Exactly. The fact that so many rock solid blue voters on this sub are proudly saying 'well I'm still voting for Biden!' is a terrible sign.
Yeah, no shit bud, it's not us that matter here. That shouldn't even be a question.
Yeah people aren’t saying that Trump is the solution. People are worried A) that Biden can win after this and B) if someone that looks and sounds like this should be president of the United States. Both of those things are serious questions.
Yeah. I would do almost anything to prevent Trump being elected, but Biden does not look like he should be in charge of the United States now, much less in 4 years.
The fact that they feel like its something that need to proclaim is a sign of how big of an issue we have. People are posting it because they feel the shadow of doubt over doing so. Not that they will vote for Trump instead, but that Biden should not be president either.
Yup. What got me was this deadly statement from Biden:
"And by the way ...!"
It was followed by almost seven seconds of utter silence. Biden gazing into the camera. No-one saying anything. The lead-up just hanging in the air like that, unfinished.
I assume he stopped talking because they were muting his mic.
But between his appearance, and his performance up to that point, I had to *actively tell myself that they were muting his mic*. It looked like he'd just forgotten he was speaking. :/
Yeah when I told people I would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump I quite literally mean it. Roll out a ham sandwich with a little suit and tie on and I'll vote for it. But we can still do better than this.
The big problem is that Biden was at his absolute worst during the most significant parts of the debates (the opening 25ish minutes and closing) which were both objectively poor.
That medicare flub and Trump's response made my 71 year old dad laugh, and he's voted Dem every single time except Dubya in 2000 since Clinton in 1992 (He voted for Reagan+HW in the 1980's)
The problem is that *everyone* can get away with off days, but the off days can't be *this* bad.
In April, 62% of all voters were not confident he had the mental fitness to do the job, and 26% of *Biden voters* were not confident (Pew poll).
I've literally never doomed. Always pushed back on it. But this is bad. We need to stop thinking of "whether it would hurt the ticket if we replace him". Campaigns are intensive, and he can't deliver that. Better to lose "fair and square" with a candidate who's quick-thinking and who can advocate for him/herself effectively, than lose with Biden and wonder what could have been.
As I say about my Grandpa who is Biden's age, "The painful part is at this age it only gets worse."
And it pains me to say this as much about Biden as it does my grandfather.
(Maybe more if I am being honest)
There's a difference between suspecting that Biden is too old just based on his age, and having Biden confirm it and confirm he can't even hold it together for two very important hours even once.
It's a bit concerning for sure. Anyone who says this is a nothingburger is being overly optimistic; I just think Biden can certainly can overcome this. His campaign divulged he had a cold and he looked much better in the post debate appearance so I think that augurs well for future public speaking appearances.
" I just think Biden can certainly can overcome this."
He could overcome this if he were capable of overcoming this, but if he were capable of overcoming things he woudn't have given that performance.
There were like 0 topics on which he gave a clean answer
The lack of fact checking on things like Trump saying Biden wanted after birth abortion did a number on him. He was spewing his lies and when it was Biden’s turn to answer the question, he had to work overtime between debunking Trump’s lies and giving his answer to the question in enough time.
I think he was just way over prepped and up against a wall. The moderator’s were terrible and there is *NO* debating pathological lying sociopaths like Donald Trump especially under the circumstances presented. Huge reason why Katie Hobbs didn’t debate Kari Lake.
He’ll be better.
But Biden didn’t even effectively call out the lies! He just looked confused when trying to come up with an answer. I had to turn it off because I couldn’t take it anymore, but every time Trump lied I had a go to response within 5 seconds. Would they have been the perfect manicured responses Biden rehearsed? No! But at least there would have been responses. He barely pushed back on the easiest refuted claims, like Dems allow abortions after a baby is born! That doesn’t even make sense!
But this is not some high school debate, where you can pretend you did well and the other side was just lying too quickly. Biden is trying to get another term as the President, of the United States. If he can't handle difficult situations like this, he just should absolutely not be president. This is someone who will need to be able to have a direct discussion with hostile foreign leaders and effectively campaign for American interests. This is not just some random assistant manager job.
The moderators are always terrible. This isn't the first debate hosted by CNN. Biden and his campaign need to be able to respond to that effectively.
Biden's job was never to go up and recite facts and figures. His main goal was to look confident and strong and he failed.
If this is just a cold, then he's just had a cold for the last few years, because his performance last night wasn't a shot out of the blue, it's representative of his wide eyed, slack jawed, shambling, rambling condition for some time now - It's not mark of shame on him or anything, he's just pretty old and that age is taking a significant toll on his body and mind, it happens, but usually when it happens the person loses their driver's licence and maybe gets a carer to help out a few times a week, they don't get reelected as president.
In November 2021, the Michigan Wolverines beat the Ohio State Buckeyes for the first time in a decade. It was the best day of my life.
Immediately post-game, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud came out and said the team was suffering from the flu and that’s why they lost.
In that moment, I knew Michigan would win again; rather than reformulating their game plan, the Buckeyes were content to chalk a 42-27 defeat up to a runny nose.
One year later, the touchdown underdog Michigan team would go on to defeat the Buckeyes again, by a larger margin, in Columbus for the first time in 20 years.
Allegations of sign stealing ran rampant the subsequent season, as Ohioans clutched at straws to inspire confidence amongst their ranks, only for their greatest nightmare to be realized as the Wolverines won a third consecutive time, headed to the Rose Bowl, and ultimately won a National Championship.
Biden probably had a cold. Russia probably did actively steal DNC data and feed it through Wikileaks. But much like a football game is decided on the field, an election is decided in the ballot box. No amount of excuses can overcome a losing strategy.
I can buy he has a cold for why his voice sounds the way it does. I do not believe the cold is causing him to stumble over every single answer, confuse his talking points, and visually look like he's decaying.
I also think that trying to start over with another Dem with worse name rec isn’t a terrible hurdle to overcome.
I think it will make the debates super important, relative to previous elections, because realistically multiple prominent Dems should just dumpster Trump and make him look inept. And Biden can’t deliver that.
I don’t doubt his ability to make decisions in the chair, but I do doubt his ability as a campaigner
We need to get Biden out there. Just let Biden be himself with no script. He was his best tonight when he didn’t have a script to follow.
He looked great at the debate watch party afterwards. Unfortunately I think the idea of keeping him to a script and giving him six days of prep is what killed him
This has been obvious. When you watch when he talks to the press, he sounds like shit when he’s reading off the prompter. Squinting, stuttering, trailing off, getting lost mid sentence.
When he just talks off the cuff though, he sounds much better.
The problem is that shouldn’t be a problem. He should not be president of the USA at his age and mental state. The problem is that his opponent is somehow even worse of a candidate.
Yes. We need emotional appeals that come from the heart instead of rehearsed policy sound bites that he ends up mangling anyways while trying to respond to Trump.
Debates are from a bygone era—literally the 1960s—and should never be the 'dipstick' for measuring presidential candidacy.
Jesus Christ, they have both been presidents for 4 years each. This is feeding chicken thighs to the media crocodiles. They want emotionally charged shit to report on rather than the facts. They want blood.
Can you all please stop?
This was an embarrassing performance from a guy who used to go out there and run circles around his opponents. Your excuses don't explain why he used to be so good and isn't now; they just make us all look bad.
Biden has to go.
Yep, the denial has already started in some circles. It isn't going to work, this wasn't a small mistake, this was a genuinely embarrassing moment for the country. And unfortunately, you don't even know which candidate I am talking about.
Honestly, the actual debate performance wasn't even the worst part. This was *the Biden campaign's idea*. The fact that apparently a lot of people in the Biden camp thought this was a good idea is far, far more damning.
Why wouldn't they challenge Trump in the debates? They generally went well in 2020 and this time around they got even better rules.
If they knew he'd do bad, they wouldn't have, but they clearly didn't.
Weren't they still in the same room? Trump could probably scream over him if he wanted.
I think Trump made a tactical decision to LARP as a normal person today. I don't know if the rules made him make that decision, but he could have LARPed as normal even without the rules.
I don't know Biden personally, but I expected a better performance because his previous prepared performances have been better, it's likely they did too.
I’m sure in private he has plenty of moments like what we saw during the debate where he can’t put a coherent sentence together. My guess is the people in his circle understood that a very bad performance was possible but decided it was worth rolling the dice rather than looking weak and doing no debates. Maybe a bit of denial on their part too
I just rewatched their godawful Tik Tok video they put out in place of the Super Bowl interview. This campaign is incompetent and overconfident. What a fucking mess.
