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

that philly journalist has been let go.

We're all Kremlinologists here. Our disagreements aren't as great as our similarities.

yes

most of the posts I make are just spontaneous reactions that I end up feeling badly about. I'm sorry

I'm sure a lot of similar stories have been told but I figured I'd take a minute to talk about my Grandmother, who had a very long and storied career. She was a published author who'd written a dozen books, a minor media figure for some time, and along with my Grandpa (not my real one, but I called him that since I never knew my real Grandpa) built up a health food empire which nearly became a national brand. They retired when she was 77 and at that point she was still very sharp and active; a common joke in the family was that she was going to outlive us all. They moved to the mountains in Virginia and I didn't see her for a while, until Grandpa unfortunately passed away from cancer, a condition he had hid from the family for some reason. I didn't spend any real time with her until a couple years after that when I'd come to visit (I was a college student then so I didn't exactly have much money to travel) and right away it was clear that she was...not really herself. She seemed happy but didn't really engage much in conversation, stared off into space a lot, and went to bed alarmingly early. She was nice enough to cook for me - her cooking always was the best - but it just didn't taste right this time. She drove me to this tennis club she hung out at and her driving scared the shit out of me. She went really slow and kept pulling over to let people pass. Despite that she was still fairly functional. She remembered things and could answer whatever you asked. But something was clearly off.

Anyway, you obviously know where this is going...that is where I think Biden is now. He seems fairly lucid...sometimes. Even more or less up for the job, given the fact that he's surrounded himself with smart and capable people. But things declined really quickly. The next time I saw Grandma was at my brother's wedding and she was, to put it bluntly, really fucking weird. She had a friend she was travelling with and it was clear that this friend was there because she couldn't really get by on her own. Shortly after that you could barely have a conversation with her anymore. It all happened so fast.

From the age of about 84 she was basically nonfunctional as a human being - I believe that's the age she was when I helped move her into an assisted living apartment, and I noticed her short-term memory was completely shot...she had no idea what you had said to her even a minute ago. Amazingly she is still alive. Who knows, she may outlive us all yet.

No matter what we think will happen or should happen, we’re all a little rattled, aren’t we? It’s OK to admit that.

Xpost to Dan S.

thanks Raymond

Lookit who shows up at 1:51. Christmas Present confronts Christmas Past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dos-3sF5L0E

My bff is very Beltway (her daughter is interning for a big Dem congressman atm) and will be on the Hill on Tuesday doing a panel for her day job - when I get the gossip, I will share the gossip!

She has stopped making Biden donations and has told them why.

Bigger Congressional names (Beyer is my congressman) : https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/joe-biden-2024-race-senior-house-democrats-step-aside/

thanks Al. I have missed you!

xp

As far as admitting stuff:

I'm old and have been voting as a Democrat in elections since 1980. I'm disheartened and sickened that you all could express such disdain for Biden so easily, want to jettison him, and at the same time expect that everything will work out. It just seems crazy to me. It won't work out. I think if Biden gives up, Trump will win.

It's been 10 days now of NYT and WP writers constantly hounding him in headlines articles and editorials. I don't believe, as some of you have said, that the commentariat are truly shaken about the prospect of him being president again. I'm not sure what it is about, but it seems very cynical to me. I have never been so turned off by the mainstream media

at the same time expect that everything will work out.

With all due respect, you haven't read the comments well.

Sadly, Democrats aren't known for choreographing this sort of dance

they did in the 2020 primary...

― symsymsym, Sunday, July 7, 2024 7:20 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

salute brother

Man, I just think people blaming "the media" are in deep denial. This isn't a new issue or an invented one, it's been the single most persistent concern about Biden since he announced he was running in 2019 — to such a degree that at the time (although this later got memory-holed somehow) he let it be leaked by his own campaign that of course he wouldn't run for a second term, he'd be too old then. Over and over, polls have shown that people are concerned about his age, and in more recent years over and over polls have shown that people in increasingly large majorities think he is too old to run and not fit for the job.

Part of the reason he wanted this debate was to put those fears to rest, and he totally failed. On live TV, in front of 50 million people. Everything that has happened since has been a direct result of that. All of this is because of his decisions, his stubbornness, his putting his own ego and vanity and need for power or whatever it is ahead of the interests of the country. Disdain? I don't know. I've never loved Biden on either politics or policy, he has a checkered career, but he's been a surprisingly effective president and I'm glad for that. He should've quit while he was ahead. Now the only useful thing he can do is quit while he's behind. Sure, maybe the Democrats will still lose, but again Biden is the one who put them and all of us in this situation. He's not some poor old man being ganged up on, he's the president of the United States for god's sake. He's the responsible party here.

