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

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.

Trump speaks not with mere reckless disregard for the truth. He actively lies and confabulates, with malicious and specific intent to deceive. He does this over and over, like the criminal and con man that he is. His supporters take him seriously but not literally. They should take him literally.

Trump has been truthing out wild stuff on Truth Social all weekend when all he has to do is probably nothing. It doesn't get coverage.

Imagine if Succession was still around…

The penultimate episode of Succession is a good preview of the violence we’ll see on the streets this fall and winter

Honestly comical that the average male life expectancy in the US is mid-upper 70s and everyone is suddenly shocked about this.

Biden should just cosplay on his public appearances from now on- let’s get that youth dem base motivated!

Trump speaks not with mere reckless disregard for the truth. He actively lies and confabulates, with malicious and specific intent to deceive. He does this over and over, like the criminal and con man that he is. His supporters take him seriously but not literally. They should take him literally.

Trump has been truthing out wild stuff on Truth Social all weekend when all he has to do is probably nothing. It doesn't get coverage.

― felicity, Sunday, July 7, 2024 10:20 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

you’re posting on a board where everyone agrees with you on this point. no one questions this. this is a first-order question: most people here are sharp enough to think of second-order questions

Chill k3

unperson: genuinely, thank you for your good-faith response. I think you’re sorrily mistaken about his cognitive trajectory, I won’t quite say delusionally solely for the sake of maintaining some semblance of decorum, considering nothing any of us says here matters, but clearly there’s nothing anyone can say that will convince you otherwise. it’s good to know

I understand unperson as rather saying he is open about a change of candidate as long as they don't do it rashly / under media pressure and they make sure the new candidate can do at least as good as Biden will. Which is a reasonable list of demands imo since this is uncharted territory and "easier said than done". Although I also agree with you k3vin that the reasons for going with a change should be self-evident. I'm optimistic it would give the Democrats a much-needed boost, but I also understand someone being cautious / pessimistic that it could also make the Democrat position more fragile.

I really don’t think that’s what he’s saying! the rest of us are acknowledging that nominating someone else has serious risks, but they might be worth taking. unperson has decided without apparent hesitation, based on the sort of discernment available only to someone with his ability to see that the “media pressure” you mention is categorically illegitimate and compromised, that any course of action other than standing behind biden is not only foolish but indicative of some herd mentality that is detrimental to the democratic project. he has made it clear that he doesn’t even accept the underlying premise of our concern, that biden’s infirmity likely renders him incapable of acting as an autonomous decision-maker at the world’s highest level for the next 4.5 years. that’s totally fine, and millions of people agree with him. I just thought it would be useful for the rest of us here to see that clearly spelled out, so we can at least understand who we are arguing with

if it's true that all the media CEO's are Trump donors then this "Biden is old" thing will not go away.

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.

it's jarring going on twitter and seeing berniecrat people half jokingly/half seriously declare themselves part of the KHive and most of the actual KHive people seem to be firmly behind Biden remaining the candidate? And a lot of them are arguing that people are only focusing on Biden's age because they don't want a black woman to become president, which sort of makes sense in the context of people pushing for KH to be bypassed as the candidate and replaced with Whitmer or whoever, but they also seem to be getting mad at people who are explicitly calling for Harris to be the candidate, or even for Biden to resign so she can run as incumbent? this is probably just a weird internet subculture that doesn't actually represent anything significant in the real world, but it's odd

it seems like there's some overlap between KHive and the kind of people who are still mad about stuff like Al Franken having to resign seven years after the event, and particularly mad that other democrats called on him to go rather than back him, people who prize party loyalty above all else and are hostile to e.g. Bernie or AOC because they sometimes break with the party leadership?

I saw someone suggest that Schumer is thinking that if he suggests a change and say Harris loses, he Schumer will get blamed, but if he lets Biden dig in his heels and stay and Biden loses, then Biden will be the only one blamed. Schumer is so entrenched in his position whether as a majority leader or a minority leader, that the rest of the party and others will have to convince him to endorse making a change and pushing Biden on it.

Regardless of Biden's actual cognitive state and how that will affect him in a second term, my main concern remains whether he can persuade people to vote for him when he can barely string a sentence together at times and there is now intense scrutiny around the issue. Before the debate, I had been cautiously optimistic that Trump's lead in the polls might turn around deeper into the campaign when more voters were paying attention to both candidates, but now I don't see how that would benefit Biden. The best I can hope for is that the anti-Trump coalition is already large enough that the Democratic candidate doesn't matter, but it sure would be nice to have a candidate who could more effectively make the case and not give voters cause to worry about their capacity to do the job.

Schumer’s consulting his imaginary family.

Like, if you're a swing voter who is frustrated by the seeming inability of politicians in Washington to take actions that have a meaningful positive effect on your life, does Biden inspire confidence that he's the guy who will change the dynamic and get things done?

