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.
John Stewart.
The guy is an effective cheerleader for any cause he really believes in. I mean he almost singlehandedly extended benefits to 9/11 first responders on the strength of his eloquence.
Thing is he doesn’t want to do it. Which makes me want him to do it even more. Something about great leaders not seeking power but having it thrust upon them in times of need like a George Washington
I know he doesn’t want to run which just like you only makes me want him to run even more. He’s smart enough to know that he doesn’t know everything and never will.So he will surround himself with people who know what they’re talking about and listen to their advice.
Sounds like the perfect leader.
Stewart (and Colbert) are literally a clown (TV Comedian) who is refusing to ever make a serious political moves. Neither of them have any legislative experience or executive experience either.
The fact that modern people always choose TV Personalities (like Trump, Stewart and Colbert) is part of the same problem of ignorance of our Political system and what this job even freaken entails.
Stewart (and Colbert) are literally a clown
what this job even freaken entails.
You know Volodymyr Zelenskyy, current president of Ukraine?
He’s a comedian who did a political satire TV series about being president of Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy
Born to a Ukrainian Jewish family, Zelenskyy grew up as a native Russian speaker in Kryvyi Rih, a major city of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine. Before his acting career, he obtained a degree in law from the Kyiv National Economic University. He then pursued a comedy career and created the production company Kvartal 95, which produced films, cartoons, and TV shows including the TV series Servant of the People, in which Zelenskyy played a fictional Ukrainian president. The series aired from 2015 to 2019 and was immensely popular. A political party with the same name as the TV show was created in March 2018 by employees of Kvartal 95.
EDIT: Darn, someone else apparently mentioned it as well, checking their link. I’m still gonna leave this text up, though.
This one was also pretty good.
Ah, but Robbin Williams didn’t go on a year later to actually BECOME president.
Modern? where do you think Reagan came from? At least Stewart and Colbert are versed in the political and policy stuff from having been immersed in it for decades.
Strange that an ailing old man has his administration behind him to do all the gruntwork but an actually popular candidate wouldn’t
Why wouldn’t they have an administration? Any president will hire a cabinet and advisors.
Yes, indeed. So really what you need from a president is a trustworthy image and a baseline moral character, because all the actual governance minutiae is handled by the staff.
So why is it that all these people come out of the woodwork to insist the president NEEDS to be mired in one of the most corrupt political systems in the developed world?
Because a leader does need to be present. They aren’t just a face in front of their staff.
Didn’t stop Al Franken…
Didn’t stop Donald Trump or Ronald Regan.
My point is that there’s more bad examples of Hollywood Actors or Reality TV stars becoming President for the worse of America, than the reverse.
You have two counter examples, and one of them was incredibly successful, just for the side where success is bad for the country. Reagan wasn’t ineffective, he was effective for evil purposes.
Al Franken graduated cum laude with a poli sci degree from Harvard. I’ll let Jon Stewart himself tell you about his education.
“My college career was waking up late, memorizing someone else’s notes, doing bong hits, and going to soccer practice”
George Washington wasn’t able to attend school after the age of 11, because his father died and he had to take over running the family farm.
https://www.georgewashington.org/education.jsp
Despite being the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, the President of the Constitutional Convention, and the first President of the United States, George Washington’s level of education was far lower than any of the other Founding Fathers of the United States. In fact, he was often scorned by some of the other Founding Fathers for this inadequacy. However, this lack of education was not George Washington’s fault. Upon the death of George Washington’s father in 1743, George’s formal schooling ended. He is thought to have attended the nearby grammar school run by Reverend James Marye, the rector of St. George’s Parish, up until this time. Therefore, the extent of young George’s formal educational training was in basic mathematics, reading, and writing.
Although his older half-brothers had the opportunity to gain a formal education over in England at the Appleby School, George was required to take on the responsibility of running the family farm after his father’s death.
On this list, every ranking places him as the highest-ranked President to ever serve other than one that places him at #2 and one that places him at #3:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States
That was 200 years ago. I’m comparing Jon Stewart to one of his contemporaries, in the modern era.
This wasn’t about Stewart anyway. My point was that Al Franken is a bad example of an entertainer breaking I to politics, because with his background it was entertainment that was the abberation.
If wielding power in our “democracy” is so complicated that we must exclude non-experts isn’t that an indictment of our democracy? What is it about the legislative and executive process that people are ignorant of?