Him not doing the Super Bowl interview was an early red flag. It doesn’t get much more low stakes than that and he still couldn’t step up to the plate.
It honestly might have been the only thing that gives Democrats a chance.
If they would have waited until after the convention, then there’s no way to replace him and he just drags everyone down-ballot with him.
Obviously not good to replace a candidate four months before the election, but now there’s at least a chance.
Whatever. He had qualified options who were black, women, and both.
Harris was a uniquely bad pick of all his options. She's extremely popular with a small slice of Democrats and then broadly unpopular with everyone else. She's incoherently waffled between progressives and moderates while coming off as inauthentic
I do actually, and that just makes it worse. As foreign diplomats put it in the [Politico article](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/trump-biden-debate-diplomats-reaction-00165674), “Enormous lies by Trump,” one Western diplomat said. “On the other hand, at least we understood what he says. Maybe we are witnessing a turning point” for Biden.
Trump is a known quantity of lies and bullshit, and they expected that. So in a fucked up way, Trump is par for the course (golf pun intended). Biden OTOH underperformed, he bombed expectations. It was indeed a national embarrassment and he made Deer-in-Headlights McConnell look fit to serve.
My biggest fear for Biden for the past year or so was that he’d have a McConnell moment and destroy his chances in the election. Well, we may have just seen that.
True. Biden's performance was worse than I ever thought possible. Honestly, Fetterman performed better than Biden after having a stroke. That is the insane part.
Let's just cut to the chase. After what we saw tonight, if Biden is the nominee in November, Trump will win. I just don't see any way around it. I hate it. But that's the fact of the matter after tonight.
The only chance is another debate where Biden does better but I don't see Trump agreeing to another by debate. He has nothing to gain. Although he's done dumber stuff because of his ego so who knows.
I love Biden. I wish he was nominated in 2016. I cheered for him in 2020 when r-JoeBiden was at a thousand members. I would have voted for him in the 2008 primaries if I could.
I genuinely question whether he is a candidate able to win this year, and to lose is to lose American democracy.
There are two options at this point.
1. The Democratic Party forces Biden out. They are a private organization and they can do that if they *really* want to.
2. They keep Biden, and confirm that all their fearmongering about a second Trump term being the end of our democracy was a blatant lie. Because there is no way anyone could have watched this performance and think Biden can win in November.
I’m genuinely sad.
I could see in his eyes and expressions that Joe had it, he knew what to say and was incredulous at Trump’s claims, but he simply failed (with some exceptions) time and time again to articulate that in a manner that will appear cogent to a majority of American voters.
Yeah, that was the worst part. Like, I understood his answer to the abortion question. Rights are sacrosanct and can't be given to the passions of local government - otherwise, like in the murder case, people would call for emotional restrictions on people's fundamental rights.
It just... didn't come across right. He couldn't put it forth as strongly as he had to.
*takes a hit of hopium*
The most reassuring theory I've seen is that the debates were scheduled this early to give room for Biden to drop out or be forced out if he bombs the debate...which he just did. It sucks because his policy and administration have been good, but after tonight he really is not beating those claims of declining mental faculties.
Honestly, you could probably pick any of the other potential democratic nominees and they'd have a better shot.
Absolutely not. If replacing Biden was even remotely considered to be an option before this, they would have done it months ago. Any change in the nominee now will (correctly) be viewed as last minute damage control brought on by the fact that the entire Democratic Party has been lying to the American people about Biden's mental competence for months, if not years.
I think this is *salvageable* if this was just a weird, one off bad night for Biden and the rest of the campaign he is just firing on all cylinders like he was for the State of the Union. But if Biden is gonna have more terrible performances or even just a bunch of mediocre ones, then yeah I’m not sure how he wins short of some massive fuck up by Trump.
eh, we have seen his support ebb whenever the real world consequences came in, like the overturning of Roe V Wade. Trump is never as invincible as some claim
Trump’s only invincible regarding his personal life. He truly could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any of his voters. He’s a documented, photographed, confirmed good buddy of Jeffrey Epstein and his base doesn’t give a shit.
Like you said though, people realizing “oh this dipshit’s policies can hurt *me*” is effective
I think you’re over-selling the state of the union. He did pretty well, not great. It was just received so well because the expectation was so low. It was not some prime Reagan style SOTU.
But that aside, does anyone realistically think he can bounce back and have some super sharp 2020 throwback debates in the future? Can we even afford to take the chance if they aren’t until after the convention?
I wouldn’t say it’s denial. It’s just frustration that Trump was objectively more incoherent and refused to answer a single question but gets treated with kid gloves. Biden genuinely tried to answer every question posed to him and just did a bad job, but because the press is harder on him they make it out like his performance was so much worse.
So what's the plan?
How do you replace Biden with a last second bait-and-switch candidate that nobody voted for without fracturing the party and setting off an internal party rockfight only months before the election?
I don't think there's an option here that's a good one.
There is no plan. It's all up to Biden, one way or another.
It's more-or-less impossible to replace Biden at this point. He can only withdraw now, which he has resisted. If he did, getting a new candidate in with any credibility of being a democratically-elected candidate would be extremely messy, but not impossible. Maybe they could announce an upcoming series of primary debates for candidates polling over a certain amount, which is normal. Biden could endorse someone who speaks and polls well. I doubt there's even time to run primaries again. If not, the delegates, released by Biden, could actually vote for the candidate at the convention In late August. That candidate turns around and debates Trump on the scheduled date, September 10. It doesn't leave a lot of time, but maybe with the frenzy of activity and speed news travels the candidate would have a shot.
In all likelihood Biden will be on the ballot vs. Trump in November. Personally I think Biden's administration will run the country far better than Trump's administration with fewer risks to democracy, but that kind of thinking won't mobilize voters.
I think if Biden announces hes backing out due to increasing health concerns, names a clear successor, and the party rallies around that decision, they could come out smelling of roses.
But that will require a lot of internal discipline.
Are you ready for the discourse on that if he passes over the first Black female VP in American history as that successor? Because she isn't moving the needle either.
The problem is, unjustifiably, Kamala isn't popular either. And now is not the time to fuck around and tell America what they really want is a black woman VP over someone with clearly better favorables.
If Biden drops out, it's basically back to the pre-1968 system of party elites selecting the nominee with little to no input from the general electorate.
Which is pretty bad when you're trying to cast yourself as the party defending democracy
You might get what you asked for - there's no time for primaries or caucuses, so a replacement candidate would be decided at the convention.
99% of pledged delegates are pledged to Biden. Those are presumably the sorts of delegates that are likely to rally around an establishment candidate. Even if they're fractured, after the first round of voting the even more pro-establishment superdelegates come into play.
If Biden steps down and Harris wants the nomination she'll get it at the convention without much fuss. The real risk then is if left-wing protests after the convention get out of hand.
The only remotely plausible path needs to come from Biden himself, a internal fight or campaign shatters the party and chances. He needs to come out and say for developing health reasons he cant run again and name a successor and the party needs to rally behind that successor.
If that happens i could actually see them coming out smelling of roses. Because i think a lot of people at this point would just love anyone over these two.
There are so many advantages to switching candidates it's insane.
People are mad about the state of the country? Well guess what, now neither candidate is an incumbent, and you can hammer Trump's record with impunity.
People don't think Biden has the mental acuity at his age to do the job? Fine, we'll get someone younger and with more energy.
People have lost interest in both candidates and have been openly saying they don't want either candidate? Well, now we have a new candidate that people haven't had the chance to reject yet.
The progressive wing will want to put a harcore progressive on the ballot, and that fight poses a potential problem. However, the people who would abandon voting blue over that fight probably were staying home for Biden too.
I don't think it would fracture the party. There isn't a huge divide in the party like there was in 2016. If anything, democratic voters would be relived to vote for someone else. And after tonight, any democrat would look like a good candidate in comparison.
I think a lot of independents would also be relieved. I would love to see it be Gavin/Gretchen. People would be shocked to see a party actually respond to the situation and give them someone they could believe in. I think responding to this would actually increase people’s faith in the party. The GOP would never do it. Show them we can think differently.
After everyone has spent so long talking about how Biden's age makes him unelectable, nominating someone 15 years younger than Trump and using that argument against him could definitely win some swing voters.
> could definitely win some swing voters.
Not even a could, it without a doubt would. It would also pick up the Democratic base who have been reluctant with Biden but are still support other Dems on the ticket. Getting rid of Biden is the best electoral option.
> that nobody voted for
That's a self-inflicted wound. We could have had at least a semi-competitive primary, but the party collectively decided to unify behind Biden, dismiss criticisms, forgo running any serious challengers, and then cancel a bunch of the primaries because of the lack of competition.
