Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell struck up a friendship during their nearly quarter-century in the Senate together. Now in their 80s, the Democratic president and the Senate GOP leader appear to be giving political cover to each other as they fend off questions about their advanced age and health issues.
Notably, McConnell, R-Ky., 81, hasn’t joined Donald Trump, 77, and other Republicans who have attacked Biden’s age, health and mental acuity as he seeks re-election.
And after McConnell’s second freeze-up last week, Biden was one of the first to call McConnell, telling reporters that his “friend” sounded like “his old self” and that such episodes are a “part of his recovery” from a fall and a concussion this year.
complicate attacks on Biden’s age
No they really don’t. They’ll talk about Biden’s “obvious mental decline” and they’ll just not talk at all about Mitch’s very public 30 second Journeys Beyond the Stars. They’ll absolutely say Biden is too old but that Trump, who is only 3 years younger, isn’t. The right is absolutely capable of that level of doublethink. Stop assuming anything matters to them other than getting power they can use to hurt people. They don’t care about policy. They don’t care about seeming like hypocrites. They’ve been whipped into a paranoid frenzy and they’ll do anything they need to do in order to hurt the people they’re afraid of. Start looking at their behavior through that lens and see if it doesn’t start to make a lot of sense to you.
I think Trump is younger. He’s a monster, but still younger than Biden.
Yup, Biden is 3 years older than trump.
I don’t see any mental decline… Biden has always been a gaffe machine and he has a stutter he struggles to suppress. He’s the same as ever.
While on the other side, Trump seems to be already through with his mental decline…
And Biden still jogs & bikes.
Trump doesn’t exercise which means his battery remains fuller than Biden, who frivolously depletes his battery through exercise. Humans have a finite amount of energy and you have to conserve it (this is an actual thing he believes.)
This is a big fucking deal!
He might gaffe but he’s not wrong lol
My mistake, edited. Ty!
Indeed, so if Trump was theoretically elected, he’d be the oldest elected president of all time, beating Joe from 2020 lol.
He’s also wildly unhealthy, and if his lifestyle is to be believed, he probably should’ve died years ago. The only thing keeping him going is fake tan, hair dye, and hate.
Biden is too old, but he at least looks somewhat healthy.
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I do have to admit, after getting concussed I also appeared to freeze but I was thinking hard of what the right word is to say next.
That said, probably anyone in concussion recovery should be on leave from legislating. The brain will heal more slowly, and your work will be of poor quality.
That’s all before getting into the actual politics of having a gerentocracy.
I know a lot of people have talked a out adding an age limit, but it seems to me most of the ancient ones are skating by on incumbent effect. If we had term limits it would resolve that. Alternatively something like the Virginia Gubernatorial rules where you cannot hold the position successively.
I have the same occasional issue with forgetting words after a TBI, and have worked with people in recover who have it much worse than I. It’s an interesting outcome when simple words just cannot be recalled. To fabricate an example; I know what this object is, a tool for writing, it’s in my hand, it has ink, but what the hell is it called. (a pen) - it can be for the most mundane and common words.
However; I don’t go slackjaw and become completely nonresponsive for 10-20 seconds. This guy needs to be in medical care.
You’re right, it’s never as long as this. I am young, though so I don’t know how it would show in an ancient man hahaha.
I don’t see the appeal in insisting everything is fine. I would rather see my leaders saying “hey, I don’t feel good so I’m going to take some time to get healthy”.
The hubris of man
I appreciated that about Fetterman. I feel as though he presented his injury as something humans go through. He will continue his job, at times with assistance, and do the best he is able. He didn’t need to step down and he is not incapable of doing his job, but he has a flaw and is honest of it.
I dunno I don’t feel good about setting laws about who should be eligible to run for public office. The voters should decide who is eligible and who isn’t.
Yeah there’s a lot of dumb voters out there, but the general idea that we’re smarter than the voters and therefore need to make laws that supersede the voters feels wrong to me.
I think the problem of voters being dumb is just something we have to accept about democracy.
Voters being dumb and electing incumbent yet incapable people is not just democracy, but populism. Especially when those in power have been in power for so long that they meddle in education funding to keep said voters dumb
Democracy and populism are mutually exclusive?
Especially when those in power have been in power for so long that they meddle in education funding to keep said voters dumb
Improving education is indeed the solution to the problem. And it’s a thing that is more likely to happen than a law prohibiting those currently in power from running again.
