I'd honestly respect the heck out of Biden if he dropped out and I'm convinced you could easily draft a statement that makes him look good in the public eye and sets up a successor. But you only have to take a look at several senators, house members and justices ... these people can never let go. Why you wouldn't just ride into the sunset and live your best life in these scenarios, I will never understand. Joe should just go home, eat cake, play with his grandchildren and enjoy the years he has left.
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It's funny how just last week you were still seeing articles looking to dismiss concerns about Biden's health (ie https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/u...m_medium=email where they basically get down to forensic comparisons of video angles), and today you're seeing an onslaught of opinion pieces from the same places, urging him to step down. Where these people just oblivious?
Biden's failing health has been obvious for a couple of years now. You look at debates from 2020 and it's a completely different guy. At this stage letting this man continue is elder abuse. Even now you're either getting a guy who is barely there, or are having decisions being made by unelected people in the background. I'm not a fan of Newsom or most of the Democratic alternates, but at least let people vote for a someone making the decisions.
It's funny how just last week you were still seeing articles looking to dismiss concerns about Biden's health (ie https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/u...m_medium=email where they basically get down to forensic comparisons of video angles), and today you're seeing an onslaught of opinion pieces from the same places, urging him to step down. Where these people just oblivious?
Biden's failing health has been obvious for a couple of years now. You look at debates from 2020 and it's a completely different guy. At this stage letting this man continue is elder abuse. Even now you're either getting a guy who is barely there, or are having decisions being made by unelected people in the background. I'm not a fan of Newsom or most of the Democratic alternates, but at least let people vote for a someone making the decisions.
I honestly don't think you're wrong. That was very sad to watch.
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I'd honestly respect the heck out of Biden if he dropped out and I'm convinced you could easily draft a statement that makes him look good in the public eye and sets up a successor. But you only have to take a look at several senators, house members and justices ... these people can never let go. Why you wouldn't just ride into the sunset and live your best life in these scenarios, I will never understand. Joe should just go home, eat cake, play with his grandchildren and enjoy the years he has left.
The kind of person who is willing and able to be a politician, especially at that level, is not the kind of person who is going to quietly step back and retire.
I mean a lot of us knew that years ago, which is why we were screaming so loudly about not letting Biden run. Democrats showed how little they really cared about Trump's threat to democracy by lying and trying to shove Biden down people's throats.
Biden wasn’t shoved down anyone’s throats. In 2020 he was trailing the nomination race until he won the South Carolina primary. He won the nomination because he was the only candidate to show traction with Black Democrats, not because some kind of institutional fix was in.
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South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary matters in the Democratic contest because it is the first event where African American voters — with whom Biden had residual appeal as Obama's vice president — carry outsize influence. As attention turned to the Palmetto State, its senior officeholder, James Clyburn, the highest ranking Black member of Congress as the House majority whip, announced his endorsement of Biden.
Clyburn's backing all but guaranteed Biden would carry the Black vote. But it did more than that — it created the first real groundswell of energy for his campaign in months. That weekend, Biden won the Black vote overwhelmingly, especially among women, fueling a blowout that saw his vote share and Sanders' reversed from the Nevada tally. In the biggest event of the year to date, Biden got nearly half the vote and Sanders a fifth. No other candidate got enough to earn a delegate.
The Dems have no one to blame but themselves. They kyboshed their own campaign. At this point, they most likely will need to take their lumps and hope for a comeback in 4 years.
Free elections likely won't exist in 4 years if Trump gets back in. They need to do something now to try and swing momentum.
Step aside and have a real election. It's still 5 months away most democracies run way faster elections than that. Maybe they'll learn something about making it feel like their elections last an entire 4 year term.
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On average, the formal campaign period in most established democracies is between 4 to 8 weeks, though informal campaigning often starts much earlier. UK has 25 business days between election call and an election.
The US loves to drag this out as performative political theatre. They have such a weird system of governance. I've always thought it was highly overcomplicated.
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On average, the formal campaign period in most established democracies is between 4 to 8 weeks, though informal campaigning often starts much earlier. UK has 25 business days between election call and an election.