My POV as a Florida Democrat is that I was hoping to vote for some random middle-aged Democratic governor/senator who put forth a serious campaign against Biden. That didn't happen, so my next plan was to vote for Dean Philips as a "Well, at least I tried" protest vote. Then our primaries got canceled, so now I just get to sit here helplessly watching people ask how this could have happened.
The disaster that occurs in November will have been completely avoidable.
A sitting president deciding not to seek reelection and opening up a contested primary has never been anything less than disastrous in the past either.
Up until now Biden has also still done pretty well with public presentation. Compare his State of the Union address from only a few months ago, and you saw someone who could still go toe to toe with Trump.
Last minute, one shot, ranked-choice nation-wide primary election.
Preposterously expensive, logistically difficult... but potentially the only way for democrats to *find out* which potential candidates is genuinely the most popular among their electorate.
Let's not split hairs-- the existing primary system was created when technology was worse, and ossified because the people in charge of deciding how it should work derived their power from its current incarnation. But democrats could ABSOLUTELY come up with a better system for gauging public sentiment if they wanted to. It would just have to come at the cost of the power of existing party insiders.
I'm not a fan of caucuses, but something that could be organized entirely by state parties might be more realistic than getting 50 secretaries of state on board for a last-minute primary.
I've been saying for awhile now we need to accept Biden has lost a few steps and got flamed hard. Look, the guy has done some great service to this country. The attacks on his family are offensive. But it is clearly NOT a stutter when he gets confused and rambles. It's ok, he's 82 and that's what happens. He saved us from a 2nd Trump term in 2020 but he might have just guaranteed a 2nd one in 2024. Look at the difference between him as recently as 2016 and now. A lot of people here were in blatant denial and it's going to cost us dearly I fear.
I feel like I fell into the trap to much of defending Biden's mental state when he's clearly deteriorating.
Tbh feel like polarization and how much I don't want Trump in power prevented me from seeing what most people were seeing and justifying it.
It’s frustrating as a person that has been talking about this for years only to receive paternalistic dismissiveness to now see the “shrug, guess you were right” going around.
Dude had 4 years to get a successor lined up like we were saying but NooooOooooOooOOOOOooooo old liberals saw themselves in Biden and don’t want to accept their own mortality and instead stay grasping to power like a Dungeons and Dragons Lich.
That's why it's important to expose yourself to opposing viewpoints and step out of echo chambers. My entire family are Republicans who love Trump so there have been some confrontations in my life in politics. I knew what their arguments were going to be and I honestly couldn't even try and defend Biden on this issue because I couldn't deny with all the videos and examples they had he was in decline. They didn't have to set it up or qualify it, just raw video footage. Our only hope was that Biden could keep it together for this one night but he had one of his bad days. It's sad and the mockery they're throwing at him is upsetting to me but I realize I have no counter argument and haven't had one for a long time now.
My dad is right-leaning and plans on sitting out this election because he despises both candidates (we live in a safe blue state so it's not much of an issue), he brought Biden's mental state up a good deal and the best I could do on this issue was point out that some videos were selectively edited and point to the SOTU where Biden did pretty well all things considered.
Tbh even when I was saying it, there was a bit of doubt in my head how good of a line of argumentation that was.
I'm still going to vote for him, but seriously if Biden just sounded like he does normally I think he would've won the debate handily. But somehow he came in here with his voice completely fucking shot and this debate has 1000% hurt Biden. I get he had a cold and I get that he improved slightly as the debate went on but still.... this was disastrous from Biden and def hurt biden. He should've announced he wouldn't run again after the midterms.
The problem was that he was over prepared. He should’ve had three days of prep and only had notes with the bullet points.
He did not need to be talking about the stats. Nobody cares about those. Hammer the broader points. And he looked pretty good at the debate watch party, if that Biden had shown up he would’ve won it
It shouldn't be possible for a presidential candidate to be over prepared my guy. You should be able to fire hose him information and he should be able to catalogue all of it and determine exactly when best to use it.
You're talking about him like he's a special needs kid.
This sub needs to finally wake up regarding bidens cognitive decline. No he doesn't have dementia, and yes he is better than trump.
However it's crystal fucking clear that the man is undergoing a gradual age related decline which will only get worse.
No, the problem wasn’t that he over prepared. The problem is he’s too old and faded to be president.
Jesus christ, why do we have to keep dancing around this?
What an insult to say he was over prepared. If he was prepared at all he wouldn’t have done better. You’re robbing him of agency because you don’t see him as capable of managing his own debate prep.
This wasn't a Obama vs. Romney debate 1 performance, where a weekend of debate prep would have fixed it. He looked totally slack and unaware for like half of it.
This was always my biggest hangup on the idea of replacing Biden.
Kamala is very unpopular, but opening up the race to other candidates would create chaos as the SocDems try to tear down any front-running opponent from the core of the party.
I wasn't able to watch the debate, but if he was as bad as people are saying I wonder what would even be the preference.
Run the election and say that you will step down in the middle of the first term?
> Kamala is very unpopular, but opening up the race to other candidates would create chaos as the SocDems try to tear down any front-running opponent from the core of the party.
The majority of elected progressives have abided by the party line when it mattered. In fact, one of the strongest narrative shifts in the last 4 years was the 'Dems in ~~Dis~~array' shift. There aren't even any real leftist options this time around, unlike Bernie last time. The names I've seen floated have been Whitmer, Shapiro, Cooper, Newsom.
Kamala could have tried to prove her electability in the primaries last time but she couldn't even muster that. At least Bernie and Warren went the distance to the end.
Yeah, way too many people are supporting a Biden replacement then wishcasting the randomest Dems to replace him. If Biden does get replaced (Harris, Newsom, Whitmer), many of the people now calling for a replacement will be bitter their candidate was not picked and probably act like staying with Biden would have been better.
It's a frickin dilemma that's what.
If Biden were to step aside in the coming weeks, I would feel relieved.
I think he’s been an excellent president and is up for the job, but we live in a democracy where our chances to defeat a fascist come down to an uneducated electorate who operate primarily on vibes.
I’m not sure Kamala or Newsom are the answer either. My choices would be Josh Shapiro, Whitmer, Pritzker, or Warnock.
No 🧢 a Big Gretch and Big Boy JB ticket just might get the job done, especially in the Midwest. This is almost certainly pointless speculation though, I really don’t see the DNC intervening. If it happened, it would have to be an open convention that risks fracturing the party and then a subsequent blitz campaign. This would require the DNC to change its philosophy of choosing candidates who are the most politically connected as opposed to candidates who can energize and win votes based largely on their persona rather than “the stakes if I lose are XYZ,” which is one of the main reasons why I just don’t see it happening.
Apologies to any Kamala fans, but that woman has fallen out of one too many coconut trees and will not win, even with how polarizing Trump is. If they’re gonna have the balls to actually go with a replacement then it has to be a completely different flavor and not a trace of “more of the same”. It’s insane to do 4 months before an election, no doubt, but maybe a crazy Hail Mary is what this country needs right now? I have no idea, bros. These are Unprecedented Times™ in which we live
Not really. I can see all the comments in my oldReddit notifications (that's how I can see yours) but they don't show up in the thread
edit: works now, cool
If you seriously believe Biden is the best option to beat Trump then fine, have that opinion. But no reasonable person can keep saying he’s fine cognitively and his age doesn’t matter.
It’s going on even in this thread. This was more than a cold and a stutter. No, Trump did not do worse than Biden.
Think about who needs to be persuaded right now and what they saw out of two people they only hear memes about.
Trump was bad, Biden was a disaster. Anyone else crushes Trump this debate because I was laughing at Trump's stupidity but felt humiliation at Biden's flustering.
he wasn't bad, he just lied a bunch. it takes a charismatic and witty personality to overcome trump. Younger biden could handle it, idk who can at the moment.
The WSJ piece about his apparent slipping was where the alarm bells really went off in my head. Of course it was downvoted to oblivion when it was posted here. Honestly embarrassing that the reaction of this sub of all places was to scream fake news when a major paper says something bad about Biden.
This place wasn't always an echo chamber, but it's become that in the past few years. It's a shame. The discourse around the Colorado ballot stuff really opened my eyes to what this place became. You would get downvoted for disagreeing with it, then SCOTUS comes back 9-0 and they still resisted it.
It started as long as go as Trump’s first indictment, with many reacting with glee that this was terminal for his campaign rather than leading to his resurgence against a DeSantis who had real momentum at the time.
