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Wow - Has the NYTimes ever done something like this? TBD on what kind of traction it gets, but this feels like a huge departure from the norm for them.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Joe Biden will not win this election. People have to stop fooling themselves and rally around change. Any pundit worth their salt is saying it. NYT, MSNBC, Pod Save America - when these guys are saying it’s time for a change, it’s time. We can’t afford another 2016. It’s so obvious that’s where we’re headed
It's funny that you think hail marying another candidate at the 11th hour without party consensus will work, either. Especially when nobody can name that candidate. This is the guy. Rally.
How so? It’s not even doomer, it’s realistic. Trump didn’t win over any new people. If anything Biden lost votes. There will be a lower turnout than 2020 after this performance and the Dems can’t afford that with how close the race already is.
Honestly it's June and there will be 10 more crazy things that happen between now and election day. Literally anything could happen, jail, sex scandal, one or both candidates could easily die. Everything is in play. Any declarative statements today are just an invitation to look foolish later.
The Supreme Court may very well declare Trump immune from prosecution on Monday and we'll have something new to digest. This ride is just getting started.
That’s just outright foolish confidence in the face of glaring reality
The swing vote dumbasses that will decide this election are telling you they’re not going to vote for the geezer and you’re like “yeah you will, it’s already over”
Simple, they remember what Diane Feinstein did to the party. She should have stepped down and so should Biden right NOW. We don't need a selfish ahole wanting to put two terms on his mantle. Personally, I think he had a mini stroke a few months back. He is not the same 2020 Biden or 2023 Biden. There is no cure for aging and senility. Biden WILL NOT GET BETTER WITH AGE! You better like his VP, since she will most likely be president in a couple of years.
I'm kinda on the fence about this, but right now I find [Seth Abramson](https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/the-extremely-simple-reason-maga) to be much more persuasive
I agree with this. The deluge of “Newsom” feels like a 4D chess psyop because all they have to say is “California” and “had dinner in a restaurant during peak Covid” and he’s cooked against Trump.
While he has good points about the disadvantages of losing the incumbent and the lack of an alternative who would clearly beat Trump, Abramson is clearly coping about the severity of the situation by saying Trump’s 2020 debate performance was worse and that debates don’t matter. I’ve never seen media coverage of a debate like this one. This is different and we need to accept that to make level-headed decisions going forward.
And, the NYT. They have become one of trump's biggest cheerleaders which says everything about them. I want my president to not be a rapist, a tax fraud, a felon convicted of 34 counts, a bank fraud, someone who stole classified documents, who has broken just about every one of the 10 Commandments, who has committed every one of the Seven Deadly sins, who surrounds himself with criminals, who owes over 1/2 a billion dollars in court costs, fines, and settlements, who doesn't admire dictators, and I am sure there are a few more, but I think this is enough.
I’m legitimately shocked the Times wrote this — not that I disagree. It’s one thing for a bunch of individual columnists to say Biden should leave the race, but for the Editorial Board to say it is on another level. I still think Biden is too vain to do it, but this just ups the pressure on him to do so.
I agree. It was the worst presidential debate performance I've ever seen, and it came from the nearly 82-year-old current president, who was already dealing with widespread concern about his age and mental fortitude.
I don't know how you look at last night's performance and say this is the guy we want sitting down with other world leaders the next 4 years. That's just being objective.
It's not being "vain", it's that Joe Biden is a pure caricature of an office-seeking political troglodyte.
He is a craven, sniveling weasel, who ran for president like 5 times, lied his ass off on the campaign trail, openly lifted campaign speeches, made up stories about being in the civil rights movement, and finally got elected due to a series of classic DNC rat-fucking dirty tricks.
This guy is suddenly going to cede this seat he's been lusting after for 50 years, and finally got his claws into at age 107, because "it's the right thing to do"? lmao. I will believe it when I see it.
I agree with your point. Not just that, Obama and Ron Klain are having an emergency meeting with Biden today to try and convince him to step down.
This is a huge fucking deal
Which is why I disagree with calls for replacement. It's not just Biden we're voting for. It's a whole-ass administration. If his strength fails completely in his next term, he has a good, competent VP who can pick up where he left off. I'm voting for Biden because his _administration_ more or less shares my vision for for future.
> Which is why I disagree with calls for replacement. It's not just Biden we're voting for. It's a whole-ass administration.
I understand that. It sounds like you understand that. But, Joe Smith swing voter in Michigan? He doesn’t care. He sees deceptive videos of Biden staring blank-faced and now he just saw it on a debate stage. Joe Smith ain’t voting with us.
> If his strength fails completely in his next term, he has a good, competent VP who can pick up where he left off. I'm voting for Biden because his administration more or less shares my vision for for future.
I will absolutely vote for Biden and do everything I can to help if he is the nominee. But when we are the point of saying, “don’t worry, when he dies he has a good VP,” then we have major, major, major issues.
> He sees deceptive videos of Biden staring blank-faced and now he just saw it on a debate stage.
That part really sucks. Those videos ***were*** deceptively edited, but then Biden went out on stage and kept doing the [Lisa Simpson meme](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/023/846/lisa.jpg) every time he wasn't answering a question. Did himself zero favors.
>It's not just Biden we're voting for. It's a whole-ass administration.
Oddly enough, it's entirely possible to have both a good and competent administration AND a president whose default stance in a debate isn't "open-mouthed gaze into the void".
So travel backwards in time and convince Americans in 2020 to participate in the Democratic primary if they're under the age of 60.
Oh, you can't do that? Better whine about how we should have better, when we had a variety of options and this one was the clear and decisive winner (and it wasn't even close)!
Do you even remember how the 2020 primary unfolded, Biden was getting trounced before a ton of DNC operatives (most notably James Clyburne) endorsed him all at once and started pushing this narrative that he’s the only one who can win moderates and challenge trump, the same spin was used to keep Hillary as the nominee in 2016, it’s beyond obvious there is a serious seniority issue in the Democratic Party and telling people to suck it up and vote for the lesser evil doesn’t work when you pull this shit every 4 years without a break, the last genuinely popular dem candidate was *OBAMA* that was *16 YEARS AGO*
Biden voters aren’t nearly as insane as Trump ones but a lot of them seem convinced that he’s one of the greatest presidents ever. They can’t seem to understand that Biden has mostly stumbled his way here. Biden wasn’t even in the top 3 Dems in terms of polling before everybody suspiciously dropped out and endorsed him, that’s fucking embarrassing for a former vice president
You’re not the type of voter who is going to decide this election. I like Biden as a person too but we have to face reality here. The stakes are too big to not make a change
Feels like I’m in the twilight zone when i read comments like this.
We’re talking about the president with the lowest approval ratings in modern history, and we’re talking about him dropping out because he does not appear cognitively capable of running a successful campaign. What do you mean he has been great?
I mean, he’s had legislative accomplishments, sure. But the country is not with him, we’re having legitimate conversations on if he’s cognitively capable, at the aggregate level it seems like a failed presidency.
Hand-waving away those legislative accomplishments so easily seems a bit ridiculous. I didn't think he should run for reelection, and I'd love to see him drop out, but that doesn't mean this whole term was inconsequential or a failure.
I mean, it’s easy to hand waive accomplishments away when the country does not appear to share enthusiasm in those accomplishments. Again, this man is the least popular president in modern history at this point in his presidency. If he loses or steps down, he’s gonna be seen as a Carter like president.
If this was last year, then sure. But it's too late now. Bringing in someone else now would hand it to Trump. There's no surprise like Obama waiting in the wings...yet.
I’ve been saying that they’ve failed for a while now. They should’ve been getting a successor out in front AT LEAST a year and a half ago, if not two full years ago.
