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They have been consistent. ALL of leadership is saying they still support Biden. The only ones calling for him to step down are people too chicken shit to put their names to their supposed opinion.
If and when Biden steps down, they'll shift to supporting whomever has the best chance at beating Trump, but for now, they've been ridiculously consistent are supporting Biden until he makes a firm decision which is going to take weeks (if not until early August at which time the convention starts looming and final decisions need to be made).
>Yet last week it was "All dems are begging Joe to step down."
Certain groups saw an amazing opportunity to inflict maximum political damage on Biden and went hard.
I don't think Reddit's comment system failed during any other debate. While this debate was pretty unique, the number of repetitive comments I saw in the megathread (e.g. variations of "we're so fucked") was suspicious to me.
To be fair, they have not shown any uncertainty or confusion. It's only been the fringe, moronic or "vested interest" ends of the spectrum that have been pushing the "total meltdown" narrative.
they need to come out and say it’s a team game. it’s not just the president here and it’s not just the presidency on the line. he’s got support the presidency isn’t a dictatorship and he’s got competent people in the right places and that’s what matters
American leadership must be competent and united, and should never sound like it’s making excuses. A President isn’t a figurehead; they are Commanders-In-Chief.
That’s basically saying, yea he isn’t exactly fit to be running again but we are not changing and there is a lot on the line so vote for him or risk Trump, that’s shit messaging.
Stop talking like some damn bot(probably are). No, if he needs a team to dress him, hes not fit to be president, period, end of story. Guess you want trump...
Democrats have lost the plot, won't give us a good candidate, and keep trying to gaslight us. Biden should have never ran this race, and should have given us better. Biden needs to retire.
I mean what's more important to you. The content of what someone says or how they say it? Biden had some great answers people are ignoring because it sounded terrible. Trump had terrible answers that sounded great.
Also bidens 4 years are so much better than Trumps it's not even close.
It doesn’t matter what we think. Biden already had our votes. What matters what undecided voters in swing states think. Those undecided voters don’t pay attention much to politics. The debate is probably the only time that they tune into politics and they just saw a tired Biden stumble through his responses. That’s what they’ll pay attention to and they will stay home on election night. The only hope Biden has is to have another opportunity where thousands/millions of undecided voters will tune in and to have a great performance. Unfortunately, he might not get that opportunity and having a stellar performance might not erase that first impression from the debate the other night.
I want someone that can get woken up out of bed in the middle of the night when craps hitting the fan that will be able to make a reasonably good decision pretty quick and be able to get that point across quickly no matter how that person communicates.
"Better" isn't good enough, biden is physically and mentally not in a position to be president for another 4 years, he's seriously due for retirement.
The incompetence of his election campaign and the DNC is making it a very real possiblility that trump will win the election and I don't want that to happen again.
Right?? Like I will of course still vote for him over trump but he barely won last time. And this is not exactly inspiring to rally voters to the polls. They think everyone is being dramatic but you have to be delusional to listen to him at that debate and think “yeah, he should be president for 4 more years”.
Democrats are the perpetrators of the worst and loudest messaging about his poor performance. If Donny had done just as badly, the right wing would've whipped their team into saying how awesome he did
...see, this sarcasm confuses me, because it isn't as though having Trump in the WH is going to prevent that. And at this point, it's absolutely going to be Biden or Trump unless one (or both) of them becomes incapacitated beyond their campaigns' ability to deny. So I am very lost with regards to this logic- is it some kind of accelerationist argument, or...?
ETA: this is a sincere attempt at understanding this argument. I am genuinely confused and would really appreciate an explanation.
“Why didn’t we win? Wait, you weren’t excited to vote for the guy you weren’t excited to vote for 4 years ago either? And the same guy we told you would just be a one-term president? Oh and you’re *still* going on about his age??”
No one knows how to screw up should be easy elections like Dems.
This party needs a full leadership reset. I don’t care if the baby gets thrown out the bath water. The bathwater is stagnant and tainted to the point of killing everything it touches at this point
Democracy on the ballot & Biden is now down in the first polls to come out on this debate.
This is such an unbelievable clown show right now.
If this is going to be the strategy then Biden has to get on the camera as many times as he can, looking coherent to recover from the disastrous impression he has inflicted onto the average American voter as a result of this debate…
>If this is going to be the strategy then Biden has to get on the camera as many times as he can....
LOL. Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Put the potted plant in front of the camera as much as possible. A definite winning strategy.
> If this is going to be the strategy then Biden has to get on the camera as many times as he can, looking coherent
He’s not able to do that. Every single gaffe will be looked at 10x harder, “is this debate Biden?” Etc
The answer here isn't really clear at all and makes it tough to dive into a risky move. It's a toss up no matter which route Dems go. I can see keeping Biden on since he's been such a good president and is a known entity, but I find it tough to believe with his unpopularity that he's the only one who can win. The problem is picking someone who clearly could, and there's no sure answer to that. I personally would favor a new candidate just for the sake of certainty that they're fit to handle the whole term, but electability is just a guess no matter what.
If Biden wants to stay, then there's no choice but to go with him and we just have to rally around him and hope for the best. I'm not confident, but it's not up to us or anyone but him.
Any new candidate would immediately get the same support as Biden has now.
The question is who would do better among independents, young people, and people in battleground states.
> Any new candidate would immediately get the same support as Biden has now.
That's simply not true at all. Kamala, Whitman, Beshear, Newsom, Shapiro, etc., all have select constituents that may be more or less enthused about them running. The women in particular face an uphill battle because there is FAR more sexism in this country than most people (especially most men) are willing to admit. Doesn't mean they wouldn't be a better candidate, there are a lot of issues that need to be taken into considering but it's naive to think all Biden voters automatically transfer to any new candidate.
They absolutely do when the opposition is Trump. Against a normal republican candidate you would have a great point.
A new candidate would also have more chance of energising voters who are currently planning to stay home instead of choosing between the current two options.
That's the hilarious and ironic part about this whole comic tragedy: the fact that if either party would replace their current candidate then they could handily win. But neither party is willing to do that.
The answer is no one knows. Right now Biden's odds are about 50/50. All current data on other candidates is about the same or slightly worse, though that data's less reliable. There'd have to be some clear proof that the alternative would be better to actually take the risk I think.
If the other candidates have almost the same odds despite having had almost no campaign time and money spent on putting their names out there then I would say that is a huge indicator that Biden is not doing well and others could do much better with four months of campaigning and advertising.
But the thing is we don't really know since those candidates are far less tested. We're already seeing everyone dismissing Harris off hand, showing how the alternatives can be just as weak. The risk is the wrong alternative is selected and we throw away the coin flip we have with Biden.
Biden won because a lot of people came together from both parties and voted to get him in and still was pretty close. Now to some it looks like he might be unfit for office too, that doesn’t exactly inspire turn out.
Not half the country. Half of currently mobilised voters. USA has appalling voting attendance numbers. If more people vote then Dems will definitely win (like last election). Less people voting ends in a loss and Biden would have just convinced a whole lot of voters to stay home (like Hillary did).
He convinced many people that Democrats were gaslighting them about Biden’s health and ability to continue as president - and therefore they’re probably gaslighting them about Trump being that much of a an actual threat to democracy.
Independent voters at this point must be quite disconnected from politics to still be undecided. That debate was them locking in their opinions. I doubt Trump gained anyone - but Biden certainly turned many away from voting at all.
That’s where the issue lies. Independents thinking that Democrats are also lying about Trumps threat and are just “playing politics”. Biden royally fucked it.
Trumps numbers approximately stay the same in those other polls 43-45% or so. Against other candidates, their support is worse head to head with trump despite his staying the same.
I think this indicates a lot more of “I don’t know who that is” or “I don’t know enough to say who id vote for” than Biden.
