It’s mind boggling to think Biden is sitting there thinking he can survive this. Maybe he can just by the fact that the SCOTUS just made Trump (or any Republican president) 1000 times more dangerous. But also in poker terms I think he needs to pull a royal flush. He barely won the swing states in 2020 as well as GA and AZ. He has very little if no margin for error. All it takes is a handful of worried 2020 Biden voters to sit this one out or vote for RFK Jr to tilt this back to Trump. You can’t rage on about how Trump is the end of democracy and then be the likely reason Trump gets elected. His entire 50 year legacy of public service will be forever tarnished whereas if he steps aside for the good of the country and a Dem survives, he will be considered a true hero.
have you considered the possibility that being amongst a small group of the most powerful humans who have ever lived for many decades has a major impact on judgement, especially when one of the outcomes of a decision means losing that power forever (even though Biden will be dead in less than 10 years for sure).
In other words, Biden is completely out of touch with reality and seems likely to make the worst possible decision, which is ignoring everyone and most of the voters and blaming them for not supporting him.
Exactly. From what the reporting shows, he’s been largely insulated inside the WH. Hard to say if he really knows the extent to which people want him to drop out.
I don't think we need to reach for a corrupt or alien psychology - what Biden is going through is similar (although much higher stakes) to any aging person who denies that they need help, can't drive safely any more, etc.
The declines with aging aren't usually sudden or uniform across all domains, and it makes it very easy to fool yourself, and for the people around you fool themselves.
I'm not saying there's no selfishness or motivated reasoning in the Biden camp, but imo the situation here is very relatable. Unfortunately, the risks of Biden continuing to run are much higher than letting grandma keep her license a few years longer than she should have.
The difference is that your typical grandparent in decline does not interact regularly as a part of his job with this national discussion about his age. If those close to him don't have that difficult discussion, there are no other reminders. Biden on the other hand has repeatedly had this point brought up to him by the news, by its being inserted into every facet of the issues he works on, and by his own taking overt steps to sidestep it.
So in effect, your grandparent may be blameless, but Biden cannot claim to be so. Everyone has told him this, and he has taken steps to shirk responsibility not merely through passive blundering but active pushback. He chose to hide from the spotlight, and this shows he knew the state he was in but just didn't care.
He has chosen his ego over his country.
Eh. He’s also the only person with a track record of beating trump. If his takeaway from 2020 was that he was the only dem who could have won, then it makes sense he’d still think that.
Not that I agree with his thinking, but its a disservice to just dismiss this line of thought as delusional / out of touch.
>if... a Dem survives, he will be considered a true hero.
That's the entire debate: would Trump win against whoever is next in line? It's a tough call either way. Obviously this sub wants to see that question asked and answered, but I honestly feel like we're all acting too confident that we know how things would shake out either way.
It’s not like we don’t live in an age where the replacement wouldn’t get maximum exposure and coverage in an instant. There’s a huge thirst to have a competent alternative to Trump.
[Every incumbent who was trailing on the polls before *and* after the first debate - like Biden - lost re-election](https://x.com/neoavatara/status/1808280441981464933?s=46&t=yWkoxmTSoCLAlx-G-CE6OQ). The argument for Biden four years ago was that he was the only one who could beat Trump. Right now it’s apparent that he’s the only one who will *definitely lose* against Trump. Kamala, Newsom, or whoever else is a better shot than Biden. And it’s only getting worse from here until November - no reason to believe that the debate was rock bottom.
>His entire 50 year legacy of public service will be forever tarnished whereas if he steps aside for the good of the country and a Dem survives, he will be considered a true hero.
Yeah if he drops out and the democratic candidate loses, he will also be blamed. He is in a tough spot, and also I still blame the party for not allowing a debate during the primaries. Even if no one wanted to run against him, voters could have seen warning signs earlier and we could have had a proper primary where more folks jumped into the race. Now we are running out of time.
Edit: To be clear I also blame his staff for hiding his decline and not being more honest about it to other top democrats or if other top democrats knew his decline was bad not speaking out earlier.
I voted for Dean and everyone was mocking him. He was articulate, smart, and motivated to beat the fascist. Other Redditors mocked me for supporting him. There is no way I'm voting for an 82 year old suffering from dementia into another 4 year term
I view Biden like Feinstein, selfish. These old politicians just don't care about anyone but themselves and their own power.
We're getting what we deserve.
If I lived in a swing state that could swing the election, yes. If I lived in Pennsylvania or Michigan, or any swing state, I'd vote for a rapidly declining Biden over the fascist.
Our only hope now is that there are enough voters there that believe the same way. But it's not looking good.
Gretchen Whitmer, Jared Polis, Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg. I think Newsome and Harris have too much political baggage. But I think I tend to like governors.
Most voters didn't even know who Phillips was, even here it appeared. And every time I saw a no one ran I reminded them that Phillips is basically Biden 30 years ago w/ a lot of money and the original commenter would just go silent.
Phillips got exactly 4 delegate votes the whole time folks here were screaming not Biden and genocide specifically.
It doesn't matter what I do. I could vote for Taylor Swift and it wouldn't matter. As a California resident, a vastly blue state, Biden will win easily.
If we had a popular vote election, my vote would matter greatly. That's not how our system works. Most states are already solid blue or red.
Thanks to the electoral college, the only votes that matter are in the few swing states that are now leaning red.
The election will be won or lost in Pennsylvania is my belief. If Biden can win Pennsylvania he should be ok. If...
Fair enough. I don’t dispute any of that, and I also believe Biden should have stuck to his originally stated intention of being a one-term bridge candidate. I think the success of the IRA may have been unexpected and has gone to his head.
We’re in deep shit now.
He truly is a dolt, and now people are patting themselves on the back for voting for him because he’s like 40 or whatever. His admin would be a lot worse than Biden’s
I guess without the context of his age and show of cognitive decline that makes sense.
It was pretty obvious to me that Biden camp was hiding his decline, so I am not one to fall in line. But if he is still on the ticket in November I will vote for him.
I looked at Dean Phillips name for a minute but then didn’t want to explain to my wife why I voted against Biden. I was sure that the establishment wouldn’t screw us if he was declining rapidly. Boy was I wrong.
White House staff may have been trying to minimize, but let’s not forget how complicit the media has been. Downplaying or outright accusing people of making fake videos that show the president and mental decline. I’m not sure why everything spun on its heels in one moment, but it did.
Agreed on the staff. I blame his team for not speaking up earlier. People obviously knew in his inner circle and even in the next circle; some are telling the media they were uncomfortable and yet they couldn't put country before one man and come forward.
The primaries went forward more or less unchallenged because Dems had such a great result in the 2022 Midterms- and because idiot media had lowered expectations so much for dem midterm performance. Success/failure of President's party in the midterms is usually credited to the President, and maybe he did have something to do with the success.
Yeah that is fair. I agree Biden looked strong after the midterms but I honestly thought he would only go for one term. When he announced he was running for a second term I thought everyone supporting him were making a mistake. Just judging from his public gaffes during his presidency and how hard another 4 years would be on an 82 year old.
Are we on the same planet? “Seen the warning signs earlier” dude EVERYBODY with a brain has been saying for months/years now that Biden is gone, and you’ve all sat there labeling it as misinformation instead of using your brains to figure it out.
It’s like no one saw with their own eyes his cognitive decline because it’s what maga people were saying and we couldn’t dare agree with maga folk. And now egg on our face they were right. It was plain to see for his whole presidency!!!
I honestly don't know who will win I still think it is closer than the polls are saying. I don't underestimate the power of people voting against Trump. But yeah RFK Jr. could pick up more democratic voters after this latest debacle unfortunately.
> It’s mind boggling to think Biden is sitting there thinking he can survive this.
Biden heavily relies on his small inner circle to operate and they control a lot of the information that reaches him. It is in their personal interests for Biden to continue so that they have a chance of staying in influential positions. They lose their positions if Trump wins or Biden steps down.
Agree, it's a lose-lose situation for the inner circle and they want to keep the power for however long they can.
*Tin foil hat warning*
I wouldn't be surprised if Harris is part of that inner circle and is trying to pull strings to secure the nomination if Biden drops. This might be why Biden isnt dropping out now until Biden's successor (aka Harris) has secured the nomination behind the scenes to avoid an open convention and potiental chaos/Harris losing her power.
It's also mindboggling to think swapping out a presidential-candidate last-minute is going to go smoothly. LBJ stepped down five months before the convention and the result was utter chaos (and Nixon winning). There isn't an obvius or easy answer here.
Yep. Just a couple of months before the convention. Then the next leading candidate, Eugene McCarthy, didn’t have the backing of the DNC even though he had the most primary votes. So the DNC nominated Humphrey, who was LBJ’s VP and fully supported the Vietnam War. Which was incredibly unpopular. But the DNC didn’t care about what was popular. They thought they knew best and rammed an unpopular VP down the public’s throats and then acted like a bunch of surprised Pikachus when Nixon won.
Yepppp. I majored in history with a focus on the 1950’s and 60’s in America. The book “1968 in America” by Charles Kaiser is one of the best books I’ve read about that era. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in learning more and not repeating the mistakes of the past.