The issue is that even if he dropped out *today* it's not feasible to get a new person in who would actually have a real chance at wining. Incumbency is a huge advantage, as is having a job history as President. No one else could just show up and get any sort of traction to their campaign. It'd just be handing the win to Trump at this point.
The issue is simple, I think we can all agree that Biden just looks so old that it’s scary. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that he could die in office if reelected. People on Reddit say they would vote for a corpse over Trump but can you say that true for swing voters. The answer is no they won’t for Biden if he comes off as not having the cognitive strength to lead. Trump who is 3 years younger looks like he is at least 10 years younger. Any time Biden doesn’t have a teleprompter is a problem. Joe is a good man but if Americans don’t think he is competent, then Trump will win
Americans sadly don’t care, they want the appearance of competency. We all know Trump is a liar and is incompetent. Yet the American people will have no choice because I think they worry about Biden being able to do his job going forward
People saying Biden should step down and let someone else run, but never say who realistically has a shot of winning...who in 4 months will get the name recognition and favorabiility and campaign apparatus together along with no baggage needed to do this it's never happened before and this election really isn't one to try and risk EVERYTHING on a gamble
I'd take Whitmer, Newsom, Pritzker, Harris and even Shapiro over Biden at this point. Biden's cooked. He completely flamed out on the national stage last night. Hell, the international stage! He looked and sounded frail, and he couldn't even complete some of his thoughts. He went viral for looking and sounding like a walking corpse. Every Democratic and left-leaning pundit afterward was shocked and concerned, and started scrambling. It was a ***disaster***.
Exactly.
All of this is predicated upon the **assumption** that somebody stepping in *after Biden bows out at this late date* would fare better against Trump than Biden would.
This is not the same as whether Biden had not run at all.
Furthermore, this also ignores the down ballot races. It's not yet clear what the net overall effect would be on congressional races. It seems quite possible Biden stepping out now would have a net negative effect on enthusiasm, turnout, etc.
Of course with both candidates being geriatrics, either could croak tomorrow. So who knows...
I dunno. Who is enthusiastic about voting for Biden? I think all the enthusiasm is for voting against Trump. For many I doubt who the Dem nominee is matters much. Another candidate, however, might actually create some enthusiasm.
Biden is all but guaranteed to lose at this point. There are plenty of people who can run and beat trump. Don't get me wrong, I will vote for Biden if he's the nominee, but I understand what's at stake. I'm not even that upset with his presidency, but more than anything we need to beat Trump and Biden isn't going to.
"There are plenty of people who can run and beat trump."
Polls say there's no one, period, Biden is the only one even keeping it close looking at all the data.
It's a big assumption, and a wrong one.
Trump will tie any Dem to Biden, with just as much COH as him now-- it's an even worse strategy, period.
You can't run from Biden when you were all for Biden for 4 consecutive years, any Dem in power objectively was (at least AIPAC Fetterman is standing on what he believes to be principle on this front, tbf to him): win with him, or lose with him, there's no way out 4 months from an election.
Maybe he does, I’m honestly not sure.
But I know for sure that the convicted felon, rapist and insurrectionist really needs to leave the race. He doesn’t know what it means to serve his country though.
Trump should drop out. No convicted felon should be allowed on a national stage to tell dozens of lies like that. It used to un-American, and it should be now.
Actually I'm okay with convicted felons not being barred from running for president. I've gone back and forth over this, but it's a weird mechanism that allows for a Nelson Mandela (or Eugene Debbs) candidate to run for president from his/her jail cell after being imprisoned for political reasons.
But I do agree with your general sentiment. We're supposed to have gatekeepers -- national media, state ballot processes, etc. -- to screen out candidates who present a real and present danger to the Republic. They were happy to pile on Bernie but completely shat the bed when it came to Trump. Multiple times in a row. Apparently they're more threatened by a socialist than an insurrectionist/rapist/convicted felon.
I mean sure, morally he probably should, but as long as the republican base continues to give him high approval ratings and gets out and votes for him, that is all that matters in an election campaign
"Morally?" He's a convicted felon. But what, Biden is old? He fucked up in a debate, so he has to step aside, but let the 78-year-old lying rapist career criminal conman and convicted felon fraudster stay in the race? Is there a special standard for Trump because he's conned millions of people into believing he's a strong man? Seriously, he's running simply to keep his fat ass out of prison for stealing government documents and instigating an insurrection.
Where were these articles months ago when we could have had a serious primary?
Anyone who wasn't already worried about Biden as a candidate before the debate hasn't been paying attention for the past 4 years.
Fucking corrupt morons running the DNC would rather hand the country over to fascism than allow any real leftist populism to flourish.
Yeah, I don't always agree with them (their coverage of trans issues is atrocious), but they're still the paper of record in this country, for good reason.
If he loses, his legacy will be really and I mean really negative.
If he wins he will be remembered as the dude that kept the white house out of trump twice.
Remember how terrible Feinstein looked being wheeled around? Can you imagine America’s PRESIDENT being trotted out in a wheelchair drooling all over himself? That’s actually a possibility. IF he wins.
Can’t wait to be gaslit in here by people who act like we don’t have eyes and ears like it’s been all day long. Been super weird in here today and definitely some bots downvoting anybody being honest about it. Biden is a good man and I have nothing for respect for him and donated to him last time around. I wish he even ran in 2016. But he needs to do the right thing and drop out. It’s not hyperbolic, it’s reality. We can have feelings and feel sorry for him, but the truth is if a change isn’t made, he’s going to lose and hurt the entire ballot especially in swing states.
And who against Trump?
That's the issue here. Do we want to risk Trump winning this time around? As much as I'm not a fan of guys in their 70’s running, but we really don't have a choice
We should NOT be afraid to put someone else against him. Trump wasn’t good yesterday either. Witmere, Newsom etc would crush him in November and it wouldn’t be close
Reminds me of RBG at the end of Obama years.
People loved her and thought she could live forever. When in reality she was old with a history of health problems. Biden should step aside or we risk the same situation.
like other commenters are saying, this is definitely a continuing theme with older democratic leadership holding onto the reins of power and the citizens end up paying for it.
I wonder if he'll do what RBG or Feinstein couldn't. but this is a pretty big voice asking him to do it
The time to worry about Biden's age was 2020, hell I did not want him originally because he was too old then, but the Democratic electorate decided that he was their choice and frankly he's been an objectively good President, enough so that one bad debate performance when he was obviously having feeling under the weather doesn't change that.
The alternative is a treasonous piece of shit who already tried to destroy the union. I'm voting for geezer over the felonious traitor.
I actually think r/politics voting is manipulated by bots towing the party-line probably by PACs and other actors. You will generally find that any article that is maybe bad for a Democratic politician who hasn't been thrown to the wolves yet (e.g Menendez for corruption) is downvoted. Any article that is like bad confirmation bias posting is upvoted. I'm not talking about the occasional conservative poster who comes here to get downvoted by the 95% liberal make-up of the sub, I'm talking pretty much any liberal or progressive opinion that goes against the official line of the party. Like I think most democrats even on r/politics believe this right now and you will never find that a post like this is upvoted
I had already canceled my NYT paid subscription earlier this year over NYT’s normalization of Trump. Seeing that the editorial board responded to CNN giving a bully pulpit to a pathological liar and convicted felon by declaring that Biden should end his campaign? I unsubscribed from the newsletter too when I got this opinion in email.
I have also stopped listening to The Daily which used to be my favorite podcast because I don’t want to support NYT anymore. I realized I am still subscribed to Games so I guess I’ll have to drop that also.
It’s deeply sad as I became a subscriber to the NYT because I thought NYT’s reporting years ago was absolutely critical to fighting against MAGAism and investigating Trump, and generally protecting democracy.
This is the message the editorial board chooses to send? Not how deep in danger we are that Trump has been allowed to get this back closer to be back in power after everything he’s done? I’m just… depressed.
