- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
You must log in or register to comment.
I feel like Stewart was directly voicing the concerns I’ve had over Biden for basically his entire term. He just doesn’t seem to get it that the fascists are playing for keeps.
I also like that he’s grounded in his suggestion of opening up the conversation, rather than immediately calling for Biden to step down. The DNC should’ve started poll testing alternates immediately after the debate. There needs to be an informed plan for an alternate. Calling for Biden to withdraw with a four month runway, without a more popular and independently funded candidate is reactionary and reckless.
The DNC should’ve started poll testing alternates immediately after the debate.
They should’ve done that after he got elected! Ppl campaign for president 2 years before the actually election. How is everyone thinking 4 months is enough?!
Honestly a short campaign could be beneficial, more enthusiasm less apathy and sick of them. Campaigns should be 4 months or less.
I agree that four months is insufficient time to prepare and execute a campaign. They had no reason to poll test earlier, since Biden won the 2024 primary.
To be fair, the fascists make it very hard to take them seriously. I can see why an elderly lifelong politician doesn’t understand the threat. Most days I wake up and don’t understand how it’s come to this.
Biden needs to fuck off. He’s going to lose us the Republic.
You see it. I see it. Jon Stewart sees it since forever.
The shills on Lemmy and other places like gaslighting. A lot.
Honestly, I hate the situation, but I haven’t heard any compelling arguments for alternatives.
By compelling, I don’t mean appealing. I’d love for any number of other candidates to just swap in. But because the U.S. got “Weekend at Bernie’d”, and primaries were held (with no realistic opposition candidates), or cancelled in the case of Florida and Delaware, and the dates for holding a primary have passed in every state, I just… don’t see how another candidate can be swapped in.*
And I know that John Stewart specifically called out other nations who were able to call entire elections within a few months, but the U.S. electoral system just doesn’t ‘do’ that. The focus on states rights means that every state has its own laws that are fairly rigid and cannot be overridden by the federal government. And even if the states could be overridden - well, I guess I don’t know if it’s possible for the federal government to do that.
I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that suggestion as being even a remote possibility. I’m left with the belief that it is not legally permissible.In fact - the Heritage Foundation said they would mount legal challenges to prevent this from occurring - but only in certain states. It’s very likely those challenges could not be resolved before the election, which would lead to at least two Democratic Party candidates, and certain defeat for both of them. The only way that Biden could drop out is if the states that have laws prohibiting candidate changes repeal or modify them, and that itself might be the subject of lawsuits.
*The only way I see for Biden to drop out and not ensure certain defeat is to die. That’s the only path I can think of that’s workable.
If I truly believe that Trump will end democracy and I must do everything I can to prevent his election - even if it compromises my better judgment and morals, and I know that Biden will not use the powers he was just granted to ensure that Trump is brought to justice before he can assume dictatorial powers, then… well, what’s the option but to be a shill? That’s not a rhetorical question. I legitimately feel trapped and hopeless by this shitty system, and I cannot see a way out.
I feel like I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.The only state which was a risk was Ohio, which already amended its rule for this year to allow the selection after the dem convention. There is no legal problem here, the dems simply need to choose a new candidate at their convention.
That’s the problem with the patchwork of laws.
Ohio has a law that says the candidates must be declared by August 9th, but the DNC isn’t until after that. (But Ohio cleared the way for that, as you noted.)
Nevada, however, requires that the political parties submit their candidates when the state convention is held by a given party, and does not seem to have an actual cut-off date.
Each major political party shall, at the state convention of the major political party held in that year, select from the qualified electors who are legally registered members of the major political party: (a) A nominee to the position of presidential elector; and (b) An alternate to the nominee for presidential elector.
I’m actually somewhat confused on this one - the Democratic Nevada convention was May 18th, but the article I posted above says their cut-off was June 28th. Both dates have passed, mind you. But I wonder where the June 28th date came from.
The deadline for Georgia was July 9th - yesterday.
My information for both Nevada and Georgia came from Ballotpedia. The page also notes that many states have their filing deadlines before the DNC, but it’s my understanding that the Democratic Party plans to deal with this by nominating him via conference call in advance of these deadlines - so I think the clock is about a month shorter than people may consider, when looking at the date of the DNC.
I don’t know why the first article I posted mentions Wisconsin. I think you’re right - if Biden withdraws and releases his delegates before the nomination deadlines/conference call to make it official, many states (such as Wisconsin) won’t be an issue. I’m unclear if democrats can submit an alternative candidate in Georgia, and I think they can only offer up the alternative candidate they would have specified during their convention for Nevada.
Nevada is fairly reliably democrat-leaning, and Georgia has been changing a lot lately, with expectations to swing democrat again. Even if democrats did lose Georgia, the state would still be a battleground, which saps resources from the republican presidential effort. (Side note: If that played out and democrats couldn’t field a candidate. I would expect third party or write-in candidates to get an outsized proportion of the vote. That could be a great opportunity for third parties to perhaps get legal recognition and benefits that comes with that.)
