The first presidential debate is done and the aftermath has not been good for the incumbent, Joe Biden.
Some Democrat politicians and operatives reportedly texted CNN commentators with hopes that Mr Biden, 81, would step aside. Some floated the possibility of going to the White House and publicly stating concerns about him remaining as candidate.
But if Mr Biden were to drop out, it would be a free-for-all. There is no official mechanism for him or anyone else in the party to choose his successor, meaning Democrats would be left with an open (Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago from August 19-22.
If any democrats want my vote they have to replace biden.
So you’d rather have Trump as president?
No… That’s why I want biden to step down.
Don’t bother answering the people who ask that, it’s a gotcha question with an assumed premise. It’s not meant in good faith it’s just supposed to derail any criticism.
Not voting is a vote for the one you agree the least with, so saying that you won’t vote for Biden is analog to a vote for Trump.
I totally agree that Biden is not fit for the presidency, but if I were an American, I would still vote for Biden, just to limit the risk of ending up with Trump back in charge
No. It’s an abstention. We have a word for it and everything. Stop spreading this propaganda.
True, that’s it abstention, but It’s also logic
11 people have to decide if they want to eat pizza or pasta the next 4 years 5 vote pizza 4 vote pasta 2 definitely don’t want pizza, but are not that fond of pasta either, so they don’t vote
Hence those who didn’t vote end up with their least desirable outcome. Enjoy 4 years of pizza
Maybe the least desirable outcome is the Democrats continuing to be ineffectual in anything not hyper focused on corporate profits?
Maybe these elections are actually on the basis of millions of people and it’s the politician’s job to be electable. Otherwise we might as well start the monarchy with a census every two years that includes a pre checked box to support the king.
Unfortunately, while I normally would volunteer to canvass and get out the vote, I’m instead going to need that time for planning out how to flee the country
Any one 40-60 yrs old with moderate politics and an unobjectionable personality supported by a major party would really cause a splash.
It’s weird that you specify 40 when the Constitution says they only need to be 35. Doesn’t all of our recent political history show we need younger politicians?
with moderate politics
They’ll do great for one campaign until they actually have to govern and then it’s going to be 1996 and 2012 all over again and we’ll barely scrape by (if we’re lucky) against extremely beatable candidates. Moderates run good campaigns and terrible administrations because the average American voter has been propagandized into believing they want bipartisanship and small government when what they actually want is some affordable healthcare and housing which moderate politics are not going to deliver to them.
e; and actually the “do great for one campaign” thing might be optimistic or antiquated thinking based on how Biden barely won in 2020
Of course we want affordable health care and housing, but I’d absolutely kill for a Bill Clinton or Bush Sr over a Trump any day.
Oh they could win alright. Literally all they have to do is be leftist.
“We’re gonna keep your kids healthy, in a good daycare while you work, educated and fed, and your fucking boss is gonna pay for it all” is a simple mantra well used by unions.
Except they don’t do that. The purpose of a system is what it does, and liberals have done nothing but protect capital since FDR died.
But…isn’t this the point of having a VP?
It feels very reactionary, especially on something that doesn’t really affect voters by all that much. If Biden announced a popular VP candidate, they can lead with that person being ready to step up if required.
His VP isn’t popular tho. Kamala would get absolutely crushed by Trump
Is Kamala still the VP pick?
She hasn’t done anything to lose her job as VP so probably, yeah
That VP candidate would be doing so much we’d all be openly wondering why they weren’t the nominee in the first place.
That’s the thing, Harris isn’t popular. Even her own staff hates her.
Biden would ideally have to replace her with a stronger candidate and step down as President. Neither is likely to happen.
The public dislikes Harris, for the same reasons I could see her becoming the de-facto president by remaining in her position. Big business interests and Donors would love to have an empty-suit like her to push around.
He’s stuck there too, because he promised last election to have a woman of color. He would get attacked even more from his side if he dropped her, and if there was a better candidate that checked the diversity boxes they wouldn’t have picked Kamala
Fuck it, call up Stacy Abrams.
The VP is a solution if he dies, it’s not a solution for him being unable to fight his own battles on the campaign trail. If he gets elected, I’m not worried about his age. He can resign or be puppetted by his staff or VP and things will be fine. But there’s no such solution for the campaign itself.
How about Jimmy Carter?
Lol 99 Is too young!
He can still serve one more term! Why don’t we dig up Mondale while we’re at it
Lol you are right nothing, stopping carter legally. I just don’t wanna see Jimmy do more work. Dude just seems too nice.