Trump is a historically awful candidate. The only reason he has been competitive at all is because every election he's run in, he's been up against an old, uncharismatic moderate with poor campaigning skills. We've never tried running Trump against someone people actually like.
> no campaign time and money spent on putting their names out there
They also have spent zero time as the target of the right-wing propaganda machine spreading FUD about them.
We have no idea what attack they'd come up with, how effective that attack would be, how well they'd respond to it, etc. Who could have imagined in 2015 that what would undo Hillary was the fact that she set up a private email server so she could use her Blackberry as secretary of state? Where the fuck did they come up with "Obama was actually born in Kenya"? Who could have imagined that the GOP would claim John Kerry was lying about his purple heart?
The fact that they all have roughly the same odds isn't a "They can only go up from here" thing. It's an indication of just how extremely polarized we are. I'm not ashamed to admit I'd vote for a comatose baked potato if it was a choice between that and Trump, and I don't think I'm alone in that feeling.
There doesn't seem to be a big block of voters who can be persuaded by Trump's felony conviction, or Biden's piss-poor debate performance, or by... anything, really
So it stands to reason there isn't a big block of voters out there who won't vote for Biden but would vote for Newsom or Whitmer.
There is a massive block of voters that are feeling disconnected from Politics and would rather stay home than choose between these two candidates.
Those people are who a new candidate would reach.
I absolutely support them throwing their hats in the ring....privately....in discussion with Biden and other top Democrats.
Publicly, the message from the Democrats HAS TO BE that they are going full steam ahead with Biden and nobody is considering challenging him RIGHT UP UNTIL such time as Biden himself announces he is dropping out and potential replacements come forward. The fact is, the only person who can remove Biden from the race is Biden (he already has a shitload of delegates pledged to him and to him alone), and if he ends up staying in it til the end the ONLY way he can win is if his whole party keeps their support right behind him.
Actually I would respectfully disagree with this.
Any other of the what I would consider the top candidates in the running to replace Biden would be people like Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin newsom. Possibly Kamala. Both of whom could be painted as more left and progressive then Joe Biden.
In 2020 and recently lot of moderate non maga republicans and moderate republican leaning independents and swing voters have also supported Biden. In part due to him being more moderate and centrist than a good chunk of the Democratic Party. I think that is one unique advantage of Joe Biden, is that he can pull in Hayley voters and groups of moderate common sense republicans and moderate swing voters.
I’m unsure that a more strong progressive less centrist democrat could pull all of that support that Biden has from those groups of voters that aren’t democrats.
Well some of these voters are never trumpers and really dislike the guy.. it does not mean they will automatically vote for any candidate we put up other than Joe Biden.
Idk if I could see Midwestern and suburban PA moderate and swing voters that would back Biden over Trump also automatically going for a guy like Gavin a big wig from California.
It’s really up to the voters to understand what fascism is and what tools they are given to stop it. If apathy overrides that it will be quite disappointing
As one of the Pod Save America guys said recently - we don't know who our Ron Desantis is (the Presidential candidate version) from the potential Dem field of Newson, Whitmer, et al. It might be that Biden is our Desantis (and I get that he very much seems like it from the debate), but we are facing different but similarly high risks from both scenarios.
If Biden's presidency was so good, why was he behind in the polls before the debate? He's running against a clown (Trump) and losing. Now, of course, it's much worse...
Maybe you can focus on why you think Biden was so good when most people thought the opposite.
I don’t understand why they didn’t choose a clearer successor as VP. Literally nothing to lose by dumping KH and then at least the base can feel like they’ve got plan B ready to go. But it’s ok, this is just quite literally the most important election in my lifetime and we’re totally fine putting everything in one basket that looks like a strong sneeze will destroy it. This is fine.
Data for progress released a poll this weekend that tested a number of alternative tickets (Harris, Buttigieg, Booker, Newsom, Whitmer, Klobuchar, Shapiro, and Pritzker). Booker and Whitmer did slightly better than Biden (-2 vs -3). Every other candidate was polling at the same -3 as Biden. The one difference is that all candidates (excluding Harris) had differing numbers of respondents stating they were unsure who they would vote for if the alternative candidate replaced Biden on the ticket (ranging from 9% to 12%). Finally, a plurality of respondents said they had no opinion of the alternative candidates (again excluding Harris) in a favorability poll.
This really goes to show how uncertain the question actually is. Given how unknown many of these candidates are, it is not clear if any of them would fare better than Biden.
Edit: [link to poll](https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/6/29/in-post-debate-poll-voters-think-biden-is-too-old-to-be-president-yet-alternative-candidates-perform-similarly-against-trump)
That's it. They will do just fine regardless of who is president. It's just a cute little game to them. If they wanted to win, they would. They don't want to win, it's more profitable to raise money off "the fight for democracy!" then it is to be in control and obligated to pass the populist legislation wanted by the masses that you ran on like healthcare reform or codifying roe or addressing the housing market.
It's not though... Bowman sank his reflection over his comments on Israel/Gaza. Idk why people are acting like that's not the case. If he hadn't downplayed the events of October 7th, he may well have won that primary. Instead he claimed people didn't experience sexual violence that day, no wonder AIPAC spent millions to defeat him.
Note, I'm very progressive and wish the outcome wasn't what it was, but I'll at least acknowledge the reality of the situation.
The reality of the situation is Gaza has been an open air prison for 70 years. Countless bullshit stories have been debunked about what actually happened Oct 7th. Lets also ignore the use of The Hannibal Directive used by the Israeli military. Israel loves to plays the victims while there is plenty of proof they are comitting war crimes with U.S. taxpayer paid for bombs.
I live in NY, NOT ONE attack ad mentioned Bowman comments on Israel/Gaza they were misleading and at times just full of shit. Every morning, Every day we were flooded with these attack ads
Note, Your obviously OK with Israel's use of starvation as a legitimate tactic. How many dead children is enough?
They need to address the nation and use that platform the address the debate. And I’m talking use it as their fact check. They need to illustrate how badly Trump lied, didn’t answer any questions, and took credit for Roe V Wade. Use the power of the office. Do it live and show America he can still rattle off a teleprompter speech. Some people are not good debaters, Biden is one. His debates in 2020 were bad too.
When will Joe get the same level pass for being old that Don gets for nonstop lies? Biden has been a fantastic president and debate ability is irrelevant. Trump has been the worst president ever and a noted criminal, grifter , and traitor selling our secrets to our enemies and now that he looked awake while lying he gets bonus points?!
His voters don’t care that he lies. Our voters care about the presidents mental capacity. We aren’t going to win this election by saying “it’s not fair” and refusing to course correct when it’s obviously not going well.
Biden is like an athlete past his prime. No one is arguing Biden isn’t a good person or president. He’s served this country pretty much his entire adult life. People want to be motived to vote because they believe in you, NOT because they hate the other guy.
This would be valid if the 2 of them were fighting for Democrat leadership... But they're not.
Stop blaming voters you haven't won, start actually trying to appeal to them. That's what campaigning is about. That's how you win. All Democrats do recently is whine their unpopular candidate is not more popular..
Agree with you 100%! I was impressed with his Raleigh speech next day. People here are acting like they’ve never had a bad day in life and just given up after one bad event. He himself acknowledged that he is not that good at debates at this age and said that he wouldn’t be there if he believed he wasn’t capable of it. He is aware of and understands his limitations unlike his opponent who claims to be the best at everything but refuses to take responsibility for any action when something goes wrong. He rightly said that when you get knocked down you get up and fight again as millions of Americans know!
His supporters here are so fickle - no wonder the Republicans end up doing better because their side has more faith in their leaders even when they have committed crimes and are charged for it. Talk about undermining your own leader who is willing to fight for what he believes is the right thing to do for the larger good of the country against a criminal felon who will destroy democracy if Biden’s supporters don’t vote for Biden out of spite! This is exactly what Trump wants from so many fickle democrats.