While I am skeptical of the celebrity as politician trend which has been prominent over the last few decades; especially on the right. I don’t think lack of experience is the problem with the trend.
Put aside what you think about Trump’s political project for a moment. He was effective at giving conservatives what they wanted. Tax cuts and Supreme Court seats. Despite having zero legislative and executive experience. You could say the same thing about Reagan and perhaps Schwarzenegger.
I agree, expecting a strongman to come in and save us from all our political issues is problematic. We shouldn’t recreate feudalism. We need to learn to organize ourselves into a base of democratic power that we can wield towards our broad economic interests.
But at the same time our media apparatus runs on spectacle, it takes someone with the charisma of John Stewart to be taken seriously by mainstream power brokers. Perhaps he could breakthrough the spectacle and kickstart a new progressive era that could enable those democratic ends.
Because the alternative to charisma for gaining political legitimacy is going through the political system. And the longer you’re in that system the more time that system has to influence you towards ends that want to stop progress. Just look at Jamal Bowman and John Fetterman.
Perhaps, but even with these alleged shortcomings, either would be so much better equipped for the job than the 2 senile geezers.
Hey, it worked for Ukraine.
very much doubt Stewart would want to finish himself off doing a presidential term
I know he doesn’t want too which is another reason why I want him. He could announce himself right now and still pull tons of votes to be a threat to both parties.
If the Democrats could ever get to that choice it would be an autowin and an instant rejuvenation for the party.
I’m tempted to really believe in Biden taking the loss and just going absolutely balls to the walls with harsh ads aimed at the GOP and Trump, hitting dozens of speaker events at high levels of energy, and becoming what we wish the Democratic party would become to win this thing.
Realistically though, I’d prefer a sound, harder left leaning, less bipartisan nominee. It’s a safer and surer bet, unfortunately.
Time to unleash Bernie, please
I voted for him last time. May be dumb, but I did believe in him more than Biden. I still don’t know if he could carry the party, but I’d love to watch him try.
If you don’t want someone who is too fucking old then don’t pick Bernie…
Old is one problem. Old and mentally disabled is a whole other problem. Plus who are you supposed to vote for here with that rule? We’ve got 2 realistic options.
But in general you’d be correct.
It’s not that Biden is old, it’s that he’s senile… Bernie is sound of mind, has the national name recognition, and is wildly popular
Any one 40-60 yrs old with moderate politics and an unobjectionable personality supported by a major party would really cause a splash.
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
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.
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.
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?
You guys are getting Trump for a second term. Ouch.
ouch… for the entire planet
We seriously are. This is madness.
Okay, but if we do this, we’re gonna need the whole rest of the world to stand against the US and decide to fight against our corrupt government. It’ll suck for us, but let’s be honest, we’ve had it coming. Some of us are willing to sacrifice to make the world a better place. Probably a good idea to all stand against Russia and China too… Everyone just stand together against the 3 big bullies… Deal?
Let’s do it. Can you send me a gun in the mail?! ;)
The Democrat plan is to replace him just like they did Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by waiting for him to die and then hoping for the best.
Out of respect for a great woman/man! Not being disrespectful to important people is much more important than human rights or democracy.
I don’t really follow. Didn’t Obama ask RBG if she wanted to retire so he could put up a left leaning judge? That’s not disrespectful nor respectful, it’s just sensible.
She refused, predictably precipitating the current shit show out of hubris.
She may be a great woman deserving of respect but she fucked up, bringing harm to an entire generation of women.
The “respect” is letting her decide and then dropping the issue. After she refused she should have received more pressure, first in private and then, if necessary, in public. She should have been disrespected for the good of the nation.
Most idiotic plan, of course it’s hatched by the Dems.
Bernie.
Too many articles focusing on replacing Biden when they should be focusing on Trump being a federal convict walking around free.
Is it too much to ask for the most important office in the world not be held by an old demented man?
No. Unfortunately there’s two of them.
Who’s more crazy tho. The one who wants to put a senile old man through what is in all intents and purposes elder abuse, or the one who doesn’t?
You lost me on that one. What?
It’s not elder abuse for Trump because Nazis aren’t people.
Nazis are people… They’re just shitty people… It’s important not to allow dehumanization of anyone
Not enough articles saying why Biden is so unappealing that quite a few people prefer the convict. Physician, heal thyself.
