This is so fucking dumb, the entire thing is premised on meaningful primaries occurring all over the country. How many of those "57" were actually competitive? I know my state had literally one candidate on the ballot. Biden extremely strongly implied that he wouldn't run for a second term, then pulled a "lol jk it's me or the literal fascist." Most people didn't want Biden to run again, but here we fucking are. And The Atlantic has the gall to say that this is a vocal minority of crybabies demanding an open and competitive primary be overturned. Fuck off.
The more I read about it, the more it reeks of a baseless smear campaign. CNN actively tried to make Biden look bad during the debate, and a huge chunk of the corporate media saw it and jumped on it.
It helped when Biden turned right around and had a strong showing at one of his campaign rallies. He had one off night, and everybody tried to make a mountain out of a molehill because they're more concerned with making money than fighting the fascists.
Listen. I don't like Biden. I didn't get a choice of who should run for the Democratic party in my state.
But at the end of the day, I would pick a literal pile of dog shit that's turned white from being cooked in the sun, over Donald Trump.
The debate isn't changing anyones mind. It sure is generating a lot of panic news though because to the news, appearing tired is just as damaging as appearing unhinged and lying nonstop.
If the media can get a presidential candidate to drop out just by repeatedly asking him to then why the fuck aren’t they calling for Trump to step down?
The difference is Biden might be able to be convinced to put the fate of the nation over his own position in office. Trump has no such concerns to appeal to.
If the reason to vote for Biden is that he isn't Trump, why shouldn't the dems run a candidate that both isn't Trump and is most likely going to hold onto their mental competence into next year? Either way, they're going to get the "not Trump" vote which by your reasoning should still cover the vast majority of would-be Biden voters.
This article is fucking absurd. It holds up the primary as a paragon if the democratic process, even though Biden was the only candidate to have universal ballot access, and ignores the fact that two-thirds of Democratic didn't want him to run. It compares the Drop-Biden advocates to the January 6th protesters, even though they're advocating for a contested convention, which is the same process that was used until 1970. And to top it all off, it's written by Stuart Stevens, AKA Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign strategist. Why should the Democrats be taking advice from a Republican strategist, especially one that's already botched a presidential campaign?
Primaries are also weird because depending on what state you live in the election is often decided before you even get to vote. Imagine living in a state as big as California and having no impact on the primary.
If the general election can be one day maybe so can the primary.
That's a feature, not a bug. The party leaders like having time to craft a narrative and create momentum behind their preferred candidate. It's how Biden's campaign managed to come back from the dead in 2020. If the primaries were all held on the same day, these pundits wouldn't be telling us to stick with Biden, they'd be telling us Bernie is too old for a second term.
I voted uncommitted for a lot of reasons, and this is one of them. Getting Biden out and having a brokered convention certainly expresses my democratic will.
So the Democratic Party doesn't actually favor democracy?
Next you'll tell me North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, isn't actually democratic either.
The Dems coronated Biden while screaming at the top of their lungs how much they love democracy.
Goddamn I am tired of being gaslit.
Super tired of bullshit.
Tired of lies. Just because Trump lies 10 times for every 7 words he speaks does not mean I want a party that claims to rep my interests for me to lie to me 4 times for every 7 words. Jesus fucking H Christ. "But we the Dems only raped you a little bit, and the GOP will rape you more." Go fuck yourselves with that logic, Dem scum.
We need a giant country-wide systemic reset and the Dem leadership is thinking what kind of crumb they can still throw at the plebs without upsetting their precious billionaire donors.
The Dems slow-walked us to fascism while blaming the GOP. The Dems take zero personal responsibility.
The Democratic Party cannot fail us, it can only be failed by us.
I was supportive of Biden until that debate. It was devastating to watch, and made me sad for our country. I don’t know if Biden should stay or go, but he should definitely stay out of any future debates if not the spotlight until the election is over. Americans have extremely short memories.
If you ask me what’s absurd is clinging on to Biden against all the evidence. He’s clearly super unpopular, and that’s in no small part to his age.
He must step aside and basically any halfway reasonable candidate under 60 would be in with a decent shot of the job. Give the population something to vote for rather than vote against.
There's no time to step aside. Primaries are over. Trying to squeeze primaries in now would be a disaster.
The time for Biden to step aside was a year ago. And honestly, as much as I have liked his policy (excluding Isreal), and still trust his administration to execute on even if he's incapable of leading it himself, that debate was terrible for his campaign.
There are only two options now. Continue running himself and try to salvage the situation, or hand the reigns to Kamala. Neither is a good choice, campaign wise.
There wouldn’t be new primaries. Biden’s pledged delegates would be released to do whatever they want. Obviously that has its own share of, small d, democratic concerns, but the better choice if you ask me.
