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

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

I'd love to see some evidence that he is somewhat fine

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/06/us/trump-biden-times-siena-poll-updates

this was 9 months ago.

https://static01.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2023-10-31-october-poll/0590e0f7-6378-4e36-a287-af527e626dae/_assets/topchart2-redblue-Artboard_10_copy_4.png

the hur report ("well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory") was released 3 months later.

the most optimistic possible take on the debate is that everyone who has the potential to think Biden is too old already does.

lol thank you nyt for that embed. link is to a nov 2023 nyt/sienna (i.e. high quality) poll in which 71% of voters say he is too old to be president, up from 34% in 2020.

Thought that was some of Hunter's abstract art

outside of the debate I dunno if any of the footage since would've raised any eyebrows given what we already know. kinda hard to judge the interview since it was explicitly about him being senile though

he needs to do a live town hall or something, it would get huge ratings, would give him a chance to actually get *his* message out there, and could actually calm people who think he's just unable to answer questions anymore. if he doesn't I assume that means he just can't. the fact that he wouldn't even agree to take the cognitive test is a bit worrying to say the least.

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.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, July 7, 2024 11:15 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, this was definitely my experience.

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.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Sunday, July 7, 2024 10:28 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I ask this genuinely: does it not give you the slightest bit of pause to consider the bizarre coalition that has formed calling for biden step aside? I find completely legible your distaste for left-wingers — obviously we’re always going to disagree on this, but I get where you’re coming from — but this isn’t 2020: it’s not like it’s just the chapos and The Squad* making a stink about this, it’s them plus centrists and a huge part of the liberal establishment and the media, that are finding common cause in an unprecedented situation. (also consider why the reporting indicates trump and his team are hoping he stays in, the reasons for which seem obvious.) the only people left on your side are the elected representatives themselves that haven’t already defected — whose public statements to date obviously belie their private conversations — and the least discerning lay partisans around, and I actually believe that you’re sharp enough to not take at face value the public statements of biden’s press secretary, for example. isn’t that strange?

*these folks have a different, more complicated calculus, I think, for reasons others have mentioned

it's notable that no one from the squad has called on him to step down, probably (as others have said) not because they want him to stay, but because they no it would have the opposite effect. no way does Adam Schiff say what he said today if Omar or tlaib had already said something.

xp

that’s even leaving aside the substance of the issue underlying all this, that biden is declining and — should he stay in and, in that case, win, god help us — in four years’ time is unlikely to be a functional human being, let alone be able to execute the duties of the president. this is something that is not really a matter of opinion. I haven’t seen you deign to even acknowledge this, and it’s challenging to have a serious conversation with someone who doesn’t acknowledge this reality. it’s really okay to do this — you’re not a politician, this is a tiny niche message board composed of entirely left-leaning people, no harm can possibly come of this. I can understand, though I would be a bit horrified to regard, the position that yes, he’s likely to be completely incapacitated at this point in his second term and his presidency is likely to be run by a shadow cabal of the VP and other unelected advisors, but that’s ok because isn’t the presidency an essentially collaborative and delegatory office at the end of the day. but I haven’t really seen you even say this

it's notable that no one from the squad has called on him to step down, probably (as others have said) not because they want him to stay, but because they no it would have the opposite effect. no way does Adam Schiff say what he said today if Omar or tlaib had already said something.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, July 8, 2024 12:49 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

right

I don't really think the question is "Is Biden senile y/n?" where if the answer's no then everything's fine. We can tell that everything is not fine. And even if we can't, apparently lots of people can. I think a sizable amount of the gap between Biden's actual accomplishments and his awful approval ratings is exactly his age and relative incapacity. He appears weak, he appears fragile (as one Dem congressman said yesterday), that was all already true even before the debate. Which is reflected in the merciless slant of that graph caek posted.

People have been seeing this and thinking it for several years now. The precise nature of his assorted physical conditions matters, sure — especially if he's going to be president for any amount of the next four years — but for the purposes of this election they don't matter that much. "Too old" pretty much covers it. And "too old" isn't something you can really make go away. Is he going to stop seeming old?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory.jpg

Grandpa just doesn't want to give up his car keys.

BREAKING: Senator Fetterman is riding with Biden. Let’s go. pic.twitter.com/YoSUVMZIkW

— Biden’s Wins (@BidensWins) July 7, 2024

the substance of the issue underlying all this, that biden is declining and — should he stay in and, in that case, win, god help us — in four years’ time is unlikely to be a functional human being, let alone be able to execute the duties of the president. this is something that is not really a matter of opinion. I haven’t seen you deign to even acknowledge this, and it’s challenging to have a serious conversation with someone who doesn’t acknowledge this reality. it’s really okay to do this — you’re not a politician, this is a tiny niche message board composed of entirely left-leaning people, no harm can possibly come of this. I can understand, though I would be a bit horrified to regard, the position that yes, he’s likely to be completely incapacitated at this point in his second term and his presidency is likely to be run by a shadow cabal of the VP and other unelected advisors, but that’s ok because isn’t the presidency an essentially collaborative and delegatory office at the end of the day. but I haven’t really seen you even say this

I think the idea that Biden "in four years' time is unlikely to be a functional human being, let alone be able to execute the duties of the president" is meretricious bullshit. Is he an old man? Yes. Has he been well known for malapropisms and hazy speaking — not all the time, but a fair percentage of the time — for fucking decades? Also yes. I see Biden as slightly slower than he was a couple of years ago, but still in command of himself and the situation. I think most of the posters on this thread have galloped from "wow, that was a markedly shitty debate performance — he just let Trump steamroller him" to "his brain has clearly melted and he'll probably die by August and therefore should drop out immediately" in just over a week, and I think it reflects poorly on most of you. Some of you hated Biden to begin with, and this is a stick you can beat him with; some of you are buying into a panic drummed up by newspaper editors who hate Biden for a variety of reasons (remember when they tried to destroy him over the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan? I do). Biden is fucking old. But his brain seems fine to me. If he's the candidate, I'll vote for him. If someone else is the candidate, I'll vote for them. But I think the attempt to shiv him is a bunch of bullshit.

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??

― frogbs, Sunday, July 7, 2024 8:09 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

we all agree on the merits of this question, of course in a perfect world the media would report in exactly the right proportions on the issues at hand in a manner that would ensure readers are able to, without any independent thought, arrive at the precisely acceptable conclusions we’d like them to. I’m not saying this is what you’re doing, but this is basically all the resistance libs have left. it’s naive and frankly boring

but on a related substantive matter I do just feel compelled to point out that when it comes to basic mental faculties, trump and biden are just not comparable. I’ve seen plenty of people cling to the argument that trump is actually just as old and cognitively impaired as biden is — and it’s just not true. biden’s problems are clearly evidence of cognitive decline — whether that’s just normal age-related decline or dementia is not a diagnosis I can make remotely, but I would argue neither is an acceptable problem to have in the president of the united states. trump’s own rambling and word salad by contrast is just a reflection of something already widely known about him, which is that he finds the work of preparation and actually understanding policy to be a bore and not worth bothering with. he doesn’t mix up the names of heads of state because he’s showing signs of age, it’s because he hasn’t bothered to put in the work to actually be fluent in the discussion. as far as he’s concerned that’s for other people to worry about.

again, not that this is the argument that you specifically are making — just something I’ve been seeing a lot and a point I’ve been wanting to make.