Joe Biden ends re-election campaign

Well, to be fair, he should have stepped down a year ago, or at least 3 months ago. I vaguely remember him saying he was going to be a 1 term candidate in 2020.

Anyway, I respect Biden. I honestly think he was a better president than Obama, Bush, Trump and Clinton. Perhaps the best since Carter or JFK.

Those are not necessarily the same people.

But there is no good option here. The good option would have been to run a good candidate over a year ago. That time has obviously long since passed.

Many of the people involved in such agitation are not arguing in good faith. They simply want to attack the 'libs' at every opportunity, and reality be damned.

This was an astroturfing campaign covering our media and also via bots on social media.

I watched the debate and while he was slower, and mixed up words he actually was aware of US goals and challenges (despite what media tried to imply), trump was more energetic but he was constantly spewing nonsense, and while part of it was lying as usual, part of it was clear that he was actually getting lost.

I even wrote that in certain that if Biden steps down the same bots will start campaign how Democrats were cheated to discourage them from voting (like it was worth Bernie).

I'm definitively voting for Kamala now no matter what ridiculous bullshit they will come up on her on September-October (you can be sure there will be some scandal that will turnout to be nothing burger after election). I got fooled (like a lot of people) in 2016 to vote 3rd party and we got trump.

Republicans are actually a minority they can only win if they discourage enough people from voting. That's why they are against laws that that make voting easier.

I actually was hoping Biden would run as he has great experience with foreign leaders as well as very successful reaching compromises and passing bills that otherwise wouldn't fly.

As I say though I will 100% vote for Kamala (or whomever will be the democratic candidate), definitively not the fascist party and in fact anyone on Democrats side looks good.

One thing I appreciate about Canadian elections is how quickly they happen. An election is called, campaigning is like a month or two and then we find out the new government just hours after casting our votes.

I’m excited AF… maybe the people you’re reading are republican plants that are just trying to make it feel like chaos.

The fact that this happened the weekend after the RNC makes me feel it was very well planned.

Not speaking for the rest of the thread, but...

1. Biden should have said he wasn't up for reelección since day 1
2. The Democratic Party hasn't known what to do since the 2016 election... at least.

It's been chaos in the comments for a while now this is just catharsis for a lot of people and reaffirming for some of the naysayers.
You are gonna see a lot of takes from a lot of terminally online types.

Now just comes the actual work and it's gonna look chaotic for a while. I hope we get it together.

Lemmy posters are not a monolith.

Ever since the debate, people have been calling for Joe Biden to step down

Yes, some.

Now I read the comments and everyone is criticizing and accusing the Democrats of not knowing what they’re doing

Yes, others.

Different people speak up on different days. This is especially true in social media where often people won't speak up if they know they're going to get jumped on.

You're seeing the people who either didn't agree he should step down or agreed but didn't think they'd actually do it.

Ever since the debate, people have been calling for Joe Biden to step down from the presidential race and give the place to someone else. ... Now I read the comments and everyone is criticizing and accusing the Democrats of not knowing what they're doing?

Lol, you thought those people were arguing in good faith.

I mean many here openly support Putin too, what can you do

They're not the same people.

All of this should have been done a couple years ago for presidential hopefuls to gather resources and prepare for the elections. The assumption that Biden was seeking a second term stalled a lot of minor steps needed to build a campaign. Biden stepping down a month before the DNC is gonna be a shit show. Who's gonna run for becoming a candidate? How are they gonna fundraise quickly enough to get the word out? This is a clusterfuck of poorly timed decisions and I only hope the new candidate can gather enough support to win the presidential election. Given the Democratic party's penchant of favoring people from their inner circle, I doubt they'll be well received by the general public to begin with.

Personally the best news I've heard in a while. I think there is a little bit of a knee jerk reaction happening because a lot is on the line and people are scared because it's such an unknown right now. When things settle more and the smoke clears I think everything will be more positive.

The fact the the DNC didn't have a contingency plan while running the oldest candidate ever is just insane.

The DNC has been fumbling for years and years now. Anyone else remember 2016?

Americans aren't a monolith.

I personally just said last week that I believed only Biden was capable of beating Trump, so I’m feeling pretty sick right now. God, I hope I’m wrong.

We haaaaaavvvvvve to see this example and set a damn age limit for people to hold such high positions in our country. Old dude may have very well just sent us down an irreversible and utterly destructive path by seeking the office in the first place.

I know Bernie Sanders is old too, but damn I wish he had won the nomination. We wouldn’t be in this crisis right now. Still though, it’s a gamble electing people who are already waist deep in their grave.

Man

What a strange and historic month this has been. We’re all living in a very big moment in history right now, just, all the way around.

