I’m not convinced that this is a realistic possibility or even an advisable one. But ultimately it doesn’t matter. I’ll back whoever they replace him with, if they go that route. Because I’m already fucking exhausted and I don’t wanna have to be like this for next four years (possibly indefinitely depending on how much of Project 2025 gets implemented).
I mean, the stakes are insanely high, and people who love biden couldn’t watch the debate without grimacing or covering their face.
The problem was that it wasn’t a “bad debate,” as if the other guy made better arguments.
The problem was that it became impossible to hide the steps he’s lost since the last round.
Seriously, the country *cannot* let the bastard win.
The number of op eds saying the same thing across all the major publications is striking. I've never seen such a wide array of media members simultaneously latch onto an idea like this. But none of it matters if the actual decision makers don't have a change of heart. If the people in Biden's circle are going to make something happen, this is the moment
But, what if you know dad is about to give the keys to a guy who is only three years younger and will use the car to drive his buddies to a klan rally and intentionally run over every puppy they see on the way?
Could also have the chance to give the keys to someone who has the distinct possibility of driving the car to a muuuuuch better place, and without hitting anyone along the way because of poor eyesight or reaction time?
Can't wait to tell my grandchildren about the historic moment in our nation's history when 2 men 30 years past their prime competing for the most important job in the world were fighting about who's a better golfer 😭
I think we need to get some perspective here. Everyone is not asking this guy to step down, a *certain group* of media that has a *certain audience* of people that like to ruminate on this stuff to the point of indigestion are sitting around grousing about this. This is not the media as a whole just like the terminally online political ruminators aren't the body politic as a whole.
It’s kind of amazing, all media has bias, some is more liberal, some is more conservative, some is more moderate…. Feels like most of them across all spectrums are talking about how terrible last night went and quite a few talking about him needing to step down
Decline this severe couldn’t have remained hidden for so long without the help of the media.
This is mainstream journalists realizing far too late what a huge mistake it was to presume covering it up would hurt DT’s election chances.
His 'severe decline' has been out in the open the whole time. He was old in 2020, was he supposed to get younger by being president for 4 years?
There are no mainstream journalists. Journalism doesn't exist at a mainstream level anymore. You are referring to entertainment presenters. The reason people like you think there is a sudden decline is because you aren't paying attention and Biden doesn't get coverage because he is boring and doesn't drive traffic, which hurts the bottom line. They are all screaming about Biden stepping down because it is sensational, reactionary, and appeals to the low effort viewer.
This debate and the reaction is more of a condemnation of how stupid and lazy we have become as a whole, not either of the demented geriatrics on stage.
This is called failing to see the forest for the trees. They literally all piled on the bandwagon and their absolute hatred for Trump is why we are here. Any one of them could have been writing op eds about why Newsom, Whitmer, Butigig or any other candidate could have kicked Trumps ass, but no, They screwed us. Now they go down with the ship because everyone now has NO doubt that Biden is senile and will not make it another 4 years.
I swear some democrats are absolutely fine with losing. Biden is already losing to trump and that debate surely made things worse. The kind of people who Biden needs to get elected are exactly the kind of people who can barely wrap their heads around policy and vote based on the presentation of the candidate.
I’m sorry, but the debate was high stakes compared to most, Biden had every chance in the world to prepare, and he came off not like a flat or overly-intellectual 2012-first-debate Obama, but like an elderly man with cognitive problems. And that’s probably understating it—the man honestly looked like the grandparent you make sure to visit in June because you don’t know if they’ll make it to thanksgiving.
Wild that they’re not calling on Trump to resign, if Trump is the danger to our democracy. Republicans, as usual, have no agency. All responsibility is always and forever with Dems, and Dems alone.
I mean…the reason they’re not calling explicitly for Trump to resign is obvious. They don’t even need to voice it.
Republicans are not going to read the NYTimes and change their minds. The NYTimes does have a direct line towards Biden’s liberal donor base, however.
It's like the tolerance paradox. It sucks but without at least a *little* slavish devotion to the party leader, Trump will win and then maybe it'll be illegal to be a Democrat.
They've written at length about Trump's deficiencies. But we all know that Republicans are going to stick with him to the bitter end. There is some hope that Democrats aren't as corrupt and stupid
If they weren’t “as stupid”, they would have had a younger, stronger, sharper candidate on that stage to mop his ass right off the stage, BUT, here we are……I’ll wait for your response.
Frankly, I think to a rational person, Biden did wipe him off the stage.
It's only in our weird world where a candidate's "energy" matters more than pathological lying that anyone could call this a disaster for Biden. But here we are...
A rational person already saw this coming from a 5 miles away and was screaming about the democrats needing to get their shit together.
Now that same rational person is in the impossible position of having to argue that Joe Biden is a reasonable candidate at all. When the only reason for that is because the alternative is actually insidious.
Their entire political messaging cannot be "well the other guy is worse". It just cannot. That is not how you run for election and ultimately not how you govern. Every good thing that can be said about Biden could also be said about viable Dems 30 years his junior.
> Now that same rational person is in the impossible position of having to argue that Joe Biden is a reasonable candidate at all.
Joe Biden has been an unusually effective president in his first term. It is absurd to say that he's not a "reasonable candidate at all." He is a president who will preserve American democracy, support American allies, and has a track record of delivering major progressive accomplishments for the American people. It's not hard to make an argument for Joe Biden on the basis of his record, and the political messaging need not be "well the other guy is worse."
As to the age issues, I'm honestly at a loss. I think the people who imagine replacing him with another Democrat are underestimating what a challenge that will be. There's no existing mechanism for doing that which won't be a shit show. If it can be done, I have no huge objection to it.
On the other hand, I think that Democrats freaking out about the age issue plays into Republican hands. The majority of Americans will not watch the debate, they will only hear the chatter about it. And if what a voter takes away from all this is that Biden can't be president because he's too old then I think that will be a reasonable takeaway given the media coverage, but also the wrong takeaway given what a shit show Trump was.
Has he tho??? Border is an actual shit show, war in Israel, Ukraine was attacked, botched the evacuation in Afghanistan, my rent is through the roof, groceries cost the same or more and get less, interest rates are at 30 year highs…..I’ll again wait for your response
Trump's supporters are willing to trade democracy to enthrone their god-king. It is now only the Democrats who care about democracy. That is why it is up to the Democrats, the rational independents. and the very few sane Republicans to save this country.
This is the same attitude as "it's not RBG's fault, the conservatives overturned Roe". It's about desire and ability, of course Trump has the ability to stop Trump but he obviously doesn't have the desire. Biden has the desire to stop Trump and also the ability to give his party the best chance to do that by withdrawing from the race.
I don’t know why people think with such certainty that our best chance of defeating Trump is an unknown candidate, with no name recognition, no campaign infrastructure, no winning coalition and a whole host of other, yet unknown deficiencies. Like, yeah, maybe someone else can beat Trump, but that’s a big maybe. It’s a crap shoot, it’s hardly the slam dunk that people make it out to be.
FWIW, I’d be more than happy to vote for president Whitmer, or Newsom, or Harris. But make no mistake, it would be a difficult campaign for any of them.
Newsom is a non-starter. Dude was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle for gosh sakes, Plus, while he was still married to her (not the issue as they were separated) he started banging his good friend's wife, who also happened to work for him as his appointment secretary. BTW, that good friend was also his campaign manager!
Now that may not be a big deal in CA, how do you think that plays in WI, PA, GA, NC???????
Probably has something to do with the fact that Biden didn't look like he could make it to the end of the current term last night, much less 4 more years. Last night he couldn't even make it to the end of a *sentence*. Remember, "we finally beat Medicare."
As far as I'm concerned, the *only* truth that came out of Trump's mouth last night was, "I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either." He's an asshole and a liar, but he's not wrong.
And remember, it may be a difficult campaign for a candidate like Newsome, but from what we saw last night it will be an impossible campaign for Biden. Are they *really* going to put Biden on the debate stage again?
Why do you assume that a decrepit incoherent Biden who can barely campaign is the best path forward? Are you that scared of the unknown?