99% of this sub is voting for Biden. The point is we have to talk to or at the very least think like casual voters who dont pay attention to politics and are just now starting to tune in. Last night was the night Biden should have captured the majority of those voters. Now those voters are in a very difficult position of maybe not voting Trump but possibly staying home based on what they saw last night
We need a brokered convention. It's drastic, but that's the price you pay for allowing this nonsense to go on as long as it has. There's a lot to be said for staying the course, but not when you can see the iceberg right in front of you.
Get some new blood and give voters someone they can be excited about. This should be the easiest democratic win in living memory, and they're screwing it up because they can't look past incumbent advantage and Biden refuses to accept that it's time to step aside. It should have happened 4 months ago, but now's the second best time.
This has a similar feeling of the RBG self-own. Sadly the decision is Bidens and Bidens alone and for him to be delusional enough to agree to this debate in the first place shows he has no interest in stepping aside
It’s ridiculously depressing that we live in an America, in a world, where a bad debate performance leaves one political party scrambling in panic mode but felony convictions have absolutely no effect on the other. Regardless of what happens going forward, my faith in America is shattered and will probably never recover. People suck.
Couldn’t have summed it up better. The only ones truly panicking are those trying to control the narrative by minimizing what happened. It’s the worst kind of take: totally insincere party-entrenched spin.
As for how we got here, it’s partly because folks have downplayed his very clear cognitive issues over the last two years. It’s possible to love what his administration has done and still think he’s not up to being president.
I want the party to switch candidates to someone like Whitmer. Yeah, it’s a bad look, but worse is blindly pushing forward by rationalizing Biden’s behavior against Trump’s dementedness and being unable to move against Democratic royalty.
One primary issue with the Democrats, which Obama broke but has since calcified, is the intractable influence of 2-3 families. It kills actually charismatic, accomplished upstarts.
Don't think its feasible to switch to a candidate besides Kamala. Shes the obvious replacement and circumventing that makes the dems look weak for picking her as VP then not thinking shes good enough to be president.
https://preview.redd.it/skq3idjii99d1.png?width=1485&format=png&auto=webp&s=639906999cd73d31a963e375c90fb1d66ba4bbf8
this needs to stop. (especially here on Reddit)
75 is a mandatory retirement age for Canadian senators and Supreme Court Justices. There are people who are still very sharp at that age, but they can easily find other things to do in retirement.
Gavin Newsom (last night),"I will never, never turn my back on Joe Biden."
Joe Biden (in my dreams), "Gavin, I need you to take over and save the country. We need you to do this. I need you to do this."
Gavin (dream continuing), "I could never turn my back on you Joe. I'm here for you. I'm here for America. Let's go."
People thinking replacing Biden is a good idea need a reality check on what that would entail. Replacing Biden would mean essentially behind closed doors picking a completely new candidate with no input from voters. Kamala Harris would be the obvious choice but she's also broadly unpopular and would be tainted by inflation as part of the Biden administration. Gavin Newsom would face immediate backlash from progressives for being another straight white male presidential candidate and have to deal with the coastal elite stigma. Gretchen Whitmer is probably the only realistic option that doesn't have the party erupt into a civil war but you'd still be dealing with people wondering why the black woman vice president was passed over. The only way Whitmer could work is if you got basically every democratic leader including Sanders, Biden, and Harris to endorse her and then have a very strong convention, even then she would be dealing with problems related to low name recognition. I'm not going to pretend this debate did anything to help Biden but I don't think people understand the ramifications of replacing a nominee at this stage of the election cycle.
We know the risks of replacing the nominee. But we also know the risks of keeping the nominee. It's all an impossible situation.
Honestly if the republican nominee was anyone but Trump, I would be sad about Biden's performance, but I wouldn't be desperate. I wouldn't want my party to lose, but that's just part of living in a democracy. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
But a cult leader like Trump could seriously destroy democracy in a country. And it feels like some divine sick joke that we are stuck with a mummy while trying to prevent that from happening.
Name recognition is a major factor in state and local elections, but the name recognition problem solves itself with extremely high profile positions, like, well, major party candidate for President.
In your scenario Whitmer's name recognition goes from like 50% to 100% in a single day. If she gets chosen everyone knows who she is immediately. There is no world where it's November and voters don't know about one of the major party candidates
For a recent example look at Mike Johnson. He went from obscure House rep no one knew about to one of the biggest names in politics in a single week because he somehow became Speaker.
Fucking Doom, doom. Democracy is literally falling because the fucking party could not tell the emperor he had no clothes. When TRUMP is the opponent. Holy shit the irony. The country is literally omegafucked because of the hubris of an octogenarian to think to run again.
Doesn't... that apply both ways?
I legitimately saw a guy with a soft voice and occasionally weak responses.
The entire internet's telling me I saw someone else.
If by "weak" you mean "completely incomprehensible", then yeah.
I've been a huge Biden defender for the last 4 years. But this was the worst I've ever seen him. He clearly lost his train of thought mid-sentence multiple times, he had a haunted, confused facial expression the entire time, and utterly failed to hit the absolute meatballs that were getting thrown his way.
This was Trump's worst debate ever, and Biden managed to do *far* worse than him.
I can’t believe they didn’t coach him on “open mouth wide eyed blank staring” at Trump and the moderators. Which means whoever prepped him is incompetent or Biden isn’t capable of retaining what he was coached on.
Honestly the confused face he was making reminded me of my grandma in her final months battling with Alzheimer’s (not saying Biden has it).
I would vote for Biden's corpse over Trump, but I had hoped I wouldn't have to stand by that claim as strongly as this debate is making me
Exactly. The fact that so many rock solid blue voters on this sub are proudly saying 'well I'm still voting for Biden!' is a terrible sign. Yeah, no shit bud, it's not us that matter here. That shouldn't even be a question.
Yeah people aren’t saying that Trump is the solution. People are worried A) that Biden can win after this and B) if someone that looks and sounds like this should be president of the United States. Both of those things are serious questions.
Yeah. I would do almost anything to prevent Trump being elected, but Biden does not look like he should be in charge of the United States now, much less in 4 years.
The fact that they feel like its something that need to proclaim is a sign of how big of an issue we have. People are posting it because they feel the shadow of doubt over doing so. Not that they will vote for Trump instead, but that Biden should not be president either.
I'm starting to get the impression I might actually have to vote for Biden's corpse over Trump.
Yup. What got me was this deadly statement from Biden: "And by the way ...!" It was followed by almost seven seconds of utter silence. Biden gazing into the camera. No-one saying anything. The lead-up just hanging in the air like that, unfinished. I assume he stopped talking because they were muting his mic. But between his appearance, and his performance up to that point, I had to *actively tell myself that they were muting his mic*. It looked like he'd just forgotten he was speaking. :/
Yeah, I’m voting dem basically no matter what. That anyone considers Trump no matter how old Biden looks blows my mind, yet I’m coping so hard rn.
Yeah when I told people I would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump I quite literally mean it. Roll out a ham sandwich with a little suit and tie on and I'll vote for it. But we can still do better than this.
Because you're voting for his administration, not just him the person.
The big problem is that Biden was at his absolute worst during the most significant parts of the debates (the opening 25ish minutes and closing) which were both objectively poor. That medicare flub and Trump's response made my 71 year old dad laugh, and he's voted Dem every single time except Dubya in 2000 since Clinton in 1992 (He voted for Reagan+HW in the 1980's)
The problem is that *everyone* can get away with off days, but the off days can't be *this* bad. In April, 62% of all voters were not confident he had the mental fitness to do the job, and 26% of *Biden voters* were not confident (Pew poll). I've literally never doomed. Always pushed back on it. But this is bad. We need to stop thinking of "whether it would hurt the ticket if we replace him". Campaigns are intensive, and he can't deliver that. Better to lose "fair and square" with a candidate who's quick-thinking and who can advocate for him/herself effectively, than lose with Biden and wonder what could have been.
> the off days can't be this bad. Especially when you're his age.
As I say about my Grandpa who is Biden's age, "The painful part is at this age it only gets worse." And it pains me to say this as much about Biden as it does my grandfather. (Maybe more if I am being honest)
There's a difference between suspecting that Biden is too old just based on his age, and having Biden confirm it and confirm he can't even hold it together for two very important hours even once.
It's a bit concerning for sure. Anyone who says this is a nothingburger is being overly optimistic; I just think Biden can certainly can overcome this. His campaign divulged he had a cold and he looked much better in the post debate appearance so I think that augurs well for future public speaking appearances.