IMO it’s useless talking about what laws or policies need to change to fix this because the people with the power to change it know that doing so will affect their ability to stay in power and just won’t change it to their detriment. It’s the same reason protesting won’t ever fix the fundamental issues. The people currently at the top aren’t just going to hand their power away or cripple their ability to easily generate or access wealth. If it comes to it, they’ll go to war before giving that up.
Then it follows that it’s also useless to even discuss such things on the internet. So why even bring up these topics if it’s impossible to change anything?
Or are you just spending time posting on the internet in an attempt discourage others from trying to improve things?
Solving a problem requires understanding it. I’m not trying to discourage improvement but want more people to see what I see about the nature of what’s going on and how many of these flaws in the system aren’t seen that way by the people who pass the laws and make the policies.
I don’t know either. It feels shortsighted and bigoted to do things like that. The issue is that when votes in Kentucky vote the rest of us have to endure how they vote. Term limits could and should be tried. So even when the voters make a mistake the mistake doesn’t linger around.
The solution is simply better education. Which solves a lot of problems beyond codgers like Mitch McConnell. There are plenty of other terrible people running for office that wouldn’t be prevented from doing so by such laws. But these terrible people wouldn’t have a chance of winning an election in a better educated population.
It would solve a lot of problems of the Senate if we set the term limit to 0.
That’s the beauty of the “can’t hold the position consecutively” rule.
It doesn’t matter what age, party, or how long you’ve been in office.
You can always run for a different office, or wait for the next term to run again.
Might be a bit weird with the House.
This would be devastating if conservatives cared at all about hypocrisy or logical consistency.
No one over 70, period. Go home. Retire. Make way.
Keep in mind that includes Bernie Sanders.
And that would be okay.
It’s so weird how everyone expects progressives to be just as hypocritical as moderates and conservatives…
Bernie would 100% be down for it and immediately pivot to outreach or something else if he could hold office.
He’s been saying he’s not more important than the movement for decades now
I’m by no means obsessed with the guy, but one thing really solidified my respect for him: before I ever knew who he was he always would show up in a random documentary if US government was ever spoken about, and he was always on the “right side” of whatever the documentary was about. Then in the run up to 2016 he shows up and I’m like “holy crap it’s that guy!”
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We need someone young and capable to rally behind, forget Bernie.
Literally what Bernie has been saying for 20 years champ, glad you agree with him
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What he said…
Raising awareness for the progressive cause, and motivating the youth to participate in politics. Not just voting in the general, but voting in the primary and running for office.
You’ve got really strong opinions about him, but don’t seem to know anything about him.
It really seems like the two of you agree on a lot. You’re just really uninformed…
It is a failure of our system that a populist candidate without his name recognition would have no chance against the incredibly well-funded corporate shill neoliberals/conservatives we usually have to choose between.
Who, pray tell, should have run in his place on his platform?
About a hundred of his amendments made it in various bill proposal. A bunch of which became laws. You can’t really blame him for the broken party system in which he’s not even taking part. One man can’t single handly fix congress
While I agree he didn’t do much from a legislative point of view, calling him a failure is missing the fact that he represented a voice that’s rarely heard in American politics, which might have paved the way people like AOC or Fetterman. Also the fact that he still holds the same views after 30 years is something that can serve as an antidote to cynicism. He’s an inspiring figure to many, and inspiration is important in politics.
Correct. Bernie needs to retire
Age limit tied to Social Security retirement age and joining the military, voting, smoking, and drinking tied to the same age (18 or 21, take your pick). We either need to say people are of the appropriate age to do these things, or not. This cherry-picking bullshit has to go. Also, term limits. The constitution wasn’t meant for a congressperson or senator to be in the same seat for 40+ years.
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I disagree. I understand your viewpoint, but we need a more clear cut way to determine someone’s “maturity” to make their own decisions. Voting can be indirectly lethal (using the term very loosely here). Ask one of the women who couldn’t get an abortion and died from delivery complications, or the recent study that said the rollbacks the last president made for pollution is estimated to have caused tens of thousands of deaths, or lack of COVID restrictions enforcement. It’s also currently arbitrary whether someone is tried as an adult in the case of a teenager that commits a homicide. So is the ability to give consent for intercourse, and that has a remote possibility of lethality too (delivery complications, STDs, etc.).
If only there was some sort of system by which voters could choose who their candidates are. Like before the general election parties could have internal elections to decide the candidates.
They could call it like a “First election” or even a “Primary election.”
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Literally no one ever has paid all of the money required to run a Presidential Campaign.
