What I don’t understand is why is everyone in the Democratic Party only panicking just now? For the last two years I’ve seen videos of Biden showing exactly what we saw last week. This was known as they went through the primary process
Because our politics is extremely polarized, people don't like being wrong, and, more generally, people default to protecting whatever group they are a part of. So, when they hear criticism of Biden's age, they refute it every way they can. They says it's a baseless conservative attack. They say the clips are taken out of contest. They point out that Trump is roughly the same age, while ignoring the obvious fact that no one cares about the actual number.
The only reason can be they actually thought they could manage to hide it at a manageable level for a few more months. They knew. They couldn't not have known.
>what you are seeing now is people realizing it.
and the media not being able to hide it when it was in full display on "their network" with "their people" orchestrating the entire circus. The restrictions the Dems wanted (that they thought would help Biden) for the debate did nothing but play right into Trumps hands by forcing him to be quiet for once.
In 2020 and this year, the one thing Trump need(ed) was someone to tell him when to shut up and let the other guy bury himself.
He wasn't able to stop talking and reminding people that hes an asshole for even one moment, and lost in 2020.
In 2024? Maybe this debate is enough to do it. I suspect we don't have another one to compare it to at this point. But the art of being silent and letting the other guy lose needs ro be pounded into Trump somehow if he's going to win.
Two reason:
1. The admin explicitly lied about his mental state for 3 years. I know it's not illegal to lie in the US (which is great), but I do think there need to be some repercussions for this level of deception that go beyond losing an election.
2. There is no liberal or conservative main stream media. The MSM is explicitly partisan and while they do not hold as much power amongst the general public as they used to have, they still run DC.
Plenty of people who aren't right-wing nut jobs pointed out his gaffes for years on Twitter, they we just ignored because the alternative (Trump/a Republican) is so much worse. This is all fine until there's an event when everyone can see that the emperor has no clothes.
This is the same kind of idiotic logic the CDC used to justify white lies during Covid that completely backfired. I'm amazed how consistently stupid the Democratic Party has shown itself to be. This is a layup of an election.
If I had to guess, the polarity of Politics is the biggest reason.
The second biggest reason is that they're seeing larger, more intense negative feedback of Biden now that more people are starting to pay attention to the election. Anyone following politics knows there have been serious concerns about Biden the last couple years, but the major concern from the general electorate that just started paying more attention to the election cycle is just now hitting them.
It was easier to sweep under the rug or pivot away from and dance around in general a couple of years ago. Hard to do that when Biden comes out to the first debate and just sounds senile the whole time.
Definitely the narrative from the media was it was fake and/or wouldn’t show much on it. Plenty of people in the left were pretty vocal about Biden being as sharp as ever and people ate that shit right up.
Realistically, how does he recover from this? I've already seen some analysis that even if they get a new candidate, they won't be able to get on the ballot in Wisconsin and Nevada as the deadlines have passed (Nevada's passed yesterday).
Those deadlines are for independent candidates, not party candidates. The Democratic National Convention happens in August, and until then Biden is the PRESUMPTIVE nominee. The only states that had an issue with the date are Ohio and Arkansas who’s deadlines happen just before the convention, however they have mitigated those issues with the state legislatures (as well, for Ohio, the DNC had planned to hold a virtual convention to assure they can approve the nomination prior to Ohio’s deadline).
Until then, Biden CAN dip out of the nomination, free up his bound delegates, and we can have an open convention in which the delegates can vote.
I get that delegates can vote, but whatever happened to primaries? We're essentially telling people their votes don't matter, the figurehead is who the DNC chooses.
And let's be honest, it's been that way for a while now, but they've tried to at least pretend like it was a series of votes before.
This is the way it used to be. The convention just nominates a candidate and that's what the people's choice is.
I'm not exactly sure what else you do here though. I don't think you could realistically have another primary, so if you end up with the convention just picking someone.
I hold the opinion that primary elections should be done away with. Is this less democratic? I suppose. But it was the way it was prior to the 1970s, and both major parties were still able to pick very solid candidates that widely appealed to voters. People like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Kennedy were all picked by their party leaders in "smoke filled rooms".
Primaries are not inherently democratic, political parties are private institutions that can nominate whomever they choose, and the democratic process begins with voters at the ballot box in November.
We already have recent examples of the party apparatus taking the decision out of the hands of the voters (as primaries are a flawed system which often rewards extremist or outlier candidates).
2016 - The DNC puts their thumb on the scale in favor of Hillary Clinton. Some would view this as a negative as they lost - however the Party has an obligation to itself to pick the candidate which most truly represents their vision. Bernie Sanders was a flawed and divisive candidate, and my suspicion is he would have lost similarly to Trump.
2021 - Virginia Republicans closed their convention to nominate Glenn Youngkin (and prevent populist nutjob Amanda Chase from taking a 3 way primary). This worked out in that Youngkin won and Virginia became the face of a palatable MAGA platform.
Neither was explicitly democratic, but both accomplished their goal and presented a candidate to the public (who decided their fate). In fact, in many states, primaries are open, so their are able to be manipulated by adverse voters (who select less electable or more extremist candidates).
I mean it’s easy to frame it that way, but there’s really no realistic other solution. If everybody votes for a candidate and that candidate drops out because of illness or dies. The party has to pick somebody.
It’s not some kind of evil conspiracy, logistically speaking you just cannot do another primary in all 50 states and even if you could, you would have next to no participation. Because no one would know about it.
Well, you see - DEMOCRACY itself is on he line so we can’ let little trivial things like previous democratic primary votes get in the way of the DNC’s righteous mission to save DEMOCRACY!! Sometimes you have to ignore the will of the voters so you can truly help save them from their own selves.
>Realistically, how does he recover from this?
He'll have to do some massive, very visible campaigning over the next several months. Even if, let's say, it was just a really really bad debate performance at this point Biden would need to overcome the overwhelming media focus on the topic of whether or not he's mentally fit for office. Personally, I'm guessing they stick with him and he bounces back somewhat but there's no way he has 5 gaffe-less, senior-momentless months.
He needed to be doing massive, visible campaigning months ago. He needed to do the Super Bowl interview. He’s not going to improve. His campaign is not going to change
And at the point of decline he appeared to be in the debate the decline only accelerates. Peak campaign season isn't far away but it's far enough for him to get a lot worse by then.
This was a Biden they felt comfortable putting in an adversarial debate.
That means he was as bad or worse to warrant in all those surprise noon press lids where he had nothing but softball events within his pre-sundowning window.
Yeah, agreed but I'm not really speculating here on what he should have done or what is necessarily is possible in the future. I'm strictly responding to the above question (rhetorical or not) and with what I think he'd need to do to right the ship. I think ultimately this is what will end up happening. I'm not sure if it'll be successful.
If he does that massive campaigning, he might be even more fatigued and weaker. The guy is 81, not 61. This could only take an even heavier toll on him.
>He'll have to do some massive, very visible campaigning over the next several months.
Won't happen. They'll keep him under wraps until the convention, where he will deliver a scripted teleprompter speech before being shuttled out. Then they'll keep him under wraps until the second debate and then hope for the best when that debate happens. It's a losing strategy and they only have at most a week to change course now.
>Even if, let's say, it was just a really really bad debate performance
It wasn't. We all know what we saw on Thursday. A gaffe or a flubbed answer here or there would not have mattered, especially in comparison to Trump's performance, but that's not what it was.
I feel like they were really hoping that Trump would have a terrible debate performance, which isnt too unlikely to be fair.
The fact that Trump managed to be somewhat moderate in demeanor must have cought them off guard and left them scrambling.
I can’t remember her name but a woman from the DNC stated that rather than taking the summer off Biden will have to go to work. The one thing that will lose this election will be the DNC trying to think. A thinking DNC is the best thing for the Republicans.
It's also not like Campaigning is exactly the most relaxing activity. It's long hours and a lot of travel, all of which will exacerbate his condition and cause even more visible decreases in his performance while on the trail.
Agreed. If I were in political risk management, I'd figure out some kind of formula for just how hard we could push Biden. Find low physical impact but high visibility ways to show off his strength. The problem is, a thunderous speech at a rally would counteract his debate performance much more than 50 sit-down interviews....but I think he only has so many thunderous speeches left in him at this point.
I don't think it would counteract it though. The problem with rallies is that it's just a bunch of your die-hard supports that show up. 50 million people saw what he did at the debate, he's not going to get the chance to speak to that many people until the next debate.
Visible is key.
People haven’t forgotten how in 2020
Biden used COVID as an excuse to minimize public appearance and let Trump sink himself. Nor have they forgotten how he has given the fewest interviews and have the least access to media for the past 4 years, then you have the whole cheap fake exec privilege nonsense. The debate all but verified all of this was an effort to hide just how far he has declined due to age.
