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Ohhhhh so ONLY Joe can beat Trump! That’s why he’s doing it everyone, no one else has any chance!
This makes zero fucking sense outside of the incumbents advantage. The biggest talking points around the country to get ’moderates’ and ‘undecideds’ to vote for Trump, vote third party, or abstain from voting are almost completely centered on him personally and to a lesser extent the DNC. It also ignores the many 2020 voters who were “I can’t believe they’re going to make me vote for Joe Biden”, people which anecdotally is everyone I know irl that voted for him.
If he had stepped aside and let another primary happen not only do we lose all that baggage(a good portion of which I will freely admit is horsehit and the remainder mostly also apply to Trump) and the candidates could use the primary to get the electorate excited about something new and different, which would be a big gain in the fight to stop fascism. I’m gonna vote for you again Joe, but this is a foolish take imo
Historically incumbents have a huge advantage. It would be foolish to throw that away.
Since 1980, 3 of the 7 incumbents have lost.
Yeah, one of them had a hostage crisis plague his presidency, the next got spoiled into total oblivion by a billionaire with some charts, and the last killed over a million Americans by sowing plague misinformation because it made him look bad.
A preponderance of extraordinary circumstances does not establish a trend worth placing bets on.
It's a good thing Biden hasn't had any major crises during his presidency or spoiler campaigns launched, so we can just pretend he's not like the others.
Biden's been resolving crises handed to him by the last guy
Cornell West and RFK ain't Ross Perot
it's a good thing you're smart enough to vote for Biden anyways instead of being a pissant who lets fascism win because he doesn't like one old guy with an ice cream tooth right?
Keep telling yourself everything's going great man. Biden's term has not been a time of slow and steady improvement for many people and not a lot of people are going to think it's all just Trump's fault.
Like I said that’s the only part I can understand, but just because something has been a trend doesn’t mean it will stay one or even that there won’t be exceptions. I see that side of it, but I’m still suspicious he can do it again
It's been more than 100 years since an incumbent didn't run for a second term and their party maintained the presidency (excluding Calvin Coolidge who technically didn't run two terms, but basically did). No one knows what would happen if he were not to run, but history has shown that it'll probably lead to a Republican win. It's easier to predict the outcome having the incumbent run, and probably against the same person last time. Not saying it's the best decision, but it is the most logical one.
That’s pretty much what I’m getting at, I get all the logical reasons but like you said the logical call ain’t always the right one. It’s too late now to second guess but him saying this is a bad idea, it makes it seem like there was a different outcome but it was decided without the will of the people being considered. If he was super popular it would be a different story, but he ain’t
Except it is. They said it's not always the best, which is true, but you can't know in advance what the best choice is. Making illogical choices leads to worse outcomes on average. I really shouldn't have to explain this.
In my entire lifetime no president has ever been super popular. That’s just not a thing any longer.
Which kinda further supports what I’m saying?
Except if your waiting for the guy that’s super popular you’re bus is never coming.
What? No ones waiting for a super popular one, I’m saying if he were in some hypothetical world actually super popular just blindly deciding to run him again would be unquestionable. That there haven’t been any popular presidents recently doesn’t take away from the concept of a president being popular. If anything that means that incumbents should start being reevaluated more
We know Biden can beat Trump. We don't know if that's certain for anybody else.
We don’t know it’s certain he can do it again either
Biden didn’t have a four year presidency filled with deep economic issues for the average person last time, we were also in a plague, and had seen insane political activism all year. Inflation wasn’t on everyone’s mind and there weren’t two serious wars going on that we are funding with him as the CMC. He’s not popular or well liked even by his voters
Additionally Trump was and had been obviously more looming and visible to the average voter who really doesn’t pay much attention to politics or even the news for that matter. People were animated to get him out. I don’t think it will happen that way this time. Most folks have short memories and vote with their pocket book.