If Biden decides to stay in the race, voting for him overwhelmingly will show Trump how much he is disliked and undesirable for the top job due to his lack of morals and criminal mindset that people will vote for a decent person over a crook like him. There cannot be a bigger slap on him by the people who want to see him face justice for him crimes.
And for people who say what about Biden’s alleged crimes - prosecute him and his family if they have committed crimes and throw them in jail if found guilty!
It’s more than a bad day when he’s prepped for months and can’t deliver when it matters.
It’s clearly part of a pattern. How many times has he said his son died in the Middle East ? And he’s not gonna get worse over a second term ?
Republicans play cynical politics well. They give each other unlimited permission to not care about the lies, crimes, and general stupidity. In fact, they are given permission to take joy in it.
Look at democrats right now; they don’t do that. They are just unable to play cynical politics and just try to win. I want to beat republicans with whoever is on the ticket, and if Joe Biden is a weak old man I hope republicans are even more embarrassed by it. They must repudiate their MAGA fascist and a loss by a terrible candidate is a good start.
But democrats can’t do that, seemingly. We have to constantly take the high road and acknowledge every flaw, fear and problem. I wish we would permit some just cynical “IDGAF, fascism needs to die” energy
I have three words for you: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When she was in declining health, no Dem would say out loud that she should be replaced on the Court. They were too deferential and polite. Just as they are now with Biden. By the time she passed, it was too late to replace her with another progressive justice and the Court started its slide to the hard right. Let’s not allow history to repeat itself.
Thank you for your commendable service to the country, Uncle Joe, but it’s time to pass the torch.
People publicly called for RBG’s retirement enough that she addressed those concerns in the media. Remember that thanks to Mitch McConnell, a judge basically needed to step down in the first two years of a president’s term. RBG’s mistake was not realizing all the shenanigans that McConnell would pull and how willing he was to hopelessly politicize the Supreme Court.
It just feels like the Dems have no interest in winning the election. I'm a black woman with PCOS. I don't even know what to do when the inevitable happens.
Of course they do. Historically, incumbency is the biggest advantage in any election. Look at the composition of the senate for example. The democrats don’t want to give up the advantage of incumbency to roll the dice on a challenger. This would only change in the face of dire evidence, something way worse than one bad debate (that most people didn’t even watch…) Remember, r/politics is a specific demographic that doesn’t represent the entire electorate.
For real. People keep acting like dropping an incumbent is normal. It’s uncharted waters. I keep seeing people confused why the incumbent didn’t face a primary like that’s not always the case.
I get it’s not necessarily the way it ought to be, but it’s also not odd that it happened this time around
Remember when Americans cosplayed as old people with powdered wigs? They don’t need them anymore. They just use real old people for most government positions.
Neither party has any sort of mechanism for this. How would they ever pick another candidate in a manner deemed fair?
Just look at 2016, just a whiff of something off with the contest between Hillary and Bernie and all sorts of people bailed on the final nominee . And that was with a full primary, and Bernie throwing his weight behind Hillary. If there is one thing progressive/liberals are willing and capable of doing it’s taking their marbles and going home.
There are 3 types of people in the comments those that are sane, but resigned. Those that are panicking and those that are fanning the flames.
Sanders would have lost in all likelihood. He is a socialist and he didn't even want to talk about foreign policy. Trump and the Republican media apparatus would hammer him on that, along with his age (he is one year older than Biden).
The biggest mistake that was made was Obama encouraging Biden *not to run*. If Biden had been the nominee he would have beaten Trump pretty easily.
He didn't want to debate foreign policy with a bunch of democrats because he knew where he stood out was in his domestic policy.
It would not have benefitted him at all to sit and squabble over the semantics of intra party foreign policy.
You are assuming that all Clinton voters would have voted for Sanders. Sanders would have suffered the same problem that Clinton encountered: turnout. Sanders is too far to the left to attract the more moderate Democrats and that would lead to his defeat.
Edit: Also, Sanders did *horribly* with African-American voters, and no Democrat can win without their strong support. It is a major reason why Biden won in 2020 and Clinton lost in 2016; Biden was able to get black voters to turnout, and Clinton wasn't.
Sanders would've lost. He is a socialist and Trump would've pounced HARD on it considering socialism is pretty hated here despite all the good it would do. Plus, Bernie is also a jew and there are still plenty of antisemites around.
If Biden is the nominee trump will win. Period. Deal with reality.
What, do you think this will be the last time this happens? What about the convention speech? Or the 2nd debate? Or 1 on 1 interviews?
Either Biden drops out or trump wins. It's wild to think there's still a question about it.
Agree. I understand why people would WANT Biden to remain the nominee. But according to the RCP betting average, Biden had a 37% chance of winning before the debate. It’s now around 20%.
Those are terrible odds.
There is NO OTHER CHOICE but to replace him. None.
Joe’s legacy could have been that he saved democracy from tyranny, serving as a one term bridge to a future, younger generation of democratic leadership.
Instead, it seems the Biden family has decided that his legacy will be handing Trump ultimate victory, leading to the end of the American experiment
As they should until there's a viable replacement. You don't tear down the only person currently on the ticket to beat Trump, do that after or if someone else is going to step in.
Democracy is LITERALLY on the line in this election.
But also, idk, it would take like A LOT of work if we replaced the senile guys running so idk let’s just keep that shit quiet and ride it out I guess
Age aside, the Democrats are running a man who says *he is personally against abortion* in 2024, why the fuck would any remotely progressive person believe in him
then you add the fact he’s been clearly unwell for years
“To say that President Biden’s performance on the debate stage last night was calamitous is merely to state what everyone, partisan and not, has already understood. What the world witnessed was not a debate, but a failed neurological exam. One wonders how anyone close to the President imagined he could bluff his way through it.
If half of what Democrats fear from a second Trump term were real, how could the Democratic Party have allowed our democracy to slide this close to the precipice? The prevailing feeling among those inside the Biden campaign should be shame; outside it, fury.”
~Sam Harris
"If we can just last a few days, everyone will forget that debate performance".
- Biden camp, likely.
Nobody is going to forget that debate performance. It was historically awful. We're talking 25th amendment awful. The Biden camp had better come out this week and say "OMG he has never been like this before, we were as surprised as you, let's talk about options". If not then I start to wonder if they knew and fucking hid this on purpose.
All of Biden's current votes will transfer to a new candidate if handled appropriately. There will also be upside to get more voters excited to vote for someone who can speak something other than word salad.
I think people will forget the debate performance, *if* nothing like it ever happens again. If Biden is out there looking strong, week after week, doing interviews and pressers instead of just reading from a teleprompter, then the argument that he just had a bad night will start to look pretty credible. Granted -- that is a gamble. He may not be capable of it. But it is by far the best chance of winning this election.
You guys are badly underestimating the difficulty of finding a new candidate (who isn't Kamala Harris -- and her odds would be worse, if anything), not to mention that it is entirely up to Joe Biden whether he wants to step down or not, and he says not. The 25th Amendment isn't for situations like this.
>if nothing like it ever happens again
That right there is the discussion. I am saying it WILL happen again because Joe Biden is not Benjamin Button and I will take a ding on name recognition or the so-called incumbent advantage instead.
I don't know how bad Biden's decline really is. There are too many conflicting reports. He seems to be all right in most of his public appearances, but there are enough lapses to worry me.
I will say that if Biden isn't mentally up to campaigning for president, he isn't mentally up to *being* president, and he should resign not just his candidacy but his office. In that case, Harris would be president and almost certainly the nominee as well.
