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

Staying in and being a dick to the donors seems like a smart move.

Sleepy George couldn't stick around, figures

Clooney says in his piece that debate Biden acted the same way at the fundraiser Clooney co-hosted. I can see why he’d made an early exit.

lol the White House dissing Clooney, trashing Brian Stelter, this is the strategy. Just pretending there’s no problem at all and insulting anyone who says otherwise. And these are also the people with the great plan to win the election. Sure.

okay, I'm all-in on The Rock

Time to start that 50 state write-in campaign

Harris-Johnson 2024 , he could resign after six months, or become the best VP and 2-term President that we've ever had, who cares

Seems like a reasonable timeline:
1-the campaign to remove Biden was donor-led and ham-fisted
2-Biden was easily able to characterize it as from know-nothing elites
3-Dem electeds figured they couldn't dislodge him
4-Then they got really bad polling data in the last 24 hours

— David Dayen (@ddayen) July 10, 2024

Josh Barro, Brian Stelter (ugh), Jake Tapper and the many MANY NYT and WP reporters and quisling reps that I now have on my Arya Stark enemies list, and George Clooney and Michael Bennett (who ran against Biden in 2020 and came in dead last) etc etc etc...

They may all succeed in derailing Biden and they are convinced that he won't be able to turn the page (I think they're wrong), and they have convinced themselves that he is too infirm (I think wrong again)

...but they have no better sense of what the outcome will be than those of us wanting to stay the course. And from what I've seen, his most loyal base ~really~ wants to stay the course

We all want to win the presidency and save democracy and it is more important to us now than ever, we are in agreement on that - but the callous attacks on Biden here have been disheartening to me, it just reminds me of 2016

Yeah, can we just go back to calling him Genocide Joe

maybe that was meant ironically, I'm never sure here

this past few weeks' events have really profoundly changed my feelings about news media and social media

People getting mad at George Clooney, it's like, what on earth does anyone think Clooney gets from this. This is a guy who saw things up close and he is telling you what he saw. Do you know how many conversations with how many people must have preceded writing that column? How many different stories he heard from different people, confirming his own? This isn't something a guy who just raised millions of dollars for somebody does lightly. Clooney's not out to knife the president, he's speaking up because he knows things most people don't and he's worried.

Meanwhile I hope some contingency lawyers somewhere are getting ready for ballot fights.

i'm with both of you above. i have raised MANY an eyebrow at all news media since this thing started AND i think joe is going down some sort of dark tunnel.

so many eyebrows.

CNN is off the hookin' chain. it has been nonstop for i don't even remember how long. since the day i was born feels like.

any non-biden-related person who makes the mistake of going on cnn is just asked if biden should step down. over and over again.

...but they have no better sense of what the outcome will be than those of us wanting to stay the course.

Can the outcome be worse than Biden losing and torpedoing downballot races? That’s your course heading now.

the callous attacks on Biden here have been disheartening to me

those who are in attack mode in this thread have been in that mode for a very long time. as a rule they are profoundly angry with every part of national (USA) politics and every figure associated with those politics is a target for their disdain. it helps them to vent. it's OK. but don't expect them to stop.

xps

It's total media overload, but it's just what happens with a big story. There's so much drama and melodrama and psychodrama in it, the stakes are so high, every day there's new details or some new person calling for something and endless anonymous quotes with tantalizing details. There's a lot more to it too, I think a lot of media outlets seriously believe that there are things people need to know about all of this, but the biggest thing honestly is just that it's a hell of a story. Greek, Shakespearean, it's just epic.

"Meanwhile, Democrats say the defections are likely to increase in coming days, with lawmakers and donors privately signaling that, by the end of the week, they may publicly call for Biden to drop out. They argue they do not want to embarrass Biden during the ongoing NATO summit in Washington while also giving him time to decide on his own to exit the race."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/10/biden-evidence-defeat-trump-drop-out/

Schumer feels the vibes, time for him to see how much he can shake down out of this for Senate campaigns.

🚨 SCOOP: Chuck Schumer is privately signaling to donors that he's open to a Democratic presidential ticket that isn't led by Biden.

He has been listening to donors' ideas and suggestions about the best way forward for the party.https://t.co/IEF8ixyXhJ

— Axios (@axios) July 10, 2024

Again, Axios, I mean fuck them!

Can the outcome be worse than Biden losing and torpedoing downballot races? That’s your course heading now.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, July 10, 2024

No, but how are you sure Harris losing wouldn't also do that?