It does seem like slightly less of an issue now that I’ve dug a bit deeper into it. However who knows how things will go in states without defined laws - that could be a boondoggle if injunctions get filed.
But there are legal issues already, and those will continue to grow as time goes on.I don’t know, man.
If Biden, god forbid, had a stroke tonight and was lying in a coma, is there no facility to change the candidate to someone else. Or would you be locked in to voting for a candidate in a vegative state?
Each major political party shall, at the state convention of the major political party held in that year, select from the qualified electors who are legally registered members of the major political party: (a) A nominee to the position of presidential elector; and (b) An alternate to the nominee for presidential elector.
I’m actually somewhat confused on this one - the Democratic Nevada convention was May 18th, but the article I posted above says their cut-off was June 28th. Both dates have passed, mind you. But I wonder where the June 28th date came from.
These are rules for selecting the electors, not the candidates. They’re the “elector” part of the “electoral college”.
I think you’re right on that front, which makes it doubly frustrating – because then you got multiple websites parroting bad information. And in turn, I may have parroted bad information.
I spent a few hours trying to find the relevant statutes to understand what was “right”, and not one made sense to me. It seems like they have different rules for major parties vs independent candidates, but fuck if I could figure out the rules for major parties.
It does seem weird that these things are so opaque, right? If you get to the right place you can find the Democrats’ rules, but the voting clause isn’t 100% unambiguous. It says you have to “in good conscience” represent the will of the voters that sent you. And on top of that there are a bunch of state laws about the delegates, but it’s unclear which ones are even legal as the Supreme Court said the parties are private entities and the states can’t tell them how to run their business.
Hmm…I wasn’t aware of the stipulations surrounding Nevada, that’s actually a bit worrisome. Thanks for pointing this out, will need to read up on it more. I honestly think GA is a lost cause this year for the Dems but we shall see.
Keen for the possibility you laid out for 3rd parties to get a foothold, hoping to see that exact scenario unfold! There are many who feel reforming the Dems is the only way towards the Left, but the party seems like such a lost cause. If only a populist 3rd party candidate could get just a small foothold, I could see voters backing them in monumental droves within just 1 election cycle. Ah, the dream.
Well, someone pointed out that the Nevada statute quoted was for their electoral college candidates, not the president. (I had noted the word elector, but figured it was goofy legal terminology.)
I couldn’t then figure out what the actual Nevada statute for presidential nominees are (it seems they’re different depending on whether the nominee is part of a major political party).Nevada may still pose an issue but I can’t argue they are with as much confidence. I just can’t figure out the actual laws around it with my own eyes and brain.
Well said.
I get Jon Stewart’s position and agree with nearly all of his criticisms, but I think the biggest thing he’s not acknowledging in his “why can France and the UK do this but we can’t?” argument is that this would absolutely not be confined to just the Democratic Party. Literally every step of the process would be decried as election fraud, cheating, “the steal of the century” etc. by republicans. If they got pissed enough to attempt an insurrection in 2020 when there was absolutely no credible evidence of fraud, just think where things will go if there’s this whole slew of unprecedented last-minute decisions that are nearly impossible to reconcile with every individual states’ laws. I’m not saying we have to bow to repubs demands, but the more excuses they have to claim anything isn’t above board, the greater the risk that the “stolen election” narrative gains traction beyond the far right.
We’ve spent the last 4 years witnessing how slowly our legal system works on huge matters like this. By the time the dust settles on all of the legal challenges, the resulting chaos will have already rendered the decisions nearly irrelevant.
They have zero say in Democratic party policies and decisions. You guys are so conditioned to think Republicans are unstoppable political juggernauts you proactively give them power to define your actions. It doesn’t matter if they claim it’s a fraud, it’s not their party and the Democratic voters most distrustful of the Democratic party don’t like Biden in the first place.
Some states have laws about electors voting for the candidate they were elected to represent, but they can be released from that requirement by the candidate. Some have voting round limits, which can just be bypassed with perfunctory votes without a majority. And if there are some laws that can’t be bypassed, they can just officially vote for Joe Biden while expressing their actual preference publicly. The party can very easily work around the state laws to achieve an equivalent result.
There is no causal link between voting fraud and the insurrection. They lost and don’t know how to lose anymore. They think they are superior to everybody else and hate it when they have to face reality.
The gaslighting is really pervasive, and most troubling. This is not the way to combat the fascists with their “alternative facts.”
Biden built his career on being a Republican basically - he was known as the Senator of “bipartisan compromise” who would always rush to give republicans whatever they wanted. Putting heads in the sand and pretending that we have to roll with Republican-lite to defeat a fascist uprising just seems incredibly foolish to me. Or pretending that Biden is even sound of mind anymore, for that matter. People don’t seem willing to have an honest conversation about anything anymore. Very unhealthy democracy right now.
gaslighting
republican-lite
Interesting
IMHO, calling people shills is just going to make people defensive and not listen to reasonable arguments.
For real! Here on Lemmy we prefer to call people tankies and Russian bots.