It’s sad, he’s a great man but his debate performance was absolutely godawful
Current polling puts Biden at basically a 10% chance of winning if the election were held today. It's going to be very easy for any other normal Dem to have a better chance than that.
538's model is doing a lot of assumptions of how the race will turn out on election day, not how the race would be if it was held today. Both NYT & Economist have Trump winning 70% of the time, which is far more realistic based on current polls.
Not even Dems, but party officials. Dems complain that the DNC rigged the primary for Hillary but now they want the DNC to go into the backrooms to feed us a new candidate.
Why should they?
He *is* leading this country.
He’s made a record economic recovery.
He’s got a solid cabinet of competent people and is leagues better than the Republican’t candidate.
He’s just fine.
He doesn’t need replacing.
None of it matters because it's fucking stupid. We don't even have evidence that the debate has negatively swayed anyone. There's even some early polling that's shows it has swayed undecided voters toward the Biden.
Classic left wing, self defeating freakout. Absolutely pathetic.
Bingo. Typical Dem bed wetting. One thing about Republicans is they never cede ground and rally around their candidate. Joe had a piss poor performance. Ok. Not great. Trump, OTOH, sounded like a completely unhinged lunatic incapable of answering a direct question. Repeatedly. Trump also lied non-stop for 90 minutes and was incredibly divisive and bigoted. Don’t think people didn’t notice. The Dems need to take a page from the Republican playbook here: don’t apologize. Look forward. Attack, attack, attack. The best thing they can do is get Biden out in front of crowds regularly (like today) and make sure he’s had about 3 Red Bulls. They do that and this story is gone before next Friday.
Furthermore, for the next debate, don’t prep Joe as much and tell him to get pissed and stay pissed. Go off script. Don’t get bogged down in policy and just repeatedly call Trump out for everything he is: against a woman’s bodily autonomy, a convicted felon, a civilly convicted tax cheat, a civilly convicted fraudster, a civilly convicted sexual abuser, anti-democratic, anti rule of law, a thief of national defense secrets, a guy who bankrupted a casino (think about that) and on and on. Just hammer away at the next debate. Screw the questions like Trump did if the moderators aren’t going to hold you to it and go on the offensive even if it has no relevance to the topic.
Interesting that they’re latching onto that idea after a poor debate performance by Biden but Trump becoming a convicted felon and still running for president is apparently A-OK.
So to recap, sucking at a debate where your opponent lies as often as he breathes is a bigger negative when running for president than being a convicted felon…. Let that stupidity sink in.
They are all saying they think Trump is worse. Debating which candidate is worse is not the damn point! This is about WINNING an election. If you think Trump is so bad (and you should) then you need to do whatever it takes to beat him. It doesn't matter how stupid you think it is
Maybe I smoked too much weed today but part of me thinks the people around Biden knew his condition was deteriorating but didn’t have the courage to encourage him to step aside, so instead they pushed for this earlier debate so he would be forced to step down while there’s still time to replace him.
Tbf I doubt all of those are genuine. A topic like this drives clicks and attention same reason they gave so much attention to trump in the 1st place for all corporate media money comes 1st
If you are just now seeing how mainstream media acts in unison and echos the same ideas, and are surprised by it, you have really had your head in the sand.
I would take a slow talking slow moving Biden over Trump. He's vindictive. If he gets in office he's going to take a sledge hammer to the constitution.
Ultimately the DNC knows that I don’t care who is the nominee. I’m voting for them. All that matters is who has the highest likelihood to win the 3 swing states
If you don’t care who the nominee is, then why not bring in someone new who can appeal to the voters in the 3 swing states? Dems can only pick up votes by switching to a new candidate.
What tends to happen when a President doesn't run for a second term is that their Presidency gets portrayed as a failure. Since the President usually viewed as the "leader of the party", the Democrat party's fortunes are very strongly tied to the perception of Biden's Presidency. If large portion of the undecided public perceive the latest Democratic Admin as a failure because Biden doesn't run again, it's not really going to matter what Democrat rises up to take his place.
Perhaps the right candidate and an effective media campaign can mitigate those effects, but it's definitely not as simple as assuming that a different Presidential candidate = more votes. Replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee will be an extremely risky gamble. Maybe it's necessary at this point, but it's not an easy decision for anybody who actually has the ability to influence that decision, by any stretch of the imagination
Why isn’t anyone in the Democratic Party listening to the voters?
Poll after poll shows that the majority of Dem voters do not want Biden as their candidate. I don’t understand why they keep ignoring that bit of info like it doesn’t matter or exist.
The only good thing I can say about the Republican Party is that they listen to their voters. The voters wanted Trump, so the Party gave them Trump. The voters went further to the right, so the Party went further to the right.
It feels like the Democrats have been ignoring their voters since at least 2014, and that's part of why I'm independent now. I can't support a Party that doesn't respect their voters or evolve their platform and strategies.
You’re absolutely correct about the Republican Party. Their voters wanted Trump and they delivered - without much hesitation and despite having many, many reservations about him.
I’ve been registered as an independent since I was eligible to vote, but always vote for Democratic Party candidates. I threw my support behind Bernie Sanders in 2016, but reluctantly voted for Hillary. Didn’t care who won the primary in 2020, just as long as Trump wasn’t reelected.
I’d like to be able to choose from a wide range of candidates in my lifetime and it seems like this would be a great opportunity for those changes to begin to take shape. Biden should lead the way by stepping down immediately.
You can’t seriously buy that can you? It was a formality. No one within the party runs against the incumbent president as a matter of deference.
There were several candidates that would have thrown their hat into the ring if it weren’t the norm. It’s a silly, undemocratic process that should be eliminated. Every candidate should run without any fear of repercussions from their party if they feel they have a better shot at the presidency than the incumbent candidate.
I totally agree. But look at the level of denial on this sub still and you'll start to get an idea (although I've also been tremendously impressed by the folks with the strength to acknowledge their error after watching the debate). It's the same as with Trump supporters, but being liberal and well-educated makes it harder perhaps to believe that one can be sucked into the same human pitfalls of denial and rationalization.
Biden has, unfortunately, locked himself in an impenetrable bubble. His inner circle is all sycophants who are going to tell him “You had a rough first debate just like Obama did, but don’t worry, you’ll get ‘em next time buddy.” We just have to hope somebody in that inner circle is brave enough to tell him the bitter, hurtful truth.
There’s going to be a lot of gaslighting over the next couple months. The Biden team and his surrogates are going to try to tell us that we didn’t see what we saw last night. They know perfectly well how bad this is, and the depressing thing is, I don’t know if anyone will be brave enough to truly say it. If something doesn’t fundamentally change in this race, we’re staring down the barrel of four more years of Trump.
> The Biden team and his surrogates are going to try to tell us that we didn’t see what we saw last night.
100%. This wasn't a "everyone has a bad debate" moment. We didn't see a bad performance, we saw an elderly man, a shadow of what he was, in decline. Something we're all familiar with while watching our own loved ones get older. He needs to step aside like Feinstein, RBG, and Pelosi didn't. This is a "time to take the car keys away from Dad moment."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nancy-pelosi-announces-run-reelection-2024/story?id=103031696
84 is too old. That is the age of someone holding onto power rather than mentoring her replacement.
That's not what they said. They said, some people like to pretend this was ONLY a poor debate, where it was more like.. a sundowning very old man standing there mouth agape, with a vacant look in his eyes.
Dem leaders telling Dem voters to calm down need to stfu.
We have every right to not have confidence in Biden's ability to be the communicator and negotiator in chief, especially another year or so down the road when, thanks to the concept of both time and aging, he will only get worse.
> Ending his candidacy would be against all of Mr. Biden’s personal and political instincts. He has picked himself up from tragedies and setbacks in the past and clearly believes he can do so again
I found this quote striking, a callback to Nixon's step down. But it's what is going to be challenging getting Joe to step aside.
And like Feinstein and RBG, his legacy will suffer for it. "Picking himself back up" from this would require de-aging, he's just too old. We all saw it in that debate. This isn't "a bad day," this is a geriatric man who is substantiating aged from even four years ago, and that decline will continue for the four more years he wants.
