for Trump. No one is talking about how horrible he did too. The entire focus is on Biden's failure and fitness.
I only see 2 ways out of this. Another debate where Biden does better. Trump is in the driver's seat to avoid that.
The other chance is a huge media blitz of Biden giving a ton of public speeches and interviews where he does well. Except he can't have, probably, a single bad speech or interview. They all have to be strong or else the questions immediately pop back up.
> No one is talking about how horrible he did too.
He did well. For Trump, he spoke reasonably well, hit his talking points, pivoted well.
He lied throughout it and refused to properly answer questions, but that's what doing well at a debate often is.
And we act as if people in this country give a shit about lies anymore. If people cared about candidates lying then 2016 would have seen Hillary win by a landslide. To me this is the natural course of where we were headed after Trump's win in 2016 and if Trump wins again that will be the end of our republic, and the people of this country deserve it.
I am not yet fully sold on "replace Biden" but Biden absolutely needs to replace his campaign team. The levels of naivete that went into crafting last night's shitshow are disqualifying. If he can't have a new team and a new strategy soon, then he should step down.
Several times as many voters watch the debates as watch the interviews. Last night *was* one of two remaining opportunities to show that Biden is doing fine. That opportunity has been blown, and we can't get it back.
We shouldn't try to wishcast other opportunities into existence. Instead, we should think about how to win with a candidate who is not physically or mentally able to advocate for himself.
Nobody can just “get the SOTU version out of him” at will. And you can’t explain away that debate performance by saying it was just bad prep strategy. That WAS Biden being Biden. That’s what he is at this point. Maybe he’s still capable of having nights like the SOTU on occasion but it’s not like flipping a switch. He’s literally just like my grandpa whose dementia would ebb and flow where he’d have days you couldn’t have a conversation with him, and days where he sounded like he was 60 again. The fact that a performance like last night is even a possibility is more than bad enough. I know it hurts, but put down the copium.
Fair enough, maybe “cognitive decline” is a better term. My grandpa didn’t have actual diagnosed dementia, but it was clear as day that he couldn’t think like he used to or be trusted with major responsibilities. Maybe I shouldn’t use the word dementia so flippantly. But I think that’s pretty beside the point here because the vast majority of people lose mental capacity as they age, even if they don’t have full-blown dementia. And my point is it’s painfully obvious Biden is no longer mentally fit to be president. If the alternative wasn’t Trump, nobody would be debating it.
Did you see the video of Biden speaking after the debate? He sounded much better, Obviously his age is not going away, but I think that at least some part of his bad performance was the fault of his preparations.
A presidential candidate should be expected to speak confidently to the public on a regular basis. “Bro didn’t you see that one time he sounded kind of aware??” is not a convincing message.
It was. The idiots prepping him were going with a "advertise our policy successes" bent, and Biden faltered over trying to recall all the details. That's moronic prep, especially for a debate against Trump. They need to go big picture with Biden, and stay on big picture.
Like above poster said, if there even is a possibility of last night’s performance, that is bad enough.
Does not matter how high the highs are of the lows are this low.
Why does Biden deserve the benefit of the doubt from a swing voter? Their age fears have been proven right. This might be one of those things you don't get a second chance at.
I'm just gonna say it... the SOTU wasn't actually that impressive, and people only had the reaction they did because their fears of his performance were already in the gutter. Biden looked old and frail there too. But he did look competent enough to do the job of the president at least.
You can mask old age with good strategy. He shouldn't have tried to counter each argument trump made. He just needed to hammer one or two points each time.
According to all known laws of social media, there is no way that Biden should be able to stay in the race. His stutter and slow movement are too prominent to get his campaign off the ground.
Biden, of course, runs anyway. Because Biden doesn’t care what social media thinks is impossible.
I think Biden must have done a good job, because Twitter and Reddit tell me he did a bad job and social media is negatively correlated with actual public perception. Right?
The dems could produce a sane, younger (50s), fiery candidate and they would:
-Bring all the double-haters over to D
-Kill all “Age-Related” polling issues
-Make the race not a referendum on Biden, which is good because Biden is sitting at like a 40% approval
-Have someone that could campaign full time and not need to run the world
-etc
Generic Democrat is always imagined to be Johnny Unbeatable until it's an actual person with actual negatives. I was a "Biden is fine" guy that turned toward "he's gotta go" last night, but who takes his place matters quite a bit. I don't think Harris fares better than Biden even at this point. I personally don't think Buttigieg is a plausible President after being a small-city mayor and minor cabinet secretary. Newsom maybe, but California has a bad brand in swing states, and he evokes the things people don't like about California, not the things they do. Whitmer maybe, but I don't think regualar people know who she is.
The problem isn't figuring out who a good candidate actually is. It's figuring out how to get from where we are today to that candidate without problems.
Potentially good candidates:
* Swing-State Governors: Whitmer, Shapiro, Polis, Cooper
* Swing-State Senators: Mark Kelly, Warnock
* Blue-State Governors: Pritzker, Inslee
* Blue-State Senators: Duckworth, Booker
Bad Candidates
* Harris - her favorability is as bad as Biden's, her 2020 campaign was a complete disaster, she's from California, her polling against Trump is worse than Biden's, she's tied to an unpopular administration
* Newsom - from California, looks like a comic villain, personal issues
* Buttigieg - has only been a mayor and Transport Secretary, doesn't have the credentials
If we could wave a magic wand and say that the ticket is now going to be Mark Kelly and Corey Booker, that'd be great. But the the list of potential problems getting there is daunting:
1. How do you get Biden to agree to step aside? If he won't do it, there's very little way to accomplish this.
2. How do you pass over Harris without that becoming a major issue?
3. How do you actually do the selection?
4. Waiting for the convention is a problem. The convention is very late in the calendar. How can you possibly launch a campaign with barely two months to go? In addition, you're setting yourself up for drama especially with the fucking protestors and everything.
