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

I called the White House but they said Joe was busy

#naptime

She steps up and tells people to bring it home/finish the job for Joe, the lifelong public servant who only stepped up as a candidate in 2020 to thwart Il Douché.

I was thinking this too, that it would be a lot easier for Dems to feel affectionate toward Biden if he wasn't on the ticket. He doesn't have to disappear, he could be a lovable win-it-for-the-gipper figure for those so inclined.

At a minimum, all of this would scramble the GOP's narrative and attack lines. Not that they don't have plenty they will deploy against Harris, obviously, but if it's a huge adjustment for the Democrats it's also a major one for the Republicans (who are yes stuck with their own deeply unpopular candidate).

Yeah tipsy, apparently Trump wants Biden to stay in.

https://wapo.st/3XUOzhT giftie

Which might plausibly be another reason to do the opposite.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/03/kamala-harris-joe-biden-election-2024-democrats
Mehdi's on board

re: framing/face-saving --- Biden could probably pull off a speech that starts really personal and relateable, about the experience of aging and realizing he can't do the things he could do only a short time ago, "I still think of myself as that young guy," and then broadens out to proud statements about his lifetime in public service, the urgency of beating Trump, and how Harris is the person to do it.

not saying he WOULD make that speech. but i think he could deliver it well and that it might actually work on a lot of folks.

Oh yeah, that would be ideal.

There's definitely a well of sympathy he can draw on if he's no longer trying to make the case that he's the guy for the job.

News: Jeff Zients begins all-staff call.
"July 4th is one of my favorite holidays"
says it's a key milestone in an election year.
"He didn't have a great night but that was one night and what we all know is he is a great president."

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 3, 2024

Heads up and heads down

She is his pick. There's nothing to feel sorry about.

Harris was the acting president for 1 hour 25 minutes when Biden was under anesthesia for his colonoscopy in 2021.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/19/politics/kamala-harris-presidential-power/index.html

Just think of it as one long colonoscopy.

Given current events, felicity, that is not a difficult stretch of the imagination.

You have your title for the next political thread.

can we not? some of us have to have these on a fairly regular basis due to nearly dying, really not a laughing matter

No shade meant, sorry. My husband loved his colonoscopy. He said it was a very refreshing sleep. The prep is not fun but it's important to do.

I've had two myself--they're not fun (more so the night before).

another thing is the Dems have a pretty good attack line on Trump - all the "he's only in it for himself" stuff which everyone knows is true, but it's kinda hard to sell from a guy whose party really wants him to drop out

“It’s not fun, but it’s the right thing to do” HARRIS 2024 lfg

no shame in it either, I mean Biden was already the oldest president ever, he inherited a uniquely stressful situation in an era where bipartisanship straight up does not exist, in addition to all the usual stresses of the presidency. if he did the "I feel good now but I don't know if I've got 4 years of this left in me, and I know the American people deserve someone they can count on" thing it would go over pretty well

maybe I'm nuts but I'm starting to suspect it's nearly a done deal, I mean if news is leaking out of the WH that he's considering it then it's kind of hard to imagine him going "lol no, I'm staying in", what's been coming out officially is exactly the sort of thing you hear when a QB is about to be benched or a coach is about to get fired

One kind of funny thing about this if it happens is that this is exactly what all of the right wing conspiracies were saying in 2020 – that Biden would win and then immediately turn it over to Harris. So they could claim vindication of a sort.

I think the subtext there was that Harris could not be elected, so she would have to be snuck into office. At least in this case she would run in the general.

maybe I'm nuts but I'm starting to suspect it's nearly a done deal

you're nuts

So they could claim vindication of a sort.

not if it's the country that elects her as president they couldn't. that vindication only works if Biden wins, gets sworn in, and immediately steps down to let Harris take over.

Trump would go nuts and polling that would put Harris up against J.D. Vance, whoever else they’ve got if Trump doesn’t make it to November.

return of Nikki

(Word salad there on my part, but I just want to see Trump see polls like that.)

So much wish fulfillment going on in this thread.

Now is the time to dream

^^

I think it’s safe to say we’re all kinda shook. Wish fulfillment is probably the most legit approach right now.

Yeah the alternative is the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and weeping of copious tears.

Nobody here has any ability to significantly control events, so wishing is one of the things one can do. Doomposting feeds exactly no hungry people etc.

New NYT poll:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/upshot/poll-biden-trump-debate.html

Far from upending the contest, the latest New York Times/Siena College poll on Wednesday finds that the debate reinforced the central dynamic of the election: the political decline of President Biden, who no longer possesses the advantages that allowed him to defeat Donald J. Trump four years ago.