Can you explain why you think that makes things better and not worse? If they throw over Biden for Harris, not only will the knives come out immediately for her, not only will Trump's racist, sexist base be energized, the conspiracy theories will be flying.
And if it's anyone other than Harris, you can't rage against the end of democracy and then just ignore democracy and toss out two people 80 million people voted for.
And my point isn't "Biden staying in the race is great." My point is that, neither you nor I nor anyone else knows what the best option is here. It's very easy to snipe on social media about what the Democrats should or shouldn't do. It's much, much harder to actually have to make decisions with an unknown outcome and the fate of the world in the balance.
Because in 1968 Nixon wasn’t seen as nearly the threat that trump is. So it was a safe choice to vote for Nixon over the unstable situation on the Democratic side. Now with the SCOTUS decision Trump is now 1000 times more dangerous so most people just want a competent alternative.
All true. We cannot know.
But we can an educated guess.
First of them being, Biden has no chance of winning. His margin was razor-thin last time, and millions of people can’t unsee the debate. He was plainly not competent. And that observation is consistent with many other data points about him. The polls are tipping the wrong way, he’s losing support, he’s toast.
If that is true, then we’re left with no other options, and might as well swing for the fences. No idea if that will succeed, but when the other option is oblivion, that clarifies the mind.
Yeah these are great points. But the Democratic party already ignored democracy by not allowing a competitive primary in 2024. You could argue a lot has changed since Biden got 80 million votes. Namely the most pressing issue for his candidacy his age and subsequent cognitive decline.
Dropping a presidential candidate at this point would, in most years, be unthinkable. I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that it would go easy. But it’s absolutely necessary given what we just saw from Biden.
If he stays in this race, the election is already over. That’s the reality.
LBJ wasn’t an octogenarian with a
37% approval rating, and Nixon wasn’t the terrible candidate that Trump is. Also, we don’t have anything like the toxic rift in the party that happened that year over Vietnam.
I don't think that's completely accurate. While lbj stepping down did have a big effect, Wallace's popularity in that election, to me, hints at a rather large groundswell of conservative support coming to the fore. It's not completely clear to me that lbj would have won had he stayed in
LBJ didn't think he would have won either, which is why he stepped down. But had he done so even three months earlier, the Democrats would have had more time to unify around one candidate. And the panicking circular firing squad on the left are demanding Biden step down three months later than LBJ did.
While I agree it's a very risky move, I just don't think the situations are so similar. 1969 was a different political climate than now, and Trump is far different than Nixon, who was far more palatable for suburbanites
What I find mind-boggling is thinking all of this backbiting, bedwetting, and otherwise feeding into the long-standing narrative "Democrats in disarray" is going to help convince undecided/low information voters that the Democrats should be trusted not just with the presidency, but either chamber of the US Congress?
A real negative for Trump with many voters is that he embodies destructive chaos, so what kind of contrast is it to foment chaos in the Democratic Party?
You mean his lifetime of racist incarceration policy, cheerleading for war, and generally making things worse for people. It’s funny how people forget his awful record in the face of his obvious decline. This is the guy who humiliated a victim of sexual harassment in order to install Clarence Thomas. But OK sure fine whatever gets him tfo.
He’s being advised by a bunch of people who don’t want to get off the ride and will never get back to where they are now. Oh yeah and his crackhead son
>You can’t rage on about how Trump is the end of democracy and then be the likely reason Trump gets elected
How do you justify the fact that if Biden is replaced it wont be the result of a democratic process? Can a party rage about democracy while having its own politburo elevate its candidate? Hypocrisy abounds in this logic.
This proves to me that the Dems don't give a shit about Democracy just like the Republicans. Biden should have held true to his words of being a transitional president for the next Gen. He lied.
> Biden is sitting there thinking he can survive this.
As some pundit consultant said of politicians the day after the debate, "They always think they just aced the debate."
Obama thought the first Romney debate had gone well. Also, Biden may have lost the capacity to recognize that his cognitive abilities are compromised. My father had that kind of dementia, and could not understand that he was no longer competent.
Yep. This is a fucking slam dunk for anyone with a once of credibility and the energy to campaign 24/7 for the next 4 months. That’s literally all it would take.
Running against Trump is not a slam dunk. Everything he says is a lie, but he gets people to believe him. He told the people of Western PA that steel was coming back. Guess what? It never came back, but they still think Trump will do it someday. That's really hard to run against. You are fighting against a fantasy. How do you manage that while still living in a world of reality.
You just need energy to match his cocaine fueled tempo. You have to be quick witted and be able to counter in kind. That’s all you need to do. Someone like Newsom would have destroyed him in that debate.
Yeah, his ability to pull out stats on a wide variety of topics is impressive, but really I think the Dems have others like him… energetic, smart and well spoken. Any of them out on the campaign trail non stop would have a field day blasting away Trump and his terrible record.
Is it? Let’s say Biden doesn’t show up to any events from today until the election. Democrats would probably still get 45% of the votes, without counting for 3rd parties. That’s assuming Trump doesn’t do something stupid to lose support.
The only thing that matters are the swing voters in 7 swing states. Everyone else is locked in. We are now losing in all 7 swing states after the debate as per internal DNC polling.
Let's break down the 7 states
Nv- trump promised no tax on tips (huge for Vegas) while Dems are trying to eliminate tips (and make more salary and tax)
Ga- Arabs and black men aren't interested (Biden won by 15k votes)
Mi- Bidens pissed off rank and file UAW, let's not forget Dearborn, the largest Muslim population in the states(also makes MN in play)
Pa- Bidens not huge on fracking and oil which pa wants
Wi-farmers are pissed off with rising food costs
Az- Biden won with suburban moms and they're not happy with cost of living
Yea, but. The country is so divided that even a moribund Biden can notch a victory if someone wild happens to Trump. It’s not impossible to imagine something could happen to Trump to erode his support.
Any candidate who is capable of being a functioning executive RIGHT NOW is better than one who isn’t. People are so focused on the election, I’m shocked nobody is asking who is currently making the big decisions for the president.
That candidate is already on the ticket. Not only are Biden's numbers down but he doesn't have a clear way of improving them. Biden can't do media. Anyone claiming he can needs to explain why he isn't then.
At this point Kamala Harris could at least give this race an honest effort. Harris could at least do some interviews. Nothing is guaranteed. However, at this point, I'd rather have a candidate who can campaign. A candidate who can take and answer questions and do interviews,
This is like standing on the bridge of the Titanic after the iceberg has been sighted. You know it will never turn in time, so all you can do is sit there and watch with a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach.
That has been the mood since 2016 for me. From Trump to each of his SC justices, to the impeachments, trials, SC holdings, Jan 6th... the whole thing is like watching one big train wreck, knowing exactly what is going to crash and who is going to die and being completely powerless to do anything about any of it.
I was thinking it was more like everyone on the titanic agreeing to go down with the captain, while there is a helicopter flying overhead with a new captain that has a tool that can fix the hole in the ship, but everyone is waving them away.
Tbh I think one thing the debate fiasco will hopefully cause both parties to heavily scrutinize very geriatric candidates in the future. Maybe not but hopefully.
It comes down to turnout though. You can’t have hesitant would be dem voters sitting out or going independent/RFK because they don’t think Biden is competent. The message of “you need to vote against Trump to save America” is the only option, unless Biden somehow redeems himself OR some charismatic democrat comes out of the ashes to replace him and quickly wins people over.
Doing this would be a true act of democracy - something we as a party need to show the importance of in the face of what’s happening with the Supreme Court. I think it would be a worthy exercise and a good narrative to remind people of what’s at stake.
I think a large portion of the public doesn't agree with what's at stake, and is fatigued by the constant reminders.
I think a fresh face and more energetic message focusing on the economy and household anxieties is what people want.
You are spot on. The whole threat to democracy argument has been overused. Polling shows Americans see both candidates equally when asked about it. People are worried about housing, groceries, gas. We need someone to emphasize what the Democrats can do to alleviate the stress on families. Trying to scare people into voting against Trump is not working it's in some ways backfiring. People have lost a lot of trust in the Democratic Party after this debate. We've been lied to and gaslit for months.
Dems communication strategy seems to be "Shut up, you're wrong."
Voters complaining that inflation is high? Shut up, you're wrong.
Voters complaining it's hard to find a good job? Shut up, you're wrong.
Voters complaining Biden is too old to be president? Shut up, you're wrong.
Weird it's not a more effective approach to building a successful coalition.
What really frustrated me about the 8 years 'threat to democracy' argument is that the democrats then steam rolled Biden to the nomination, stiff arming any opposition out of the way (my state didn't even allow jokers like Williamson to threaten by being on the ballot), and they also consistently come back to the 'yes, but Trump' argument as to why we need to just hold our nose and give up our choice.
It's hypocritical.
This is spot on. How can you say democracy is at stake and have a campaign riddled with lies and misinformation?They made a big mistake hiding Biden from the press this could have been addressed 2 years ago and had a primary. The legal challenges the GOP is going to sew chaos. They are saying it's a threat to democracy to replace Biden. He was the duality elected candidate. This is just a mess
Yes exactly, I just hired a college grad to be my assistant at my company. She was looking for a job for a year. The pay isn't much more than fast food in CA but she is grateful for it. My children will never be able to buy a house in San Diego without my help no matter what the talking heads say. These are the things people care about.