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My criminal history wouldn’t play well with voters. Small time drug possession, misdemeanor. It’s since been expunged (hence me having my current job), but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t come up.
Fun fact: I was actually offered the opportunity to run for state gov by my states party, and turned it down due to aforementioned criminal history.
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You’re describing situations that the public very much is aware of.
I’m not concerned with getting in trouble. I was concerned with winning the election and I know who my potential constituents would have been and their feelings on marijuana possession.
It’s on the ballot to be recreational in my state so maybe I’ll revisit after that passes, as the optics would improve significantly.
I’m not interested in running an already-uphill campaign with an albatross around my neck. Consider that, as a potential candidate, I have superior knowledge of my electorate than some random dude who doesn’t even know where I live.
Judging from the Republicans presidential candidates debate, the selection is limited to idiots, stupid idiots, and dangerous idiots.
That’s who their voters want. You’re mad at republican voters. I don’t know why people don’t realize that.
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IMHO Bernie is best suited to be an advisor or advocate, if he wants to continue.
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he couldn’t even get his own party’s nomination
Tell me more about politics please.
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No they don’t.
It’s incredible how fucking stupid news media is, huh?
And that’s the problem. People aren’t well informed because of their sources. Media literacy/ skepticism/ critical thinking should be taught throughout our education. But that would transform the whole system , so it won’t. If you know how to do it, pass it on.
Imagine what a cakewalk it would be if the Democrats could scrape up a viable candidate under 65
democrats don’t want to win all the time, then they’d have to do stuff and keep improving
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He polled terribly in his 2016 run. His popularity improved during Trump’s presidency, especially during the impeachment hearings, but the Republicans will hammer him on his relationship with the alleged Chinese spy Christine Fang
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I’m just saying it wouldn’t be a cakewalk with Swalwell. Honestly I don’t think it’s possible for any candidate to have a sweeping victory like Reagan vs Mondale anymore. The voters loyal to Trump at this point are just frothing at the mouth for a dictator. That alone should give any Democratic nominee a cakewalk victory, but we all saw how close the 2020 election was. The Republicans will use Christine Zang to whip up the MAGA base and that will be enough to make it close, at least without a double-digit surge in voter turnout. But again, if defeating the literal fascists isn’t enough to bring out the non-voters, then I can’t believe there exists a candidate who can motivate the independent and progressive non-voters to come out and vote with the liberals and centrists.
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Trump had private meetings with Putin and does Putin’s bidding, do you really think they’ll have a leg to stand on?
No, I don’t. But that doesn’t matter to the republican voters. And that’s where I think the original assertion that the democractic party would have a cakewalk in 2024 with a candidate who is under 65 falls apart (let’s be honest, by definition a non-viable candidate can’t win, and Trump changed the definition of viable in 2016).
You keep saying her name over and over and I had to look her up. They got nothing.
You and I know that. But when Swalwell was seeing his approval ratings going up during Trump’s first impeachment hearing, this story is exactly what the republicans drudged up against him. And loyal republican voters will bring it up again if he runs for president again. And they’ll have no problem saying they have to vote against Swalwell because of it.
I like Swalwell. I would vote for him in the general if he’s the nominee based on what I know right now. But I’m saying I don’t think there is any candidate who could unify the progressive, liberal, centrist, independent, and non-voters enough to make the election a cakewalk. It should have been a cakewalk in 2016, but it wasn’t. It should have been a cakewalk in 2020 but Trump actually received more votes than in 2016. He actually won the second most votes in the history of the country in 2020! And he’s out here spouting literal fascism, while actively being prosecuted for like 100 felonies, including trying to subvert our democracy (ie fascism) and he’s trouncing the other republican primary candidates! He’s polling over 50% in the primary, and the second place candidate has less than a third of that!
The democrats could run literally Jesus, and I still think it would be a close election due him being a Jewish immigrant who hangs out with poor people and prostitutes (bunch of welfare moochers who just want free stuff and promote crime, think of the children), preaches we should sell our belongings to fund clothing, feeding, and sheltering the poor (communism!), and the whole love your neighbor thing (ie he’d probably tell Israel to chill out and be nice to the Palestinians, so that would totally ruin the Evangelicals’ plans for armageddon and the rapture).
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Right. Hence why I don’t think there will ever be a cakewalk of an election.
Or this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Ossoff
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- Bachelor’s from Georgetown.
- Master’s from the London School of Economics.
- Experience as an Investigative journalist in Africa and the Middle East.
- Interned in the Senate under civil rights icon John Lewis.