There will be more of that around July 11th when he has his sentencing hearing. Biden shit the bed Yesterday.
I’d go for Bernie myself.
I mean just imagine that! In a year of some of the worst and craziest ‘first-time-evers’ Sanders could be the DNC’s candidate.
You’d go for someone older than Biden?
I like Bernie, but that’s a ridiculous replacement.
I think it’s Bernie’s competency that’s appealing. Sure he’s older, but he’s in touch with reality and has never stopped fighting for tangible as well as progressive ideals.
I think at this point he has a lot going for him, ie: he’s recognizable, he’s popular with a large segment of Americans, he can play the game well (as seen when he graciously accepted the DNC’s bs in 2015), he’s kind, he’s rarely (if ever) been known to publically lie, he’s smarter than at least half of Congress and the House of Reps, etc etc.
You can’t simultaneously argue that Biden is too old to be president and that we should have someone even older instead.
Biden isn’t too old, he’s too mentally incompetent and decrepit.
Good luck convincing all the people who have spent months saying that Biden is too old to be president to accept someone even older.
You do realize that age is not a perfect proxy for mental competence? A good number of people remain mentally sharp well into their 90s, while others experience rapid dementia as early as their 60s.
I’m not saying his age wouldn’t be a talking point, but I’m damn sure Bernie could express his platform with more clarity and vitality than Biden at this point. Unfortunately I dont think it’s a real possibility, but it’s stupid to act like the the actual birth date matters. It’s the signs of cognitive decline that are problematic.
When people are repeatedly arguing that Biden (and Trump as well) are too old to be president, I’m not sure why that wouldn’t matter.
I never argued Biden was too old.
But if I had I would have argued that of any candidate in that age group, Bernie could defy the odds as far as ageism goes.
I hear you buddy, but I think that chance was squashed by the DNC last time around. He was old when he ran, and he’s 8 years older than that now. Besides, “the South won’t vote socialist” is still just as true now as then.
I wish it weren’t so!
Bernie is sharper on his worst day than Biden or Trump are on their best day.
Bernie is still mentally sound. He’d make for a far better candidate, and would easily mop the floor with Trump in a debate.
Once again, we agree.
Why always with the old white men, when we have prominent politicians like Yang, Buttigieg, Klobuchar? And as for Bernie, if you want a firebrand who’s going to alienate moderates, why not AOC? Well, she’s too young to run, but she’s not the only truly liberal option. Warren is old enough, progressive enough, and a woman. But, no, Bernie Bros gotta Bro.
Yang’s a grifter.
Why?
I’m honestly trying to think of who they could run this late and I’m coming up short. Gavin Newsom is terrible idea in my opinion. Like you said, AOC is too young. Kamala Harris? People hate her.
The age specifics might be important. AOC turns 35 in October, before she’d take office if elected. And therefore might actually be eligible.
That would be the sort of legal battle that I could see taking too long to resolve.
There’s no battle to be had. You can be elected at 34 and you have to be 35 to serve. As long as you are 35 before inauguration, you are good. There is nothing to challenge. It’s cut and dry.
None of it is cut and dry. It never is. You must realize that.
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Tim Walz. Minnesota has been kicking ass with progressive legislation these past few years, and here in Minnesota we’ve been wondering if he’s been quietly trying to get his name out there to run for President. (And the general consensus is that we don’t want to lose him as governor, but I guess we’ll give him up to save US democracy, lol.) On paper he’s fairly moderate too.
I’ve never even heard of him and I’m more politically in the know than a lot of people.
Is that really a bad thing, though? Generic Democrat polls really well against Trump. The people who know of Walz really like him, even the more reasonable rural Republicans here grudgingly admit that while they don’t agree with him politically he clearly cares about Minnesotans. Newsom doesn’t have that. The past couple of years have seen some semi-viral quotes from him poking at politicians in red states, mostly along the lines of “we fed children, what have you done?”, and I’ve seen them posted here. The people who know him like him. For the people who don’t, he’s Generic Democrat. He’s well spoken enough to handle the discussions around the George Floyd protests (which already came up in the first debate but Biden didn’t address directly). He’s well spoken, smart, kind, and down to earth - everything Trump isn’t.
Also, I hadn’t heard of Obama before he ran for president. For a sufficiently likable candidate, it’s not a deal breaker.
Then there’s this little time to campaign? I’d say yes. You had a lot more time to learn about who Obama was.
