'I'm not leaving': Biden expands effort to tamp down calls to step aside
'I'm not leaving': Biden expands effort to tamp down calls to step aside
The president will meet with Democratic governors Wednesday evening as the White House and his campaign hold separate all-hands calls during the day.
I feel like I'm going insane. How is this even happening right now? One of two presidential candidates is so old, that his own party is asking him to not run because he looked like an elderly person that got lost at the grocery store during a live presidential debate. The other is a deranged narcissist that was the previous president, clearly colluding with Russia, has be found guilty of 34 felonies, attempted to overthrow the previous election, and has explicitly stated he will be a dictator.
Biden is only like 18mos older than Trump. They're essentially equally old. Like a 2% difference in their ages.
Sure, but Trump didn't sound like he was lost at the grocery store. Most of what Trump said was nonsense he made up on the spot but he said it with confidence. Trump knows his supporters won't fact check him; Biden is burdened with the truth. It's not fair but we unfortunately need someone who can spar with Trump on stage. If someone flusters Trump on stage he will spiral out of control.
Being in the White House drastically ages the president, VP, and senior staff due to the insane amounts of stress and long hours that come with the job.
It's not easy.
Biden has been in the WH for 12 years.
trump for four, but he's too fucking stupid to be worried. So the stress never got to him. If he saw something he didn't like, he ripped up the paper, tried to eat it, then flushed it. And trump would have 100% forgotten about it immediately.
Which is why they can be essentially the same age (18 months is nothing in your 80s) but Biden seems so much worse. Biden is used to thinking about what to say, trump just opens his mouth and rambles like he always has.
But with all that being said:
We need higher standards to get Dem voters onboard. A bad candidate that's better than trump is still a bad candidate. We don't need someone who tries to think of what to say but can't say it, we need someone that can think of a competent response and then communicate that effectively.
The fact that anyone (let alone half the country) would pick a literal traitor who failed in every way possible as president over a guy that had a bad interview while sick, with a B+ resume is ridiculous. Just a week ago the right was accusing him of doing drugs because of how well his State of the Union went. We avoided a recession and we're recouping from the pandemic better than any other country.
Hell, just look at the debate itself. Biden memorized 90 minutes (or 45 minutes) worth of facts and used them to back up every claim he had while Trump literally lied the entire time and took credit for everything Biden (or Obama) did.
Between all that and literally being the only thing that kept the Republicans from throwing the US into default with clever negotiations (seriously, the dude fucking manipulated McCarthy so bad he lost his job), the only thing crazy is that people pay so little attention to politics over the last 8 years that all they know is that he sounded weak during a debate.
TIME TO GET YOUR CLOWN SHOES AND HONKY NOSE READY WE'RE IN FOR THE GOOD TIMES
That's exactly what I will expect him to say, right up until he leaves.
It is extremely disappointing that he didn't take this opportunity to gracefully step back. People who watched the debate saw his performance and him trying to say "Nah bro, I got this" is really stupid.
This is bigger than me, so I'll step aside to beat Trump.
Would pretty much guarantee whoever filled his spot became president.
But moderates demand 100% loyalty. Even if Biden thinks they're right eventually, he's not going to change his mind for "the left". Even when it's other moderates. He's been turning on a lot of allies immediately after they even questioned if he should stay in, and claiming CNN and the NY times all sorts of shit despite them backing him all the way up till now.
Biden has never been good at accepting criticism or dealing with confrontation. It's what torpedoed his first primary back in 88. If someone isn't with him, Biden considers them against him.
He's a lot like trump in that regard, loyalty is a one way street.
I don't know why people are looking at both of their performances at a debate when people can look at their performances as presidents.
It's honestly infuriating how everyone is struck on that like it means anything. All presidential debates gave always been awful. This is no exception and this time we have an alternative POV.
And who is going to take his place? There's no Dem who could pull enough moderates at this point in the race to win. Biden never wanted to run to begin with, but was pressed into it because was the only possible candidate with enough appeal to beat trump (except Bernie, but Dem leadership messed that one up).
The only reason his debate performance matters is because all the never Trumpers who spend too much time doom scrolling are forcing it into the news cycle.
If Biden bows out now, Trump wins.
Biden definitely is thinking about Johnsons disastrous late departure from the race in 1968 leading to brawls on the convention floor and competing slates of delegates that ultimately led to Humphrey getting nominated. His loss was blamed on the chaos at the convention.
if he leaves at all it wouldn't be right before the convention.
This can't go all the way to the convention, because they made the convention so late. They actually have to make the formal nomination before the convention, in time to meet Ohio's deadline.
The only path forward is for Harris to take over the nomination. This is far easier if Biden resigns totally. He can say he's doing it for medical reasons, even if all he has is a chronic case of notgonnawinatall, complicated by inflammation of the opeds.
Plus my understanding is, the way campaign financing works, the Biden-Harris campaign funds stay with that org. They can't transfer it to an entirely new ticket. If she stays on and he drops out, they could use it, otherwise they'd have to fundraise from scratch.