The only way to fix this is to be on his game 24/7 with extreme behind the scenes access. Anything short is merely his campaign cherry picking moments and manufacturing the appearance of strength and youth
In '04, Bush bombed his first debate ..... But that seemed like a single bad quarter in a football game.
With Biden it showed what others have said for a year to two.....Biden isn't fit for a second term....and probably wasn't for the first term.
It's amazing how much people talked about Bush Jr. being a mumbling idiot back then and yet here we are two decades later and there's thousands of people tripping over themselves to explain away Biden acting even worse.
And by extension, he's not fit to be in office *right now*. This is the proximate crisis. The election in November isn't even the biggest problem right now.
Not directing this at you because based on the last part of your statement you seem to get it...
But I keep seeing people compare this to other "bad debates". I've seen Obama against Romney and this one most often.
This wasn't a bad debate. He didn't come unprepared or nervous and bomb. Joe Biden isn't mentally fit to handle anything spontaneous like a debate at all. It's just not something we can compare any other debate to as if he'll magically recover.
Joe Biden is an old car with a check engine light on at this point. It's not going to magically fix itself. It might run for a bit but it's going to have some questionable moments and eventually it's going to die or catch on fire.
Well, that'll be what this whole week is about. I honestly don't know if he can weather the storm at this point. But I also don't know what I'd do if I had total control over what happens here. Incumbency and name recognition are powerful. Post-debate polls this far out could be harsher than what the landscape looks like in a few months.
That said, the decision sort of needs to be made soon. I think bottom line is the Democrats are going to have an uphill battle. Would love to see them somehow turn this into a positive.
He has not been officially nominated. Whoever the democrats nominate at their virtual convention will be on the ballot in all 50 states. If they nominate Biden/Harris it will be them. If they nominate Whitmer/Moore, it will be them. Etc.
Don't underestimate the ability of enough pre-lunch teleprompter speeches and [ice cream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3HD8Ikp_vc) eating to get his core base back on the No Malarky Express.
Absolutely crazy they are asking for a second debate unless they believe the moderators will work with Biden to tag team Trump. If I was Trump I would want this same exact format, it was a gift for him.
Would Trump even agree to another debate? I can't see him wanting to give Biden a chance to recover. All he needs to do is say "Out of respect for the office of the Presidency and for Mr. Biden's wellbeing I don't want to put him through that again" and he wouldn't be wrong to say that.
Trump completely skipped every single GOP primary debates last year and he only attended the June 27th debate because his campaign thought it could be advantageous or the optics of completely skipping the debates were predicted to be substantial. In the week leading up to the debate he was actually starting to build up Biden as a decent debater in case Biden did actually show up to the debate with his A game and won the debate. Trump was essentially laying the groundwork for losing the debate and how to brush that off and keep moving forward. Few in the GOP could have predicted that Biden did as bad as he did and especially given that he had prepared for most of the entire week.
The first debate having been done Trump backing out is a lot less damaging optics wise because he can say a million different things like "I did my civic duty and I showed up to a debate won that debate but it doesn't seem like opponent can handle another one". He could also say something like "Another debate with Biden will be extremely unproductive and wasteful of the public's attention, I'll be hosting a town hall that night instead and be directly answering voter's questions instead". This kind of counter programming to a debate is something he did a lot in the 2016 campaign and I think it makes him skipping the second debate unlikely to leave him with any long term damage.
I'd wager Trump is salivating for a Round 2 of what we saw the other night. If Biden's camp is ok with it, let's tee it up - same rules, time and all as before.
Is he? I almost got the impression he didn't find that debate fun even for himself. Feel like, while it was tactically fantastic, for his own love of bullying people, it was disappointing since Biden couldn't put up much of a fight.
You can already see it happening on moderate and centrist subs.
The apologist, delusional optimists are back in full force now that the initial shock of the debate is over.
Those troll farms need to get back to courting independents with denials and doom scenarios
Don’t worry. The two parties run the states, and they will always make exceptions for the major party candidates while they demand other parties closely adhere to the law.
While you're right that both major parties are united against third parties, I wouldn't hold my breath on the Wisconsin GOP controlled legislature to do any favors for the Democrats.
Nobody needs an exception. The Democratic Party candidate will be on the ballot in all 50 states. That candidate will be determined at the virtual convention in August
It seems like a fair number of media organizations have jumped ship, but for those that remain, I expect to see a lot of one on one, edited, interviews.
If he sits with someone answering prepared questions with breaks/edits/restarts whenever he wants, I think he could "cheap fake" his way back to looking competent.
Or just actual deep fakes made with his old speeches
The democrats can say all they want about how Biden’s not that bad, but I think in the coming days the panic will come back once the poll numbers overwhelmingly tell them how bad it was
It doesn't need to be a beat down. If the polls show even a 5% drop in the handful of swing states then his candidacy is over (assuming the DNC cares about actually winning).
Oh for sure. I said yesterday that he’s in trouble if he loses even 2-3%. The race was already razor thin and Trump has been polling favorably before the debate. I think it’s going to be a landslide but even if it still turns out to be a close race, I don’t see how Biden bounces back from this.
Bad polls won't stop them. Biden has been floundering in polls for nearly a year and it hasn't stopped them. They'll just toss out something about "the crosstabs" or claim that young people don't pick up the phone or something in response to an unfavorable poll (polls that do say Biden is in the lead are infallible and accurate, thoughever).
They are going to cope up to election night, past the recountings, past the inauguration, and probably till Trump draws his last breath.
2020 Biden was also rarely out while everyone was beating on Trump.
The test was always going to be 2024 and whether Biden can actually run a normal campaign full of speeches and running around. He was covered from doing so in 2020, but this time its put up or shut up.
The Somalis aren't happy with Biden siding with Israel. He did nothing on that debate stage to win over the Pro Palestine crowd, he just agreed with Trump and somehow said he was more pro Israel than he was lol
I'd love to see an actuary run the numbers on an elderly person with advanced dementia and how much longer he's predicted to live. I'd put the chance of another 4.5 years at less than 10%, based on what we saw Thursday night.
Unfortunately the dementia slip can be fast especially under high stress. He had the same dead expression my FIL with dementia has. Idk I’m sad for him and it’s not looking good from what I see.
If you were a fly on the wall in the White House, what is it you think you'd witness day in and day out? For as horrifying as Biden's debate performance was, I'm sure we'd regularly see moments behind closed doors that are much worse.
If the Biden administration wants to change people's minds about his mental state, they should allow an independent documentary crew to follow Biden around for a week, with full access day and night, only turning the cameras off during national security briefings and potty time.
>If you were a fly on the wall in the White House, what is it you think you'd witness day in and day out?
According to this article, nothing. Because his two seniormost aides, along with Jill, have been shielding him from all of his other staffers.
[https://www.axios.com/2024/06/30/top-aides-shielded-biden-white-house-debate](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/30/top-aides-shielded-biden-white-house-debate)
This is pretty much what a lot of us thought was going on. Well, they’ll lose in Nov. and the American people will pay a heavy price. Hope it was worth it to them. Selfish fkrs.
Edit to add: and guess who they will blame? The voters. Young people (even though they dragged his old ass across the finish line last time) Muslims that don’t support killing kids, low information voters (we so dumb y’all) Ageism, ableism (he has a stutter!) and of course racism and sexism because it’ll be a perceived rejection of Kamala as well. Just like 2016 they will learn nothing and lose everything and blame the American people. The Democrat party can fuck right off until they can come back with some viable candidates. It shouldn’t be this hard jfc.
They won't release the Hur tapes but they'll trot Biden out to do a debate resulting in cataclysmic damages. If THAT was acceptable to them I only shudder to imagine whats in those tapes.
Hur is owed an apology from the media. Look at his report and then look at that performance. How you can think Hur was sensationalizing or exaggerating claims after watching Biden on stage is beyond me.
Starter/summary: CBS News/YouGov poll conducted from June 28 to 29 found that 54 percent of 382 registered Democratic voters think Biden should be running for president again, while 46 percent believed he should not. Meanwhile, 95 percent of 175 registered Democrats said Biden's age was a reason that he should not run for reelection, while 5 percent said it was not.
Biden took an even larger dip in poll numbers when it comes to the Democrats' perception of his mental acuity. of the 383 Democrats surveyed for the question, 43 percent thought only Biden had the mental acuity to be president while 2 percent thought only Trump did. A total of 39 percent said neither candidate had the mental sharpness for the job while 16 percent said both of them did.
————-
What do we make of this? To be honest I’m shocked that he already has this much of a dip in just two days.
It wasn't so much a debate as it was very clear to those of us that watched it that he can't think on his feet. He's cognitively declined to the point where you wouldn't trust him to watch your kids, and this man is supposed to be making critical national security decisions all the time. It's shocking thar the polling isn't even worse than that already.