Agreed, and agreed.
Why not Klobuchar? She’s got some national recognition from the 2019/20 cycle, politics are acceptable to moderates, progressive (enough), and she’d eat Trump for lunch in debates and on social media. Plus, she’s from the Midwest, and might pick up some folks for regional loyalty, and could play against the “slick New Yorker” which might still work.
The bases are going to vote party lines. I think undecideds and wavering moderates are the pick-up points, and I think Klobuchar could do that.
I like Yang’s politics, but he’s got a popularity problem, and Buttigieg - Trump would just harp on his sexual orientation, and I’m not confident enough that America’s ready yet to vote for a gay president. Hell, we can’t even get a woman into office.
IMO Klobuchar’s the safest bet against Trump.
Klobuchar is definitely a good idea. Although I’m not convinced that replacing Biden this late in the game is going to save the presidency either. I don’t know what should be done.
The only reason to vote for Biden at this point is anti-Trump and Blue No Matter Who. Those still apply to anyone else that the DNC puts forward, as a base score, with any actual merits, charisma, or vigor adding to that. This should have been an easy decision six months ago and doing-nothing-and-hoping-for-the-best doesn’t seem to be making the prospects any better.
anti-Trump sounds like a pretty damn good reason for me. Unless you think there’s a good reason to let a dictator win.
🙁 🤝
Lemmy really, really needs emoji responses that don’t require and entirely new comment.
You could just upvote it.
Trump won’t agree to a debate with a new candidate. I doubt that there be another debate at all as is.
For sure. But there will be a lot of indirect debate on social media, because Trump can’t keep his burger-hole shut, and Klobuchar’s free to murder him (metaphorically) on public platforms. Even if he only posts to TruthSocial, everything he says gets parroted on X and Facebook, and that’s still where the most eyeballs are.
And old school public media picks this stuff up and repeats it - that’s mostly what they’ve been reduced to -but it still reaches a lot of eyes and ears.
And: Trump refusing another debate, she could just hammer on his cowardice, over and over. That’d be a win.
Klobuchar is tough. If nothing else, I’d love to see that fight. Only slightly less than I’d love to see an AOC v Trump fight; that’d be like watching a skinny junkie enter the MMA ring against Holly Holm. It’d be hilarious. But AOC is too young, and Trump will be either dead or in a home by the time she’s old enough to run. I just hope Bernie is still active enough by then to support her. I don’t know that she could get elected - she’s too polarizing - but it would be a marvelous spectacle.
Anyway, I prefer Yang’s politics, and I’d be thrilled to see Buttigieg in the White House, but I stand by Klobuchar as the best bet.
AOC turns 35 before the election, so she’s eligible. She might be “too young” to vote for but not too young to run.
This is a fella with unquestionable principles. I love the guy.
But we really need someone like you know, younger or were gonna run into the same cryptkeeper problems very soon.
With the way the DNC is it would be Harris or, more likely, Hillary Clinton.
And Hillary is the only candidate to ever lose against Trump lol
Your comment makes me feel unwell
We’re all feeling unwell I think.
Pls no.
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.
You maybe should have tried this before 2024. This is gonna go on to November now. Just go vote for him. Old as he is.
Yeah… We’re all going to vote for him if he’s the nominee… But he’s still going to lose… That’s the point, the point progressives have been making all along. BIDEN. WILL. LOSE. Like the sun will rise in the east, it’s just a fact of nature. They need to nominate someone who will get Gen z excited to come out, so at least there’s a chance of stopping Trump.
We’re all going to vote for him if he’s the nominee… But he’s still going to lose…
The state of the election is such that turnout is going to tank. Libs and Cons are both very worried who the indie voter aligns with, but I’m betting a bunch of people simply don’t vote in November.
If the DNC would get their heads out of their asses (a longshot, ik) and voted in another viable, smart candidate they could turn voter apathy around in a heartbeat.
Too bad they seem to be happy with the power status quo and fail to see the real danger they are in if/when Trump wins … cause he would not be adverse to using guillotines or nooses to fix that ‘problem’.
Candidates that inspire voters are (edit: Not) obsequious to corporate interests.
I feel like the opposite is true?
:-p Disastrous typo
People staying home historically effects Democrats far more than Republicans. That’s why Dems win when people are excited about a candidate and more people actually show up.