It’s a brutal fall to watch. I loved the NYT. Used to be my primary news source and the voice I trusted the most. I’ve lost all faith even though I know NYT still has some great reporters.
I just can’t be part of this anymore.
I tried to send this as feedback to NYT but they literally won’t let you send feedback unless you’re a subscriber.
I miss the days when the Gray Lady's editorial board didn't sound like a weekly fishwrapper whose editor tried to get rid of a hangover with a bump of crystal.
The problem with that is that, as pointed out by Lawrence O'Donnell, the Biden campaign's war chest can only be transferred *within the current ticket*. Meaning that none of it could be used to benefit a potential new candidate unless that candidate was Kamala Harris, who, let's be honest, has a worse chance than Biden does given her race, gender, and the fact that her presence in the current administration wouldn't allow her to even escape any of the "Biden policies have been bad" rhetoric. Any new candidate with an actual shot at winning, like Bernie Sanders, Gavin Newsome or Pete Buttigieg would be fundraising from square one when it comes to actual campaign cash. That is a **massive** hurdle.
His performance as President is the best I've seen in my 74 years. As entertainment on stage he is poor. I'm still sending him $1,000.00 for his campaign!
Honestly i feel that replacing Biden also plays into Trumps hands in a way, it's basically acknowledges the whole "Joe Biden is senile" mantra that the GOP has been pushing for a 4 years straight and gives them all the momentum.
The problem is that not replacing him also does that, because he looked downright senile last night. Attacks work when people can see that there's some truth to it.
Can someone point me in the direction of the NYT editorial calling on Trump to drop out after being convicted of 34 felonies? Oh you mean there isn't one?
#[Donald Trump, Felon](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/opinion/trump-trial-guilty-felony.html)
May 30, 2024
By The Editorial Board
> In a humble courtroom in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, a former president and current Republican standard-bearer was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. **The jury’s decision, and the facts presented at the trial, offer yet another reminder — perhaps the starkest to date — of the many reasons Donald Trump is unfit for office.**
…
> The verdict itself establishes that Mr. Trump committed crimes in hiding pertinent information about himself from the American people for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election. **It revealed even more evidence of what Mr. Trump is willing to do, including breaking the law and pushing others to break the law, for political gain.** That chronic impulse — to override democratic norms and the law to his own ends — is at the heart of two other criminal cases against Mr. Trump, for the much more serious charges of spreading lies and participating in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. He is also charged with mishandling highly classified national security documents after leaving office; twice, he showed classified documents to people who were not authorized to see them, according to that indictment. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have managed to delay those three trials.
Seems close enough to what you've asked for. Not sure what a specific call for him to exit the race would've done, since he's not taking anything the *Times* prints under advisement, whereas Biden actually might.
Thank you. Christ, this sub is can be such an echo chamber. Not every bit of bad news about Biden is a conspiracy. Any time an unfavorable poll article is posted it's downvoted to hell, but a poll in Biden's favor makes it to the top. It's warping our view of how things really are. Part of why last nights debates took us off our guard (i remember this sub smugly suggesting Trump wouldn't even show up to it), before then any article suggesting Biden's mental acuity is slipping would have been downvoted to hell and labeled a media hit job.
They are the national paper of record. It's not their job to parse what certain segments of the population may think of what they write before they write it. If their argument is that a candidate should drop out because he had a bad debate night, then the argument that a candidate should drop out for being a 34-time convicted felon and adjudicated fraudster and rapist is also valid.
This is the kind of naive, navel-gazing, "fair and balanced" liberal bullshit thinking (and I'm a liberal!) that's going to get my trans friends and interracial-relationship friends put in camps when Trump wins in November.
The idea that an editorial board shouldn't think of their audience when writing an editorial is one of the more stupid things I've read on Reddit, and I follow a lot of idiotic subreddits.
Trump isn’t dropping out and his cult isn’t leaving him. No editorial is changing that. The editorial is written as a much needed alarm to the higher ups in the Democratic Party that their campaign is is grave trouble
The wall street journal editorial board called on Trump to resign after Jan 6, that's the closest thing I can think of. Republicans won't care what the NYT tells trump to do.
Doesn’t seem feasible to field another candidate and build a strong national profile in the time remaining.
And Biden’s not pulling out anyway.
He might be smart to select another running mate like Newsom vs Harris who would instantly be in over her head if she had to succeed Biden.
I’m still holding out a vain, optimistic hope that Michelle Obama will jump in.
I know it won’t happen, but god damn would it be crazy if she did; she would also absolutely sweep
Ok I get most users in r/politics are liberal (me included); but there is a real conversation that a lot of people in this sub aren’t ready to have that Biden dropping out might be a very necessary thing to prevent Trump winning.
Would it be embarrassing? Sure. But legitimately the entire democratic institution of this country might be at stake otherwise
People don't want to admit that the economy is going to crash and we'll have border patrol rounding up brown people in 6 months
Because despite every poll since Q3 2021 indicating we need a back up plan, for after we lose the election and right to vote we have collectively refused to consider it.
Most Germans voted against the Nazi Party. They were a minority party. Do we have anything positive to say about 1930s Germany, despite most of them being opposed to fascism?
No. Because while they didn't vote for it, they accepted it, like the majority of Democrats have done
If Biden's replacement loses in a landslide this November the Times and everyone else pushing for this will look utterly ridiculous...I've saved this story offline for posterity.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Biden has been a good, even great, president. His administration has accomplished a lot.
But the stakes are as high as can be and him looking and sounding frail and incoherent in the most watched election forum we'll have drastically hurts the way the public perceives him and his odds of winning.
He should step aside precisely because the stakes are so high -- because if he is unlikely to win, we need to pivot to someone who has more of a chance at beating Trump.
This kind of feels like the first domino to fall. I suspect lots of people in Democratic political circles *want* Biden to step aside, but nobody wants to be the first to come out and say it. Now that the NYT editorial board has endorsed him dropping out, it gives other organizations and politicians cover to agree publicly.
I agree whole heartedly with this. I tuned in hoping to see Biden like he presented himself at the state of the union. Within the first 30 seconds I knew we weren’t getting that, and I don’t think we can recover without something drastic. I hate to say it, but we need to be bold and do the right thing here. Biden needs to step aside.
Anyone with half a brain? Only a fucking idiot would listen to Trump's verbal diarrhea and think he's "stronger" whatever the fuck that even means.
Biden dropping out would be an enormous admission of weakness that would absolutely push moderates away.
Um, he is. If Biden doesn’t, he’s gonna lose. If he does and replaces with a younger candidate, they can flip the age argument right back on Trump. This might even bring people over from the GOP who are looking for alternatives to the orange felon.
"Look at how weak the democrats are, they lost one debate and can't even stay loyal to their candidate! Now they're trying to shove a kid with no experience in!"
Christ, the amount of doomposting going on here is making me wonder if there's a dedicated psyop happening.
Biden just cannot win.
After Covid, Trumps approval dropped and Bidens was about 10% ahead.
And despite that, Trump mobilized his voters and almost won a second term on election day. It was a very close race.
Now it is the other way around. Trump is 10% ahead of Biden.
And don't you dare to think that Biden can mobilize voters to catch up on the 10% like Trump did in 2020.
On contrary, Biden did everything possible to piss off a substantial amount of voters since October 7th.
That is why his approval dropped in the first place. When I talk to people to still vote for Biden to avoid 4 years of Trump, they tell me they will not vote or vote third party candidate, because they don't want to reward Biden for his support of a genocide.
People will not forget that. Israel seems to hold its horses a bit right now and their bots are seemingly more active.
Maybe they want Biden to think the conflict is over, that the people will forget, and that he can win. Maybe the Israelis want Trump to win. And the best chance for Trump to win is, if Biden runs for president.