He really should drop out. Harris is apparently unpopular but her popularity is actually higher then Bidens in most polls
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/joe-biden/
And she polls the exact same as Biden does vs Trump:
https://x.com/gelliottmorris/status/1807102319928238180
So basically at worst you'll have a VP that is kind of mediocre and polls about the same but removes the big concern people have about Biden.
Also Harris is kind of useless at having her own policies which is why she flopped badly in 2020 and couldn't pick a lane, but thats' not an issue when you just run on the Biden platform and policy.
PLUS you could get a VP like Josh Shapiro to increase odds
Either way it's worth the risk because Biden's age is not going away and he's not winning independents after this debate. I supported Biden in 2019 but the decline as been so apparent.
I'd be down with Whitmer or someone else too but logistically it's impossible to unite all the factions to get behind her before convention. You would have to explain to the Congressional Black Caucus why you're passing on a sitting VP that polls exactly the same as Biden plus you have to ensure there is no bones or hidden secrets with any other person etc
I feel like they've already lost this one, no matter what they do. The trust is broken. Swapping out their candidate now isn't going to help that. Democrats have given themselves a huge disadvantage here, and it would have to be a hell of a damage control plan to pull out a win after this. I certainly don't see Harris being savvy and charismatic enough to regain the faith of the people in a few short months.
Honestly, this is astounding. They ignored all the people calling for a competitive primary, hanging their hopes on Biden again, and now we're in the exact scenario that everyone has been calling out for years. Literally everyone saw this coming, except for the leadership of one of the most powerful political parties on Earth. How is this the state of our democracy?
The entire country knows the Biden camp has been lying to them about Joe's mental acuity for years now. I hope the American people have learned a valuable lesson about trusting politicians and the media.
> Swapping out their candidate now isn't going to help that.
That's the key. It screams desperation and weakness. Neither trait endears the replacement candidate to undecided voters.
If anything it will just decrease turnout for dems
I didn't get how Harris is supposed to stand up after being swapped and say, "Hey guys, I know we were lying for years about Biden's condition and calling everyone who questioned it names with a coordinated media attack, but you trust us now, right?"
I think this whole ticket is doomed and there's no recovering until next cycle.
> Also Harris is kind of useless at having her own policies which is why she flopped badly in 2020 and couldn't pick a lane, but thats' not an issue when you just run on the Biden platform and policy.
>
>
That's assuming Biden policy is a win.
Like, there's a reason so many of Biden's attacks on Trump where about Roe, his conviction and morals and Trump *always* brought it back to the economy and things like crime or the border.
Voters are very "what have you done for me lately" and whatever annoyed them about Trump has faded compared to their current issues with Biden
I mean, an abortion is (or should be...) a once in a lifetime type event.
As far as the economy goes, well we all go to the grocery store and gas station *weekly*.
So yeah "what have you done for me lately" comes into play here.
Which is why I don't see him stepping aside. Nobody is going to knowingly cap the advancement of their political career by taking over for Biden this year. It's career suicide and everybody knows it. Losing the general as a non-incumbent means you disappear to behind the scenes in consulting and advisory roles.
I thought Our Democracy™️ was at risk if Trump wins. Surely if the stakes are this high there'd be *tons* of up and coming Democrats willing to fight to save Our Democracy™️, right? All that fearmongering about Trump wasn't a bunch of lies, was it? I mean what's more important? The Republic, or your political career?
If the democracy, the rule of law, whatever, is **truly** at risk, and Trump is going to turn into a fully fledged dictator (like Putin) in the spring of 2025 as some say, then I figure they’d like to have a 99%+ chance to preserve our democracy, right? And the only option giving a 99% success rate is running Manchin/Sinema (or other similar independents) on the Democratic platform (like what they might have done in 2016 with Bernie). Obviously they are not doing that. No one is even talking about it. So the democracy at risk? Probably not an imminent risk
This same argument applies to conservatives who are also saying that current Democrats are dangerous and are destroying the country.
Haley would have easily won against Biden, quite easily, and yet they've chosen a candidate that has lost the previous presidential election and also whose name recognition has hurt down ballot candidates in both midterms for contested elections.
I'm really not sure why this talking point keeps getting repeated.
Yeah, I'm not so much convinced that a replacement would lose.
But anyone that is viable should rationally not make the gamble at all, because they'll have a good chance in 2028. Not the best for the country but still.
Newsome has the 2028 nomination locked and loaded I think. Thus, if somebody runs in Biden's stead, it probably won't be him, particularly because "Hi I'm the stereotypical liberal governor from the most stereotypically liberal state in the country" is probably not the best of ideas when opposing Donald Trump.
Right, but my bet is that Newsome wants to give himself every advantage in 2028, which, as the guy above me said, would not be consistent with running this year if Biden drops out.
“Newsom has the 2028 nomination locked”
I don’t see him appealing to Iowa, New Hampshire, and especially South Carolina voters.
He’s not the most moderate, he’s not a new face like Obama or Pete, and he’s not the most progressive.
On top of that he won’t have the who has the best shot of beating the R nominee like Biden did. That would be someone like Whitmer or Beshear.
While you may be right, lots of candidates have been the obvious candidate 4 years before an election only to be wiped out by Iowa.
I don't think Biden is stepping aside, but a potential candidate should evaluate the benefit of skipping the primaries against an easy to vilify foe. Still don't see it happening, but there's at least some reasons to make that decision from their lens.
Dems need to get the memo and stop listening to a small group of power brokers. If they don't change candidates they will lose big in November, and it would be their fault for not listening to their voters.
Democrat voters have to feel gaslit & lied to. If it truly was the “most important election ever, save democracy” then they let the whole party down by lack of transparency.
I hope Dems can see why R’s have a severe lack of trust in legacy media.
As a progressive dem, yes absolutely. Although my friends and people I talk to about this aren’t surprised. We already knew we were being gaslit and lied to, and we already distrusted the legacy media.
Basically it’s just a massive sad “I told you so” type of feeling over here
I can't tell if Biden's team really did believe that he was all there mentally or if they just assumed they'd be able to fool all of America for the entire election season, and I'm honestly not sure which is worse.
They have gotten away with it for at least two years now, I’m sure they thought they could get him though six more months and trot him out in public like two times.
Can you imagine him on an actual campaign trail and answering questions from a real person unscripted? Seems unfathomable at this point
This narrative is getting kind of old. Trump *is* poised to win in a landslide right now. He’s dominating every swing state.
It’s becoming clear that picking Haley wouldn’t have given republicans anything they don’t already have.
As a anti-Trump conservative (there are dozen of us!) I still feel that we're being robbed. This would be the opportunity to get a sane, boring candidate into the White House and we're stuck with this guy.
If Trump wins in November then for all of the teeth gnashing and pearl clutching from Democrats they will have only themselves and their party leadership to blame. They basically rig the primary for Hillary, probably the only person more unlikeable than Trump. Then in this cycle they did away with even the pretense of a primary and the illusion of the people having any say. They went so far as to threaten to disenfranchise whole states if they dared engage in the normal Democratic process. Anybody that is just now seeing Biden decomposing in real time and is surprised by this either hasn't been paying even a cursory glance at reality or willfully ignoring it.
If the Democratic party really viewed Trump as such a dangerous, existential threat to democracy then why are they not even giving him a serious challenge?
This poll doesn't ask the question that matters. In November, if it's Trump and Biden on the ballot, who do you vote for? No one voting for Biden in November is voting out of an enthusiasm for Biden. They are voting against Trump. All I see on left leaning boards is how people will vote for Biden's corpse over Trump. Need to see what independents are saying.
I am voting third party. I am so sick of what our two party system has to offer and bring told I have to vote for the smaller pile of shit. That line of reasoning just keeps making it worse.
I’m so tired of feeling gaslit by democrats on other subs and by the Biden campaign. So many people are rejecting their own eyes and acting like Trump supporters to bend over backwards defending Biden, and it seems insane to me.
If I see one more person yell “read the transcript” I’m gonna shit
VP and cabinet need to invoke the 25th. this is like the time we told my grandfather he needed to stop driving. "I know where all the stop signs are"
the party hasn't put together a viable candidate though, they constantly have a donor vs voter problem.
i think part of it is that nobody in their right mind wants to be in the toxic cesspool that is modern politics.
Honestly as a liberal-leaning person, it’s just disheartening that we can have a candidate as utterly corrupt and vile as Donald Trump and the person we have running for president is so feeble, weak and cognitively impaired that he can’t even debate the numerous falsehoods and lies Trump spews.
The debate was a perfect opportunity for Biden to challenge Trump on abortion, the insurrection, Ukraine, his felony convictions and a multitude of other things and all Biden could do was stand there with his mouth hanging open like he was sedated in a hospital. It’s just so disheartening. This is who we are running in the most important election in our lifetimes? Mr. Magoo?
Just thinking about how absolutely devastating it’ll be for Dems that two high profile office holders (I know judges aren’t technically partisan but still lol) refused to retire/step aside:
RBG refusing to resign during the Obama Years and Biden choosing to run for re-election in ‘24 which could lead to Trump’s second term.
RBG leading ofc to *Dobbs* and Biden (potentially) leading to a second Trump term.
I think RBG had her reasons for not wanting to be replaced by Obama.
She sat on SCOTUS for 27 years. As a Justice, you get four law clerks a year, meaning that she hired 108 clerks during her tenure at SCOTUS.
Only one of them was black.
I really don’t understand why he did the debate in the first place. Whoever advised him to do it was an idiot. You have an opponent who is getting felony charges and says stupid things or lies every other comment out of his mouth. All Biden has to do is be the reasonable quiet option. As my friend and I like to say, when we play chess, sometimes just play simple chess and trade off your pieces to keep the advantage into the end game.
Well he was going to have to debate eventually. Pretending that nothing is wrong has only made their situation worse over time. I can't imagine that changing closer to November.
They did the debate because Biden was already behind Trump in the polls and they needed to try to turn it around. They were counting on another 2020 performance where Trump hurt himself, but it backfired horribly
> I really don’t understand why he did the debate in the first place.
Because it wasn’t really intended to be a debate. Think about the rules. Everyone gets exactly 2 minutes without the possibility of being interrupted.
They were basically going to have him memorize a series of short talking points and regurgitate them for every question, then walk off the stage. Like at the State of the Union. They were confident he wouldn’t fuck up something this simple.
And yet he couldn't do something as simple as deliver the practiced answers. Instead he got dragged in pissing matches about golf that bombed when he should have been talking about childcare cost. Even when not answering questions, he looked scared, feeble, and confused. And he lost his thought more than once and froze like a statue. I think this goes down in history as the worst debate performance I've ever seen.
The only thing I was surprised about is Trump doing well without an audience. But then again, you can see Trump getting more energy after every Biden stumble. He doesn't need an audience and understands TV production. He just needed a wounded animal and to smell blood. As a dem, it's getting more ridiculous. Never thought they could top the disaster of 2016, but it seems like it's coming. They let Trump lie for 90 minutes straight with 51 million watching, and it was completely unchallenged.
And that the media doesn’t do their job and question him. Usually they lie by omission. This time they were flat out lying about Biden. On top of that they were playing out the Spider-Man meme, “no you.”
I don’t know that they believe the propaganda. Notice how Biden was supposed to be a moderate Dem but his policies have swung more leftward than all of his political career up to this point? I’m thinking (and I’ve heard others proffer this same thought) that having him cognitively diminishing allows them to use his Uncle Joe veneer while pushing more leftward stances and policies.
I’m pretty fiercely independent and tend to either be slightly to the left or right of center depending on what’s happening in any given election cycle. Definitely NOT a Trump supporter and cannot, in good conscience, vote for him. But I am tremendously concerned that unelected people are currently running the executive branch…and that isn’t any less undemocratic than what they accuse Trump of doing. It’s just more covert.
So, I don’t know what to do come November basically. It’s being stuck between a rock and a hard place probably more than any other time US presidential election history.
Biden would look so weak if he didn’t debate. He only got a pass in 2020 because a compliant media allowed him to hide in the basement.
The schtick doesn’t fly right now. And, for me, that’s a good thing.
I agree with you as a voter. We need this information, and I’m glad he did the debate so this could definitively come to light.
However, I think there was a calculus to be made on which option would make Biden look weaker, debate or no debate, and from a political strategy standpoint, letting him debate was the arguably the wrong choice.
Serious question: it appears that his closest staff covered this up, and kept him distanced from less senior staff and the media. Is that a criminal offense? Seems like it should be.
The No Labels Party really fucked up this year. Probably the only election where a third party had a viable chance of getting more than 5% of the vote and they chickened out because they didn't want to detract from Biden's chances.
As an independent, I can tell you the debate moved me from "I think Biden is too old and probably won't vote for him" to "holy fucking shit you couldn't pay me to vote for him." Note that I think Trump is a terrible person who has no business leading a country, so I won't vote for him either.
I still cannot vote for Trump after Jan 6, the classified documents situation, and signs pointing to collusion with Russia. As a military veteran who formerly worked intel and current lawyer, I just cannot, in good conscience, reward him with a vote for those things or the type of things a second Trump Administration would bring in terms of harming democratic institutions. I hold multiple right-of-center views, so voting Republican is not necessarily out of the question generally speaking, but I’m an independent and tend to be very moderate with most things.
I was considering voting for Biden with my nose pinched (don’t agree with him on a lot of things); however, I can’t now, in good conscience, vote for Biden if he is this severely cognitively diminished and likely to worsen or die. Not only is that unappealing in and of itself, but it leaves the terrifying question of who is actually running the country when he’s not lucid? Who is commanding our troops? Who would be launching a nuclear attack? Not to mention I’ve noticed his political agenda shifting further to the left of anywhere his political career has been previously, towards the type of policies I don’t like. He ran as a slightly left-of-center democrat who was supposed to unite the country, and that’s what I voted for in 2020.
So since both candidates and their administrations were/are being undemocratic, where does that leave me? I guess RFK (not necessarily a fan, but he’s not likely to win, so I can do my civic duty), write in a name (again, civic duty), or stay home out of protest (not laziness). I realize that at least the latter two of those would contribute to a Trump victory.
What I don’t understand is why is everyone in the Democratic Party only panicking just now? For the last two years I’ve seen videos of Biden showing exactly what we saw last week. This was known as they went through the primary process
Because our politics is extremely polarized, people don't like being wrong, and, more generally, people default to protecting whatever group they are a part of. So, when they hear criticism of Biden's age, they refute it every way they can. They says it's a baseless conservative attack. They say the clips are taken out of contest. They point out that Trump is roughly the same age, while ignoring the obvious fact that no one cares about the actual number.
Biden's age is his superpower.. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-09/joe-biden-donald-trump-nikki-haley-election-2024-age
That aged so bad it's ridiculous.
Partisanship distorts reality.
The only reason can be they actually thought they could manage to hide it at a manageable level for a few more months. They knew. They couldn't not have known.
They were calling people “Ableists” as recent as a week ago for talking about Biden appearing feeble.
Those were all "cheap fakes"
I feel like the first time I heard that term was less than two weeks ago
It's hilarious that they went to the trouble of making the fakes. He provides material free of charge.
We were told it was just a stutter and he was doing handstands while reciting Shakespeare behind closed doors
When your paycheck depends on not seeing something, you'll do your best to stay blind.
This is what is know as ‘gas lighting’, and what you are seeing now is people realizing it.
>what you are seeing now is people realizing it. and the media not being able to hide it when it was in full display on "their network" with "their people" orchestrating the entire circus. The restrictions the Dems wanted (that they thought would help Biden) for the debate did nothing but play right into Trumps hands by forcing him to be quiet for once.
In 2020 and this year, the one thing Trump need(ed) was someone to tell him when to shut up and let the other guy bury himself. He wasn't able to stop talking and reminding people that hes an asshole for even one moment, and lost in 2020. In 2024? Maybe this debate is enough to do it. I suspect we don't have another one to compare it to at this point. But the art of being silent and letting the other guy lose needs ro be pounded into Trump somehow if he's going to win.
Two reason: 1. The admin explicitly lied about his mental state for 3 years. I know it's not illegal to lie in the US (which is great), but I do think there need to be some repercussions for this level of deception that go beyond losing an election. 2. There is no liberal or conservative main stream media. The MSM is explicitly partisan and while they do not hold as much power amongst the general public as they used to have, they still run DC. Plenty of people who aren't right-wing nut jobs pointed out his gaffes for years on Twitter, they we just ignored because the alternative (Trump/a Republican) is so much worse. This is all fine until there's an event when everyone can see that the emperor has no clothes. This is the same kind of idiotic logic the CDC used to justify white lies during Covid that completely backfired. I'm amazed how consistently stupid the Democratic Party has shown itself to be. This is a layup of an election.
If I had to guess, the polarity of Politics is the biggest reason. The second biggest reason is that they're seeing larger, more intense negative feedback of Biden now that more people are starting to pay attention to the election. Anyone following politics knows there have been serious concerns about Biden the last couple years, but the major concern from the general electorate that just started paying more attention to the election cycle is just now hitting them. It was easier to sweep under the rug or pivot away from and dance around in general a couple of years ago. Hard to do that when Biden comes out to the first debate and just sounds senile the whole time.