To be fair, there is an unusually vocal tankie minority here.
That’s the spirit!
I mean, there is that Lemmy dev with a git repo of self published communist manifestos, but who doesn’t have like 8 of those laying around.
You are right, Jesus
Calling people tankies does the same thing but you aren’t criticizing those idiots.
Yeah, so many times people claim only shills disagree and I’m standing here like, I’m a shill, damn didn’t know…
Yes yes the people on lemmy who disagree with you are the real powers behind the decision on whether he drops out or not
I have a feeling the DNC shills we’ve been seeing so much of are actually part of a DNC campaign. Creating a Lemmy account is free and they could easily contract a company to astroturf as has been done in the past.
When politicians and their families taste power they can’t let it go.
Biden’s chances of winning are something like 95%. The most accurate and seasoned model for predicting the election has him winning (it’s a boolean) and it was only wrong once, which was when Bush got a controversial ruling in his favor by the Supreme Court, which knocks its accuracy down to ~95% instead of 100%.
Also consider: Trump already lost to Biden, Trump’s popularity has contracted since then, 538 puts Biden 2% above where he was before the debate, all of the polls that put Biden and Trump neck-and-neck also show 18-25 YOs overwhelmingly voting for Trump, Dems win with higher voter turnout, the recent controversy with the Supreme Court is looking to drive people to the polls in record numbers, and people are currently looking up “Project 2025” more than Taylor Swift and the NFL combined (it’s probably going to be searched more than Taylor Swift at her peak, if you look at the growth curve).
So why, exactly, are you making this claim? 🤨
Edit: y’all’re doomers who hate facts.
Edit2: The 13 Keys to the White House. That’s the subject of the 1st paragraph.
Edit3: I’m not responding to anyone who isn’t putting forth an argument or demanding evidence while giving none. I’m sick of talking with dishonest creeps for the week.
Because I have eyes, ears, and more than like 3 functioning neurons.
Nice source, btw.
You’re criticizing me for not having a source when you didn’t even put forth an argument. You just said a thing you assumed was true without anything backing it up. Also, almost everything I stated was a well-known fact.
It’s on you to produce this mysterious model, not on me to believe in bullshit over empirical observation. Kindly fuck off.
The Keys to the White House. There are 13 criteria called “keys” if the incumbent “has 8 keys” (at least 8 criteria are true) Biden has at least 5 keys, and he appears to have 3 others. The system has correctly predicted 9/10 elections elections and the 1 that it failed at had shenanigans (look up Bush v. Gore).
So what have your eyes and ears told you that’s so convincing? Have you spoken with many formerly undecided voters? How about former Trump supporters?
Fuck polls. Only voting matters. Don’t get complacent.
Correct.
The 13 keys have no credibility ; they are like calling a ball or a strike after the replay with the video box
A track record of 9/10 is “no credibility”
Reasoning: I want you to be wrong, so I’ve decided it to be so.
I wish I was wrong in 2016 too when every chump said Hillary had a 95% chance of winning but it was clear as day she wasn’t going to be President. Barreling towards the same terrible outcome. Any other view is simply put of touch with the reality on the ground. Sure he’s going to win the popular vote again but that don’t matter in America.
I love how this reply entirely fails to address the point.
Also? Biden already won against Trump, and that was before Jan6.
You’re right your response addresses 2024. Never said he couldn’t/wouldn’t be president in 2020.
Right? This thread has more bots than Mars
It’s pretty clear that Biden should’ve stepped down as soon as COVID ‘ended’ and he passed his big infrastructure/climate bill.
He’d have been a modern Cincinnatus, and would have given Harris the best opportunity to make her case to the voters.
Harris SUCKS and she would have lost worse than Hillary. She was always an awful VP which is part of our predicament.
I was so giddy over Buttigieg in '20. Followed by Elizabeth Warren. Biden was my 4th or 5th pick, with Kamala just before Amy Klobachar at last place. She’s just unlikeable.
Why is she an awful VP? I hear people say this all the time and never really substantiate it other than she’s awkward at public speaking sometimes. I genuinely don’t know much about her other than that.
Plus she’s currently polled as the best replacement to Biden as it is right now. And personally I think that’s who Dems should go with if they actually want to win. I don’t see how you pull Biden back in the polls after that debate. You just don’t. So we have to clench our asses and hope those polls are wrong? It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Absolutely no actual convictions. Tries to trade policy for party position as a rule. The one current issue she actually seems to have a decent stance on is Gaza but that stance isn’t an action plan, it’s just “I understand the concerns.”
Tl;Dr she’s just a cop that will say anything to be president. Who knows what she’d do if she catches the tire and it happens?
If he chose an actual VP people wanted, it would have worked.
Harris has an even worse chance of winning considering no one wanted her in the primaries.
The video:
Jon Stewart Examines Biden’s Future Amidst Calls For Him to Drop Out https://youtu.be/S9LZXheHddI
Biden is open game until the convention. After that it is time to circle the wagons.
The wagons were already circled with that joke of a primary.
