For the people who believe Biden is our best chance to beat Trump, there are two questions I would like to see them reckon with:
1) How likely do you think it is that Biden will have a repeat of his debate debacle in public between now and November? And I don't mean little flubs like calling Zelensky Putin or calling VP Harris Trump—I mean repeatedly losing his train of thought and looking lost and confused for several minutes.
2) How important do you think such an episode would be? How many voters would say, okay, no thanks to that?
I ask because every argument I've seen for keeping him top of ticket hinges on that episode being a one-off, an aberrant departure from his normal day-to-day existence. And if there is a repeat, that assumption no longer works, and all those arguments have the rhetorical rug pulled out from under them. And if this happens after the convention when his nomination is finalized, then it's too late to change course.
There are a bajillion data points that Biden's a sane & normal person who's been verbally gaffe-prone all his life. And there're a few data points that Joe, as he's aged, tires more easily and when he tires, HE CAN'T DEBATE FOR SHIT.
Fuck the NY Times and fuck everybody else obsessing about this. At this late stage, the only possible candidate to replace Joe without total chaos & circular firing squad anarchy ensuing is Kamila..
Unsurprisingly, most of the folks shouting for Joe to quit aren't shouting for Kamila to replace him. Because most of you are media goofs who'd feast on chaos and knife-fighting and churn out endless shitty 'analysis' of the bloody fight to be the nominee.
In a couple months, 8 weeks before the election, Americans will start paying attention to politics again, just like always.
Then they'll figure out that Biden's economy is doing better than any of the other G7 countries & that Trump's completely uninterested in anybody but himself and that Agenda 2025 is a mix of Springtime for Hitler & The Handmaid's Tale.
I think you are very much mistaken about how the low-information voters who decide these elections make their choices, which has always been more vibes-based than anything else. I think it's time also to pay attention to the many, MANY party loyalists whose entire job is campaign strategy who are saying, loudly, that Biden must step down. They would not be doing this if they thought Biden had a chance. I'd be curious why you believe your analysis re: Kamila (Kamala), Agenda 2025 (Project 2025), and Biden's chances is more robust than the analysis of policy experts, Democratic apparatchiks with unimpeachable loyalty to the party, and seven-figure donors who know him personally.
(Incidentally, I would be fine with Kamala as a candidate)
I have been essentially paralyzed with grief for the past week. This is the first productive thing I have managed to do since July 4th. The idea that I, or any of the other people with a very robust track record of opposing Trump, are enjoying this, is obscene. If you truly believe Biden is the best candidate to beat Trump, fine -- you're flat-out wrong, but fine, at least it's a position that engages with the core problem. If you believe that I am excited about a universe where Trump is likely to win: frankly, you can go to hell.
Folks like Nate Silver and the various "policy experts"/pundits have written 10,000 smug 'Dems in disarray' articles based on garbage data like... polls 7 months out from the election, gab sessions with retired white dudes in MidWest diners, "vibes" from theTYT/Chapo crowd who've been claiming Biden's a vegetable for 5 years now.
Yeah, a lot of those "policy experts" are excited about a universe where Trump is likely to win. A large chunk of the media loved the Trump years. Loved the excitement of angry slanging matches at White House press conferences instead of boring policy analysis. Misses the ease of putting together stories that POPPED, about titanic personalities colliding! Eyes their bottom lines worriedly because Trump's angry chaos was CHA-CHING! for viewership... and Biden's boring competency makes viewers change the channel.
And they're really looking forward to covering an exciting Dem melee to choose a new candidate. Soooooo much more interesting and reader-engaging than writing the same tired stories.
Yeah, that is obscene.
Glad to hear you're fine with Kamala being a realistic substitute for Joe. She wasn't my 1st. 2nd or 3rd choice for Prez in 2020... but she's competent & 20 years younger than Donald so personally, I wish Joe would step aside for her.
But a lot of the folks wanting to dump Joe aren't. on board w/Kamala. And, CMIIW, it seems highly likely if Joe steps aside, there will be a battle to replace him. I doubt it will be a short one. I doubt that all the combatants will accept defeat graciously. I bet the same K-Hivers, Bernie or Busters, etc who took defeat so poorly in the 2020 primaries will take it even more poorly if their choice loses, especially with a nomination process they'll (rightly or at least plausibly) label as illegitimate.
As for "vibes-based" voters. I don't know jack about politics. I admit it. You could be right. But there have been a dozen elections since 2020 where voters have shown they get that Donald, MAGA & the fundy Supreme Court want to turn back the clock to 1950.
"vibes-based" voters have mostly said no to to Team MAGA's anti-abortion, anti-trans, culture war agenda, even in red states (e.g. Florida dropped its 'War on Woke'; Dems flipped a state Senate seat in FL this year campaigning on DeSantis failure to fix the homeowner insurance crisis & the GOP's anti-abortion stance; Dems flipped Virginia's House of Reps in 2023; a ton of initiatives to voters targeting abortion have failed nationwide)
For the people who believe Biden is our best chance to beat Trump, there are two questions I would like to see them reckon with:
1) How likely do you think it is that Biden will have a repeat of his debate debacle in public between now and November? And I don't mean little flubs like calling Zelensky Putin or calling VP Harris Trump—I mean repeatedly losing his train of thought and looking lost and confused for several minutes.