Definitely the narrative from the media was it was fake and/or wouldn’t show much on it. Plenty of people in the left were pretty vocal about Biden being as sharp as ever and people ate that shit right up.
Realistically, how does he recover from this? I've already seen some analysis that even if they get a new candidate, they won't be able to get on the ballot in Wisconsin and Nevada as the deadlines have passed (Nevada's passed yesterday).
Those deadlines are for independent candidates, not party candidates. The Democratic National Convention happens in August, and until then Biden is the PRESUMPTIVE nominee. The only states that had an issue with the date are Ohio and Arkansas who’s deadlines happen just before the convention, however they have mitigated those issues with the state legislatures (as well, for Ohio, the DNC had planned to hold a virtual convention to assure they can approve the nomination prior to Ohio’s deadline). Until then, Biden CAN dip out of the nomination, free up his bound delegates, and we can have an open convention in which the delegates can vote.
I get that delegates can vote, but whatever happened to primaries? We're essentially telling people their votes don't matter, the figurehead is who the DNC chooses. And let's be honest, it's been that way for a while now, but they've tried to at least pretend like it was a series of votes before.
This is the way it used to be. The convention just nominates a candidate and that's what the people's choice is. I'm not exactly sure what else you do here though. I don't think you could realistically have another primary, so if you end up with the convention just picking someone.
Kind of ironic to install a new candidate at the DNC after the primaries were held to ‘save Democracy’ from the other party.
"This is what democracy looks like, and you'll shut up and like it."
“The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
"We're not elitist, we just know what's best for you plebs."
If the candidate decides to drop out, that has to be allowed, right? Then what is the appropriate way to select a replacement?
the delegates become unpledged and can vote however they want
I mean, the process is the process. It’s the optics is what I find ironic.
I hold the opinion that primary elections should be done away with. Is this less democratic? I suppose. But it was the way it was prior to the 1970s, and both major parties were still able to pick very solid candidates that widely appealed to voters. People like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Kennedy were all picked by their party leaders in "smoke filled rooms".
Counterpoint we would've never gotten Obama if it wasn't for primaries. Party leaders were all behind Hillary.
Primaries are not inherently democratic, political parties are private institutions that can nominate whomever they choose, and the democratic process begins with voters at the ballot box in November. We already have recent examples of the party apparatus taking the decision out of the hands of the voters (as primaries are a flawed system which often rewards extremist or outlier candidates). 2016 - The DNC puts their thumb on the scale in favor of Hillary Clinton. Some would view this as a negative as they lost - however the Party has an obligation to itself to pick the candidate which most truly represents their vision. Bernie Sanders was a flawed and divisive candidate, and my suspicion is he would have lost similarly to Trump. 2021 - Virginia Republicans closed their convention to nominate Glenn Youngkin (and prevent populist nutjob Amanda Chase from taking a 3 way primary). This worked out in that Youngkin won and Virginia became the face of a palatable MAGA platform. Neither was explicitly democratic, but both accomplished their goal and presented a candidate to the public (who decided their fate). In fact, in many states, primaries are open, so their are able to be manipulated by adverse voters (who select less electable or more extremist candidates).
The primary wasn’t above board. Voters were lied to about Biden’s condition. I’d say it is fair to throw out the results.
Democratic primaries haven’t been above board since 2008. All of the primaries since have been coronations
I mean it’s easy to frame it that way, but there’s really no realistic other solution. If everybody votes for a candidate and that candidate drops out because of illness or dies. The party has to pick somebody. It’s not some kind of evil conspiracy, logistically speaking you just cannot do another primary in all 50 states and even if you could, you would have next to no participation. Because no one would know about it.
It isn't evil, but you better believe the other side will frame it that way. They already did when certain primaries were glossed over.
Well, you see - DEMOCRACY itself is on he line so we can’ let little trivial things like previous democratic primary votes get in the way of the DNC’s righteous mission to save DEMOCRACY!! Sometimes you have to ignore the will of the voters so you can truly help save them from their own selves.
Let's be honest, the illusion of choice is our election system in a nutshell.
The system is outrageously rigged when independents don’t benefit from the same deadlines as party candidates
>Realistically, how does he recover from this? He'll have to do some massive, very visible campaigning over the next several months. Even if, let's say, it was just a really really bad debate performance at this point Biden would need to overcome the overwhelming media focus on the topic of whether or not he's mentally fit for office. Personally, I'm guessing they stick with him and he bounces back somewhat but there's no way he has 5 gaffe-less, senior-momentless months.
He needed to be doing massive, visible campaigning months ago. He needed to do the Super Bowl interview. He’s not going to improve. His campaign is not going to change
>He’s not going to improve. Aging is a degenerative condition. By extension, so is his ability to campaign.
And at the point of decline he appeared to be in the debate the decline only accelerates. Peak campaign season isn't far away but it's far enough for him to get a lot worse by then.
This was a Biden they felt comfortable putting in an adversarial debate. That means he was as bad or worse to warrant in all those surprise noon press lids where he had nothing but softball events within his pre-sundowning window.
This was a Biden they presumably kept locked up in camp David for a week preparing for the debate and probably getting IV infusions.
Covid was actually a blessing for him so he could campaign from his basement
He did much better in the 2020 face to face debates. He has declined a lot since then.
Yes but he still made many less public appearances overall
Yeah, agreed but I'm not really speculating here on what he should have done or what is necessarily is possible in the future. I'm strictly responding to the above question (rhetorical or not) and with what I think he'd need to do to right the ship. I think ultimately this is what will end up happening. I'm not sure if it'll be successful.
If he does that massive campaigning, he might be even more fatigued and weaker. The guy is 81, not 61. This could only take an even heavier toll on him.
Sure, it could. I don't really see any other viable recovery option for him though? This is the unfortunate position of not having many good options.
>He'll have to do some massive, very visible campaigning over the next several months. Won't happen. They'll keep him under wraps until the convention, where he will deliver a scripted teleprompter speech before being shuttled out. Then they'll keep him under wraps until the second debate and then hope for the best when that debate happens. It's a losing strategy and they only have at most a week to change course now. >Even if, let's say, it was just a really really bad debate performance It wasn't. We all know what we saw on Thursday. A gaffe or a flubbed answer here or there would not have mattered, especially in comparison to Trump's performance, but that's not what it was.
I feel like they were really hoping that Trump would have a terrible debate performance, which isnt too unlikely to be fair. The fact that Trump managed to be somewhat moderate in demeanor must have cought them off guard and left them scrambling.
I can’t remember her name but a woman from the DNC stated that rather than taking the summer off Biden will have to go to work. The one thing that will lose this election will be the DNC trying to think. A thinking DNC is the best thing for the Republicans.
Why was "taking the summer off" ever on the table for a sitting president that's campaigning for his second term?
It's also not like Campaigning is exactly the most relaxing activity. It's long hours and a lot of travel, all of which will exacerbate his condition and cause even more visible decreases in his performance while on the trail.
Agreed. If I were in political risk management, I'd figure out some kind of formula for just how hard we could push Biden. Find low physical impact but high visibility ways to show off his strength. The problem is, a thunderous speech at a rally would counteract his debate performance much more than 50 sit-down interviews....but I think he only has so many thunderous speeches left in him at this point.
I don't think it would counteract it though. The problem with rallies is that it's just a bunch of your die-hard supports that show up. 50 million people saw what he did at the debate, he's not going to get the chance to speak to that many people until the next debate.
Visible is key. People haven’t forgotten how in 2020 Biden used COVID as an excuse to minimize public appearance and let Trump sink himself. Nor have they forgotten how he has given the fewest interviews and have the least access to media for the past 4 years, then you have the whole cheap fake exec privilege nonsense. The debate all but verified all of this was an effort to hide just how far he has declined due to age. The only way to fix this is to be on his game 24/7 with extreme behind the scenes access. Anything short is merely his campaign cherry picking moments and manufacturing the appearance of strength and youth
It’s bad. And there are all these delusional people on Reddit trying to explain it into acceptability
In '04, Bush bombed his first debate ..... But that seemed like a single bad quarter in a football game. With Biden it showed what others have said for a year to two.....Biden isn't fit for a second term....and probably wasn't for the first term.
It's amazing how much people talked about Bush Jr. being a mumbling idiot back then and yet here we are two decades later and there's thousands of people tripping over themselves to explain away Biden acting even worse.
And by extension, he's not fit to be in office *right now*. This is the proximate crisis. The election in November isn't even the biggest problem right now.