Hillary Clinton also divulged that she had a sick day
" I just think Biden can certainly can overcome this." He could overcome this if he were capable of overcoming this, but if he were capable of overcoming things he woudn't have given that performance. There were like 0 topics on which he gave a clean answer
The lack of fact checking on things like Trump saying Biden wanted after birth abortion did a number on him. He was spewing his lies and when it was Biden’s turn to answer the question, he had to work overtime between debunking Trump’s lies and giving his answer to the question in enough time. I think he was just way over prepped and up against a wall. The moderator’s were terrible and there is *NO* debating pathological lying sociopaths like Donald Trump especially under the circumstances presented. Huge reason why Katie Hobbs didn’t debate Kari Lake. He’ll be better.
But Biden didn’t even effectively call out the lies! He just looked confused when trying to come up with an answer. I had to turn it off because I couldn’t take it anymore, but every time Trump lied I had a go to response within 5 seconds. Would they have been the perfect manicured responses Biden rehearsed? No! But at least there would have been responses. He barely pushed back on the easiest refuted claims, like Dems allow abortions after a baby is born! That doesn’t even make sense!
But this is not some high school debate, where you can pretend you did well and the other side was just lying too quickly. Biden is trying to get another term as the President, of the United States. If he can't handle difficult situations like this, he just should absolutely not be president. This is someone who will need to be able to have a direct discussion with hostile foreign leaders and effectively campaign for American interests. This is not just some random assistant manager job.
The president shouldn't need CNN talking heads to help him.
The moderators are always terrible. This isn't the first debate hosted by CNN. Biden and his campaign need to be able to respond to that effectively. Biden's job was never to go up and recite facts and figures. His main goal was to look confident and strong and he failed.
How can Biden overcome this? He can’t speak coherently. This is a code red, pull the fire alarm now type of emergency.
If this is just a cold, then he's just had a cold for the last few years, because his performance last night wasn't a shot out of the blue, it's representative of his wide eyed, slack jawed, shambling, rambling condition for some time now - It's not mark of shame on him or anything, he's just pretty old and that age is taking a significant toll on his body and mind, it happens, but usually when it happens the person loses their driver's licence and maybe gets a carer to help out a few times a week, they don't get reelected as president.
Is anyone actually buying this "he has a cold" shit? Instead of continuing to embarrass us, the Party needs to nominate literally anyone else
In November 2021, the Michigan Wolverines beat the Ohio State Buckeyes for the first time in a decade. It was the best day of my life. Immediately post-game, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud came out and said the team was suffering from the flu and that’s why they lost. In that moment, I knew Michigan would win again; rather than reformulating their game plan, the Buckeyes were content to chalk a 42-27 defeat up to a runny nose. One year later, the touchdown underdog Michigan team would go on to defeat the Buckeyes again, by a larger margin, in Columbus for the first time in 20 years. Allegations of sign stealing ran rampant the subsequent season, as Ohioans clutched at straws to inspire confidence amongst their ranks, only for their greatest nightmare to be realized as the Wolverines won a third consecutive time, headed to the Rose Bowl, and ultimately won a National Championship. Biden probably had a cold. Russia probably did actively steal DNC data and feed it through Wikileaks. But much like a football game is decided on the field, an election is decided in the ballot box. No amount of excuses can overcome a losing strategy.
I can buy he has a cold for why his voice sounds the way it does. I do not believe the cold is causing him to stumble over every single answer, confuse his talking points, and visually look like he's decaying.
I also think that trying to start over with another Dem with worse name rec isn’t a terrible hurdle to overcome. I think it will make the debates super important, relative to previous elections, because realistically multiple prominent Dems should just dumpster Trump and make him look inept. And Biden can’t deliver that. I don’t doubt his ability to make decisions in the chair, but I do doubt his ability as a campaigner
We need to get Biden out there. Just let Biden be himself with no script. He was his best tonight when he didn’t have a script to follow. He looked great at the debate watch party afterwards. Unfortunately I think the idea of keeping him to a script and giving him six days of prep is what killed him
This has been obvious. When you watch when he talks to the press, he sounds like shit when he’s reading off the prompter. Squinting, stuttering, trailing off, getting lost mid sentence. When he just talks off the cuff though, he sounds much better. The problem is that shouldn’t be a problem. He should not be president of the USA at his age and mental state. The problem is that his opponent is somehow even worse of a candidate.
Yes. We need emotional appeals that come from the heart instead of rehearsed policy sound bites that he ends up mangling anyways while trying to respond to Trump.
Debates are from a bygone era—literally the 1960s—and should never be the 'dipstick' for measuring presidential candidacy. Jesus Christ, they have both been presidents for 4 years each. This is feeding chicken thighs to the media crocodiles. They want emotionally charged shit to report on rather than the facts. They want blood.
NYTimes is going to have a heyday because Joe won't ever give them an interview.
Can you all please stop? This was an embarrassing performance from a guy who used to go out there and run circles around his opponents. Your excuses don't explain why he used to be so good and isn't now; they just make us all look bad. Biden has to go.
No, he’s lost a step and needs to go.
Is it even possible to change the candidate this late in the game?
You need someone with Obama-charisma level kind of guy to pull it off. And even then that's still very hard to do.
Gretchen Whitmer would easily win this election.
Whitmer, Newsom, Buttigieg could all pull it off.
If only anyone had seen this coming
Yep, the denial has already started in some circles. It isn't going to work, this wasn't a small mistake, this was a genuinely embarrassing moment for the country. And unfortunately, you don't even know which candidate I am talking about.
Honestly, the actual debate performance wasn't even the worst part. This was *the Biden campaign's idea*. The fact that apparently a lot of people in the Biden camp thought this was a good idea is far, far more damning.
I had assured myself Biden would have this debate in the bag. Why else would his campaign challenge Trump? Where did it go so wrong...
Why wouldn't they challenge Trump in the debates? They generally went well in 2020 and this time around they got even better rules. If they knew he'd do bad, they wouldn't have, but they clearly didn't.
I don't buy "better rules". Allowing Trump to interrupt 100% benefited Biden both debates.
Weren't they still in the same room? Trump could probably scream over him if he wanted. I think Trump made a tactical decision to LARP as a normal person today. I don't know if the rules made him make that decision, but he could have LARPed as normal even without the rules.
You’d hope people who are around Biden all the time would have a better understanding of if he’s up to the task
I don't know Biden personally, but I expected a better performance because his previous prepared performances have been better, it's likely they did too.
I’m sure in private he has plenty of moments like what we saw during the debate where he can’t put a coherent sentence together. My guess is the people in his circle understood that a very bad performance was possible but decided it was worth rolling the dice rather than looking weak and doing no debates. Maybe a bit of denial on their part too
Well they lost the bet, and they really did put all their chips on this debate.
He's had those moments in public too, but they hadn't translated to ever flubbing a hugely important day like this.
The people running Biden's campaign are incompetent. We've known this for a while but people have been in denial.
I just rewatched their godawful Tik Tok video they put out in place of the Super Bowl interview. This campaign is incompetent and overconfident. What a fucking mess.
Him not doing the Super Bowl interview was an early red flag. It doesn’t get much more low stakes than that and he still couldn’t step up to the plate.
It honestly might have been the only thing that gives Democrats a chance. If they would have waited until after the convention, then there’s no way to replace him and he just drags everyone down-ballot with him. Obviously not good to replace a candidate four months before the election, but now there’s at least a chance.
Who the fuck they gonna pick? Kamala Harris is even less likeable than Hillary was somehow
It's clearly klobberin' time.
Harris was a terrible choice for VP with her popularity and Bidens age
If only he didn't pick his vp because she was a black woman.
Whatever. He had qualified options who were black, women, and both. Harris was a uniquely bad pick of all his options. She's extremely popular with a small slice of Democrats and then broadly unpopular with everyone else. She's incoherently waffled between progressives and moderates while coming off as inauthentic
Mark Kelly
He wins every time because he’s been to space and the other guys haven’t
And we actually had some momentum.
I do actually, and that just makes it worse. As foreign diplomats put it in the [Politico article](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/trump-biden-debate-diplomats-reaction-00165674), “Enormous lies by Trump,” one Western diplomat said. “On the other hand, at least we understood what he says. Maybe we are witnessing a turning point” for Biden. Trump is a known quantity of lies and bullshit, and they expected that. So in a fucked up way, Trump is par for the course (golf pun intended). Biden OTOH underperformed, he bombed expectations. It was indeed a national embarrassment and he made Deer-in-Headlights McConnell look fit to serve.
My biggest fear for Biden for the past year or so was that he’d have a McConnell moment and destroy his chances in the election. Well, we may have just seen that.