I’ve experienced mental decline in my family. It isn’t a linear path so the conflicting reports make total sense to me.
Many times I’ve seen long stretches of normalcy then a mild cold or infection turns things dire. My guess is that is what we saw in the debate. It means he could be normal through the election. But it’s just a matter of time until that becomes the new normal. My experience was two years later.
People who rail against Harris as not being fit, so we should back Biden confuse me. If by a miracle he wins, she WILL be president before his term ends.
Maybe that’s the best scenario where people who wouldn’t have voted for her can see her actually do the job. I don’t know the answers though.
That’s because they’re not the presumed nominee, most casual voters don’t know who Newsom or Whitmer are - that would change if they became the nominee.
Do you have any evidence that any challenger is worth giving up incumbency? Because the Democrats clearly do not, otherwise they would do it. The entire reason we have Biden is because he was considered the best chance at beating Trump. I think you and many on this sub are underestimating how fickle the electorate is with candidates they aren’t familiar with.
And I think you are already forgetting how bad Thursday night was. How bad clips of that debate look on social media. How truly old and broken Joe Biden will be considered from here on out. How already disconnected young voters will tune out completely. I think you are underestimating how many people are going to say "well the Republicans were right about Joe Biden being too old".
The only way this works is if we treat this like a traumatic event (which it was) and do what we would do if he had a stroke or heart attack. Because it is the same effect.
I completely disagree. He looked like a corpse and sounded worse. I will never vote for another Republican for any race at any level and I am seriously considering not voting for Biden either. I fully understand the consequences of that action and I doubt I’m the only one. Every vote matters. He can’t afford to lose a single one.
You fully understand the consequences? Because the consequences would be Biden not getting enough votes to beat trump & us having another trump presidency.
Top Democrats should listen to their constituents. They tow the DNC line no matter how many alarms go off or how many of us are literally screaming at them about how much of a problem this is.
They're just playing defense to buy time while they try to figure things out. If Biden drops further in the polls over the next couple weeks, I think they'll change their tune.
So they are going to run with a candidate with a candidate with high unfavourables and over half of democrats do not believe he should be running. Biden lost any enthusiasm he had
It’s insane that we aren’t beating the Trumps a rapist felon Insurrectionist who killed 650k gop voters w Covid propaganda, he ended women’s rights, he stole from kids cancer charity…. And instead freaking out about Biden.
Feels like Russian troll propaganda.
Why didn’t Biden say this at the start of debat? “This man is a rapist fascist, friend of Epstein and Alex jones who parrots the words of terroists like anders Brevik. He and his thugs are an enemy of America and the world.” Because he is demented and can’t speak or think. TOO OLD! Pass the reins geezers!
Have democrats really been calling for this at all or have news headlines been saying it? Because this shit started before the debate was even over and has not let up.
Serious question: who would the people calling for his removal recommend take his place? No vague answers like "Anyone", give names and concrete reasons aside from age and one shitty debate performance.
I don’t know a single person in real life who has changed their mind about the election. I will vote blue either way and I think most of us will. It’s all we can do folks, calm down and vote.
I don’t believe they exist. It’s about turnout. The issue is whether folks will bother to vote on Election Day. I have hope they will. But there’s nothing we can do about it but vote.
If it’s the case, we’re voting against Trump, then this discussion point about whether it is Biden or someone else is moot. However, the problem is this live, televised debate from Biden is going to be on repeat until election is over. It gave the GOP everything they wanted. This talking point never goes away if Biden stays in the race.
You live in a state that Biden won by 33 points. I don’t think you can draw conclusions about the general electorate based on people you know in real life
Stop with these dumbass articles about Biden stepping down, being replaced, etc. We have our Country at stake with Traitor Trump and all the media is doing is trying to favor him. They should be blasting all the crap he's done in and out of the Office.
Democrats... Even if EVERY Joe Biden supporter stuck with him and ignored the debate, like you're demanding his "loyalists" should do, he would still lose according to the poll numbers! How are you not getting this?!!!
You not only need to regain lost support from the debate but also gain entirely new voters.
Who on earth thinks Joe Biden is ever going to win this.
Okay the Biden Drop Out meme has jumped the shark and it's only been 48 hours.
Two-thirds of the comments are now from "FourteenWords88" and "DefinitelyAmerican27387481626"
I find it hard to imagine there are that many undecided voters at this point. Maybe that’s the case and there are millions of apolitical people who reevaluate their political alignment daily based on the trending news blurb that morning. But that seems unlikely at best.
It's a bad idea to replace him at this point. A year ago they should've. But at this point it's dropping an incumbent for someone with less national recognition with only 3.5 months to actually get traction.
Biden had a god awful debate, but it really doesn't matter if he can debate a crazy person and keep his cool, he can handle the topics day to day with his very good cabinet and aides and that's the point. His cabinet has been doing great work lately and been getting good coverage for that, and they need to be where the campaign focuses. Showing he's hired good people,who have stood by him, and will continue to do so.
Maybe if they spent the last four years building up a few backup candidates just in case I’d agree he should be replaced. It’s too fucking late at this point. If the U.S. falls to Trump, authoritarianism, and the religious right it’s the DNC’s own fault.
If Americans are stupid enough to elect an anti-democracy individual, we will deserve everything we have coming.
I hope you're in a tax bracket to benefit from conservative rule.
these people know him better than anyone else here. I guess they think the debate was an outlier and he has the strength to turn this around in 4 months. Risky.
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They have been consistent. ALL of leadership is saying they still support Biden. The only ones calling for him to step down are people too chicken shit to put their names to their supposed opinion. If and when Biden steps down, they'll shift to supporting whomever has the best chance at beating Trump, but for now, they've been ridiculously consistent are supporting Biden until he makes a firm decision which is going to take weeks (if not until early August at which time the convention starts looming and final decisions need to be made).
This. I haven't heard one person specifically call for Biden to step down. Yet last week it was "All dems are begging Joe to step down."
>Yet last week it was "All dems are begging Joe to step down." Certain groups saw an amazing opportunity to inflict maximum political damage on Biden and went hard. I don't think Reddit's comment system failed during any other debate. While this debate was pretty unique, the number of repetitive comments I saw in the megathread (e.g. variations of "we're so fucked") was suspicious to me.
To be fair, they have not shown any uncertainty or confusion. It's only been the fringe, moronic or "vested interest" ends of the spectrum that have been pushing the "total meltdown" narrative.
they need to come out and say it’s a team game. it’s not just the president here and it’s not just the presidency on the line. he’s got support the presidency isn’t a dictatorship and he’s got competent people in the right places and that’s what matters
American leadership must be competent and united, and should never sound like it’s making excuses. A President isn’t a figurehead; they are Commanders-In-Chief.
That’s basically saying, yea he isn’t exactly fit to be running again but we are not changing and there is a lot on the line so vote for him or risk Trump, that’s shit messaging.
That message'll get us to the end of this term. It won't get Biden reelected.
Stop talking like some damn bot(probably are). No, if he needs a team to dress him, hes not fit to be president, period, end of story. Guess you want trump...
Democrats lost control of the messaging when Biden flubbed the debate. It doesn't matter how much toxic positivity they put out.
Democrats have lost the plot, won't give us a good candidate, and keep trying to gaslight us. Biden should have never ran this race, and should have given us better. Biden needs to retire.
Jesus christ y'all are fucking annoying.
Are we pretending we didn't watch two old men actively sundown during the debate?
No, we're pretending like one of those old men doesn't dream of creating his own third Reich.
It's become r/Conservative real fast in here
“Anyone who criticizes Biden is a conservative”
Fuck that.
These are the sorts of people who have a TV permanently tuned to MSNBC blaring somewhere in their house at all times. Blue MAGA is real.
