242
submitted 5 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

One House Democrat said he spoke for others in the wake of the president’s stunningly feeble debate performance on Thursday: “The movement to convince Biden to not run is real.”

The House member, an outspoken defender of the president, said that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should consider “a combined effort” to nudge President Joe Biden out of the race.

Crestfallen by the president’s weak voice, pallid appearance and meandering answers, numerous Democratic officials said Biden’s bet on an early debate to rebut unceasing questions about his age had not only backfired but done damage that may prove irreversible. The president had, in the first 30 minutes of the debate, fully affirmed doubts about his fitness.

A second House Democrat said “reflection is needed” from Biden about the way ahead and indicated the private text threads among lawmakers were even more dire, with some saying outright that the president needed to drop out of the race.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago

I disagree. I actually think you'd see a boost.

  • Acknowledging age concerns of the electorate = good.

  • Running someone fresh that appeals to this American Idol-esque popularity contest = good.

  • Running someone Republicans don't have their talking-points fleshed out on = good.

Me too. I think you could change to more or less anyone and get a bump.

It really seems as though the populace is extraordinarily weary of these two tired old assholes.

Anyone under 60 would mop the floor with Trump's toupee.

[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Running someone fresh that appeals to this American Idol-esque popularity contest = good.

What if no such person exists?

Then you just lose and Trump becomes President by default. Do you have confidence that Democrats can rally behind an actually named person? And if so, what is the name of that person?

I'm no Democrat. But I wouldn't consider "replacing Biden by somebody" to be a serious option. You need to say "Replace Biden by SPECIFIC NAME HERE". Otherwise you're just throwing away the election before it even begins.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Are you asking that because you believe nobody is lining up wanting to be President, or that there is no candidate who fits that bill? Because I can think of half a dozen who both fit the bill and have obvious political ambitions:

  • Whitmer
  • Newsom
  • Buttigieg
  • Booker
  • Abrams
  • Warnock.

All far more youthful; all far more charismatic. All who have enough national name recognition and would trounce Trump in debates and contrast of age alone.

The question to me isn't, "who else," it's, "Will Biden voluntarily step down and endorse such a person at the convention?"

The polls prove this could work:nobody likes either candidate, people want new faces, and age is a problem. Just give them another choice on the Democratic ticket and it's game-over for the convicted felon. If I could I'd be money this gives better odds than sticking it out with Biden.

[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'm not into Democrats, so I honestly don't know half the people on that list.

Newsom needs to start resigning today to make the election. I think he's off on technical grounds. And others have pointed out that he's lower than Trump on a lot of polls. Buttigieg is homosexual and sad to say it, homophobia is on the rise. After the party's experimentation with Hillary Clinton / Kamala I'm not sure that its a winning strategy. I know middle-aged white guy WASP is annoying, but its a trope for a reason.

In all cases, Trump will deny the other pick as a "loser" and refuse to debate. You'll be going into the election without ever getting on National stage. Its a huge set of risks.


I'm not necessarily against it. But I also don't think Biden's performance was worse than Trump's last night. A lot of this seems to be just Democrats getting nervous about themselves and their own choices.

Whitmer

I see she's getting some press. I wouldn't be against her, but I also don't know much about her in general. Can she hold up against the Republican hate machine? We all know that Hillary couldn't do it, so what makes Whitmer any better or more prepared?

Biden did hold up vs Trump. Better or worse, he did prove himself. I recognize that people are worried about "newer, older Biden". But there's severe risks in switching a candidate now, especially as vetting likely hasn't been completed by either side yet. (Democrats need to vet to figure out how Republicans are going to attack her). Its a complete mystery.

[-] rwhitisissle@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

You have to understand that the average American functions off of lizard brain impulses. It would be probably go like this:

Acknowledging age concerns of the electorate = show of weakness.

Running someone fresh that appeals to this American Idol-esque popularity contest = show of weakness.

Running someone Republicans don’t have their talking-points fleshed out on = show of weakness.

America operates on principles of running someone strong who says they will always be strong and that if they ever become weak while in office and they acknowledge this to be replaced, the entire party goes with them like a tug boat latched to a sinking oil tanker. Trump didn't win because he's smart or a decent human being. He won because he exudes baseless confidence like a broken nuclear reactor exudes gamma radiation.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world -2 points 5 months ago

You know I agree with much of what you say here. All I'll say is that while there's uncertainty in the outcome of this route, I'm convinced there is certainty at this point that Joe Biden will lose. Why? Because there is all there is to know about Joe Biden. Call it media saturation; diminishing returns.... There is fundamentally nothing Joe Biden can do or say that people don't already know and now their minds are pretty much made up. The desperation-play of even asking for that debate shows the Biden campaign knows how bad of a position they're in... And it of course backfired tremendously.

So at this point, I view it as uncertainty versus a known loss.

And in that respect, I'm looking at this alternate path as appealing to those lizard-brain American Idol-watching popularity-contest voters. If we could distill election cycles down to a handful of things, chief among them would be "People Vote for the more interesting candidate" and "People vote for the fresher face" -- Within the backdrop of age being a huge issue for >70% of American voters when polled, that rings even more truthful now.

So personally, I say we take the chance.

this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
242 points (83.6% liked)

News

23530 readers
4784 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS