President Biden: "I am running…no one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving."
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The vast majority would fall in line behind whoever the nominee is, but they exist just like they did in 2008 with Hillary voters and Obama, as well as (to a lesser extent) 2016 voters who supported Bernie with Hillary.
Kamala being his VP mitigates that a lot, but on a purely anecdotal level I've seen lots of social media posts from Biden supporters that are using the word disenfranchisement when it comes to him leaving the ticket.
She is doing amazing considering all the bullshit the press is saying.
Pretty much.
Although, I must once again stress the inanity of giving up tools and modes of thinking and moving because "the opposition does it." If your political worldview isn't based upon meaningful examination of the tools at your disposal, but upon merely separating yourself from the opposition, then you stand for nothing, which is a turnoff to people that want to vote for the betterment of their lives.
I still wager that a lockstep support of Biden in the aftermath of the debate, a unified "fuck you, we're sticking by him because he's not an existential threat to democracy," would have potentially tempered the fallout.
Instead Dems caved and freaked the fuck out, and it's a hot mess of unprecedented questions and dice rolls in July- four months away from what we've been told is the election that decides not just if minorities will die, but if America will continue to exist or not.
The time for unity was not when you were telling people to ignore Gaza, or ignoring Biden's comments about funding the police, or telling people to stop complaining about their bills because "real wages are up." It was last week.
Dems failed and now we have to scramble in the 11th hour to figure out a plan and hope that plan works.
Pure incompetence.
There are only a few more weeks to get things to change.
I don't know what the tipping point is, but we don't have much more time to wait.
Oh my god, I could curl up and die from the cringe. "I'm staying in the race, I will beat him again in 2020"
View: https://youtu.be/1775HSiDaMY?si=Ii93PvoEug5hWhaJ
View: https://youtu.be/1775HSiDaMY?si=Ii93PvoEug5hWhaJ
She's been doing an amazing job denying war crimes and genocide as well.
That's the problem though isn't it?
When you have a leader refusing to address reality and their spokespeople implicitly is leveraged to them due to the power dynamics at play, what option is there besides public falsification or self martyrdom? And once you are past that threshold the only possible response will be additional forms of dishonesty.
Trump made that a core of his entire identity and now we are sadly seeing Biden and to an extent Democrats do it as well.
Message discipline getting morphed into carrying water for false realities.
All he needs to do is hold on until it's too late, then there's no choice but to coalesce
Man if we didn't have that debate, I wouldn't be thinking of Biden's mental fitness. Reality bites. On one hand I wonder if the fear and opinions I read online are manufactured. But we all saw the debate. No need to fan flames, we are doing that ourselves and for good reason. I'd vote for Harris with Joe in the backseat. It just should have been passed off before a debate happened. Well here we go
I do want to address this a bit, but in a lot of countries campaigning is not even legally allowed to start tell sometimes as little as 4 weeks before an election.
There is a hard date on the convention, and more specifically early August, but just want to point out that 2-3 months is up to 3x as much "campaign season" as many countries have.
And honestly, from a policy perspective, if you were conjuring up electoral reform that should be one of them. It is actually quite insane that campaigns and the whole electoral process takes place up to years out. To the tune of literally billions of dollars.
I know *why* ours are so long, but it sounds so nice not having to deal with the anxiety of an election for a year and a half straight.
This dude's message has quickly gone from "This is a fight for the soul of America!" to "If I lose, I tried my best."
This is disappointing. We've been declared war on from the GOP, the Second American Revolution has a name, and the winning manuever is handing it off to Harris. You have all the pros of the Biden-Harris Administration, the War Chest is Fine, you have a fresh face on the campaign, and if Kamala has the energy to go out, campaign and you know, FIGHT for the job, it would be a landslide when the issues are Project 2025 and Abortion and not Grandpa's Health.
This is disappointing. We've been declared war on from the GOP, the Second American Revolution has a name, and the winning manuever is handing it off to Harris. You have all the pros of the Biden-Harris Administration, the War Chest is Fine, you have a fresh face on the campaign, and if Kamala has the energy to go out, campaign and you know, FIGHT for the job, it would be a landslide when the issues are Project 2025 and Abortion and not Grandpa's Health.
Oh, yes I absolutely agree with this... I was referring to the timeline to the convention, which by all accounts will (and should) be when the nominee is chosen by the party.
4 months is more than enough time to make meaningful changes in polling.
Yeah, agreed, and Democratic leaders do though need to either grow a spine and make some more full throated public statements or embrace their new Trumpian identity. Where like Trump, message discipline is now just a different form of endless reality denialism on behalf of dear leader.
I'm not sure where that gets us but my guess is a Trump presidency and maybe even going full Weimar where large swaths of people across the board just deny the realities they don't like, leading to ever intensifying disillusion and gravity pulling people to tear-it-down extremism on all sorts of directions, until the fascists finish us off.