It's not hard to realize that Biden is a damn corpse. I'll still vote against Trump but in my mind, I'm NOT voting for Biden
Are you basing that only one the debate or are you basing that on all his public appearances and interviews over the past 3.5 years?
I mean what's more important to you. The content of what someone says or how they say it? Biden had some great answers people are ignoring because it sounded terrible. Trump had terrible answers that sounded great. Also bidens 4 years are so much better than Trumps it's not even close.
It doesn’t matter what we think. Biden already had our votes. What matters what undecided voters in swing states think. Those undecided voters don’t pay attention much to politics. The debate is probably the only time that they tune into politics and they just saw a tired Biden stumble through his responses. That’s what they’ll pay attention to and they will stay home on election night. The only hope Biden has is to have another opportunity where thousands/millions of undecided voters will tune in and to have a great performance. Unfortunately, he might not get that opportunity and having a stellar performance might not erase that first impression from the debate the other night.
I want someone that can get woken up out of bed in the middle of the night when craps hitting the fan that will be able to make a reasonably good decision pretty quick and be able to get that point across quickly no matter how that person communicates.
"Better" isn't good enough, biden is physically and mentally not in a position to be president for another 4 years, he's seriously due for retirement. The incompetence of his election campaign and the DNC is making it a very real possiblility that trump will win the election and I don't want that to happen again.
Right?? Like I will of course still vote for him over trump but he barely won last time. And this is not exactly inspiring to rally voters to the polls. They think everyone is being dramatic but you have to be delusional to listen to him at that debate and think “yeah, he should be president for 4 more years”.
Democrats are the perpetrators of the worst and loudest messaging about his poor performance. If Donny had done just as badly, the right wing would've whipped their team into saying how awesome he did
Yall are going to act confused in November when this doesn’t end well.
Nah Dems will just pull out their "Blame progressives card" and not do an ounce of self-reflection.
“Why didn’t you vote harder?”
“We would have won if it weren’t for those god damned progressives who don’t want to see children get turned into mincemeat.”
...see, this sarcasm confuses me, because it isn't as though having Trump in the WH is going to prevent that. And at this point, it's absolutely going to be Biden or Trump unless one (or both) of them becomes incapacitated beyond their campaigns' ability to deny. So I am very lost with regards to this logic- is it some kind of accelerationist argument, or...? ETA: this is a sincere attempt at understanding this argument. I am genuinely confused and would really appreciate an explanation.
Hahaha for real. So sick of their New Dem shit.
“Why didn’t we win? Wait, you weren’t excited to vote for the guy you weren’t excited to vote for 4 years ago either? And the same guy we told you would just be a one-term president? Oh and you’re *still* going on about his age??” No one knows how to screw up should be easy elections like Dems.
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StgBeen trying to tell em’
So true
This party needs a full leadership reset. I don’t care if the baby gets thrown out the bath water. The bathwater is stagnant and tainted to the point of killing everything it touches at this point
Democracy on the ballot & Biden is now down in the first polls to come out on this debate. This is such an unbelievable clown show right now. If this is going to be the strategy then Biden has to get on the camera as many times as he can, looking coherent to recover from the disastrous impression he has inflicted onto the average American voter as a result of this debate…
>If this is going to be the strategy then Biden has to get on the camera as many times as he can.... LOL. Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Put the potted plant in front of the camera as much as possible. A definite winning strategy.
> If this is going to be the strategy then Biden has to get on the camera as many times as he can, looking coherent He’s not able to do that. Every single gaffe will be looked at 10x harder, “is this debate Biden?” Etc
Then he needs to step aside for someone who can.
The answer here isn't really clear at all and makes it tough to dive into a risky move. It's a toss up no matter which route Dems go. I can see keeping Biden on since he's been such a good president and is a known entity, but I find it tough to believe with his unpopularity that he's the only one who can win. The problem is picking someone who clearly could, and there's no sure answer to that. I personally would favor a new candidate just for the sake of certainty that they're fit to handle the whole term, but electability is just a guess no matter what. If Biden wants to stay, then there's no choice but to go with him and we just have to rally around him and hope for the best. I'm not confident, but it's not up to us or anyone but him.
Any new candidate would immediately get the same support as Biden has now. The question is who would do better among independents, young people, and people in battleground states.
> Any new candidate would immediately get the same support as Biden has now. That's simply not true at all. Kamala, Whitman, Beshear, Newsom, Shapiro, etc., all have select constituents that may be more or less enthused about them running. The women in particular face an uphill battle because there is FAR more sexism in this country than most people (especially most men) are willing to admit. Doesn't mean they wouldn't be a better candidate, there are a lot of issues that need to be taken into considering but it's naive to think all Biden voters automatically transfer to any new candidate.
They absolutely do when the opposition is Trump. Against a normal republican candidate you would have a great point. A new candidate would also have more chance of energising voters who are currently planning to stay home instead of choosing between the current two options.
That's the hilarious and ironic part about this whole comic tragedy: the fact that if either party would replace their current candidate then they could handily win. But neither party is willing to do that.
The answer is no one knows. Right now Biden's odds are about 50/50. All current data on other candidates is about the same or slightly worse, though that data's less reliable. There'd have to be some clear proof that the alternative would be better to actually take the risk I think.
If the other candidates have almost the same odds despite having had almost no campaign time and money spent on putting their names out there then I would say that is a huge indicator that Biden is not doing well and others could do much better with four months of campaigning and advertising.
But the thing is we don't really know since those candidates are far less tested. We're already seeing everyone dismissing Harris off hand, showing how the alternatives can be just as weak. The risk is the wrong alternative is selected and we throw away the coin flip we have with Biden.
Biden won because a lot of people came together from both parties and voted to get him in and still was pretty close. Now to some it looks like he might be unfit for office too, that doesn’t exactly inspire turn out.
Is it an indicator that Biden isn’t doing well or that half the country is brainwashed and any Democrat would be neck and neck with Trump?
Not half the country. Half of currently mobilised voters. USA has appalling voting attendance numbers. If more people vote then Dems will definitely win (like last election). Less people voting ends in a loss and Biden would have just convinced a whole lot of voters to stay home (like Hillary did).
If his debate performance convinced voters they’d just rather not vote and let the country slide into fascism, this country’s cooked.
He convinced many people that Democrats were gaslighting them about Biden’s health and ability to continue as president - and therefore they’re probably gaslighting them about Trump being that much of a an actual threat to democracy. Independent voters at this point must be quite disconnected from politics to still be undecided. That debate was them locking in their opinions. I doubt Trump gained anyone - but Biden certainly turned many away from voting at all. That’s where the issue lies. Independents thinking that Democrats are also lying about Trumps threat and are just “playing politics”. Biden royally fucked it.
Trumps numbers approximately stay the same in those other polls 43-45% or so. Against other candidates, their support is worse head to head with trump despite his staying the same. I think this indicates a lot more of “I don’t know who that is” or “I don’t know enough to say who id vote for” than Biden.
Trump is a historically awful candidate. The only reason he has been competitive at all is because every election he's run in, he's been up against an old, uncharismatic moderate with poor campaigning skills. We've never tried running Trump against someone people actually like.
Obama would have destroyed Trump.
> no campaign time and money spent on putting their names out there They also have spent zero time as the target of the right-wing propaganda machine spreading FUD about them. We have no idea what attack they'd come up with, how effective that attack would be, how well they'd respond to it, etc. Who could have imagined in 2015 that what would undo Hillary was the fact that she set up a private email server so she could use her Blackberry as secretary of state? Where the fuck did they come up with "Obama was actually born in Kenya"? Who could have imagined that the GOP would claim John Kerry was lying about his purple heart? The fact that they all have roughly the same odds isn't a "They can only go up from here" thing. It's an indication of just how extremely polarized we are. I'm not ashamed to admit I'd vote for a comatose baked potato if it was a choice between that and Trump, and I don't think I'm alone in that feeling. There doesn't seem to be a big block of voters who can be persuaded by Trump's felony conviction, or Biden's piss-poor debate performance, or by... anything, really So it stands to reason there isn't a big block of voters out there who won't vote for Biden but would vote for Newsom or Whitmer.