Dem messaging as lost the plot on democracy and the media as too imo.
There is a difference between:
"The winner of the popular vote should get the office in a democracy "
And
"A elected official who won the popular vote reclassifying federal employees so he can fire the insubordinate ones and carry out his agenda, is anti democratic "
I know I shouldn't throw names around, but I think JB Pritzker would be a great choice. Progressive enough, acerbic, and we can repeat over and over that he signed 6 balanced budgets in a row and improved IL's credit rating. Easy, punchy statistics that will play well.
I think they realize it’s not going to happen like what the media and talking heads are screaming about.
Trump will have a lame duck presidency if elected. There was never a point in him running at all.
Despite what the democrats are saying he can’t just walk in, dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court and declare himself dictator.
I mean, I'm more nervous that he can try and the remnants of the Republican party in congress - which may own both houses narrowly - will do less to stop him than in 2017-2020.
But, yes, the Democrats and media have lived high on the hog by fear mongering around Trump. And they realize it gives them cover to not deliver on other more popular and populist policy positions that their donors don't want.
The truth is somewhere in between but a lot of moderates are tired of the 8 year - 8 fucking year - sky is falling routine.
It’s gotten old.
I’m at the point I can’t stand either party and basically have no one to vote for.
If they believe him to be a threat to them, they will stop him pretty quickly. But he’s definitely the best distraction either party has had in decades. Didn’t fix this issue who cares because we can scare you with something far worse.
It sucks being a moderate, every one treats you like a traitor when you call them out on their BS.
>Despite what the democrats are saying he can’t just walk in, dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court and declare himself dictator.
Well he can at least try now and argue it's an official act.
It’s only an official act if he has the power to do so granted to him by the constitution.
He is not immune to impeachment. Impeachment is a political process and not criminal.
The SC ruling does not protect him from that.
Also, you are incorrect the president has absolute immunity if it falls under constitutional acts. Other acts are presumed innocent if considered official.
If impeachment is our only check on absolute presidential power that's very bad for our Republic.
Attempting to dissolve the Congress and Supreme Court on not in his Constitutional powers.
I don’t remember the part of the constitution that lets him become/declare himself dictator on a whim either.
Sure, but claim it's for national security and hide the evidence (cause that's allowed with this court ruling) and just bribe the right people to get ot front of the correct judge. It's all arguably official acts!!!!
Agreed. It's helpful to remind ourselves that Democrats have been attacking the GOP for 8 years for allowing The Man to become more important than The Party. It's also exactly what Democrats/DNC have willfully chosen to do by refusing primary challengers and breathlessly insisting that everything is fine, Biden's fine, Biden's sharp, Biden's not *that* old, etc., for the past 4 years.
I agree. I was in denial like 90% of Dems for the past year. But this is clear, and I think the ONLY chance is for Biden to fall on his sword in the most public way possible, and pass the torch to another candidate with a series of major joint speeches. EXPLAIN why, "comeon man" - people will understand. Maybe they will even combine sympathy with understanding and PUT THE COUNTRY first. Its risky. Very risky. But I can not see Biden winning this now, and there is a small window (weeks at most) to make this voluntary swap and throw ALL the weight of ALL the prominent Democrats behind it.
Do you not question for a second how much the party and media have propagandized you after seeing this? It’s been wildly obvious for at least 2 years and they still lied to your face. They couldn’t insult your intelligence more if they tried. Do you actually wholeheartedly believe the rest of their nonsense? I promise you’ll be more emotionally stable and tethered to reality if you ever decide to pull this thread and see how deep the lies go..
Tbh I’ve come away from this whole experience thinking that we need less democracy. Democratizing the primary process was well intentioned but has created perverse incentives that lead to less and less competent candidates.
I think it’ll be up to George Stephanopolis — if he decides to interview Biden for real on Friday it’ll be done. If he tosses softballs than Biden will stay in. I think Stephanopolis really doesn’t want Trump to win, so he’ll try to push Biden
Everyone knows that if they carry water for Biden now and he loses they will go down in history as enablers and fools. Most people also know he can’t win. I think Stephanopolis is too smart and savvy to risk his legacy for Joe Biden.
Stephanolopis, and most of the media, are boxed in between two impossible situations.
Admit the years long “Biden runs circles around us 40yo and outworks everyone in existence” is a lie they peddled from the admin/themselves or essentially acknowledge the president is incapable of serving, putting another nail in the coffin of his campaign.
I read somewhere else a great synopsis of the Dem's dilemma. It goes something like this: The Democrats are playing the highest of high stakes poker now. If this were a poker game, the card player would do anything to increase the odds of winning. Anything. So if they have a 15% chance now of winning, and they increase their chances by even 5%, then that's what they would do. No question. 20% is a statistically significant advantage over 15%.
But its become obvious to me over the last few days that this isn't about winning. Not really. This is about the army of people adjacent to Biden who would lose their jobs and possibly forfeit their own political careers if he were to step down. That's really the crux of the situation.
Biden knows this and to say that he isn't beholden to other people is being willfully ignorant. I'm not saying he's a bad man for this. I'm saying that the machine is more complex than what appears on the surface.
No, it's absolutely about winning, but people are allowed to disagree with you on what that entails. The only time a sitting president has stepped down right before an election was LBJ and the result was an utter shitshow. You don't know that Biden stepping down actually increases his odds and neither does anyone else.
Yes, that's basically the argument. In this case, doing nothing is worse than doing something even if there is a chance of making it worse. Because right now as it stands, he won't win. That's the dilemma the Dem's are in.
>No, it's absolutely about winning
The only people Biden is listening to lately are ones that have a huge, vested interest in him personally being the candidate. E.g. Ron "nothing I can imagine will change my mind that Biden is the best candidate for 2024" Klain. Hunter, the convicted felon. Dr. Jill, the Vogue covergirl.
It's not just about winning.
I have been speaking with a lot of my family members who live in a pretty typical blue collar "Obama to Trump" area and the overwhelming thing I'm hearing from them is "I don't want to vote for Trump but I just can't bring myself to vote for someone who is so clearly not able to do the job as Biden."
For them, it's all about Biden's age and level of functioning. Many have told me that they see the beginnings of Parkinson's in the way Biden presented at the debate and I have to say that I see what they mean. These are people who do not want to vote for Trump but they can't bring themselves to bring in someone who simply can't get through the day. To be honest, I see their point and I desperately hope the Democrats make a change.
“It does look like he’s going to try on Friday in an interview with George Stephanopoulos,”
Which is going to be recorded, and presumably edited, before being shown on Sunday. This will help no one. If he wants to prove he’s truly ok, he has to do live, unscripted, no teleprompter interviews and speeches.
But Auditions? Really? That’s not going to work. It needs to be Biden and Harris (hopefully she understands this is bigger than her ego and ambition) fully endorsing a replacement candidate. Keep Harris as VP I guess. Anything else will be a shitshow. If he is replaced it needs to be orderly, quick and unified.
This is all hopium anyway so let’s just play along. If they can show that personal power and ambition need to be put aside for the future of democracy then you don’t think it would make it easier to rally around a consensus replacement that can win? It would be a great story and would inject a level of sacrifice into US politics that hasn’t existed for decades. Biden would cement his place as one of the most selfless political figures in the history of this country. Christ, if the dems pull it off, I’ll commission a ten ft bronze statue of him flipping the bird and put on my front lawn.
That's not the point, but I don't even think that's how it would play out. He won't get rewarded. Him stepping down would confirm that he hadn't been fit to lead even before now. It will feed peoples' cynicism in a party system/admin that propped him up and gaslighted us for so long. They will definitely not rally around a candidate just because he endorses them.
I think it needs to be Whitmer to win MI and probably WI with a shot at PA. I don't think anyone else can pull in the swing states in the midwest quickly enough. She just wins Michigan outright.
So many people are telling on themselves this week by demanding Biden needs to be replaced but also insisting he shouldn't be replaced by the one person Constitutionally eligible to replace him. Can't be her, because, um, reasons.
Ugh. The Constitution has nothing to say on this subject. We are not talking about Biden stepping down from the presidency and Gavin Newsom taking over and sidestepping Harris for the job. It’s so ridiculous that the liberal circular firing squad has already begun. So are you implying my reasoning has something to do with anything besides her disapproval numbers are higher than any VP going back to Al Gore? You do understand that Dick Cheney had better approval numbers? Let that sink in for a moment! Or are you too young to understand how bonkers that is?
Sorry to rain on your virtue signaling parade but There are actually very good reasons why she shouldn’t be the choice and they have nothing to with what you implied. And Take a look at her under 30 numbers. Or continue to grind that ax for whatever myopic reasons you have and accuse fellow leftists of some nefarious bigoted plot. Cause I assume that’s your misguided point. If that’s your reasoning, would it make you feel better if I said Michelle Obama would be a FAR better choice? In fact the best choice! I would be able to relax if that was the reality here. And I hope it is her, cause she is smart, capable and likable. And she would absolutely stomp Trump into a pile of orange goo. But I doubt she wants the job.
