The discourse around Biden exiting the race is moot because the only one who decides if he continues is Biden. Biden is still running so nothing changes. Biden is who we need to vote for to keep our democracy.
Biden had a bad debate performance. It was a missed opportunity to pick up new voters. Biden demoralized his base. But we’re still stuck with him, because there is no external mechanism to stop him from running.
The most effective tool we have to prevent the christo-fascist takeover this November is voting. The debate did not change that.
the only one who decides if he continues is Biden.
Got it.
Biden is who we need to vote for to keep our democracy.
Um, what? Vote Biden to save Democracy, and fuck you if you want a different candidate.
I’ll vote for Biden’s corpse in 2028 if it’s still the only way to keep Trump out of the Whitehouse, but give up the “save Democracy” schtick. That ship has sailed. Democracy is dead, and it’s not just the Republican’s fault.
Democracy is still alive for now. That’s why voting matters. Our flawed democracy is still our best chance at adverting fascism. Which is why the fascists want to take it away. Giving up early gets us nothing. So keep fighting.
I think his point is that, if our only alternative to fascism is to vote for a senile old man who was forced upon voters without a primary, then this system can’t credibly be called democracy.
It is still democracy. It doesn’t matter how old the candidate is.
Its not about how old the candidate is, its about not having other valid alternatives when you dont like the candidate chosen for you.
Edit: just to make sure the point gets across. Imagine going to a restaurant, the waiter asks if you want to drink moldy water or toxic industrial waste. You see behind him lies an array of normal, refreshing beverages but sorry, you weren’t given those choices so you can’t have any of that. Thats basically this election.
We live in a first-past-the-post voting system. These choices, Biden and Trump, are in part the result of that system. We need to change to a different system like rank choice voting or approval voting. But despite being flawed, our system is still a democracy.
You can only continue to call this system a democracy by setting the bar very very low. Pointless to argue semantics though, better to argue substance. We won’t get to a better - more representative - democracy by working within the current system; we need to apply external pressure. People don’t feel that voting in this election will save democracy because they don’t feel there’s enough of it left to be saved. Voting in this election can at best stave off a total collapse to fascism, but that’s it.
If your choices are vote for A and democracy ends or vote for B, it isn’t really a choice. If it isn’t a choice, it’s not a democracy. It’s political theater. Not unlike mock elections in dictatorships.
You’re fucked either way, both choices are pathways to the same destination. Just at different speeds/ different routes.
By electing Biden democracy continues and we will have the opportunity for better choices. There are ways to fix our problems, but we have to be willing to fight for them. If we choose to keep fighting we can avert self-destruction. In this case it means voting for a neo-liberal. That’s a small price to pay for a shot at a better society and averting death camps.
Democracy’s already gone if you don’t have a choice. Little difference in the long term between either candidate. We’re on the way to an authoritarian capitalist state much like China either way.
We can still get back to democracy. This isn’t democracy. Did you even read my comment btw? This knee jerk canned response isn’t even human.
We are living in a democracy right now. The fascists are attempting to takeover our democracy. If we didn’t have democracy there wouldn’t be an election.
There are a lot of non-democracies with elections.
Not a lot of them vote out the would be dictator so that he incites an insurrection.
Then let’s hold a primary.
The Democratic Party’s primary already happened. As is typical for American politics the incumbent won their party’s primary.
Well, at least in the states where they didn’t succeed in keeping everyone else off the ballot.
There was no real primary. Even 2020 wasn’t a real primary. The fix is in with mainstream media and the major outlets taking their queues from the establishment.
The idea that we have an actual democracy is laughable, and the Democratic party does everything in their power to keep it that way. Biden won in 2020 because the establishment picked him and the media did as they were told. There is no democracy without an independent press.
Biden is a better choice than Trump for a multitude of reasons, but not saving democracy.
I don’t understand this chain of logic why we need to keep Biden:
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Biden isn’t the best candidate.
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Only Biden can drop (false)
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Biden will never make the adult decision to retire.
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We have to plow forward with Biden because he’ll never change his mind on anything.
Like, the argument for why Biden has to stay, is just reasons he shouldn’t stay…
And it’s not just up to him. It’s up to the DNC.
We are not stuck with Biden.
Biden and the DNC just know that’s the only way people will vote for him, so they’ve been reporting it for like 5 years now.
Only Biden can drop
This is a true statement. Biden won the primary. The delegates are pledged to him. Biden is the one who has to decide if he drops out.
Mostly true. The DNC is the organization that makes the rules and can change them at any time. That would be a pretty bad move though unless the party really felt united in needing to do a hostile expulsion. Realistically Biden needs to be on board for a change to work, so being able to play Calvinball with primary voting rules isn’t really an out.
Yes, as I understand it they would have to change the rules to expel him. People seem to be assuming that there is already a mechanism to expel him without doing that.