Yup. You need to project complete confidence until the moment you drop out, once you say “This is a hugely important decision, the hardest one I’ve ever had to make, so I’m taking my time” Boom you have lost control and it’s over.
However it appears the writing is on the wall at this point. The next question is, once he decides to no longer run should he resign? If he isn’t up for the job of running how does he instill confidence that he can remain president? Plus it hands the nomination to Kamala no question.
I could see trying to spin it as "As an elder statesman, I don't have it in me to simultaneously run a national campaign and govern the country, so I'll be putting 100% of my focus on finishing out my term and passing the torch to the next generation of blah blah blah."
I suspect it's probably too late for the Democrats to switch horses now, but I hope that this finally pile-drives some smidgen of a lesson into them that they need to actually try to win elections rather than just assume that since they're not crazy or evil like the Republican candidates people will naturally prefer them. They need to pick candidates that the people like and put in the effort to run those candidates well.
There's still five months until the election, there's plenty that Biden can do between now and then to show people that he's a good choice. And then maybe this time once it's all over the Democratic Party can do a major rethink of what exactly they're doing with all this. Like they should have the last time they ran a candidate against Trump that they thought simply "deserved" to win.
I'm starting to think the best move might not be to replace Biden, but to swap out Kamala... Kamala has lower approval than Biden and missed her chance to make an impact during this term. If Biden had a strong VP, the question of his health wouldn't be as big.
Democrats don't need to learn anything. You're forced to vote for them because of First Past The Post voting.
Or alternately you vote for Trump, either directly or by wasting votes on third-party candidates because the Democrats were insufficiently compelling.
Yes, I know it's idiotic. But a lot of the American electorate are idiots, or more charitably are not familiar with the game theory behind all this stuff. The Democrats do need to learn how to get the support of those people.
If we used a voting system like Ranked Choice voting, it wouldn't matter! Biden could run all he wants and we could vote for someone else and if they didn't win... our vote would get transferred to the next in line (in this example biden).
That's probably why we'll never get ranked choice voting. It could mean a win for the general public in electing who we actually want, instead of what the establishment forces on us.
The sheer audacity and hubris of this admin is negligent and infuriating.
"Democracy is under threat, but not enough for us to listen to any feedback about stopping genocide, forgiving student loans, or running a candidate who isn't terrifyingly out of it. None of your feedback matters to us."
Fuck this guy. The country and freedom are more important than his ego and hubris. A real leader would work to facilitate onboarding a capable candidate so we can avoid devolving into a christo-fascist hellscape.
Then you'll be remembered as the egotistical, arrogant piece of shit that doomed our Republic when you had the last best chance to save it. Like RBG but worse.
The Franz von Papen of his time.
Well, that's on him, and so is his loss and all the consequences that come from it. All to try and satisfy his ego. Insanity.
Could be that he’s trying to save America from falling into the hands of a fascist traitor to his country.
He sad before that he wasn’t planning on running again unless it’s to keep Trump from taking over.
Now that that Trump is trying to take over- it’s his duty to protect America. And so he’s running. I know this upsets the bots and MAGA trolls, but that’s where we are now.
No, that's a blatantly selfish and ego driven motivation. "I'm too important to waste my time on the presidency unless I get to be seen as some kinda savior."
But he really has absolutely no chance of being remembered that way. Even if he wins. Especially if he wins. He has allowed pride to rob him of any chance of having a legacy with remembering. Ironic I think...
Jan 1st, 2029, neither Trump nor Biden will be president of the United States.
I think he’s gonna end up fucking off.
Into the afterlife
Good.
This is just the "I won't vote for Biden because Israel refuses to sign a ceasefire" bullshit all over again.
Notice how literally none of these people have any problem whatsoever with any of Trump's gaffes?
They have no problem whatsoever with Trump's policies. They have no problem whatsoever with project 2025. They have no problem at all that Donald Trump is 79 years old.
But they have a huge fucking problem with the fact that Joe Biden is two and a half years older than Donald Trump.
You would think if they actually gave a damn about the welfare of the country they would be concerned about Donald Trump in the least, yet crickets.I think it might be a bit of a bold assumption that everyone who thinks Biden is too old to do an effective job and should step aside is a huge Trump supporter.
There are plenty of people who hate Trump with a passion that thinks Biden isn't up to the task of winning this election.
No, it isn't. Biden is letting his fucking pride erode our chances of avoiding a dictatorship.
We'll see how future appearances are but he was incoherent at the debate and if that keeps up it makes another Trump presidency much more likely.
Also, fuck off for blindly assuming what everyone else thinks and assuming everyone who disagrees with you is arguing in bad faith.
Most of the people I hear who are bothered by Biden's chances aren't talking about Trump's policies, age or lack of cognitive ability not because they support Trump, quite the opposite. They are scared of a second Trump presidency and are scared that the DNC will drop the ball again, fumble the election by sticking with a poorly liked candidate and they'll have to suffer the consequences of America veering headfirst towards fascism. There's no point to mentioning Trump's similar or more dire issues, because he was never an option to them to begin with.
I don't have faith that the DNC actually cares about the looming threat of fascism, the threat to civil liberties, etc, I think they saw how much in donations they got during the last Trump presidency and the surge in popularity even their most milquetoast center left candidates got and they think they can ride the wave for 4 years.