Right. Every “vote blue no matter who” voter will be voting blue no matter who it is. It’s just a vote against Trump. No one is going out specifically to vote for Biden. Could swap him out with any other warm body with a half functional brain and it would only mean extra votes.
The Democratic Party held 57 primaries and caucuses; voters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories had their say
Not a single primary candidate besides Biden appeared on a majority of states ballots, and many states literally only had Biden. Democrats did not have a primary this year.
Right? I don't remember seeing a debate or anything. It's equivalent to those elections people make fun of in North Korea, where the choices are the leader and nobody.
The Democratic Party held 57 primaries and caucuses; voters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories had their say, as did Democrats abroad. Joe Biden won 87 percent of the total vote.
The fuq? There weren't any challengers except for a guy with a brain worm. We didn't have a primary, and now we are seeing the consequences of not having a primary.
Williamson was kept off the ballot in almost half of all states. Phillips was kept off the ballot in more than half of them. It's hard to believe it's a real primary when only one candidate has universal ballot access.
Candidates have to get a certain amount of signatures before getting ballot access on the primary in a state.
Williamson and Phillips weren't able to do that everywhere, and Biden was, that's on them not having as many campaign resources as a literal incumbent U.S. President, not the DNC somehow keeping them off the ballot.
Except that's not true; the DNC sets the rules for each state, and they make plenty of exceptions when they feel like it. In North Carolina, the DNC will allow someone on the ballot if their candidacy is, "generally advocated and recognized in the news media." In Tennessee, the DNC chair will accept applications if someone is "a bona fide Democrat." They're perfectly willing to rubber stamp a challengers applications based on subjective criteria.
The DNC creates a feedback loop to keep challengers off the ballot; they don't hold debates, so alternative candidates don't get any exposure to mount a challenge; without any exposure, they can dismiss the candidates as not having enough media presence to warrant being on the ballot, and tell them they have to gather signatures; without any support from the DNC or exposure from the media, it's virtually impossible to get the funding and resources to collect signatures in 50 states.
Plus, you will face retribution from the DNC for challenging an incumbent. I mean, just look at what they did to Phillips. They forced him out of his leadership positions, then they found someone to primary him, and now he's not even seeking reelection. All because he had the audacity to think there should be a real primary. Does this really sound like a fair process?
DNC Leadership: We won't have a real primary, that'll weaken the incumbent, who'll probably win anyway. And remember, if you don't get behind our anointed candidate, you're anti-democratic.
The numbers are already coming in, the debate hurt Biden, and badly. Why does "Democracy is on the line" only mean voters are required to show up to vote for whoever DNC Leadership chose for us? Why do they have no obligation to put their best foot forward?
They're gonna bet democracy on "We don't really have a plan to turn this around, we're just gonna keep doing what we've been doing and hope things get better." The man is ancient, his brain is not gonna suddenly start improving. People know how aging works, and know that even if he never flops that badly on camera again, it's just because he was never on camera at the wrong time.
And every day he holds off on giving up the nomination is a day his actually viable replacement is deprived of. The latest DNC internal polling shows him even farther behind in swing states and on the verge of losing some reliably blue states.
I don't think people are downvoting a fact; I think they're downvoting a comment which doesn't meaningfully contribute to the discussion, since by your own admission it's a just a fact and a fact without context or stated implications is virtually meaningless.
Long story short is splitting up the Democrats is exactly what conservatives want, to the point I wouldn't be surprised if media moguls are spending millions to protect their billions by giving this movement any traction at all.
There was an event the next day where he gave a speech to a friendly crowd and by comparison he sounded like a spry well organized guy half his age. Hardly a mention of that out there though. I'm not a big fan of his miliqtost, half steps on a lot of things but it's playing the game with what cards are available and having decades in political office gives you the experience to do it. I'm largely willing to write off the debate as being so flustered with the torrent of bullshit coming from Trump that it put him off balance.
Yeah, that event was also early in the day and all he had to do was read from a teleprompter. I guess it's good to know he can still read but that certainly doesn't erase the 90+ minutes of him not being able to think on his feet, going off on tangents, kneecapping his own responses, looking like a fucking corpse, and somehow managing to make Trump look eloquent by comparison.
If he was put off balance by the same torrents of bullshit Trump has been spewing for eight years then I'm even more concerned about his mental facilities.
I'm not a dem but will vote for anyone with a pulse that isn't trump. Dems are deluding themselves if they think Biden is their best or even only candidate that can beat Trump. I want someone that will instill confidence and contrast with Trump. Biden ain't it. I'll still vote for whoever isn't trump on the ballot though.
This movement wouldn't have any traction if Biden put on even a middling debate performance. We all saw Biden start to answer a question about abortion, then get confused and switch midway into talking about some woman killed by an immigrant. You don't need a grand conspiracy, it's a simple case of grandpa being too full of pride to give up his car keys. Except in this case the car is American democracy.