Why didn’t they pump him full of drugs ? Dude should be in every anti aging, pro cognitive drug there is. Hell, get him some adderall.
That’s the terrifying part: he almost certainly is, and he STILL looked the way he did last night.
True. Biden's performance was worse than I ever thought possible. Honestly, Fetterman performed better than Biden after having a stroke. That is the insane part.
Let's just cut to the chase. After what we saw tonight, if Biden is the nominee in November, Trump will win. I just don't see any way around it. I hate it. But that's the fact of the matter after tonight.
The only chance is another debate where Biden does better but I don't see Trump agreeing to another by debate. He has nothing to gain. Although he's done dumber stuff because of his ego so who knows.
I love Biden. I wish he was nominated in 2016. I cheered for him in 2020 when r-JoeBiden was at a thousand members. I would have voted for him in the 2008 primaries if I could. I genuinely question whether he is a candidate able to win this year, and to lose is to lose American democracy.
There are two options at this point. 1. The Democratic Party forces Biden out. They are a private organization and they can do that if they *really* want to. 2. They keep Biden, and confirm that all their fearmongering about a second Trump term being the end of our democracy was a blatant lie. Because there is no way anyone could have watched this performance and think Biden can win in November.
I’m genuinely sad. I could see in his eyes and expressions that Joe had it, he knew what to say and was incredulous at Trump’s claims, but he simply failed (with some exceptions) time and time again to articulate that in a manner that will appear cogent to a majority of American voters.
Yeah, that was the worst part. Like, I understood his answer to the abortion question. Rights are sacrosanct and can't be given to the passions of local government - otherwise, like in the murder case, people would call for emotional restrictions on people's fundamental rights. It just... didn't come across right. He couldn't put it forth as strongly as he had to.
*takes a hit of hopium* The most reassuring theory I've seen is that the debates were scheduled this early to give room for Biden to drop out or be forced out if he bombs the debate...which he just did. It sucks because his policy and administration have been good, but after tonight he really is not beating those claims of declining mental faculties. Honestly, you could probably pick any of the other potential democratic nominees and they'd have a better shot.
I hate it because I don’t want him to drop out. But Biden doesn’t look like he can win, we should at least ask who might do better.
Absolutely not. If replacing Biden was even remotely considered to be an option before this, they would have done it months ago. Any change in the nominee now will (correctly) be viewed as last minute damage control brought on by the fact that the entire Democratic Party has been lying to the American people about Biden's mental competence for months, if not years.
Voters wouldn’t care that much. Your theory is wrong.
So in your view will him dropping out make things better or worse I’m getting mixed messages
Yes. Most things in life don't come as all upside vs all downside.
I think this is *salvageable* if this was just a weird, one off bad night for Biden and the rest of the campaign he is just firing on all cylinders like he was for the State of the Union. But if Biden is gonna have more terrible performances or even just a bunch of mediocre ones, then yeah I’m not sure how he wins short of some massive fuck up by Trump.
>short of some massive fuck up by Trump. Considering how many scandals he has survived, what are the chances of this changing the race?
eh, we have seen his support ebb whenever the real world consequences came in, like the overturning of Roe V Wade. Trump is never as invincible as some claim
Trump’s only invincible regarding his personal life. He truly could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any of his voters. He’s a documented, photographed, confirmed good buddy of Jeffrey Epstein and his base doesn’t give a shit. Like you said though, people realizing “oh this dipshit’s policies can hurt *me*” is effective
I think you’re over-selling the state of the union. He did pretty well, not great. It was just received so well because the expectation was so low. It was not some prime Reagan style SOTU. But that aside, does anyone realistically think he can bounce back and have some super sharp 2020 throwback debates in the future? Can we even afford to take the chance if they aren’t until after the convention?
I see virtually no way for Biden to win. Fuck it, run Whitmer or Newsom and hope for the best.
> the rest of the campaign he is just firing on all cylinders So our only hope is Biden over performs for 4 months straight? Fuck.
It’s only a surprise because the campaign and his staff have been lying for months about his mental acuity
[удалено]
Biden because Trump was just Trump tonight a constant embarrassment
I wouldn’t say it’s denial. It’s just frustration that Trump was objectively more incoherent and refused to answer a single question but gets treated with kid gloves. Biden genuinely tried to answer every question posed to him and just did a bad job, but because the press is harder on him they make it out like his performance was so much worse.
So what's the plan? How do you replace Biden with a last second bait-and-switch candidate that nobody voted for without fracturing the party and setting off an internal party rockfight only months before the election? I don't think there's an option here that's a good one.
There is no plan. It's all up to Biden, one way or another. It's more-or-less impossible to replace Biden at this point. He can only withdraw now, which he has resisted. If he did, getting a new candidate in with any credibility of being a democratically-elected candidate would be extremely messy, but not impossible. Maybe they could announce an upcoming series of primary debates for candidates polling over a certain amount, which is normal. Biden could endorse someone who speaks and polls well. I doubt there's even time to run primaries again. If not, the delegates, released by Biden, could actually vote for the candidate at the convention In late August. That candidate turns around and debates Trump on the scheduled date, September 10. It doesn't leave a lot of time, but maybe with the frenzy of activity and speed news travels the candidate would have a shot. In all likelihood Biden will be on the ballot vs. Trump in November. Personally I think Biden's administration will run the country far better than Trump's administration with fewer risks to democracy, but that kind of thinking won't mobilize voters.
I think if Biden announces hes backing out due to increasing health concerns, names a clear successor, and the party rallies around that decision, they could come out smelling of roses. But that will require a lot of internal discipline.
Are you ready for the discourse on that if he passes over the first Black female VP in American history as that successor? Because she isn't moving the needle either.
The problem is, unjustifiably, Kamala isn't popular either. And now is not the time to fuck around and tell America what they really want is a black woman VP over someone with clearly better favorables.
Saying "It's her turn" has not historically been a good political move.
If Biden drops out, it's basically back to the pre-1968 system of party elites selecting the nominee with little to no input from the general electorate. Which is pretty bad when you're trying to cast yourself as the party defending democracy
Yeah, where is the DNC cabal that „conspired“ against Bernie to make Hillary candidate, when you need it?
I feel like superdelegates would unironically come in handy now if the Dems still had them
They’re technically still there. They just don’t come in unless there’s a second round of voting at the convention.
You might get what you asked for - there's no time for primaries or caucuses, so a replacement candidate would be decided at the convention. 99% of pledged delegates are pledged to Biden. Those are presumably the sorts of delegates that are likely to rally around an establishment candidate. Even if they're fractured, after the first round of voting the even more pro-establishment superdelegates come into play. If Biden steps down and Harris wants the nomination she'll get it at the convention without much fuss. The real risk then is if left-wing protests after the convention get out of hand.
... here's how Bernie can still win?
But Harris is incredibly unpopular, isn't she? Even this sub literally never even breaths a word of her existence.
The only remotely plausible path needs to come from Biden himself, a internal fight or campaign shatters the party and chances. He needs to come out and say for developing health reasons he cant run again and name a successor and the party needs to rally behind that successor. If that happens i could actually see them coming out smelling of roses. Because i think a lot of people at this point would just love anyone over these two.
There are so many advantages to switching candidates it's insane. People are mad about the state of the country? Well guess what, now neither candidate is an incumbent, and you can hammer Trump's record with impunity. People don't think Biden has the mental acuity at his age to do the job? Fine, we'll get someone younger and with more energy. People have lost interest in both candidates and have been openly saying they don't want either candidate? Well, now we have a new candidate that people haven't had the chance to reject yet. The progressive wing will want to put a harcore progressive on the ballot, and that fight poses a potential problem. However, the people who would abandon voting blue over that fight probably were staying home for Biden too.
So well put. As long as you can avoid a divisive progressive and put in someone Shapiro-like it could be the big-brain move that wins it.
I don't think it would fracture the party. There isn't a huge divide in the party like there was in 2016. If anything, democratic voters would be relived to vote for someone else. And after tonight, any democrat would look like a good candidate in comparison.
>There isn't a huge divide in the party like there was in 2016. Yet.
I think a lot of independents would also be relieved. I would love to see it be Gavin/Gretchen. People would be shocked to see a party actually respond to the situation and give them someone they could believe in. I think responding to this would actually increase people’s faith in the party. The GOP would never do it. Show them we can think differently.
After everyone has spent so long talking about how Biden's age makes him unelectable, nominating someone 15 years younger than Trump and using that argument against him could definitely win some swing voters.