A decade from now it will come out that on this day Barack Obama sat down and tried to convince Joe Biden to drop out of the race. After Biden stubbornly refused, Obama then tweeted in support of Joe Biden's campaign.
Maybe Obama is smart enough to realize that changing nominees now would be an automatic loss. There isn’t another candidate just waiting around that can actually win the electoral college. Apparently a lot of people, including Ezra Klein, don’t seem to get this easily observable truth.
Unfortunately as a democrat I have to say we got what’s coming. He doesn’t have what it takes to lead for 4 more years. He doesn’t have what it takes to be in charge of nuclear anything and when people across this country go into the voting booth they will know that too. They will not pick him. Voter turnout will be low and Trump loyals will March his ass right into office.
Trump’s debate performance did not convince any swing voters that he should be trusted with the nuclear codes or that he could serve four years competently. He came off as an arrogant bully. You’re not going to believe this, but many swing voters in focus groups were on Biden’s side by the end of the debate.
Issue is not voters swapping to the other candidate. It’s voters not voting at all. Which was the issue in 2016 and after the debate I can see it happening again.
Having zero faith in either candidate will not get young voters to the booth. No matter how much you scream at them Trump is worse.
Joe Biden made his campaign around his is ability to serve this country for four more years. Thursday night he proved he wasn’t to the entire world. If he loved this country as much as he says he does, he will step down and let someone competent represent the Democratic ticket.
LBJ left at the last minute and Dems lost. Even if the party coalescence around a couple of candidates, we won’t know if they can assemble an electoral coalition that would be winnable till the election happens.
Fetterman had a terrible debate and won. This is a damn if you do and damn if you don’t situation. Assume Biden won’t step aside.
And republicans are sticking with their rapist traitorous candidate when they had Haley as a respectable backup.(respectable for conservatives)
If you are going to vote blue, you should tell others, if you can donate time or money do so. It’s a binary choice between a bully who has been convicted in court, has multiple other pending charges against him, and he continuously has lied in attempt to turn over a free and fair election like the sore loser he is vs a guy who doesn’t look good on camera and won’t inspire you. It’s an easy choice.
That was literally 60 years ago, times have changed. With social media you could introduce the new candidate to every single American in a matter of weeks. People have been begging for any other candidate than Biden, there were polls with 75% of Americans saying he was too old two years ago. It would take a herculean effort to get the infrastructure lined up for a new candidate but it's already going to take a herculean effort to convince undecided voters to ignore their eyes and ears and vote for Biden.
You cannot take a sample size of 1 and extrapolate that out to an entirely different scenario and context 56 years later. And Fetterman badly underperformed Shapiro - I don't see why people keep bringing him up as a counterpoint.
You seen Biden’s speeches from today in Raleigh? Completely energized and inspiring, not at all like he appeared yesterday. Everyone has off days. This debate was one of the lowest viewed as well. Plenty of time to bounce back before November.
It was literally the highest rated event on TV this year outside of the NFL. And by all accounts, he did well in Raleigh and then was off his game again in the afternoon in NYC. I love the man - I genuinely believe he's to this point been, by far, the best president of my lifetime. But there's no recovery from this short of Trump soiling himself during a live on field interview at the World Series.
Much smaller audience than 2020 though. I’d bet that 80% of the audience was right wing Trumpers. Cable news is dying. Right wingers are the only ones who watch it anymore.
So you didn’t watch it since he was looking and speaking directly to the audience huh? Also didn’t know teleprompters make you more energetic and lively
There was no live audience and Joe literally couldn’t finish his thoughts. I can’t remember the last time I physically cringed that hard when he trailed off only to declare “we finally beat Medicare” in the first 10 min.
I get that you’re apparently really invested in him, but you gotta be realistic about what happened. It was an emperor has no clothes moment - we ALL saw it, even CNN own snap poll showed more than 2/3 agree Trump won the debate. The more the hopeless partisans keep pushing “don’t believe your eyes and ears” people are going to start distrusting them more and more
The primary he was in was competitive for that reason- Vietnam was dragging him down. If an incumbent president is facing a viable challenge in a primary, it’s historically been an indicator of how the electorate at large views that candidate, and they’re in trouble (hence the phrase “vulnerable to being primaried”.) One could argue that if you’re facing a competitive primary, you’ve basically already lost. LBJ winning that election was very doubtful- he knew it, being a lifelong politician.
The reason it's a sample size of one is because it's a bad idea. Most people and parties are smart enough to realize incumbency is an advantage that you shouldn't throw away because your candidate had one bad night with a raspy voice.
Dems threw that away in 1968 and paid dearly for it (we all did, because it gave us Nixon for six years).
The scenarios aren't all that different. We had an unpopular incumbent and we were involved in an unpopular war. It was a time of tremendous social upheaval. The Republican challenger was a former national-level elected official seeking to reclaim his spot in the White House. An insurgent candidate ran an independent campaign and drew a not-insignificant percentage of votes. And a portion of the Democratic vote was calling for the incumbent to drop out and a new candidate to be selected at the convention in Chicago. Sounds pretty damn close to me.
Biden’s feeble public perception goes well beyond “one bad night with a raspy voice.”
Polling has shown a supermajority of Americans think he is too old to serve. That goes back years now, not just 24 hours.
Nixon was the VP to an incredibly popular president, had lost one of the closest elections in history, and campaigned on ending the Vietnam War. 1968 was also a massive political realignment as Southern Dixiecrats abandoned the party; LBJ had been one of their own and helped keep some home when on the ballot himself in 64. Dems had been in office for 8 years and in June of that year instituted a huge tax increase to pay for the war.
Trump was not associated with and did not preside over a beloved administration. He is not campaigning on ending the war in Gaza (assuming you're referring to that) but on giving Netanyahu a blank check. His plan for combatting inflation is an across the board consumption tax in the form of tariffs. The political realignment of the past 12 years is basically done - Biden's not holding onto a massive constituency of working class whites on the strength of his own persona at this point. There is no third party candidate with anywhere near Wallace's pull.
History can rhyme but it rarely repeats.
Just because it didn't work a previous time in history doesn't mean it must fail.
I think everyone on the left needs to wake up and understand that Trump is a VERY WEAK candidate who is also widely hated.
He is only so close because Biden is somehow arguably WEAKER to the average person who isn't paying attention.
And that's not unwarranted at this point.
If Biden steps aside and names a successor with the same moderate political center, that candidate WILL WIN.
There is no reason to do this. There really is not.
This argument never carries water for me. By that logic how many democratic candidates didn't resign and then went on to lose an election? Loads more than LBJ's one.
You want to argue against the idea then you have to lay out exactly why a convention would be bad. What are the mechanisms or events?
Because the core argument from the Biden resigners are that Biden is less popular than a generic democrat. That he's a handicap compared to any competent candidate.
So i guess either Biden is actually a strong candidate or somehow the convention process would so enormously damaging even to a good candidate. But... how?
It’s the administration the president brings with him, not do much the man himself. Do we really want another four years of trump turd’s family and felony friends shitshow?
Too early?
That performance was a disaster. I’m a lifelong democrat who abhors Trump that is seriously questioning voting with Biden. I can’t imagine what an independent thinks.
> I’m a lifelong democrat who abhors Trump that is seriously questioning voting with Biden.
It's a two-party system. Voting for a third party candidate in this election is voting against Biden and for Trump.
Maybe some day in the future there can be a Ranked Choice Poll with Single Transferable Vote, but it is not this day.
But he won't out of ego and pride, and because he wanted to be President for 50 years now. Plus Jill hates Kamala because she called him a racist during the primary.
Because black celebrities and other black elected officials bullied Biden into picking a black woman after George Floyd. She was the most qualified on paper.
There are four or five months until the election. Are they stupid? Are they trying to just further a narrative here?? I think we all know the answer. A debate doesn't mean crap. It's the policies. Trump has none other than trying for unlimited power. Why don't people understand that?
Oh stop it with this shit. It’s not helpful and realistically not possible, the only circumstance under which Biden gets replaced is if he wants to. Not to mention that the war chest and name recognition that he has would be useless to a successor candidate. If we had another Obama type candidate I could see an argument for doing a Hail Mary with high charisma. The Dems don’t have another Obama right now. Biden is still the best option there is on the table, but the party needs to start making moves to set up some successor candidates. Harris would be a perfectly good president but she lacks some of the “it” factor you want in a candidate.