- First ever millennial Senator.
- Progressive (by American standards).
Definitely well qualified.
The only downside is that he’s pretty unknown, having only been a senator since 2021.
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Fuck the 2nd Amendment.
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He just has the audacity that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t preclude gun control laws.
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Wait. Trump, three years younger than Biden, is attacking Biden on his age?
Trump also thinks he’s 215 pounds.
I’m 6’2 230 lbs and I look WAY slimmer than Trump. He is lying about all of it.
My guess is if you took away the lift shoes and actually measured the guy he’d be a bit shy of 6 foot and well over 300
He was already attacking Biden on his age during the election. At the age Trump now is.
Why do Democrats keep entertaining the notion that rank hypocrisy will ever be a dealbreaker for Republicans? They have decades of evidence to the contrary.
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There’s a 4 year age gap between Trump and Biden. Funny how 4 years ago Trump was saying Biden was too old for the job…
If trump were smart, (lol, bear with me) he would say “people didn’t mind voting for Biden at this age, so they shouldn’t mind me at this age either. But I promise not to run after the age of 80, unlike that frail old man who just wants to hide in his basement” or some shit like that. He lies all the fucking time, so he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by spinning that just a little bit.
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I mean, he did at first. Lmao and then (idk the order in which it happened) he flipped with his base to “vaccines will give you rabies and chemically castrate you” when they started coming out. He initially bragged about how fast he was helping companies develop the vaccine, then it came out and he decided to trash them
They celebrate Operation Warp Speed at the same time they talk about being “pure blooded” lmao
These people do not have brains.
Not only that, but he could’ve made millions off of red maga facemasks too. All he had to do was let the experts run the shit they’re experts in while taking credit for putting the right people on top of it. The election wouldn’t have even been close. It would’ve been like the Reagan reelection.
what a timeline that would be
No it doesn’t, because the same people complaining about Biden are usually masters of doublethink anyway.
Well it’s not like they both arent too old or anything…
The choice is between a kindly (somewhat weird) old man and a mean, petty (and extremely weird) old man.
I hate to break it to everyone, but we’re all weird. You just stop trying to hide it at a certain age, or forget to. But yes, Biden weird and Trump weird are two different universes.
Yeah really. Biden might sniff your hair, Trump wants to sniff his daughter’s pubic hair.
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I paid with my phone in the grocery store today and the 80yo behind me was mind blown.
Yeah bruh, I’ll take Brandon over any traitor republican.
I’ll take my neighbors over any rich ass hole.
Why do we get Biden? Is there NO other democrat that can beat Trump, etc? None whatsoever?
The Dems need to stop fighting one election at a time. They’re fighting on their back foot!
There are at least 2 other democrats in the running that could beat Trump that are polling >10%, but the DNC won’t allow debates. If the DNC believed in Biden, they should allow debates to show all of us that he’s competent.
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Who are those 2?
I’m assuming they are talking about Kennedy and Williamson. Which are absolute batshit insane people that have no chance at beating trump. They say a lot of progressive stuff that sounds great but then you find out the crystal healthcare program and that anti semitism
Yeah RFK is a joke and is bankrolled by the far right. Republicans like him more than Dems. Calling him a serious contender is a joke and a half.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rfk-jr-democrat-republican-primary-favorability/
Sickening to hear Biden call McConnell a friend. His fucking serious? Because if he is then means he dumber than thought. Our the whole blue vs red is all theater and they are all playing us for fools. Which is the most likely case.
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This. He’s not nearly as progressive as I’d like, but he accomplished much more in his first 2 years than I thought he could get done in 2 terms. The railroad strike thing was a massive letdown, but I understand that a major focus in that moment was the state of the economy, and it was very much getting back on track and an industry-wide strike would’ve resulted in more supply chain shit, more inflation, and damning criticisms that he failed to solve economic woes because he’s too weak. He was looking at the bigger picture. A decent person would’ve supported the strikes, but Jimmy Carter proved that a decent person doesn’t make for a very good president. Sometimes, you have to make tough decisions that conflict with your personal beliefs for the good of the entire country.
As an armchair quarterback who doesn’t really know the nitty gritty details, I think I would’ve looked into nationalizing the rail industry entirely. If it’s so important to national security that the workers are barred from striking and the companies are running the industry so poorly that even with unions they are skeleton crews with shit benefits and pay with an awful safety record, then those companies have lost the privilege of privatization.