This is the thing with a primary season. If something happens late in the season, then how do you go back and change the results from earlier in the season?
Let’s say for instance Biden listens to all the “sky is falling” pundits and retires now. How does the DNC choose its candidate? I’m not very familiar with procedures for a closed system like that. Do they do an open convention and let the delegates vote on whoever they want? Do they have a list of candidates to vote one at the convention? Who makes up that list?
From the article …
There, a candidate must win support from the majority of “delegates” - party officials who formally choose the nominee. Delegates are assigned to candidates proportionally based on the results of each state’s primary election. This year, Mr Biden won almost 99% of the nearly 4,000 delegates.
According to the DNC rules, those delegates are “pledged” to him, and are bound to support his nomination.
But if Mr Biden were to drop out, it would be a free-for-all. There is no official mechanism for him or anyone else in the party to choose his successor, meaning Democrats would be left with an open convention.
Presumably, Mr Biden would have some sway over his pledged delegates, but they would ultimately be free to do as they please.
That could lead to a frantic contest erupting among Democrats who want a shot at the nomination.
Thanks!
So the alternative would be chaos with the hope that a good candidate emerges.
If Biden dies of natural causes before the convention, they will use the convention to elect a new candidate. It’s pretty obvious Gavin Newsom has been positioning himself for such a scenario.
No, comrade.
There’s no time. Democrats, I swear, just can’t see past one election at a time. They’re literally not prepping someone else. What they think will happen is KH will be the next person and they’re flat wrong. She can’t win. But they’ll dig their heads in the sand and put her up anyway.
So, now, because they put an old guy up last time they’re stuck. They have zero choice but to run what the brung.
They do far too much of it’s their turn in the big chair and not enough who is the best candidate. They cannot see past Trump as an absolutely terrible choice and think anyone else would be the automatic winner like 2016 didn’t just happen because of that shit.
Macron is going through the same bullshit, thinking that the electorate would rather support him than literal racists. Guess what fuck nuts, the electorate is about to call you on that, as dumb a decision as it is.
That’s an astute observation. The Democrats are like the perpetual optimist from 90s cartoons that think the story always ends happy, the good guys win, and all you need is honor and trust and a good soundbite to pull through, instead of actually playing chess, or checkers, or perhaps politics with enough forward thinking to actually plan a few moves ahead for once. Perhaps they should hire an evil person to teach them how the R’s think.
The conspiracy theorists all say Joe is supposed to step down and Gavin Newsom somehow is added to the ticket which then will win. These conspiracy theorists also say that candidates are selected in advance by the powers that be and it’s all pagentry to deceive the gullible masses. If this is true, then someone is already selected.
With as many people voting against trump rather than for Biden, I’m interested to see how much this does or doesn’t do anything
it won’t move the needle
The conspiracy theorists all say Joe is supposed to step down and Gavin Newsom somehow is added to the ticket which then will win. These conspiracy theorists also say that candidates are selected in advance by the powers that be and it’s all pagentry to deceive the gullible masses. If this is true, then we need not worry for this is all fot dramatic effect and Gavin and Kamela are already selected.
First of all the party doesn’t have to do anything. They literally make the rules of their nominating convention. So the idea that it would just be unfettered chaos is ridiculous.
With that idea firmly in place, yes it’s physically possible to replace him, until the nominating convention nominates him.
As to the idea that it must be an open convention instead of some kind of brokered convention, the earlier the democrats get on this and the more buy in they have from Biden, the more successful it will be. If they aren’t going to pull the trigger though you’ll never hear about anything because it could damage the campaign. So it’s a crossing the Rubicon moment the second they announce they’re going to do something other than nominate Biden.
first of all, some names that have been thrown around-
Newsom, high profile governor from taking runs at MAGA in the media. Was already raising his name recognition for a 2028 run. Whitmer, governor of a key state, bullet bump from the kidnap attempt Pritzker, governor of a key state Shapiro, governor of a key state
Obviously some other people are getting their names thrown around, but the party is not going to take any extra risk in a time like this. So the replacement would very likely be straight, white, male, and photogenic. I wish we lived in a world where that wasn’t true, but they’re trying to reach for every single vote they can and they cannot afford racism or misogyny to pull anything.
Bernie, I love him but we’re not exactly going to say Biden is too old and then nominate Bernie.
How the party does this would also have an effect. If they make it an inclusive process, debates with a caucus or comment period before allowing only the top two or three (according to polls and comments) to go into the convention then they can avoid a lot of the anger over appearing to just throw Biden away. The elephant in the room here is they did not have an actual primary this year. One man’s name on the ballot is not an election. So they’d need to have that sort of atmosphere, but in just the few weeks before the convention. If they don’t try to include their voters then this would fail.