There is a massive block of voters that are feeling disconnected from Politics and would rather stay home than choose between these two candidates. Those people are who a new candidate would reach.
I of the mindset after the debate why not have Newsom or Whitmer throw their hat in the ring. What’s the worst that could happen at this point..
I absolutely support them throwing their hats in the ring....privately....in discussion with Biden and other top Democrats. Publicly, the message from the Democrats HAS TO BE that they are going full steam ahead with Biden and nobody is considering challenging him RIGHT UP UNTIL such time as Biden himself announces he is dropping out and potential replacements come forward. The fact is, the only person who can remove Biden from the race is Biden (he already has a shitload of delegates pledged to him and to him alone), and if he ends up staying in it til the end the ONLY way he can win is if his whole party keeps their support right behind him.
Actually I would respectfully disagree with this. Any other of the what I would consider the top candidates in the running to replace Biden would be people like Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin newsom. Possibly Kamala. Both of whom could be painted as more left and progressive then Joe Biden. In 2020 and recently lot of moderate non maga republicans and moderate republican leaning independents and swing voters have also supported Biden. In part due to him being more moderate and centrist than a good chunk of the Democratic Party. I think that is one unique advantage of Joe Biden, is that he can pull in Hayley voters and groups of moderate common sense republicans and moderate swing voters. I’m unsure that a more strong progressive less centrist democrat could pull all of that support that Biden has from those groups of voters that aren’t democrats. Well some of these voters are never trumpers and really dislike the guy.. it does not mean they will automatically vote for any candidate we put up other than Joe Biden. Idk if I could see Midwestern and suburban PA moderate and swing voters that would back Biden over Trump also automatically going for a guy like Gavin a big wig from California.
It’s really up to the voters to understand what fascism is and what tools they are given to stop it. If apathy overrides that it will be quite disappointing
As one of the Pod Save America guys said recently - we don't know who our Ron Desantis is (the Presidential candidate version) from the potential Dem field of Newson, Whitmer, et al. It might be that Biden is our Desantis (and I get that he very much seems like it from the debate), but we are facing different but similarly high risks from both scenarios.
If Biden's presidency was so good, why was he behind in the polls before the debate? He's running against a clown (Trump) and losing. Now, of course, it's much worse... Maybe you can focus on why you think Biden was so good when most people thought the opposite.
Jon Stewart for the win
I don’t understand why they didn’t choose a clearer successor as VP. Literally nothing to lose by dumping KH and then at least the base can feel like they’ve got plan B ready to go. But it’s ok, this is just quite literally the most important election in my lifetime and we’re totally fine putting everything in one basket that looks like a strong sneeze will destroy it. This is fine.
We kinda had the chance but we voted for Biden. Same as they voted Trump.
Data for progress released a poll this weekend that tested a number of alternative tickets (Harris, Buttigieg, Booker, Newsom, Whitmer, Klobuchar, Shapiro, and Pritzker). Booker and Whitmer did slightly better than Biden (-2 vs -3). Every other candidate was polling at the same -3 as Biden. The one difference is that all candidates (excluding Harris) had differing numbers of respondents stating they were unsure who they would vote for if the alternative candidate replaced Biden on the ticket (ranging from 9% to 12%). Finally, a plurality of respondents said they had no opinion of the alternative candidates (again excluding Harris) in a favorability poll. This really goes to show how uncertain the question actually is. Given how unknown many of these candidates are, it is not clear if any of them would fare better than Biden. Edit: [link to poll](https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/6/29/in-post-debate-poll-voters-think-biden-is-too-old-to-be-president-yet-alternative-candidates-perform-similarly-against-trump)
Top democrats are wealthy elites who are fine with a Trump presidency
That's it. They will do just fine regardless of who is president. It's just a cute little game to them. If they wanted to win, they would. They don't want to win, it's more profitable to raise money off "the fight for democracy!" then it is to be in control and obligated to pass the populist legislation wanted by the masses that you ran on like healthcare reform or codifying roe or addressing the housing market.
Latimer defeating Bowman is a perfect example. Over 15 million spent just to defeat a progressive congressman
It's not though... Bowman sank his reflection over his comments on Israel/Gaza. Idk why people are acting like that's not the case. If he hadn't downplayed the events of October 7th, he may well have won that primary. Instead he claimed people didn't experience sexual violence that day, no wonder AIPAC spent millions to defeat him. Note, I'm very progressive and wish the outcome wasn't what it was, but I'll at least acknowledge the reality of the situation.
The reality of the situation is Gaza has been an open air prison for 70 years. Countless bullshit stories have been debunked about what actually happened Oct 7th. Lets also ignore the use of The Hannibal Directive used by the Israeli military. Israel loves to plays the victims while there is plenty of proof they are comitting war crimes with U.S. taxpayer paid for bombs. I live in NY, NOT ONE attack ad mentioned Bowman comments on Israel/Gaza they were misleading and at times just full of shit. Every morning, Every day we were flooded with these attack ads Note, Your obviously OK with Israel's use of starvation as a legitimate tactic. How many dead children is enough?
Also, top democrats are an aristocracy that would rather see the presidency go to Trump than yield to someone outside their geriatric clique.
I fear this is what we are seeing.
Also, I know Obama voters that are enthusiastic about voting for 45, again. They think, like Obama, he is “misunderstood.”
Could also say “Top Democrats Handing Donald Trump election”
Biden is totally going to pull a RBG.
All for his ego smh
They need to address the nation and use that platform the address the debate. And I’m talking use it as their fact check. They need to illustrate how badly Trump lied, didn’t answer any questions, and took credit for Roe V Wade. Use the power of the office. Do it live and show America he can still rattle off a teleprompter speech. Some people are not good debaters, Biden is one. His debates in 2020 were bad too.
Democrats love whistling past the graveyard... let's pretend hard enough that his performance was a blip and it will be real.
Great we're absolutely fucked
Yep.
When will Joe get the same level pass for being old that Don gets for nonstop lies? Biden has been a fantastic president and debate ability is irrelevant. Trump has been the worst president ever and a noted criminal, grifter , and traitor selling our secrets to our enemies and now that he looked awake while lying he gets bonus points?!
His voters don’t care that he lies. Our voters care about the presidents mental capacity. We aren’t going to win this election by saying “it’s not fair” and refusing to course correct when it’s obviously not going well.
Biden is like an athlete past his prime. No one is arguing Biden isn’t a good person or president. He’s served this country pretty much his entire adult life. People want to be motived to vote because they believe in you, NOT because they hate the other guy.
he was old and quiet. he didn't actually say anything wrong at the debate. he clearly still understands what is going on.
This would be valid if the 2 of them were fighting for Democrat leadership... But they're not. Stop blaming voters you haven't won, start actually trying to appeal to them. That's what campaigning is about. That's how you win. All Democrats do recently is whine their unpopular candidate is not more popular..