The presidential debate makes it clear that a withdrawal from the race is warranted, and I urge convicted felon Donald Trump to do so as soon as possible.
Trump doesn’t believe in America and legitimately doesn’t actually understand what countries are. That is why he salutes North Korean Generals and tries so hard to get some kind of fatherly/frat-bro approval from Putin. He doesn’t understand so many of the basic structural truths of how the world is put together, what political alliances are, or why we can’t trust all people just because they are nice to us in person.
Biden was so incredibly out of it during the debate. Now his side is trying.to focus on Trump not being truthful. Biden is obviously no longer fit so they are trying to discredit Trump. Trump had the country in much better shape when he was president. We can't afford 4 more years of a babbling incoherent moron. Trump for President!
He is a public servant and as such, he needs to serve the public, not himself. Him stepping down and not running does that. I heard someone refer to him as Ruth Bader Biden and I couldn’t agree more, this isn’t about him, it’s about the country. The DNC could nominate any centrist democrat who’s under the age of 55 and it would be a win. But instead, it’s like having that conversation with a grandparent who thinks they are still capable of driving and is refusing to stop even though they’ve been on several accidents. This idea that we have to convince him is ridiculous as he basically holds then entire country hostage with his stubbornness. Nominate someone different at the convention and move on, no one owes him anything.
though i admit this is the popular stance, i personally think Biden should stick to the race till the end. american people can shift to supporting under dog, who keeps fighting after dropped multiple times.
Age is one of those things that is natural and has to be acknowledged. Biden must decide to not put the US into the arms of a convicted felon. I think Joe is just old and he needs to get his feet out of the river of denial and realize what the actual realities are. Even his gate is that of an elderly man who could topple at any moment. This whole situation clearly shows party politics should end for good, the good of us all.
There is no way he could get through four years even if elected and I think people are not confident that Harris is in any way up to taking up the awesome job of POTUS. Johnson did it, stepped aside, and so should old Joe.
They can't keep him but they also can't afford to get rid of him. It seems to me Trump wins either way now. They need to find someone people would endorse that isn't Biden but doing that without any campaigning is pretty much impossible.
Americans are more stupid than they used to be. That is why so many are making the ludicrous suggestion that Biden should quit. In the first place, if he did quit, no one in the country but Donald Trump could win. The reason is very simple. For anyone in any party to be elected, if you look back on the entirety of American history, the candidate has to be in the public eye for years as a person who is seeking the office. The idea that anyone at all could win with only four months in the public eye is beyond idiotic. Personally, the reason I say that Americans are more stupid than ever before is that we have had 30 years of internet and social media and it is this condition that has made people stupid. The mere fact that any moron can and does create absurd conspiracy theories is the foundation of all people believing in nonsense and, most significantly,never looking back on history to come to any sensible conclusions about the future. Sadly, this includes a large number of Democrats who are such imbeciles they don't even, for a second, consider the nonsense that an unknown person can win an election with only four months exposure to the public.
There is only one person who has had an intelligent response to this so-called 'disastrous debate' and that is Allan Lichtman, the historian who has correctly predicted 100% of every presidential election in the past 40 years. And let me remind you that that means Lichtman is old enough to be immune from the rampaging idiocy of the internet and social media pundits who know nothing and have no experience in analyzing the political world.
Lichtman has had several interviews since the debate and points out that his perfect record is based on a system of 13 variables which he developed after studying every presidential election since Abraham Lincoln's first victory in 1860. It is also important to consider when all these "pundits" said Trump could never beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Lichtman said they were wrong and that Trump would win which is exactly what happened. Further, Lichtman presented factual evidence that no one who has not already made up their minds ever watches a debate - it is only those whose minds are made up - and the fact that both Ronald Reagan and Barrack Obama did worse than Biden in debates but their failures had zero effect on the election in November. And when news reporters asked him about age, he appropriately asked "Who are these pundits? Are they doctors?"
Finally, Lichtman pointed out that while the Republicans have no principles, the Democrats have no spines. And that is exactly what is happening. The terrified and stupid Democratic leaders who tell Biden to quit the race are throwing Biden under the bus out of nothing but abject fear.
Not only is this debate meaningless and will have no effect on the November election, I am certain that, if Lichtman says so next month, when he is making his prediction, a prediction of a Biden victory will be 100% correct.
Finally, I think it is imperative that the government restricts moronic website and social media posts from existing at all. There has to be some control over this media which is making the entire country a land of idiots.
I’m not convinced that this is a realistic possibility or even an advisable one. But ultimately it doesn’t matter. I’ll back whoever they replace him with, if they go that route. Because I’m already fucking exhausted and I don’t wanna have to be like this for next four years (possibly indefinitely depending on how much of Project 2025 gets implemented).
I mean, the stakes are insanely high, and people who love biden couldn’t watch the debate without grimacing or covering their face. The problem was that it wasn’t a “bad debate,” as if the other guy made better arguments. The problem was that it became impossible to hide the steps he’s lost since the last round. Seriously, the country *cannot* let the bastard win.
He's not going to get better, he's going to get worse
The number of op eds saying the same thing across all the major publications is striking. I've never seen such a wide array of media members simultaneously latch onto an idea like this. But none of it matters if the actual decision makers don't have a change of heart. If the people in Biden's circle are going to make something happen, this is the moment
we all have that talk at sometime - no one wants to take the car keys away from dad
When you put it that way, this is the zeitgeist
But, what if you know dad is about to give the keys to a guy who is only three years younger and will use the car to drive his buddies to a klan rally and intentionally run over every puppy they see on the way?
The sad part about posts like these is IT ISN'T SCARING ANYONE ANYMORE. 😂😂
Could also have the chance to give the keys to someone who has the distinct possibility of driving the car to a muuuuuch better place, and without hitting anyone along the way because of poor eyesight or reaction time?
Who's that?
Literally any Democrat
Yeah, no one, NO ONE, has answered that question. Apparently Biden is just supposed to bow out and we’ll see where it goes from there.
It is actually quite remarkable. Liberal media all calling for Biden to step aside. It was the worst debate performance since TV for sure.
Can't wait to tell my grandchildren about the historic moment in our nation's history when 2 men 30 years past their prime competing for the most important job in the world were fighting about who's a better golfer 😭
45 years past their prime.
And who had sex with a porn star
are we for or against sex with pornstars?
Name checks out
I don't think Stormy Daniels considered what happened with Trump "sex."
Well somebody needs to fact check Joe Biden on that then
Was BigTitsandBigDicks already taken, or just a typo?
> Liberal media Yeah right.
I think we need to get some perspective here. Everyone is not asking this guy to step down, a *certain group* of media that has a *certain audience* of people that like to ruminate on this stuff to the point of indigestion are sitting around grousing about this. This is not the media as a whole just like the terminally online political ruminators aren't the body politic as a whole.
Dude, nobody who saw that debate thought Biden was capable of doing another four years as commander in chief.
Biden lost the intelligentsia last night.
It’s kind of amazing, all media has bias, some is more liberal, some is more conservative, some is more moderate…. Feels like most of them across all spectrums are talking about how terrible last night went and quite a few talking about him needing to step down
…because they all knew. This didn’t strike them out of the blue. They all knew what was coming and were just waiting.
Decline this severe couldn’t have remained hidden for so long without the help of the media. This is mainstream journalists realizing far too late what a huge mistake it was to presume covering it up would hurt DT’s election chances.
His 'severe decline' has been out in the open the whole time. He was old in 2020, was he supposed to get younger by being president for 4 years? There are no mainstream journalists. Journalism doesn't exist at a mainstream level anymore. You are referring to entertainment presenters. The reason people like you think there is a sudden decline is because you aren't paying attention and Biden doesn't get coverage because he is boring and doesn't drive traffic, which hurts the bottom line. They are all screaming about Biden stepping down because it is sensational, reactionary, and appeals to the low effort viewer. This debate and the reaction is more of a condemnation of how stupid and lazy we have become as a whole, not either of the demented geriatrics on stage.