Over all there’s a lot to be said for sticking with the guy versus taking a path with so many failure points. If they approach a candidate and that candidate leaks the plan, they’re worse off than before. If they don’t make the voters feel included they fail. If they allow the convention to become a chaotic mess they fail. If they can’t get Biden to endorse the replacement they fail. If they choose wrong with the abbreviated vetting period and we get another October surprise then they fail. And there’s always the chance that they sustain too much damage even though they do everything right and fail anyways.
But yeah, it’s possible, it doesn’t have to be chaos, and there are people who can step in.
I think the most concerning thing. Is that its so clear with bidens age decline. We have seen this before. FDR, the later term of Ronald Reagan, Dianne feinstein. Its not ok to put up figure head leaders who are just puppets of their cabinets. All the blatantly undemocratic behavior from trying to sue RFK Jr off the ballot, canceling the primaries, trying to block a debate from every having happened in the first place.
I think Donald Trump was wrong about the whole stolen election. BUT. Watching this election cycle one thing is very clear. There is no integrity left in american elections. Our democratic process has already degraded to banana republic. I cannot in good conscience vote for a senile puppet and I cannot vote for a man who is clearly acriminall, not an exemplary american leader, and not a good statesman. There is no lesser of two evils. There are other options and people being unwilling to believe that there are other options is the only reason we are stuck with this bullshit.
I truly believe Robert F Kennedy junior oa the only sensible choice for president in today’s political climate.
I don’t agree about RFK but I do agree that our democracy is clearly very damaged.
Yeah, Newsom and Whtmer, no one else has the name recognition …… but half the country will reflexively vote against California
If they go hard and use their entire war chest then name recognition won’t be an issue as long as the person has a good starting position.
Literally anyone that is younger than 70 could run and win. Biden needs to do everything in his power to campaign for whoever NOW. It may already be too late.
I would even vote for that smarmy little shit Pete Butigieg at this point.
Yeah, there’s a lot of people I wouldn’t support in a primary that I would be happy to see. He was never a favorite, but I soured on Buttigieg when he abandoned his sort of forward-looking original platform to compete for the center track, but having a younger and charismatic candidate I can trust to handle himself in front of the camera would be a fantastic relief.
At this point it’s starting to feel like Biden’s holding the nation at gunpoint and making us have a second Trump term. He’s always been a terrible politician, running twice for the nomination and failing to get a single delegate, until Obama made him VP. Honestly I suspect part of the reason Obama chose him is because he didn’t wanna play kingmaker and figured Biden was too old to run again.
Then in 2020 I think the argument was Biden could benefit from Obama’s popularity. I certainly thought that was a terrible pick, but not totally lacking in logic. But in 2024 there was utterly no rational basis for Biden to be running in the first place. Now that he’s been a complete disaster, he’s just fucking us as a nation for his own narcissism.
Yeah, but the question is who else. Any suggestions?
Take the L and use the incoming 4 years to plan for a candidate that doesn’t suck
If Trump wins, there will never be a real election again. Conservatives will move to the Russian election model. This is an end-game election.
And it will be again in 2026. And 2028. And 2030 if those don’t work…
The Nazis are in the Reichstag. It ends with the death of the Republic or a civil war, period.
Yes, hand the executive branch to the guy who attempted a coup to stay in power last time, backed by the Project 2025 guys, and come back in 4 years for the election that will surely still actually take place. Sure. Great plan.
Anybody. Buttigieg, Harris, Sanders, AOC, John Elway, I don’t care. Biden keeps saying he’s the only guy who can beat Trump. After last night’s debate it should be obvious that he’s the only guy who can’t beat Trump.
Because it is sooo late in the arbitrary-election-cycle, no matter what the Dems do, they’re fucked.
Go with Biden?
Then they’re fucked.
Go with Kamala Harris, whom the white-supremacists have been working against for years?
Then they’re fucked.
Find somebody else?
There isn’t time, so then they’re fucked.
This highlights the category of political-lesson that you have to “fail early & fail often” ( to use a phrase from successful serial-startup founders ) in order to find the robust candidates whom you can currently win with.
UNlike the way the Dems have played.
The CNN+NYT “shutting down” of progressive-issues & progressive-voices, in the last election, burned too much potential out of existence, and that traction is gone: non-recoverable.