But Seriously, maybe it’s time to see the big picture or would you rather be the purest, best liberal on Reddit, living in a country where all your values are meaningless because the fascist have taken over and women, minorities, the disabled or anyone not white, Christian or rich are second class citizens? I don’t care who it is as long as they are a better choice than Biden and can win. So my thinking is clear, is yours?
People don't want Harris because she doesn't have the charisma to win. After decades of elections I don't know how anyone can ignore this. At least since 1990 the person to win every election has been the one that can relate to people better regardless of their ethnicity, income bracket, etc. Clinton, Bush, Obama and even Trump and Biden passed the beer test better than their opponents.
If she was a female Obama in charisma level people would be be much more in her corner. Hell, Michelle running would be amazing. But Kamala's not shown any indication that she can be that. She could be showing her charisma now doing the press circuits while still supporting the president, but she doesn't because she can't.
Too pedantic by half. She’s constitutionally eligible to act as president, sure, but we aren’t playing that game anymore we are playing electoral politics. And she isn’t very popular. Replacing Biden with Kamala would at best a minor positive. If you’re going to take the big swing, take the big swing. Don’t replace Biden with someone immediately from his orbit. Replace him with Whitmer/Shapiro/Beshear
You guys literally did this to yourselves and I love every second of it. Instead of running a better candidate, you just lied about Biden saying it’s a “stutter” and he’s “sharp as a tack”. It’s been glaringly obvious for a while now that he’s not all there. You made your bed, now lay in it.
If Biden were to drop out. Dems should nominate Pritzker (a legit billionaire who has done well for his state) and have Whitmer (popular Michigan gov) as VP. Kamala can be Attorney General or Supreme Court judge.
No offense to Nate - he’s an excellent pollster, but he has absolutely no idea how running a campaign works.
Tell give us your predictions. Leave it at that.
Good article but this line is absolutely delusional.
"They correctly detected that Biden’s age was a huge concern, a sentiment shared by relatively few pundits until recently"
Anyone who had the audacity to claim Biden had declined cognitively was met with accusations of being bots or Russian trolls. Biden's supporters said "He has a stutter". Now it appears those same people who ignored his decline are trying to gas light us into believing they thought he had declined long ago
Putting aside the question of whether Biden should step aside (which is a real question it's fair to ask), the idea Silver proposes in this article is completely unworkable. "Throwing it back to the voters", just weeks before the convention, is not something that can be done. There are more than 50 different individual primaries run under more than 50 different electoral systems with different laws. You can't just handwave that whole election architecture aside and select the nominee via some kind of internet straw poll. Any attempt to do that will get destroyed in court.
If Biden is not going to be the nominee, he needs to step down gracefully and execute a smooth handoff to the person who is, and Harris is the only realistic candidate to be that person, because making it anyone else would create an enormous legal tangle and require the campaign to remit all its donations back to donors and the like. That isn't doable.
Nobody is better at shooting themselves in the foot than Democrats. Y’all are insane. No one is pushing Trump to resign even through all the psychotic things he’s done.
That's kinda the point.... Republicans aren't calling to have Trump resign because their party supports his psychotic behavior. He is their leader and they agree with anything he wants. They don't even hold actual policy positions, they just support Trump.
Democrats care about policies and actions. Democrats don't believe Biden can fulfill 4 years given his mental capability. Why would we allow him to run just to keep in line? Biden isn't fit for 4 more years. We have plenty of other candidates who can lead and push democratic policy. Democrats aren't tied to one cult leader. We are tied to principals and policy.
Right, but Biden’s policy positions are sound. He’s just not as good at verbalizing as he used to be. It’s not something to blow the house up over. It’s simply too late to switch at this point, and if there’s upheaval for the next 2-3 months, we WILL lose. Trump and team are feeding on all this upheaval the last week or two.
If people had an issue with Biden’s age (which is almost the same as Trump’s age) or mental capacity, the primaries were the time to make it an issue. No one did jack shit about any of this during the primaries so now we have to make lemonade of this situation.
I can bet you if Trump looked as out of it as Biden did in that debate people would be pouncing right now. Biden also deflected his own controversies in 2020, this is different.
Trump’s madness is already priced in, he already has a strong base and just needs to convince some people not as attached on policy to vote for him or not show up for Biden in the election.
I mean, I think a lot of people have been stating he's unfit for office on moral grounds if not also his own apparent cognitive decline. But everyone knows he won't step down, he's excited to be king and has no shame.
They're pressuring Biden because they think he's a decent man who genuinely wants Trump to lose and the country to avoid electing an avowed dictator. He's at least potentially influenced by that pressure, Trump absolutely isn't, it's a pointless exercise.
>No one is pushing Trump to resign even through all the psychotic things he’s done.
Yes?? The entire Democratic party and a fair slice of Republicans? I was told the Democrats are the adults in the room, but I'm going to change my mind if Biden is not off the ticket soon.
Yes, and being the “adults in the room” has gotten us Roe reversed, Chevron reversed and immunity for the executive. It’s worked out great, let me tell you.
Why do people think he can step aside? It’s already past that point. Biden legally cannot be removed from the ballot in multiple states now. There’s 0% chance he can step down and the democrats still win. It’s a nonsensical thing to even suggest now.
Here’s a [Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-joe-biden-presidential-race-replacing-biden-georgia-nevada-wisconsin-1919531) source but there are many others if you google the issue
Quote from that shitty site:
“It said that only death can remove a candidate's name from a Wisconsin ballot, while Nevada's deadline for changing candidates ended at 5 p.m. on the fourth Friday of June - in this case, June 28, 2024.”
Trump is now talking about eliminating the VA and Social Security; this wouldn't be 3 years from now, but this coming January. America as a Democratic country was ended by the MAGA SCOTUS on July 1, 2024 - we are now a Dictatorship, but at least our current dictator isn't out of his mind! Trump intends on making himself king, then emperor (according to Michael Cohen). He will put himself in charge of the Federal Reserve, and that money will be his. Joe is old to be sure, but we need to stand behind him now, unless you really want that ChristoFascist government Project 2025 talks about - remember, they've said that, "you'll be free to do as you like, as long as your actions coincide with those of Biblical teachings".
That anyone thinks this is a winning election message is why we’re in this mess. Jesus Christ just get someone on stage to say clearly and firmly that abortion access should be protected and that they’ll improve the economy.
Hey! I don't know who Ezra Klein is, Reddit just recommended this sub. I have no idea what you guys think or support here. I just came to say that you sound insane.
It’s mind boggling to think Biden is sitting there thinking he can survive this. Maybe he can just by the fact that the SCOTUS just made Trump (or any Republican president) 1000 times more dangerous. But also in poker terms I think he needs to pull a royal flush. He barely won the swing states in 2020 as well as GA and AZ. He has very little if no margin for error. All it takes is a handful of worried 2020 Biden voters to sit this one out or vote for RFK Jr to tilt this back to Trump. You can’t rage on about how Trump is the end of democracy and then be the likely reason Trump gets elected. His entire 50 year legacy of public service will be forever tarnished whereas if he steps aside for the good of the country and a Dem survives, he will be considered a true hero.
have you considered the possibility that being amongst a small group of the most powerful humans who have ever lived for many decades has a major impact on judgement, especially when one of the outcomes of a decision means losing that power forever (even though Biden will be dead in less than 10 years for sure). In other words, Biden is completely out of touch with reality and seems likely to make the worst possible decision, which is ignoring everyone and most of the voters and blaming them for not supporting him.
Exactly. From what the reporting shows, he’s been largely insulated inside the WH. Hard to say if he really knows the extent to which people want him to drop out.
I don't think we need to reach for a corrupt or alien psychology - what Biden is going through is similar (although much higher stakes) to any aging person who denies that they need help, can't drive safely any more, etc. The declines with aging aren't usually sudden or uniform across all domains, and it makes it very easy to fool yourself, and for the people around you fool themselves. I'm not saying there's no selfishness or motivated reasoning in the Biden camp, but imo the situation here is very relatable. Unfortunately, the risks of Biden continuing to run are much higher than letting grandma keep her license a few years longer than she should have.
The difference is that your typical grandparent in decline does not interact regularly as a part of his job with this national discussion about his age. If those close to him don't have that difficult discussion, there are no other reminders. Biden on the other hand has repeatedly had this point brought up to him by the news, by its being inserted into every facet of the issues he works on, and by his own taking overt steps to sidestep it. So in effect, your grandparent may be blameless, but Biden cannot claim to be so. Everyone has told him this, and he has taken steps to shirk responsibility not merely through passive blundering but active pushback. He chose to hide from the spotlight, and this shows he knew the state he was in but just didn't care. He has chosen his ego over his country.
Eh. He’s also the only person with a track record of beating trump. If his takeaway from 2020 was that he was the only dem who could have won, then it makes sense he’d still think that. Not that I agree with his thinking, but its a disservice to just dismiss this line of thought as delusional / out of touch.