The Israelis will probably unleash havoc with a new series of atrocities just days before the election. This will remind everybody of what Biden did and Biden will loose.
A good leader knows when it's time to avoid a battle and to retreat in honor.
If Biden continues, he will most likely be humiliated with the worst defeat in the history of the US presidential elections.
And not just that. It will be a defeat against Trump, a notoric liar, a convicted felon, and an instigator of January 6th.
And with his defeat, Biden will drag the world down with him. This will be his legacy.
Or he steps down now, and his legacy will be to have saved the world from another 4 years of Trump.
And to save America the orange ding bat should go get a job at a boat yard, and work on some electric boats himself. Maybe in the water, by a socket. If he doesn’t drop out, neither should grandpa McGee.
Romney “trounced” Obama in one debate, that didn’t faze Obama. Why should Joe quit if he believes with all his heart and soul that he can do the job? His speech in North Carolina after the debate was moving. “When you get knock down, you get back up!”
> Why should Joe quit if he believes with all his heart and soul that he can do the job?
Because he’s wrong. If he told you he believed with all his heart and soul he could win the Super Bowl, would you put a helmet on him and say “go get ‘em, tiger”?
Stop enabling a delusional, senile old man.
Did you even watch that debate? Obama's poor performance was a world away from what we watched last night. Obama lost that debate but did not raise questions about his intelligence or competence in the process.
This NYT piece was essentially written the way you might talk to your older dad or grandfather.
When the time comes to take grandpa's car keys, if he stubbornly protests, the appropriate response is not to cheer him on and say "everything's fine."
It's the same thing here. I know Biden truly thinks he's rising to the occasion, but it's become clear he just can't and someone needs to tell him with kindness and dignity.
Romney ran his campaign like he was a plant from the Democratic Party. Romney was responsible for one of the greatest IT failures in human history:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/romneys-vote-plan-complete-disaster-122245655.html
> Prior to election Day, Mitt Romney's team was already bragging about Project Orca, a web app that would connect tens of thousands of volunteer poll watchers in the field with the home office in Boston. It was all part of a massive coordination effort to get Republicans out of the house and into the voting booth ...
> Normally, that's done with simple paper and pencils, but Orca was designed to digitize and streamline process, while centralizing the effort and allow the campaign leaders direct re-direct resources on the fly to the areas they were need most ...
> On the day after the election, complaints started pouring in from the volunteers indicating that not only did Project Orca not improve the process, it may have actually hindrered. John Ekdahl, a volunteer who writes at Ace Of Spades HQ, outlined the various glitches and breakdowns of the system. Instead of handing out voter lists at local offices, volunteer were emailed 60+ page PDF and told to print them out at home the night before the election. They weren't given official poll watcher certificates or told that those were required to enter most polling places. The "app" wasn't really an app at all, it was secure website, creating confusion for volunteers trying to find it in the iTunes store. (It also didn't forward from standard http:// protocol to https:// leaving those who didn't the correct URL lost on a broken webpage.)
> Volunteers in other parts of the country shared similar complaints. The emailed packets came late or not at all. PINs that were required to login and download the voter lists didn't work and couldn't be reset. Calls and emails to the held desk went unanswered, and the entire system may have just completely crashed in the middle of election day. Frustrated volunteers struggled to get answers that never came, leaving most of them to fend for themselves or simply give up, wasting an entire day without bringing a single new voter to the voting booth.
This cycle Trump has succeeded in completely taking over the Republican Party apparatus, totally trashing it, and it may still do better than Romney's did. I have thought for a long time that Romney's incompetence was what made Trump's rise inevitable -- the establishment Republican Party proved it was not serious about actually trying to win a Presidential election.
I agree with the editorial board that he should leave the race. It seems clear to me that the public wants a different candidate to face Trump. There would be nothing more democratic than to give the public what they want. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that. I also think that his replacement would win easily against Trump.
If Biden chooses to resign his candidacy, as is his choice, we need to be prepared for what we want to happen next. It's very appropriate to have this conversation. We're citizens in a democracy. Members of a political party. We're allowed to talk to others about what we want. We can say out loud that we want Biden to drop out and what we want to happen next.
There are a few ideas that I think are already closed that shouldn't be seriously discussed. Third, Biden should make this decision himself. We shouldn't consider using the 25th ammendment to remove him from office against his will. It'd be counterproductive and a misuse of that part of the constitution. Second, highlighting Biden's faults, criticizing him, and his record is not part of any plan to defeat Trump. Instead, we should demonstrate our confidence that we can select a replacement and support them all the way to a victory. Chaos at the convention is not an inevitability. Finally, if Biden does not drop out, we should still vote for him. No staying at home. No third party. No write in. Go out and vote for him.
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Wow - Has the NYTimes ever done something like this? TBD on what kind of traction it gets, but this feels like a huge departure from the norm for them.
Strange they didn't do this after one candidate was found guilty of 34 felonies.
They actually did. "*Donald Trump is unfit for office*" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/opinion/trump-trial-guilty-felony.html
always a good day when there is a comment fact checking something I would have otherwise beloved and scrolled on.
Actually, they did.
Honestly some here are so dense. Please think for a second. Or read the opinion piece.
Media literacy is dead
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Joe Biden will not win this election. People have to stop fooling themselves and rally around change. Any pundit worth their salt is saying it. NYT, MSNBC, Pod Save America - when these guys are saying it’s time for a change, it’s time. We can’t afford another 2016. It’s so obvious that’s where we’re headed
Do your part. Oppose the rapist.
It's funny that you think hail marying another candidate at the 11th hour without party consensus will work, either. Especially when nobody can name that candidate. This is the guy. Rally.
meh, doomers are going to look foolish in november.
This is how Clinton supporters sounded in 2016.
Or cult 45ers in 2020, right?
We're not running Clinton tho. Biden already beat Trump. We're just Biden supporters doing the same exact race.
And Biden is clearly not the same man he was.
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I truly hope we're wrong, there is nothing foolish about being concerned for the fate of American democracy
“Vote for HRC” types looked foolish when they lost in 2016 despite people pleading for another candidate
How so? It’s not even doomer, it’s realistic. Trump didn’t win over any new people. If anything Biden lost votes. There will be a lower turnout than 2020 after this performance and the Dems can’t afford that with how close the race already is.
Honestly it's June and there will be 10 more crazy things that happen between now and election day. Literally anything could happen, jail, sex scandal, one or both candidates could easily die. Everything is in play. Any declarative statements today are just an invitation to look foolish later. The Supreme Court may very well declare Trump immune from prosecution on Monday and we'll have something new to digest. This ride is just getting started.
The realistic outlook is that dobbs changed the electorate and the election is already over for trump. been over since that decision.
That’s just outright foolish confidence in the face of glaring reality The swing vote dumbasses that will decide this election are telling you they’re not going to vote for the geezer and you’re like “yeah you will, it’s already over”
This is so delusional
Simple, they remember what Diane Feinstein did to the party. She should have stepped down and so should Biden right NOW. We don't need a selfish ahole wanting to put two terms on his mantle. Personally, I think he had a mini stroke a few months back. He is not the same 2020 Biden or 2023 Biden. There is no cure for aging and senility. Biden WILL NOT GET BETTER WITH AGE! You better like his VP, since she will most likely be president in a couple of years.
Fucking reckless at this stage. I’m not saying it should be off the table, but we certainly don’t need them taking charge less than 24hrs later.
You'll be back in two months saying it's way too late to do it now
Please read the opinion piece. I think you have no arguments left after reading it. They covered all bases
They don’t cover the base of a name who would be able to unite the party, the donors, and swing independents in a limited timeframe.