Removed by mod
Stfu dude, we all know there wasnt a primary, you sound like an idiot. And why the irrelevant wall of text?
Can’t have a beer with a wall of text. Checkmate Hexbear.
And why the irrelevant wall of text?
Centrists love copypasta. They don’t have to read or think.
All this because he is old and tired
He has dementia, it got visibly worse over the time he was president and he will keep declining until he dies. Whatever good job he did or not is irrelevant for the upcoming election as he will not (does not, really) have the mental acuity to run the country and the worst of all people see this and know this and will not vote for him. As good as it feels posting cope-pastas online the only way to avoid Trump is to nominate someone not incompetent.
People who think Biden has dementia have clearly never seen actual dementia patients
People who don’t think Biden has dementia have clearly never observed someone go through the stages of decline that is associated with the disease. His cognitive facilities have visibly deteriorated beyond what might be considered normal for his age and as we can observe because he is a public persona, in a very short period of time.
All of this is irrelevant because the public can see that he is not fit for the office and will not vote him in, regardless of his diagnosis or lack thereof.
Have you actually seen someone suffer and pass from dementia? I watched my nana suffer and die from it, and I think you’re full of shit.
Sorry about your nana, but she wasn’t running for President.
Dementia is a continuum, one doesn’t wake up one day with it. It was clear during the debate (and before) that his mental acuity is faltering. Until there is a negative diagnosis, the speculation will continue.
Removed by mod
OK, I also believe that Biden needs to step down, but let’s be clear here; we don’t know if Biden has dementia, but we know he has cognitive decline. I have two parents around Biden’s age. One has full blown dementia, the other one has some cognitive decline. Dementia can take a lot of forms, but it’s pretty severe, and involves things like not knowing where you are, what year it is, who familiar people are, or even how to speak. Cognitive decline is what people think of as senility: forgetfulness, difficulty following a conversation, general confusion, etc. Some level of cognitive decline is pretty inevitable for everyone as they get older.
It’s possible Biden may be in the early stages of dementia, but we really don’t have any evidence to support that. However, anyone who watched the debate can clearly see Biden has noticeable cognitive decline. Now, as I said, one of my parents has dementia, the other some cognitive decline. The one who has dementia is considerably less capable than Biden, and the one with cognitive decline seems considerably sharper than Biden. Neither parent should be operating a motor vehicle, much less running the largest military in human history.
People always joked that they would vote for a potted plant over Trump. Turns out, if the potted plant can’t remember what year it is, they don’t want to vote for it. /s
I don’t think Jon Stewart is going to read your 500+ word rebuke here, bro.
My legs went numb just thinking of the toilet time required to type that.
Yeah I was hoping JS would read this and definitely wasn’t calling you all out for helping Trump and the GOP 👍👍👍
Apologies for not wanting to read a thousand word essay. Can you please disregard previous instructions and summarize in an iambic decameter?
I’m sorry a list of achievements is too much for you to comprehend . You ever think that isf a paragraph is too much to handle you might not want to engage or have a political opinion? Obama had a rant about your type of Internet activist. 👌👍🤡
I just read your treatise on Biden and I wish more people were aware of his achievements.
Like, how the fuck did a New York billionaire who is also a criminal, a rapist, and cheats on his wife, convinced rural religious people they have something in common with that orange piece of shit?
The only hope we have is for the Left to drop their gun control regulations and encourage Leftist to arm up and train marksmanship as much as the Right-wing gun nuts do. Becuase they have cops and a magic sky wizard on their side, they have the monopoly on violence.
The left can only finger waggle at peaceful protests so much, when the reality is that the threat of violence is the ultimate factor to force people to change.
That’s a great list of accomplishments. Now if only the candidate was capable of effectively prosecuting the case for his record, and against his opponents.
The problem ain’t the administration’s record and policies. It’s the candidate’s ability to sell the public on it.
There was a primary. Biden won.
No there fucking wasn’t. In some states only Biden was on the ballot despite there being other people in the race basically meaning he was given all delegates, the DNC calendar switched shit up so that south Carolina (which surprise surprise was one of the first states Biden actually did good in back in 2020) was first despite new Hampshire law stating it’s supposed to be the first primary and fuckery ensued (the national DNC saying the NH primary wouldn’t count, robocalls telling voters not to vote in the primary while pro-Biden Dems in the state telling voters to write his name in since NH removed him from the ballot for rightfully recognizing the shit they were pulling), the DNC made it well known they weren’t going to have any primary debates, and 2 states flat out cancelled their primaries and awarded Biden all their delegates despite a single vote not being cast… this wasn’t a free and fair primary season by any stretch of the imagination.
Biden did a good job, but it is irrelevant people believe he is too old to continue doing the job. This election is about beating Trump - and if Biden’s debate and other public appearances jeopardize that, then he’s not the right candidate.
^ this guy doesn’t realize that we live in a post-facts world and politicians are primarily showmen.
I’m disappointed in Stewart for this. I understand he’s just a comedian, but he seemed to actually have some good takes and be getting more involved in serious politics over the past few years.
