American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I would replace both if I were in charge on either side but I don't think these "debates" make much difference.

Typically I agree that they don't make that much difference, but last night was clearly unique. I don't ever remember seeing so many supporters of a candidate flipping literally overnight in such an open and public way. I don't think these people, or anyone remotely paying attention, were blind to his condition before this debate, so the damage to Biden's election prospects must have been pretty significant.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Typically I agree that they don't make that much difference, but last night was clearly unique. I don't ever remember seeing so many supporters of a candidate flipping literally overnight in such an open and public way. I don't think these people, or anyone remotely paying attention, were blind to his condition before this debate, so the damage to Biden's election prospects must have been pretty significant.

I can't imagine people flipping from Biden to Trump because of that debate...Biden's old, Trump is a liar

tell me something I didn't know
like I said if it was up to me I would replace him I just think the freaking out is overblown...the next batch of polls will be virtually the same IMO

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

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.

It is interesting to see the tables turned. We were all pretty disappointed in the least deplorable Republicans for failing to save their party. Now it seems Dems lack the same courage, even though the electorate is clamouring for it (whereas I'd argue there was more personal risk for a republican to actually lose their base)

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

I've already accepted Trump wins and the world ends shortly after

It really makes you want to live for today. Maybe I'll try doing that tomorrow...

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I can't imagine people flipping from Biden to Trump because of that debate...Biden's old, Trump is a liar

tell me something I didn't know
like I said if it was up to me I would replace him I just think the freaking out is overblown...the next batch of polls will be virtually the same IMO

We see it all the time right here in Alberta. "I'm not a fan of what the UCP are doing, but if the NDP candidate doesn't personally wash my car and mow my lawn on a biweekly basis I simply cannot stomach voting for them. So I must reluctantly vote Blue, once again."

I think there is a large swath of conservative moderates who are happy for any excuse to not vote US blue.

[photon]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I can't imagine people flipping from Biden to Trump because of that debate...Biden's old, Trump is a liar

tell me something I didn't know
like I said if it was up to me I would replace him I just think the freaking out is overblown...the next batch of polls will be virtually the same IMO

As opendoor suggested it's already probably baked in as far as peoples' opinions go.

Where it might have an impact is on turnout, and in the US elections are won and loss on the turnout. 2020 was decided by 44,000 votes across 3 swing states.

Doesn't take many people to just decide not to go vote to turn that into 3 red states.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

While turnout is a concern, it’s late June. Dems have 4 months to get their base out to vote.

GOP are undeniably better at strategy, staying unified and riling up their base.

Dems just need to hammer home the “if you don’t vote, it’s the end of the ####ing world” strategy. Not just for women or LGBT or minorities. For everyone. Trump is Hitler and we need to stop Hitler 2.0. That’s the message. That may scare people into turning up to vote.

[opendoor]

The funny thing is, pre-2020 election, the Biden campaign seemed to indicate that he was planning only on a single term:

March 2019:

Mr. Biden and his top advisers are considering nodding to the rising next generation in Democratic politics — and elevating an heir — by announcing a running mate early, well before the nomination is sealed. Also under discussion is a possible pledge to serve only one term and framing Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign as a one-time rescue mission for a beleaguered country, according to multiple party officials.

December 2019:

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s top advisers and prominent Democrats outside the Biden campaign have recently revived a long-running debate whether Biden should publicly pledge to serve only one term, with Biden himself signaling to aides that he would serve only a single term.

While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicating that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital.

According to four people who regularly talk to Biden, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss internal campaign matters, it is virtually inconceivable that he will run for reelection in 2024, when he would be the first octogenarian president.

“If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”

April 2020:

And Mr. Biden himself has increasingly pushed into the political foreground the overwhelming reason that his choice may be the most consequential in decades: the expectation, downplayed but not exactly denied by the Biden campaign, that the 77-year-old would be a one-term president. If that turns out to be the case, his running mate now could well be leading the Democratic ticket in four years.

“I view myself as a transition candidate,” Mr. Biden said during an online fund-raiser last week, likening his would-be presidential appointments to an athletic team stocking its roster with promising talent: “You got to get more people on the bench that are ready to go in — ‘Put me in coach, I’m ready to play.’ Well, there’s a lot of people that are ready to play, women and men.”

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

While turnout is a concern, it’s late June. Dems have 4 months to get their base out to vote.

GOP are undeniably better at strategy, staying unified and riling up their base.

Dems just need to hammer home the “if you don’t vote, it’s the end of the ####ing world” strategy. Not just for women or LGBT or minorities. For everyone. Trump is Hitler and we need to stop Hitler 2.0. That’s the message. That may scare people into turning up to vote.