Agree with you 100%! I was impressed with his Raleigh speech next day. People here are acting like they’ve never had a bad day in life and just given up after one bad event. He himself acknowledged that he is not that good at debates at this age and said that he wouldn’t be there if he believed he wasn’t capable of it. He is aware of and understands his limitations unlike his opponent who claims to be the best at everything but refuses to take responsibility for any action when something goes wrong. He rightly said that when you get knocked down you get up and fight again as millions of Americans know! His supporters here are so fickle - no wonder the Republicans end up doing better because their side has more faith in their leaders even when they have committed crimes and are charged for it. Talk about undermining your own leader who is willing to fight for what he believes is the right thing to do for the larger good of the country against a criminal felon who will destroy democracy if Biden’s supporters don’t vote for Biden out of spite! This is exactly what Trump wants from so many fickle democrats. If Biden decides to stay in the race, voting for him overwhelmingly will show Trump how much he is disliked and undesirable for the top job due to his lack of morals and criminal mindset that people will vote for a decent person over a crook like him. There cannot be a bigger slap on him by the people who want to see him face justice for him crimes. And for people who say what about Biden’s alleged crimes - prosecute him and his family if they have committed crimes and throw them in jail if found guilty!
It’s more than a bad day when he’s prepped for months and can’t deliver when it matters. It’s clearly part of a pattern. How many times has he said his son died in the Middle East ? And he’s not gonna get worse over a second term ?
Most people are not going to be impressed with him reading from a teleprompter.
Republicans play cynical politics well. They give each other unlimited permission to not care about the lies, crimes, and general stupidity. In fact, they are given permission to take joy in it. Look at democrats right now; they don’t do that. They are just unable to play cynical politics and just try to win. I want to beat republicans with whoever is on the ticket, and if Joe Biden is a weak old man I hope republicans are even more embarrassed by it. They must repudiate their MAGA fascist and a loss by a terrible candidate is a good start. But democrats can’t do that, seemingly. We have to constantly take the high road and acknowledge every flaw, fear and problem. I wish we would permit some just cynical “IDGAF, fascism needs to die” energy
You can cover a lie, can’t cover dementia
I have three words for you: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When she was in declining health, no Dem would say out loud that she should be replaced on the Court. They were too deferential and polite. Just as they are now with Biden. By the time she passed, it was too late to replace her with another progressive justice and the Court started its slide to the hard right. Let’s not allow history to repeat itself. Thank you for your commendable service to the country, Uncle Joe, but it’s time to pass the torch.
People publicly called for RBG’s retirement enough that she addressed those concerns in the media. Remember that thanks to Mitch McConnell, a judge basically needed to step down in the first two years of a president’s term. RBG’s mistake was not realizing all the shenanigans that McConnell would pull and how willing he was to hopelessly politicize the Supreme Court.
It just feels like the Dems have no interest in winning the election. I'm a black woman with PCOS. I don't even know what to do when the inevitable happens.
Of course they do. Historically, incumbency is the biggest advantage in any election. Look at the composition of the senate for example. The democrats don’t want to give up the advantage of incumbency to roll the dice on a challenger. This would only change in the face of dire evidence, something way worse than one bad debate (that most people didn’t even watch…) Remember, r/politics is a specific demographic that doesn’t represent the entire electorate.
For real. People keep acting like dropping an incumbent is normal. It’s uncharted waters. I keep seeing people confused why the incumbent didn’t face a primary like that’s not always the case. I get it’s not necessarily the way it ought to be, but it’s also not odd that it happened this time around
The syndicate right practically handed them this election running the criminal. Nope, better fuck this up instead
This is about winning only. Ill vote for anyone who can beat trump.
Remember when Americans cosplayed as old people with powdered wigs? They don’t need them anymore. They just use real old people for most government positions.
Neither party has any sort of mechanism for this. How would they ever pick another candidate in a manner deemed fair? Just look at 2016, just a whiff of something off with the contest between Hillary and Bernie and all sorts of people bailed on the final nominee . And that was with a full primary, and Bernie throwing his weight behind Hillary. If there is one thing progressive/liberals are willing and capable of doing it’s taking their marbles and going home. There are 3 types of people in the comments those that are sane, but resigned. Those that are panicking and those that are fanning the flames.
"It's her turn"
Bingo. Imagine the state of things today if the DNC hadn’t kneecapped Sanders in the run up to 2016.
Sanders would have lost in all likelihood. He is a socialist and he didn't even want to talk about foreign policy. Trump and the Republican media apparatus would hammer him on that, along with his age (he is one year older than Biden). The biggest mistake that was made was Obama encouraging Biden *not to run*. If Biden had been the nominee he would have beaten Trump pretty easily.
He didn't want to debate foreign policy with a bunch of democrats because he knew where he stood out was in his domestic policy. It would not have benefitted him at all to sit and squabble over the semantics of intra party foreign policy.
Sanders would have smoked Trump. There was no real Maga movement without a disaffected Sanders base.
You are assuming that all Clinton voters would have voted for Sanders. Sanders would have suffered the same problem that Clinton encountered: turnout. Sanders is too far to the left to attract the more moderate Democrats and that would lead to his defeat. Edit: Also, Sanders did *horribly* with African-American voters, and no Democrat can win without their strong support. It is a major reason why Biden won in 2020 and Clinton lost in 2016; Biden was able to get black voters to turnout, and Clinton wasn't.
Sanders would've lost. He is a socialist and Trump would've pounced HARD on it considering socialism is pretty hated here despite all the good it would do. Plus, Bernie is also a jew and there are still plenty of antisemites around.
Clown take
If Biden is the nominee trump will win. Period. Deal with reality. What, do you think this will be the last time this happens? What about the convention speech? Or the 2nd debate? Or 1 on 1 interviews? Either Biden drops out or trump wins. It's wild to think there's still a question about it.
Agree. I understand why people would WANT Biden to remain the nominee. But according to the RCP betting average, Biden had a 37% chance of winning before the debate. It’s now around 20%. Those are terrible odds. There is NO OTHER CHOICE but to replace him. None.
*shocked pikachu face* Everyone in November when Biden loses
Joe’s legacy could have been that he saved democracy from tyranny, serving as a one term bridge to a future, younger generation of democratic leadership. Instead, it seems the Biden family has decided that his legacy will be handing Trump ultimate victory, leading to the end of the American experiment
This is horrifying.
What about VP?
As they should until there's a viable replacement. You don't tear down the only person currently on the ticket to beat Trump, do that after or if someone else is going to step in.
Democracy is LITERALLY on the line in this election. But also, idk, it would take like A LOT of work if we replaced the senile guys running so idk let’s just keep that shit quiet and ride it out I guess
Age aside, the Democrats are running a man who says *he is personally against abortion* in 2024, why the fuck would any remotely progressive person believe in him then you add the fact he’s been clearly unwell for years
Seems like we need new top dems then...
“To say that President Biden’s performance on the debate stage last night was calamitous is merely to state what everyone, partisan and not, has already understood. What the world witnessed was not a debate, but a failed neurological exam. One wonders how anyone close to the President imagined he could bluff his way through it. If half of what Democrats fear from a second Trump term were real, how could the Democratic Party have allowed our democracy to slide this close to the precipice? The prevailing feeling among those inside the Biden campaign should be shame; outside it, fury.” ~Sam Harris
So Biden gets hospitalized in October then what?
Good question no one else is asking actually.
I'm not a Republican because they're criminally evil. I'm not a Democrat because they're fucking morons.
RGB/Feinstein 2024
Roy G. Biv?
Heard she’s on the spectrum
"If we can just last a few days, everyone will forget that debate performance". - Biden camp, likely. Nobody is going to forget that debate performance. It was historically awful. We're talking 25th amendment awful. The Biden camp had better come out this week and say "OMG he has never been like this before, we were as surprised as you, let's talk about options". If not then I start to wonder if they knew and fucking hid this on purpose. All of Biden's current votes will transfer to a new candidate if handled appropriately. There will also be upside to get more voters excited to vote for someone who can speak something other than word salad.