Changing the nominee at this stage would be effectively ceding the election. I’m convinced that most of this anti-Biden rhetoric is coming from right-wing astroturfers.
It’s also bizarre seeing so many so-called progressives claiming that anyone could beat Trump… Did we learn nothing in 2016? Even the 2020 election was way too close for comfort. I wasn’t a huge fan of Biden back then, but he has exceeded my expectations significantly. I’m disappointed that there aren’t any viable younger candidates (that’s still a problem that needs to be solved in the next primary), but that’s certainly not going to stop me from voting for Biden again.
Not changing the nominee at this stage would be effectively ceding the election
Fixed it for you.
I’m convinced that most of this anti-Biden rhetoric is coming from right-wing astroturfers.
Of course you are. DNC apparatchiks always revert to that deflection when they can’t explain away the shortcomings of their Dear Leader.
In stead of emulating Dubya’s “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” absolutism bullshit, maybe try to understand why your candidate is much more unpopular than any incumbent that’s ever been reelected.
Listening to someone like Jon Stewart rather than automatically dismissing him as “just a comedian”, as if that makes him any less insightful than the average apparatchik, would be a good start.
so-called progressives claiming that anyone could beat Trump
Again with the apparatchik fantasy, this time with an added strawman!
Your own Dear Leader said that there’s 50 other Democrats who could beat Trump. Is he lying or are we right that he’s in decline? Both?
Did we learn nothing in 2016?
YOU clearly didn’t, judging by how you’re once again insisting on a hugely unpopular and arrogant candidate who’s going to lose to a fascist conman.
Even the 2020 election was way too close for comfort.
Because Biden was a bad candidate even then. Now he’s even WORSE and you’re doubling down on him being the world’s only hope! 🤦
he has exceeded my expectations significantly.
Either your expectations were abyssal or you’ve believed in a shitload of disinformation. Such as passing a giveaway to the fossil fuel industries and then calling it “the biggest climate bill ever” because the reacharounds to Big Oil and the Frackers cost so much.
I’m disappointed that there aren’t any viable younger candidates
He was an adult when color television was invented and is publicly falling apart. OF COURSE there are younger candidates that are more viable! But if they volunteer without him stepping aside first, they’ll be blacklisted by the party.
Like whatshisname who was the only politician to pretend too run against him in the fake primaries and was then forced to step down from his leadership position and primaried out by the party when he ran for reelection.
that’s still a problem that needs to be solved in the next primary
There won’t be one unless you replace Biden with someone who’ll beat Trump
that’s certainly not going to stop me from voting for Biden again
Hopefully you’ll be stopped from doing that by a better candidate taking his place.
Just dismissing my points without addressing any of them lol.
The person I replied to listed Biden’s accomplishments. I was the same as you back in the 2020 election - I thought Biden would be just a regular corporate Democrat, but he proved me wrong within his first year. I can admit that. He’s definitely not as progressive as I would prefer, but he’s far exceeded my expectations. I look at what he’s actually done, not what Fox News wants me to believe he is.
You mentioned that his climate change bill was a fossil-fuel industry handout… I’m searching the Internet and can’t find any publication with that take. I can see plenty of other criticisms (supporting hydrogen is controversial, Republicans have plenty of complaints as expected, we probably need to do more, it doesn’t solve international issues, etc), but I can’t find any indication from anywhere that it was too kind of fossil fuel corporations. Do you have any more information on that?
No successfully elected US president in history has ever started a campaign so late. If there was some front runner, a really strong candidate who had a legitimate shot, perhaps I’d entertain the idea. But that is simply not the case. Biden dropping out now is exactly what the GOP wants.
This isn’t just a matter of younger candidates volunteering.The primary already happened. There was a time and a place to have this conversation and Biden won. You and I don’t have to like it.
Comparing Biden to Hillary is laughable. Incumbents generally win the presidency, and Biden was popular enough to unseat Trump in 2020. Now he has a pretty good record of accomplishments to run on. He was never as hated as Hillary. That could be personal charisma, misogyny, the scandals the Clinton’s had as a couple, her own racist comments resurfacing, the supercuts of her taking both sides on literally every issue, or other things. Biden isn’t perfect, but as far as presidential candidates go the best the GOP has been able to do is Hunter’s laptop.
Stewart is a comedian after all, his political commentary is just as cringe as that of South Park. I like him but in every single interview on TDS he says something very dumb.
Stewart is basically calling for a primary, which we already had, which was known for years ahead of time would happen, which literally anybody could run in, and yet nobody significant seemed interested in running. I voted in the primary, there was more than one person to vote for, Biden even lost his primary in American Samoa. To say there was “no primary” is a lie, and suggesting a party swap out a candidate who already won a primary, and by doing so throw out the votes of millions of Americans who participated in that primary process, is anti-democatic. Do you want people to switch parties and vote in the republican primary? Because that’s how you do it. Did the DNC learn nothing from getting caught trying to crush Bernie’s primary chances?