Bidens admin has done a lot of good and the DNC has been dogshit at demonstrating that with effective messaging. He's also done a lot of things I find abhorrent and in a just world, neither candidate should be eligible as they'd be locked away in The Hague. But that isn't the case, this is America, and I think the powers that be are willing to risk the election to save face.
It's not good. Biden stands the worst chance against Trump, which is why concern trolls are so desperate to shut down and dismiss any discussion of replacing him.
This is just the "I won't vote for Biden because Israel refuses to sign a ceasefire" bullshit all over again.
This is incredibly disingenuous. More like "Because he is arming, supporting and diplomatically protecting a genocidal government." We know it's not his fault Israel are assholes, it's the stuff he is doing that is the problem.
They have no problem whatsoever with Trump's policies. They have no problem whatsoever with project 2025.
My brother in christ why do you think we want Biden to actually be a good candidate?
Genocide supporting, doddering old Biden is a much better candidate than the unhinged far right felon that wouldn't know the truth if it pissed on his face, BUT HE NEEDS TO WIN THE ELECTION FIRST. If being not as bad as trump was enough Hilary would have won.
It is precisely because I hate trump so much that I want Biden to be better. If you are in a debate with Trump and most people watching think you lost, you fucked up big time. The pigeon you're playing chess with might have shit on the board and felt like he won, but you should have at least done enough so that the audience watching this didn't fucking agree with him.
"I won't vote for Biden because Israel refuses to sign a ceasefire" bullshit
Fun fact: support in the form of weapons and political cover from the governments of the UK, Germany, and ESPECIALLY the US is why the fascist apartheid regime hasn't been FORCED to stop the genocide several months ago.
He knows this and even though the majority of his prospective voters are IMPLORING him to stop participating in a genocide in their name, even though he KNOWS that it's likely to cost him the election and even though he KNOWS that it's likely to be the last one ever if he does lose, he still refuses.
He's putting his Zionist ideology and his stubborn inability to admit fault ahead of not just Gazan lives, but also the survival of American democracy and the universality of international law.
Even KAMALA would be a better choice than someone so completely out of touch with and devoid of respect for the ideals and institutions he's supposed to be protecting.
Still better than Trump, though, so we just have to keep pretending that the old war criminal is perfect, lest the Blue No Matter Who apparatchiks lob spurious allegations of fascist loyalties at us 😮💨🤦
Yes, this is scary, the media are basically all working for Trump, even those who claim the opposite. But they are falling for the Trump foghorn, just as much as any average Joe, where the media are supposed to be professionals and above that.
Falling for NOTHING the trump campaign is going to give the media millions of dollars for advertising spots. The media have a vested interest in keeping the horse race going.
Notice how literally none of these people have any problem whatsoever with any of Trump’s gaffes?
What? Which people?
Trumps a client of a pedophile sex trafficking ring that had his dealer assassinated. He built his political career on the racist conspiracy that Obama was born in Kenya, colluded with Russia to become president, appointed climate change deniers to head the EPA and Dept of Energy, appointed public education deniers to head the Dept of Education, oil isnt bad enough for the environment for him so he endorses coal, was antivax before republicans thought it was cool, and nothing else on this world is closer to convincing me of the Bible than the idea that Trump is the antichrist.
But no trump supporter is going to see this
I’ve been pointing all of this out for a while now. Ask any of them about these issues and they have no answer at all. They just divert the discussion back to gEnOciDe jOe.
Everyone needs to hold these trolls accountable for what they’d say. Ask them to answer why they seem to not care about Trump and what he’s promised to do.
There's rational criticism to be against Biden but most the critical mass of outrage over his debate performance is hysterical * and takes air time from valid concerns regarding his ability to preserve the Union. *
Something I've noticed is that if something is posted with a positive view of Biden there's a fairly consistent pattern where it gets up voted initially but as the day gets later and more into the daytime hours of your Russia/China side of the world the down votes start to come in. One can speculate on that for what it's worth I guess...
Just to save someone a click... the news article doesn't have a video of biden saying this. It was apparently a quote in a conference call between DNC leadership or something
The way things are going he is either going to leave before the election or shortly after the election.
Did both parties want to have these two old president candidates? Feel to me like the system is not good designed here. Be proud of yourself - you have been the president of the United States of America! That should be enough.
Let the vice take over. No shame in that they got old.
We made our bed, now we gotta sleep in it.
"We" nothing. Biden and the Democratic powerbrokers being unable to see that he was going to be too old made this bed. I wasn't given any input into it. This is, by design, literally the first time he's been tested all campaign.
The rumored plan that came out of his campaign in 2020 was right, do a term stabilizing the nation as the oldest president in history, then pass it on to the next generation.
The DNC made our beds
This is our last chance to pressure him into retirement. If Biden runs, he's going to lose. The "get over yourself" isn't enough to push a win.
Yeah he's leaving.
He'll be announcing Friday on Morning Joe.
another four years in the retirement home for the US either way
Ah! We got some footage from the announcement