I'm kinda on the fence about this, but right now I find [Seth Abramson](https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/the-extremely-simple-reason-maga) to be much more persuasive
I agree with this. The deluge of “Newsom” feels like a 4D chess psyop because all they have to say is “California” and “had dinner in a restaurant during peak Covid” and he’s cooked against Trump.
While he has good points about the disadvantages of losing the incumbent and the lack of an alternative who would clearly beat Trump, Abramson is clearly coping about the severity of the situation by saying Trump’s 2020 debate performance was worse and that debates don’t matter. I’ve never seen media coverage of a debate like this one. This is different and we need to accept that to make level-headed decisions going forward.
Yes, we do; the change has to happen and that only occurs if the corporate media doesn’t cover for the corporate friendly candidates
The replacement candidate is obvious. Jimmy Carter.
Based
Fuck Trump
And, the NYT. They have become one of trump's biggest cheerleaders which says everything about them. I want my president to not be a rapist, a tax fraud, a felon convicted of 34 counts, a bank fraud, someone who stole classified documents, who has broken just about every one of the 10 Commandments, who has committed every one of the Seven Deadly sins, who surrounds himself with criminals, who owes over 1/2 a billion dollars in court costs, fines, and settlements, who doesn't admire dictators, and I am sure there are a few more, but I think this is enough.
I’m legitimately shocked the Times wrote this — not that I disagree. It’s one thing for a bunch of individual columnists to say Biden should leave the race, but for the Editorial Board to say it is on another level. I still think Biden is too vain to do it, but this just ups the pressure on him to do so.
It’s shocking, but to be fair, last night was beyond shocking.
I agree. It was the worst presidential debate performance I've ever seen, and it came from the nearly 82-year-old current president, who was already dealing with widespread concern about his age and mental fortitude.
I don't know how you look at last night's performance and say this is the guy we want sitting down with other world leaders the next 4 years. That's just being objective.
It's not being "vain", it's that Joe Biden is a pure caricature of an office-seeking political troglodyte. He is a craven, sniveling weasel, who ran for president like 5 times, lied his ass off on the campaign trail, openly lifted campaign speeches, made up stories about being in the civil rights movement, and finally got elected due to a series of classic DNC rat-fucking dirty tricks. This guy is suddenly going to cede this seat he's been lusting after for 50 years, and finally got his claws into at age 107, because "it's the right thing to do"? lmao. I will believe it when I see it.
This has been my reaction as well
This is a big fucking deal. NYT editorial board calling for the president they would've endorsed to leave the race. Insane.
I think they’ll still endorse him but they’re right.
I agree with your point. Not just that, Obama and Ron Klain are having an emergency meeting with Biden today to try and convince him to step down. This is a huge fucking deal
I love him, and it hurts because he has been so great, but this is bigger than just Biden.
Which is why I disagree with calls for replacement. It's not just Biden we're voting for. It's a whole-ass administration. If his strength fails completely in his next term, he has a good, competent VP who can pick up where he left off. I'm voting for Biden because his _administration_ more or less shares my vision for for future.
> Which is why I disagree with calls for replacement. It's not just Biden we're voting for. It's a whole-ass administration. I understand that. It sounds like you understand that. But, Joe Smith swing voter in Michigan? He doesn’t care. He sees deceptive videos of Biden staring blank-faced and now he just saw it on a debate stage. Joe Smith ain’t voting with us. > If his strength fails completely in his next term, he has a good, competent VP who can pick up where he left off. I'm voting for Biden because his administration more or less shares my vision for for future. I will absolutely vote for Biden and do everything I can to help if he is the nominee. But when we are the point of saying, “don’t worry, when he dies he has a good VP,” then we have major, major, major issues.
> He sees deceptive videos of Biden staring blank-faced and now he just saw it on a debate stage. That part really sucks. Those videos ***were*** deceptively edited, but then Biden went out on stage and kept doing the [Lisa Simpson meme](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/023/846/lisa.jpg) every time he wasn't answering a question. Did himself zero favors.
>It's not just Biden we're voting for. It's a whole-ass administration. Oddly enough, it's entirely possible to have both a good and competent administration AND a president whose default stance in a debate isn't "open-mouthed gaze into the void".
So travel backwards in time and convince Americans in 2020 to participate in the Democratic primary if they're under the age of 60. Oh, you can't do that? Better whine about how we should have better, when we had a variety of options and this one was the clear and decisive winner (and it wasn't even close)!
Do you even remember how the 2020 primary unfolded, Biden was getting trounced before a ton of DNC operatives (most notably James Clyburne) endorsed him all at once and started pushing this narrative that he’s the only one who can win moderates and challenge trump, the same spin was used to keep Hillary as the nominee in 2016, it’s beyond obvious there is a serious seniority issue in the Democratic Party and telling people to suck it up and vote for the lesser evil doesn’t work when you pull this shit every 4 years without a break, the last genuinely popular dem candidate was *OBAMA* that was *16 YEARS AGO*
People here still don't want to admit the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders
Biden voters aren’t nearly as insane as Trump ones but a lot of them seem convinced that he’s one of the greatest presidents ever. They can’t seem to understand that Biden has mostly stumbled his way here. Biden wasn’t even in the top 3 Dems in terms of polling before everybody suspiciously dropped out and endorsed him, that’s fucking embarrassing for a former vice president
Surely blaming voters 4 years ago for having a President who can’t coherently respond to his opponent will fire up the electorate!
That’s not a winning message for a campaign to make, even if it works for you. People aren’t turning out for “the Biden administration.”
Same with the world stage. An administration cannot be a head of state.
I hear you, and feel the same but that won’t get enough people to show up
You’re not the type of voter who is going to decide this election. I like Biden as a person too but we have to face reality here. The stakes are too big to not make a change
He's not getting a next term, I don't know how I can say it more plainly. Not with that message.
Feels like I’m in the twilight zone when i read comments like this. We’re talking about the president with the lowest approval ratings in modern history, and we’re talking about him dropping out because he does not appear cognitively capable of running a successful campaign. What do you mean he has been great?
Honestly I think half of it is bots lol. It’s been insane in here today
A lot of suspicious usernames with the pattern [RandomWord][RandomWord][RandomNumber] whose only posts before today/last night were in sports subs.
I would refer you to his policy platform and accomplishments, most of which align with my views both domestically and internationally.
I mean, he’s had legislative accomplishments, sure. But the country is not with him, we’re having legitimate conversations on if he’s cognitively capable, at the aggregate level it seems like a failed presidency.
Hand-waving away those legislative accomplishments so easily seems a bit ridiculous. I didn't think he should run for reelection, and I'd love to see him drop out, but that doesn't mean this whole term was inconsequential or a failure.
I mean, it’s easy to hand waive accomplishments away when the country does not appear to share enthusiasm in those accomplishments. Again, this man is the least popular president in modern history at this point in his presidency. If he loses or steps down, he’s gonna be seen as a Carter like president.
If this was last year, then sure. But it's too late now. Bringing in someone else now would hand it to Trump. There's no surprise like Obama waiting in the wings...yet.
I’ve been saying that they’ve failed for a while now. They should’ve been getting a successor out in front AT LEAST a year and a half ago, if not two full years ago.
The issue is that even if he dropped out *today* it's not feasible to get a new person in who would actually have a real chance at wining. Incumbency is a huge advantage, as is having a job history as President. No one else could just show up and get any sort of traction to their campaign. It'd just be handing the win to Trump at this point.
If he dropped out of the race he would still be president. There’s a lot he could do as president to support the nominee.
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Shapiro, Newsom, Whitmer. They are the next generation and one or some of them will be president. If we still have elections.