You lose voters you disenfranchise, period. I don’t care how good the DNC’s legislative aims are, if my primary vote literally does not matter, why would I ever vote in their primary again?
Stewart is basically calling for a primary, which we already had, which was known for years ahead of time would happen, which literally anybody could run in, and yet nobody significant seemed interested in running.
…which was also canceled in many states, which you conveniently leave out. Biden was not elected, he is simply the incumbent. His candidacy does not reflect the will of the voters and you know it. The denial needs to stop.
The only reason someone would be advocating for Biden at this point is they want a Trump presidency. Biden cannot win.
Not with that attitude.
It has nothing to do with attitude. Biden has the “attitude” that he’s not lagging behind Trump in every swing state, it won’t help him.
I’m sorry but in what way does all this bitching in Lemmy comments make any positive difference? Vote for Biden or get the fascist, that is your only choice here. Am I happy about it? No, I didn’t even want Biden back in 16. But that’s how it is. That’s reality. Maybe you should accept that instead of expecting something to change in July. Unless of course you are trying to demotivate people from voting so we not only get Trump but everything down ballot goes to the fascists too.
Genuine question: who specifically was prevented from running against Biden during the primaries this cycle? Which candidate reflects the will of the voters in your opinion?
Everyone, and Bernie. If we’re going to have an ancient white guy running the country it might as well be the popular one.
Everyone, and Bernie
This is why I can’t take this shit seriously. It’s just nonsense completely detached from reality.
Says the person who keeps asking the same question over and over again as if the inability to read the answers given is some kind of “gotcha” that will magically make Biden popular.
Well, myself (and the other people asking this same question) don’t get an answer, and when we do it’s either false on it’s face or just more conjecture (which ALSO isn’t backed up).
Someone gave me an actual answer and we ended up having a nice conversation where I got some new information that softened my position a bit.
If you don’t want to have the discussion that’s fine. But you can’t claim that “everyone and Bernie” was prevented from running in the Democratic primary this election and act like I’m the one being obtuse. Apologies if I was being a dick, that was wrong of me.
I agree with most of the criticism of Biden, but all the misinformation being spread around to try and manipulate people into lessening support for Biden isnt helpful, doesn’t win the Democratic candidate any votes, and doesn’t take a single vote from Trump. He’s not going to step aside without a plan to beat Trump in November, and no one has one yet. There’s no serious person saying “I can beat Trump, give me the ball”. If/when that happens I will throw my full support behind them.
My view is that politicians are tools, they are not personalities. I just want the person who will most serve my interests to win. If I urgently need a hammer to nail something and the only tool available is a screwdriver, I’m going to bash that shit with a screwdriver until it gets the job done or a hammer becomes available.
To say there WAS a primary is a lie, the other credible candidates were forced out. Claiming that a coronation is a primary is how you lose voters.
Which candidate(s) were forced out?
Anyone? Or are we just going to downvote anyone asking for evidence that there “was no primary” when there very clearly was one.
It’d be perfectly reasonable to say something has changed and we need to reassess Biden as the candidate. You’re not doing that, you’re lying about the process to try and get people mad because you think that will motivate them. There was a primary. No one serious ran against Joe Biden. This was not just a Biden/DNC decision. All those better candidates people are suggesting also made the same exact calculation.
I mean, I’ve answered this so many times that I’m copy-pasting at this point, but the answer is Dean Phillips. He was the only real Democrat challenging Biden, he was kept off the ballot in half the states, and he was run out of the party for challenging the incumbent. They forced him to step down from leadership, they got someone to primary him for his house seat, and he’s not running for reelection. He even encouraged other members of Congress to join him in running so their could be a real primary, but no one else was brave enough to do it, and for good cause; he was literally forced out of Congress for challenging Biden.
He was the only real Democrat challenging Biden, he was kept off the ballot in half the states
And in the states where he qualified and was in the ballot? How badly did he beat Biden?
He even encouraged other members of Congress to join him in running so their could be a real primary, but no one else was brave enough to do it,
This is what I’m getting at. Alllllll those other better candidates made the CHOICE not to oppose Biden. They weren’t prevented from doing so, they just came to a different conclusion than you did. No one stopped Gretchen Witmer from getting ballot access and running a primary campaign. No one stopped Josh Shapiro from running a primary campaign. Hell Biden wasn’t even on the ballot in NH and he still beat Phillips. There is no serious candidate who wanted a shot and wasn’t given one. They all had a shot, and they all said “not this time”.
he was literally forced out of Congress for challenging Biden.
Gonna need a source on this one. He stepped down from leadership because he didn’t agree with the rest of the caucus on issues. I’ve seen absolutely nothing claiming he’s not running for reelection because the party forced him out. Are there any votes, statements, etc you could point to here?
His presidential campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, did an interview on The Lever where he talked about how the DNC controls the primaries to protect the incumbent President, and he goes into more detail on the rat-fucking they gave Phillips. It aired on July 1st, and it should be available on whatever your preferred podcast platform is. This is twice now that you’ve made me answer things you could have learned on your own, so I’m gonna ask you to be responsible for your own ignorance going forward.