I had to take several thousand steps back from the situation, and the enormous importance of the upcoming election, and take a minute to appreciate how so many pro-Biden folks critiqued the media in the wake of the debate when said media was instrumental in Biden's push and support for a genocide in Gaza.
The saddest/funniest thing about it is that the whole point of the debate was to dispell these sentiments. You know, the sentiments that he was too old, that already existed before the debate?
I can't see how these opinions are manufactured when live reactions of people on Era, which I'd comfortably call a Dem/Biden friendly forum, were fucking horrified. That's not reactions to media coverage there, and it's fairly representative of how everywhere else I've seen has been reacting.
So Biden stays on, continues to restrict his public appearances and interviews with the press, while daily headlines from now until November call into question his cognitive fitness, what happens when/if the debate in September is an absolute car wreck again?
What is it going to take for him to step down or for the people around him to encourage him to do so?
I cannot believe that so much in the US and the world hinges on this (and a few thousand votes in the Midwest).
What is it going to take for him to step down or for the people around him to encourage him to do so?
I cannot believe that so much in the US and the world hinges on this (and a few thousand votes in the Midwest).
Yeah I remember thinking that it was going to be a home run for Biden and had no interest in watching. Total 180.
I was at work that night and clicked on that thread to see how it was going.
The only way it happens is if poll numbers get worse and a bunch more prominent Democrats call on him to step aside. The odds of that seems low given they're clearly trying to circle the wagons. But the instant someone like Bernie Sanders, Warren, Schumer, or Jeffries publicly suggests he steps aside, it's over. The damage of them saying it might as well put the act into motion. But if that call doesn't happen before the DNC, it's done, and Biden stays.
Really don't know which is the better move. Does incumbency not matter as much as it used to now that we live in the instant Information Age? Is all it takes a competent, not old Democrat enough to make up that difference? I'm going to have to stay out of these threads because it's just gut-wrenching.
Y'all really need to gain some perspective if you want to be taken seriously in unseating the party leader.
Well, maybe not you all, specifically. But people who have direct agency in these matters.
I was out touching grass on a hike at the time, and had forgot the debate was happening. I thought "I'm sure it's fine."I was at work that night and clicked on that thread to see how it was going.
Came home and read the thread and Discords.
It was not fine.
Honestly, it would probably take Democrats doing what they have shown an inability to do, but endlessly lambast Republicans for, which is grow a spine.
And specifically I mean top leadership like Jeffries, Schumer, Pelosi, Obama(actually maybe leave him out due to bad blood), Harris, Jaime Harrison, the CBC meeting with him tonight, Sanders, and all telling him we need another path. Ideally offering a commendable way through which to hand off the baton and help avoid an RBG narrative. If that doesn't work you go public. Basically pull a Nixon on him. Tell him this is our ultimatum, if you don't take it we will have to go public for the good of the party.
I don't understand why some Biden voters potentially feeling betrayed if he steps down due to his health should outweigh other Biden voters, Democratic voters, and swing voters who might feel betrayed that Biden didn't allow for an open primary and misled the nation about his health
One of those feels like a real betrayal and the other feels like sour grapes
One of those feels like a real betrayal and the other feels like sour grapes
Can the adults in the room please, for the love of Christ, step in already and tell him he's lost it and needs to step aside?
And that's not to say I don't understand some of the pragmatic arguments of keeping Biden, like his current campaign machinery and funding already being there. That even if his health has declined the President can rely on his administration to do a lot of the actual job, etc.
But him stepping aside being a betrayal? That's only the case if you genuinely believe this is all a character assassination and the concerns about his health are totally fabricated. That becomes less and less defensible as more gets revealed about how an inner circle of staff is shielding him from the rest of the staff, how we see him perform in high-pressure environments, and as the press is shut down whenever they ask simple questions like "Hey, why is this Parkinson's doctor coming by every month?"
But him stepping aside being a betrayal? That's only the case if you genuinely believe this is all a character assassination and the concerns about his health are totally fabricated. That becomes less and less defensible as more gets revealed about how an inner circle of staff is shielding him from the rest of the staff, how we see him perform in high-pressure environments, and as the press is shut down whenever they ask simple questions like "Hey, why is this Parkinson's doctor coming by every month?"
THIS! I could give two shits about this mostly imaginary group of Biden die hards. Biden already picked Harris as his replacement should he not be fit to serve. This "betrayal" talk is ridiculous
Yes, I'm the one who needs to gain perspective here. For not taking into account the "Biden-or-busters" who definitely wouldn't vote for the blue ticket anyway if he retired due to age.
Umichvoter's Biden Nomination Tracker is pretty handy for keeping track.
