this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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The amount of people here calling themselves ‘far-left’ and regurgitating republican talking points is insane.
Going from calling Biden too old (which isn’t wrong but he’s still the best viable option) to defending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seamlessly.
Whoa, hey now I very much object to the certainty of this claim.
Yeah, David Axelrod, senior Obama strategist credited with Obama's successful elections, Obama speech-writers and communications director, and now numerous long-serving Congressional democrats disagree but, totally the best viable option despite poll after poll showing he's massively down and Biden's own current campaign strategists reporting they see no viable path.
If your ship hit the iceberg and is taking on water, any other nearby vessel is a better alternative. At worst, it's in the same condition. At best, it's not fucking sinking. 75% of likely voters say Biden is too old to run and Democrats have a better chance with someone else at defeating Trump.
Disclaimer: we need to jump ship now but I'll vote for a corpse over Donald Trump. I just think we'll lose if we stick with Biden and the data shows it.
Then the Democrats can pick someone else NOW and rally behind them. This constant undermining of Biden while not providing a good alternative and promoting them is just hurting Democrats chances to save democracy. This is irresponsible on such an obvious level I have to assume they are trying to lose the presidency.
It's all about pressuring Biden in time before his nomination is locked in by the delegates. The moment that happens, this ends for better or worse.
If you're going to pressure an incumbent into dropping out you can't lead with "we'll figure out who the nominee is who can beat Trump eventually". You come to the board with a game plan and evidence. Calling for him to step down is fucking sabotage without all of that.
There's a Catch-22 here. Anyone who announces they're willing becomes persona non grata and nonviable, for stabbing the current candidate in the back before he's stepped down. But why would he step down if he can only be pressured if viable candidates have announced against him?
Which is why Harris, unfortunately, is most likely to nab the nomination. She's in just the right position to imply that she's ready to step up without saying anything that would lead to her being seen as 'not a team player' and troublesome for the party.
None of this should have been done in public. Democrats calling for Biden to step down 1 day after the debate are idiots. This is internal party politics and while it would have leaked, it wouldn't have been democrats blasting their own party leader in public. They should have figured out who was the most popular, got a backup, got their support, and then went to Biden's campaign with their evidence. Then if he refused to step down, they maybe could do so in public. Or just wait for the pundits to trash Biden on their own instead of adding to it.
Division this late is the game is damning. Also Democrats are fair-weather supporters to a T. 1 bad debate and they throw the sitting POTUS under the bus? Yeah he looked old and made mistakes. But he isn't a fucking fascist. It's just unbelievable when Trump has been shitting the bed 24/7 for years.
The problem is there have been rumors of this kind of backdoor objection going on for a while now. I dismissed them as gossip at the time, but now that Congress members have gone public, I'm more inclined to believe them. These members going public, including a Senator, sounds much more like desperation after exhausting the quiet options.
It is deeply unfair that the Democratic presidential candidate must show exceptional performance, while the fascist presidential candidate can skate by shitting his pants and demanding his followers shit themselves in solidarity, but we're appealing to two different demographics.
I think you're looking at this all wrong. All data points to an inevitable Biden loss. Once you accept that, then the question of the alternative almost doesn't matter.
The problem is that you cannot in good conscience say that an 81-year-old with THAT debate performance is truly the best Democrats have to muster. If true, then that's fucking sad.
Now, I've written many write-ups, and now data supports it, showing that any alternative including Harris would fair better. Win? Not necessarily. But have a better chance? Absofuckinglutely.
Biden has to willingly step down, the Dem leadership made it clear they won’t attempt to force him. Progressives can’t try to force it either or they will be excised from the party and simultaneously blamed for the inevitable loss.
Biden hasn’t held a full cabinet meeting since last year, so 25th amendment probably not happening either.
And so, ramping up the pressure on Biden to do the right thing by stepping down is the only viable option at this time. It sucks, but this is the bed Biden and the DNC made to lie in.
I'm not sure I'd put much stock in modern polling.
A study suggests the debate had very little impact, but even if it didn't, historically, changing candidates this late hasn't worked out.
https://boingboing.net/2024/07/10/impacts-of-the-presidential-debate-far-overestimated.html
Discussion aside, wtaf is boingboing.net? I'm even hesitant to click that link.
Reliable pollsters are accurate albeit snapshots in time.
Aggregate reliable polls even more so.
Nate Silver's algorithm is over 90% accurate in its prediction model across thousands of races over the years.
Cook Political Report is the gold standard.
Even internal polls reported by democratic Congressional campaigns as well as the President's team themselves admit they're behind.
They were 10 points up at this time in 2020.
If you aren't going off this, what ARE you going off of, vibes? In one breath you say don't put stock in polls, then point to an outlier? I mean, what!?
So you can't comfort me saying that when Biden should've come out 1 step ahead from that debate, he is not maybe only 1 step back as he has been for ages, but possibly 2 steps back.
How do you not know boingboing.net?