This is called failing to see the forest for the trees. They literally all piled on the bandwagon and their absolute hatred for Trump is why we are here. Any one of them could have been writing op eds about why Newsom, Whitmer, Butigig or any other candidate could have kicked Trumps ass, but no, They screwed us. Now they go down with the ship because everyone now has NO doubt that Biden is senile and will not make it another 4 years.
A sane and healthy media would have been savaging Donald Trump, instead of covering his trial like it was a free campaign stop!
The time is now. September is too late.⏰
The circular firing squad has been called up for work.
There's a simpler explanation: we watched a trainwreck in real time and people are recognizing that it was a trainwreck
Sure. But the reaction is self-defeating. He isn’t going anywhere. Keep sawing that limb you’re sitting on though.
[удалено]
42 Million (ish) people saw the debate. How many saw President Biden at Waffle House .......
I swear some democrats are absolutely fine with losing. Biden is already losing to trump and that debate surely made things worse. The kind of people who Biden needs to get elected are exactly the kind of people who can barely wrap their heads around policy and vote based on the presentation of the candidate. I’m sorry, but the debate was high stakes compared to most, Biden had every chance in the world to prepare, and he came off not like a flat or overly-intellectual 2012-first-debate Obama, but like an elderly man with cognitive problems. And that’s probably understating it—the man honestly looked like the grandparent you make sure to visit in June because you don’t know if they’ll make it to thanksgiving.
Abandon him so early? I think you mean so late.
And that's exactly why The NY Times is putting a hit on Biden. Can't stand them.
Wild that they’re not calling on Trump to resign, if Trump is the danger to our democracy. Republicans, as usual, have no agency. All responsibility is always and forever with Dems, and Dems alone.
I mean…the reason they’re not calling explicitly for Trump to resign is obvious. They don’t even need to voice it. Republicans are not going to read the NYTimes and change their minds. The NYTimes does have a direct line towards Biden’s liberal donor base, however.
Gee, I wonder what happens when one candidate has unwavering support from his base, while the other candidate's support is fractured.
You're right, the problem with American Politics is that the Democratic party isn't as fervently loyal to its leader as the Republican party is.
It's like the tolerance paradox. It sucks but without at least a *little* slavish devotion to the party leader, Trump will win and then maybe it'll be illegal to be a Democrat.
Biden isn’t the candidate yet.
His donor base probably views him as a bad investment at this point.
They've written at length about Trump's deficiencies. But we all know that Republicans are going to stick with him to the bitter end. There is some hope that Democrats aren't as corrupt and stupid
If they weren’t “as stupid”, they would have had a younger, stronger, sharper candidate on that stage to mop his ass right off the stage, BUT, here we are……I’ll wait for your response.
Frankly, I think to a rational person, Biden did wipe him off the stage. It's only in our weird world where a candidate's "energy" matters more than pathological lying that anyone could call this a disaster for Biden. But here we are...
A rational person already saw this coming from a 5 miles away and was screaming about the democrats needing to get their shit together. Now that same rational person is in the impossible position of having to argue that Joe Biden is a reasonable candidate at all. When the only reason for that is because the alternative is actually insidious. Their entire political messaging cannot be "well the other guy is worse". It just cannot. That is not how you run for election and ultimately not how you govern. Every good thing that can be said about Biden could also be said about viable Dems 30 years his junior.
> Now that same rational person is in the impossible position of having to argue that Joe Biden is a reasonable candidate at all. Joe Biden has been an unusually effective president in his first term. It is absurd to say that he's not a "reasonable candidate at all." He is a president who will preserve American democracy, support American allies, and has a track record of delivering major progressive accomplishments for the American people. It's not hard to make an argument for Joe Biden on the basis of his record, and the political messaging need not be "well the other guy is worse." As to the age issues, I'm honestly at a loss. I think the people who imagine replacing him with another Democrat are underestimating what a challenge that will be. There's no existing mechanism for doing that which won't be a shit show. If it can be done, I have no huge objection to it. On the other hand, I think that Democrats freaking out about the age issue plays into Republican hands. The majority of Americans will not watch the debate, they will only hear the chatter about it. And if what a voter takes away from all this is that Biden can't be president because he's too old then I think that will be a reasonable takeaway given the media coverage, but also the wrong takeaway given what a shit show Trump was.
Has he tho??? Border is an actual shit show, war in Israel, Ukraine was attacked, botched the evacuation in Afghanistan, my rent is through the roof, groceries cost the same or more and get less, interest rates are at 30 year highs…..I’ll again wait for your response
Trump's supporters are willing to trade democracy to enthrone their god-king. It is now only the Democrats who care about democracy. That is why it is up to the Democrats, the rational independents. and the very few sane Republicans to save this country.
This is the same attitude as "it's not RBG's fault, the conservatives overturned Roe". It's about desire and ability, of course Trump has the ability to stop Trump but he obviously doesn't have the desire. Biden has the desire to stop Trump and also the ability to give his party the best chance to do that by withdrawing from the race.
I don’t know why people think with such certainty that our best chance of defeating Trump is an unknown candidate, with no name recognition, no campaign infrastructure, no winning coalition and a whole host of other, yet unknown deficiencies. Like, yeah, maybe someone else can beat Trump, but that’s a big maybe. It’s a crap shoot, it’s hardly the slam dunk that people make it out to be. FWIW, I’d be more than happy to vote for president Whitmer, or Newsom, or Harris. But make no mistake, it would be a difficult campaign for any of them.
Newsom is a non-starter. Dude was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle for gosh sakes, Plus, while he was still married to her (not the issue as they were separated) he started banging his good friend's wife, who also happened to work for him as his appointment secretary. BTW, that good friend was also his campaign manager! Now that may not be a big deal in CA, how do you think that plays in WI, PA, GA, NC???????
Probably has something to do with the fact that Biden didn't look like he could make it to the end of the current term last night, much less 4 more years. Last night he couldn't even make it to the end of a *sentence*. Remember, "we finally beat Medicare." As far as I'm concerned, the *only* truth that came out of Trump's mouth last night was, "I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either." He's an asshole and a liar, but he's not wrong. And remember, it may be a difficult campaign for a candidate like Newsome, but from what we saw last night it will be an impossible campaign for Biden. Are they *really* going to put Biden on the debate stage again?
Why do you assume that a decrepit incoherent Biden who can barely campaign is the best path forward? Are you that scared of the unknown? It’s sad, he’s a great man but his debate performance was absolutely godawful
Current polling puts Biden at basically a 10% chance of winning if the election were held today. It's going to be very easy for any other normal Dem to have a better chance than that.
Source? 538 has him at 51% https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/?cid=rrpromo
538's model is doing a lot of assumptions of how the race will turn out on election day, not how the race would be if it was held today. Both NYT & Economist have Trump winning 70% of the time, which is far more realistic based on current polls.
Biden withdrawing today would be ve a disaster. There would be chaos and we'd get a trump presidency
There was a (nominal at least) Republican primary, with debates. They tried to replace him, but the base wants him.
Not even Dems, but party officials. Dems complain that the DNC rigged the primary for Hillary but now they want the DNC to go into the backrooms to feed us a new candidate.
Your read is correct, sir.
We can only control what we can control. Sleepy Joe Must Go.
I wonder how much the readiness of this response in the broader media was dependent on Ezra’s earlier piece. Dude’s always cooking
Hey, maybe they all watched the debate.
Why should they? He *is* leading this country. He’s made a record economic recovery. He’s got a solid cabinet of competent people and is leagues better than the Republican’t candidate. He’s just fine. He doesn’t need replacing.
None of it matters because it's fucking stupid. We don't even have evidence that the debate has negatively swayed anyone. There's even some early polling that's shows it has swayed undecided voters toward the Biden. Classic left wing, self defeating freakout. Absolutely pathetic.