So yeah, I have some disdain for him now. He fucked this up.

A lot of people are just tired of old white male Catholics like Biden. He represents the Democratic Party that should’ve died out in the 90’s at the latest. The majority of the country is under 45, pissed off as fuck, in debt, and struggling. It’s a pressure cooker situation

Hubris is the reason Biden wanted that debate. Just like the Biden of yore. It's just an older version of the same intellectual lightweight that we had in the 80s.

The strangest thing about Joe Biden remains that a smart guy picked him as VP.

It’s not strange. Obama wanted a pushover with no scruples who is basically deeply conservative on social issues (oh, sorry, he “evolved” on reproductive autonomy and LGBTQ+ rights)

He came out publicly for gay marriage in May 2014 the day before Obama did. I remember because I was with my dying father watching the tv in his hospital room. We all knew they both supported it before then but that they couldn't acknowledge it. He finally acknowledged it and pushed Obama forward

I could say a lot of mean things here but I won't.

I still think he is going to win. Maybe he won't, I understand you tipsy, but if he does win I will never take into account anything you ever say about politics again, ever. Is that fair?

lol sure, how much account do you take of them now? What's my baseline?

I've said like a zillion times that if he's the one on the ballot he could win. It's a weird election, both candidates are broadly unpopular, Trump is Trump, any number of weird things can happen in the next 4 months etc etc etc.

I'm not saying anything different than plenty of other people. Based on all available evidence, he's a deeply unpopular incumbent and appears likely to lose. And that was before the debate — which, unlike you, millions of people saw and immediately thought, "Shit, this guy's cooked." Pretty much that simple. Nobody has a crystal ball. But I keep waiting for the answer to "Who is going to vote for Biden who won't also vote for basically anyone who's not Trump?" Which Biden voters are unattainable by Harris or anyone else? I haven't heard a single person make that case.

If he stays in, he’d better win.

The fact that he didn’t drop out in time for a real primary is unconscionable.

Man, I just think people blaming "the media" are in deep denial.

man they're really all in on it though. so many people doin this "this isn't even a story it's just the media trying to drive engagement!" thing and it's like...no...that's a super weak way of trying to wish away actual stuff

I keep waiting for the answer to "Who is going to vote for Biden who won't also vote for basically anyone who's not Trump?" Which Biden voters are unattainable by Harris or anyone else? I haven't heard a single person make that case.

I made it a couple of days ago. There are people — and I think there are a depressingly/infuriatingly large number of them — who voted for Biden who will not vote for a different Democratic candidate, especially not a woman, especially especially not a black woman. They will simply stay home. As evidence, I point to the entire history of the United States of America.

OK, right, yes that's a reasonable answer. I don't think it's true, because I think Biden's specific weaknesses overwhelm the normal political advantage of being a white man; there seems to be a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction out there with being presented with two old white men in particular. When it comes to leaders, age has long been seen as a serious detriment, so you have to put ageism up against racism and sexism. (I think Obama in '08 benefited from running against an old man.) But I grant you that's an open question. I think Biden has already lost a lot of people who voted for him in '20 and they're not going to come back to him, I don't see him personally exciting anyone. Where, e.g., Harris I think does have the capacity to energize some segments of voters who are at best lukewarm on Biden.

The 85% of Americans who say Biden is too old vs. resistance libs’ self-serving gut feeling about racism making Harris unelectable (despite Obama getting elected twice)

the second half of this interview is so sad. he's very articulate about grief. it could be an arthur miller monologue. jack lemmon could have done it well. trigger warning for the second half of this interview: the sadness! (i feel like he could have been a good character actor on cop shows in the 80s.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls31TkGSQGA

Yes, in 2016 he was capable of sharing moving personal stories that connected with people. He had real political gifts. He can’t talk like this anymore though.

People will start factoring in that if they vote Biden they'll get Harris anyway if he wins, because there's no way he'd last 4 years.

I think he remembers when he was a good communicator and believes he can connect with the American people emotionally and convince them to do the right thing and vote against Trump. It’s a delusion. He can’t.