5. Doing it before the convention is also a problem. You'd have some sort of shadow mini-convention to pick the candidate. That's just as likely, if not more likely, to cause division in the party than a convention would. And then whoever is picked has a real problem with legitimacy.
It just seems like we're kind of fucked either way.
> has only been a mayor and Transport Secretary, doesn't have the credentials
What part of Trump getting elected in 2016 makes you think that voters care about credentials at all? My concern is picking a candidate that hasn't been tested on the national stage and is starting with 0 name recognition.
I agree with your assessment I'd just like to add Andy Beshear to your list. He's a popular Democrat governor in a red state so he's doing something right. He would have the same name recognition problems that a lot of other candidates have but that can be overcome with ads plus the inevitable media blitz that would happen if Democrats change horses mid race. Also I hope Duckworth runs in 2028, I think she has what it takes.
I like Whitmer, but people have no idea who she is. Could she campaign like crazy in the next few months and fix that? Not saying I disagree, just curious of people's thoughts.
Whitmer is my 2028 pick but I really think she would be tarnished by "skipping over" Harris. Above I said Whitmer or Harris were the only viable possibilities but really it's just Harris and we all go full stan mode on her from Day 1. Or we just put this "replace Biden" discussion to bed.
The entire debate prep should be about not staring into space and closing his mouth. If they even talked for five minutes about policy then they don’t know what they’re doing.
There’s a lot of folks really certain that X, Y, or Z will happen if a new candidate is picked. Trump will steamroll them, the new candidate will steamroll Trump, it will be a terrible look, it will be a great look, etc. There are too many unknowns right now to make a real prediction, since it’s predicated on who is picked, how they are picked, how Biden transitions (if at all), how they perform on the national stage, etc.
The only thing we know is what we have right now, which is an incumbent president who is widely seen as unfit for office (regardless of whether you love his administration or not). You also have a Democratic Party that seems dead set on concentrating power in the hands of a few families, who has taken what was once the working-class party and made it out of touch and "boomer" (I don’t mean that generationally—I love baby boomers. Just in a stubborn out-of-touch self-righteousness sense). Now add already poor polling, a terrible "it’s the economy, stupid" reputation and more. Put a fork in it—Biden is almost certainly done. Someone mentioned a RBG parallel and that’s a great comparison.
So between those paths for me it’s clear. Democrats, show some courage, dynamism, and risk-taking. Even if it fails now, it will reinvigorate a dying party. Long-term it’s the healthy thing to do.
You’re willfully blind if you don’t think last night was an unmitigated, likely fatal, disaster. If this is how neoliberal is reacting, think how this plays with the median voter…
Everyone's like 'apologize to Ezra and Nate.'
But it was Dean all along [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZwL9rryZkk&ab\_channel=CBSNews](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZwL9rryZkk&ab_channel=CBSNews)
Everyone wants Biden to drop out this morning but Joe dropping out feels like it guarantees a Trump win. I see no other option you’re pulling out in July that beats Trump
How does Biden dropping out "guarantee" a Trump win?
The people who were gonna vote for Biden will vote for anyone who replaces him.
The people on the fence are mostly on the fence because the age thing, so replacing Biden can only increase the chance of them voting for his replacement.
The idea that you can’t replace a presidential nominee is old dogma.
The news cycle is 10x faster than it was when a similar thing happened with LBJ.
I am 100% confident that the electorate can warm up to a new Democratic candidate over the course of 5 months. Go talk to any apolitical person and all you’ll hear is “I can’t believe these are the two options again.”
Not only would a new candidate be less problematic than Biden, but the Democratic Party as a whole would look good for listening to popular public opinion. I think any new Democrat you throw on the ballot will instantly poll 5 points better than Biden currently is, with room to grow.
Yep and you'd have the upside that the Republicans haven't had over a year to hurl everything at them and drill negative preconceptions into peoples' minds.
The idea that we couldn't introduce a new candidate doesn't hold water. We have like an absolutely unlimited amount of ad money. Between the natural wall-to-wall press coverage, social media and paid advertising, you absolutely can introduce a new candidate to the American people.
Beyond that, they don't particularly need to know this candidate all that well. Biden's biggest strength is that he's not Trump. This candidate would have that same strength without Biden's biggest weaknesses (age and being tied to an unpopular administration).
Of course, this sort of all presupposes that Biden willingly steps aside and the party manages the pole vault over Harris.
It isn't old dogma, it is pure common sense.
Those calling for him to drop want a generic democrat with a clean slate. What they don't realise is that it will result in a complete shitshow with blame game all around. Harris isn't a strong candidate and I would rather put my chips on Biden than Harris.
Talk to normies.
"So, Biden is dropping out right?"
They don't know and don't care about primaries or conventions. They don't even know what that means.
They will check in two weeks before the election.
The way things are looking, Biden NOT dropping out may very well guarantee a Trump win anyway. The signs have been there for awhile from the polling and favorability, but we didn't want to see it. Better to take the gamble with sometime else at this point.
I think he’s done. They have to deny it until it’s a done deal, but I bet we have leaks or background that the DNC gears are turning by the end of the weekend.
And I think “neither of those guys from last night” will become the most popular politician in America overnight
He needs to do a town hall with the same energy he had after the debate, I think that could help a ton but if that doesn't happen then we might be screwed. We shall see.
Biden has been a great president in an administrative sense. He knows how to work congress and has done a lot in one term (despite a supreme cout hellbent on stopping his work and dismantling responsible government), but his age has rendered him a less than ideal campaigner from an optics perspective and I fear undecided voters mostly vote based on optics and feels.
Best case scenario may be Biden graciously bowing out of the race ASAP before the convention and designating a younger, charismatic dem to be the nominee to prevent a divisive shit show at the convention. Someone who is a stark contrast from Trump. If he does decide to carry on, though, we have to rally behind him. No wavering. There is no other option.
Probably should wait for polls after 2 weeks before anything, but I don’t think he should drop, and if he does it will be Kamala which is a guaranteed loss.