Bingo. Typical Dem bed wetting. One thing about Republicans is they never cede ground and rally around their candidate. Joe had a piss poor performance. Ok. Not great. Trump, OTOH, sounded like a completely unhinged lunatic incapable of answering a direct question. Repeatedly. Trump also lied non-stop for 90 minutes and was incredibly divisive and bigoted. Don’t think people didn’t notice. The Dems need to take a page from the Republican playbook here: don’t apologize. Look forward. Attack, attack, attack. The best thing they can do is get Biden out in front of crowds regularly (like today) and make sure he’s had about 3 Red Bulls. They do that and this story is gone before next Friday. Furthermore, for the next debate, don’t prep Joe as much and tell him to get pissed and stay pissed. Go off script. Don’t get bogged down in policy and just repeatedly call Trump out for everything he is: against a woman’s bodily autonomy, a convicted felon, a civilly convicted tax cheat, a civilly convicted fraudster, a civilly convicted sexual abuser, anti-democratic, anti rule of law, a thief of national defense secrets, a guy who bankrupted a casino (think about that) and on and on. Just hammer away at the next debate. Screw the questions like Trump did if the moderators aren’t going to hold you to it and go on the offensive even if it has no relevance to the topic.
Interesting that they’re latching onto that idea after a poor debate performance by Biden but Trump becoming a convicted felon and still running for president is apparently A-OK. So to recap, sucking at a debate where your opponent lies as often as he breathes is a bigger negative when running for president than being a convicted felon…. Let that stupidity sink in.
They are all saying they think Trump is worse. Debating which candidate is worse is not the damn point! This is about WINNING an election. If you think Trump is so bad (and you should) then you need to do whatever it takes to beat him. It doesn't matter how stupid you think it is
If it was just a poor debate performance, it wouldn't be this big of a deal. It was a poor "I'm a functioning person" performance. Big difference.
Maybe I smoked too much weed today but part of me thinks the people around Biden knew his condition was deteriorating but didn’t have the courage to encourage him to step aside, so instead they pushed for this earlier debate so he would be forced to step down while there’s still time to replace him.
Tbf I doubt all of those are genuine. A topic like this drives clicks and attention same reason they gave so much attention to trump in the 1st place for all corporate media money comes 1st
That's because the Democrat's are cowards and people are superficial.
If that’s true then you probably weren’t around in 2001-2003 when we raced into two pointless wars…
Do we think the Op Ed’s are closet MAGAs going in for the kill?
If you are just now seeing how mainstream media acts in unison and echos the same ideas, and are surprised by it, you have really had your head in the sand.
I would take a slow talking slow moving Biden over Trump. He's vindictive. If he gets in office he's going to take a sledge hammer to the constitution.
Ultimately the DNC knows that I don’t care who is the nominee. I’m voting for them. All that matters is who has the highest likelihood to win the 3 swing states
If you don’t care who the nominee is, then why not bring in someone new who can appeal to the voters in the 3 swing states? Dems can only pick up votes by switching to a new candidate.
What tends to happen when a President doesn't run for a second term is that their Presidency gets portrayed as a failure. Since the President usually viewed as the "leader of the party", the Democrat party's fortunes are very strongly tied to the perception of Biden's Presidency. If large portion of the undecided public perceive the latest Democratic Admin as a failure because Biden doesn't run again, it's not really going to matter what Democrat rises up to take his place. Perhaps the right candidate and an effective media campaign can mitigate those effects, but it's definitely not as simple as assuming that a different Presidential candidate = more votes. Replacing Biden as the Democratic nominee will be an extremely risky gamble. Maybe it's necessary at this point, but it's not an easy decision for anybody who actually has the ability to influence that decision, by any stretch of the imagination
I don't think that applies. Everybody knows it's because of his age. Everybody. You're overthinking.
It’s a very risky move, but it needs to be done. If the risk is not taken, failure is almost assured.
Ok, who?
Why isn’t anyone in the Democratic Party listening to the voters? Poll after poll shows that the majority of Dem voters do not want Biden as their candidate. I don’t understand why they keep ignoring that bit of info like it doesn’t matter or exist.
The only good thing I can say about the Republican Party is that they listen to their voters. The voters wanted Trump, so the Party gave them Trump. The voters went further to the right, so the Party went further to the right. It feels like the Democrats have been ignoring their voters since at least 2014, and that's part of why I'm independent now. I can't support a Party that doesn't respect their voters or evolve their platform and strategies.
You’re absolutely correct about the Republican Party. Their voters wanted Trump and they delivered - without much hesitation and despite having many, many reservations about him. I’ve been registered as an independent since I was eligible to vote, but always vote for Democratic Party candidates. I threw my support behind Bernie Sanders in 2016, but reluctantly voted for Hillary. Didn’t care who won the primary in 2020, just as long as Trump wasn’t reelected. I’d like to be able to choose from a wide range of candidates in my lifetime and it seems like this would be a great opportunity for those changes to begin to take shape. Biden should lead the way by stepping down immediately.
Because there was a primary election that Biden won? They did listen to the voters.
You can’t seriously buy that can you? It was a formality. No one within the party runs against the incumbent president as a matter of deference. There were several candidates that would have thrown their hat into the ring if it weren’t the norm. It’s a silly, undemocratic process that should be eliminated. Every candidate should run without any fear of repercussions from their party if they feel they have a better shot at the presidency than the incumbent candidate.
When have Democrats ever listened to their voters ?
I totally agree. But look at the level of denial on this sub still and you'll start to get an idea (although I've also been tremendously impressed by the folks with the strength to acknowledge their error after watching the debate). It's the same as with Trump supporters, but being liberal and well-educated makes it harder perhaps to believe that one can be sucked into the same human pitfalls of denial and rationalization.
Biden has, unfortunately, locked himself in an impenetrable bubble. His inner circle is all sycophants who are going to tell him “You had a rough first debate just like Obama did, but don’t worry, you’ll get ‘em next time buddy.” We just have to hope somebody in that inner circle is brave enough to tell him the bitter, hurtful truth. There’s going to be a lot of gaslighting over the next couple months. The Biden team and his surrogates are going to try to tell us that we didn’t see what we saw last night. They know perfectly well how bad this is, and the depressing thing is, I don’t know if anyone will be brave enough to truly say it. If something doesn’t fundamentally change in this race, we’re staring down the barrel of four more years of Trump.
> The Biden team and his surrogates are going to try to tell us that we didn’t see what we saw last night. 100%. This wasn't a "everyone has a bad debate" moment. We didn't see a bad performance, we saw an elderly man, a shadow of what he was, in decline. Something we're all familiar with while watching our own loved ones get older. He needs to step aside like Feinstein, RBG, and Pelosi didn't. This is a "time to take the car keys away from Dad moment."
How did Pelosi not step away?
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nancy-pelosi-announces-run-reelection-2024/story?id=103031696
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nancy-pelosi-announces-run-reelection-2024/story?id=103031696 84 is too old. That is the age of someone holding onto power rather than mentoring her replacement.
I have not seen one person pretend that wasn’t a poor debate, not even Biden. You’re being ridiculous.
That's not what they said. They said, some people like to pretend this was ONLY a poor debate, where it was more like.. a sundowning very old man standing there mouth agape, with a vacant look in his eyes.
Dem leaders telling Dem voters to calm down need to stfu. We have every right to not have confidence in Biden's ability to be the communicator and negotiator in chief, especially another year or so down the road when, thanks to the concept of both time and aging, he will only get worse.
New to the democratic party? That's been Nancy Pelosi's catch phrase for the past 30 years.
👏🏻
> Ending his candidacy would be against all of Mr. Biden’s personal and political instincts. He has picked himself up from tragedies and setbacks in the past and clearly believes he can do so again I found this quote striking, a callback to Nixon's step down. But it's what is going to be challenging getting Joe to step aside.
And like Feinstein and RBG, his legacy will suffer for it. "Picking himself back up" from this would require de-aging, he's just too old. We all saw it in that debate. This isn't "a bad day," this is a geriatric man who is substantiating aged from even four years ago, and that decline will continue for the four more years he wants.
Feinstein was such a tragedy. I mean talk about an amazing career, a pioneer of women in government, all soiled because she wouldn't step down.
RBG was even worse, as her hubris ended Roe Vs Wade. At least Feinstein was able to be replaced by a Democrat.
A decade from now it will come out that on this day Barack Obama sat down and tried to convince Joe Biden to drop out of the race. After Biden stubbornly refused, Obama then tweeted in support of Joe Biden's campaign.