Again I’ll crawl over glass to for him because there’s only two possibilities and I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like they are playing prevent defense, and prevent defense prevents you from winning. I don’t feel confident in the slightest
Let's all be completely honest, here. Far Left and Right folks are loud af, but the American Population is so Centrist that they made Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden the DNC Presidential candidates to begin with. A whitebread US Moderate old fucker like Joe probably has the highest chances, period.
Centrists are his biggest risk in this election. I run in mostly far left/anarchist circles socially, everyone is begrudgingly voting for Biden again, because fascism. Meanwhile the self professed centrists/moderates in my family, at work, and even online I’ve spoken to or over heard are the ones on the fence about Biden and either want to not vote at all or for a third party. Anecdotal as hell, but i think the centrists are gonna fall for the old “republicans are better for the economy” bullshit
Exactly. Leftist voters will be biting their tongue voting for Biden, but they'll be voting for him. Centrists will stay home bitching about gas prices being Bidens fault.
I'm not so sure about this. The number one issue in the midterms for voters was the economy, but that didn't translate into a Republican victory. Democrats actually gained ground in the Senate, and Republicans only took the House by single digits.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that voters no longer believe Republicans are better for the economy. If it leads to effectively a tie result, it would seem the myth has been finally dispelled.
No we don't. Covid won 2020 for the democrats, Biden was just along for the ride.
And in the 2020 primaries Biden won the candidacy against Bernie Sanders with 2,720 delegates to 1,114. They also had 51% of the popular vote compared to Bernie's 26% in the primaries.
Biden is the most popular DNC candidate, sadly he best represents the feelings of the most Americans total. Even if we had a further left and more overall popular candidate, we wouldn't have nearly as many people cross the aisle from conservatives who are currently split down the middle between Trump loyalism and Rule of Law conservatives.
Yes, the democrat establishment favorite did win the democrat establishment race. No, the democrat establishment do not represent the feelings of most Americans.
You didn't make it 2 sentences into my comment? Really? THE POPULAR VOTE. 51% to 26% against Bernie Sanders.
Clearly a lot of people still don't know but YOU CAN VOTE IN PRIMARIES TO SELECT BETTER CANDIDATES.
Yes, the popular vote in the establishment democrat dominated primaries. Voter participation rate is terrible in the general election and even worse in party primaries.
I don't understand your point. Of course the candidate with more votes wins. If more of the voters pick establishment Democrats, then that's who wins.
If moderates need to earn the votes of progressives, then progressives also need to earn the votes of moderates. If more voters are going with moderates, then the progressive candidate needs to do more to earn their vote.
For as much as this is harped about with Biden and establishment Democrats, I'm surprised the corollary isn't obvious to people. The progressive candidate does not automatically deserve votes by the virtue of being progressive.
You're confusing the primaries with the general election. If democrats want to win the general election consistently, they need to pick better candidates, not just ones that the party favors. If a progressive won the primary, do you think democrats would not vote for them? Democrats learned the wrong lessons from 2008, 2016, and even 2020.
No my point is that the better candidates are those that win the primaries. They need to win votes for that to happen. The DNC could throw their weight behind them to help, but they still need to win the majority in the primary. And requires a broad appeal.
Again, party primaries, which have way too much influence from the party, do not test for better candidates. You talk about broad appeal, but both trump and clinton had less than 50% approval during the election of 2016.
Biden thought that Trump would be politically finished if he lost the 2020 election --and in a rational world he would've been-- but he underestimated both the cowardice of Republican leaders and the slavish devotion of Trump's followers, as did many of us, myself included. That's why he feels obligated to take the safe route instead of stepping down. If Trump was gone or otherwise not the existential threat that I and many others believe he is, I doubt very much that Biden would be running again.
Well, in the end they will keep the status quo going, since they know people will vote for just about anyone that runs in the blue party.
2016 Sanders vs. Hillary reminds me that people are willing to stay home or change party.