The mega-entitlement of the Biden insitution is buckling & collapsing with increasing obviousity.
I fucking told everyone so, again & again & again, but it was all my “delusion” & “incompetence” & “defectiveness” & “lies”, was it??
Trump is going to become the US’s dictator,
& is going to begin the 2nd half of the US’s Civil War ( the Confederates only pretended to surrender, & now are earning a “reverse takeover” ), & the butchery will probably reduce the US’s population by 2/3rds, within 12y, counting all the consequences both direct & indirect ( complete failure to manage a hurricane’s landfall costs much more life than does managing it competently: multiply that by a dozen per year, & you’ve got human-costs up the gills, without even considering atmospheric-rivers, megadroughts, quakes, wildfires, or any other kind of disaster to multiply costs on, right? ).
it is infuriating to see people insist that “social pressure will make this work”, millions of times,
while it measurably, proveably, isn’t working, but that is what Natural Selection at the species-level means, isn’t it?
Terminal Species-ending Butchery.
Sunak’s obliteration of his own party, Kim Campbell’s obliteration of her own party, what was that Liberal premier who wiped out her own party, in Ontario, can’t remember that one’s name…
Social-pressure never acts when it is needed, it only acts when it gets around to feeling comfortable with acting, and that is consistently too-late.
So, when will the Democratic Party admit they need to change gears??
After they’ve fundamentally lost, is when.
Imagine running a bunch of freight-trains that way: “oh, we’ll slow-down when we feel a collision beginning, but until then, we’re really fine, & there’s no indication of any real need to be doing anything different, is there?”
Feelings are the wrong metric for preventing this kind of catastrophy.
frustration-rage
Authority needs to have hard walls, bright lines, & deadly-force biting its corruptions/entitlements/dishonesties/DarkHexad enactments, etc.
Political-process won’t ever allow any such rule, in its dominion, of course…
And that is why political-process cannot be permitted to own our world’s fate: its conflict-of-interest, & its inescapable-corruption disallow integrity from ruling, & without integrity, then only “Justice”, with falsifying-quotes, the phony version of Justice, remains…
So, The Great Filter’s going to extinguish yet another world, from this Universe, is it?
Political-machiavellianism/dishonesty’s going to snuff all LivingPotential, LivingWorth, LivingOpportunity of this whole world, while the “social consensus” indulges in orgiastic clusterfucking, until existential-viability itself is gone…??
Ah, but at least everyone will be able to feel that they “weren’t responsible”, right?
Social-feelings: that’s the real LORD, and so long as it’s happy, then existence, itself, isn’t actually necessary, right??
bitterness
Bro had absolutely zero business writing this banger but he did it anyways, what a madlad.
Respect
I mean, I think it devolved into a literal mental breakdown at the end. That or it was just a freeform poem all along.
Nah he’s basically saying people mind more to stroke their egos and what others in their in-group think of them , so much in fact, they be willing to risk humanity itself just to not give their perceived enemies the satisfaction
It’s hard being intelligent enough to see the problems but lack the political will power and opportunity to change them.
I believe you. I think Trump has a very good chance of winning and the result could be conflict among different states or groups within them. Unless the conspiracy theorists are right and the Gavin/Kamala ticket is already selected for the ballot and the win. But it seems likely Trump will win. The upper classes have engaged in price gouging because a Democrat was in office, Biden never called them out on it in aggressive way because he lacked the aggressive nature and rage and gall to do it, and an incredible number of people are feeling stressed out by price changes. There are also many swing voters unhappy with immigration policies and think they are too mild. Between the two issues, Biden would lose even if he did seem energetic and lucid.
Do you think it’s bad enough that it makes sense to flee the US? And to where would one even flee? There are wars in Eastern Europe, it’s not even clear Western Europe is safe. I have always though Trump was likely in the pocket of Russia or an actual Russian Spy, so when Trump wins he will unequivocally support Putin, which will be a disaster because Western Europe can’t stand up to the evil of Putin and Trump alone… especially not when there are Chinese and Saudi alliances that Putin has been working on.
It’s terrible but the best option is probably for Biden to escalate the war now, which he is unlikely to do since he’s sort of become a bit of a hippy. Putin sees Biden’s hippy weakness as well. If Trump is a Russian spy, the US intel agencies likely know and have to decide whether to do something to protect the country, even something that some might seem nefarious.
It’s a terrible situation and mostly a distraction from the environmental catastrophy on the horizon.
Do you think it makes sense to leave the US now? I am not that attached to anything and could go anywhere. I am white but don’t like bigots, which may impact my options.