People staying home historically effects Democrats far more than Republicans.
Trump has changed the math, somewhat. High energy elections tend to benefit Trump-y candidates and hurt the milquetoast Dems. Low energy elections favor Bidencrats.
Is it really feasible to replace Biden at this point? I didn’t watch the debate last night but from what I’ve heard it was not good for Biden. Nonetheless, I think Biden remains the Democrats’ best option. They’re just going to have to rely on the electorate recognizing that Biden is still the better of the two choices, as pathetic as that reality may be. However, even if that strategy is somehow successful, again, and Biden does manage to get reelected, the Democrats MUST nominate a better candidate in 2028. I don’t think the Democrats can continue with their strategy of just being better than terrible, indefinitely.
“Not good” is an understatement. Potential career ender.
If Trump wins in November, this debate will be exhibit #1.
At his age the cold he supposedly had is a potential career ender. “He just had a cold that made him feeble” isn’t a great alternative explanation when you’re talking about an 81 year old.
Who has the most important and powerful job in the world…
All you have to do is imagine Putin manages to convince Cuba to let him put some nukes in there. Instead of being able to act effectively, Biden is dealing with a cold at the time. Just the shittiest luck. We need a president that can show up when they’re needed.
However, even if that strategy is somehow successful, again, and Biden does manage to get reelected, the Democrats MUST nominate a better candidate in 2028.
The Constitution mandates a maximum of two terms for a President. If he wins, he can’t run again. He can technically additionally serve up to half of a term without “using up” one of his terms if he’s vice-president and the serving President dies.
The two-term limit was originally purely a convention that had been set by George Washington, who was getting on in years, wasn’t many years away from his death, really wanted to retire to his plantation (as in, he didn’t even want to serve a second term, and was only convinced to do so by politicians arguing that without him, there might not be sufficient unity), and was also extremely popular and would have been re-elected again.
That convention held until FDR broke it and ran for four terms. In response to that, the Twenty-second Amendment was passed, prohibiting anyone from having more than two terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
The Constitution mandates a maximum of two terms for a President. If he wins, he can’t run again.
I know, I didn’t mean to imply that the Democrats would try to run Biden again, only that they might try to run a similarly “weak” candidate in 2028, believing that the American people will vote for the candidate simply because they are Democrat and not Republican. I think that would be a mistake.
I don’t really understand how it could be too late.
Float a candidate under 60 and they win riotous support from Democrats and undecideds.
Biden is the only Democrat that Trump has a chance of beating.
Perhaps there has never been changes this late in the cycle, but come on… we’re breaking new ground in so many ways.
Float a candidate under 60 and they win riotous support from Democrats and undecideds.
But who would that be? Do you remember the 2020 primaries? They started out with 29 candidates, the most since the modern primaries began back in 1972, and several of them were under 60, including Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, and Kamala Harris. Only Pete Buttigieg won any delegates (29 out of a possible 3,979). The Democrats have had many years to find a younger candidate who could unify the party. No such candidate has emerged, that I’m aware of, and so Biden, at 81 years old and showing signs of rapid cognitive decline, ran essentially unopposed in this year’s primaries.
Shillary Clinton will be the DNC nominee again if too many people complain about Joe.
Unlikely. People keep pointing to the two times it has happened in the past but they NEVER say anything about how THEY FAILED BOTH TIMES lmao
There are absolutely zero good options this late in the game, but I feel someone like Sherrod Brown has to be a million times better than Biden. Either way yeah, they need to start merchandising their wins and develop a real platform that is “proactive” for ‘28.
It’s absolutly possible, here’s my comment on it.
I really don’t think it would work at this point, but if I were to pick someone to replace Biden it wouldn’t be Gavin Newsom, it would be Andy Beshear. But that’s just it, this country is so divided we can’t find a consensus candidate.
Trump and Biden aren’t consensus candidates either. We don’t need to find the second coming of JFK to make it work.
No party has ever tried changing a candidate at this point. It’s not even clear how the Primary / Conventions should go legally speaking.
?? It’s extremely clear. The Democratic nominations are not a legal matter. The Democratic party is not an arm of the government, they are a private entity. They are free to choose a nominee however they wish, like always.
