US Politics, July 2024 - "Will you just drop out, man?"

Tipsy OTM. It becomes a moment of infinite possibility out of thin air - what takes can be pursue? Who can we call? What’s likely to come next?

(Stevie is also right though)

Yeah, the weakening of the MSM in terms of resources has been bad for all sorts of reasons for sure.

I don't disagree with any of tipsy's points here--good for business, as I posted--it's just that CNN generally takes a very bland middle ground, so it's a little surprising to seem this hammer so hard on this story. (Except: good for business.)

"seem this" = "see them" (there's a transposition)

anyway one thing I've been hearing a lot is that Biden should not drop out because the old and feeble stuff is already baked in, as it was in 2020 when he won the primaries and then the presidency, so it can't really "hurt" him anymore. the polls are kinda showing that, he's lost maybe a point or two while Trump hasn't really been helped, though I would argue that you shouldn't be running behind a criminal and open fascist at all

that said I think there's a much stronger argument there for him dropping out - if he's running against DeSantis or Cruz or Rubio maybe it's different, but something that is getting overlooked right now is that Trump is also very old and not in particularly great shape, he's constantly saying bizarre and brain damaged shit, he's freezing up during speeches too. it'll get worse as the campaign goes on. and yet the voters still think he's more "mentally fit" to be president by a wide margin. and honestly I'm not sure if they're even wrong to do so anymore! but if Biden resigns and it's Harris, suddenly that conversation is focused solely on Trump.

hard to predict how much that will help but I will say whenever the subject of politics comes up with people who do not follow this particularly closely (which is much of the country I'm sure) the one topic that's almost always brought up now is "our leaders are too damn old" - RBG, Mitch McConnell, and Feinstein are still on people's minds. both presidential candidates are of the age where normally the only viable "career" would be Wal Mart greeter. idk I think just recognizing that might buy the Dems a lot of goodwill, in fact Biden announcing his resignation is probably the one thing he could do to significantly bump his approval rating

as Robin says if the news dropped that Harris was going to now be the nominee, I'd feel a lot of relief. its kind of the one thing keeping me from despairing entirely. and I don't particularly like her! but she can speak well, she can do events, she can provide a stark contrast to Trump's utter insanity, something Biden sadly cannot do anymore.

Kamala's worst stylistic trait, of course, is that she's prone to word salad -- but so are both Biden and Trump. She at least does it confidently and happily, and it's usually a jumble of platitudes rather than an inability to articulate matters of substance.

I'm a U.S. non-lurker and am 100% in agreement with robin on this. I kinda figure that if people like me knew what should be done, and had the ability to carry it out, we'd be running things. And we're very much not.

Also, as a recovering ex-media person, I agree with stevie and his Lordship.

One little-remarked-upon cause of the demise of print journalism was not just losing ad revenue in general, but classified ads especially. Which were singlehandedly killed by a guy named Craig. Thanks, Craig.

something that is getting overlooked right now is that Trump is also very old and not in particularly great shape

otm, this has always been to me one of the obvious benefits of having any younger candidate vs. Trump. He's the one who ought to seem like old-man-yelling-at-stuff and totally out of touch with the actual America of 2024. But that potential advantage is totally squandered when the candidate is Biden, instead Trump benefits from seeming more vigorous and with-it.

Kamala is definitely a total weirdo, which I think maybe comes from being in a career where having a personality is seen as a negative, then suddenly needing to develop one for political reasons. she has like this Tim and Eric sense of accidental comedic timing. tbh if anything it's probably a good thing in this hyper online political climate. I sometimes wonder if Hillary would've had a better chance if she said more weird shit. all anyone remembers is "Pokemon Go to the polls"

...and "deplorables"

*BIDEN TOLD ALLY HE IS WEIGHING WHETHER TO CONTINUE IN RACE: NYT

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) July 3, 2024

How much does it weigh?

The story: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/biden-election-debate.html

President Biden has told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job after a disastrous debate performance last week.

The president, who the ally emphasized is still deeply in the fight for re-election, understands that his next few appearances heading into the holiday weekend — including an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — must go well.

“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place” by the end of the weekend, said the ally, referring to Mr. Biden’s halting and unfocused performance in the debate. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

The conversation is the first indication to become public that the president is seriously considering whether he can recover after a devastating performance on the debate stage in Atlanta on Thursday. Concerns are mounting about his viability as a candidate and whether he could serve as president for another four years.

Not much of an ally is they leak it to the Times, eh?

if

lol "if he has two more events like that"

“Two more strikes, and I’m out!”

Sorry

That's gotta be it. Whatever gets said publically, I'm sure the story is three steps ahead of that behind the scenes.

The campaign is hiring a social media person "to write daily content for VP Kamala Harris and expand the Vice President’s voice online."

Couple of things:

1. Part of the reason this is not going away is that trump is staying out of the news. It’s also the reason the debate was such a disaster: trump let Biden speak (or was muted).

2. If it goes to Harris then the funniest vp suggestion I’ve heard is manchin.

Josh Marshall:

Two thoughts on our current predicament. The first is that while people are seizing on this or that bad poll – and there are some – we now have seven polls in which we have before and after data from individual pollsters, before the debate and after. This is the only real way to judge the public opinion of last week’s debate. Putting all those together you have Biden going down one point and Trump remaining unchanged. This data point is certainly not determinative in itself about what should happen next or anything about the campaign. But from what I can tell it is the best systematic and data-driven look at the impact of this event which has consumed the political world and especially the Democratic party for a week. The slight shift could in fact quite easily be explained simply by non-response bias. By any measure it is very limited.