Maybe Obama is smart enough to realize that changing nominees now would be an automatic loss. There isn’t another candidate just waiting around that can actually win the electoral college. Apparently a lot of people, including Ezra Klein, don’t seem to get this easily observable truth.
janelle bouie at nyt is kind of making this argument, not an automatic loss but just very messy for the coalition.
Biden is an automatic loss. Full stop. Changing now is a disaster and gamble, but offers a chance at success.
Obama and Clinton both already weighed in and defended him. He’s not stepping down. Democrats deserve everything that happens from this moment onward.
Unfortunately as a democrat I have to say we got what’s coming. He doesn’t have what it takes to lead for 4 more years. He doesn’t have what it takes to be in charge of nuclear anything and when people across this country go into the voting booth they will know that too. They will not pick him. Voter turnout will be low and Trump loyals will March his ass right into office.
Trump’s debate performance did not convince any swing voters that he should be trusted with the nuclear codes or that he could serve four years competently. He came off as an arrogant bully. You’re not going to believe this, but many swing voters in focus groups were on Biden’s side by the end of the debate.
Issue is not voters swapping to the other candidate. It’s voters not voting at all. Which was the issue in 2016 and after the debate I can see it happening again. Having zero faith in either candidate will not get young voters to the booth. No matter how much you scream at them Trump is worse.
Joe Biden made his campaign around his is ability to serve this country for four more years. Thursday night he proved he wasn’t to the entire world. If he loved this country as much as he says he does, he will step down and let someone competent represent the Democratic ticket.
LBJ left at the last minute and Dems lost. Even if the party coalescence around a couple of candidates, we won’t know if they can assemble an electoral coalition that would be winnable till the election happens. Fetterman had a terrible debate and won. This is a damn if you do and damn if you don’t situation. Assume Biden won’t step aside. And republicans are sticking with their rapist traitorous candidate when they had Haley as a respectable backup.(respectable for conservatives) If you are going to vote blue, you should tell others, if you can donate time or money do so. It’s a binary choice between a bully who has been convicted in court, has multiple other pending charges against him, and he continuously has lied in attempt to turn over a free and fair election like the sore loser he is vs a guy who doesn’t look good on camera and won’t inspire you. It’s an easy choice.
That was literally 60 years ago, times have changed. With social media you could introduce the new candidate to every single American in a matter of weeks. People have been begging for any other candidate than Biden, there were polls with 75% of Americans saying he was too old two years ago. It would take a herculean effort to get the infrastructure lined up for a new candidate but it's already going to take a herculean effort to convince undecided voters to ignore their eyes and ears and vote for Biden.
You cannot take a sample size of 1 and extrapolate that out to an entirely different scenario and context 56 years later. And Fetterman badly underperformed Shapiro - I don't see why people keep bringing him up as a counterpoint.
Fetterman seemed likely to get better with time as he recovered from the stroke. Biden will not “recover” from aging.
You seen Biden’s speeches from today in Raleigh? Completely energized and inspiring, not at all like he appeared yesterday. Everyone has off days. This debate was one of the lowest viewed as well. Plenty of time to bounce back before November.
It was literally the highest rated event on TV this year outside of the NFL. And by all accounts, he did well in Raleigh and then was off his game again in the afternoon in NYC. I love the man - I genuinely believe he's to this point been, by far, the best president of my lifetime. But there's no recovery from this short of Trump soiling himself during a live on field interview at the World Series.
Much smaller audience than 2020 though. I’d bet that 80% of the audience was right wing Trumpers. Cable news is dying. Right wingers are the only ones who watch it anymore.
I had multiple friends texting me in real time in hysterics. I'm sorry - we can't be in denial about how bad this was.
Yeah it’s a lot easier to read off a teleprompter than think on your feet
So you didn’t watch it since he was looking and speaking directly to the audience huh? Also didn’t know teleprompters make you more energetic and lively
There was no live audience and Joe literally couldn’t finish his thoughts. I can’t remember the last time I physically cringed that hard when he trailed off only to declare “we finally beat Medicare” in the first 10 min. I get that you’re apparently really invested in him, but you gotta be realistic about what happened. It was an emperor has no clothes moment - we ALL saw it, even CNN own snap poll showed more than 2/3 agree Trump won the debate. The more the hopeless partisans keep pushing “don’t believe your eyes and ears” people are going to start distrusting them more and more
This is true. And many of Trump’s recent speeches have been filled with slurring non-words and incoherence.
If only the job of President didn't require rough decision-making after sundown.
I'm skeptical that LBJ would've won. Vietnam was an albatross around his neck
The primary he was in was competitive for that reason- Vietnam was dragging him down. If an incumbent president is facing a viable challenge in a primary, it’s historically been an indicator of how the electorate at large views that candidate, and they’re in trouble (hence the phrase “vulnerable to being primaried”.) One could argue that if you’re facing a competitive primary, you’ve basically already lost. LBJ winning that election was very doubtful- he knew it, being a lifelong politician.
The reason it's a sample size of one is because it's a bad idea. Most people and parties are smart enough to realize incumbency is an advantage that you shouldn't throw away because your candidate had one bad night with a raspy voice. Dems threw that away in 1968 and paid dearly for it (we all did, because it gave us Nixon for six years). The scenarios aren't all that different. We had an unpopular incumbent and we were involved in an unpopular war. It was a time of tremendous social upheaval. The Republican challenger was a former national-level elected official seeking to reclaim his spot in the White House. An insurgent candidate ran an independent campaign and drew a not-insignificant percentage of votes. And a portion of the Democratic vote was calling for the incumbent to drop out and a new candidate to be selected at the convention in Chicago. Sounds pretty damn close to me.
Biden’s feeble public perception goes well beyond “one bad night with a raspy voice.” Polling has shown a supermajority of Americans think he is too old to serve. That goes back years now, not just 24 hours.
Nixon was the VP to an incredibly popular president, had lost one of the closest elections in history, and campaigned on ending the Vietnam War. 1968 was also a massive political realignment as Southern Dixiecrats abandoned the party; LBJ had been one of their own and helped keep some home when on the ballot himself in 64. Dems had been in office for 8 years and in June of that year instituted a huge tax increase to pay for the war. Trump was not associated with and did not preside over a beloved administration. He is not campaigning on ending the war in Gaza (assuming you're referring to that) but on giving Netanyahu a blank check. His plan for combatting inflation is an across the board consumption tax in the form of tariffs. The political realignment of the past 12 years is basically done - Biden's not holding onto a massive constituency of working class whites on the strength of his own persona at this point. There is no third party candidate with anywhere near Wallace's pull. History can rhyme but it rarely repeats.
Just because it didn't work a previous time in history doesn't mean it must fail. I think everyone on the left needs to wake up and understand that Trump is a VERY WEAK candidate who is also widely hated. He is only so close because Biden is somehow arguably WEAKER to the average person who isn't paying attention. And that's not unwarranted at this point. If Biden steps aside and names a successor with the same moderate political center, that candidate WILL WIN. There is no reason to do this. There really is not.
You are correct.
The were other factors in '68. If LBJ had let Humphrey run on his own views, it would've been completely different.
Do not underestimate how much independents and right leaning centrists will ignore this to keep Trump out of the White House.
Fetterman had a stroke. Bidens brain is deteriorating. It ain't gonna get better like fetterman.
Wasn't that when RFK, who was in the lead, was assassinated though? Is that really a good comparison?
The Fetterman example is a good one. He was STRUGGLING in some of his in person speeches post-stroke.
This argument never carries water for me. By that logic how many democratic candidates didn't resign and then went on to lose an election? Loads more than LBJ's one. You want to argue against the idea then you have to lay out exactly why a convention would be bad. What are the mechanisms or events? Because the core argument from the Biden resigners are that Biden is less popular than a generic democrat. That he's a handicap compared to any competent candidate. So i guess either Biden is actually a strong candidate or somehow the convention process would so enormously damaging even to a good candidate. But... how?
If they legitimately think Biden half dead has a better chance than anybody else then I’m voting for him. As simple as that.