This is the third election in a row of scare tactics, obviously we're into diminishing returns territory. At some point people want something to actually vote for.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

While turnout is a concern, it’s late June. Dems have 4 months to get their base out to vote.

GOP are undeniably better at strategy, staying unified and riling up their base.

Dems just need to hammer home the “if you don’t vote, it’s the end of the ####ing world” strategy. Not just for women or LGBT or minorities. For everyone. Trump is Hitler and we need to stop Hitler 2.0. That’s the message. That may scare people into turning up to vote.

That’s been the message forever now and it rings hollow. Selling hysteria only works as long as it provokes a response. You may forget but Bush Jr was going to be the end of democracy too, patriot act, etc etc. Then republicans spent 8 years saying Obama was the end of the republic blah blah. This goes back further than that, forever really, just seems more pronounced now with the constant internet outrage machine firing 24 hours a day.

When everything is an emergency nothing is. They’ve burned everyone out and Godwinning an election won’t and isn’t working.

[devo22]

as one part of your strategy, "Trump is Hitler" is fine. But it shouldn't be the only thing you have left because your own candidate is a trainwreck.

Dems have always been bad when it comes to the changing of the guard. Goes back to the Supreme Court ... Bader Ginsburg held onto her seat instead of retiring at the right time, whereas Republicans had no problem sending Kennedy out to pasture when Trump was in office and they could replace him with a 50 year old. Dems seemingly learnt their lesson with Breyer, but too little too late. And now, they've made the same mistake, thinking Biden going into a second term at 82 was a good idea.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Biden needs to do the intellectually honest thing and gracefully bow out. He won't be physically capable for another term anyways. There's no shame in admitting when it's your time.

Both were terrible, but Trump "looked" better just by virtue of being articulate, and that's....sad.

[Delthefunky]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I can't imagine people flipping from Biden to Trump because of that debate...Biden's old, Trump is a liar

tell me something I didn't know
like I said if it was up to me I would replace him I just think the freaking out is overblown...the next batch of polls will be virtually the same IMO

No, but he's not exactly inspiring people to get off the couch and vote either. Apathetic political party leads to apathetic voters imo.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

That’s been the message forever now and it rings hollow. Selling hysteria only works as long as it provokes a response. You may forget but Bush Jr was going to be the end of democracy too, patriot act, etc etc. Then republicans spent 8 years saying Obama was the end of the republic blah blah. This goes back further than that, forever really, just seems more pronounced now with the constant internet outrage machine firing 24 hours a day.

When everything is an emergency nothing is. They’ve burned everyone out and Godwinning an election won’t and isn’t working.

It's been a gradual descent, but with things like Roe overturned, Jan 6, Trump's conviction, various other efforts to undermine elections/democracy...I think it is reasonable to say it's actually pretty 'real' this time.

[ResAlien]

That’s the neat thing about constantly saying the world is ending: eventually you’ll be right. Is it now? We’re gonna find out

[activeStick]

You don't need to look very far to see the unwillingness of many to admit that Biden was on a bad path heading towards Nov 2024. Just go back in this thread to last summer or January 2023 and there was a good amount of people insisting that Biden's troubling poll numbers weren't real, his cognitive issues weren't actually a thing and how Biden looked so good in this event or that event. The establishment democrats were the same way as has been suggested and chose to bury their heads in the sand hoping that somehow, things would just work out in the end.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

While turnout is a concern, it’s late June. Dems have 4 months to get their base out to vote.

GOP are undeniably better at strategy, staying unified and riling up their base.

Dems just need to hammer home the “if you don’t vote, it’s the end of the ####ing world” strategy. Not just for women or LGBT or minorities. For everyone. Trump is Hitler and we need to stop Hitler 2.0. That’s the message. That may scare people into turning up to vote.

Except it's not. We will have had four years of each of them and the world didn't end. Election alarmism is so tiring.

"It's the most important election in history," until next time.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Because you've been staunchly defending Biden for months,

That's right. He has been a good president (Gaza aside). From a legislative perspective, he's been one of the best US presidents ever.

But there's a very important distinction to be made here. Being a good president does not mean you're good at winning elections. Biden's oratorical skills have declined to the point where I don't think he has a realistic chance of winning this election. When he's at his very best, such as SOTU or the video clip that was just posted, he gets a passing grade. But that's it. A passing grade won't be enough to defeat Trump. And he can only reach that level when reading off a teleprompter, which is a problem because you can't use a teleprompter at a debate.