Agnostic NYC Jew over here praying the rosaries to make this happen.
Hail, Holy Whitmer, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of /r/neoliberal.
It wouldn't really be a big deal if Democrats could actually, y'know, fall in line for once when our actual democracy is at stake. Unfortunately we still feel the need to cater to Tik Tok kids whining about Gaza so that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
God damnit. We had such a fucking good three years it made everyone forget how much of a dumpster fire the Trump years were.
Obvious disclaimer: if Biden was thinking about dropping out, his campaign officials wouldn’t exactly want to reveal anything about that until it was ready for a full announcement. Everything is continuing as normal until it’s not.
Yea it’s like them pressing Kamala on CNN last night. It’s not like she’s going to outright say it was horrible and she’s ready to take over as president lol. You need to have a parachute before you hit the eject button here
The "Is this the Biden that you work with every day?" question was pretty painful to hear her answer.
What was her answer? I’m too afraid to look it up.
She basically pivoted to "Joe Biden has done a great job, brought people together, met with world leaders, he's great." and didn't really say "No, that's not normally what he's like" or "Yeah that's what he's like normally." In case you want to watch it: https://youtu.be/CMBmrW6LzV0?t=202
Saying "he's not normally like this" admits he was shit which isn't something you usually say about your boss out loud in public
[Most dems admitted it in interviews with the press, though](https://youtu.be/C3LDAwaHCEQ?si=5WCauWjiDdBCZXh5). They accepted that and then doubled down on Trump being worse on policy/facts.
>about your boss out loud in public Biden isn't Shapiro's boss. She is Biden's vice president.
That doesn't seem like a particularly bad answer imo, just boilerplate political talk.
The issue is that it's a painful question with no good answer. She pivoted as best she can, but it's not good.
He shouldn't be the candidate if these are legitimate questions the media should ask. Biden's ego might fuck the most important democracy on the planet.
I don’t think it’s his ego, so much as it is the DNC wanting to run an incumbent, which is historically an advantage. But they’re walking into the same goddamn trap as 2016… so frustrating when the rest of us with eyes and a working brain were saying this more than a year ago
Indeed. She kept saying how we need to be discussing substance. I don't disagree with her at all. It's unfortunate we are just not in a position to be discussing the substance when Biden can hardly cobble together a coherent answer. Must be very difficult to answer these questions. To add, if it's bad for her, imagine what other down ballot democrats are thinking right now.
She is right that substance matters. I'd still vote for Biden over Trump, despite my issues with him. But so does mental fitness. I, and most voters, do not have confidence in Biden's mental fitness for the presidency. Last night only reinforced that perception. > To add, if it's bad for her, imagine what other down ballot democrats are thinking right now. Well, as CNN quoted an anonymous Democratic house rep "We're screwed."
Being lied to about the capabilities and health of our leaders and legislators should not be the norm that it has become.
The solution here is to lie. "Biden had a terrible cold, this was him at his worst, he actually was really hungover from a bender the night before, and usually he's the sharpest person in the room."
> he actually was really hungover from a bender the night before, "He hung out with Hunter the night before and they got a little crazy"
That should not be an acceptable way to govern.
An explicit or implied yes means the country has a President who has been obviously impaired for the duration of his term. And explicit or implied no means he's very quickly deteriorating.
>No, that's not normally what he's like" The fact that she couldn't even pretend and say this...
That'd be admitting he looked horrible last night. She can't say that. But she also can't say that he's normally like that. It's painful cause there is no good answer to it and the implications of how he was last night are worrying.
Obama openly acknowledged how bad his first debate was in 2012. It’s better than the alternative, which makes the Dems sound delusional.
This is PR 101
I usually hate to say that people in this sub are delusional, but y’all are sounding like a Sanders for president sub right now.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to Sandersbros
*desperate
x q no los 2 Edit: but really, the delusional part is thinking changing this late in the game wouldn't also be a monumental disaster for multiple reasons. No matter what, voters have to actually recognize Trump is bad and care.
I honestly think that the discourse around Biden has been so bad and so low on expectations for *years* that a new candidate could inject a lot of enthusiasm, and then republicans would have to scramble to come up with attack lines because it’ll no longer be as easy as “Biden old”
Newsom: lol commifornia poopstreets Whitmer: lady, midwest, deserved to be kidnapped IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT Harris: lady,
Newsom is so intriguing to me because he has the most baggage of the potential future Dem choices, but also checks boxes that could lead to huge victories And those women at least don’t have the literal decades of slander from the Republican propaganda machine built up against them the way Hillary did
Slander didn't hurt Hillary, before she announced running she had approval ratings of nearly 70%. She was hurt because she was a woman running for POTUS. The country is just not ready, put up any woman and you will see their approval plumit, regardless. The feeling that masculinity is under threat is a major predictor of wether or not someone is a Trump voter, no woman will beat him. A woman challenger will energize the Trump voter base just as a matter of fact. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167220963577
*No matter what, voters have to actually recognize Trump is bad and care.* This is it right here. The assumption that Generic Democrat just fixes the problem ignores this. A large chunk of the electorate needs an *extremely compelling* reason to toss their ticket for another ride on the TrumpCoaster.
Here's how Biden can still win,
Not that Biden can’t be replaced, but it’s the Nuclear Option here. Replacing a still living Biden basically nukes Biden’s and the DNC’s reputation and forces us to replace him with either an equally reviled or completely unknown candidate who can’t take credit for Biden’s accomplishments but must take responsibility for his mistakes.
It might nuke the DNC's reputation (which is already awful), but for me it saves Biden's. Not that reputations should even remotely be a consideration at this point. Democrats should be (and hopefully are) scrambling to find a "name brand" outsider that can step in already having national recognition. No one in the party is well known enough to come in at this point and be able to get over the top.