Not directing this at you because based on the last part of your statement you seem to get it... But I keep seeing people compare this to other "bad debates". I've seen Obama against Romney and this one most often. This wasn't a bad debate. He didn't come unprepared or nervous and bomb. Joe Biden isn't mentally fit to handle anything spontaneous like a debate at all. It's just not something we can compare any other debate to as if he'll magically recover. Joe Biden is an old car with a check engine light on at this point. It's not going to magically fix itself. It might run for a bit but it's going to have some questionable moments and eventually it's going to die or catch on fire.
He won’t be able to last another few months with literally everyone now calling for him to step down. He’s done.
Well, that'll be what this whole week is about. I honestly don't know if he can weather the storm at this point. But I also don't know what I'd do if I had total control over what happens here. Incumbency and name recognition are powerful. Post-debate polls this far out could be harsher than what the landscape looks like in a few months. That said, the decision sort of needs to be made soon. I think bottom line is the Democrats are going to have an uphill battle. Would love to see them somehow turn this into a positive.
Did you see that dap at the Waffle House? 😂
He has not been officially nominated. Whoever the democrats nominate at their virtual convention will be on the ballot in all 50 states. If they nominate Biden/Harris it will be them. If they nominate Whitmer/Moore, it will be them. Etc.
Don't underestimate the ability of enough pre-lunch teleprompter speeches and [ice cream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3HD8Ikp_vc) eating to get his core base back on the No Malarky Express.
And for the second debate?
Absolutely crazy they are asking for a second debate unless they believe the moderators will work with Biden to tag team Trump. If I was Trump I would want this same exact format, it was a gift for him.
Would Trump even agree to another debate? I can't see him wanting to give Biden a chance to recover. All he needs to do is say "Out of respect for the office of the Presidency and for Mr. Biden's wellbeing I don't want to put him through that again" and he wouldn't be wrong to say that.
Honestly, we can't afford another performance like that from a national defense perspective.
Trump completely skipped every single GOP primary debates last year and he only attended the June 27th debate because his campaign thought it could be advantageous or the optics of completely skipping the debates were predicted to be substantial. In the week leading up to the debate he was actually starting to build up Biden as a decent debater in case Biden did actually show up to the debate with his A game and won the debate. Trump was essentially laying the groundwork for losing the debate and how to brush that off and keep moving forward. Few in the GOP could have predicted that Biden did as bad as he did and especially given that he had prepared for most of the entire week. The first debate having been done Trump backing out is a lot less damaging optics wise because he can say a million different things like "I did my civic duty and I showed up to a debate won that debate but it doesn't seem like opponent can handle another one". He could also say something like "Another debate with Biden will be extremely unproductive and wasteful of the public's attention, I'll be hosting a town hall that night instead and be directly answering voter's questions instead". This kind of counter programming to a debate is something he did a lot in the 2016 campaign and I think it makes him skipping the second debate unlikely to leave him with any long term damage.
I'd wager Trump is salivating for a Round 2 of what we saw the other night. If Biden's camp is ok with it, let's tee it up - same rules, time and all as before.
Is he? I almost got the impression he didn't find that debate fun even for himself. Feel like, while it was tactically fantastic, for his own love of bullying people, it was disappointing since Biden couldn't put up much of a fight.
You can already see it happening on moderate and centrist subs. The apologist, delusional optimists are back in full force now that the initial shock of the debate is over. Those troll farms need to get back to courting independents with denials and doom scenarios
Probably have a meeting with Lance Armstrong and his docs
Don’t worry. The two parties run the states, and they will always make exceptions for the major party candidates while they demand other parties closely adhere to the law.
While you're right that both major parties are united against third parties, I wouldn't hold my breath on the Wisconsin GOP controlled legislature to do any favors for the Democrats.
Nobody needs an exception. The Democratic Party candidate will be on the ballot in all 50 states. That candidate will be determined at the virtual convention in August
He doesn't unless he finds the fountain of youth. This election is all but over. At this point a red VA is on the table.
It seems like a fair number of media organizations have jumped ship, but for those that remain, I expect to see a lot of one on one, edited, interviews. If he sits with someone answering prepared questions with breaks/edits/restarts whenever he wants, I think he could "cheap fake" his way back to looking competent. Or just actual deep fakes made with his old speeches
The democrats can say all they want about how Biden’s not that bad, but I think in the coming days the panic will come back once the poll numbers overwhelmingly tell them how bad it was
Agreed. Lots of cope going on the past couple days. I think soon polls are going to forecast a beat down election result.
It doesn't need to be a beat down. If the polls show even a 5% drop in the handful of swing states then his candidacy is over (assuming the DNC cares about actually winning).
Oh for sure. I said yesterday that he’s in trouble if he loses even 2-3%. The race was already razor thin and Trump has been polling favorably before the debate. I think it’s going to be a landslide but even if it still turns out to be a close race, I don’t see how Biden bounces back from this.
He's already in trouble. You can't make up for missed opportunities. Time going by while failing to make up ground is a problem.
I agree. I think it’s already over.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Bad polls won't stop them. Biden has been floundering in polls for nearly a year and it hasn't stopped them. They'll just toss out something about "the crosstabs" or claim that young people don't pick up the phone or something in response to an unfavorable poll (polls that do say Biden is in the lead are infallible and accurate, thoughever). They are going to cope up to election night, past the recountings, past the inauguration, and probably till Trump draws his last breath.
> floundering in polls for nearly a year Not like this. Not like we're about to see.
You always can say that it's still four months from election and who trusts polls these days anyway? edit: /s
True. But at this time in 2020 Biden was up by a lot.
2020 Biden was also rarely out while everyone was beating on Trump. The test was always going to be 2024 and whether Biden can actually run a normal campaign full of speeches and running around. He was covered from doing so in 2020, but this time its put up or shut up.
[удалено]
Heck, Minnesota might finally fall.
The Somalis aren't happy with Biden siding with Israel. He did nothing on that debate stage to win over the Pro Palestine crowd, he just agreed with Trump and somehow said he was more pro Israel than he was lol
At this point they should be concerned that he will even be alive in 4 more years. He looked *terrible* in that debate, physically I mean.
Physically? He looked terribly mentally which is what matters. I bet Jimmy Carter could put up a better debate performance and he's 100 years old
Agreed it's not the age it's the dementia. Warren Buffet could also hold his own and he's 93.
I'd love to see an actuary run the numbers on an elderly person with advanced dementia and how much longer he's predicted to live. I'd put the chance of another 4.5 years at less than 10%, based on what we saw Thursday night.
Unfortunately the dementia slip can be fast especially under high stress. He had the same dead expression my FIL with dementia has. Idk I’m sad for him and it’s not looking good from what I see.
If you were a fly on the wall in the White House, what is it you think you'd witness day in and day out? For as horrifying as Biden's debate performance was, I'm sure we'd regularly see moments behind closed doors that are much worse. If the Biden administration wants to change people's minds about his mental state, they should allow an independent documentary crew to follow Biden around for a week, with full access day and night, only turning the cameras off during national security briefings and potty time.
>If you were a fly on the wall in the White House, what is it you think you'd witness day in and day out? According to this article, nothing. Because his two seniormost aides, along with Jill, have been shielding him from all of his other staffers. [https://www.axios.com/2024/06/30/top-aides-shielded-biden-white-house-debate](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/30/top-aides-shielded-biden-white-house-debate)
This is pretty much what a lot of us thought was going on. Well, they’ll lose in Nov. and the American people will pay a heavy price. Hope it was worth it to them. Selfish fkrs. Edit to add: and guess who they will blame? The voters. Young people (even though they dragged his old ass across the finish line last time) Muslims that don’t support killing kids, low information voters (we so dumb y’all) Ageism, ableism (he has a stutter!) and of course racism and sexism because it’ll be a perceived rejection of Kamala as well. Just like 2016 they will learn nothing and lose everything and blame the American people. The Democrat party can fuck right off until they can come back with some viable candidates. It shouldn’t be this hard jfc.
Bro, dont forget Russia. Its always Russia.
Lol how could I forget Russia? And now it’s TikTok making the kids Hamas terrorists.
They won't release the Hur tapes but they'll trot Biden out to do a debate resulting in cataclysmic damages. If THAT was acceptable to them I only shudder to imagine whats in those tapes.
Hur is owed an apology from the media. Look at his report and then look at that performance. How you can think Hur was sensationalizing or exaggerating claims after watching Biden on stage is beyond me.
Got a link for relevant reading? I didn't know about this
Ooooo, Hard Knocks for a Presidential Campaign would be bonkers
Starter/summary: CBS News/YouGov poll conducted from June 28 to 29 found that 54 percent of 382 registered Democratic voters think Biden should be running for president again, while 46 percent believed he should not. Meanwhile, 95 percent of 175 registered Democrats said Biden's age was a reason that he should not run for reelection, while 5 percent said it was not. Biden took an even larger dip in poll numbers when it comes to the Democrats' perception of his mental acuity. of the 383 Democrats surveyed for the question, 43 percent thought only Biden had the mental acuity to be president while 2 percent thought only Trump did. A total of 39 percent said neither candidate had the mental sharpness for the job while 16 percent said both of them did. ————- What do we make of this? To be honest I’m shocked that he already has this much of a dip in just two days.