I think part of the reason it feels like "wtf are you doing?!?" is because we were really saying "Joe needs to step the fuck up or step aside" and then in the last week he's thrown some absolute hard hits at Trump making it look like "holy shit, we got old Joe back!". Then suddenly after appearing to wake up, he goes "nah, I'm good.".

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's stepping aside. But it's been a bit of a rollercoaster and not a very consistent message. They kept telling us to shut up and follow Biden and anyone who doesn't is supporting facism and then suddenly, "nah, not Biden, it's cool"? You can't pump a rhetoric machine up and then expect the brakes to stop it instantly.

people have been calling for Joe Biden to step down

everyone is criticizing and accusing the Democrats of not knowing what they’re doing

You say 'people' and 'everyone' where you may really mean to say 'republicans' and 'russians'.

I don't think it's the same people wanting him to drop out vs sad that he did drop out. Or they did want him to drop out because he's aging but they are sad that he did because he was a good president.

It's just an anecdote, but I've experienced a lot of people saying "I'd vote for a dead dog over Trump", who for some reason still wouldn't back a democrat that didn't look like and sound like a mummy.

Yes some of us been paying attention to who is backing him and who wasn't. Some of us had noticed that all the leftists in the party were still behind Joe Biden while all the neoliberals weren't. Some of us have noticed that the president who has protected worker rights and expanded consumer protection and wants to tax the wealthy is getting pushed out by the corporate Democrats.

It's not people wanting a fair process. It's maga. They want a king.

Not everyone is posting in good faith. Some are shit stirrers. Some may be paid trolls.

Also, the people who were saying he should step down might not be the same people today saying it's a bad idea.

Lemmy, as opposed to reddit, has seemed to be very much on the Keep Biden train for some reason.

I for one will be happy with any candidate that can do two to three campaign appearances per day for the next four months and doesn't have the Genocide Joe baggage. Everything else is gravy.

The comments you saw aren't by the same people or are they?

I think you're remembering it wrong and comparing different groups of people.

I'm ecstatic of Biden dropping. It's no longer a sure loss for the D's...there's a glimmer of hope for us after all.

There's multiple people on here with multiple opinions, and those opinions are subject to change as new information arises.

I don’t understand you people in this thread.

Goes to show how many of these people were disingenuous and never actually wanted the party to win regardless. Some of those people operate on the far right. Some of them were just Trumpers in disguise, foreign operators, bots, etc. It's a lot of bullshit. I'm looking forward to supporting Kamala though.

They’re doing EXACTLY what needs to be done if they want to win.

How would this help them win exactly? I'm not really well tuned with politics

Lemmy isn't a monolith, including the ones in this thread. I've seen as many people calling for him to drop out as those saying he should say. End of the day, none of us have anything valuable to say you should be relying on for insight.

Holy shit you think you're anxious? Some of us are stuck living here. It's not actually that easy to emigrate to Canada (bet you guys did that for a reason...).

Yeah, I actually feel good about these news. I don't get all the criticism.

I think people are angry about the timing. It feels like too little, too late. If he had made the decision at the beginning of the year, then sure. But now it’ll be rushed, and people won’t be able to agree on a single candidate. And people are worried that, due to the resulting lack of agreement, a split vote will hand the win to Trump.

I am cautiously hopeful for harris. I 100% thi k she can win.

The internet isn’t a place to draw an understanding of politics. The internet isn’t even a place to draw an understanding of the internet.

They're doomers

I didn't say any of that. With only four months until the election, I think this is kind of dumb.

There's going to be people pushing on both sides pushing either way, some with honest intentions/beliefs, some just bots/bad actors trying to amp up the chaos. It's impossible to tell how this plays out at the point though, but it does have the potential to be a really good thing for the Democratic campaign. Unfortunately, Democrats have a way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, so I'm not overly optimistic of our chances. I hope they get somebody smart, younger, and charismatic who just completely blows the Right out of the water this election and completely changes the trajectory of this country... but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'll vote for whomever is not Trump, to try to prevent the takeover of literal fascists.

people have been calling for Joe Biden to step down from the presidential race

Pretty sure that was a DNC campaign to coup biden. Sure people had opinions both ways but what you are talking about was a psyop to turn public opinion.

Across all socials and teevee, it was laddered and in sync.

I think this is a side effect of sharing and discussion these events online, especially in a link aggregator like Lemmy. You can you see inconsistent views presented in multiple threads yet they feel as if you’re interacting with the same group of people.

Some people are happy about this turn of events while others are not. I expect that you’re seeing differing major opinions from separate groups of people.

People are scared. Most of the ones calling for Biden to drop out were just parroting popular opinion, with the rest uncertain where him actually dropping will take us. I think your feelings are valid here, though to give people some credit: At least we made the right choice. Immediately after the debate I wasn't sure if Joe dropping out was a good idea. After the Miss Heard Around the World I strongly felt he had no choice.