Biden was a great president. He should have asked in his accomplishments and set up a new generation of dem leaders. Instead, he let his pride get in the way, ignored his own decline, tried to hide it by refusing interviews and non-scripted public events, even the softball traditional pre superbowl interview, and then had that disaster of a debate. Yes, I'll still vote for the corpse of Biden if it means stopping Trump. But will swing voters? What about Trump to Biden voters in purple districts? What about young people and anyone already pissed about the genocide in Gaza? Is the "corpse is better than Trump" argument going to motivate infrequent voters to turn out? Better fucking hope so, cause Biden has us in this fucked position, is refusing to back down, so I guess we'll find out.
We (read: Dems) can rally around him all we want. The point of the debate was to convince independents, uninformed voters never-Trumpers so that the polls start to look more favorable. Biden failed to do that and has no meaningful opportunity to do so for the rest of the campaign.
The informed Democrats can rally around him as much as they want, but he is still falling short, which is why a pivot seems risky but like the only real shot left
This is just braindead gaslighting. We all saw his performance. Dedicated Democratic cheerleaders like the Pod Save America guys think it's the worst debate performance ever and needs to be carefully considered whether he can turn things around (and frankly, are leaning toward the "he can't" side). Democratic leaders have been giving guarded answers about how they support Biden's decision on whether to stay in, not that he should of course stay in. This isn't remotely "media moguls" doing. The wagon circling is transparent and stupid and not working.
Ditching Biden is the only way to unite two important groups of Democrats: those with some grasp of reality, who recognize that Biden is far too old to run again, and those who still have their head in the sand about the issue, but will rally around anyone who isn't Trump.
If we stick with Biden the election is lost. This will not be the last time Biden has a poor showing in public, revealing just how hard it is for him to speak and think at his advanced age. Every time it happens, more voters pay attention, and his poll numbers will sink more.
Did he even watch the debate? Biden played right into the right-wing narrative about him. The only way Biden wins this thing is by getting out there, talking to every reporter, holding every baby, and proving that the debate was a fluke. I don't think he can do it.
It's not like it's a singular action he can take. It's going to take weeks of consistent behavior before people believe any kind of short-term issue like a cold.
Can he do it is one question. Is there enough time is another.
Exactly, it’s not about a single thing he can do. But more importantly there’s nothing anything anyone else can do but point out his shortcomings…
Also, it’s not about anything specific he could have done… after all he can only do the one specific thing I’ll allow… but he’s not allowed to do anything else anyone could do about anything… that wouldn’t be fair.
Biden should have booked a tough sit down interview for the weekend after the debate to show he has the mental chops and ability to communicate the stakes of this campaign. Instead it's been five days now since the debate and Biden hasn't spoken publicly without a teleprompter. Hell dem governors and members of congress, including party leaders, have not spoken to Biden since the debate. Biden is doing basically nothing to calm people down. Hiding him and only rolling him out with a teleprompter in tow just plays into the republican conspiracy that Biden has had a significant decline. To the point that it's starting to not seem like a conspiracy. If Biden wants to stay in the race, he needs to fix this, like yesterday. Is the reason he hasn't done so yet because he can't do it? If so, wtf is he still in the race??
When he's lucid, he's on drugs. When he's not, he's sleepy Joe. You can't win by placating the right. Independents and democrats do have real concerns, and the DNC can ignore them at their own peril.
: “I worked in five presidential campaigns for Republicans and helped elect Republican senators and governors in more than half of the country. For decades, I made ads attacking the Democratic Party. But in all those years, I never saw anything as ridiculous as the push, in the aftermath of last week’s debate, to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.”
“For many in the party, the event raised genuine concerns about the incumbent’s fitness for a new term. But a president’s record makes a better basis for judgment than a 90-minute broadcast does. Biden has a capable vice president, should he truly become unable to serve. The standard for passing over Democratic voters’ preferred nominee should be extraordinarily high—and has not been met.”
I can't read the article myself due to the paywall. But presumably these quotes are by the same individual? Why would any Democrat campaign take the advice of someone who has spent decades helping to get Republican presidents elected? Why would he offer his advice to them at all? Certainly not in good faith. And why would he be an expert at what makes a good choice regarding nominees? His campaigns have presumably lost as many as they've won and their electorate is motivated by fundamentally different things. And never has there been a situation like this for either party during an election, a former president and convicted felon and current president circling the drain.
I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but given the source I don't give the slightest fuck what his view point is on matters of the Democratic Party.
I would love to vote for Mitt Romney instead of Biden. Can we make that happen? I'll vote for basically anything over Trump but I don't like the Biden Harris ticket at all.
Lemmy will shriek for months that progressives want Trump to win, then immediately believe that a Republican strategist isn't encouraging them to stick with a candidate who is going to lose if he stays in the race.