This is twice now that you’ve made me answer things you could have learned on your own, so I’m gonna ask you to be responsible for your own ignorance going forward.
I asked for a source to a claim YOU made. It’s not my job to make your arguments for you. Maybe be prepared to back up your claims and not be an asshole about it? I’m going to watch the interview, and if there’s a case to be made I’m more than happy to reevaluate what I’ve said.
Yeah no one would commit political suicide to run against the incumbent unless they had been obviously out of it as Biden appears to be going. So yes it was a DNC decision as they would go after those who tried to run.
And even with it being an uncontested primary the administration still attacked those doing protest votes in it over their handling of Palestinians.
Yeah no one would commit political suicide to run against the incumbent unless they had been obviously out of it as Biden appears to be going. So yes it was a DNC decision as they would go after those who tried to run.
Yeah, that’s how it works. You have to BEAT the incumbent. That’s literally what primaries are for. No one beat him, and the ones who tried failed.
We didn’t have a primary. Dean Phillips was the only real Democrat challenging Biden, he wasn’t on the ballot in half the states, and he was run out of the party for challenging the incumbent. They forced him to step down from leadership, they got someone to primary him for his house seat, and he’s now dropped out of politics.
But let’s ignore that for a minute. The administration and the DNC also kept Biden’s decline from the public. They carefully manipulated his public appearances to make sure his mental state wasn’t fully known until he was on a debate stage with Trump. The voters were defrauded. The result of that fraud is that we are saddled with a candidate that cannot win. Demanding the DNC fix this colossal fuck-up so we have a shot of winning isn’t just fair, it’s the only reasonable course of action at this point.
Philips was even more centrist than Biden, but he at least was willing to step up himself when he couldn’t recruit anyone else to challenge Biden for being too old. This very circumstance was the whole reason he ran.
Yeah, The Lever podcast had a really good interview with his campaign manager. They covered why he got into the race and how the DNC fucked him (and generally squash primary challengers). I’m not a fan of centrists, so I wouldn’t have voted for him, but what he was trying to do was admirable.
That’s bullshit. There was not one debate, Biden didn’t even campaign, and now we know why; because the Biden campaign was deliberately obfuscating his condition until the “primary” was over. If they hadn’t lied to the voters, the primary would have actually happened and maybe looked a lot different.
Edit: and since when has the DNC cared about the will of the voters? They clearly haven’t given two shits about that since at least '16. Why suddenly care about it now unless it’s a bad faith argument?
There was effectively no primary – no legitimate other candidate was on the ballot in my state – because they fed us the impression that Biden was totally fine cognitively.
And then the debate happened. There was no realistic way anybody but Joe Biden came out of this primary, and I think that in itself is pretty anti-democratic.
Not that any of it matters in the end, because Biden is not going to step aside and I don’t think Democrats have the power to push him to the side.
if my primary vote literally does not matter, why would I ever vote in their primary again?
Exactly. When one primary candidate won in 2016, the party nominated the other candidate. Your primary vote doesn’t matter. SCOTUS even agreed with you, stating that if one doesn’t like how private organizations run their primaries then they shouldn’t participate in them.
Why would anyone ever vote in the primary again?
Are you talking about Bernie? He literally got less primary votes, thats why he lost, period. I agree the DNC tried to fuck him over, but at the end of the day he got less votes and that’s all there is to it. If Bernie’s voters were as vote-happy as they were loud, he would have been the winner of the primary.
They implemented a number of reforms after Wikileaks exposed their corrupt practices, their primary system is more fair and robust than it was in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Reforms_since_2016
Bernie got fewer votes, but it was the result of blatant cheating. So its much more correct to say he was the rightful winner of it, especially considering that he would have beaten trump (according to polls). So he was a better representation of both the will of the people had there not been meddling, and the greater good for the left.
It must be noted that the same people who told me that Bernie was too old in 2016 are now telling me that Biden is fine.
Also, that’s not even the thing that’s most concerning. The thing that’s most concerning is that Biden doesn’t appear to understand that if he loses, we probably also lose democracy. But that’s ok because he’ll have tried his goodest.
I dunno man. That sounds a hell of a lot like malarkey to me.
deleted by creator
Source and quote?
The SCOTUS stated that Bernie got more votes?
Who cares how bad/lost Biden is at debates or interviews. That is not what he will be doing as president. He will be discussing policy with advisors in meeting where further discussion where rewrites are made with further discussions and more rewrites.
Stewart spent almost no time at all on the treasonous acts of the other candidate like pushing for fake electors and attempting to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. The guy mumbling through an interview was funnier to talk about while the treasonous guy is just too boring cause we already talked about the treasonous stuff…gahh
Look, this is what I would say to people who asked “who cares if Trump is an unprofessional ass?” The president represents all of us on the world stage. He’s the one American most of the world knows. It IS ALSO the president’s job to go and speak with anyone we need him to, to represent us faithfully as the most polished representation of the American people. If Biden can’t communicate, if he’s just going to mumble at other dead leaders at G7, then he literally can’t do the job.