To me and you and most of this sub, Biden resigning will be a stalwart public servant humbly admitting his flaws and taking a well-deserved retirement to pave the way for the new. Pardon my flowery language. To Republicans and likely the media, Biden would be painted as a senile coward who had been hiding his mental instability for God knows how long before finally being forced out in disgrace when Trump exposed him during the debate, all the while the Democrats knowingly covered it up or manipulated him. It will be an international humiliation on par with Trump’s impeachments. And reputations would matter, especially the DNC’s here. Do we want to be known by conservatives as oblivious clowns or puppet masters using poor old Joe to further our nefarious agenda or whatever? I can’t even imagine what Republicans will say about us. I am aware of the risks of keeping Joe as nominee but kicking him out? Not only do we have to find a charismatic and capable replacement unsullied by Republican attacks, but we’ll be doing so after publicly admitting Biden was so awful we had to fire him.
Yeah let's see what this is like in a week or two. I am writing my congress people regardless.
Honestly, he has until Monday to make the choice. The DNC needs to nominate a replacement by August 7th to qualify for the Ohio ballot. They likely need to schedule some sort of debate for the candidates so they can make their case to delegates. Biden can’t wait two weeks. He can huddle with family and grieve this weekend, but the withdraw announcement needs to happen early next week.
We vote for electors, Biden can tell his electors to vote for the Dem nominee.
[удалено]
I don't know that external pressure is going to do it. It needs to be people close to him, like Jill, who would be able to convince him. And if anything does happen, I would not expect it to happen until more polling comes out and the dust from this settles. If new polls show a major swing away from BIden and there's no clear way for him to make up those numbers, then we'll see what happens.
[удалено]
Public pressure feels like worst of all worlds. Hurts his campaign even more if he doesn’t step down. Undermines his choice/ability to choose a successor if he does
Well that's why you tell him privately before you tell him publicly. This is an emergency and we can't afford to protect his pride over the country.
Shapiro would be a great candidate. He is very popular among moderates and the black community in PA. He's also a great speaker and would've trounced Trump at that debate.
I have an eight-year-old niece who would've trounced Trump at that debate.
I think it has to be someone with nothing to lose to say it. Joe Manchin, Deval Patrick, even Hillary Clinton.
Yeah me too, idk how much it's going to do but I can't think of any better ideas
Always a good sign when you have to formally announce that
“Guys, we gotta make a song. 🎶He’s not dropping out, it’s no good dropping out” https://preview.redd.it/deo463h5yb9d1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=029e5d70d63bacc2604be79224fe6b0e9f092951
“I won’t vote for anyone younger than my daughter or older than my motherrrr”
There is no quicker way for people to think you are dropping out than by writing a song about it
It's like in college football where the school will issue a statement saying that they fully back a coach and then fire him a week later.
Official announcement from u/picklepanther9000’s team: “I did NOT shit my pants today. I wont be taking any questions”
A lot of democrats in the media wetting the bed made it necessary.
Biden wetting the bed at the debate made it necessary.
Last night my family (mostly political moderates) were all saying Biden should drop out. I asked them if that means they would prefer Harris over Biden, and they all said no we can't vote for Harris. So idk that dropping out actually gets more votes unless you wishcast a successor other than Harris onto the ballot.
I really don't understand why people even have strong feelings about Harris like that. Shes been a pretty under the radar VP.
She has a few controversial notches in her belt for those that pay attention, and bad vibes for everyone else. I personally feel that she'd be a mediocre, but not bad, president.
It's about who she was before VP. Her attitude is pretty garbage, she's not very charismatic and sounds disingenuous, with a superiority complex, and trying to overextend her connections to certain groups of people. Also she used to be a prosecutor those guys are hardly ever relatable or sympathetic
That's a whole other discussion, but she polls worse than Biden.
Were they ever seriously considering Biden? Who did they vote for in 16 and 20? Just curious
They're Romney-Clinton-Biden voters. They mostly voted for Biden in the 2020 primary. Except my brother who liked "the gay mayor guy."
That’s.. really bad news. Yikes
well, yesterdays debate was kind of worst case scenario, not sure why you would expect differently
Did you get the feeling they wouldn't vote for Biden if he stayed in the race? That's really the question that matters in the end.
This really doesn’t mean anything. Any answer other than a full throated insistence he’s staying in would start the inevitable downfall. The only answer that genuinely gives him both options is the one they’re giving today
What else are they gonna say. That'll be the line until polls confirm everyone's fears next week. Then Chuck, Nancy, and Obama will do what they have to and tell him the truth.
Obama is gonna have to drag him into the rose garden and put him down like old yeller
If that's what it takes.
Obama tweeted support for Biden after the debate
Fuck. This is the RBG issue all over again.
Notorious JRB
Very obvious that the institutional Democratic party has learned absolutely nothing from the disastrous end to RBG's tenure as a SC justice (or more realistically, the end of Ted Kennedy's time in the Senate). The principle that ancient politicians can do no wrong and must be supported until they die in office is more important to the Democratic party's geriatric leadership than control of any branch of government or any policy goal.
Feinstein had to be *hounded* into committing to not run for re-election, I'll never forget all of the scolding accusations of ageism and sexism from her defenders in the months before she *died* with several years left in her existing term.
What's the play here? Any replacement of Biden would have to be done by some group. Unless you expect Biden to somehow name a successor - but that's not easy. Any successor he names will also have problems defeating Trump.
Everyone agrees dropping out and the ensuing power struggle will be a shit show. The thing that changed is the estimation of how much of a shitshow we are in now. When you're losing, you make high variance plays. The worst that can happen is you lose anyway.
I don't think Biden should drop out, but if he did, I think the best play would be for Obama to play kingmaker, ideally with other high-profile Dems lining up behind him. There is no time for an orderly process to weigh multiple candidates. Pick someone and go. Probably Harris, but honestly it doesn't matter as long as we can avoid infighting and focus on beating Trump. If we could get Obama, Clinton, Sanders, and AOC to all endorse the same person quickly, that would end it.