Which normally is not something I particularly love about the DNC but it may actually be the thing that saves us from Trump
And notably it wouldn’t just be a decree from on high, it’d be officially picked by the delegates. There was still (technically) a primary this year, with delegates heading to a convention to vote on who becomes the nominee. I’m sure there will be a lot of backroom plotting to try to figure out a good replacement before the open votes start, but at least there’s an air of legitimacy as (many of) the people who officially make the decision have some connection to votes cast. It’s more an appearance thing than actually separating the pick from “the party establishment”, but that’s a pretty important aspect.
We didn’t always have a primary system, that’s relatively recent.
In the past, the candidate would be picked at the convention after much wheeling dealing. “Smoke filled rooms” and all that.
Yeah, and Progressives don’t like that. Heck, progressives don’t like anything. So its kind of delicious for me to see them ask for a backroom selection at the primary (throwing out all of the Primary Votes until now) and just picking something else.
You know just as well as I do that it’d only piss off the caucus in general. Look at this topic: there’s no unity on who’d even replace Biden right now.
There’s a reason Progressives don’t like it. It’s that same attitude that led to Biden being picked in the first place, and Clinton before him. They pick the senior person in the Party and then elevate them through donations, the Party apparatus gives them staff, email lists, endorsements, connections to media to push them up, and more to reward them for years of service.
People are finally realizing maybe we don’t live in a great democracy just in time to lose it. At this rate, I’ll take anyone who can beat Trump. If it’s Biden I’ll take it. But I’m not sure it is…
Are you sure anyone who actually gets picked in such a deal could unite the Democrats on Ukraine, Israel, Roe v Wade, LGBT, Unions, Trade issues like Biden has?
The reason why Republican support is strong is because Republicans rally when Trump makes a mistake or stumbles. Democrats do this shit. Yall just backstab the party leader in vain attempts to pull the party left. You think Republicans aren’t keenly aware of Trump’s failings in this last debate? They’re mostly happy because of topics like this one, clearly showing Democrats are a group who get easily shaken. They know they can use this public display of worries against you guys.
In any case, I’m voting for “Not Trump”. If its Biden, so be it. If its someone else… no promises I can vote for them too. (Biden ultimately has done a lot of stuff to pull me over from the Republican side and join your cause this year. But my vote is severely at risk if you push too far left). I’ve considered myself a lifelong Republican before this bullshit from Trump these past 8 years.
unite the Democrats on… Israel… like Biden has?
Wut? Not being Biden on Israel is one of the major benefits of a different candidate. And all the other things are stuff the Democrats are already unified on, not some miracle of Democratic leadership.
Jamaal Bowman losing his New York Primary would like a word with you.
Biden is closer to the Democrat mainstream.
Most of the party is not in favor of Israel.
Just made a large post on this elsewhere, but the TL;DR is that the party can’t just replace Biden. He has all the delegates from the primaries. Do you really think the party that is campaigning on preserving Democracy can get away with ignoring elections?
Now, it’s possible that Biden gets diagnosed with a severe case of not-gonna-win-itis which adversely affects his health to the point that he has to resign not only from the campaign, but from the Presidency. If that happens, Kamala Harris becomes the 47th President, and has the only real claim to take over the ticket. It has the fun side effect of making Trump reprint all his hats to say “45 - 48” instead of “45-47”.
(The Secret Service better take good care of President Harris, because whatever VP she appoints to take over that role needs to get a majority vote in both houses of Congress, and the House will never do it.)
the TL;DR is that the party can’t just replace Biden.
The Democratic Party can run whoever it wants. The primaries and party nomination are (mostly) party-internal processes. They could say “now the rules are we choose a random US citizen”. They don’t have to do a primary at all. Some parties don’t. There was a point in time in US history when primaries weren’t a thing, and parties were quite happily doing their thing back then.
kagis for a starting date
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_election
The direct primary became important in the United States at the state level starting in the 1890s and at the local level in the 1900s.[17] The first primary elections came in the Democratic Party in the South in the 1890s starting in Louisiana in 1892.
The United States is one of a handful of countries to select candidates through popular vote in a primary election system;[12] most other countries rely on party leaders or party members to select candidates, as was previously the case in the U.S.[13]
EDIT: As a good example, the Libertarian Party – though much smaller than the Big Two – is the next closest. Under their rules, they participate in primaries, but they treat the primary simply as a way to obtain the preference of the electorate; the primary doesn’t bind the party, under their rules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Libertarian_Party_presidential_primaries
The Green Party has a mix of conventions and primaries, depending upon state; a random member of the electorate may-or-may-not directly vote to select their party’s candidate.