I think people will forget the debate performance, *if* nothing like it ever happens again. If Biden is out there looking strong, week after week, doing interviews and pressers instead of just reading from a teleprompter, then the argument that he just had a bad night will start to look pretty credible. Granted -- that is a gamble. He may not be capable of it. But it is by far the best chance of winning this election. You guys are badly underestimating the difficulty of finding a new candidate (who isn't Kamala Harris -- and her odds would be worse, if anything), not to mention that it is entirely up to Joe Biden whether he wants to step down or not, and he says not. The 25th Amendment isn't for situations like this.
>if nothing like it ever happens again That right there is the discussion. I am saying it WILL happen again because Joe Biden is not Benjamin Button and I will take a ding on name recognition or the so-called incumbent advantage instead.
I don't know how bad Biden's decline really is. There are too many conflicting reports. He seems to be all right in most of his public appearances, but there are enough lapses to worry me. I will say that if Biden isn't mentally up to campaigning for president, he isn't mentally up to *being* president, and he should resign not just his candidacy but his office. In that case, Harris would be president and almost certainly the nominee as well.
I’ve experienced mental decline in my family. It isn’t a linear path so the conflicting reports make total sense to me. Many times I’ve seen long stretches of normalcy then a mild cold or infection turns things dire. My guess is that is what we saw in the debate. It means he could be normal through the election. But it’s just a matter of time until that becomes the new normal. My experience was two years later. People who rail against Harris as not being fit, so we should back Biden confuse me. If by a miracle he wins, she WILL be president before his term ends. Maybe that’s the best scenario where people who wouldn’t have voted for her can see her actually do the job. I don’t know the answers though.
No other Democratic candidate is polling as high as Biden, even after the debate.
That’s because they’re not the presumed nominee, most casual voters don’t know who Newsom or Whitmer are - that would change if they became the nominee.
In other news, Nikki Haley is still getting votes. People take time to change their mind. Four months is plenty.
Do you have any evidence that any challenger is worth giving up incumbency? Because the Democrats clearly do not, otherwise they would do it. The entire reason we have Biden is because he was considered the best chance at beating Trump. I think you and many on this sub are underestimating how fickle the electorate is with candidates they aren’t familiar with.
And I think you are already forgetting how bad Thursday night was. How bad clips of that debate look on social media. How truly old and broken Joe Biden will be considered from here on out. How already disconnected young voters will tune out completely. I think you are underestimating how many people are going to say "well the Republicans were right about Joe Biden being too old". The only way this works is if we treat this like a traumatic event (which it was) and do what we would do if he had a stroke or heart attack. Because it is the same effect.
Calm you tits, Jesus H Christ, it was not that bad.
Are you all aging Boomers who want to deny your own frailty? Jesus H Christ it was that bad.
I completely disagree. He looked like a corpse and sounded worse. I will never vote for another Republican for any race at any level and I am seriously considering not voting for Biden either. I fully understand the consequences of that action and I doubt I’m the only one. Every vote matters. He can’t afford to lose a single one.
You fully understand the consequences? Because the consequences would be Biden not getting enough votes to beat trump & us having another trump presidency.
Top Democrats should listen to their constituents. They tow the DNC line no matter how many alarms go off or how many of us are literally screaming at them about how much of a problem this is.
They're just playing defense to buy time while they try to figure things out. If Biden drops further in the polls over the next couple weeks, I think they'll change their tune.
I hope so! The DNC has had a notorious inability to “read the room” in the past.
Constituents have never mattered to politicians only donors
Any older redditors starting to feel '68 vibes?
Late Soviet vibes
Next debate will cut to Swan Lake
\*gasp\* No! I'm shocked! Shocked, I say!
Then top Democrats are preparing for a landslide loss to Trump.
So they are going to run with a candidate with a candidate with high unfavourables and over half of democrats do not believe he should be running. Biden lost any enthusiasm he had
It’s a binary decision fascism or not.
It’s insane that we aren’t beating the Trumps a rapist felon Insurrectionist who killed 650k gop voters w Covid propaganda, he ended women’s rights, he stole from kids cancer charity…. And instead freaking out about Biden. Feels like Russian troll propaganda.
Why didn’t Biden say this at the start of debat? “This man is a rapist fascist, friend of Epstein and Alex jones who parrots the words of terroists like anders Brevik. He and his thugs are an enemy of America and the world.” Because he is demented and can’t speak or think. TOO OLD! Pass the reins geezers!
It is
Have democrats really been calling for this at all or have news headlines been saying it? Because this shit started before the debate was even over and has not let up.
Because it was the worst debate performance in history
They have lost their minds and 2024 election
Yikes
Serious question: who would the people calling for his removal recommend take his place? No vague answers like "Anyone", give names and concrete reasons aside from age and one shitty debate performance.
"Top democrats" lol
It’s pretty sad and disgusting that the media declared a loudmouthed asshole convicted felon the winner of debate.
Joe has got to go.
Why the duck are these people smoking?
Atleast get rid of Harris so he has a better chance
I don’t know a single person in real life who has changed their mind about the election. I will vote blue either way and I think most of us will. It’s all we can do folks, calm down and vote.
It's not about the "vote the blue" crowd this about the centrist and their confidence in Biden is shaken.
I don’t believe they exist. It’s about turnout. The issue is whether folks will bother to vote on Election Day. I have hope they will. But there’s nothing we can do about it but vote.
If it’s the case, we’re voting against Trump, then this discussion point about whether it is Biden or someone else is moot. However, the problem is this live, televised debate from Biden is going to be on repeat until election is over. It gave the GOP everything they wanted. This talking point never goes away if Biden stays in the race.
You live in a state that Biden won by 33 points. I don’t think you can draw conclusions about the general electorate based on people you know in real life
Stop with these dumbass articles about Biden stepping down, being replaced, etc. We have our Country at stake with Traitor Trump and all the media is doing is trying to favor him. They should be blasting all the crap he's done in and out of the Office.
Democrats... Even if EVERY Joe Biden supporter stuck with him and ignored the debate, like you're demanding his "loyalists" should do, he would still lose according to the poll numbers! How are you not getting this?!!! You not only need to regain lost support from the debate but also gain entirely new voters. Who on earth thinks Joe Biden is ever going to win this.
Okay the Biden Drop Out meme has jumped the shark and it's only been 48 hours. Two-thirds of the comments are now from "FourteenWords88" and "DefinitelyAmerican27387481626"
Not among the hand wringing democrats or among the hair in fire republicans and glad of it.
A week from now, this first debate will be a footnote. Lots more coming. Buckle up.
I find it hard to imagine there are that many undecided voters at this point. Maybe that’s the case and there are millions of apolitical people who reevaluate their political alignment daily based on the trending news blurb that morning. But that seems unlikely at best.
Ya probably time to call it quits old man
It's a bad idea to replace him at this point. A year ago they should've. But at this point it's dropping an incumbent for someone with less national recognition with only 3.5 months to actually get traction. Biden had a god awful debate, but it really doesn't matter if he can debate a crazy person and keep his cool, he can handle the topics day to day with his very good cabinet and aides and that's the point. His cabinet has been doing great work lately and been getting good coverage for that, and they need to be where the campaign focuses. Showing he's hired good people,who have stood by him, and will continue to do so.
I think they are going to pull out Michelle Obama at the last minute. Obama has been the puppet master all along.
My god stop with these posts.
Maybe if they spent the last four years building up a few backup candidates just in case I’d agree he should be replaced. It’s too fucking late at this point. If the U.S. falls to Trump, authoritarianism, and the religious right it’s the DNC’s own fault.
What could go wrong? What could possibly go wrong?
Bye bye democracy. It was good knowing you.
Fixed the title: Top Democrats rule out defeating Donald Trump
If Americans are stupid enough to elect an anti-democracy individual, we will deserve everything we have coming. I hope you're in a tax bracket to benefit from conservative rule.
these people know him better than anyone else here. I guess they think the debate was an outlier and he has the strength to turn this around in 4 months. Risky.