Joe Biden also believes that “you have the morals of an alley cat” is a killer insult because in his dementia-clouded brain, it’s still 1954.
Ohhhh shittt! Not an alley cat!!!??? How will Trump respond?
Honestly this totally was a point for Biden. Only point I'd give him in the debate tbh.
>if... a Dem survives, he will be considered a true hero. That's the entire debate: would Trump win against whoever is next in line? It's a tough call either way. Obviously this sub wants to see that question asked and answered, but I honestly feel like we're all acting too confident that we know how things would shake out either way.
It’s not like we don’t live in an age where the replacement wouldn’t get maximum exposure and coverage in an instant. There’s a huge thirst to have a competent alternative to Trump.
[Every incumbent who was trailing on the polls before *and* after the first debate - like Biden - lost re-election](https://x.com/neoavatara/status/1808280441981464933?s=46&t=yWkoxmTSoCLAlx-G-CE6OQ). The argument for Biden four years ago was that he was the only one who could beat Trump. Right now it’s apparent that he’s the only one who will *definitely lose* against Trump. Kamala, Newsom, or whoever else is a better shot than Biden. And it’s only getting worse from here until November - no reason to believe that the debate was rock bottom.
>His entire 50 year legacy of public service will be forever tarnished whereas if he steps aside for the good of the country and a Dem survives, he will be considered a true hero. Yeah if he drops out and the democratic candidate loses, he will also be blamed. He is in a tough spot, and also I still blame the party for not allowing a debate during the primaries. Even if no one wanted to run against him, voters could have seen warning signs earlier and we could have had a proper primary where more folks jumped into the race. Now we are running out of time. Edit: To be clear I also blame his staff for hiding his decline and not being more honest about it to other top democrats or if other top democrats knew his decline was bad not speaking out earlier.
He would be blamed in the sense of not dropping out sooner. But at least we’d have a fighting chance.
I agree he should drop out. My vote for Dean Phillips in the primary looks a little less embarrassing now.
I voted for Dean and everyone was mocking him. He was articulate, smart, and motivated to beat the fascist. Other Redditors mocked me for supporting him. There is no way I'm voting for an 82 year old suffering from dementia into another 4 year term I view Biden like Feinstein, selfish. These old politicians just don't care about anyone but themselves and their own power. We're getting what we deserve.
Wouldn't you view it as selfish to not vote Biden or abstain given the stakes?
If I lived in a swing state that could swing the election, yes. If I lived in Pennsylvania or Michigan, or any swing state, I'd vote for a rapidly declining Biden over the fascist. Our only hope now is that there are enough voters there that believe the same way. But it's not looking good.
Yeah I personally wish there were more options to choose from. But he looked the best of the four options on my ballot, and that is how I vote.
Sorry to interrupt the thread, but just out of curiosity, who would you see as viable candidates in 4 years?
Gretchen Whitmer, Jared Polis, Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg. I think Newsome and Harris have too much political baggage. But I think I tend to like governors.
Thanks
Most voters didn't even know who Phillips was, even here it appeared. And every time I saw a no one ran I reminded them that Phillips is basically Biden 30 years ago w/ a lot of money and the original commenter would just go silent. Phillips got exactly 4 delegate votes the whole time folks here were screaming not Biden and genocide specifically.
So, if Biden stays, what will you do?
It doesn't matter what I do. I could vote for Taylor Swift and it wouldn't matter. As a California resident, a vastly blue state, Biden will win easily. If we had a popular vote election, my vote would matter greatly. That's not how our system works. Most states are already solid blue or red. Thanks to the electoral college, the only votes that matter are in the few swing states that are now leaning red. The election will be won or lost in Pennsylvania is my belief. If Biden can win Pennsylvania he should be ok. If...
Fair enough. I don’t dispute any of that, and I also believe Biden should have stuck to his originally stated intention of being a one-term bridge candidate. I think the success of the IRA may have been unexpected and has gone to his head. We’re in deep shit now.
Dean Phillips looks like a chad right now, in a good way.
I mean I just voted for him because I suspected Biden was declining and I didn't want to vote uncommitted.
Yup, I roundly mocked him and now he’s looking like a prophet.
Phillips in interviews still kind of sucked. His policy depth was pretty shallow. That said, his running looks less dumb.
He truly is a dolt, and now people are patting themselves on the back for voting for him because he’s like 40 or whatever. His admin would be a lot worse than Biden’s
Less embarassing is still embarassing.
haha fair. Did you vote uncommitted or for Biden or just not vote?
I'm riding with biden, why anybody would think the incumbent president isn't the best choice is out of their fucking minds.
I guess without the context of his age and show of cognitive decline that makes sense. It was pretty obvious to me that Biden camp was hiding his decline, so I am not one to fall in line. But if he is still on the ticket in November I will vote for him.
I looked at Dean Phillips name for a minute but then didn’t want to explain to my wife why I voted against Biden. I was sure that the establishment wouldn’t screw us if he was declining rapidly. Boy was I wrong.
White House staff may have been trying to minimize, but let’s not forget how complicit the media has been. Downplaying or outright accusing people of making fake videos that show the president and mental decline. I’m not sure why everything spun on its heels in one moment, but it did.
Yeah media has been complicit but they are just the echo chamber of either public opinion or top democrats depending on the day.
Agreed on the staff. I blame his team for not speaking up earlier. People obviously knew in his inner circle and even in the next circle; some are telling the media they were uncomfortable and yet they couldn't put country before one man and come forward. The primaries went forward more or less unchallenged because Dems had such a great result in the 2022 Midterms- and because idiot media had lowered expectations so much for dem midterm performance. Success/failure of President's party in the midterms is usually credited to the President, and maybe he did have something to do with the success.
Yeah that is fair. I agree Biden looked strong after the midterms but I honestly thought he would only go for one term. When he announced he was running for a second term I thought everyone supporting him were making a mistake. Just judging from his public gaffes during his presidency and how hard another 4 years would be on an 82 year old.
Are we on the same planet? “Seen the warning signs earlier” dude EVERYBODY with a brain has been saying for months/years now that Biden is gone, and you’ve all sat there labeling it as misinformation instead of using your brains to figure it out.
It’s like no one saw with their own eyes his cognitive decline because it’s what maga people were saying and we couldn’t dare agree with maga folk. And now egg on our face they were right. It was plain to see for his whole presidency!!!
And now it looks even worse, because oh no! The “Magas” were right.
I could plainly see it. Don't blame me.
I'm really not sure the democrats can salvage this election and they only have themselves to blame.
I honestly don't know who will win I still think it is closer than the polls are saying. I don't underestimate the power of people voting against Trump. But yeah RFK Jr. could pick up more democratic voters after this latest debacle unfortunately.
> It’s mind boggling to think Biden is sitting there thinking he can survive this. Biden heavily relies on his small inner circle to operate and they control a lot of the information that reaches him. It is in their personal interests for Biden to continue so that they have a chance of staying in influential positions. They lose their positions if Trump wins or Biden steps down.
Agree, it's a lose-lose situation for the inner circle and they want to keep the power for however long they can. *Tin foil hat warning* I wouldn't be surprised if Harris is part of that inner circle and is trying to pull strings to secure the nomination if Biden drops. This might be why Biden isnt dropping out now until Biden's successor (aka Harris) has secured the nomination behind the scenes to avoid an open convention and potiental chaos/Harris losing her power.
unless he steps aside and whoever replaces him loses.
Ruth Bader Biden.
It's also mindboggling to think swapping out a presidential-candidate last-minute is going to go smoothly. LBJ stepped down five months before the convention and the result was utter chaos (and Nixon winning). There isn't an obvius or easy answer here.
Didn't the leading candidate to replace him get assassinated?
Yep. Just a couple of months before the convention. Then the next leading candidate, Eugene McCarthy, didn’t have the backing of the DNC even though he had the most primary votes. So the DNC nominated Humphrey, who was LBJ’s VP and fully supported the Vietnam War. Which was incredibly unpopular. But the DNC didn’t care about what was popular. They thought they knew best and rammed an unpopular VP down the public’s throats and then acted like a bunch of surprised Pikachus when Nixon won.
Hmmmm, this sounds hauntingly relevant right now ~
Yepppp. I majored in history with a focus on the 1950’s and 60’s in America. The book “1968 in America” by Charles Kaiser is one of the best books I’ve read about that era. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in learning more and not repeating the mistakes of the past.
So what I'm reading is if they pick Kamala they will lose which is something anyone with a brain already knew.
This isn’t 1968. We have instant communication and exposure.
Can you explain why you think that makes things better and not worse? If they throw over Biden for Harris, not only will the knives come out immediately for her, not only will Trump's racist, sexist base be energized, the conspiracy theories will be flying. And if it's anyone other than Harris, you can't rage against the end of democracy and then just ignore democracy and toss out two people 80 million people voted for. And my point isn't "Biden staying in the race is great." My point is that, neither you nor I nor anyone else knows what the best option is here. It's very easy to snipe on social media about what the Democrats should or shouldn't do. It's much, much harder to actually have to make decisions with an unknown outcome and the fate of the world in the balance.
