I think people keep glossing over the difference between having what it takes to serve as president, and having what it takes to win an election. They are two different things.
He can't win an election at this point. We all agree on that.
But as president, the most important things required of you are:
1) Enact good policies
2) Don't enact bad policies
3) Put good judges on the courts
4) Don't put bad judges on the courts
Most of the rest of the stuff is superficial. Not unimportant, but far, far less important than the 4 things listed. An inanimate object would still deliver on 2 of the 4 things. Trump gets a score of 0/4 for his first presidency, and would go into the negatives if given a 2nd term.
As for "what about handling a crisis". What is preventing Biden from asking his top officials what the best advice they have is based on the information they have, thinking about it, and either taking their advice or giving a different order? I think he's very much capable of doing that.
You say "cognitive decline" but that's a rather vague term. The decline he's suffered is in regards to his speaking ability. A huge problem in terms of campaigning, but in any one-on-one conversation it's not hard to understand every word he's saying as long as you pay attention. And when he mixes up a Putin with a Zelenskyy, it's very obvious what he meant to say.
I'm in my 30s and I mix up names all the time. Doesn't mean I'm mentally impaired.
The problem his even if it's just his speaking ability that has gone (and I think that's a pretty charitable assumption given confusion we've seen on other stuff) that really affects his ability to do (1) and (3).
The president isn't an elected dictator, he has to get legislation through congress, and judges/appointments confirmed by the senate. Building consensus with other lawmakers (generally by speaking with them) is a critical portion of doing that job successfully.
I agree doing nothing would be better than what Trump will do, but that's an extremely low bar.
Sure, but then within that small subset of rich elites, there is another sub-subset of rich elites who are dicks and do (or want to do) things like:
(a) deny climate change;
(b) needlessly restrict or prohibit abortion;
(c) discriminate against [insert very long list];
(d) cut taxes for their wealthy friends;
(e) needlessly attack public institutions; and
(f) etc etc etc
I actually think you're conflating two allied groups. There are the kleptocrats - guys like Peter Thiel and to an extent David Sacks - who may have some views about how government should work but are essentially just in it for the money. They want a system they can exploit. Then there are the true believers, who think their ideological priorities are SO important that anything can be justified in their pursuit. The former don't really care about abortion rights, for example - they just want to use the influence of the people who do really care about that to improve conditions for the increased aggregation of wealth.
The current GOP is essentially now controlled by the wing of people who fall into the ideological side of this alliance, which is why there's even MORE religion at the RNC this year, and why it has less of a "I am a humble man of faith who cares about family and my local church community" tone now and more of a hucksterish, fire-and-brimstone, "GOD HAS PLACED US HERE TO FULFIL HIS DIVINE MISSION" tone. That mission is so important that they are willing to look the other way for the porn star affairs and other similar un-Christ-like behaviour to get to the ends they want. Similarly, the kleptocrats are willing to pretend to adherence to the religious nonsense they don't actually give a crap about to get to their end goal.
I mean, ultimately, Putin isn't a dictator in the sense of being an omnipotent king-like figure, he presides over a complex web of oligarchs that is deliberately set up to leech as much as possible off the Russian public. That's why guys like Thiel make anti-democratic comments, they want to live in that world.
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Really? Because you do it a lot. I noticed it and it's been a thing forever.
If you're being honest, it speaks to the effectiveness of memes like this.
100% had no clue it was a thing.
The fact that someone brings it up literally speaks to how small minded they are.
Doing a quick search brings up tons of news articles calling them the Democrats, Democratic Party, Dems, etc. But don't you dare call them the Democrat Party! Cube is gonna cry!
So far the campaign tag line appears to be "we're not going back", as a response to "make America great again", the case being that what America used to be wasn't actually great. Which seems pretty solid, to me. It's a very standard type of stump speech but she delivers it well enough.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Kamala Harris, someone who basically no one thinks is the best or even a particularly good candidate.
I believed this too, but her speeches lately have been pretty good. Not outstanding, but good. If she can keep this up and continue to deliver good speaking performances, she will have, at minimum, a decent chance at defeating Trump this November.
There's also a recent groundswell of support for her especially online, with coconut tree memes, etc. Gen Z is receptive to that kind of thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
he’s dealing with dementia and almost surely Parkinson’s.