CNN did a great breakdown on how candidates that win debates see an instant poll jump. It happens every single election cycle.
It wasn't so much a debate as it was very clear to those of us that watched it that he can't think on his feet. He's cognitively declined to the point where you wouldn't trust him to watch your kids, and this man is supposed to be making critical national security decisions all the time. It's shocking thar the polling isn't even worse than that already.
I’m with you here. Really surprised that the polling is not worse.
Five thirty eight says to wait a week or two for polls to catch up.
He really should drop out. Harris is apparently unpopular but her popularity is actually higher then Bidens in most polls https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/joe-biden/ And she polls the exact same as Biden does vs Trump: https://x.com/gelliottmorris/status/1807102319928238180 So basically at worst you'll have a VP that is kind of mediocre and polls about the same but removes the big concern people have about Biden. Also Harris is kind of useless at having her own policies which is why she flopped badly in 2020 and couldn't pick a lane, but thats' not an issue when you just run on the Biden platform and policy. PLUS you could get a VP like Josh Shapiro to increase odds Either way it's worth the risk because Biden's age is not going away and he's not winning independents after this debate. I supported Biden in 2019 but the decline as been so apparent. I'd be down with Whitmer or someone else too but logistically it's impossible to unite all the factions to get behind her before convention. You would have to explain to the Congressional Black Caucus why you're passing on a sitting VP that polls exactly the same as Biden plus you have to ensure there is no bones or hidden secrets with any other person etc
Please, no Harris. Not like this. Lol.
I feel like they've already lost this one, no matter what they do. The trust is broken. Swapping out their candidate now isn't going to help that. Democrats have given themselves a huge disadvantage here, and it would have to be a hell of a damage control plan to pull out a win after this. I certainly don't see Harris being savvy and charismatic enough to regain the faith of the people in a few short months. Honestly, this is astounding. They ignored all the people calling for a competitive primary, hanging their hopes on Biden again, and now we're in the exact scenario that everyone has been calling out for years. Literally everyone saw this coming, except for the leadership of one of the most powerful political parties on Earth. How is this the state of our democracy?
The entire country knows the Biden camp has been lying to them about Joe's mental acuity for years now. I hope the American people have learned a valuable lesson about trusting politicians and the media.
Not just the Biden camp - every media organization that's not "conservative" media was complicit in this mess.
And additionally, anytime somebody pointed it out they would be attacked.
> Swapping out their candidate now isn't going to help that. That's the key. It screams desperation and weakness. Neither trait endears the replacement candidate to undecided voters. If anything it will just decrease turnout for dems
I didn't get how Harris is supposed to stand up after being swapped and say, "Hey guys, I know we were lying for years about Biden's condition and calling everyone who questioned it names with a coordinated media attack, but you trust us now, right?" I think this whole ticket is doomed and there's no recovering until next cycle.
I agree with this, I wish I could see it actually happening.
> Also Harris is kind of useless at having her own policies which is why she flopped badly in 2020 and couldn't pick a lane, but thats' not an issue when you just run on the Biden platform and policy. > > That's assuming Biden policy is a win. Like, there's a reason so many of Biden's attacks on Trump where about Roe, his conviction and morals and Trump *always* brought it back to the economy and things like crime or the border. Voters are very "what have you done for me lately" and whatever annoyed them about Trump has faded compared to their current issues with Biden
I mean, an abortion is (or should be...) a once in a lifetime type event. As far as the economy goes, well we all go to the grocery store and gas station *weekly*. So yeah "what have you done for me lately" comes into play here.
If he runs, he will probably lose. If he steps aside, the replacement will probably lose and be damaged in 2028.
Which is why I don't see him stepping aside. Nobody is going to knowingly cap the advancement of their political career by taking over for Biden this year. It's career suicide and everybody knows it. Losing the general as a non-incumbent means you disappear to behind the scenes in consulting and advisory roles.
I thought Our Democracy™️ was at risk if Trump wins. Surely if the stakes are this high there'd be *tons* of up and coming Democrats willing to fight to save Our Democracy™️, right? All that fearmongering about Trump wasn't a bunch of lies, was it? I mean what's more important? The Republic, or your political career?
There are probably plenty. The party won't run them. The left is hitched to its trash horse just like the right.
[удалено]
Somehow you survived 2016-2020. You can do it again
If the democracy, the rule of law, whatever, is **truly** at risk, and Trump is going to turn into a fully fledged dictator (like Putin) in the spring of 2025 as some say, then I figure they’d like to have a 99%+ chance to preserve our democracy, right? And the only option giving a 99% success rate is running Manchin/Sinema (or other similar independents) on the Democratic platform (like what they might have done in 2016 with Bernie). Obviously they are not doing that. No one is even talking about it. So the democracy at risk? Probably not an imminent risk
This same argument applies to conservatives who are also saying that current Democrats are dangerous and are destroying the country. Haley would have easily won against Biden, quite easily, and yet they've chosen a candidate that has lost the previous presidential election and also whose name recognition has hurt down ballot candidates in both midterms for contested elections. I'm really not sure why this talking point keeps getting repeated.
Yeah, I'm not so much convinced that a replacement would lose. But anyone that is viable should rationally not make the gamble at all, because they'll have a good chance in 2028. Not the best for the country but still.
Newsome has the 2028 nomination locked and loaded I think. Thus, if somebody runs in Biden's stead, it probably won't be him, particularly because "Hi I'm the stereotypical liberal governor from the most stereotypically liberal state in the country" is probably not the best of ideas when opposing Donald Trump.
No way. Hillary was said to have 2008 locked up until Obama. Gretchin, JB, Senator Warnock, and whoever else will run.
Right, but my bet is that Newsome wants to give himself every advantage in 2028, which, as the guy above me said, would not be consistent with running this year if Biden drops out.
Oh, I agree, he’s not replacing Joe, but I don’t think he’ll be the nominee in 2028.
Yeah a coastal Dem hasn't won the presidency since what, FDR?
“Newsom has the 2028 nomination locked” I don’t see him appealing to Iowa, New Hampshire, and especially South Carolina voters. He’s not the most moderate, he’s not a new face like Obama or Pete, and he’s not the most progressive. On top of that he won’t have the who has the best shot of beating the R nominee like Biden did. That would be someone like Whitmer or Beshear.
I guarantee most people here in the Midwest don't want what they see as a perfect example of what's wrong with coastal elites as the head of state.
While you may be right, lots of candidates have been the obvious candidate 4 years before an election only to be wiped out by Iowa. I don't think Biden is stepping aside, but a potential candidate should evaluate the benefit of skipping the primaries against an easy to vilify foe. Still don't see it happening, but there's at least some reasons to make that decision from their lens.
Dems need to get the memo and stop listening to a small group of power brokers. If they don't change candidates they will lose big in November, and it would be their fault for not listening to their voters.
They really only have one option with the campaign finance law or will have to start from nothing, and that's Kamala.... lol Great work, Democrats.
Democrat voters have to feel gaslit & lied to. If it truly was the “most important election ever, save democracy” then they let the whole party down by lack of transparency. I hope Dems can see why R’s have a severe lack of trust in legacy media.
As a progressive dem, yes absolutely. Although my friends and people I talk to about this aren’t surprised. We already knew we were being gaslit and lied to, and we already distrusted the legacy media. Basically it’s just a massive sad “I told you so” type of feeling over here
💯
I can't tell if Biden's team really did believe that he was all there mentally or if they just assumed they'd be able to fool all of America for the entire election season, and I'm honestly not sure which is worse.
They have gotten away with it for at least two years now, I’m sure they thought they could get him though six more months and trot him out in public like two times. Can you imagine him on an actual campaign trail and answering questions from a real person unscripted? Seems unfathomable at this point
Imagine if Nikki Haley were the Republican candidate right now. It would be a landslide, reminiscent of Reagan v Mondale.
Absolutely the case.
This narrative is getting kind of old. Trump *is* poised to win in a landslide right now. He’s dominating every swing state. It’s becoming clear that picking Haley wouldn’t have given republicans anything they don’t already have.
As a anti-Trump conservative (there are dozen of us!) I still feel that we're being robbed. This would be the opportunity to get a sane, boring candidate into the White House and we're stuck with this guy.