Also, fun trivia bit:
They could say “now the rules are we choose a random US citizen”.
There were historically some systems of government who not merely had random people chosen as candidates, but random people chosen to run the society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of public officials or jurors using a random representative sample.[1][2][3]
In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.[4][5] Sortition is often classified as a method for both direct democracy and deliberative democracy.
I’d add that I don’t at all agree with some of the people in this thread, who are on the left end of the spectrum and mainly seem to be hoping that the Democratic Party will select someone further left than Biden because they personally would prefer a further-left candidate. In the American electoral system, voting is FPTP. That means that you tend to wind up with two large, big-tent, fairly centrist parties (which approximate party coalitions in parliamentary systems), and the smart move for each to win general elections is to run a centrist candidate.
A Big Two party can nominate someone out on the fringes, but then they will cede the general election to the other party if the other party runs a centrist candidate.
In fact, a major argument against primaries is that they may tend to choose a suboptimal candidate for the general election, since they tend towards electing candidates towards the center of the political party, and that that a more-winning strategy for a party is to choose someone not at the center of their party’s views, but between that and the center of the general electorate, and that the party members are more-likely to make use of strategic voting than are members of the electorate that votes for their party’s candidate.
I watched a very similar discussion play out on British political forums over the past decade or so. Due to Labour changing some internal party policies that lowered the bar to party membership, party voting changed. Some left-advocacy groups organized a campaign to get people on the left side of the Labour spectrum to become members, to act in the party candidate selection process, and as a result, Jeremy Corbyn – who is on the left end of the Labour spectrum – was chosen as Labour candidate. There were people who were absolutely convinced that running Jeremy Corbyn would be a stupendously winning strategy because they personally were politically closer to Corbyn and couldn’t imagine why anyone else would vote against him. I watched Tony Blair give a talk where he pointed out that unless a political party wins elections, it doesn’t get to have political power, and that while he was a centrist candidate, he actually won elections and that Labour had mostly been out of political power for an awfully large portion of recent British political history. Sure enough, Labour proceeded to run Corbyn twice and were clobbered in two elections. Now they’re back to the comparatively-moderate Keir Starmer and based on polling, are looking at having strong results in the imminent election.
EDIT: If you want a great graph illustrating the Corbyn situation, here’s a graph of polls of voting intent for the next UK election. Corbyn lost the leadership position (which in the UK’s political system, also normally grants one the prime minister’s office in the event that one’s party wins) in April 2020, to provide time context.
A Big Two party can nominate someone out on the fringes, but then they will cede the general election to the other party if the other party runs a centrist candidate.
Phew, I’m glad we could never end up with a President Trump leading Republican party running rightward as fast as possible then.
Maybe centrist political wisdom is actually just trash and things like charisma, inspiration, and vision actually matter rather than some idea that all voters are on a single axis “politics” line.
Trump’s run on pretty anti-immigrant speech, but he’s pretty moderate in most other respects. He’s probably the least-religious president we’ve ever had, and ran for the “religion party” ticket; he had to run with Pence to make up for lack of appeal to social conservatives. He advocated for (well, or at least gave the impression of) fairly-protectionist policy and ran for the free trade party’s ticket. Since the start of the Cold War, the GOP’s tended to be the hawkish party, and he ran on a relatively noninterventionist platform (though I’ll concede that there’s always been a paleoconservative isolationist faction, but it’s been relatively weak for quite some decades).
Trump constantly says outrageous stuff – he definitely makes it a point to be politically incorrect – but his policy is actually not especially exciting.
I looked at his website way back in the 2016 election before his campaign had built up any steam. This was back when Hillary was running a nice, typical website, long list of issues, you know what campaign websites normally look like. At that point in time, he – hillariously – had only three issues on his campaign website. And none of his actual positions represented much of a change from the status quo:
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Opposition to FTAs; at the time, we had been negotiating TPP with the Pacific Rim countries and TTIP with the EU. Both had effectively failed already at this point. Trump gave the public the impression that he was responsible for this, but it was something that was going to happen under Obama or not. He also spent a long time complaining about NAFTA. Thing is, I already had listened to speeches from a few politicians who had played this game with NAFTA (e.g. Ron Paul complains a lot about NAFTA but is quieter about why he opposed it, because it wasn’t permissive enough, whereas most people listening to him are upset that it isn’t restrictive enough). I had a pretty good guess that Trump was going to pull similar shennanigans on policy, looked at his white paper and sure enough, no specific changes, just lots of fluffy emotional text giving the impression that he was in opposition. And in office, he took NAFTA, negotiated a few minor changes, and then renamed it to USMCA. Having kicked the legs out from decades of time that manufacturing unions had built public opposition to NAFTA, he left the thing alone. So, he advocated for a position that sounded unusually close to the position that the folks on the left side of the spectrum wanted and, in fact, essentially left existing policy alone.