The US loves to drag this out as performative political theatre. They have such a weird system of governance. I've always thought it was highly overcomplicated.
Jon Stewart had a conversation about 3rd parties the other day and I was genuinely surprised at how even Stewart, obviously well-read and generational critic of the American government, had very little idea of how other democracies work and how truly effd their system is by comparison. Like he knew it was effd, but still thought it was the least effd system purely by the virtue of propaganda and nostalgia.
Obviously we're seeing the Dems using the media backchannels today to try and pressure Biden to quit, but that just won't work. They need to show courage and go on the record trying to force him out, only way I could see it working. But as long as it's NYT opinion columnists, I don't see it mattering. If 90% of the Dems in Congress came out asking him to step aside? Maybe still no, but it has a better chance of working.
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
He should have from the beginning. If Biden had cancelled student debt, legalized abortion and weed, didn't run for re-election and supported a successor's campaign as president, then rode off into the sunset as a one term president with his aviators and two middle fingers up to Trump, he would have been considered one of the greatest presidents of all time.
Instead we got that. I don't know if anyone caught it at the end, but they were showing Biden stepping off the two steps of the stage to shake the hands of the moderators and Jill and an aid had to make sure he didn't fall over. It's sad to watch. Go sit on a dock somewhere dude.
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Biden wasn’t shoved down anyone’s throats. In 2020 he was trailing the nomination race until he won the South Carolina primary. He won the nomination because he was the only candidate to show traction with Black Democrats, not because some kind of institutional fix was in.
Please try to keep up with the thread, Cliff. No one was talking about 2020. We were specifically talking about DNC operatives, staffers, and media stooges downplaying his age issues and trying to stifle dissent within the party.
A. I knew it was bad but not this bad.
B. trump is insane and looked like Winston Churchill
C. Why are they embarrassing an old man like that. That’s republican cruel. There are no people with sense that stop that from happening? Does the president actually do something or matter?
Yeah, as long as he actually steps down. If he continues, there is no path to victory now.
Maybe, maybe not. Pundits and establishment Democrats are reacting with shock, but to a large extent Biden being old and mostly incapable was already widely known. He's 81 and was in pretty clear decline even in 2020. And polls last year were showing 70-75% of voters thought Biden was too old to run in 2024, so it's plausible that his performance in the debate was already mostly baked into his poor numbers.
Obviously a younger candidate would be far better, but they've kind of blown it by waiting too long. There's no real established process to replace him, even if he declines the nomination. Because the primaries are done, whatever they do is just going to look like out of touch party leadership installing their chosen candidate.
Please try to keep up with the thread, Cliff. No one was talking about 2020. We were specifically talking about DNC operatives, staffers, and media stooges downplaying his age issues and trying to stifle dissent within the party.
Is that really what has kept Biden in office? Or is it the fact A) incumbent presidents are always handed their party’s nomination, B) nobody credible has stepped up to present themselves as an alternative, and C) a contested nomination would likely be an absolute ####-show that would expose the deep cleavages in the party.
It would be nice if Biden and his team gracefully stepped down. But since they didn’t want to do that, what exactly did you expect the rest of the party to do? Openly attack and undermine him in the media? The Republicans would love that.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Is that really what has kept Biden in office? Or is it the fact A) incumbent presidents are always handed their party’s nomination, B) nobody credible has stepped up to present themselves as an alternative, and C) a contested nomination would likely be an absolute ####-show that would expose the deep cleavages in the party.
It would be nice if Biden and his team gracefully stepped down. But since they didn’t want to do that, what exactly did you expect the rest of the party to do? Openly attack and undermine him in the media? The Republicans would love that.
I'd agree if there was any evidence that they tried to go through back channels and convince Biden not to run again, but there is absolutely zero indication that that happened over the last few years. It was clear even 2 years ago that Biden was lagging generic Democrats and down ballot candidates, so they should have started the process then. Yeah, it would've been pretty unprecedented, but so is an 81 year old Presidential candidate in cognitive decline.