Has he been medically diagnosed, or are you speculating?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
he has to get legislation through congress, and judges/appointments confirmed by the senate. Building consensus with other lawmakers (generally by speaking with them) is a critical portion of doing that job successfully.
His speaking is woefully insufficient for winning an election, but it's sufficient for diplomacy and negotiations. In the past few months I haven't heard a sentence from him where I didn't know what he was saying. Even in the debate where Trump tried the "he doesn't know what he said" line, Biden clearly did say "asylum officers", albeit quietly.
Has he been medically diagnosed, or are you speculating?
His speaking is woefully insufficient for winning an election, but it's sufficient for diplomacy and negotiations. In the past few months I haven't heard a sentence from him where I didn't know what he was saying. Even in the debate where Trump tried the "he doesn't know what he said" line, Biden clearly did say "asylum officers", albeit quietly.
There's never been any diagnosis of dementia or Parkinsons.
And contrary to Biden, I don't even think Trump understands the concepts he talks about (plus he gets as many names wrong as Biden, including Pelosi/Haley, Erdogan/Orban, Biden/Obama, and his own doctor. I'm convinced he thinhs "asylum seekers" are insane because he doesn't understand what asylum means in that context. He repeats whacky theories about magnets, hurricanes, forest fires, sharks versus electric boats, etc etc.
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There's never been any diagnosis of dementia or Parkinsons.
And contrary to Biden, I don't even think Trump understands the concepts he talks about (plus he gets as many names wrong as Biden, including Pelosi/Haley, Erdogan/Orban, Biden/Obama, and his own doctor. I'm convinced he thinhs "asylum seekers" are insane because he doesn't understand what asylum means in that context. He repeats whacky theories about magnets, hurricanes, forest fires, sharks versus electric boats, etc etc.
Don't forget about Trump thinking that Hannibal L was a real person.
Don't forget about Trump thinking that Hannibal L was a real person.
He did this again YESTERDAY.
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The difference between Trump and Biden is while Biden may be in decline due to his age he was, still is, a very intelligent man, he is declining from a very smart place.
Trump doesn't need to be in decline, he has always been a utter moron, Trump is just as stupid at 78 as he was at 17, he doesn't read, has little to no social skills, self awareness or ability to cope with complex problems, without his dads money his highest bar would be truck driver or roofer, he isn't bright enough to be a plumber
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I actually think you're conflating two allied groups. There are the kleptocrats - guys like Peter Thiel and to an extent David Sacks - who may have some views about how government should work but are essentially just in it for the money. They want a system they can exploit. Then there are the true believers, who think their ideological priorities are SO important that anything can be justified in their pursuit. The former don't really care about abortion rights, for example - they just want to use the influence of the people who do really care about that to improve conditions for the increased aggregation of wealth.
The current GOP is essentially now controlled by the wing of people who fall into the ideological side of this alliance, which is why there's even MORE religion at the RNC this year, and why it has less of a "I am a humble man of faith who cares about family and my local church community" tone now and more of a hucksterish, fire-and-brimstone, "GOD HAS PLACED US HERE TO FULFIL HIS DIVINE MISSION" tone. That mission is so important that they are willing to look the other way for the porn star affairs and other similar un-Christ-like behaviour to get to the ends they want. Similarly, the kleptocrats are willing to pretend to adherence to the religious nonsense they don't actually give a crap about to get to their end goal.
I mean, ultimately, Putin isn't a dictator in the sense of being an omnipotent king-like figure, he presides over a complex web of oligarchs that is deliberately set up to leech as much as possible off the Russian public. That's why guys like Thiel make anti-democratic comments, they want to live in that world.
I find it interesting that the billionaires will prefer an anti-democratic world. People don’t fall out windows here when they don’t bow to the powerful. Billionaires are also not rounded up by the masses and killed by a rebelling public.
The version of US democracy post Raegan has never been better for the Billionaire class. Pushing to get the last few dollars seems foolish for the level of personal risk.
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What are people arguing here - if Biden is fit to be president of the most powerful country in the world, or would Trump be a better POTUS than Biden? Because those are completely separate questions, and the answer to both is clearly "No".
Biden being better than Trump doesn't matter, it's completely irrelevant because based on his rate of decline over the last four years, there's no way he should be allowed to serve another four year term.
