This is exactly what we should expect all of Biden’s top allies to say, publically, unless he decides to back out, in which case all these same people will publically say the next lady is the best bet now.
Because he is. Even if we don’t like him. Even if we think his handling of Israel is fucking disgusting. Even if we think he’s too god damned old.
Trying to run someone new without any primaries now would almost assuredly leave us with a worse candidate and a splintered voting bloc.
Why? Because without primaries, it’s basically in the DNC’s hands to choose a new candidate, which they are totally allowed to do as a private organization. I know this because they never legally argued that they didn’t put their finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton in court, they argued that as a private organization, the DNC is allowed to make its own rules and break its own rules. (The law was on their side, so they pounded the law, since the facts would have said they totally did put a finger on the scale for her.)
How many Democratic voters do you think are going to line up for a party-chosen candidate? What if they did “go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.” I think a lot of voters would be real unhappy with that.
Even if the party chose to let their delegates choose a candidate at the convention (less than two months away), it could easily turn into an absolute shitshow and also split the party vote.
Biden is who we’ve got and we can accept that or fuck up our chances for any semblance of democracy even more.
We’ve never had a pair of candidates this unpopular. (Maybe Trump vs Clinton)
If the Dems had any kind of brains, they absolutely would pick someone else at the convention.
Just not Harris; She might be the only one, less popular than Biden is.Trump has his evangelicals, they’re a done deal. His others voters are a “tear down the system” vote. People who are tired of being fucked over, no matter who’s in office. They see him as the “worse” things need to get, before they can get better; And they may be right.
If the Dems picked a genuine progressive, who offered several big radical changes (that we all know the ownership class hates), they would take a lot of votes from trump. They would win.But I doubt they’d do it.
The only thing more scary to Dems than Trump, is a genuine progressive.The DNC picked Biden and chose not to primary him. Dispite knowing better than any of us how unwell he is. This system is absurd.
In 2028 after 4 more years of Biden, what then? You really think people will want 4 more years of Democrat broken promises after 8? Trump wins this year either way. Democrats are blowing it
The Dems really messed up imo by not screwing the others out of primaries and debates with Biden. They totally rigged it for Biden and now they don’t have much choice but to keep trying to push forward, but they knew what they were getting into. They’ve known Biden wasn’t well for a long time
Exactly, the moment to replace him was from the get-go. Now we’re logistically in too deep without splitting the entire party and essentially just handing the win to Trump. (Thanks so much DNC, it’s totally clear you know better than the voters in your own party. /s)
I blame ineffectual Democrats who are more concerned with their power inside their own party for the rise of fascism as much as the fascists themselves, because their fucking buffoonery and chicanery literally enable the fascist Republican crime spree.
I mean fuck, look how long they carted out Dianne Feinstein pretending she was still a functional human being instead of just running anyone the fuck else.
How often does either party primary an incumbent president? Wikipedia only lists five notable one. And also has this little factoid that shows it usually backfires for the party.
Since the advent of the modern primary election system in 1972, an incumbent president has never been defeated by a primary challenger, though every president who faced a strong primary challenge went on to be defeated in the general election.
Edit - Forgot my wiki link. =(
Excellent point, I wasn’t aware of that one. Not that we should always treat the past as indicative of the future, but rather, it’s clear that choosing such a path is playing with fire. For a litany of reasons.
Sadly, with Trump, we can’t afford to play with fire, period.
Never so far. There’s a first time for everything.
But there’s also the option of not primarying him and just not running Biden at all.
I wonder how many of those 5 had an incumbent who was no longer capable of running a country.
He’s running the country right now, unless you think it’s really Obama and/or the Lizard People.
Then maybe the incumbent president should sit the fuck down and go back to sleep. Usually the third party runs anyway and siphons votes away.
They are fine with Trump pulling the country further to the right and lowering the bar for 2028. Whatever they have to do to keep from moving left with all the poors.
Of course he is. The DNC spent the last four years with their heads up their asses thinking that this election is in the bag. They had time to set-up a different candidate, and they refused. They had time to strategize for a win, and decided to do fucking nothing.
I swear to god if Democrats throw this fucking election just like 2016 because they refuse to take fascism seriously, I will punch anyone who tries to claim it’s the left’s fault.
They are going to pull the same trick, that is “our candidate isn’t the other guy”
They made sure he’s the only other viable candidate. I’m sick of the complete lack of actual choice.
Remember the 2020 convention where none of the “hot” voices in the party were given speaking spots and the key note was like a dozen different politicians all giving part of a speech, guaranteeing that none of them would have an Obama moment?
And then how throughout Biden’s term the two competitors in his administration (Harris and Buttigieg) we basically only brought out for damage control and no-win policies Biden didn’t want to be tarnished with? Harris has always been a weak candidate, but being given the task of fixing voting rights and the southern border was just sabotaging the presumed heir apparent.
They’re not even just trying to keep the party moderate, they don’t want to even let any other moderates build a stature. Everything has been in service of our elderly leader. Who cares what happens after him, the consultants will have already cashed out and rotated back to business, and the party leadership was also all old as fuck.
Biden isn’t the guy to run if they truly fear the end of Democracy.
If he had what it takes to root out fascism he’d already be in motion using the Supreme Court ruling saying hes immune from anything he does in an official capacity. Dems in general are too tepid to even try. I really hope I’m wrong but leaving options on the table unused is the democratic way.
The more they pull this shit, the harder it is to not believe they’re just the fascists’ controlled opposition.
Those same allies thought Hillary was too. Pathetic.
Of course they did, they’re his top 5 allies, lol
“He has the same 34% approval rate as Trump, that means he’s the only one who can beat him.”
