Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

spoke to a close friend last night who is emergency room doctor in Jersey City and believes he's had the virus for the last couple of weeks—dry cough low fever etc.

according to him the situation is such that everybody working there just assumes they already have it or will anyway, and newly admitted patients are almost exclsuively the infected, so....

An absolutely disgraceful response from a democratic frontrunner at a time 1 Iranian is dying every 10 min as a result of coronavirus. Biden deserves absolute hell for this callous, incoherent, and morally vacuous response in the midst of a pandemic. https://t.co/145KW4zcre pic.twitter.com/CVEzNWfy2I

— Sarah Lazare (@sarahlazare) March 30, 2020

Clear, consistent and well-reasoned.

For those interested, here is @JoeBiden's full answer to @YasminV on opposing single payer health care: pic.twitter.com/gxjTN83NCg

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 30, 2020

Ageing about as well as his takes.

it's just stupid gibberish. the federal government supplying equipment has nothing to do with a single payer system. the single payer system would help in this crisis because millions of people just lost their employer-provided health coverage in the middle of a pandemic

also this is not the first time biden has been callous about iran.

during that paul ryan debate, he bragged that the obama administration's sanctions on iran were "the strongest sanctions in the history of sanctions."

yeah, all these news items about exceptions for the coronavirus, how the federal government will step in and cover the testing costs, how Cigna and a couple other insurance companies are taking the unprecedented step of stepping in to cover treatment costs (because it's the "right thing to do", etc etc), just highlights the endless cases where the federal govt and insurance companies are NOT stepping in to do the right thing for people in dire circumstances facing even more lethal diseases, every single fucking second of every day

I appreciate this thread as a terrific place to vent about Joe Biden's awfulness before he earns the nomination and goes against the even worse Donald Trump. Fortunately no one here who lives in the United States has an interest in depressing turnout.

Joe's depressing enough

So are the male white posters under the delusion that posting the terrible things Biden has done as a Democrat will make him any less a candidate against Trump. Ya just gotta pat them on the heads, even fellow Sanders enthusiasts. Grief has many stages.

I’m “voting blue no matter who” myself but if Biden hasn’t earned ppl’s votes then what are you gonna do

Alfred, this white male poster isn't posting things Biden's done as a Deomcrat because I think it will make him "any less a candidate against a Trump." Is that your belief—,that people pissed off about Joe Biden are posting here to diminish his chances against Trump?

Whatever the case I don't understand why you find the condescension necessary.

Anyway, the enthusiasm gap posted upthread is a real thing. Are we not supposed to lament that?

yeah, i understand what you're saying, alfred, but essentially you're asking kindly for people to withhold their feelings about biden during this election cycle. i understand the reasoning, and you might even succeed to some degree within ilx, but you have your own stages of grief to go through if you think that people aren't going to complain about biden the candidate just as much (if not more than) as clinton the poor 2016 candidate. you can be annoyed by it. you can even infantilize people by patting them on the heads! but the downside of a shitty candidate is that we all have to deal with the consequences of it throughout the year, on the left and right.

hadrian the way you address the enthusiasm gap is to get out there and talk to your friends about how much better biden will be then trump. that's actually the advice. it is logical, you should do it, but yeah, it's a fucking LIFT because of how fucking shitty biden is as a candidate. but don't complain about that until after the election, please (and actually, don't complain after that, because we'll all be exhausted. and don't complain about it in the months after that either, because it will be 2022 mid-term season)

I'm not complaining -- post away! I'm older than many of you. I know Biden's perfidy. I hated him when he had real hair. I screamed when Obama chose him as running mate. I've got the blog trail to prove it.

But we're smart people. We all know what this fool has done. Y'all will convert no one, and to what, exactly?

Like, if Hadrian, sic, silby, etc are being Janus-faced about Biden -- yelling here like Yosemite Sam while smiling at Democrats and swing voters as you volunteer for his campaign or shout down someone on social media -- that's cool with me.

convert no one (ilx is sanders land, which i enjoy) and won't repel anyone either (ilx is non-republican land, and we better all fucking vote for biden or i'll punch everyone's lights out). i think it barely makes a difference - it's just acknowledging what is actually happening

though i guess taking it onto twitter is a different thing, i agree

yeah, i understand what you're saying, alfred, but essentially you're asking kindly for people to withhold their feelings about biden during this election cycle. i understand the reasoning, and you might even succeed to some degree within ilx, but you have your own stages of grief to go through if you think that people aren't going to complain about biden the candidate just as much (if not more than) as clinton the poor 2016 candidate. you can be annoyed by it. you can even infantilize people by patting them on the heads! but the downside of a shitty candidate is that we all have to deal with the consequences of it throughout the year, on the left and right.