He was looking at the bigger picture. A decent person would’ve supported the strikes, but Jimmy Carter proved that a decent person doesn’t make for a very good president
Jimmy Carter would also not have allowed rail workers to illegally strike, in violation of their contract, and in such a way that thousands of people would literally die. That is why their contract forbids striking.
Like Biden, Carter would have sought to continue to address issues regardless of the strike not materializing.
"We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Then maybe we shouldn’t have allowed the railway companies to try and fuck them over into suicide schedules for profit.
Or, and I’m just spitballing here, if the rail companies are that important then maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to be run for profit. If they’re that critical, maybe they should be GASP nationalized.
Maybe you should be angry at the financiers that bought the companies and forced the workers to run suicide schedules for forcing the workers into a position where they started to feel like they had to strike to have normal human lives.
You’re blaming the victims here.
Then maybe we shouldn’t have allowed the railway companies to try and dick then over into suicide schedules for profit
Vote for Congresspeople who will change the law.
I do not appreciate Presidents changing laws on a whim. That’s Trumpian horseshit.
I haven’t blamed anyone for anything - I’ve simply explained the end result that occurred, because of Biden, after you stopped paying attention.
If you’d cared enough to continue following the story, I wouldn’t need to explain any of these things to you. I knew what to look for because I did care enough to continue following the story.
We’ve had an imperial presidency since at least bush. If you’d cared enough to pay attention recently, you’d know that legal precedent has already occurred to give the president almost any power they want.
Calling that Trumpian either shows your age, or how long you’ve cared about this.
Incrementalism is an intentional tactic used by liberals to explain why they can’t undo the things the right wing does, and to explain why they can’t change things themselves when they are in power.
Liberalism is a fucking disease.
EDIT: Congress sure as shit wasn’t required to fuck over all the air traffic controllers. Funny that. Congress is never required to fuck over workers, but it is always an excuse as to why we can’t do things for the workers.
“imperial presidency” is not a phrase with any meaning. Imperialism isn’t “shit I don’t like.”
In this case, Congress is literally the authoring body of the contract’s binding legislation.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139876084/congress-house-railroad-strike-bill
Consider knowing what you’re talking about before getting mad about it.
Exactly how many Republican votes has Biden got for Democratic legislation? Have you ever watched a Republican primary? Bipartisanship is the easiest way to lose a Republican race.
Only liberals believe bipartisanship works both ways. I get it, I was liberal once. But I stopped reading liberal op-eds and now I don’t have this urge to blame everyone else when Biden does things that are unpopular with the majority of voters.
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I blame the system, not the voters. Humans operating under good faith are well equipped to make sane and mutually beneficial decisions. So when the opposite is happening that is a sign of systemic problems.
During the primary Biden kept saying he should be president because of his great relationships with republican Senators and that because of that he’d be able to get R’s to vote with the Dem party…
He legitimately believes they’re all a bunch of buddies.
I still dont know if it’s better or worse if he’s delusional… But either option isn’t great
He literally accomplished that goal numerous times already.
It’s not that hard to believe.
You have to remember that many politicians aren’t true believers. From gay men who run on a ‘family values’ platform, black men or people in interracial relationships who run on a (borderline) racist platform, rich ultra-capitalists who pretend to be men of the people and promote populist crap, ultra conservatives who are privately quite liberal, highly educated people who pretend to be morons, city folks who pretend to be cowboys, those who run on a green platform while privately investing in fracking from the comfort of their private jet, those who promote conspiracy theories they find stupid, those who hate the people who elect them, etc. etc.
Just like someone on QVC selling overpriced watches, it’s their job to pretend the product they’re selling is the best option for those watching. When the cameras are turned off, even the more extreme ones inevitably drop the act and act more like normal human beings.
It’s deeply cynical, it’s caused damage to democracy, but it is what it is. It’s like pretending to like arseholes if you’re a waitress, except you get paid more.
This is Biden mistaking class solidarity with friendship because Democrats like him have to lie to themselves everytime they fuck over the many in service to the few.
I agree its always Democrats reaching across the aile while Republicans are straight up stripping our rights away and giving all the money to the top 1%.
It one big club and we aren’t in it.
Yea, realizing it’s all one club really opened up my political thinking.
Sorry they are down voting your top post to hell.
If only liberals had the same outrage for “moderate” Republicans supporting GOP propaganda as they do for people criticizing Biden from the left.
They’re both too old! And McConnell is a rhino who secretly is best friends with Nacy Pelosi and senator Feinstein. They all sit around together on the weekends babbling, freezing, forgetting where they are and pooping their pants like little babies.