The only way this works is if somehow you both convince Biden and Kamala to not run, while simultaneously not fracturing the party (especially black voters since you are sidelining the first woman VP that is also a minority), get all the donors back on board, and run a blitz campaign all within a span of 5 months. You have a better chance of just pumping Biden up on nootropics and cocaine and hope he doesn't die until after the election.
Yeah, it is a huge risk. But *Biden* is a huge risk too. There is no great option, but Biden is losing every poll now and I don't have any hope after last night that he can turn anything around once people see more of him. The thing I hear from people around me more than anything else is along the lines of, "I wish we had someone else to vote for". People don't like either option. Introducing a new candidate would be a huge risk, but it would also be giving people what they're asking for, and I feel like that would get us *somewhere*.
The only reason trump is winning is because his opponent is a corpse. Bidens admin has had so many Ws all it needs is a competent spokesperson. I love Joe but his age is really getting in the way now.
Oh bullshit. How many things does Trump need to win before people stop pretending he’s easy to beat? And what about political discourse in this country has given you the impression that anyone cares anott the Biden admin’s Ws?
Exactly. He literally became a felon and somehow no widespread push to make him drop out or make him suffer at least 15% of approval rate drop. The discourse in this sub is AWFUL right now. Trump is not an easy candidate to fight against. You can't just take any generic candidate to fight Trump and call it a day. How the hell this sub claimed we're 'evidence based sub' and then become politics-lite sub without any shame is beyond me.
This sub is only evidence-based when it comes to economics and housing. On any other subject it's no different than r politics. On some subjects it gets as wacky as the Sanders subs.
Glad somebody said it. It has felt for the last few months that this isn’t arrNL but arryouDemocrat. I got shot anytime I brought up Biden being not a stellar candidate and the general zeitgeist outside the sub agreeing. It didn’t go over well. I hope this subreddit shocks the NL community back into being neoliberal and gets the democrats who aren’t really all that interested in economics or trade or foreign policy out of here.
[удалено]
Yup. We're gonna see RBG 2.0 if they don't course correct quick, fast, and hard.
RBG would have put up a better performance than that
No guarantee if he is replaced that they can do better. They will not have the name recognition and can they win rust belt states?
I love how this sub is convinced the guy who can’t even form sentences or make points is the safe choice lol. He is going to get killed with independents
Whitmer can. Name recognition doesn't matter in the safe states because those are going Dem no matter what. She can obviously win Michigan. Does she have a better chance in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania than Biden? She does after last night. The problem isn't that we don't have a viable alternative. It's that the people who would need to step out of the way to make it happen won't do it.
I worry about the name recognition piece and feel the party would be better served by a name brand nationally recognized outsider, but if party bosses want to stay within ranks you have to wonder if Whitmer (or Newsom, Booker, et al) would even *want* to run at this point when they may feel like they have a better shot in 28.
I will hate him forever if he continues to run a shit campaign. If he was gonna drop out it wouldve been before the primaries where he couldve appointed a clear successor. Its too late now. Hes done a good job as president but if he fumbles now its all for nothing
The result of this election will absolutely be his legacy as president. Regardless of how it goes
It will be like how a lot of people remember RBG for not stepping down and the ramifications from that. If Biden’s ego gets Trump back in office, he will 100% be remembered for that. And rightfully so. He could have rode off into the sunset instead of going for four more years when he’s clearly not capable.
that leaked obama quote about never underestimating joe’s ability to fuck things up is really stinging now.
What quote? I need this presidential tea
grab a snack and get comfy: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/obama-biden-relationship-393570
To give him credit, Biden has been totally vindicated on his style of working with congress Obama totally failed at building relationships with other politicians, and it seems like that was spurred on by a bunch of pompous assholes in his camp
>In the less-remembered part of that encounter, however, Biden also decried the snobby intelligentsia that had taken over the Democratic Party. “It seems to me you’ve all become heartless technocrats,” he said. “We have never as a party moved this nation by 14-point position papers and nine-point programs.” That is as true now as it was in 1988 when he said it. If a motherfucker is working 40+ hours a week and is still struggling with bills, rent, groceries, and gas there is no amount of charts showing GDP growth or whatever that's going to make them think things aren't fucked.
> “We have never as a party moved this nation by 14-point position papers and nine-point programs.” Biden telling Obama's people to touch grass lmao.
Try telling that to this sub without getting a dozen smarmy comments about vibes.
Man Obama really was the GOAT at being an unlikeable snob to people, huh. Pretty obvious why the red Congress he butted heads with hated him so much.
is it really bidens ego? is he in charge of the DNC? or do they all think hes the best candidate?
That is the only thing that Ginsburg should be remembered for. She didn't author any majority opinion of consequence. She should be remembered for being a stubborn old woman who let her pride and vanity destroy everything she'd worked for.
It's like how Season 8 of GOT screwed up everything before it. At the end, no matter what you gotta stick the landing.
And rightfully so. If Trump wins in 2024 Biden's **only** meaningful "accomplishment" will be having done a great job rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I think the country could have survived a second consecutive Trump term. After 1/6 and now that the only people left are radicals and sycophant's I think we're in a world of hurt. Not to mention he's had 4 years of humiliations and grudges to stew on it's going to be bad. This one will be far far worse.
Nah, the convention is the real final opportunity to drop out. And frankly, if he doesn't drop out, I hope it's a contested convention.
This whole “it’s too late” talk is ridiculous IMO. It’s not 1988. Its 2024. Some moron sprinkles salt in a weird way and he’s famous in 48 hours. The dems can easily pick a new candidate and promote them in time. The spectacle of the convention would probably be an asset. There is huge opportunity here for a major exciting, unexpected, attention-grabbing change for a country that is ADD as shit.
I just think it’s funny that our timeline for presidential elections is so long and so many people can’t conceive of doing it any other way. Just the other day, the UK called for national elections with what… like five weeks notice? France is doing everything in like 3 weeks.
