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I'm gonna be real, I've felt powerless my entire voting life. I've only been able to vote for the "lesser evil". I want real fucken cchoices that are real fucking people. Our system only serves us an endless stream of disconnected neoliberals and its fucken shit.
The issue isn't that Biden stands in the way, its that no one is actually building up a reasonable alternative.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You need to actually have a real alternative to Biden that enough people can agree with. Kamala, Newcom, Buttigieg seem to be losing out in early discussions and they're the best chance to an alternative. Find someone, hype them up and seriously push them as an alternative.
I'm not against Biden, but I'm not necessarily against change either. I'm also not a Democrat, but I want to see a reasonable candidate to vote for as much as anyone else. But unless you can prove to me that the next person to step up is someone reasonable (if someone spends like 15 posts pushing lol Bernie Sanders at me like last time this topic was brought up... so help me... an even older man who disagrees with my politics is the last one I'd be voting for)
Pick someone, push them forward. Good luck. If you can't do that, I'm holding my support for Biden because yall fools don't have anyone else. If you can do that (and if I agree with your choice), then and only then can we move forward.
The idea that you want Biden to step out before a reasonable alternative is lined up is fucking insane. Start hyping people today, no need for Biden to step aside as you try to build up support to someone else.
Hell, if there was a viable candidate who actually wanted to be the Democratic nominee they could've run just like Dean Phillips and Mariann Williamson did. Biden/Democratic leadership didn't prevent anyone from running against Biden. I would've been happy to see Witmer, Newsome, Shapiro, etc announce their candidacy a year ago, but they made the decision not to do so. That hasn't changed. If someone changes their mind I'm all ears, but until then I'm not going to help conservatives by calling for Biden to step down.
Whitmer would be good if she wanted to step up. The main issue with Governors is that they are busy governing.
It shouldn't be too hard to get a back-room deal between Whitmer or Shapiro to coordinate an announcement with Biden though. But what they'd need is public support before they start that push.
Make it real obvious that we'd vote for Whitmer or Shapiro (both look serious and Id vote for them over Biden and Trump). And we can start there. Let the elites figure out things afterwards.
And we also need clarification on who the hell can access Biden's campaign funds if he does step aside. Ive seen some pundits claim that only Harris can access that money, if that's true I kind of think we're done looking. It would have to be her, even if she isn't the best option. I'm not a campaign finance expert though.
And I think Witmer would landslide if she was the nominee. She's really well spoken, has done some great shit in Michigan, has full control of her bowel movements probably, and having a woman at the top of the ticket when women's healthcare is such a hot issue is a recipe for success.
And I think Witmer would landslide if she was the nominee. She’s really well spoken, has done some great shit in Michigan, has full control of her bowel movements probably, and having a woman at the top of the ticket when women’s healthcare is such a hot issue is a recipe for success.
Every candidate loses 20 IQ when they enter the national stage and have to dumb down their political message to match a larger audience.
Its a difficult thing to do. Running on the national stage is very different than running locally. Ideally we'd have seen how any of these candidates do a year or two ago, but there's not enough time for that anymore.
It's pretty much always the giant douche vs. the turd sandwich
Though this one is more the giant douche vs. the-turd-sandwich-who's-fronting-for-fascists-bent-on-destroying-democracy.
Stll though...
Sometimes south park is so stupid, and sometimes its utterly brilliant.
Mostly it's both I guess.
And donald trump.
This is how he's winning. He's the "rebel" candidate (and yes I know that is tremendously ironic for so many reasons).
That's because most Americans, especially in the Democratic Party, are disconnected neoliberals.
The system is working as designed, to produce the candidate that the most voters agree on.
We just don't agree with most voters. And since there's more of them than us, nobody needs to care what we think.
“Democrats in disarray” is really the only story American political journalists know how to write. If Biden wins in November, within a week there will be an article saying it’s bad for Democrats.