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sounds like the party is dysfunctional if we can’t replace a candidate with 120 days of leadup. that’s longer than any other country’s election season. the inability of the democratic party to do good things on purpose makes a strong argument against their leadership if what they think they offer is competence
The Democratic Party is still the best option when the only viable alternative is a christo-fascist party.
I’m running on an independent ticket. My platform: Unlike the other two candidates no one wonders if I can physically handle the journey from back stage to the podium.
You’re the hero we needed and the hero we deserved.
I’m fucking serious, one of the talking heads on the news said Biden needed to “remain upright” to come off well in this debate. That was said of the currently serving commander-in-chief!
Unlike the actual President Of These United States of America, the 24 hour news cycle probably expects more out of me than “can stand up straight for 30 minutes without incident.”
Remember when Trump made a point to demonstrate his ability to lift and drink from a glass of water?
Seriously next time these two appear on stage I want them to step through a hoop to prove there are no wires.
The guy didn’t ace a debate with a sore throat and jet-lag so the media loses its shit. The orange liar has rape and 34 felony convictions- crickets. Nothing new here.
I searched for an editorial board opinion in the New York Times which said Trump should withdraw from the Republican ticket because he lied throughout the debate, but I couldn’t find one. Why didn’t they write one?
Because the media is complicit and owned by the same oligarchs that have taken control of our country.
There are two standards. Everyone expects Republicans to be lying shitheads so when they are, no one is surprised.
We somehow just accept this.
the only one who decides if he continues is Biden … vote for to keep our democracy.
I … I don’t think that’s a democracy.
Biden won the Democratic Party’s primary election so he is going to be the Democratic Party’s candidate. That is democracy.
Ah yes. Demos is greek for the democratic party.
In a democracy, the person who wins an election gets the position they ran for.
If there is only one predetermined person running does it still count as “winning”?
How is it different with two predetermined people?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries
Other people ran in the Democratic Party’s primary. As is typical of US politics, the incumbent president won their primary.
Biden and Trump both won their primaries, because people in their respective parties voted for Biden and Trump. Trump had even more challengers than Biden did. This outcome wasn’t predetermined, just predictable.
Hillary Clinton vs Jeb Bush in 2016 was predictable. But as we saw with Trump’s win, not predetermined.
Biden was tired from too many engagements, jet lag and a sore throat. You could see he was tried. On the other hand, the orange felon/rapist/liar had one job - to not be an asshole - he failed spectacularly.
Yeah, at least Trump didn’t gain any ground. Biden lost the battle, but we’re still fighting the war.
He spent an entire week focusing on just this debate at Camp David.
Why would he be tired? What other engagements did he have?
We’re past “preventing” the Christo-fascist takeover. We’re in damage control now.
VOTE.
The christo-fascists are not in complete control of all three branches of government yet. That is why this election and voting is so important. Calling it early is both inaccurate and unhelpful.
Can the party not compel him to step down and elect a more healthy replacement.
There is no mechanism at this stage that can force him to do so that I am aware of. They can of course try to convince him, but no one from Biden’s inner circle, like Jill Biden, or any of the hypothetical candidates people like to float, like Gavin Newsom, has expressed interest in doing that.
I pessimistically expected that.
If he bowed out and the Dems nominated a halfway decent candidate (which they likely wouldn’t do, but that’s a different subject), they’d demolish Trump. He’d lose so badly he couldn’t even pretend it was fraudulent (though of course he’d claim that anyway, since he has the emotional maturity of a spoiled five-year-old). The race would instantly go from a terrifying risk to a complete rout.
But between Biden’s ego and the DNC’s determination to stick with a wholly-owned establishment neoliberal hack at all costs - even if it means losing - I expected that they wouldn’t take this golden opportunity.
On the stream of the debate I was watching, when they took a break they showed clips from previous debates and the difference was kind of mind-blowing.
I honestly kind of think that even a mid-level candidate who didn’t make it like Romney or Kerry probably could have mopped the floor with either one of them.
Also as a side note, how lucky is Donald Trump? Just a whole life of being handed infinite money no matter how many times he fucked up a business, a bewildering assortment of crimes with essentially no hard consequences, and two presidential runs against pretty much the only two people he has any chance of beating in a debate.
He’s had a life of almost non-stop softballs. It’s kind of wild really.
But between Biden’s ego and the DNC’s determination to stick with a wholly-owned establishment neoliberal hack at all costs - even if it means losing - I expected that they wouldn’t take this golden opportunity.
Biden has objectively been the most progressive president since LBJ, and the most effective progressive president since FDR. And he did it with about the slimmest possible congressional margins, a situation which would have made it very easy for an actual “establishment neoliberal hack” to say “my hands are tied” and accomplish nothing of substance. Instead we got the biggest climate reform package ever, the biggest infrastructure package since the Interstate Highway system, a child tax credit that massively reduced child poverty, the most significant industrial policy in decades (CHIPS and Science), a veritable bulldog FTC chair with an aggressive anti-monopoly stance, and that’s just for starters.
He’s pro genocide. That automatically makes him not progressive.