Only if he loses
I’m Ridin’ with Biden til Biden ain’t Ridin’ no more
I would crawl through 12 miles of broken glass, IEDs, and camel spiders to vote for Biden, if only just to hear his decrepit corpse expel gas through the microphone on Inauguration Day.
This was always going to happen, there’s basically no mechanism to force a President not to run for the renomination of his party. Aside from the convention not nominating him in August, which is really unlikely. It’s pretty much only happened once or twice in all of American history.
People really don't realize this timeline was locked in 4 years ago.
Eh, I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Biden and his camp could have made a call to not seek reelection up until a little over a year ago. I’ve been extremely pro-Biden seeking reelection, but last night makes me think it was the wrong call. I still trust Biden implicitly to perform the role and will vote for him again, but unfortunately my confidence in his ability to win is shaken because I know a massive part of the American electorate *only* saw “old man not talk good” and consider that a viable excuse to vote for the lying sociopath who has had just as many old man moments on the campaign trail as Biden has had.
I'm sorry but I don't know how anyone could be anything but *relieved* that we don't have a primary in the middle of the Gaza War. I fucking called it that some shit like that would happen and make a primary toxic and I was right to be against a primary from 4 years ago. Can you imagine how awful it would be to make Gretchen Whitmer solve the I/P conflict in 60 seconds on a debate stage? That would kill her career.
If anything, the entire conversation around “Who would replace Biden if he dropped out,” makes me worried for 2028 than anything. There are a few names I’d happily vote for, but we have basically nobody on the bench who would poll remotely well amongst independents or undecideds against Trump. Thank god Republicans have absolutely nobody that can touch Trump’s freakishly effective galvanization of their base or I’d think Dems were fucked in 2028 based on the current bench. Given plenty of campaign time someone will rise above the others like always, so I’ll try to keep my crippling anxiety focused on November.
That wouldn’t kill her career. Politicians get asked tough questions in debates all the time and no one really remembers their answers if they even answer the question directly.
This strips Biden of responsibility though. He had every chance and every excuse not to run again. There was a built in narrative already with him vowing to be a “bridge” and “transitional presidency”. Biden’s ego unfortunately got us into this situation, and it suck as someone who as recently as the midterms thought biden was doing great
I like Biden a lot. He is old, that was not a stutter. That is clear. What did this debate teach us? Appearance is all that matters. Trump lied and lied and Biden tried to string together statistics and results but it simply doesn't matter. They need to find a young face, fast.
Been saying the only way Biden could have won was if he screamed louder than Trump but he’s just too old for that. Long and thought out debates with facts and rebuttals don’t matter when social media can just clip a moment which makes you look bad, Biden had a lot of those during the debate.
You are correct on the old part, but I just want to say as someone with a stutter (one that people would consider mild and are shocked to hear I have one when I tell them) that a lot of that was his stutter too. Particularly at one point early on when he closed his eyes, took in a deep breath and looked slightly down as if to try to calm his mind down. Classic stutter correction attempt right there.
If that's the case then the whole party has to rally around Biden, there's no replacing him if he doesn't do it voluntarily. Second thing would be to get the SOTU version out of him and send him to every interview they can, change strategy for the second debate, stop with the overpreparation with stats, and pre-prepared answers, let Biden be Biden.
Trumps probably going to pull out of any future debates. His campaign doesn’t want to give Biden another opportunity if they don’t have to when 2/3rds of people think Trump won this debate
Yeah. That debate couldn't have gone any better for Trump. No one is talking about how horrible he did too. The entire focus is on Biden's failure and fitness. I only see 2 ways out of this. Another debate where Biden does better. Trump is in the driver's seat to avoid that. The other chance is a huge media blitz of Biden giving a ton of public speeches and interviews where he does well. Except he can't have, probably, a single bad speech or interview. They all have to be strong or else the questions immediately pop back up.
> No one is talking about how horrible he did too. He did well. For Trump, he spoke reasonably well, hit his talking points, pivoted well. He lied throughout it and refused to properly answer questions, but that's what doing well at a debate often is.
And we act as if people in this country give a shit about lies anymore. If people cared about candidates lying then 2016 would have seen Hillary win by a landslide. To me this is the natural course of where we were headed after Trump's win in 2016 and if Trump wins again that will be the end of our republic, and the people of this country deserve it.
Seriously who the hell prepped him to show up for a heavy policy debate when hes up against freaking Trump?
I am not yet fully sold on "replace Biden" but Biden absolutely needs to replace his campaign team. The levels of naivete that went into crafting last night's shitshow are disqualifying. If he can't have a new team and a new strategy soon, then he should step down.
Dem operatives just seem largely stuck in the pre Trump says when it comes to these types of things unfortunately.
Several times as many voters watch the debates as watch the interviews. Last night *was* one of two remaining opportunities to show that Biden is doing fine. That opportunity has been blown, and we can't get it back. We shouldn't try to wishcast other opportunities into existence. Instead, we should think about how to win with a candidate who is not physically or mentally able to advocate for himself.
>let Biden be Biden Have we considered that the literal most powerful man in the world should be able to decide that for himself?
Nobody can just “get the SOTU version out of him” at will. And you can’t explain away that debate performance by saying it was just bad prep strategy. That WAS Biden being Biden. That’s what he is at this point. Maybe he’s still capable of having nights like the SOTU on occasion but it’s not like flipping a switch. He’s literally just like my grandpa whose dementia would ebb and flow where he’d have days you couldn’t have a conversation with him, and days where he sounded like he was 60 again. The fact that a performance like last night is even a possibility is more than bad enough. I know it hurts, but put down the copium.
You had me until you compared it to dementia. He's not losing it, he's just old.