View: https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1810416261106692242?s=46&t=5q2U08gXVStIC0OkwBKlhA
View: https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1810416261106692242?s=46&t=5q2U08gXVStIC0OkwBKlhA
Biden Campaign Congressional Comment Tracker
Responses by Members of Congress on the future of Joe Biden's campaign.
analysis.votehub.us
There's a very simple question being posed and repeatedly misunderstood or misrepresented, that being if you force out an incumbent President and the party leader, you WILL have to deal with his supporters feeling disenfranchised. This is regardless of opinion: you need all of Biden's voters to be supportive of the new party leader.
If you think "nah, it'll be fine, they'll fall in line, vote blue no matter who," it is my opinion that is negligent thinking, and you are an unserious person on the topic. There has to be a solid transition plan, not an assumption that die hard Biden supporters will just fall in. And if your response to the idea of a hypothetical voter who wants Biden specifically at the top of the ticket is that they're DINOs or have brain worms or they're ghouls or whatever else, I hope whoever's opinion that actually matters doesn't agree.
You need everyone. And that's largely why Dems are currently in the position they're in: you can't take Biden out by force. He has to agree and fully cooperate for the idea to have any possibility of working.
You do if you think you can unseat a President and not have to deal with the consequences. Thankfully, party leadership understands this.
You're not saying anything anyone doesn't already know. We know they're not unseating him via the 25th amendment, it's going to be the way this shit is usually handled in politics: behind the scenes telling him that he's lost all support and needs to step down etc etc. That's part of where the frustration with Biden's stubbornness is coming from.
We can't control if the lifelong politician with possible emerging age issues is going to play ball or not, but we can at least come to a decision on what would be the best path forward for the party and move towards it.
Biden consistently gets 2020 and 2024 confused. It happens all the time and is not helping him convince anyone that he is still mentally sharp.
I think that Biden clearly wants to remain as the nominee, but I don't think for a second that he wouldn't do the honorable thing if those around him and other politicians (even behind the scenes) showed the courage to tell him that he's lost it and it's time to go. He's not going to throw Harris under the bus. That just doesn't seem like his style to me.
And it is my opinion that they are far more likely to fall in line with whatever that transition is than people who feel betrayed by Biden's currently demonstrated inability
So I think it is a much lesser concern than assuaging the much larger block of people who have lost faith with the President. My response to the die-hards right now is "We'll get to that if we get to that". Biden's main goal right now should be assuring people he has the mental ability to be President. He can either do that and win back this block of voters, and we don't even have to broach the topic with these hypothetical Biden die-hards, or he can step aside and then we can have that conversation of what the transition will look like. The cart cannot be put before the horse.
Biden mentioned to Morning Joe that he's using the crowd reaction at his rallies as confirmation that voters want him to stay in the race. Like they'd boo him off the stage or something if they didn't.
The voters that go to rallies are the ones that will be voting Dem no matter what and will have enthusiasm no matter what. These voters exist, but they are not the ones that will make or break the election in the swing states, and particularly in the Rust Belt. They are not the ones that will win the election for Joe.
Other than that one terrible NYT article where the title made a claim that wasn't in the article itself at all, could you please give examples of "all of the bullshit the press is saying?"
They're not making up poll numbers and they didn't make up the horrifying debate performance (and response since) that voters have been rightfully judging. So I'm genuinely curious what it is you're referring to.
And listen, she's doing her job. But her saying there's enthusiasm and energy for the Biden campaign is a straight up lie. Blatant propaganda. That is some bullshit.
This goes back to the central issue for Biden: how does he convince the public convinced that he is too old for the job that he's not too old for the job?
Imagine you have an aging parent. Imagine if they have some close calls while driving that make you concerned. Then imagine they crash their car. They're fine, no one died and is hurt. But it was serious enough to make you worried. It's not like them having one successful trip to the corner store will convince you they're fine to drive. That's how we perceive aging.
Imagine you have an aging parent. Imagine if they have some close calls while driving that make you concerned. Then imagine they crash their car. They're fine, no one died and is hurt. But it was serious enough to make you worried. It's not like them having one successful trip to the corner store will convince you they're fine to drive. That's how we perceive aging.
Yes, that's exactly what it feels like... And it is ironic, because that's what so many of us here have been clamoring for the Democrats to do.
Biden is channeling his inner Trump. It worked for him, after all, so why wouldn't it work for Joe?
It just might. People are easily mislead, but we shouldn't delude ourselves into neglecting to see what's right in front of us.
This is what isolated, misinformed, and somewhat delusional politicians say. His rallies aren't drawing Obama-level crowds. I saw a tweet that said Biden's post-debate rally had about 300 people in attendance. I don't know if that's accurate. But using audience reaction at rallies to gauge how the overall electorate feels about a candidate is, at minimum, not scientific.
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