― Karl Malone, Monday, March 30, 2020 7:25 PM

It's funny how it's occurred to no one in this thread that Warren and Sanders -- my preferences -- were the shittier candidates.

"while smiling at Democrats and swing voters as you volunteer for his campaign or shout down someone on social media"

lol I don't do any of these things, this place burns me out

If it burns you out to volunteer for the Biden campaign, that's awesome!

It's funny how it's occurred to no one in this thread that Warren and Sanders -- my preferences -- were the shittier candidates.

do you mean for the democratic primary or the general election?

if you mean as regards the primary, that seems like an awfully meritocratic thought.

the fact that they lost to joe fucking biden means as much to me as some other rich white guy being a CEO ahead of all the better candidates

I just double checked and Joe Exotic can run for president again from prison.

"yes, but he knew how to take advantage of the establishment's centrism, that's politics", etc etc

to me that's similar to "yes, he's another rich white guy running a company, but thats because he knew how to take advantages of his connections, which of course have nothing to do with his race or social station"

It's funny how it's occurred to no one in this thread that Warren and Sanders -- my preferences -- were the shittier candidates.

do you mean for the democratic primary or the general election?

― Karl Malone, Monday, March 30, 2020 7:33 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if you mean as regards the primary, that seems like an awfully meritocratic thought.

the fact that they lost to joe fucking biden means as much to me as some other rich white guy being a CEO ahead of all the better candidates

― Karl Malone, Monday, March 30, 2020 7:34 PM (one minute ago)

They lost the primaries by wide margins, even Sanders, so, yes, they were shitty candidates by default -- a loser's a loser. I take heart that their policies are popular.

i guess the difference is that in this case there's a rival CEO that's even worse, and we have to pick between the two

I don't want Donald Trump to be president and will do what my own enthusiasm permits to prevent it from happening. Which pretty much to not campaigning for Donald Trump, either, and crossing my fingers that Biden doesn't shit the bed in WI PA etc.

Again, I live in MA, and I recognize that's a privilege many voters don't have.

pretty much *extends* to

blah blah counterfactuals but I do wonder how Biden would have fared against media constantly challenging him and fueling a narrative about how unrealistic and pie-in-the-sky his plans are given Republican intransigence, the realities of climate change, etc.

Sanders and Warren would've gotten it too under normal times, i.e. non-plague times.

I don’t think people should be dishonest about their feeling for the greater good of electing Biden. First of all, it’s not sustainable—you can’t enforce it across the board and trying to do so will just build more resentment of Biden. Second of all, I don’t want to.

Poll: Biden leads Trump by 10 points as economic pessimism grows

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by 10 points nationally in a new poll, bolstered by an advantage with independents.

The poll also shows pessimism about the economy growing, a factor that could help Biden and hurt Trump in the poll.

The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll finds Biden getting 55 percent support, versus 45 percent for Trump. Biden has 96 percent support from Democrats, while Trump has 89 percent support from Republicans. Independents break for Biden by a 54 to 46 percent margin.

vote tomorrow.

also include Bernie in the vote.

top two vote getters are co-Presidents.

That is a sure-fire formula for four years of co-President Trump.

nah he can't work with people, there'd be a fist fight and then he'd start clutching his chest from being asked to do any physical activity, and die Redd Foxx style

why don't we just skip the next 4 to 4000 years and get to the end game:

national fist fight for president

https://jezebel.com/tara-reades-allegations-deserve-more-care-1842515308/amp?

that's a good article

Yup, its a solid take.

I post this in no way as a reflection of my own opinion--don't really have one, yet--but because it's been such a topic of conversation on this thread. Anyway, reading just the beginning, seems like there's not agreement here, either.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/so-about-that-supposed-lack-of-enthusiasm-for-biden/

Not good. Won't even try to guess Biden's motives; Trump's couldn't be more transparent.

http://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/politics/joe-biden-trump-coronavirus/index.html

Biden's going to suggest Corn Pop for Coronavirus Czar

you all laugh now, but when Biden murders Trump in cold blood at point blank range we'll be all be saying "no malarkey". and then we'll all say "joe...joe, no joe"

imo the currently tepid enthusiasm for Biden will be entirely overwhelmed and rendered moot by Democratic voters' tsunami of desperation to rid ourselves of Trump.

yeah, agreed

imo the currently tepid enthusiasm for Biden will be entirely overwhelmed and rendered moot by Democratic voters' tsunami of desperation to rid ourselves of Trump.

I agree its mistake to conflate April and November and just assume a tepid April means a tepid November, but I don't think this is a given either - particulary as the effects of coronavirus over the intervening time period aren't known, nor how it will affect either Trump or Biden. Iraq took a long time to finish off Bush, he rode its wave for some time before it turned on him

He was finished off by ... term limits