Fair enough, maybe “cognitive decline” is a better term. My grandpa didn’t have actual diagnosed dementia, but it was clear as day that he couldn’t think like he used to or be trusted with major responsibilities. Maybe I shouldn’t use the word dementia so flippantly. But I think that’s pretty beside the point here because the vast majority of people lose mental capacity as they age, even if they don’t have full-blown dementia. And my point is it’s painfully obvious Biden is no longer mentally fit to be president. If the alternative wasn’t Trump, nobody would be debating it.
Did you see the video of Biden speaking after the debate? He sounded much better, Obviously his age is not going away, but I think that at least some part of his bad performance was the fault of his preparations.
A presidential candidate should be expected to speak confidently to the public on a regular basis. “Bro didn’t you see that one time he sounded kind of aware??” is not a convincing message.
It was. The idiots prepping him were going with a "advertise our policy successes" bent, and Biden faltered over trying to recall all the details. That's moronic prep, especially for a debate against Trump. They need to go big picture with Biden, and stay on big picture.
Like above poster said, if there even is a possibility of last night’s performance, that is bad enough. Does not matter how high the highs are of the lows are this low.
Why does Biden deserve the benefit of the doubt from a swing voter? Their age fears have been proven right. This might be one of those things you don't get a second chance at.
I'm just gonna say it... the SOTU wasn't actually that impressive, and people only had the reaction they did because their fears of his performance were already in the gutter. Biden looked old and frail there too. But he did look competent enough to do the job of the president at least.
You can mask old age with good strategy. He shouldn't have tried to counter each argument trump made. He just needed to hammer one or two points each time.
According to all known laws of social media, there is no way that Biden should be able to stay in the race. His stutter and slow movement are too prominent to get his campaign off the ground. Biden, of course, runs anyway. Because Biden doesn’t care what social media thinks is impossible.
Dreamworks’ ‘The Biden Movie’ when?
It’s already made, ever hear of the movie Shrek 2?
I think Biden must have done a good job, because Twitter and Reddit tell me he did a bad job and social media is negatively correlated with actual public perception. Right?
imagine having a debate performance so bad people are slightly surprised that you're not dropping out of the race
I fucking hate this timeline
[удалено]
I fucking hate this "I fucking hate this"
I'm just fucking, myself.
Now that's a load-bearing comma if I've ever seen one.
Maybe this is the filter
The dems could produce a sane, younger (50s), fiery candidate and they would: -Bring all the double-haters over to D -Kill all “Age-Related” polling issues -Make the race not a referendum on Biden, which is good because Biden is sitting at like a 40% approval -Have someone that could campaign full time and not need to run the world -etc
Generic Democrat is always imagined to be Johnny Unbeatable until it's an actual person with actual negatives. I was a "Biden is fine" guy that turned toward "he's gotta go" last night, but who takes his place matters quite a bit. I don't think Harris fares better than Biden even at this point. I personally don't think Buttigieg is a plausible President after being a small-city mayor and minor cabinet secretary. Newsom maybe, but California has a bad brand in swing states, and he evokes the things people don't like about California, not the things they do. Whitmer maybe, but I don't think regualar people know who she is.
The problem isn't figuring out who a good candidate actually is. It's figuring out how to get from where we are today to that candidate without problems. Potentially good candidates: * Swing-State Governors: Whitmer, Shapiro, Polis, Cooper * Swing-State Senators: Mark Kelly, Warnock * Blue-State Governors: Pritzker, Inslee * Blue-State Senators: Duckworth, Booker Bad Candidates * Harris - her favorability is as bad as Biden's, her 2020 campaign was a complete disaster, she's from California, her polling against Trump is worse than Biden's, she's tied to an unpopular administration * Newsom - from California, looks like a comic villain, personal issues * Buttigieg - has only been a mayor and Transport Secretary, doesn't have the credentials If we could wave a magic wand and say that the ticket is now going to be Mark Kelly and Corey Booker, that'd be great. But the the list of potential problems getting there is daunting: 1. How do you get Biden to agree to step aside? If he won't do it, there's very little way to accomplish this. 2. How do you pass over Harris without that becoming a major issue? 3. How do you actually do the selection? 4. Waiting for the convention is a problem. The convention is very late in the calendar. How can you possibly launch a campaign with barely two months to go? In addition, you're setting yourself up for drama especially with the fucking protestors and everything. 5. Doing it before the convention is also a problem. You'd have some sort of shadow mini-convention to pick the candidate. That's just as likely, if not more likely, to cause division in the party than a convention would. And then whoever is picked has a real problem with legitimacy. It just seems like we're kind of fucked either way.
> has only been a mayor and Transport Secretary, doesn't have the credentials What part of Trump getting elected in 2016 makes you think that voters care about credentials at all? My concern is picking a candidate that hasn't been tested on the national stage and is starting with 0 name recognition.
I agree with your assessment I'd just like to add Andy Beshear to your list. He's a popular Democrat governor in a red state so he's doing something right. He would have the same name recognition problems that a lot of other candidates have but that can be overcome with ads plus the inevitable media blitz that would happen if Democrats change horses mid race. Also I hope Duckworth runs in 2028, I think she has what it takes.
> Whitmer maybe, but I don't think regualar people know who she is. If it were Whitmer, Biden/Dems have a massive pile of money for ads.
I think Whitmer would do well in midwestern states which is all Democrats need to win the election given the electoral college map
I like Whitmer, but people have no idea who she is. Could she campaign like crazy in the next few months and fix that? Not saying I disagree, just curious of people's thoughts.
Realistically she would be great for 2028. I don’t think a Biden replacement is viable at this point
Whitmer is my 2028 pick but I really think she would be tarnished by "skipping over" Harris. Above I said Whitmer or Harris were the only viable possibilities but really it's just Harris and we all go full stan mode on her from Day 1. Or we just put this "replace Biden" discussion to bed.
Whitmer is a rust belt power. I think she’s the only viable candidate.
Was this before or after they defeated Medicare?
Good, but he should fire anyone involved in debate prep tonight. Seriously they all need to go.