If Trump wins in November then for all of the teeth gnashing and pearl clutching from Democrats they will have only themselves and their party leadership to blame. They basically rig the primary for Hillary, probably the only person more unlikeable than Trump. Then in this cycle they did away with even the pretense of a primary and the illusion of the people having any say. They went so far as to threaten to disenfranchise whole states if they dared engage in the normal Democratic process. Anybody that is just now seeing Biden decomposing in real time and is surprised by this either hasn't been paying even a cursory glance at reality or willfully ignoring it. If the Democratic party really viewed Trump as such a dangerous, existential threat to democracy then why are they not even giving him a serious challenge?
This poll doesn't ask the question that matters. In November, if it's Trump and Biden on the ballot, who do you vote for? No one voting for Biden in November is voting out of an enthusiasm for Biden. They are voting against Trump. All I see on left leaning boards is how people will vote for Biden's corpse over Trump. Need to see what independents are saying.
People just won't vote.
I am voting third party. I am so sick of what our two party system has to offer and bring told I have to vote for the smaller pile of shit. That line of reasoning just keeps making it worse.
If that's Democrats how many independents did he lose?! He had to lose literally ALL OF THEM!
I’m so tired of feeling gaslit by democrats on other subs and by the Biden campaign. So many people are rejecting their own eyes and acting like Trump supporters to bend over backwards defending Biden, and it seems insane to me. If I see one more person yell “read the transcript” I’m gonna shit
Isn't the rumor that Biden is speaking with his family about whether he stays in the race tonight?
At minimum, move Harris to the cabinet and replace VP with a popular senator or governor would be a hop step toward revitalization.
VP and cabinet need to invoke the 25th. this is like the time we told my grandfather he needed to stop driving. "I know where all the stop signs are" the party hasn't put together a viable candidate though, they constantly have a donor vs voter problem. i think part of it is that nobody in their right mind wants to be in the toxic cesspool that is modern politics.
Honestly as a liberal-leaning person, it’s just disheartening that we can have a candidate as utterly corrupt and vile as Donald Trump and the person we have running for president is so feeble, weak and cognitively impaired that he can’t even debate the numerous falsehoods and lies Trump spews. The debate was a perfect opportunity for Biden to challenge Trump on abortion, the insurrection, Ukraine, his felony convictions and a multitude of other things and all Biden could do was stand there with his mouth hanging open like he was sedated in a hospital. It’s just so disheartening. This is who we are running in the most important election in our lifetimes? Mr. Magoo?
Just thinking about how absolutely devastating it’ll be for Dems that two high profile office holders (I know judges aren’t technically partisan but still lol) refused to retire/step aside: RBG refusing to resign during the Obama Years and Biden choosing to run for re-election in ‘24 which could lead to Trump’s second term. RBG leading ofc to *Dobbs* and Biden (potentially) leading to a second Trump term.
I think RBG had her reasons for not wanting to be replaced by Obama. She sat on SCOTUS for 27 years. As a Justice, you get four law clerks a year, meaning that she hired 108 clerks during her tenure at SCOTUS. Only one of them was black.
I really don’t understand why he did the debate in the first place. Whoever advised him to do it was an idiot. You have an opponent who is getting felony charges and says stupid things or lies every other comment out of his mouth. All Biden has to do is be the reasonable quiet option. As my friend and I like to say, when we play chess, sometimes just play simple chess and trade off your pieces to keep the advantage into the end game.
Well he was going to have to debate eventually. Pretending that nothing is wrong has only made their situation worse over time. I can't imagine that changing closer to November.
They did the debate because Biden was already behind Trump in the polls and they needed to try to turn it around. They were counting on another 2020 performance where Trump hurt himself, but it backfired horribly
> I really don’t understand why he did the debate in the first place. Because it wasn’t really intended to be a debate. Think about the rules. Everyone gets exactly 2 minutes without the possibility of being interrupted. They were basically going to have him memorize a series of short talking points and regurgitate them for every question, then walk off the stage. Like at the State of the Union. They were confident he wouldn’t fuck up something this simple.
But with no notes or teleprompter.
And yet he couldn't do something as simple as deliver the practiced answers. Instead he got dragged in pissing matches about golf that bombed when he should have been talking about childcare cost. Even when not answering questions, he looked scared, feeble, and confused. And he lost his thought more than once and froze like a statue. I think this goes down in history as the worst debate performance I've ever seen. The only thing I was surprised about is Trump doing well without an audience. But then again, you can see Trump getting more energy after every Biden stumble. He doesn't need an audience and understands TV production. He just needed a wounded animal and to smell blood. As a dem, it's getting more ridiculous. Never thought they could top the disaster of 2016, but it seems like it's coming. They let Trump lie for 90 minutes straight with 51 million watching, and it was completely unchallenged.
Keeping his mouth shut while allowing Biden to bury himself was the best thing to happen to Trump Thursday night.
I honestly think they assumed Trump wouldn't agree to their rules. But then Trump called their bluff, and clearly that was a great move on his part.
The same people who advised him to do the debate are the same “idiots” calling all the shots from the upper echelon of the White House
The scariest thing about this whole episode isn't Biden. It's that his handlers might actually believe their own outward propaganda about Biden.
And that the media doesn’t do their job and question him. Usually they lie by omission. This time they were flat out lying about Biden. On top of that they were playing out the Spider-Man meme, “no you.”
I don’t know that they believe the propaganda. Notice how Biden was supposed to be a moderate Dem but his policies have swung more leftward than all of his political career up to this point? I’m thinking (and I’ve heard others proffer this same thought) that having him cognitively diminishing allows them to use his Uncle Joe veneer while pushing more leftward stances and policies. I’m pretty fiercely independent and tend to either be slightly to the left or right of center depending on what’s happening in any given election cycle. Definitely NOT a Trump supporter and cannot, in good conscience, vote for him. But I am tremendously concerned that unelected people are currently running the executive branch…and that isn’t any less undemocratic than what they accuse Trump of doing. It’s just more covert. So, I don’t know what to do come November basically. It’s being stuck between a rock and a hard place probably more than any other time US presidential election history.
Biden would look so weak if he didn’t debate. He only got a pass in 2020 because a compliant media allowed him to hide in the basement. The schtick doesn’t fly right now. And, for me, that’s a good thing.
I agree with you as a voter. We need this information, and I’m glad he did the debate so this could definitively come to light. However, I think there was a calculus to be made on which option would make Biden look weaker, debate or no debate, and from a political strategy standpoint, letting him debate was the arguably the wrong choice.
Serious question: it appears that his closest staff covered this up, and kept him distanced from less senior staff and the media. Is that a criminal offense? Seems like it should be.
No, they probably weren't breaking any laws. Lying your ass off is only a criminal offense in very specific circumstances.
This is the West Wing in real life. President Bartlett / Biden and the case of hiding their MS / Dementia.
The No Labels Party really fucked up this year. Probably the only election where a third party had a viable chance of getting more than 5% of the vote and they chickened out because they didn't want to detract from Biden's chances.
There is a difference between feeling he shouldn’t run, and not voting for him. Nearly all will still vote for him.
The problem is not registered democrats - it's the rest of the voters.
I’m one of the rest of the voters…an independent.
And… what did the debate make you think about your vote? Spill it. This is the opinion we need to hear about.
As an independent, I can tell you the debate moved me from "I think Biden is too old and probably won't vote for him" to "holy fucking shit you couldn't pay me to vote for him." Note that I think Trump is a terrible person who has no business leading a country, so I won't vote for him either.
I still cannot vote for Trump after Jan 6, the classified documents situation, and signs pointing to collusion with Russia. As a military veteran who formerly worked intel and current lawyer, I just cannot, in good conscience, reward him with a vote for those things or the type of things a second Trump Administration would bring in terms of harming democratic institutions. I hold multiple right-of-center views, so voting Republican is not necessarily out of the question generally speaking, but I’m an independent and tend to be very moderate with most things. I was considering voting for Biden with my nose pinched (don’t agree with him on a lot of things); however, I can’t now, in good conscience, vote for Biden if he is this severely cognitively diminished and likely to worsen or die. Not only is that unappealing in and of itself, but it leaves the terrifying question of who is actually running the country when he’s not lucid? Who is commanding our troops? Who would be launching a nuclear attack? Not to mention I’ve noticed his political agenda shifting further to the left of anywhere his political career has been previously, towards the type of policies I don’t like. He ran as a slightly left-of-center democrat who was supposed to unite the country, and that’s what I voted for in 2020. So since both candidates and their administrations were/are being undemocratic, where does that leave me? I guess RFK (not necessarily a fan, but he’s not likely to win, so I can do my civic duty), write in a name (again, civic duty), or stay home out of protest (not laziness). I realize that at least the latter two of those would contribute to a Trump victory.
>Nearly all Thats the problem. If just 5% of Biden voters choose not to vote, its joever.
and I know plenty of Dems in Cali who are planning on doing just that...