The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.

These days, multiple people who’ve spoken to him over the last year say, Biden often punctuates conversations with: “You think we can actually come back from this?”

The 83-year-old Biden continues to feel out a post-presidency that may prove to be one of the shortest in history and is already one of the most complicated.

There are days when Biden is heartbroken, indignant or in disbelief about what is happening as President Donald Trump — the man he defeated in 2020 — returned and moved not just to tear down his accomplishments, but to dig in with petty insults like the autopen photograph he put in Biden’s spot in the “Presidential Walk of Fame” installed at the White House.

  • DomeGuy@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    The USA is a democracy; every one of us is responsible individually for what we do with our votes.

    You, I infer, decided that the best thing to do with your vote was endorse the rapist who promised to do absolutely nothing to stop the genocide in Gaza over the candidate who at the least would have protested.

    Which sure as fuck was your right, but it’s kinda weird that you’re trying to argue that this isn’t exactly what you voted for.

    In a single-ballot plurality-wins-all election anything but a vote for the runner up is an endorsement of the eventual winner.

    • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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      7 hours ago

      You’re trying to place blame on an individual instead of a party that encourages policies that creates voter disenfranchisement.

      Why is critical analysis attacked?

      • DomeGuy@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        You’re trying to place blame on an individual instead of a party that encourages policies that creates voter disenfranchisement.

        No. I’m recognizing the actual system we have pointing out that anti-genocide non-voters made a deliberate choice.

        This isn’t a disenfeanchisement issue so much as it is a disengagement problem. There citizens had the sane franchise as everyone else, and chose not to go vote against a rapist.

        There’s plenty of blame to slap on the Democratic party from the former president and candidate all the way down. But Biden not standing by his purported morals and Harris not breaking with him when he didnt compel non-voters not to cast a vote. They’re adults and citizens and should either stand by their choice and argure that it was correct or else concede that they made a mistake and would change it if they could

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          IF you are going to make that argument, you also have to provide a mechanism which can change the minds or engage the millions of voters necessary for Harris to win, otherwise its irrelevant.

          Harris could have changed her policy to win the election. She’s a single individual, in the exact position of power to do precisely this.

          If you can’t offer a credible mechanism for changing the minds of 6 million plus voters on the issue of genocide over the course of approximately 4 months (July/August 24 to November 24), you must cede that the only path to Harris winning was to change their policy.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 hours ago

      But the system we vote for isn’t responsible for enforcing laws like… *checks notes… putting 34 time felons in prison, preventing insurrectionists for running for office, and letting people who commit treason of stealing and selling state secrets to the highest bidder run for office? It’s all our fault huh? The system didn’t fail us first, huh?