Not only “get things done” but unite the country, which = lol.

Like, if you're a swing voter who is frustrated by the seeming inability of politicians in Washington to take actions that have a meaningful positive effect on your life, does Biden inspire confidence that he's the guy who will change the dynamic and get things done?

Biden has gotten an incredible amount of shit done — again, domestically speaking, he's the best president of my lifetime. None of that has broken through to "swing voters," for a variety of reasons that include messaging malpractice on the part of the administration but also include press hostility and people's general inability to understand anything beyond "eggs expensive" and "gas expensive" (even when it's not).

Honestly, I'm about ready to give up on this election and start making concrete plans for life in a fascist country that's about to hurl itself off an economic cliff with protectionism, tariffs, entirely unbalanced tax cuts, the wholesale destruction of environmental policies and what remains of the social safety net, and every other kind of pig-eyed, hateful stupidity. It's gonna be a Brexit-level calamity.

the seeming inability of politicians in Washington to take actions that have a meaningful positive effect on your life

I understand the risks of changing candidates here — or I can kind of imagine the risks, it's hard to say anyone "understands" them because this hasn't happened before so everything is guesswork — but for all the dangers of it looking chaotic or messy desperate, I think there are potential upsides that go directly to this point.

The most consistent polling result about the Biden-vs-Trump rematch is that people cannot fucking believe we have to choose between these two guys again. The MAGA minority aside, there is mostly very little enthusiasm for these guys, and Biden's enthusiasm gap has obviously gotten worse since the debate. There is a strong and persistent sentiment out there for "Please give us anyone else."

So a candidate change would actually be responsive to that. It would be one of the two parties saying, we hear you, we get it, we are going to take action to address this. I think that's a positive! People like action, decisiveness looks leaderly (ahem, Schumer — it's not just a title, it's supposed to include actual leadership). I don't know how wide or deep the benefits of that would go, but I think they would be real and would offset whatever "Dems in disarray" storylines would come with it.

Plus let's face it, the Dems are already in disarray, disarray is what's happening right now. It's not a secret.

Yeah, I'm gradually coming around to the tipsy viewpoint here (not that it matters)

“We love Joe and all the things he’s accomplished for the country and after discussing with his family and loved ones has decided that stepping aside is what’s best the the country now. Meanwhile the republicans continue to support a man rhat has not plan or care for anything other than himself, they do not care about this country the way us democrats do”

Just something to that effect is all they need

James Fallows, who was a speechwriter for Carter before he became a journalist, imagined a speech that Biden could give:

https://fallows.substack.com/p/a-presidential-address-for-this-moment

First thought that popped into my head:

After Fallows departed in 1979, Hertzberg became Carter's chief speechwriter. Hertzberg was an author of President Jimmy Carter's July 15, 1979, speech on energy conservation, widely known as the "Malaise Speech"...

(I'm with Dorothea in 20th Century Women--I like the Malaise Speech. But maybe not ideal for galvanizing support, so glad it wasn't Fallows.)

Biden was on the phone with msnbc all hopped up this morning and doubling down on staying in the race

yeah not looking good for a switch, all I can say is Biden better be 100% sure he's up to this, otherwise his legacy is gonna be worse than RBG's

I still think if polls decisively show Biden losing but Kamala winning that he'll step aside. we'll know in a couple weeks I guess. I kinda suspect they'll both perform about the same though, because this country is insane

This letter is correct at the end. The issue needs to be resolved soon.

BREAKING: President Biden sends lengthy letter to congressional Democrats defending himself. “Despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.” pic.twitter.com/MyI1BO3Dpk

— Matt Viser (@mviser) July 8, 2024

If I understand correctly if he stands down, then all the megabucks he has raised so far has to be returned to the donors, every last cent. So it probably isn't happening.

I don't think that's true.

Nope. It goes to Harris if she's the nominee.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/heres-what-happens-to-bidens-campaign-funds-if-he-withdraws-152819051.html

My algorithm coughed this up this morning. Aging is a fucking nightmare. The first two minutes of Biden explaining himself here vs what we've seen the last 10 days.

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

I can't remember who I heard saying it, some former U.S. Attorney who is probably massively pro-Biden.

ah I see, the funds can go to the VP only

Yeah, that's one of the reasons people have coalesced around Harris rather than other candidates

My algorithm coughed this up this morning. Aging is a fucking nightmare. The first two minutes of Biden explaining himself here vs what we've seen the last 10 days.

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

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 8, 2024 9:27 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sheesh. *that* man would win in a landslide, I think. this sucks.

Still think plan ‘do it for Joe’ is the right messaging.

Spending 12+ days in the heart of the general election campaign defending yourself from your own party is probably fatal.

Even if the bleeding ends today no one is going to believe what Joe's surrogates say about him from now on.