Time for Part whatever on this several part series, I guess. BOOTSTRAPS IT IS.

WOW IT'S ALMOST AS IF ANY LARGE GROUPING OF PEOPLE WILL HAVE MEMBERS THAT DON'T COMPLETELY ALIGN WITH ALL THE GROUP'S VALUES AND GOALS!

I just worry about who they select as replacement…. Unfortunately Kamala doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell since she’s a non-white female, one of those features is maybe surmountable but both eliminates so many so called “centrists” from casting a blue vote to do their misogyny and bigotry.

If the democrats nominate Kamala it’s just handing Trump the win since so many of my countrymen are racist or misogynistic

It's because progressives were tripping over themselves to agree with AOC yesterday. Now that it's been shown how out of touch she is, they are backpedaling to argue Biden should not have dropped out.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/johnson-replacing-biden-ticket-wrong-unlawful/story?id=112129063

Because it will be contested.

Biden absolutely did the right thing and, perhaps, the most courageous thing.

Democrats would have coalesced around him if decided to keep going but we've been begging him to step aside. This is a key difference between Trump "fans" and Biden voters. We're not drawn to him as a personality.

Once a candidate is selected, I don't care who it is, we must support them because not doing so is voting for an end to democracy.

The fact that we're here is a travesty.

People have done more with less campaign time and he will go down as having listened and done what was requested of the people and party I honestly think this says a lot of good stuff about the democratic party and Biden once we get the spin right.

It'll be great to have a woman talking about abortion and making this election a referendum on national abortion access.

Americans love to vote for something rather than against something.

Nobody who would consider voting for Trump is going to vote for whoever replaces Biden. Nobody. This is about getting apathetic voters off their butt. Which I hope works, but every part of my being is telling me they're going to pick someone who apathetic voters wouldn't vote for anyway.

I'm so thankful I live in a country where 4 months is (still) believed to be a ridiculously long amount of time to campaign.

Good luck America! Please show the rest of the world you're still capable of making sane choices.

Except for the bank of those who are just Russian agents who will undoubtedly find some new “excuse” why the Democrat candidate is not fit to run.

Giving up power is way more respectable than trying to hold onto power. Something Biden's opponent, now Harris's opponent isn't good at.

There's a lot of people that are old and don't follow politics all that closely. Biden's story of having to accept that he's gotten too old to do the things he wants to do is a story they can relate to. The guy they can relate to most is endorsing Harris. It's not like he's gone. He can still make speeches about how the GOP wants to cut Social Security and his friend Kamala won't do that.

But, when democrats lose due to this move.... ????

I would have preferred him to stay on course. While I don't care what sex they are or color or whatever, a fuckload of garbage twats in this country sure as fuck do. Biden was also likeable in public appearances. I have fuck all idea what Harris is like, and 5y of time vs like 4 months to win public opinion, oof it will be an absolute blitz. And I consider myself rather knowledgeable and up-to-date on US politics. I have friends that have no idea what's going on at any given time, or why.

I need to research her now and become familiar, but I see this as a big negative for chances, not positive. Anxiety spiked hard about what's to come.

Anyone in Canada looking for a roommate..?

It would be an awful lot easier than trying to salvage Biden’s image as it stands. If they do it right this should be super easy, but if they drag their heels on the changes necessary then it might be a lot harder.

This is BIG opportunity to rebrand and show what really matters to the party.

If, and that’s a big if, they choose to field a moderately likeable replacement, there’s a chance they can actually re-energize the campaign and voters and get a big boost with a fresh face. That’s a big if though.

Yes they can. This is the right choice. Democrats will be more energized than ever now. Hopeful they keep it open to the delegates to vote at the convention after a few people step forward.

Other countries have pulled out elections in two weeks. The us may not have that experience though. The campaign however had been directed at his opponent's well known incompetence and malice. That may be the advantage of divisive politics.

Other countries have whole campaign seasons that are shorter. We’ve just gotten used to multi-year campaigns and never-ending reelection efforts. It wasn’t always like this, and I don’t think it’s good for us long-term.

They have the media bomb of "no incumbent" leading the headlines. This is one of the only media maneuvers that would change the conversation from "That Trump overcame assassination and adversity!" At this point a major shift was needed.

The year and a half back log of memes against Biden that right wing contractors have saved up are now worthless. The right will have 3 months to make a cohesive media smear campaign (which they can do against the right candidate) but it will require lots of downtime as the high paid think tanks make astroturf.

Plenty of other countries' electoral campaigns advance far faster than Americans expect theirs to move, and US media is talking about politics all the damn time. If the Dems don't do a massive screw up somehow, I think they'll find out that switching the candidate will be far easier than they were expecting.