That’s all well and good… And it will be for nothing. Biden’s legacy will be that of RBG - your hubris handed the future to the opposition. These are dark days.
This is simply fan fic.
You’re not wrong. Some truths are inconvenient and unpopular, but they’re not wrong.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” the 81-year-old Biden said Friday. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong and I know how to do this job.”
trump didn’t think he was wrong when he was breaking human rights laws on our southern border.
And Biden apparently doesn’t either now that he’s doing it.
My point being the people who do evil shit, usually dont think of themselves as evil.
The problem with Biden, is on issues like Israel where the vast majority of not only his party but the country won’t him him to calm the fuck down. He never will
Because he is absolutely sure his outdated morals are the best, and he’s not listening to anyone that disagrees with him.
This gonna be the first time you have to choose between the lesser of two evils?
Personally, that has been the only way I’ve ever been able to fucken vote and I’m sick of it.
And yet, I seem to be the only one voting for Spiderman. I liked his policy on stopping the Sinister Six.
The lesser of two evils is exactly how we fucking got her in the first place.
You get a chance to vote for your dream candidate in the primary.
If they’re not on the ballot in the general, that’s because other voters didn’t find your dream candidate so dreamy.
Bullshit.
The primary process is so heavily fucked between superdelegates, and games played by the DNC that it’s pointless to even try.
Or did you forget it was the superdelegates that fucked Bernie in the early primary, as well as all the other games like removing his access to voter roles for a bug that was reported by his staff,
As well as the first few states generally dictate the course of the primary.
You’d have a point if a) every state primaries on the same day, b) superdelegates didn’t exist, and c) the DNC abided by its own rules.
Bernie Sanders got fewer votes than Clinton in 2016 and fewer votes than Biden in 2020. That’s why he wasn’t the nominee.
Politics ain’t beanbag. If you can’t get the most votes than you deserve to go home.
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Also if they didn’t mess with the primary through media contacts, plus the media itself having its own biases due to their corporate owners and neoliberal talk show hosts, plus things like being able to offer favors to certain candidates for dropping out, or using past power like Obama to secure endorsements and stuff. It’s super rigged.
Get the most votes. That’s the only thing that matters. Everything else is just making excuses.
Sanders didn’t get the most votes. I don’t care about the excuses.
Sure, by that logic Putin and Kim Jong IL are legitimate Presidents as well. The other candidates should’ve tried harder.
They know and they love it.
I mean, the greater evil would presumably have gotten us worse. And in a system that is set up so as to inevitably produce two viable parties, and where “good” is not on the ballot from either, what else do you expect people to do?
change it, naturally.
contrary to popular belief, this system only lasts as long as we allow it to last.
“just change the system” is easier said than done, which I suspect you realize of course, since if it were so easy, you’d have changed it yourself already. The difficulty in such change is that it requires a very large number of people to act in unison, which is quite rare, especially when most people aren’t literally starving, and have different ideas over what they want the system to be, some of which might be better, but some of which might be as bad or worse. It’s a bit like how libertarian types sometimes remark that, if everyone stopped paying taxes, the government would run out of money and be unable to enforce them anymore: technically true, but requires humans to act with uncharacteristic unity towards a singular goal, against pushback from established power. Not to say that it never happens, but it does not seem to happen reliably or in a way that can be readily forced to occur.
Maybe everybody should just vote for me. I’ll end our support for Isreal. I’ll massively increase our support for Ukraine, and I’ll send George Clooney a birthday card every year with a pop-up middle finger, that pops out of a card that says “You’re getting older, you smug fuck!”
Also bacon. Just…just bacon.
got my vote with bacon.
Don’t pretend this is a normal choice. The whole context has shifted since the debate - Biden is unfit, we are still gonna say hold your nose and vote?
That quote is so stupid.
“yeah I’m in cognitive and physical decline, but I’m totally capable of leading one of the most powerful and influential nations in history. Trust me bro.”
You’re not wrong…but the other option is trump.
We’re all fucked.
At least he sounded a lot more energetic and present in this speech. What happened on stage?
Didn’t have a teleprompter on stage
You also don’t really need to think for a speech. You’ve got a friendly audience who won’t challenge you and you know exactly what the next topic is, so you can focus on inflection and timing and emotion. It’s good to see him have some life in the speech, but it’s not really much of a counter to his terrible debate performance.
And incidentally, that’s probably why Trump’s performance sounded better. He also didn’t really need to think about substance because he was just speaking to whatever topic he felt like and making things up without concern for truthfulness or challenge.
I think he was just sick on an unlucky day.
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FWIW I’ve been that sick
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Biden could commit to only serving one more year and let the VP pick go to a brokered convention.
Biden has already committed to serving four more years.
He probably shouldn’t serve another week. Where the fuck is the democratic leadership on this?
I think most Democrats are worried about him being elected more than will he be able to be president for four years. Like he probably won’t, but there’s lots of structure and support to prevent a failing Biden from a catastrophic presidency. There’s basically none to prevent him from tanking his reelection campaign.