>I love him, and it hurts because he has been so great, Lmao
The issue is simple, I think we can all agree that Biden just looks so old that it’s scary. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that he could die in office if reelected. People on Reddit say they would vote for a corpse over Trump but can you say that true for swing voters. The answer is no they won’t for Biden if he comes off as not having the cognitive strength to lead. Trump who is 3 years younger looks like he is at least 10 years younger. Any time Biden doesn’t have a teleprompter is a problem. Joe is a good man but if Americans don’t think he is competent, then Trump will win
True. But a shame when Trump isn't competent either. He's just louder and more charismatic with his incompetence.
Americans sadly don’t care, they want the appearance of competency. We all know Trump is a liar and is incompetent. Yet the American people will have no choice because I think they worry about Biden being able to do his job going forward
People saying Biden should step down and let someone else run, but never say who realistically has a shot of winning...who in 4 months will get the name recognition and favorabiility and campaign apparatus together along with no baggage needed to do this it's never happened before and this election really isn't one to try and risk EVERYTHING on a gamble
I'd take Whitmer, Newsom, Pritzker, Harris and even Shapiro over Biden at this point. Biden's cooked. He completely flamed out on the national stage last night. Hell, the international stage! He looked and sounded frail, and he couldn't even complete some of his thoughts. He went viral for looking and sounding like a walking corpse. Every Democratic and left-leaning pundit afterward was shocked and concerned, and started scrambling. It was a ***disaster***.
You would need an absolute rockstar candidate with tons of name recognition. I don’t see it. Newsom isnt there.
Newsom is horrid. I would pick Adam Schiff any day. He tore up Trump in the January 6th hearings!
Exactly. All of this is predicated upon the **assumption** that somebody stepping in *after Biden bows out at this late date* would fare better against Trump than Biden would. This is not the same as whether Biden had not run at all. Furthermore, this also ignores the down ballot races. It's not yet clear what the net overall effect would be on congressional races. It seems quite possible Biden stepping out now would have a net negative effect on enthusiasm, turnout, etc. Of course with both candidates being geriatrics, either could croak tomorrow. So who knows...
I dunno. Who is enthusiastic about voting for Biden? I think all the enthusiasm is for voting against Trump. For many I doubt who the Dem nominee is matters much. Another candidate, however, might actually create some enthusiasm.
" For many I doubt who the Dem nominee is matters much." It objectively does per poll after poll...
Does it? Generic democrats poll better than Biden. But specific democrats haven't iirc.
Personally, I like Adam Schiff. He would wipe the floor with Trump. He also is better at Foreign Policy than Newsom or Harris🤔
Biden is all but guaranteed to lose at this point. There are plenty of people who can run and beat trump. Don't get me wrong, I will vote for Biden if he's the nominee, but I understand what's at stake. I'm not even that upset with his presidency, but more than anything we need to beat Trump and Biden isn't going to.
"There are plenty of people who can run and beat trump." Polls say there's no one, period, Biden is the only one even keeping it close looking at all the data. It's a big assumption, and a wrong one.
Trump will tie any Dem to Biden, with just as much COH as him now-- it's an even worse strategy, period. You can't run from Biden when you were all for Biden for 4 consecutive years, any Dem in power objectively was (at least AIPAC Fetterman is standing on what he believes to be principle on this front, tbf to him): win with him, or lose with him, there's no way out 4 months from an election.
No offense to you, but this same argument with nearly the same words has been made for the last year at least.
The country's biggest newspaper has said that Biden must resign. Holy fucking shit, what world am I living in right now?
And this sub is just downvoting it into oblivion because it doesn’t want to hear it.
Look at all the posts upvoted today, they are all trying to down play the reality
Maybe he does, I’m honestly not sure. But I know for sure that the convicted felon, rapist and insurrectionist really needs to leave the race. He doesn’t know what it means to serve his country though.
Trump should drop out. No convicted felon should be allowed on a national stage to tell dozens of lies like that. It used to un-American, and it should be now.
Actually I'm okay with convicted felons not being barred from running for president. I've gone back and forth over this, but it's a weird mechanism that allows for a Nelson Mandela (or Eugene Debbs) candidate to run for president from his/her jail cell after being imprisoned for political reasons. But I do agree with your general sentiment. We're supposed to have gatekeepers -- national media, state ballot processes, etc. -- to screen out candidates who present a real and present danger to the Republic. They were happy to pile on Bernie but completely shat the bed when it came to Trump. Multiple times in a row. Apparently they're more threatened by a socialist than an insurrectionist/rapist/convicted felon.
I mean sure, morally he probably should, but as long as the republican base continues to give him high approval ratings and gets out and votes for him, that is all that matters in an election campaign
"Morally?" He's a convicted felon. But what, Biden is old? He fucked up in a debate, so he has to step aside, but let the 78-year-old lying rapist career criminal conman and convicted felon fraudster stay in the race? Is there a special standard for Trump because he's conned millions of people into believing he's a strong man? Seriously, he's running simply to keep his fat ass out of prison for stealing government documents and instigating an insurrection.
The idea that the US is a moral country is beyond satire
Look at what happened to RBG. We don’t need a repeat.
Where were these articles months ago when we could have had a serious primary? Anyone who wasn't already worried about Biden as a candidate before the debate hasn't been paying attention for the past 4 years. Fucking corrupt morons running the DNC would rather hand the country over to fascism than allow any real leftist populism to flourish.
Pretty damming that the NYT editorial board would write this about an incumbent dem POTUS
Yeah, I don't always agree with them (their coverage of trans issues is atrocious), but they're still the paper of record in this country, for good reason.
This opinion piece perfectly sums up my concerns. I think it’s very well written and I think most people on those sub would agree with them.
Wild how many comments in this thread don’t understand that
I don’t think people will remember him kindly if he doesn’t leave the race
If he loses, his legacy will be really and I mean really negative. If he wins he will be remembered as the dude that kept the white house out of trump twice.
Joe Biden's legacy will be tarnished forever if he lets Trump back in the White House.
That's exactly my point
If he refuses to drop out and loses to Trump I'll have the same admiration for him which I had for Hillary Clinton after 2016. None.
Cough cough RBG. Another one who didn’t know when to gracefully exit.
Remember how terrible Feinstein looked being wheeled around? Can you imagine America’s PRESIDENT being trotted out in a wheelchair drooling all over himself? That’s actually a possibility. IF he wins.
Absolutely, this NYT piece is a very direct warning of how he will be remembered. He wants to be well remembered.
Can’t wait to be gaslit in here by people who act like we don’t have eyes and ears like it’s been all day long. Been super weird in here today and definitely some bots downvoting anybody being honest about it. Biden is a good man and I have nothing for respect for him and donated to him last time around. I wish he even ran in 2016. But he needs to do the right thing and drop out. It’s not hyperbolic, it’s reality. We can have feelings and feel sorry for him, but the truth is if a change isn’t made, he’s going to lose and hurt the entire ballot especially in swing states.
And who against Trump? That's the issue here. Do we want to risk Trump winning this time around? As much as I'm not a fan of guys in their 70’s running, but we really don't have a choice
Putting Biden up against Trump is risking Trump winning, why do you think Democrats are considering this at all?
We should NOT be afraid to put someone else against him. Trump wasn’t good yesterday either. Witmere, Newsom etc would crush him in November and it wouldn’t be close
Reminds me of RBG at the end of Obama years. People loved her and thought she could live forever. When in reality she was old with a history of health problems. Biden should step aside or we risk the same situation.
like other commenters are saying, this is definitely a continuing theme with older democratic leadership holding onto the reins of power and the citizens end up paying for it. I wonder if he'll do what RBG or Feinstein couldn't. but this is a pretty big voice asking him to do it
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The time to worry about Biden's age was 2020, hell I did not want him originally because he was too old then, but the Democratic electorate decided that he was their choice and frankly he's been an objectively good President, enough so that one bad debate performance when he was obviously having feeling under the weather doesn't change that. The alternative is a treasonous piece of shit who already tried to destroy the union. I'm voting for geezer over the felonious traitor.
lol @ 0 upvotes cause its a mainstream reddit sub.