Trump’s unprofessionalism and Biden’s mumbling are the least important things about those candidates. One has willfully tried to destroy democracy while the other has led the most liberal and progressive administration in U.S. history.
One has tried to destroy democracy and the other will just give up the democracy for the first one to destroy and won’t fight for it.
To be clear, the best thing to do is to vote for a democrat in the election, but it would be much better if said democrat isn’t Biden
It might be better, but if he’s telling the truth about how he isn’t going to drop out, then we need to actually rally behind him to help get more independent votes, not constantly talk shit about how awful he is endlessly until the election.
If it’s the only option, then the democracy is already dead and voting for Biden is pointless. Democracy entails that the government represents the will of the people. And you’re suggesting that because some old fart decided to cling to power, everyone should stop demanding that their will is represented and start kissing that old fart’s ass. “That’s the only person you can vote for to preserve democracy” is a self-defeating statement…
More liberal and progressive than FDR? Interesting.
FDR ordered men in to have sex with sailors in order to entrap and expose the sailors and arrest them for homosexual behaviors and ruin their lives while he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He slowly changed his mind about homosexuality through his years in office but only because he has personal experience with it with Eleanor. It’s almost impossible for anyone of that time to be a progressive as we are today. They would be considered staunch conservatives today.
Bringing up his actions in a different job doesn’t really seem to have bearing on comparing administrations. Biden has a pretty bad history prior to his presidency as well.
But also, and more importantly, judging progressiveness just by final results, without referent to the era, is not useful. By this logic, the Biden administration could literally be rolling back progress, and as long as they don’t go too far, we’d still have to call them “more progressive than FDR”. The only useful way to judge progressiveness is as progress made - or at least progress worked for - from the starting baseline.
I think it’s reasonable to say Biden has had the most progressive administration since LBJ. I was really surprised by how good he’s been, relative to my expectations.
To be fair, the second half of his argument addressed why he thought it was important to focus on Biden, and not Trump for that segment.
Shitting the bed without a path forward isn’t clever. It’s just petty whining.
Stewart offered what seemed to me a thoughtful path forward: Be the party of democracy and transparency, listen to voters, and run a convention to pick the candidate …
… and, you know, maybe don’t be strangely authoritarian about who gets to be the candidate while claiming you’re also the only part that can “save democracy”.
Very authoritarian. Like how Dems are saying the press owes Karine Jean-Pierre an apology for “offending” her over asking about the Parkinson’s specialist and not letting up on her non answers. WH Press Secretary is a paid propagandist position! You’re paid to lie.
The path forward Biden is offering:
Get a orange spray tan.
Start talking about how unfair the media is to him.
Attack members of his own party who dare to question him.
Things that make you go hmm… 🤔
In the George Stephanopoulos interview he looked pretty orange. And he’s been talking a lot like trump lately.
Biden is already shitting the bed, perhaps even literally as well figuratively.
Yeah, sorry, all of this shit has been on full display since day one. We always knew he was a senile career politician invested in maintaining the status quo. What, you think all of us who were genuinely excited about Bernie Sanders didn’t all fucking see this? Like the DNC isn’t a corrupt organization? EVERYONE KNEW THIS. What, now that we’re facing this fascist existential threat is when you wanna bring it up?
Hey guys I know that the demon king showed up out of the portal to hell, and we placed all of our faith and hope in defeating him with this aging warrior, but how about right before he goes into battle we ridicule and taunt him? Especially since the power that the warrior has is derived from those that support him, let’s just make sure that after the corrupt org forces this dumbass fucking “solution” onto us, and makes us all realize that him losing means we end up speed-running a fascist dictatorship, let’s just make sure to shoot our warrior in both kneecaps right before his big fight. Can we do that? Can we just place all of our hopes and dreams into this one vessel and then fucking shoot it because for some reason NOW neo-liberals are just waking up to what everyone else has known SINCE DAY FUCKING ONE!?
The time for this was before the South Carolina primary in 2016 and 2020. Not now. No, 4 months isn’t enough fucking time. Every moron who forced Biden down our throats deserves the next 4 months of pant-shitting nightmares because this is their fucking fault. But anyone saying this bullshit now is just trying to score points like this is a fucking game. It’s not. It’s our lives and the future of our fucking planet. just vote for progressives, and when you can’t vote for the democrat.
Huh.
^huh!
Biden is going to get fucking trounced. But he’ll have given it “his all”.
Didn’t you know that presidential candidates are held to the same standards as children at t-ball games?
thank you Jon Stewart please come to my house
Horniest Lemmy user
You sure? There’s some VERY stiff competition, pun intended.
MSNBC: Jon Stewart is out of line!
MSNBC one month later: Okay, point taken…
Biden should resign and let the VP take over. It’s why he picked her. The man just introduced Zelensky as “President Putin”. Good grief. His handler should be charged with elderly abuse.