Overall, the poll finds Mr. Trump leading Mr. Biden by six percentage points among likely voters and nine points among registered voters nationwide. In each case, it’s a three-point shift toward Mr. Trump since the last Times/Siena survey, taken immediately before the debate.

Historically, a three-point shift after the first debate isn’t unusual. In fact, it’s the norm. Over the last seven presidential elections, the person generally considered the winner of the first presidential debate has gained an average of three points in post-debate polls. Sometimes, the shift lasts; other times, it fades. But either way, debates don’t usually fundamentally change a race.

In terms of the polling, this debate is not an exception — at least not yet. The debate may ultimately prove to be the breaking point for Democratic politicians considering whether to stand by Mr. Biden, but the poll doesn’t show that the debate completely upended public opinion about the candidates. Instead, the debate exacerbated Mr. Biden’s political liabilities, which had already imperiled his re-election chances.

Four years ago, it was the absence of any major political liabilities that allowed Mr. Biden to prevail over Mr. Trump. He won the Democratic nomination and ultimately the presidency because he was a well-liked, relatively moderate, broadly acceptable candidate who could unite the politically diverse voters who disliked Mr. Trump. At the time, polls showed that a majority of voters had a favorable view of Mr. Biden. It was just enough for him to narrowly prevail in the Electoral College — by less than one percentage point across deciding battleground states.

Mr. Biden is not a broadly acceptable candidate anymore, the polling shows, and as a consequence he no longer leads Mr. Trump.

The stabbed in the back conspiracy that Bidenistas are going to adopt if he stays in and loses will be spicy.

or if he drops out and Kamala loses - maybe Aaron Sorkin will do a West Wing II where a Biden figure gets his second term, sends a Trump to Guantanamo and cures cancer.

Which gets back to, he was already a weak candidate before the debate, and is weaker now (even if most Dem/progressive voters will still vote for him vs Trump).

If “his already bad poll #s only dropped 3 percent” is the best case for keeping him, it ain’t much.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/02/us/politics/biden-lapses.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

this is just not true btw. the people who follow the krassensteins on twitter have assured me he’s sharp as a tack in private meetings

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not

Fweedom '24

Yea yeah ehhh

live press secretary conference right now is sad. she is all *nothing to see here. eveything is fine. he had a bad night. no big deal.* EVERY question is a variation on "what's the deal with oldie...??"

A message to you oldy

fweedom’s just another woid for nothin’ weft to wooze

omg its just one question after another. she is spinning so fast! she's gonna get dizzy.

if she says "when you get knocked down you get back up" one more time she's going to fall down and not get back up.

This is all so damn stupid.

Before the debate I was not positive, but fairly confident that Biden would win this. I felt good enough about it that I hadn't been too worried about Trump (while voting in all local elections and doing what I can blah blah blah).

Now it all feels fucked and just so very stupid. Idiocracy, the stupidest timeline, dumpster fire, etc. My brain starts getting up to "What if he wins? What does that really mean?" and I can't deal with it. I guess I need to go visit the Scream Into The Void thread.

Dems could say hey we love Joe but are doing what’s best for the country at this current time unlike republicans that stick by an obviously deranged senile old man. Many of the same republicans that continue to back would even make a better president than Trump. Why are they not doing what’s best for the country?

https://www.notus.org/2024-election/biden-heritage-republicans

Then there's this shit. Fuck you Biden, fuck everybody around him.

Republicans. They can fuck off too. That goes without saying.

that article is, err, quite burying the lede here:

An urgent push to replace Biden could cripple the plan. Biden isn’t on the general election ballot yet because he isn’t officially the Democratic nominee, although the party currently plans to name Biden the nominee in a virtual roll call before the August convention. And the Democratic National Committee has no plans and is not anticipating a move to try to replace Biden.

“Biden has always had our back, and we’re gonna have his,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said Saturday on MSNBC.

If he dropped out before then or if the party voted to move forward with a different candidate, the project would be hard-pressed to keep Biden on the ballot, according to state election lawyer John Ciampoli.

“I don’t know how there’s a state law that locks Joe Biden in at this point as the Democratic candidate,” Ciampoli told NOTUS. “How can a state make someone a candidate when the party hasn’t made him their candidate yet?”

like the premise being focused on is if the discussion about replacing him drags on until like after said confirmation/Convention, and tbh...replacing him that late would be a bad idea anyway

A long night to come:

President Biden on call with staff just now:

“Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running."

"No one is pushing me out.”

"I'm not leaving. I'm in this race to the end and we're going to win."

— Gabe Gutierrez (@gabegutierrez) July 3, 2024

5 minutes later, he'll say it again and not remember he already said it