People will start factoring in that if they vote Biden they'll get Harris anyway if he wins, because there's no way he'd last 4 years.

Definitely true that all of this is serving to build her up, make a lot of people think more favorably of her even if just by default, which is a good thing either way — whether she's the candidate this year or the person people have to feel comfortable in taking the reins if/when needed. In fact, she's the clear winner so far out of all of this ...

(cut to montage of Harris spiking Biden's drink before the debate, bribing a sound engineer to mess with his audio on the ABC interview, anonymously posting a montage of Biden senior moments on YouTube)

i forgot about old joe for a minute. i really tried to ignore him years ago. i didn't really listen to his stories. he reminded me of dads i knew around me growing up. i kept my distance.

Posted this elsewhere in re the media, figured I'd add it here: OK, but also this is just what happens with a huge story! This is how it always is. It's like complaining about a rainstorm. This is the big story. The problem for Biden and the telling phenomenon is that it's STILL the big story after a week and a half. They're waiting for it to die down, but that misunderstands the problem. People's perceptions of Biden have shifted and/or crystalized in ways that can't be changed, because they're based on direct evidence. So it stays a story, and keeps getting worse, because the underlying concerns haven't been addressed.

it's only a huge story because the media has different standards for each side. not only was Trump equally coherent at best during that debate there was just evidence uncovered that he has probably raped children! his top advisors have a plan to turn the country into a fascist state which was written BEFORE the Supreme Court ruled he's allowed to commit unlimited crime! how is "Biden old" getting 10x the coverage of any of that??

For tipsy's question - yes, unperson's answer is part.

But also: if Biden is replaced, there are people who may have been Biden voters (however reluctant) but will stay home due to distaste for party chaos. Dems in disarray etc.

That wouldn't push many people to vote for Trump, but it could lead to some not-voting.

That said, lots of people want a different menu of choices (or say they do); so they would likely regard any change as refreshing. Even if they're not big Harris fans.

I suspect the second group is larger than the first.

how is "Biden old" getting 10x the coverage of any of that??

I think the SCOTUS ruling got a ton of attention, I read a lot about it — news stories, analysis, columns, editorials. And Project 2025 is also actually getting a fair amount of coverage. In other weeks, they may have occupied more airspace, but this week the big urgent story is Biden — because he has created a highly unusual situation.

In that debate one of those candidates sounded unhinged and the other one sounded feeble. The problem — and the reason this whataboutist argument doesn't work — has to do with expectations. Trump sounding unhinged is like same shit chapter 40,001. We had him as president for four terrible years, we all know what he's like, everybody knows what he's like, he says totally insane outrageous offensive things all the time. He got factchecked to pieces the next day, but it didn't matter, nobody cares, it's baked in with him.

But Biden sounding feeble in the way he did was new, it was something most of us hadn't seen to that degree, and it was also something many people had been concerned about for years. He surprised people in a bad way that raised or amplified some fundamental misgivings among his own would-be supporters. Trump didn't surprise anybody with anything. If the Republican Party was suddenly engaging in serious conversation about trying to get Trump to step down, that would be a big story too! But they're not, of course.

Trump sounds more energetic than Biden when he speaks - when it comes to impressions of lucidity, that counts for a lot.

I'm not saying Trump hasn't lot some steps, but he sounded depressingly like same old Trump to me. I wanted him to seem out of it, but he was very (unpleasantly) present.

Which is not the same as saying he was coherent, but he wasn't really there for that. He was there to bluster and bully and bullshit.

it's only a huge story because the media has different standards for each side.

how is "Biden old" getting 10x the coverage of any of that??

Because the story isn't "Biden old". Tens of millions of American voters have personal experience of family members getting dementia. Biden's age has been a lurking issue since people began to notice it was a presidential election year and Biden was running unopposed. While there are a variety of issues packed into "Biden old", the most dire of them has always been "Biden at an age where dementia could overtake him". The media handled this aspect of the election very gingerly during the past six months. Stories did appear where, for instance, gerontologists spoke about the issues that could apply to both candidates due to their advanced age. It was the old drive toward 'even-handedness' that we are all familiar with.

Biden's performance in the debate immediately raised the issue of his possible dementia or mental incapacity to the forefront, largely because so many Americans have dealt with this in their own lives and Biden's behavior triggered were painfully reminiscent of watching it happen to people they knew or know. Trump's kind of incoherence is different. It reads as another kind of mental illness altogether, but the key is that far fewer voters can identify that kind of disorder through personal experience, so they're more able to ignore it, normalize it, and minimize it.