Neoliberalism; not even once.
Democrats are desperate to lose
Both parties are more successful as opposition parties than they are actually “leading.”
Democrats aren’t even successful as a controlling party.
They’re very successful at maintaining the status quo.
Well I’m glad the blame can now be shifted towards Biden allies when he loses, rather than leftists.
Oh you sweet summer child, it’s always going to be our fault.
If they can’t see their nose in front of their face I can’t help them. There is no hope.
Did they watch the same debate that I did?
Yes, but they make money when Biden keeps running, and if he doesn’t, they’ll make less money.
HA!
Best that they’re willing to run, maybe.
Biden couldn’t beat Trump in a debate, how is he supposed to win an election?
Is this… are you… Are you serious?
This is a ridiculous equivalence on its face, and you should feel ridiculous for saying it. A debate does not have a “winner” beyond that which any number of biased observers, such as yourself, attempt to assert. This is not baseball.
The winners in any debate, if there must be any, are the people who use what they see and hear to inform their voting choices. What, exactly, do you perceive DJT to have said and done on that stage that will convince supposed “undecided” voters to vote for him? What do you perceive Biden to have said or done that would make them decide that Mr. Trump is the better choice?
As you said:
“Undecided” voters fall into two categories:
Trump voter: “Iah aint tellin’ YEW who IAHM a-votin’ FER!”
Undecided voter trying to choose between voting and not voting.
Nobody is undecided between the candidates.
Were you yourself undecided? Or perhaps planning to vote for Biden prior to the debate, but now will vote for Trump instead? Given your analysis of undecided voters, I fail to see how the debate would have motivated the non-voters to go out and vote for a President Trump.
What I saw, personally, was two very old men who have wildly different takes on ethics and the seriousness of the position. One of which has a lot of practice being on camera. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden’s performance at the debate was at least somewhat intentional, setting up a wonka-esque reversal for debate #2. Considering recency bias, along with the media’s desperate need to turn everything into contentious clickbait, I think it would be a pretty brilliant tactic, even.
Of course, what do I know. I’m a moron. Much like your opinion, mine has very little value.
I’m completely serious. Biden had a month to prepare for a debate, on friendly ground, with rules his team helped define, and he still got his ass handed to him… by a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist.
There was no way this was even supposed to be a fair fight and Biden came away looking like a lost little boy.
It doesn’t matter that Trump lied through the whole thing. Biden looked weak, lost, unprepared, incapable, incompetent.
That’s not how you win.
We must have watched different debates, then. I saw one weak but curated personality, and one flawed human being. Maybe both of us are just incapable of seeing past our biases?
I saw a dumpster fire of a candidate, and the best candidate for a nursing home.
Okay. So, which one do you think we should vote for?
I can’t say who anyone else should vote for, I’ll be voting for whoever the Democrat is, knowing that if it’s Biden, he’ll lose, if it’s Harris, she’ll lose, and if it’s anyone else, they’ll lose too.
I see. Frankly I can’t live my life with that level of pessimism, because if I adopt that sort of outlook then I’m very likely to sink much deeper into depression, something I’ve struggled with all my life. That sort of thinking genuinely leads me to hopelessness and suicidality.
The winners in any debate, if there must be any, are the people who use what they see and hear to inform their voting choices.
This thinking is part of what lost Biden the debate. He thought he was attending a debate in the traditional sense, but that’s not what political debates are. A political debate is about communicating your platfotm and hammering on the other person’s weaknesses (ex. Abortion, him being a convicted felon etc.).
Biden lost because he sat there like a dope and tried to answer the questions, instead of doing what he claimed was his strategy for taking the debate in the first place; exposing Donald Trump as worse.
As usual, neoliberals fail to understand the moment and meet it, which is why they’re losers.
From my point of view Biden didn’t have to lift a finger to expose Donald Trump as worse. Trump seemed happy to do that himself. But then, as I said, I’m a moron.
Stupid as I am, though, I don’t have to lower myself to calling people “losers”. I retired that word from my vocabulary when I graduated from elementary school.
I don’t mean it as a pejorative, I mean it as a description of one of neoliberal dems defining characteristics; they lose, chronically, when it counts.
They got a supermajority and they still fumbled. And it’s deliberate losing, that’s their role in the duopoly set-up; to promise progressive change and fail to deliver because of those “wascally wepublicans”. What they are failing to understand is that the Republican party is no longer playing the “one hand washes the other” game to maintain the corporate status quo – the Republican party has been taken over by literal fascists who are out for blood and the neoliberal democrats still think they’re playing the status quo game. They don’t understand that losing comes with real consequences now, but it’s all they know how to do.
I see. In that case, I think you may fundamentally misunderstand the world. You seem to want to frame it up as though there’s some master plan or conspiracy, instead of a bunch of individuals working in hotly contested fields, just trying to keep their jobs by doing what they perceive as best at any given moment.
No. If I misunderstood then campaign finance and lobbying money wouldn’t be the rock solid predictor of how a politician will vote. But money remains one of the most reliable predictors of politician behavior, and most democrats take huge amounts of corporate money to obstruct any real progress.
That doesn’t seem particularly at odds with what I said, but I guess I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out. I’m hoping your plans to change the system work out. Genuinely. If you have actionable, realistic, achievable ideas for removing the corrupting influence of money from the world at large, I’m all ears.
In the meantime I’ll to continue to vote for whichever candidate (that stands a realistic chance at winning) I feel will do the least harm to the people I love and the institutions I begrudgingly tolerate.
I’ve already mentioned that I’m a moron, this should reinforce that.