Also, check out the framing. "Elites." It's actually the opposite. The tiny handful of American politicians who actually stand with working people (Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, AOC... IDK if any others exist, honestly) are saying Biden should stay. It's the big donors and like 3 congresspeople I've never heard of and the media who are DEMANDING that he has to drop out and be replaced, coincidentally (I am sure) with someone who won't raise taxes on the rich quite so much and use the money to raise working-class wages.
And yet, it's always the "elites" who are pushing stuff they don't want you to support. If it was something they wanted you to support, the media would be finding some other word to use that made the people pushing it sound knowledgeable, savvy, authoritative, and sympathetic.
No there are plenty of others writing other things. But ozma does not post those. In fact they almost never post anything positive about Biden or negative about anyone other than biden especially when it comes to politics. What they post it seems especially agenda driven which is why if i remember correctly they were previously banned for a while from politics here.
This is a fair post though.
Biden and his admin basically decieved the mainstream press about the severity of his aging. As one outlet put it, "hell hath no fury like a press corps decieved"
Not really. It's especially overblown. While I do have some small concern. The presidency is really about the people surrounding the president. And in that respect I am well satisfied. I'm not crazy about harris. But I think she can handle everything as well as Biden has been. And everyone else at all of the levels around them while not ideal are not outright corrupt and incompetent in the extreme.
As soon as we finish 2024 people better start preparing for 2028 and everything in between. We actually have a chance to see some new blood running for the presidency finally. As all the Boomers find themselves aging out. Leaving just a few gen xers and millennials and maybe even a few z to take over
Biden isn't a boomer, he's the generation before, silent IIRC. There's a good chance you will have to choose between two boomers next election.
That's correct. I was speaking about elected office in general. Biden is late silent, borderline boomer. Regardless. The youngest of them is entering their 70s. It's very unlikely it will be two boomers in 28. That's another 4 years.
Democrats in disarray
"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." - Will Rogers, ca. 1930
I get that people want a more progressive candidate. I’ve voted for Bernie multiple times. However, if people wanted to challenge Biden, they should have contested the Primaries. Doing it now is just throwing a wrench in the works. In the current environment, I always wonder if some of this noise is a disinformation campaign from Russia trying to prop up Trump
This isn't about wanting a more progressive candidate, this is about wanting a candidate who's not in cognitive decline. The DNC and administration intentionally kept that information from voters. They even punished Dean Phillips, the one serious Democrat who tried to contest the primaries, by forcing him out of leadership and primarying him.
I want a real progressive, but this point, I will take any corporate centrist they throw at me: Harris, Buttigieg, whatever. But Biden was propped up by the DNC, his diminished facilities are now apparent, and he will lose to Trump. He must be replaced if we're to have any shot of winning in November.
I want a more progressive candidate...
They did. There was a lot of uncommitted voters. Enough of them that they actually have delegates at the convention.
Not only that, they can still challenge Biden at the convention.
Biden's delegates aren't legally forbidden from voting for anyone else. It's pretty fuckin unlikely that it would actually happen, but there was a big deal in 1980 about someone trying to poach another candidate's delegates, so the DNC made a specific rule starting in 1984 that if you can talk someone else's delegates into voting for you instead, fair play, they're your delegates now. As far as I know, it's still legit to do that. Again: It's unlikely bordering on impossible. But it's not illegal to try. Why is no one talking about that when they are openly talking about how vital it is to dethrone him?
Yes, I saw the debate. It was a fuckin disaster. Even so, the theory that Biden is so weak and tottering that he can't speak without drooling and falls over in a strong breeze, but that he holds such an iron grip on power in the DNC that no one can even breathe a word of challenge, and the right move is for him to abandon the ship and trust that no-one-in-particular will rise up to claim the wheel without needing to go through the "fighting Biden for the wheel" process, and definitely be a better candidate once that special exception is made for them, doesn't really hold up to me.
Disclaimer, I still don't know what the right answer is, Biden is old as fuck, I think Jon Stewart would objectively do better in the campaign than he would. But, Biden saying that made a lot more sense than any number of people saying "Let's replace him! But not with me, or anyone in particular."