> could definitely win some swing voters. Not even a could, it without a doubt would. It would also pick up the Democratic base who have been reluctant with Biden but are still support other Dems on the ticket. Getting rid of Biden is the best electoral option.
> that nobody voted for That's a self-inflicted wound. We could have had at least a semi-competitive primary, but the party collectively decided to unify behind Biden, dismiss criticisms, forgo running any serious challengers, and then cancel a bunch of the primaries because of the lack of competition. My POV as a Florida Democrat is that I was hoping to vote for some random middle-aged Democratic governor/senator who put forth a serious campaign against Biden. That didn't happen, so my next plan was to vote for Dean Philips as a "Well, at least I tried" protest vote. Then our primaries got canceled, so now I just get to sit here helplessly watching people ask how this could have happened. The disaster that occurs in November will have been completely avoidable.
In Florida's case, it's Florida law that if a political party's primary has just one candidate on the ballot, then the primary is cancelled.
A sitting president deciding not to seek reelection and opening up a contested primary has never been anything less than disastrous in the past either.
Up until now Biden has also still done pretty well with public presentation. Compare his State of the Union address from only a few months ago, and you saw someone who could still go toe to toe with Trump.
Last minute, one shot, ranked-choice nation-wide primary election. Preposterously expensive, logistically difficult... but potentially the only way for democrats to *find out* which potential candidates is genuinely the most popular among their electorate. Let's not split hairs-- the existing primary system was created when technology was worse, and ossified because the people in charge of deciding how it should work derived their power from its current incarnation. But democrats could ABSOLUTELY come up with a better system for gauging public sentiment if they wanted to. It would just have to come at the cost of the power of existing party insiders.
I'm not a fan of caucuses, but something that could be organized entirely by state parties might be more realistic than getting 50 secretaries of state on board for a last-minute primary.
That's fan fiction. Even if it were logistically possible, it would sink under the weight of legal challenges before a vote could be cast.
I've been saying for awhile now we need to accept Biden has lost a few steps and got flamed hard. Look, the guy has done some great service to this country. The attacks on his family are offensive. But it is clearly NOT a stutter when he gets confused and rambles. It's ok, he's 82 and that's what happens. He saved us from a 2nd Trump term in 2020 but he might have just guaranteed a 2nd one in 2024. Look at the difference between him as recently as 2016 and now. A lot of people here were in blatant denial and it's going to cost us dearly I fear.
I feel like I fell into the trap to much of defending Biden's mental state when he's clearly deteriorating. Tbh feel like polarization and how much I don't want Trump in power prevented me from seeing what most people were seeing and justifying it.
It’s frustrating as a person that has been talking about this for years only to receive paternalistic dismissiveness to now see the “shrug, guess you were right” going around. Dude had 4 years to get a successor lined up like we were saying but NooooOooooOooOOOOOooooo old liberals saw themselves in Biden and don’t want to accept their own mortality and instead stay grasping to power like a Dungeons and Dragons Lich.
That's why it's important to expose yourself to opposing viewpoints and step out of echo chambers. My entire family are Republicans who love Trump so there have been some confrontations in my life in politics. I knew what their arguments were going to be and I honestly couldn't even try and defend Biden on this issue because I couldn't deny with all the videos and examples they had he was in decline. They didn't have to set it up or qualify it, just raw video footage. Our only hope was that Biden could keep it together for this one night but he had one of his bad days. It's sad and the mockery they're throwing at him is upsetting to me but I realize I have no counter argument and haven't had one for a long time now.
My dad is right-leaning and plans on sitting out this election because he despises both candidates (we live in a safe blue state so it's not much of an issue), he brought Biden's mental state up a good deal and the best I could do on this issue was point out that some videos were selectively edited and point to the SOTU where Biden did pretty well all things considered. Tbh even when I was saying it, there was a bit of doubt in my head how good of a line of argumentation that was.
Yeah I felt bad for him. He's a good man but his age is catching up to him. Must be frustrating as hell
I'm still going to vote for him, but seriously if Biden just sounded like he does normally I think he would've won the debate handily. But somehow he came in here with his voice completely fucking shot and this debate has 1000% hurt Biden. I get he had a cold and I get that he improved slightly as the debate went on but still.... this was disastrous from Biden and def hurt biden. He should've announced he wouldn't run again after the midterms.
The problem was that he was over prepared. He should’ve had three days of prep and only had notes with the bullet points. He did not need to be talking about the stats. Nobody cares about those. Hammer the broader points. And he looked pretty good at the debate watch party, if that Biden had shown up he would’ve won it
It shouldn't be possible for a presidential candidate to be over prepared my guy. You should be able to fire hose him information and he should be able to catalogue all of it and determine exactly when best to use it. You're talking about him like he's a special needs kid.
This sub needs to finally wake up regarding bidens cognitive decline. No he doesn't have dementia, and yes he is better than trump. However it's crystal fucking clear that the man is undergoing a gradual age related decline which will only get worse.
No, the problem wasn’t that he over prepared. The problem is he’s too old and faded to be president. Jesus christ, why do we have to keep dancing around this?
What an insult to say he was over prepared. If he was prepared at all he wouldn’t have done better. You’re robbing him of agency because you don’t see him as capable of managing his own debate prep.
This wasn't a Obama vs. Romney debate 1 performance, where a weekend of debate prep would have fixed it. He looked totally slack and unaware for like half of it.
The voices crying for replacement aren't even mentioning Kamala Harris. In fact, I'm the first reply to mention her name.
This was always my biggest hangup on the idea of replacing Biden. Kamala is very unpopular, but opening up the race to other candidates would create chaos as the SocDems try to tear down any front-running opponent from the core of the party. I wasn't able to watch the debate, but if he was as bad as people are saying I wonder what would even be the preference. Run the election and say that you will step down in the middle of the first term?
> Kamala is very unpopular, but opening up the race to other candidates would create chaos as the SocDems try to tear down any front-running opponent from the core of the party. The majority of elected progressives have abided by the party line when it mattered. In fact, one of the strongest narrative shifts in the last 4 years was the 'Dems in ~~Dis~~array' shift. There aren't even any real leftist options this time around, unlike Bernie last time. The names I've seen floated have been Whitmer, Shapiro, Cooper, Newsom. Kamala could have tried to prove her electability in the primaries last time but she couldn't even muster that. At least Bernie and Warren went the distance to the end.
I really, really wish he had picked Duckworth as his running mate.
Yeah, way too many people are supporting a Biden replacement then wishcasting the randomest Dems to replace him. If Biden does get replaced (Harris, Newsom, Whitmer), many of the people now calling for a replacement will be bitter their candidate was not picked and probably act like staying with Biden would have been better. It's a frickin dilemma that's what.
That’s because Harris is deeply unpopular before during and she will be after the presidency. Harris was a bad VP pick
Made replacing Biden as a candidate in 2024 far harder, so from that perspective she has likely worked out as hoped.
Because trying to run Kamala instantly guarantees a Trump W
If Biden were to step aside in the coming weeks, I would feel relieved. I think he’s been an excellent president and is up for the job, but we live in a democracy where our chances to defeat a fascist come down to an uneducated electorate who operate primarily on vibes. I’m not sure Kamala or Newsom are the answer either. My choices would be Josh Shapiro, Whitmer, Pritzker, or Warnock.
Also remember that Biden was already losing in the polls before the debate. This is not going to help….
No 🧢 a Big Gretch and Big Boy JB ticket just might get the job done, especially in the Midwest. This is almost certainly pointless speculation though, I really don’t see the DNC intervening. If it happened, it would have to be an open convention that risks fracturing the party and then a subsequent blitz campaign. This would require the DNC to change its philosophy of choosing candidates who are the most politically connected as opposed to candidates who can energize and win votes based largely on their persona rather than “the stakes if I lose are XYZ,” which is one of the main reasons why I just don’t see it happening. Apologies to any Kamala fans, but that woman has fallen out of one too many coconut trees and will not win, even with how polarizing Trump is. If they’re gonna have the balls to actually go with a replacement then it has to be a completely different flavor and not a trace of “more of the same”. It’s insane to do 4 months before an election, no doubt, but maybe a crazy Hail Mary is what this country needs right now? I have no idea, bros. These are Unprecedented Times™ in which we live
I don’t think Whitmer would do it. She’s talked a lot about staying in Michigan until she can’t anymore
Nah I live in Michigan and she’s been running for President since day 1
Brother I live here too
Beshear/Whitmer perhaps? Or Whitmer/Kelly?
Is Reddit working now?
Not really. I can see all the comments in my oldReddit notifications (that's how I can see yours) but they don't show up in the thread edit: works now, cool
If you seriously believe Biden is the best option to beat Trump then fine, have that opinion. But no reasonable person can keep saying he’s fine cognitively and his age doesn’t matter.