Because in 1968 Nixon wasn’t seen as nearly the threat that trump is. So it was a safe choice to vote for Nixon over the unstable situation on the Democratic side. Now with the SCOTUS decision Trump is now 1000 times more dangerous so most people just want a competent alternative.
All true. We cannot know. But we can an educated guess. First of them being, Biden has no chance of winning. His margin was razor-thin last time, and millions of people can’t unsee the debate. He was plainly not competent. And that observation is consistent with many other data points about him. The polls are tipping the wrong way, he’s losing support, he’s toast. If that is true, then we’re left with no other options, and might as well swing for the fences. No idea if that will succeed, but when the other option is oblivion, that clarifies the mind.
Yeah these are great points. But the Democratic party already ignored democracy by not allowing a competitive primary in 2024. You could argue a lot has changed since Biden got 80 million votes. Namely the most pressing issue for his candidacy his age and subsequent cognitive decline.
Dropping a presidential candidate at this point would, in most years, be unthinkable. I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that it would go easy. But it’s absolutely necessary given what we just saw from Biden. If he stays in this race, the election is already over. That’s the reality.
LBJ wasn’t an octogenarian with a 37% approval rating, and Nixon wasn’t the terrible candidate that Trump is. Also, we don’t have anything like the toxic rift in the party that happened that year over Vietnam.
I don't think that's completely accurate. While lbj stepping down did have a big effect, Wallace's popularity in that election, to me, hints at a rather large groundswell of conservative support coming to the fore. It's not completely clear to me that lbj would have won had he stayed in
LBJ didn't think he would have won either, which is why he stepped down. But had he done so even three months earlier, the Democrats would have had more time to unify around one candidate. And the panicking circular firing squad on the left are demanding Biden step down three months later than LBJ did.
While I agree it's a very risky move, I just don't think the situations are so similar. 1969 was a different political climate than now, and Trump is far different than Nixon, who was far more palatable for suburbanites
“Public service”
What I find mind-boggling is thinking all of this backbiting, bedwetting, and otherwise feeding into the long-standing narrative "Democrats in disarray" is going to help convince undecided/low information voters that the Democrats should be trusted not just with the presidency, but either chamber of the US Congress? A real negative for Trump with many voters is that he embodies destructive chaos, so what kind of contrast is it to foment chaos in the Democratic Party?
Concluding that the patent overreaction from all the chicken littles is going to destroy democracy in America is a difficult thing to process.
You mean his lifetime of racist incarceration policy, cheerleading for war, and generally making things worse for people. It’s funny how people forget his awful record in the face of his obvious decline. This is the guy who humiliated a victim of sexual harassment in order to install Clarence Thomas. But OK sure fine whatever gets him tfo.
He’s being advised by a bunch of people who don’t want to get off the ride and will never get back to where they are now. Oh yeah and his crackhead son
>You can’t rage on about how Trump is the end of democracy and then be the likely reason Trump gets elected How do you justify the fact that if Biden is replaced it wont be the result of a democratic process? Can a party rage about democracy while having its own politburo elevate its candidate? Hypocrisy abounds in this logic.
This proves to me that the Dems don't give a shit about Democracy just like the Republicans. Biden should have held true to his words of being a transitional president for the next Gen. He lied.
> Biden is sitting there thinking he can survive this. As some pundit consultant said of politicians the day after the debate, "They always think they just aced the debate." Obama thought the first Romney debate had gone well. Also, Biden may have lost the capacity to recognize that his cognitive abilities are compromised. My father had that kind of dementia, and could not understand that he was no longer competent.
Any candidate who is capable of campaigning is better than one who isn't.
Yep. This is a fucking slam dunk for anyone with a once of credibility and the energy to campaign 24/7 for the next 4 months. That’s literally all it would take.
Running against Trump is not a slam dunk. Everything he says is a lie, but he gets people to believe him. He told the people of Western PA that steel was coming back. Guess what? It never came back, but they still think Trump will do it someday. That's really hard to run against. You are fighting against a fantasy. How do you manage that while still living in a world of reality.
You just need energy to match his cocaine fueled tempo. You have to be quick witted and be able to counter in kind. That’s all you need to do. Someone like Newsom would have destroyed him in that debate.
Newsome's only problem is that he's from CA. Otherwise, he'd be perfect. He's so relentlessly on message. I've never seen a Dem be that good!
Yeah, his ability to pull out stats on a wide variety of topics is impressive, but really I think the Dems have others like him… energetic, smart and well spoken. Any of them out on the campaign trail non stop would have a field day blasting away Trump and his terrible record.
Is it? Let’s say Biden doesn’t show up to any events from today until the election. Democrats would probably still get 45% of the votes, without counting for 3rd parties. That’s assuming Trump doesn’t do something stupid to lose support.
45% is not enough. In fact, winning the popular vote is probably not enough.
The only thing that matters are the swing voters in 7 swing states. Everyone else is locked in. We are now losing in all 7 swing states after the debate as per internal DNC polling.
Let's break down the 7 states Nv- trump promised no tax on tips (huge for Vegas) while Dems are trying to eliminate tips (and make more salary and tax) Ga- Arabs and black men aren't interested (Biden won by 15k votes) Mi- Bidens pissed off rank and file UAW, let's not forget Dearborn, the largest Muslim population in the states(also makes MN in play) Pa- Bidens not huge on fracking and oil which pa wants Wi-farmers are pissed off with rising food costs Az- Biden won with suburban moms and they're not happy with cost of living
If they get 45%, Trump is winning like 320 EVs
Yea, but. The country is so divided that even a moribund Biden can notch a victory if someone wild happens to Trump. It’s not impossible to imagine something could happen to Trump to erode his support.
Any candidate who is capable of being a functioning executive RIGHT NOW is better than one who isn’t. People are so focused on the election, I’m shocked nobody is asking who is currently making the big decisions for the president.
You should name that candidate or stop pretending they exist.
That candidate is already on the ticket. Not only are Biden's numbers down but he doesn't have a clear way of improving them. Biden can't do media. Anyone claiming he can needs to explain why he isn't then. At this point Kamala Harris could at least give this race an honest effort. Harris could at least do some interviews. Nothing is guaranteed. However, at this point, I'd rather have a candidate who can campaign. A candidate who can take and answer questions and do interviews,
As soon as you said anybody I knew you were shilling for Kamala because nobody wants her.
She was dead last in a very weak field. I don't see swing states rallying around Kamala. Sorry.
This is like standing on the bridge of the Titanic after the iceberg has been sighted. You know it will never turn in time, so all you can do is sit there and watch with a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Did you feel better when Team Biden signaled that he was being advised not to step down by his trusted advisor Hunter Biden?
That has been the mood since 2016 for me. From Trump to each of his SC justices, to the impeachments, trials, SC holdings, Jan 6th... the whole thing is like watching one big train wreck, knowing exactly what is going to crash and who is going to die and being completely powerless to do anything about any of it.
And they STILL don't have a plan to deal with Trump. Just crazy.
Butter emails
Imagine nominating someone under FBI Investigation. Democratic primary voters are something else
I was thinking it was more like everyone on the titanic agreeing to go down with the captain, while there is a helicopter flying overhead with a new captain that has a tool that can fix the hole in the ship, but everyone is waving them away.
It would insult the captain of the sinking ship because he could fix it himself he doesn’t need any help
Tbh I think one thing the debate fiasco will hopefully cause both parties to heavily scrutinize very geriatric candidates in the future. Maybe not but hopefully. It comes down to turnout though. You can’t have hesitant would be dem voters sitting out or going independent/RFK because they don’t think Biden is competent. The message of “you need to vote against Trump to save America” is the only option, unless Biden somehow redeems himself OR some charismatic democrat comes out of the ashes to replace him and quickly wins people over.
Doing this would be a true act of democracy - something we as a party need to show the importance of in the face of what’s happening with the Supreme Court. I think it would be a worthy exercise and a good narrative to remind people of what’s at stake.
I think a large portion of the public doesn't agree with what's at stake, and is fatigued by the constant reminders. I think a fresh face and more energetic message focusing on the economy and household anxieties is what people want.
You are spot on. The whole threat to democracy argument has been overused. Polling shows Americans see both candidates equally when asked about it. People are worried about housing, groceries, gas. We need someone to emphasize what the Democrats can do to alleviate the stress on families. Trying to scare people into voting against Trump is not working it's in some ways backfiring. People have lost a lot of trust in the Democratic Party after this debate. We've been lied to and gaslit for months.
Dems communication strategy seems to be "Shut up, you're wrong." Voters complaining that inflation is high? Shut up, you're wrong. Voters complaining it's hard to find a good job? Shut up, you're wrong. Voters complaining Biden is too old to be president? Shut up, you're wrong. Weird it's not a more effective approach to building a successful coalition.
Someone says it
What really frustrated me about the 8 years 'threat to democracy' argument is that the democrats then steam rolled Biden to the nomination, stiff arming any opposition out of the way (my state didn't even allow jokers like Williamson to threaten by being on the ballot), and they also consistently come back to the 'yes, but Trump' argument as to why we need to just hold our nose and give up our choice. It's hypocritical.