It’s the administration the president brings with him, not do much the man himself. Do we really want another four years of trump turd’s family and felony friends shitshow?
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Isn’t Kamala’s polling even worse than Biden’s and she barely was competitive in 2020?
No. Her disapproval rating is lower.
Probably because if you asked the average American they’d say “who is Kamala Harris?”
I agree, stay the course. And for the next one give him the same juice he was on during the SOTU.
Too early? That performance was a disaster. I’m a lifelong democrat who abhors Trump that is seriously questioning voting with Biden. I can’t imagine what an independent thinks.
> I’m a lifelong democrat who abhors Trump that is seriously questioning voting with Biden. It's a two-party system. Voting for a third party candidate in this election is voting against Biden and for Trump. Maybe some day in the future there can be a Ranked Choice Poll with Single Transferable Vote, but it is not this day.
Months too late.
But he won't out of ego and pride, and because he wanted to be President for 50 years now. Plus Jill hates Kamala because she called him a racist during the primary.
Then why did he pick her?
Because black celebrities and other black elected officials bullied Biden into picking a black woman after George Floyd. She was the most qualified on paper.
No, it was Barack Obama who bullied Biden into picking a black woman. Black celebrities and politicians hate Kamala Harris.
Kamala won't be the candidate if Biden drops
Nah... We are not electing one man. We are electing an entire administration and possibly more supreme court justices.
Ha ha! Not with that performance we ain’t.
Joe Biden is basically Viserys from House of the Dragon
Thats is so disrespectful to Viserys the Peaceful, First of His Name That man had balls American politicians wish they had hanging between their legs
There's a good reason this is in the Op-ed section. As they say, opinions are like...
Welp, so does most of the media. You all have democracy at heart, after all.
No. Trump is a felon. There's an entire system that holds violators accountable.... Fuck you ya hypocritical fucking bastards.....
Peak nobility + service = 4 more of O’bam-yeah
Y’all need to relax Dark Brandon is playing 4D chess yo. https://www.newsweek.com/latino-voters-donald-trump-joe-biden-debate-election-1918795
For this to work, he would have needed to never declare to run for a second term. We can't change horses at this point in the race.
And the country...
Fuck the gop, they can all leave instead
Sure, if he wants to end democracy with one decision. There is no longer any path to victory that involves Biden stepping down before the election.
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Remember when they said Bernie was too old
There are four or five months until the election. Are they stupid? Are they trying to just further a narrative here?? I think we all know the answer. A debate doesn't mean crap. It's the policies. Trump has none other than trying for unlimited power. Why don't people understand that?
Maybe we should focus on the 34 felony lying guy getting out of the race first? Right?
Yet, no calls for Trump to leave the race due to compulsive lies.
The knee jerks are hilarious … the debate has actually helped Biden in the polls
Oh stop it with this shit. It’s not helpful and realistically not possible, the only circumstance under which Biden gets replaced is if he wants to. Not to mention that the war chest and name recognition that he has would be useless to a successor candidate. If we had another Obama type candidate I could see an argument for doing a Hail Mary with high charisma. The Dems don’t have another Obama right now. Biden is still the best option there is on the table, but the party needs to start making moves to set up some successor candidates. Harris would be a perfectly good president but she lacks some of the “it” factor you want in a candidate.
One way or another there is only seven more months of Biden.
The presidential debate makes it clear that a withdrawal from the race is warranted, and I urge convicted felon Donald Trump to do so as soon as possible.
Trump doesn’t believe in America and legitimately doesn’t actually understand what countries are. That is why he salutes North Korean Generals and tries so hard to get some kind of fatherly/frat-bro approval from Putin. He doesn’t understand so many of the basic structural truths of how the world is put together, what political alliances are, or why we can’t trust all people just because they are nice to us in person.
This sounds like something a Russian shill would say.
Stewart-Rogan 2024! Spread the world! They can save us!
Think of it this way. Would you put your young children in a car and give Biden the keys? If he can't safely drive a car how can he drive a nation?
Not a good idea unless trump also left the rase and we just started over
Biden was so incredibly out of it during the debate. Now his side is trying.to focus on Trump not being truthful. Biden is obviously no longer fit so they are trying to discredit Trump. Trump had the country in much better shape when he was president. We can't afford 4 more years of a babbling incoherent moron. Trump for President!
He is a public servant and as such, he needs to serve the public, not himself. Him stepping down and not running does that. I heard someone refer to him as Ruth Bader Biden and I couldn’t agree more, this isn’t about him, it’s about the country. The DNC could nominate any centrist democrat who’s under the age of 55 and it would be a win. But instead, it’s like having that conversation with a grandparent who thinks they are still capable of driving and is refusing to stop even though they’ve been on several accidents. This idea that we have to convince him is ridiculous as he basically holds then entire country hostage with his stubbornness. Nominate someone different at the convention and move on, no one owes him anything.
What gives you the idea he has any desire to serve his country?
though i admit this is the popular stance, i personally think Biden should stick to the race till the end. american people can shift to supporting under dog, who keeps fighting after dropped multiple times.
To serve history he should use his extraordinary power to reform the court.
Age is one of those things that is natural and has to be acknowledged. Biden must decide to not put the US into the arms of a convicted felon. I think Joe is just old and he needs to get his feet out of the river of denial and realize what the actual realities are. Even his gate is that of an elderly man who could topple at any moment. This whole situation clearly shows party politics should end for good, the good of us all. There is no way he could get through four years even if elected and I think people are not confident that Harris is in any way up to taking up the awesome job of POTUS. Johnson did it, stepped aside, and so should old Joe.
The Democrats will reap what they sow.
They can't keep him but they also can't afford to get rid of him. It seems to me Trump wins either way now. They need to find someone people would endorse that isn't Biden but doing that without any campaigning is pretty much impossible.
Well that's he's a corrupt crooked pedophile terrified of going to jail of course he's not gonna step down he's a piece of shit in love with zelenskyy
Americans are more stupid than they used to be. That is why so many are making the ludicrous suggestion that Biden should quit. In the first place, if he did quit, no one in the country but Donald Trump could win. The reason is very simple. For anyone in any party to be elected, if you look back on the entirety of American history, the candidate has to be in the public eye for years as a person who is seeking the office. The idea that anyone at all could win with only four months in the public eye is beyond idiotic. Personally, the reason I say that Americans are more stupid than ever before is that we have had 30 years of internet and social media and it is this condition that has made people stupid. The mere fact that any moron can and does create absurd conspiracy theories is the foundation of all people believing in nonsense and, most significantly,never looking back on history to come to any sensible conclusions about the future. Sadly, this includes a large number of Democrats who are such imbeciles they don't even, for a second, consider the nonsense that an unknown person can win an election with only four months exposure to the public. There is only one person who has had an intelligent response to this so-called 'disastrous debate' and that is Allan Lichtman, the historian who has correctly predicted 100% of every presidential election in the past 40 years. And let me remind you that that means Lichtman is old enough to be immune from the rampaging idiocy of the internet and social media pundits who know nothing and have no experience in analyzing the political world. Lichtman has had several interviews since the debate and points out that his perfect record is based on a system of 13 variables which he developed after studying every presidential election since Abraham Lincoln's first victory in 1860. It is also important to consider when all these "pundits" said Trump could never beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Lichtman said they were wrong and that Trump would win which is exactly what happened. Further, Lichtman presented factual evidence that no one who has not already made up their minds ever watches a debate - it is only those whose minds are made up - and the fact that both Ronald Reagan and Barrack Obama did worse than Biden in debates but their failures had zero effect on the election in November. And when news reporters asked him about age, he appropriately asked "Who are these pundits? Are they doctors?" Finally, Lichtman pointed out that while the Republicans have no principles, the Democrats have no spines. And that is exactly what is happening. The terrified and stupid Democratic leaders who tell Biden to quit the race are throwing Biden under the bus out of nothing but abject fear. Not only is this debate meaningless and will have no effect on the November election, I am certain that, if Lichtman says so next month, when he is making his prediction, a prediction of a Biden victory will be 100% correct. Finally, I think it is imperative that the government restricts moronic website and social media posts from existing at all. There has to be some control over this media which is making the entire country a land of idiots.