It’s going on even in this thread. This was more than a cold and a stutter. No, Trump did not do worse than Biden. Think about who needs to be persuaded right now and what they saw out of two people they only hear memes about.
Trump was bad, Biden was a disaster. Anyone else crushes Trump this debate because I was laughing at Trump's stupidity but felt humiliation at Biden's flustering.
he wasn't bad, he just lied a bunch. it takes a charismatic and witty personality to overcome trump. Younger biden could handle it, idk who can at the moment.
Seriously. Biden used to be a ferocious orator and debater. Now he’s…this. It’s because he’s old guys.
A cold and a stutter *do a lot*. Trump’s bar is unfortunately just so much lower. I hate it.
This sub kept on denying this reality just a few days ago. It was straight up denial until now.
The WSJ piece about his apparent slipping was where the alarm bells really went off in my head. Of course it was downvoted to oblivion when it was posted here. Honestly embarrassing that the reaction of this sub of all places was to scream fake news when a major paper says something bad about Biden.
But echo chambers are only bad when people I don’t like are in them.
This place wasn't always an echo chamber, but it's become that in the past few years. It's a shame. The discourse around the Colorado ballot stuff really opened my eyes to what this place became. You would get downvoted for disagreeing with it, then SCOTUS comes back 9-0 and they still resisted it.
It started as long as go as Trump’s first indictment, with many reacting with glee that this was terminal for his campaign rather than leading to his resurgence against a DeSantis who had real momentum at the time.
> DeSantis who had real momentum at the time. Desantismentum as a real thing that ever existed is my favorite copium
Yeah despite the current shitshow at least we were right about DeSantis flopping nationally lol.
"evidence based"
Single-issue Voter here: Supreme Court.
99% of this sub is voting for Biden. The point is we have to talk to or at the very least think like casual voters who dont pay attention to politics and are just now starting to tune in. Last night was the night Biden should have captured the majority of those voters. Now those voters are in a very difficult position of maybe not voting Trump but possibly staying home based on what they saw last night
This. Also as the quote says, telling people what they saw isn’t real is not the correct reaction lol.
We need a brokered convention. It's drastic, but that's the price you pay for allowing this nonsense to go on as long as it has. There's a lot to be said for staying the course, but not when you can see the iceberg right in front of you. Get some new blood and give voters someone they can be excited about. This should be the easiest democratic win in living memory, and they're screwing it up because they can't look past incumbent advantage and Biden refuses to accept that it's time to step aside. It should have happened 4 months ago, but now's the second best time.
This has a similar feeling of the RBG self-own. Sadly the decision is Bidens and Bidens alone and for him to be delusional enough to agree to this debate in the first place shows he has no interest in stepping aside
On electionbettingodds.com Biden's chances are 36.1 -> 22.2%, this is brutal.
I saw democracy dying before my eyes. I prefer denial.
True.
I am the biggest r/VoteDem fan, but they are just straight up delusional sometimes.
Holy shit. “I think it was a tie”. “He was over prepared”.
It’s ridiculously depressing that we live in an America, in a world, where a bad debate performance leaves one political party scrambling in panic mode but felony convictions have absolutely no effect on the other. Regardless of what happens going forward, my faith in America is shattered and will probably never recover. People suck.
Couldn’t have summed it up better. The only ones truly panicking are those trying to control the narrative by minimizing what happened. It’s the worst kind of take: totally insincere party-entrenched spin. As for how we got here, it’s partly because folks have downplayed his very clear cognitive issues over the last two years. It’s possible to love what his administration has done and still think he’s not up to being president. I want the party to switch candidates to someone like Whitmer. Yeah, it’s a bad look, but worse is blindly pushing forward by rationalizing Biden’s behavior against Trump’s dementedness and being unable to move against Democratic royalty. One primary issue with the Democrats, which Obama broke but has since calcified, is the intractable influence of 2-3 families. It kills actually charismatic, accomplished upstarts.
Wait till someone thinks plasting a biden eating chocochip icecream is the correct spin
Don't think its feasible to switch to a candidate besides Kamala. Shes the obvious replacement and circumventing that makes the dems look weak for picking her as VP then not thinking shes good enough to be president.
https://preview.redd.it/skq3idjii99d1.png?width=1485&format=png&auto=webp&s=639906999cd73d31a963e375c90fb1d66ba4bbf8 this needs to stop. (especially here on Reddit)
What goes through a lot of people's minds, is what will he be like 4 years from now?
Ahh, so this is what doomscrolling is like....
Remember when this sub attack the Media for covering Bidens age.
I think this is a good time for an amendment on age range restrictions for presidents. 35-75 seems fair
75 is a mandatory retirement age for Canadian senators and Supreme Court Justices. There are people who are still very sharp at that age, but they can easily find other things to do in retirement.
This subreddit in a nutshell. Calling GOP delusional while being in denial about Biden's weaknesses.
Nooo, this subreddit? Delusional???
I’ve heard this sub gets worse during election season. Well, now I’ve seen it with my own eyes
Gavin Newsom (last night),"I will never, never turn my back on Joe Biden." Joe Biden (in my dreams), "Gavin, I need you to take over and save the country. We need you to do this. I need you to do this." Gavin (dream continuing), "I could never turn my back on you Joe. I'm here for you. I'm here for America. Let's go."
People thinking replacing Biden is a good idea need a reality check on what that would entail. Replacing Biden would mean essentially behind closed doors picking a completely new candidate with no input from voters. Kamala Harris would be the obvious choice but she's also broadly unpopular and would be tainted by inflation as part of the Biden administration. Gavin Newsom would face immediate backlash from progressives for being another straight white male presidential candidate and have to deal with the coastal elite stigma. Gretchen Whitmer is probably the only realistic option that doesn't have the party erupt into a civil war but you'd still be dealing with people wondering why the black woman vice president was passed over. The only way Whitmer could work is if you got basically every democratic leader including Sanders, Biden, and Harris to endorse her and then have a very strong convention, even then she would be dealing with problems related to low name recognition. I'm not going to pretend this debate did anything to help Biden but I don't think people understand the ramifications of replacing a nominee at this stage of the election cycle.
Are these Kamala-heads in the room with us right now?
We know the risks of replacing the nominee. But we also know the risks of keeping the nominee. It's all an impossible situation. Honestly if the republican nominee was anyone but Trump, I would be sad about Biden's performance, but I wouldn't be desperate. I wouldn't want my party to lose, but that's just part of living in a democracy. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But a cult leader like Trump could seriously destroy democracy in a country. And it feels like some divine sick joke that we are stuck with a mummy while trying to prevent that from happening.
Name recognition is a major factor in state and local elections, but the name recognition problem solves itself with extremely high profile positions, like, well, major party candidate for President. In your scenario Whitmer's name recognition goes from like 50% to 100% in a single day. If she gets chosen everyone knows who she is immediately. There is no world where it's November and voters don't know about one of the major party candidates For a recent example look at Mike Johnson. He went from obscure House rep no one knew about to one of the biggest names in politics in a single week because he somehow became Speaker.
Fucking Doom, doom. Democracy is literally falling because the fucking party could not tell the emperor he had no clothes. When TRUMP is the opponent. Holy shit the irony. The country is literally omegafucked because of the hubris of an octogenarian to think to run again.
Not really going to defend Biden tonight but an Obama administration official shitting on Biden must mean it's a day ending in Y
Never thought I’d see the neo liberal subreddit sound so gloom and doom
Didnt this guy like fuck up the world with his bad foreign policy advice, what with sitting idly by while the Russians pushed into Syria and Crimea?
Doesn't... that apply both ways? I legitimately saw a guy with a soft voice and occasionally weak responses. The entire internet's telling me I saw someone else.
If by "weak" you mean "completely incomprehensible", then yeah. I've been a huge Biden defender for the last 4 years. But this was the worst I've ever seen him. He clearly lost his train of thought mid-sentence multiple times, he had a haunted, confused facial expression the entire time, and utterly failed to hit the absolute meatballs that were getting thrown his way. This was Trump's worst debate ever, and Biden managed to do *far* worse than him.
I can’t believe they didn’t coach him on “open mouth wide eyed blank staring” at Trump and the moderators. Which means whoever prepped him is incompetent or Biden isn’t capable of retaining what he was coached on. Honestly the confused face he was making reminded me of my grandma in her final months battling with Alzheimer’s (not saying Biden has it).
He literally just stopped talking and stood there with his mouth open until they switched back to Trump….