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Opposition to immigration. Now, you could make a fair argument that he worked pretty hard to sell a nativist image. But his actual policy also wasn’t particularly notable. He put through one regulation that SCOTUS was pretty sure to shoot down and kept it a constant source of political theater for a significant chunk of his term. He made an enormous deal out of his wall, kept it in the news, gave the impression without ever saying so that he was going to build a wall along the entire border. But this isn’t even a new game to play from Trump. Bush Jr used the same shtick back when he ran. In his case, it was a “fence” and played a less-prominent role in his campaign.
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Gun rights. He has no specifics and this is trivial to do: just don’t involve yourself in additional restrictions. This has been a pretty stock generic Republican point because it costs nothing to do ever since the Democrats did the federal Assault Weapon Ban, which was not popular and sunsetted; it’s something that every candidate just slaps on their page.
Hell, Trump was a Democrat back when Bush Jr was in office.
But Trump is far right. The news says so.
If you read news media that favors the Democratic Party, it will say that Trump is far right. If your regular news sources favor the Democratic Party, you have probably read a lot of articles over past years that say that.
If you read news media that favors the Republican Party, you will find plenty of material that will say that Biden is far left.
But Biden’s not far left! That’s ridiculous!
Yup. But presenting someone as being extreme is a good way to make them less appealing. You can find people who will self-identify as “left-of center” or “right-of-center”, even “left” or “right”. But very few politicians will call themselves “far left” or “far right”. That’s usually a label used by the media favoring the other side.
There are a lot of things that I don’t like about Trump. But they mostly deal with his presentation and the tactics he uses. I dislike his willingness to make contradictory statements. I don’t like the fact that he tries to piss people off about someone else – especially via dishonest claims – and exploit that anger. I dislike his willingness to disregard the political-consensus-building role that elections have, to concede, though I’ll grant that maybe if there’s a problem there, it needs to be fixed in the underlying system. But he’s extraordinary mostly in his presentation, not in the policy that he’s adopted. We had him for four years. US policy didn’t change much, certainly not from mainstream Republican Party policy.
When Trump first ran for office, I remember Bill Kristol – a conservative commentator who really dislikes Trump – stating that most of what Trump says is misdirection. Basically, Trump can’t force the media to say what he wants. But he can make a colossal amount of noise about something outrageous that they cannot resist covering, so that they talk about that instead of whatever meaningful actual policy stuff is going on. The coverage may not be positive, but it lets him direct the media narrative – it’s all about whatever outrageous thing he said on Twitter. I was a bit skeptical at the time. I could believe that Trump wouldn’t change much on NAFTA because I’d seen other Republican politicians play the same game he was, but had a harder time buying that on immigration. But that was, I think, pretty accurate as an assessment. Most of what is unusual about Trump are the outrageous things that come out of his mouth when he’s politicking. It’s not really his policy.
LOL. Yeah, sure thing bud. People could be excused for believing this fantasy before his election, but they were dumb then too. And he’s on track to win again after everything he did and the transformation of the party into the vision that matches his fascist rhetoric.
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The primaries aren’t actually legally binding. This is a misconception that keeps going around but the party makes the rules for the convention and it’s the convention that nominates the candidate. Furthermore, Russia has more democratic elections than the primary we got this year. A single name on the ballot isn’t an election. It’s a roll call.
Yep. It’s too late. Should’ve done this ages ago if you were going to do it.
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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?
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.
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.
People will come out and vote for Bernie.
Another old dude?
Bernie isn’t senile
I’ll vote for a senile old man who wants universal healthcare and won’t help do a genocide any day of the week.
I’ll also vote for a senile old liberal who’s the opposite of both of those things when the alternative is a fuckin Nazi, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be quiet about my displeasure.
With national name recognition and wildly popular policy plans
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