At a minimum we need to look clearly at those numbers as a counter to what from the world of commentary and chatter has the look of a collapse of support for Biden and even Democrats generally. Vibes, the overlapping cacophony of voices on cable news and on editorial pages are all together like being in a room of screaming, shouting people, leaving one disoriented and overwhelmed. Packs of reporters at several critical publications – most notably The New York Times – are deeply invested in what they clearly see as vindication. This is jackals and hyenas type stuff. These numbers, while not gospel and also a moving target, are at least the result of some systematic analysis, like instruments signals flying in a storm.

The problem is not a collapse in support as measured by polls.

It’s that Biden is behind and the debate didn’t change that, and also there are 3.5 months to go and the clear evidence of the debate is that Biden is not going to make it through that without similar incidents.

The campaign is hiring a social media person "to write daily content for VP Kamala Harris and expand the Vice President’s voice online."

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Wednesday, July 3, 2024 9:57 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the only person I can think of who would be qualified for this is Neil Breen

basing strategy purely on polls conducted in the immediate wake of a debate is dumb. especially since it takes a while for the true effects to show up in polls. if you wait for that, you're already behind the eight-ball.

frankly, Trump and his voters created a narrative about Biden and his senility, even as Trump himself was losing his marbles. now, Biden has completely played into that narrative on camera, and there's no way to wash that stink away from the public eye. even if you shot him full of crazy experimental drugs and it didn't happen again.

iow caek otm

Biden has a meeting scheduled with Kamala at 12:15, and there's an all-staff call set for 12:30.

The problem with Marshall's take is he's only looking at presidential race polling and not at things like the CBS poll that showed 72 percent of everybody thinks he's not up to the job. So, yeah, most of the partisan support in this race is baked in and there are a whole lot of people who are going to vote for whichever D is on the ticket. But those aren't enough people to actually win the election, and a lot of those people are at a minimum not enthusiastic about Biden. Other polls show Harris running as well or better than Biden vs. Trump, so Biden's persistent 43-44 percent is not some reason to say it's gotta be him.

Harris doesn't play golf, does she? Want to keep that from happening ever again

I mean, even if you took away all the concerns about his age, Biden's poll position and favorability ratings would by themselves be the signs of a candidacy in serious trouble. So saying "Our extremely perilous polling hasn't gotten worse since our disastrous debate" is hardly reassuring.

she has like this Tim and Eric sense of accidental comedic timing.

lol this is very true

I think the only possible argument to keep Biden on the ticket is the inevitability of litigation to prevent Harris being the candidate in half a dozen swing states. That’s a real problem given the composition of state and federal courts. It’s a good argument to keep Biden. But I lean toward dumping him for Harris.

"The campaign is hiring a social media person"

does this mean that the VP of the US hasn't had a social media person for 4 years?

You have a person. I have a hive.

Xp Certainly seemed like she was writing her own incomprehensible and boring tweets for the nomination last time.

I think she should do impressions of trump

While we were all busy watching Kevin McCarthy fall apart, we missed VP Kamala Harris doing an impression of Sen. Bennet’s deep voice during his swearing in and it’s hilarious. pic.twitter.com/3Lug1fUAvM

— Nate Morris (@_natemorris) January 4, 2023

This is an extremely good idea

Also I cannot stress enough that she should do Hot Ones. She would destroy Hot Ones.

— kleinman.bsky.social (@BobbyBigWheel) July 3, 2024

she should go atomic on trump every day of the week. piss him off. go on television every chance she gets and litigate his tired ass. and just call him a loser. over and over.

also, I gotta bring this up - Kamala Harris looks good. she's attractive and presentable whereas both current Presidential candidates look like shit. obviously this shouldn't matter but I can't help but think it does. good looking candidates tend to win. JFK, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, they all looked like actors and did very well vs. candidates who were just old white guys. just from a monkeybrain perspective the visual of Trump vs. Biden is a different thing than Trump vs. Harris.

One of the reasons I think she'd be so good is that (I think, anyway) she'd push every one of Trump's buttons and get under his skin like no one else. Anyone who hates Trump probably assumes at this point that Trump couldn't do or say anything that would make you think less of him; Harris might be able to pull that off.

also, I gotta bring this up - Kamala Harris looks good. she's attractive and presentable whereas both current Presidential candidates look like shit. obviously this shouldn't matter but I can't help but think it does. good looking candidates tend to win. JFK, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, they all looked like actors and did very well vs. candidates who were just old white guys. just from a monkeybrain perspective the visual of Trump vs. Biden is a different thing than Trump vs. Harris.

― frogbs,

https://i.imgur.com/V1qvFZL.jpg

And even though there's no guarantee she'd win, if she did, Trump losing to a Black woman would just be the greatest send-off imaginable.

otm

also you know a lot of rightwing voices (though maybe not Trump himself) would go all in on this "DEI President" idea which you know would play extremely poorly

Idle speculation, but if Harris were the candidate I wonder if Trump would consent to another debate or if his people would think the contrast wouldn't favor him. They could always refuse on the grounds that she's not a legitimate candidate or something.

She looks like a president from central casting, as trump would say, unlike trump.

She'd make the entire party go nuts. I was just going to post that the downside, maybe, is that I don't think they'd ever let him get on a debate stage with her.

Please give me DEI president
I’m dying for Kamala to be front and center — she’s not perfect but goddamn looking at/thinking about her doesn’t make me grimace in disgust bc she’s an appropriately aged and skilled/qualified candidate.

Also she is a woman!!! Please lord bring it on

“Anyone who hates Trump probably assumes at this point that Trump couldn't do or say anything that would make you think less of him; Harris might be able to pull that off.”

This!

Trump doesn’t have much of a mask left, this would explode it, and the world could see him fully for who he is - in terms of what he’d say.