I'm not mad at George Clooney, but I'm also not sure I trust that his statement doesn't have some bias, whatever it is.

I would be ok if Biden stepped down and I would enthusiastically support Harris. I'm just not as convinced as you that it is the right step

The voters will not believe us about January 6 if we don’t tell the truth about June 27.

— Tim Ryan (@TimRyan) July 10, 2024

i guess he thinks some of the freestyles were pre-written

a few days ago I emailed one of my two senators (Wyden) and asked him to convey my deepest thanks and respect to Biden for his decades of service to his nation, etc. etc, but he has one further service of the greatest value yet to perform, which is to step aside from his campaign, and so on.

I sugar-coated it because Joe's going to need a lot of sugar on this pill to get him to swallow it. I figure Wyden would be a good messenger because he's 75 years old and has been in the Senate for three decades. iow, Biden's kind of guy.

How did he respond?

Tim Ryan should go away forever

No, but how are you sure Harris losing wouldn't also do that?

… no, that’s the point. She can’t do worse than Biden but can do better.

The argument for Biden rests on either unskewing the polls or reversing aging.

I sympathize with you posters watching CNN or MSNBC.

I'm not mad at George Clooney, but I'm also not sure I trust that his statement doesn't have some bias, whatever it is.

Bias toward what or who? He just hosted a fundraiser for Biden!

Again, Axios, I mean fuck them!

I don't want to gang up on you Dan, but you are literally cursing the messenger. Serious question, are there any news sources left you consider reputable?

From Clooney’s op-ed:

As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.

Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor who I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.

I didn't ask for a response. It would have been predictably canned, noncommittal and hand waving. The point was to throw a chip on the pile and try to make it grow.

xp tipsy, certainly not Axios, a news aggregation site that is completely inane and just spews clickbait bullshit aligned towards the republicans.

Now that you mention it though, there aren't really any news sources left that I consider reputable any more. Which explains the deep depression I'm in. I can't align with any media, or even with ilx these days.

And before you say it, I don't really think it's a me problem

man get a grip

ok, whatever

i'm confident that once biden steps down and his replacement is secured, the liberal elite media is gonna go hard af on trump like they did in 2020

Axios does aggregation but they also do reporting, I subscribe to a couple of their regional ones (Nashville, New Orleans), they have plenty of interesting stuff. I don't love their format, but they do reasonable journalism. They hired good local reporters to run the one in Nashville.

Their aggressive Jonathan Swan interview with Trump is one of the best of his presidency (whatever good that did).

She can’t do worse than Biden but can do better.

She absolutely could do worse, and I say this as somebody who likes her a lot and would feel both relief and excitement if she were rolled out as the nominee tomorrow.

given Biden's public performances over the last two weeks, that seems very unlikely

(that she would do worse)

Well we're only going to get play one of these scenarios — or some other one entirely, I guess — so we'll never know. I don't even care who's right, I'll be happy to be wrong about Biden's risks if he does end up as the nominee. What I don't want to happen is for him to be the nominee and everyone who thinks he's going to lose to be right. If it's Harris or some other non-Biden candidate and they lose, I'll be bummed but that wouldn't change the way things look to me right now. It is also possible that the GOP advantages are such that Trump wins either way and they could run George Clooney and still lose.

I’m not sure how she can do worse than lose.

"Meanwhile, Democrats say the defections are likely to increase in coming days, with lawmakers and donors privately signaling that, by the end of the week, they may publicly call for Biden to drop out. They argue they do not want to embarrass Biden during the ongoing NATO summit in Washington while also giving him time to decide on his own to exit the race."

I don't know if that's one person's interpretation or if it's reliable information, but it does make a lot of sense.

I don't know where that's from, and if that's the case so be it

But it just seems like everything on even the most respected websites right now is high school gossip (sources who are close to the campaign but who want to remain anonymous, etc, and all of the associated bullshit)

People get quoted on background for as long as I've been paying attention. I mean, your dismissal isn't all that different from Ron Ziegler's dismissal of Watergate stories in 1974.

does anyone actually know someone who thinks Biden should stay in the race? I don't mean for like strategic reasons, I mean because they think he's gonna be fine for 4 more years

if you count FB friends that I knew 30-40 years ago, yes

xp Oh, I'm the exact opposite of that, I think he'd be fine as President for 4 more years, but it's strategic reasons that argue against him staying in!