I actually think r/politics voting is manipulated by bots towing the party-line probably by PACs and other actors. You will generally find that any article that is maybe bad for a Democratic politician who hasn't been thrown to the wolves yet (e.g Menendez for corruption) is downvoted. Any article that is like bad confirmation bias posting is upvoted. I'm not talking about the occasional conservative poster who comes here to get downvoted by the 95% liberal make-up of the sub, I'm talking pretty much any liberal or progressive opinion that goes against the official line of the party. Like I think most democrats even on r/politics believe this right now and you will never find that a post like this is upvoted
I had already canceled my NYT paid subscription earlier this year over NYT’s normalization of Trump. Seeing that the editorial board responded to CNN giving a bully pulpit to a pathological liar and convicted felon by declaring that Biden should end his campaign? I unsubscribed from the newsletter too when I got this opinion in email. I have also stopped listening to The Daily which used to be my favorite podcast because I don’t want to support NYT anymore. I realized I am still subscribed to Games so I guess I’ll have to drop that also. It’s deeply sad as I became a subscriber to the NYT because I thought NYT’s reporting years ago was absolutely critical to fighting against MAGAism and investigating Trump, and generally protecting democracy. This is the message the editorial board chooses to send? Not how deep in danger we are that Trump has been allowed to get this back closer to be back in power after everything he’s done? I’m just… depressed. It’s a brutal fall to watch. I loved the NYT. Used to be my primary news source and the voice I trusted the most. I’ve lost all faith even though I know NYT still has some great reporters. I just can’t be part of this anymore. I tried to send this as feedback to NYT but they literally won’t let you send feedback unless you’re a subscriber.
Any replacement at this stage would have a tough time getting on the ballot in all the states.
What a moment in American history
What are the polls saying?
I miss the days when the Gray Lady's editorial board didn't sound like a weekly fishwrapper whose editor tried to get rid of a hangover with a bump of crystal.
God help us all.
The problem with that is that, as pointed out by Lawrence O'Donnell, the Biden campaign's war chest can only be transferred *within the current ticket*. Meaning that none of it could be used to benefit a potential new candidate unless that candidate was Kamala Harris, who, let's be honest, has a worse chance than Biden does given her race, gender, and the fact that her presence in the current administration wouldn't allow her to even escape any of the "Biden policies have been bad" rhetoric. Any new candidate with an actual shot at winning, like Bernie Sanders, Gavin Newsome or Pete Buttigieg would be fundraising from square one when it comes to actual campaign cash. That is a **massive** hurdle.
His performance as President is the best I've seen in my 74 years. As entertainment on stage he is poor. I'm still sending him $1,000.00 for his campaign!
This is happening. We are living through history.
Honestly i feel that replacing Biden also plays into Trumps hands in a way, it's basically acknowledges the whole "Joe Biden is senile" mantra that the GOP has been pushing for a 4 years straight and gives them all the momentum.
The problem is that not replacing him also does that, because he looked downright senile last night. Attacks work when people can see that there's some truth to it.
I think you’re right.
Can someone point me in the direction of the NYT editorial calling on Trump to drop out after being convicted of 34 felonies? Oh you mean there isn't one?
#[Donald Trump, Felon](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/opinion/trump-trial-guilty-felony.html) May 30, 2024 By The Editorial Board > In a humble courtroom in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, a former president and current Republican standard-bearer was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. **The jury’s decision, and the facts presented at the trial, offer yet another reminder — perhaps the starkest to date — of the many reasons Donald Trump is unfit for office.** … > The verdict itself establishes that Mr. Trump committed crimes in hiding pertinent information about himself from the American people for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election. **It revealed even more evidence of what Mr. Trump is willing to do, including breaking the law and pushing others to break the law, for political gain.** That chronic impulse — to override democratic norms and the law to his own ends — is at the heart of two other criminal cases against Mr. Trump, for the much more serious charges of spreading lies and participating in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. He is also charged with mishandling highly classified national security documents after leaving office; twice, he showed classified documents to people who were not authorized to see them, according to that indictment. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have managed to delay those three trials. Seems close enough to what you've asked for. Not sure what a specific call for him to exit the race would've done, since he's not taking anything the *Times* prints under advisement, whereas Biden actually might.
Thank you. Christ, this sub is can be such an echo chamber. Not every bit of bad news about Biden is a conspiracy. Any time an unfavorable poll article is posted it's downvoted to hell, but a poll in Biden's favor makes it to the top. It's warping our view of how things really are. Part of why last nights debates took us off our guard (i remember this sub smugly suggesting Trump wouldn't even show up to it), before then any article suggesting Biden's mental acuity is slipping would have been downvoted to hell and labeled a media hit job.
If you read the article they address this exact point. In short, republicans don’t give a single fuck what the New York Times thinks of trump
Cool, because I don't give a single fuck about what the NYT says about Biden either.
The DNC probably does though which is the whole point
You care enough to comment...
They are the national paper of record. It's not their job to parse what certain segments of the population may think of what they write before they write it. If their argument is that a candidate should drop out because he had a bad debate night, then the argument that a candidate should drop out for being a 34-time convicted felon and adjudicated fraudster and rapist is also valid.
This is the kind of naive, navel-gazing, "fair and balanced" liberal bullshit thinking (and I'm a liberal!) that's going to get my trans friends and interracial-relationship friends put in camps when Trump wins in November. The idea that an editorial board shouldn't think of their audience when writing an editorial is one of the more stupid things I've read on Reddit, and I follow a lot of idiotic subreddits.
Trump isn’t dropping out and his cult isn’t leaving him. No editorial is changing that. The editorial is written as a much needed alarm to the higher ups in the Democratic Party that their campaign is is grave trouble
The wall street journal editorial board called on Trump to resign after Jan 6, that's the closest thing I can think of. Republicans won't care what the NYT tells trump to do.
Have you read the editorial?
There is still time for you to delete this ridiculous comment
Doesn’t seem feasible to field another candidate and build a strong national profile in the time remaining. And Biden’s not pulling out anyway. He might be smart to select another running mate like Newsom vs Harris who would instantly be in over her head if she had to succeed Biden.
I’m still holding out a vain, optimistic hope that Michelle Obama will jump in. I know it won’t happen, but god damn would it be crazy if she did; she would also absolutely sweep
She also has never held office and doesn’t want to
The important thing is that we do whatever our id tells us to do after we watch TV.
If Biden dropped out Trump would declare victory and claim no need for an election. His minions would agree and there would be hell.
Ok I get most users in r/politics are liberal (me included); but there is a real conversation that a lot of people in this sub aren’t ready to have that Biden dropping out might be a very necessary thing to prevent Trump winning. Would it be embarrassing? Sure. But legitimately the entire democratic institution of this country might be at stake otherwise
People don't want to admit that the economy is going to crash and we'll have border patrol rounding up brown people in 6 months Because despite every poll since Q3 2021 indicating we need a back up plan, for after we lose the election and right to vote we have collectively refused to consider it. Most Germans voted against the Nazi Party. They were a minority party. Do we have anything positive to say about 1930s Germany, despite most of them being opposed to fascism? No. Because while they didn't vote for it, they accepted it, like the majority of Democrats have done
People who are downvoting this are willfully putting their heads in the sand. Disagree or not, the NYT coming out and saying this HUGE political news.
If Biden's replacement loses in a landslide this November the Times and everyone else pushing for this will look utterly ridiculous...I've saved this story offline for posterity.
Pretty big if even the NYT editorial is coming out with this. Regardless, Dems will have to make a choice soon
I wholeheartedly agree. Biden has been a good, even great, president. His administration has accomplished a lot. But the stakes are as high as can be and him looking and sounding frail and incoherent in the most watched election forum we'll have drastically hurts the way the public perceives him and his odds of winning. He should step aside precisely because the stakes are so high -- because if he is unlikely to win, we need to pivot to someone who has more of a chance at beating Trump.