There is no strong fallback. If Michelle said she would run; if Klobuchar said she would run; if Cory Booker came out as running; if there were any strong Democratic candidate with name recognition who stood a chance at beating Trump, we'd have a choice.
But none of those people have, and there isn't. We fall in line behind Biden, or he backs out and it's chaos until the primary, and there winner has a couple of months to storm the entire US and become a household name.
Like my grandmother-in-law would always say to my MIL: "We're on the freeway now, Bridge."
I'm sorry but that's just not true. Let me explain.
This election comes down to 6 battleground swing states. Without Michigan, Biden likely loses. Without Pennsylvania, Biden definitely loses.
Both Josh Shapiro of Pennyslvania and Whitmer of Michigan outperformed Biden in these states. That's point one.
Point two is that national name recognition is irrelevant when you consider the fact that if headlines tomorrow read, "BREAKING NEWS: Biden to step down; endorses Whitmer" you would have an immediate and profound shock to the entire country you haven't seen in 2 decades. Everyone would be googling Gretchen and you wouldn't be able to escape her name from the free viral media frenzy that would occur for months. She'd be a household name literally overnight.
It’s too much uncertainty. Personally I’d rather go with the incumbency bump and a steady ship. And let’s not forget that Biden has beaten loser Trump already. And polls have been getting worse not better at predicting elections the last several years
Again I'm sorry but as a data and politics junkie I must dispel some things here.
There is every reason to believe that sticking with Biden is akin to going down with a sinking ship. We have to recognize that there is very little uncertainty about this. Once we recognize this, then it's easier to consider jumping ship because ultimately any alternative is better than the chance you have on a sinking ship.
Polls have been quite accurate, actually. 538's predictions, at least when Silver was there, were well over 90% accurate these past cycles. (remember, they model not just the Presidential race but every House, Senate, and Governor's race. So we have to use polls as markers for where the race is. (otherwise what are we going off of, vibes?)
Yes Biden has beaten Loser Trump once, but Biden was a full 10 points ahead at this point than where he is now and not well behind Trump. Moreover Biden wasn't dealing with 3.5 years of right-wing media propaganda that has seen his aggregate approval ratings consistently decline since the course of his presidency to 37%. Ask Jimmy Carter how that feels.
Biden isn't just under-performing his 2020 run; he's under-performing Hillary's 2016 loss.
So the key question is how can we buck the steady decline in Biden's poll numbers? How can we stop the bleeding? Well, Biden's strategy was to do just that with this debate. That catastrophically backfired. He was already in a bad spot pre-debate. Post-debate he's 2 steps behind with no event from here until November that will be seen by that many people and sway undecided voters' concerns over his age. I'd say let's wait for Trump to screw up, but if a conviction doesn't drop his poll numbers significantly, then what will? Probably nothing.
Predictable as always.
We are so fucked. Many just don't realize it yet. But boy, they will.
Centrists have already made it clear that they intend to blame the left for the results of their hubris.
We were f***** in the 1930s when FDR failed to prosecute and punish grandpatty bush and all his a****** friends who had that coup plot. It's just that we were f***** so good that we've been feeling it ever since then. But for some odd reason never really done much to fix it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“There’s also a growing resignation that, if Joe Biden insists on remaining our nominee, we will have to make the best out of a bad situation going into the most consequential presidential election in American history.”
On Sunday, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and three other congressional Democrats told colleagues on a phone call that Biden should step aside.
Another member of Congress privately expressed deep concerns with Biden and feared one more major gaffe could be catastrophic to Democrats.
In the 12 days since Biden froze, mumbled, trailed off and, at times, even struggled to complete a sentence at the debate against former President Donald Trump, he has been playing cleanup.
Some Democrats have said the president has taken too long to do damage control with his own party, allowing talk that undermines his candidacy to run rampant and dominate a race that should be focused on Trump.
Some of the Democrats countered in interviews that those voters weren’t equipped with the same information then, namely, the cognitive concerns Biden’s debate performance raised.
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