Once Biden's performance triggered those specific anxieties among voters, not just the vague idea of "Biden old" , but the specific idea of "Biden reminds me of X dementia sufferer in my life" it overrode the journalistic conduct code of even-handedness and opened the floodgates where every news outlet has permission to explore every aspect of that story in exhaustive detail.

All of this comes back to news being what's new. Perceptions of Trump have not changed among the public. Perceptions of Biden changed dramatically during the debate. Because the "news" shifted to Biden's mental condition, while Trump is the same old narcissistic, racist, fascist fuckup, Biden is under the microscope while Trump's evil is not news. Media attention goes where the action is. No one's winning a Pulitzer this year by writing about how bad Trump is. It's been done to death.

look I get how the media works, they're the same ones that essentially gifted unlimited free coverage during the primaries and election in 2016, they also decided Hillary's email server was a bigger story than a lunatic potentially becoming president

I'm not denying this is a big and unusual story, also the other guy is running on overturning democracy and using his position to get revenge on his political enemies, oh and he also calls liberals "vermin", many things to consider here

don't get me wrong both the long posts above me make total sense I'm just frustrated is all

I don't think perceptions of Biden have dramatically changed for the general public fwiw. The "news" of Biden's "mental condition" has not been a big thing outside of the world of op-ed grifters and white-knuckled readers of the NYT and WP as far as I can see

number of people who consider biden mentally unfit is like 70% in the polls, those can’t all be nyt op ed writers. 538 average of polls show a clear inflection point after the debate too

the other guy is running on overturning democracy and using his position to get revenge on his political enemies, oh and he also calls liberals "vermin"]

But those things have all been reported, too. That's how we know about them! It's not the case that Trump's bad acts go unreported. When he was convicted, the NYT and WaPo both gave over most of their front pages to it with huge GUILTY headlines.

I don't think perceptions of Biden have dramatically changed for the general public fwiw.

True to some degree. Before the debate, about 70 percent of people thought he was too old to serve, and it only rose to 74 percent afterward.

trump is polling 6 points higher than biden right now, despite being very recently convicted of THIRTY FOUR FELONIES

says Politico:
"No incumbent president has had an approval rating this low at this stage of the election since George H.W. Bush more than three decades ago — and, other than Biden’s 2024 opponent, former President Donald Trump, no incumbent has trailed this far behind in the horse race polling since Jimmy Carter’s reelection bid 44 years ago."

IMO biden seems very likely to lose. the good news for the Dems is that trump could potentially be very easy to beat.

I don't think perceptions of Biden have dramatically changed for the general public

I'd say that before the debate the public perception of Biden was as an old man who had grown slower and frailer during the past 4 years and would undoubtedly show a similar amount of aging during a second term, which definitely worried people but didn't quite alarm them, while after the debate, among those who watched it, the perception shifted from just 'slower and frailer' to 'slower, frailer and alarmingly unable to concentrate, respond to circumstances, or express coherent thoughts'. Seems dramatic to me.

The share of voters who said Mr. Biden is “just too old to be an effective president” rose five points, to 74 percent from 69 percent pre-debate. Only 36 percent said Mr. Biden was too old in June 2020.

one reason the debate didn’t cause a huge shift is because many people have been watching Biden and finding him too old over the last three years. the debate caused a 5 percentage point shift, but the cumulative effect of everything since 2020 is almost a 40 percentage point shift

The "news" of Biden's "mental condition" has not been a big thing outside of the world of op-ed grifters and white-knuckled readers of the NYT and WP as far as I can see

Because even six months ago 80-85% were saying he was too old to run! The debate just made it impossible to ignore.

the way I see it there are basically three possibilities here

1) Biden really has gone senile, the people who work with him know it, the public becomes increasingly aware of it, and so more and more people call on him to resign, the floodgates open in Congress, the major donors threaten to sit, and it soon just becomes too much for him

2) Biden is still somewhat fine, but polls show that he's going to lose to Trump while Kamala would probably win, which drives the public and media insane, and may actually convince Biden himself that dropping out is the best thing for the country

3) Biden is still somewhat fine, polls show him and Kamala performing about the same, so he stays in and we spend every day praying that he doesn't stroke out on live TV

#3 seems more likely than the rest I think