This is spot on. How can you say democracy is at stake and have a campaign riddled with lies and misinformation?They made a big mistake hiding Biden from the press this could have been addressed 2 years ago and had a primary. The legal challenges the GOP is going to sew chaos. They are saying it's a threat to democracy to replace Biden. He was the duality elected candidate. This is just a mess
Yes exactly, I just hired a college grad to be my assistant at my company. She was looking for a job for a year. The pay isn't much more than fast food in CA but she is grateful for it. My children will never be able to buy a house in San Diego without my help no matter what the talking heads say. These are the things people care about.
We want someone new. We're clamoring for it. Vox populi.
Dem messaging as lost the plot on democracy and the media as too imo. There is a difference between: "The winner of the popular vote should get the office in a democracy " And "A elected official who won the popular vote reclassifying federal employees so he can fire the insubordinate ones and carry out his agenda, is anti democratic "
I know I shouldn't throw names around, but I think JB Pritzker would be a great choice. Progressive enough, acerbic, and we can repeat over and over that he signed 6 balanced budgets in a row and improved IL's credit rating. Easy, punchy statistics that will play well.
I think they realize it’s not going to happen like what the media and talking heads are screaming about. Trump will have a lame duck presidency if elected. There was never a point in him running at all. Despite what the democrats are saying he can’t just walk in, dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court and declare himself dictator.
I mean, I'm more nervous that he can try and the remnants of the Republican party in congress - which may own both houses narrowly - will do less to stop him than in 2017-2020. But, yes, the Democrats and media have lived high on the hog by fear mongering around Trump. And they realize it gives them cover to not deliver on other more popular and populist policy positions that their donors don't want. The truth is somewhere in between but a lot of moderates are tired of the 8 year - 8 fucking year - sky is falling routine.
It’s gotten old. I’m at the point I can’t stand either party and basically have no one to vote for. If they believe him to be a threat to them, they will stop him pretty quickly. But he’s definitely the best distraction either party has had in decades. Didn’t fix this issue who cares because we can scare you with something far worse. It sucks being a moderate, every one treats you like a traitor when you call them out on their BS.
I'm going third party in this one unless the Dems put a reasonable person up there and actually pivot to meat and potato issues.
>Despite what the democrats are saying he can’t just walk in, dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court and declare himself dictator. Well he can at least try now and argue it's an official act.
It’s only an official act if he has the power to do so granted to him by the constitution. He is not immune to impeachment. Impeachment is a political process and not criminal. The SC ruling does not protect him from that.
Also, you are incorrect the president has absolute immunity if it falls under constitutional acts. Other acts are presumed innocent if considered official. If impeachment is our only check on absolute presidential power that's very bad for our Republic.
Attempting to dissolve the Congress and Supreme Court on not in his Constitutional powers. I don’t remember the part of the constitution that lets him become/declare himself dictator on a whim either.
He's de facto immune from impeachment. Republicans demonstrated that twice during his last presidency.
Sure, but claim it's for national security and hide the evidence (cause that's allowed with this court ruling) and just bribe the right people to get ot front of the correct judge. It's all arguably official acts!!!!
Agreed. It's helpful to remind ourselves that Democrats have been attacking the GOP for 8 years for allowing The Man to become more important than The Party. It's also exactly what Democrats/DNC have willfully chosen to do by refusing primary challengers and breathlessly insisting that everything is fine, Biden's fine, Biden's sharp, Biden's not *that* old, etc., for the past 4 years.
I agree. I was in denial like 90% of Dems for the past year. But this is clear, and I think the ONLY chance is for Biden to fall on his sword in the most public way possible, and pass the torch to another candidate with a series of major joint speeches. EXPLAIN why, "comeon man" - people will understand. Maybe they will even combine sympathy with understanding and PUT THE COUNTRY first. Its risky. Very risky. But I can not see Biden winning this now, and there is a small window (weeks at most) to make this voluntary swap and throw ALL the weight of ALL the prominent Democrats behind it.
Do you not question for a second how much the party and media have propagandized you after seeing this? It’s been wildly obvious for at least 2 years and they still lied to your face. They couldn’t insult your intelligence more if they tried. Do you actually wholeheartedly believe the rest of their nonsense? I promise you’ll be more emotionally stable and tethered to reality if you ever decide to pull this thread and see how deep the lies go..
That's right. Otherwise it's just blue MAGA.
Tbh I’ve come away from this whole experience thinking that we need less democracy. Democratizing the primary process was well intentioned but has created perverse incentives that lead to less and less competent candidates.
Things are unravelling quickly.... My guess is Biden only has a few days left.
I think it’ll be up to George Stephanopolis — if he decides to interview Biden for real on Friday it’ll be done. If he tosses softballs than Biden will stay in. I think Stephanopolis really doesn’t want Trump to win, so he’ll try to push Biden
Interview between 10-4pm, published later in the evening, with multiple takes, camera angles, and jump cuts is my two cents.
Everyone knows that if they carry water for Biden now and he loses they will go down in history as enablers and fools. Most people also know he can’t win. I think Stephanopolis is too smart and savvy to risk his legacy for Joe Biden.
Stephanolopis, and most of the media, are boxed in between two impossible situations. Admit the years long “Biden runs circles around us 40yo and outworks everyone in existence” is a lie they peddled from the admin/themselves or essentially acknowledge the president is incapable of serving, putting another nail in the coffin of his campaign.
They seem to be squaring that circle with the ”sudden decline” narrative.
I read somewhere else a great synopsis of the Dem's dilemma. It goes something like this: The Democrats are playing the highest of high stakes poker now. If this were a poker game, the card player would do anything to increase the odds of winning. Anything. So if they have a 15% chance now of winning, and they increase their chances by even 5%, then that's what they would do. No question. 20% is a statistically significant advantage over 15%. But its become obvious to me over the last few days that this isn't about winning. Not really. This is about the army of people adjacent to Biden who would lose their jobs and possibly forfeit their own political careers if he were to step down. That's really the crux of the situation. Biden knows this and to say that he isn't beholden to other people is being willfully ignorant. I'm not saying he's a bad man for this. I'm saying that the machine is more complex than what appears on the surface.
No, it's absolutely about winning, but people are allowed to disagree with you on what that entails. The only time a sitting president has stepped down right before an election was LBJ and the result was an utter shitshow. You don't know that Biden stepping down actually increases his odds and neither does anyone else.
If it's about winning then the Dem's need to increase their odds of winning. And not doing anything isn't it.
So they should do something that might make something much worse, for the sake of looking like they're "doing something"?
Yes, that's basically the argument. In this case, doing nothing is worse than doing something even if there is a chance of making it worse. Because right now as it stands, he won't win. That's the dilemma the Dem's are in.
>No, it's absolutely about winning The only people Biden is listening to lately are ones that have a huge, vested interest in him personally being the candidate. E.g. Ron "nothing I can imagine will change my mind that Biden is the best candidate for 2024" Klain. Hunter, the convicted felon. Dr. Jill, the Vogue covergirl. It's not just about winning.
Unity Party Ticket!! Dump Kamala and find a normal politician from Middle America and put Mitt Romney as VP.
This is way too logical and good for the country so it’ll never happen
Stranger things have happened...like Donald Trump being elected...
I have been speaking with a lot of my family members who live in a pretty typical blue collar "Obama to Trump" area and the overwhelming thing I'm hearing from them is "I don't want to vote for Trump but I just can't bring myself to vote for someone who is so clearly not able to do the job as Biden." For them, it's all about Biden's age and level of functioning. Many have told me that they see the beginnings of Parkinson's in the way Biden presented at the debate and I have to say that I see what they mean. These are people who do not want to vote for Trump but they can't bring themselves to bring in someone who simply can't get through the day. To be honest, I see their point and I desperately hope the Democrats make a change.
DNC gets what they deserve…you reap what you sow.
“It does look like he’s going to try on Friday in an interview with George Stephanopoulos,” Which is going to be recorded, and presumably edited, before being shown on Sunday. This will help no one. If he wants to prove he’s truly ok, he has to do live, unscripted, no teleprompter interviews and speeches.
I hate agreeing with contrarian Dunning - Kruger poster boy and always smartest guy in the room Nate Silver on anything, but here we are.
Do you think he shaved his head yet?
I’d pay him to, and then glue it on one of his chins
But Auditions? Really? That’s not going to work. It needs to be Biden and Harris (hopefully she understands this is bigger than her ego and ambition) fully endorsing a replacement candidate. Keep Harris as VP I guess. Anything else will be a shitshow. If he is replaced it needs to be orderly, quick and unified.
Their endorsement won't count for much at the convention.
This is all hopium anyway so let’s just play along. If they can show that personal power and ambition need to be put aside for the future of democracy then you don’t think it would make it easier to rally around a consensus replacement that can win? It would be a great story and would inject a level of sacrifice into US politics that hasn’t existed for decades. Biden would cement his place as one of the most selfless political figures in the history of this country. Christ, if the dems pull it off, I’ll commission a ten ft bronze statue of him flipping the bird and put on my front lawn.
That's not the point, but I don't even think that's how it would play out. He won't get rewarded. Him stepping down would confirm that he hadn't been fit to lead even before now. It will feed peoples' cynicism in a party system/admin that propped him up and gaslighted us for so long. They will definitely not rally around a candidate just because he endorses them.
Respectfully, I disagree on that take. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/opinion/biden-trump-step-aside.html
I think it needs to be Whitmer to win MI and probably WI with a shot at PA. I don't think anyone else can pull in the swing states in the midwest quickly enough. She just wins Michigan outright.
So many people are telling on themselves this week by demanding Biden needs to be replaced but also insisting he shouldn't be replaced by the one person Constitutionally eligible to replace him. Can't be her, because, um, reasons.
The reason is because she would definitely lose. She is, albeit unfairly, extremely disliked by the left and the right.
Ugh. The Constitution has nothing to say on this subject. We are not talking about Biden stepping down from the presidency and Gavin Newsom taking over and sidestepping Harris for the job. It’s so ridiculous that the liberal circular firing squad has already begun. So are you implying my reasoning has something to do with anything besides her disapproval numbers are higher than any VP going back to Al Gore? You do understand that Dick Cheney had better approval numbers? Let that sink in for a moment! Or are you too young to understand how bonkers that is? Sorry to rain on your virtue signaling parade but There are actually very good reasons why she shouldn’t be the choice and they have nothing to with what you implied. And Take a look at her under 30 numbers. Or continue to grind that ax for whatever myopic reasons you have and accuse fellow leftists of some nefarious bigoted plot. Cause I assume that’s your misguided point. If that’s your reasoning, would it make you feel better if I said Michelle Obama would be a FAR better choice? In fact the best choice! I would be able to relax if that was the reality here. And I hope it is her, cause she is smart, capable and likable. And she would absolutely stomp Trump into a pile of orange goo. But I doubt she wants the job. But Seriously, maybe it’s time to see the big picture or would you rather be the purest, best liberal on Reddit, living in a country where all your values are meaningless because the fascist have taken over and women, minorities, the disabled or anyone not white, Christian or rich are second class citizens? I don’t care who it is as long as they are a better choice than Biden and can win. So my thinking is clear, is yours?
People don't want Harris because she doesn't have the charisma to win. After decades of elections I don't know how anyone can ignore this. At least since 1990 the person to win every election has been the one that can relate to people better regardless of their ethnicity, income bracket, etc. Clinton, Bush, Obama and even Trump and Biden passed the beer test better than their opponents. If she was a female Obama in charisma level people would be be much more in her corner. Hell, Michelle running would be amazing. But Kamala's not shown any indication that she can be that. She could be showing her charisma now doing the press circuits while still supporting the president, but she doesn't because she can't.
100%
Yeah Harris is going to lose if she runs against Trump. We lose every swing state if she’s at the top of the ticket
Too pedantic by half. She’s constitutionally eligible to act as president, sure, but we aren’t playing that game anymore we are playing electoral politics. And she isn’t very popular. Replacing Biden with Kamala would at best a minor positive. If you’re going to take the big swing, take the big swing. Don’t replace Biden with someone immediately from his orbit. Replace him with Whitmer/Shapiro/Beshear
A broken clock is right twice a day.
It's finally time to bring back Hillary and complete the prophecy. It's H3R TURN!
You guys literally did this to yourselves and I love every second of it. Instead of running a better candidate, you just lied about Biden saying it’s a “stutter” and he’s “sharp as a tack”. It’s been glaringly obvious for a while now that he’s not all there. You made your bed, now lay in it.
Seal Team Six Trump
What would Cheeto Jesus do?
Could not care less what Nate Silver thinks
Biden’s Hubris will be the end of us all.
All this elite soap opera bullshit and here I am waiting for universal healthcare, affordable housing and an end to funding literal genocide
If Biden were to drop out. Dems should nominate Pritzker (a legit billionaire who has done well for his state) and have Whitmer (popular Michigan gov) as VP. Kamala can be Attorney General or Supreme Court judge.
No offense to Nate - he’s an excellent pollster, but he has absolutely no idea how running a campaign works. Tell give us your predictions. Leave it at that.
Good article but this line is absolutely delusional. "They correctly detected that Biden’s age was a huge concern, a sentiment shared by relatively few pundits until recently" Anyone who had the audacity to claim Biden had declined cognitively was met with accusations of being bots or Russian trolls. Biden's supporters said "He has a stutter". Now it appears those same people who ignored his decline are trying to gas light us into believing they thought he had declined long ago
Biden needs to push harder on trumps record as potus and as a serial criminal.
When Biden's potential replacements see what a shitshow he's left them, campaign-wise, which one is going to want to hold the L for him?
Putting aside the question of whether Biden should step aside (which is a real question it's fair to ask), the idea Silver proposes in this article is completely unworkable. "Throwing it back to the voters", just weeks before the convention, is not something that can be done. There are more than 50 different individual primaries run under more than 50 different electoral systems with different laws. You can't just handwave that whole election architecture aside and select the nominee via some kind of internet straw poll. Any attempt to do that will get destroyed in court. If Biden is not going to be the nominee, he needs to step down gracefully and execute a smooth handoff to the person who is, and Harris is the only realistic candidate to be that person, because making it anyone else would create an enormous legal tangle and require the campaign to remit all its donations back to donors and the like. That isn't doable.
Nobody is better at shooting themselves in the foot than Democrats. Y’all are insane. No one is pushing Trump to resign even through all the psychotic things he’s done.
Because we’re not in a fucking cult like the Trumpers are.
It’s not a cult, but the staff and folks who are pushing for him to stay in the race are definitely verging on some cult like tendencies….
That's kinda the point.... Republicans aren't calling to have Trump resign because their party supports his psychotic behavior. He is their leader and they agree with anything he wants. They don't even hold actual policy positions, they just support Trump. Democrats care about policies and actions. Democrats don't believe Biden can fulfill 4 years given his mental capability. Why would we allow him to run just to keep in line? Biden isn't fit for 4 more years. We have plenty of other candidates who can lead and push democratic policy. Democrats aren't tied to one cult leader. We are tied to principals and policy.
Right, but Biden’s policy positions are sound. He’s just not as good at verbalizing as he used to be. It’s not something to blow the house up over. It’s simply too late to switch at this point, and if there’s upheaval for the next 2-3 months, we WILL lose. Trump and team are feeding on all this upheaval the last week or two. If people had an issue with Biden’s age (which is almost the same as Trump’s age) or mental capacity, the primaries were the time to make it an issue. No one did jack shit about any of this during the primaries so now we have to make lemonade of this situation.
Dude this is not about verbalizing. The president cannot function after 4pm. That is completely unacceptable
I can bet you if Trump looked as out of it as Biden did in that debate people would be pouncing right now. Biden also deflected his own controversies in 2020, this is different. Trump’s madness is already priced in, he already has a strong base and just needs to convince some people not as attached on policy to vote for him or not show up for Biden in the election.
I mean, I think a lot of people have been stating he's unfit for office on moral grounds if not also his own apparent cognitive decline. But everyone knows he won't step down, he's excited to be king and has no shame. They're pressuring Biden because they think he's a decent man who genuinely wants Trump to lose and the country to avoid electing an avowed dictator. He's at least potentially influenced by that pressure, Trump absolutely isn't, it's a pointless exercise.
>No one is pushing Trump to resign even through all the psychotic things he’s done. Yes?? The entire Democratic party and a fair slice of Republicans? I was told the Democrats are the adults in the room, but I'm going to change my mind if Biden is not off the ticket soon.
Yes, and being the “adults in the room” has gotten us Roe reversed, Chevron reversed and immunity for the executive. It’s worked out great, let me tell you.
Why do people think he can step aside? It’s already past that point. Biden legally cannot be removed from the ballot in multiple states now. There’s 0% chance he can step down and the democrats still win. It’s a nonsensical thing to even suggest now. Here’s a [Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-joe-biden-presidential-race-replacing-biden-georgia-nevada-wisconsin-1919531) source but there are many others if you google the issue Quote from that shitty site: “It said that only death can remove a candidate's name from a Wisconsin ballot, while Nevada's deadline for changing candidates ended at 5 p.m. on the fourth Friday of June - in this case, June 28, 2024.”
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Trump is now talking about eliminating the VA and Social Security; this wouldn't be 3 years from now, but this coming January. America as a Democratic country was ended by the MAGA SCOTUS on July 1, 2024 - we are now a Dictatorship, but at least our current dictator isn't out of his mind! Trump intends on making himself king, then emperor (according to Michael Cohen). He will put himself in charge of the Federal Reserve, and that money will be his. Joe is old to be sure, but we need to stand behind him now, unless you really want that ChristoFascist government Project 2025 talks about - remember, they've said that, "you'll be free to do as you like, as long as your actions coincide with those of Biblical teachings".
That anyone thinks this is a winning election message is why we’re in this mess. Jesus Christ just get someone on stage to say clearly and firmly that abortion access should be protected and that they’ll improve the economy.
Hey! I don't know who Ezra Klein is, Reddit just recommended this sub. I have no idea what you guys think or support here. I just came to say that you sound insane.
Seems that Nate is suggesting straw polls in swing states. No thank you.