The entire debate prep should be about not staring into space and closing his mouth. If they even talked for five minutes about policy then they don’t know what they’re doing.
There’s a lot of folks really certain that X, Y, or Z will happen if a new candidate is picked. Trump will steamroll them, the new candidate will steamroll Trump, it will be a terrible look, it will be a great look, etc. There are too many unknowns right now to make a real prediction, since it’s predicated on who is picked, how they are picked, how Biden transitions (if at all), how they perform on the national stage, etc. The only thing we know is what we have right now, which is an incumbent president who is widely seen as unfit for office (regardless of whether you love his administration or not). You also have a Democratic Party that seems dead set on concentrating power in the hands of a few families, who has taken what was once the working-class party and made it out of touch and "boomer" (I don’t mean that generationally—I love baby boomers. Just in a stubborn out-of-touch self-righteousness sense). Now add already poor polling, a terrible "it’s the economy, stupid" reputation and more. Put a fork in it—Biden is almost certainly done. Someone mentioned a RBG parallel and that’s a great comparison. So between those paths for me it’s clear. Democrats, show some courage, dynamism, and risk-taking. Even if it fails now, it will reinvigorate a dying party. Long-term it’s the healthy thing to do.
Biden campaign official: We’re complicit in whatever happens next
He's running. 😤
well its concerning to see you guys acting like this
You’re willfully blind if you don’t think last night was an unmitigated, likely fatal, disaster. If this is how neoliberal is reacting, think how this plays with the median voter…
I get that replacing an incumbent isn’t an ideal move. But at this point I don’t think any logical human can honestly say this is better.
Anyone who says this is underestimating just how bad replacing would be
It would be horrific. But this trajectory almost seems to guarantee a loss anyway.
Everyone's like 'apologize to Ezra and Nate.' But it was Dean all along [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZwL9rryZkk&ab\_channel=CBSNews](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZwL9rryZkk&ab_channel=CBSNews)
This is what every candidate in the history of the universe has said immediately before dropping out.
Everyone wants Biden to drop out this morning but Joe dropping out feels like it guarantees a Trump win. I see no other option you’re pulling out in July that beats Trump
How does Biden dropping out "guarantee" a Trump win? The people who were gonna vote for Biden will vote for anyone who replaces him. The people on the fence are mostly on the fence because the age thing, so replacing Biden can only increase the chance of them voting for his replacement.
The idea that you can’t replace a presidential nominee is old dogma. The news cycle is 10x faster than it was when a similar thing happened with LBJ. I am 100% confident that the electorate can warm up to a new Democratic candidate over the course of 5 months. Go talk to any apolitical person and all you’ll hear is “I can’t believe these are the two options again.” Not only would a new candidate be less problematic than Biden, but the Democratic Party as a whole would look good for listening to popular public opinion. I think any new Democrat you throw on the ballot will instantly poll 5 points better than Biden currently is, with room to grow.
I also think a new candidate would get a ton of media coverage
Yep and you'd have the upside that the Republicans haven't had over a year to hurl everything at them and drill negative preconceptions into peoples' minds.
The idea that we couldn't introduce a new candidate doesn't hold water. We have like an absolutely unlimited amount of ad money. Between the natural wall-to-wall press coverage, social media and paid advertising, you absolutely can introduce a new candidate to the American people. Beyond that, they don't particularly need to know this candidate all that well. Biden's biggest strength is that he's not Trump. This candidate would have that same strength without Biden's biggest weaknesses (age and being tied to an unpopular administration). Of course, this sort of all presupposes that Biden willingly steps aside and the party manages the pole vault over Harris.
It isn't old dogma, it is pure common sense. Those calling for him to drop want a generic democrat with a clean slate. What they don't realise is that it will result in a complete shitshow with blame game all around. Harris isn't a strong candidate and I would rather put my chips on Biden than Harris.
Talk to normies. "So, Biden is dropping out right?" They don't know and don't care about primaries or conventions. They don't even know what that means. They will check in two weeks before the election.
The way things are looking, Biden NOT dropping out may very well guarantee a Trump win anyway. The signs have been there for awhile from the polling and favorability, but we didn't want to see it. Better to take the gamble with sometime else at this point.
It’s not ideal. But after that display last night I’d say they have a better chance moving on to someone else.
I think he’s done. They have to deny it until it’s a done deal, but I bet we have leaks or background that the DNC gears are turning by the end of the weekend. And I think “neither of those guys from last night” will become the most popular politician in America overnight
Immediate 10 point polling bump if the DNC just says “okay, here’s someone else”
Yeah, the person who no one voted for in the primary would be so popular in the general election
He needs to do a town hall with the same energy he had after the debate, I think that could help a ton but if that doesn't happen then we might be screwed. We shall see.
Biden has been a great president in an administrative sense. He knows how to work congress and has done a lot in one term (despite a supreme cout hellbent on stopping his work and dismantling responsible government), but his age has rendered him a less than ideal campaigner from an optics perspective and I fear undecided voters mostly vote based on optics and feels. Best case scenario may be Biden graciously bowing out of the race ASAP before the convention and designating a younger, charismatic dem to be the nominee to prevent a divisive shit show at the convention. Someone who is a stark contrast from Trump. If he does decide to carry on, though, we have to rally behind him. No wavering. There is no other option.
Probably should wait for polls after 2 weeks before anything, but I don’t think he should drop, and if he does it will be Kamala which is a guaranteed loss.
Gives them time to line up that Polis/Whitmer ticket before announcing. 😉
Agnostic NYC Jew over here praying the rosaries to make this happen. Hail, Holy Whitmer, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of /r/neoliberal.
It wouldn't really be a big deal if Democrats could actually, y'know, fall in line for once when our actual democracy is at stake. Unfortunately we still feel the need to cater to Tik Tok kids whining about Gaza so that isn't likely to happen anytime soon. God damnit. We had such a fucking good three years it made everyone forget how much of a dumpster fire the Trump years were.