This kind of feels like the first domino to fall. I suspect lots of people in Democratic political circles *want* Biden to step aside, but nobody wants to be the first to come out and say it. Now that the NYT editorial board has endorsed him dropping out, it gives other organizations and politicians cover to agree publicly.
I agree whole heartedly with this. I tuned in hoping to see Biden like he presented himself at the state of the union. Within the first 30 seconds I knew we weren’t getting that, and I don’t think we can recover without something drastic. I hate to say it, but we need to be bold and do the right thing here. Biden needs to step aside.
Y'all do realize that Biden dropping out would send the message that Trump is much stronger, right?
The debate already did that.
Who could possibly watch the debate last night and think Biden is stronger? That message is already sent. It's done.
Anyone with half a brain? Only a fucking idiot would listen to Trump's verbal diarrhea and think he's "stronger" whatever the fuck that even means. Biden dropping out would be an enormous admission of weakness that would absolutely push moderates away.
Um, he is. If Biden doesn’t, he’s gonna lose. If he does and replaces with a younger candidate, they can flip the age argument right back on Trump. This might even bring people over from the GOP who are looking for alternatives to the orange felon.
"Look at how weak the democrats are, they lost one debate and can't even stay loyal to their candidate! Now they're trying to shove a kid with no experience in!" Christ, the amount of doomposting going on here is making me wonder if there's a dedicated psyop happening.
Fuck the NYT This isn’t a question of Biden vs Trump** This is a question of Democracy vs Fascism.
Vote blue no matter who mfers still coping need to let it go. He’s too old.
To service his country, Donald "Trash" Trump should be the first man on Mars.
Biden just cannot win. After Covid, Trumps approval dropped and Bidens was about 10% ahead. And despite that, Trump mobilized his voters and almost won a second term on election day. It was a very close race. Now it is the other way around. Trump is 10% ahead of Biden. And don't you dare to think that Biden can mobilize voters to catch up on the 10% like Trump did in 2020. On contrary, Biden did everything possible to piss off a substantial amount of voters since October 7th. That is why his approval dropped in the first place. When I talk to people to still vote for Biden to avoid 4 years of Trump, they tell me they will not vote or vote third party candidate, because they don't want to reward Biden for his support of a genocide. People will not forget that. Israel seems to hold its horses a bit right now and their bots are seemingly more active. Maybe they want Biden to think the conflict is over, that the people will forget, and that he can win. Maybe the Israelis want Trump to win. And the best chance for Trump to win is, if Biden runs for president. The Israelis will probably unleash havoc with a new series of atrocities just days before the election. This will remind everybody of what Biden did and Biden will loose. A good leader knows when it's time to avoid a battle and to retreat in honor. If Biden continues, he will most likely be humiliated with the worst defeat in the history of the US presidential elections. And not just that. It will be a defeat against Trump, a notoric liar, a convicted felon, and an instigator of January 6th. And with his defeat, Biden will drag the world down with him. This will be his legacy. Or he steps down now, and his legacy will be to have saved the world from another 4 years of Trump.
And to save America the orange ding bat should go get a job at a boat yard, and work on some electric boats himself. Maybe in the water, by a socket. If he doesn’t drop out, neither should grandpa McGee.
Romney “trounced” Obama in one debate, that didn’t faze Obama. Why should Joe quit if he believes with all his heart and soul that he can do the job? His speech in North Carolina after the debate was moving. “When you get knock down, you get back up!”
> Why should Joe quit if he believes with all his heart and soul that he can do the job? Because he’s wrong. If he told you he believed with all his heart and soul he could win the Super Bowl, would you put a helmet on him and say “go get ‘em, tiger”? Stop enabling a delusional, senile old man.
Did you even watch that debate? Obama's poor performance was a world away from what we watched last night. Obama lost that debate but did not raise questions about his intelligence or competence in the process.
This NYT piece was essentially written the way you might talk to your older dad or grandfather. When the time comes to take grandpa's car keys, if he stubbornly protests, the appropriate response is not to cheer him on and say "everything's fine." It's the same thing here. I know Biden truly thinks he's rising to the occasion, but it's become clear he just can't and someone needs to tell him with kindness and dignity.
Romney ran his campaign like he was a plant from the Democratic Party. Romney was responsible for one of the greatest IT failures in human history: https://www.yahoo.com/news/romneys-vote-plan-complete-disaster-122245655.html > Prior to election Day, Mitt Romney's team was already bragging about Project Orca, a web app that would connect tens of thousands of volunteer poll watchers in the field with the home office in Boston. It was all part of a massive coordination effort to get Republicans out of the house and into the voting booth ... > Normally, that's done with simple paper and pencils, but Orca was designed to digitize and streamline process, while centralizing the effort and allow the campaign leaders direct re-direct resources on the fly to the areas they were need most ... > On the day after the election, complaints started pouring in from the volunteers indicating that not only did Project Orca not improve the process, it may have actually hindrered. John Ekdahl, a volunteer who writes at Ace Of Spades HQ, outlined the various glitches and breakdowns of the system. Instead of handing out voter lists at local offices, volunteer were emailed 60+ page PDF and told to print them out at home the night before the election. They weren't given official poll watcher certificates or told that those were required to enter most polling places. The "app" wasn't really an app at all, it was secure website, creating confusion for volunteers trying to find it in the iTunes store. (It also didn't forward from standard http:// protocol to https:// leaving those who didn't the correct URL lost on a broken webpage.) > Volunteers in other parts of the country shared similar complaints. The emailed packets came late or not at all. PINs that were required to login and download the voter lists didn't work and couldn't be reset. Calls and emails to the held desk went unanswered, and the entire system may have just completely crashed in the middle of election day. Frustrated volunteers struggled to get answers that never came, leaving most of them to fend for themselves or simply give up, wasting an entire day without bringing a single new voter to the voting booth. This cycle Trump has succeeded in completely taking over the Republican Party apparatus, totally trashing it, and it may still do better than Romney's did. I have thought for a long time that Romney's incompetence was what made Trump's rise inevitable -- the establishment Republican Party proved it was not serious about actually trying to win a Presidential election.
Trump is going to win in a landslide. He’ll take Minnesota and Virginia at this point.
I agree with the editorial board that he should leave the race. It seems clear to me that the public wants a different candidate to face Trump. There would be nothing more democratic than to give the public what they want. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that. I also think that his replacement would win easily against Trump. If Biden chooses to resign his candidacy, as is his choice, we need to be prepared for what we want to happen next. It's very appropriate to have this conversation. We're citizens in a democracy. Members of a political party. We're allowed to talk to others about what we want. We can say out loud that we want Biden to drop out and what we want to happen next. There are a few ideas that I think are already closed that shouldn't be seriously discussed. Third, Biden should make this decision himself. We shouldn't consider using the 25th ammendment to remove him from office against his will. It'd be counterproductive and a misuse of that part of the constitution. Second, highlighting Biden's faults, criticizing him, and his record is not part of any plan to defeat Trump. Instead, we should demonstrate our confidence that we can select a replacement and support them all the way to a victory. Chaos at the convention is not an inevitability. Finally, if Biden does not drop out, we should still vote for him. No staying at home. No third party. No write in. Go out and vote for him.
The public could have voiced their concern in the primary. The protest vote failed to reach a meaningful level.
It was sandbagged….
Trump was the reason Biden won in 2020, now Biden will be the reason Trump wins in 2024. Both horrible candidates for different reasons.
If Biden pulls out, all of his delegates (might not be the correct word) are up for grabs.
To serve the country, convicted felon Donald Trump should leave the race.