2) How important do you think such an episode would be? How many voters would say, okay, no thanks to that?
I ask because every argument I've seen for keeping him top of ticket hinges on that episode being a one-off, an aberrant departure from his normal day-to-day existence. And if there is a repeat, that assumption no longer works, and all those arguments have the rhetorical rug pulled out from under them. And if this happens after the convention when his nomination is finalized, then it's too late to change course.
There are a bajillion data points that Biden's a sane & normal person who's been verbally gaffe-prone all his life. And there're a few data points that Joe, as he's aged, tires more easily and when he tires, HE CAN'T DEBATE FOR SHIT.
Fuck the NY Times and fuck everybody else obsessing about this. At this late stage, the only possible candidate to replace Joe without total chaos & circular firing squad anarchy ensuing is Kamila..
Unsurprisingly, most of the folks shouting for Joe to quit aren't shouting for Kamila to replace him. Because most of you are media goofs who'd feast on chaos and knife-fighting and churn out endless shitty 'analysis' of the bloody fight to be the nominee.
In a couple months, 8 weeks before the election, Americans will start paying attention to politics again, just like always.
Then they'll figure out that Biden's economy is doing better than any of the other G7 countries & that Trump's completely uninterested in anybody but himself and that Agenda 2025 is a mix of Springtime for Hitler & The Handmaid's Tale.
I think you are very much mistaken about how the low-information voters who decide these elections make their choices, which has always been more vibes-based than anything else. I think it's time also to pay attention to the many, MANY party loyalists whose entire job is campaign strategy who are saying, loudly, that Biden must step down. They would not be doing this if they thought Biden had a chance. I'd be curious why you believe your analysis re: Kamila (Kamala), Agenda 2025 (Project 2025), and Biden's chances is more robust than the analysis of policy experts, Democratic apparatchiks with unimpeachable loyalty to the party, and seven-figure donors who know him personally.
(Incidentally, I would be fine with Kamala as a candidate)
I have been essentially paralyzed with grief for the past week. This is the first productive thing I have managed to do since July 4th. The idea that I, or any of the other people with a very robust track record of opposing Trump, are enjoying this, is obscene. If you truly believe Biden is the best candidate to beat Trump, fine -- you're flat-out wrong, but fine, at least it's a position that engages with the core problem. If you believe that I am excited about a universe where Trump is likely to win: frankly, you can go to hell.
Folks like Nate Silver and the various "policy experts"/pundits have written 10,000 smug 'Dems in disarray' articles based on garbage data like... polls 7 months out from the election, gab sessions with retired white dudes in MidWest diners, "vibes" from theTYT/Chapo crowd who've been claiming Biden's a vegetable for 5 years now.
Yeah, a lot of those "policy experts" are excited about a universe where Trump is likely to win. A large chunk of the media loved the Trump years. Loved the excitement of angry slanging matches at White House press conferences instead of boring policy analysis. Misses the ease of putting together stories that POPPED, about titanic personalities colliding! Eyes their bottom lines worriedly because Trump's angry chaos was CHA-CHING! for viewership... and Biden's boring competency makes viewers change the channel.
And they're really looking forward to covering an exciting Dem melee to choose a new candidate. Soooooo much more interesting and reader-engaging than writing the same tired stories.
Yeah, that is obscene.
Glad to hear you're fine with Kamala being a realistic substitute for Joe. She wasn't my 1st. 2nd or 3rd choice for Prez in 2020... but she's competent & 20 years younger than Donald so personally, I wish Joe would step aside for her.
But a lot of the folks wanting to dump Joe aren't. on board w/Kamala. And, CMIIW, it seems highly likely if Joe steps aside, there will be a battle to replace him. I doubt it will be a short one. I doubt that all the combatants will accept defeat graciously. I bet the same K-Hivers, Bernie or Busters, etc who took defeat so poorly in the 2020 primaries will take it even more poorly if their choice loses, especially with a nomination process they'll (rightly or at least plausibly) label as illegitimate.
As for "vibes-based" voters. I don't know jack about politics. I admit it. You could be right. But there have been a dozen elections since 2020 where voters have shown they get that Donald, MAGA & the fundy Supreme Court want to turn back the clock to 1950.
"vibes-based" voters have mostly said no to to Team MAGA's anti-abortion, anti-trans, culture war agenda, even in red states (e.g. Florida dropped its 'War on Woke'; Dems flipped a state Senate seat in FL this year campaigning on DeSantis failure to fix the homeowner insurance crisis & the GOP's anti-abortion stance; Dems flipped Virginia's House of Reps in 2023; a ton of initiatives to voters targeting abortion have failed nationwide)