Biden needs to know the best things to say, to hit Trump where it hurts. He failed at that miserably last night. He made the horrible mistake this week of spending so much time and energy trying to memorize details, figures, and particulars, when he really needed to be focused on big-picture, macro-level stuff. He needs bravado, charisma, and quick-wit to compete in these kinds of performative contests, and he just doesn't have it. It doesn't take a whole lot to defeat Trump in a debate, and Joe can't even clear that bar.

Biden won in 2020 only because Trump's presidency was a complete tire fire, culminating in his disastrous mismanaging of the covid response. He went into the 2020 election with the blood of an estimated 900k Americans on his hands due to his negligence. America was pissed off and voted him out. It was much more of an anti-Trump vote than a pro-Biden vote. This time around, it's going to be much harder to convince swing voters to vote for Biden, as he can't seem to shake the perception that he's too old for the job. After last night, that task of convincing people he's not too old went from challenging to virtually impossible. For this reason I think he doesn't have much of a shot this November and should be replaced asap.

But if he isn't, I'll still get behind him with everything I've got, because the alternative to him winning is something beyond unthinkable.

pretty much the only poster who has.

That's probably because I'm the only one on this board who's truly, fully paying attention to this stuff, and knows the true extent of the consequences of a Trump return to power.

If you knew for a fact that everyone and everything you care about would get thrown into a lava pit if Trump wins this election, would you be enthusiastically getting behind the democratic ticket for president, whether it's Biden or someone else? I think there's a pretty good chance you would.

Tossing out celebrities in the hopes that saves the day? Why would they throw away their good, comfortable lives to go into the political meat grinder? Funny story, but even if Trump wins they'll be just fine as obscenely rich people, whether staying in the US, or fleeing abroad.

Because self-sacrifice for the greater good is the only thing keeping our civilization from coming completely unglued. It's also the reason why our civilization exists in the first place. It's why the American Revolution, WWI, WWII were fought. It's why the Allies put a stop to the Nazi regime. It's why Arkhipov refused to fire the nuke that probably would have ended the world. It's why slavery was abolished, and it's why women secured the right to vote.

But if humanity has decided that it's done with altruism and self-sacrifice, we're done as a species, and the coming decades will bring us horrors and suffering on a scale far beyond anything we ever thought we'd see.

So to answer your question no, I'm not unaware that the rich and influential can take their ball and go someplace safe while most of the world burns and billions die. But if heaven forbid one of them wants to go down in history as a hero, now is their ####ing chance!

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by butterfly

Except it's not. We will have had four years of each of them and the world didn't end. Election alarmism is so tiring.

"It's the most important election in history," until next time.

You have to be willfully ignorant to post something like this.

Originally Posted by ResAlien

That’s been the message forever now and it rings hollow. Selling hysteria only works as long as it provokes a response. You may forget but Bush Jr was going to be the end of democracy too, patriot act, etc etc. Then republicans spent 8 years saying Obama was the end of the republic blah blah. This goes back further than that, forever really, just seems more pronounced now with the constant internet outrage machine firing 24 hours a day.

When everything is an emergency nothing is. They’ve burned everyone out and Godwinning an election won’t and isn’t working.

In modern US political history there's never been anything like Project 2025 and Agenda 47.

There's literally NEVER been a US president who has incited an insurrection against the US capitol, tried a fake elector's scheme to steal an election, and sold sensitive national security secrets to foreign billionaires. There's also never been a US president who has had gushing praise for dictators around the world.

The piece of #### even denies climate change in the face of the obvious evidence that it's very real and getting worse at a horrifying pace.

This really is unprecedented. This really is different.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Well if you guys have a better strategy to get Biden reelected by all means go nuts. But asking for fundamental changes to the American electoral system aren’t gonna happen. Neither is a better candidate just going to materialize out of thin air. The Democrats have to deal with the path they’ve chosen. Unfortunately pointing out all of Trump’s shortcomings is the best way to promote their candidate.

And that’s not to say Biden doesn’t have a lot of achievements, they can also lean on those. But it’s proven fact that scare tactics work. The Republicans have been doing it successfully for 40 years .

The difference with Trump too is that we’re not even just talking about what ifs. He has an actual track record of eroding democracy and peoples rights.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by butterfly

Except it's not. We will have had four years of each of them and the world didn't end. Election alarmism is so tiring.

"It's the most important election in history," until next time.

The States have never had a President who wouldn't accept the results of the election who also went on to cause an insurrection on Jan 6th. If he gets in there will be a nation wide ban on abortions plus those charged and convicted on Jan 6th will get pardons from Trump.

He would also end all military support for Ukraine to allow Putin to do whatever he wants.