Anyway, that's not the source, but Rawstory doesn't allow ad-blockers, so I linked that synopsis.
https://www.rawstory.com/rs-exclusive/biden-debate-2668724330/
None of those, including my link, is accurate enough to really matter, especially this far from the election.
Thanks. Yeah I genuinely never heard of that site in my life. Seems like it's been around since forever, too.
To be fair, it used to be a much better, more relevant site, which I only remember because I've been around since forever too.
Unfortunately, historically, a split like this is unprecedented. By coming out against Biden publicly, Democratic congressmembers have forced the issue, and it's not going to result in Biden remaining our best chance, even IF he would have remained our best chance had they remained publicly silent.
Axelrod’s jobs sound like he pretty much retired from active politics
Why is Trump still attacking Biden so hard?
Because Trump is scared shitless of him.
Trump is scared shitless of everyone. That's what it is, being a paranoid thin-skinned narcissist with a brain rotted by stimulants and venereal disease. I wouldn't trust Trump's take on electoral calculus, for or against.
He wasn’t scared of Bernie.
Because Bernie never came close to getting the nomination.
I'm a two-time Bernie voter. But what I wanted the outcome of the primary is different than what we got.
Which was why Trump was fighting for Bernie to run against him.
Did you expect Trump to hype up his political opponent?
He fought to run against Bernie because Trump knew Bernie would be easy to beat.
If Biden is as easy to beat as some say why try to push him away?
Biden is the presumptive nominee. If Trump didn't attack his prospective opponent at every opportunity, he would be, and as ridiculous as this is to imagine, even stupider than he is now.
Trump has suddenly began attacking Kamala in speeches. It's quite clear GOP agree Biden is their easiest opponent, too.
Ok, we’ll see what happens and re-visit this conversation in a couple months.
We’re both just speculating right now anyways.
Well that feels a bit like goalpost moving, but sure I guess we will for better or worse.
Do you understand what goalpost moving means?
In a couple months we'll know what happened, the stuff we're speculating about right now, and we'll know who is wrong and right.
How is this goalpost moving?
You say: "But Trump is still talking about Biden!"
I say: "Actually his latest speeches have begun targeting Kamala directly"
You say: "okay well maybe he is, but we're all just speculating!"<- moving the goalpost
Do you at least understand how this sounds? Conviction, followed by being demonstrably wrong, then hiding behind speculation.
Is not:
I never agreed with you, I just conceded that the outcome is unknowable at this point.
It's an objective fact that he is talking about Kamala, though? Sure how much that impacts the end-result, we don't know.
I haven’t talked about Kamala, you have.
Trump attacks windmills in his speeches I’m keeping you on topic on the subject that Trump is scared of Biden.
Anyways, we’ll revisit this conversation in a couple months and see who is right.
Seems awfully convenient that Trump is suddenly pivoting from attacking Biden hard, to attacking Kamala and Biden less hard, but okay. If I misunderstood, then sorry. Yes, time will tell.
Trump isn’t attacking Biden less hard.
Kind of zero sum. If he's spending any more time attacking Harris, then that ostensibly detracts from time he otherwise would've been attacking Biden.
Or he could cut it from the time spent attacking low flow toilets.
Well, I suppose you're right there.
Trump just enjoys being mean and Biden is currently his opponent. When given the choice between shutting up and cruising to a victory and screaming nonsense(while cruising to a win because his supporters are objectively incredibly stupid people) he’s gunna choose screaming nonsense every time.
Fuck Biden but never Trump.
To be fair not many people want to fuck Trump.
Boebs would probably take him to a dark theatre though.
Unfortunately, Biden may have lost too much support from his own party at this point. It's probably necessary for him to step down, regardless. You don't get Congresscritters of your own party calling for the presumptive nominee and incumbent to step down unless it looks godawful going into the election with the current ticket.
It's probably going to be Harris if he is replaced, which I'm... not thrilled with. But Blue no matter who. I'll vote for Biden if he's on the ticket in November - I'll vote for a fucking potato if I have to in order to oppose fascism. But he very well may be an electoral liability at this point, not a boon.
He'd be stepping down into the void. The primaries are mostly over. It'd just be the DNC deciding for themselves who the candidate would be. That would NOT please most voters. It's typical for an incumbent to be the nominee for a second term. It's not typical for a party to just decide who the candidate would be.
If that's who they choose they need to decide now and start talking her up, even if Biden doesn't step down right away. We are past primary season. And honestly, she's fine. Not good fine. But she'll lose to Trump. Not for any part of her own merit or policies, but because America is a sexist, racist country and I do not have any confidence in them electing a black woman. Maybe is she was popular or charismatic like Obama was but we haven't really seen her do much.
Unfortunately, while I share some of your reservations, I think the ball's in motion. We can let it roll (pick a new candidate) or get crushed by it (stick with Biden and have the millstone of defections hanging around our necks the entire election season), but either way, it's going where it's going. We have to deal with it as best we can, not deal with it the way that we would've, say, two months ago, before this went down.