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People aren't even giving him crediting for beating Medicare!
/s
In all seriousness though, I just can't understand how someone can watch the 2020 debate and 2024 debate, and say the only thing wrong with Biden was his voice...
Like, he wasn't great in 2020, but 2024 made it sound like Obama in comparison.
The worst part is he was coherent afterwards. The fuck happened.
He's at his very best when it comes to small talk & happy talk with small crowds of people. Small lines, empty promises. Quick touch-and-go interactions. No opposition. In debates where he's required to explain himself, answer lines of questioning (without teleprompter), not so much.
It's also possible he got another shot of drugs post-debate to perk him up for the crowd of his own supporters.
I think he was massively over coached. Trying to fight to remember a ton of talking points and then getting them muddled up and stuck in that detail. He’d have been better off just freestyling it.
Seriously he just needed one or two dark brandon moments to get trump on tilt and it's smooth sailing from there. Oh well. I'll enjoy the dem campaign managers running around with their hair on fire while I can. They should've managed someone else into the spotlight years ago.
I hate that the can't have notes, they should have a whole team up there to craft the best answer because that's what I want them to do in real life, work as a team leveraging all available resources to make the best choice
My bet is that Trump's stream of bullshit just threw Biden off completely, and his quick recovery to that fiery speech was him getting pissed that he got curbstomped by Shitler in a debate
Next debate should hopefully be VERY different
No way should it have. In fact that should have been the literal one thing they were expecting.
Hence him getting pissed after. Embarassment due to being stomped by a strategy he knows about
I may be a shitlib for saying this but biden debated trump before and handled him. There's no reason he couldn't have handled him now, except his brain is soup. Trump's brain is likely in a similar situation, but seeing as he already spoke like a 3rd grader, the difference isn't as alarming.
If that's what's true then both him and his prep team failed horribly. Everyone knew that was going to be Trump strategy. That's a very common conservative strategy. There's even words for it I've seen multiple YouTube videos breaking this issue down. Just a constant stream of unending lies. It's what they do. There's no way to beat it directly. The only thing you can do is scoff at it and redirect to something else.
Oh yeah for sure. It's why I think his later fire is due to him being pissed - I'd be pissed at myself too if I got thrown off by something I should have KNOWN was coming
My bet is that Trump’s stream of bullshit just threw Biden off completely,
So, you think during those Camp David prep sessions everyone was talking about pre debate...
Not a single person expected trump would show up and act exactly like he has in the last two elections?
And you think it's fine to leave these people in charge of beating trump?
exactly.
Y'all nibbas need Jesus
The deflection that has caused every Democrat loss in recent history.
"Biden shit the bed. WhAt DiD tRuMp Do??!?!1/11!?"
he was coherent afterwards
He was reported coherent as soon as he was off camera.
Funny the way you mentioned Obama because you are spot on.
Obama was by far the best US president in recent history and maybe ever. Then the Dems just went like OK we'll never ever do something like that again.
Obama was by far the best US president in recent history and maybe ever.
If you ignore public policy and just fixate on optics, maybe.
If you ignore public policy and just fixate on optics
DNC: This is the way
Then the Dems just went like OK we’ll never ever do something like that again.
I mean, it's because instead of pulling the DNC left. He just abandoned it because it was a relic of the past and it was easier to just ignore the DNC and let state parties handle their own shit.
His mistake was not completely burning the DNC down. So after he left office and moderates retook control in 2016, they've made a lot of moves to ensure a moderate or Republican are the only two options.
People talk about how much Obama pissed off trump.
But its nothing compared to how much Obama pissed off "moderates".
But its nothing compared to how much Obama pissed off “moderates”.
Are you being fucking for real right now
Obama, and I say this as someone who has a positive opinion of Obama insofar as one can in the political environment that he came to power in, was very much himself a moderate. He didn't 'piss off' moderates. He was one.
Jesus Christ.
Are you kidding?
The Dems lost the house of representatives in Obama's years 3 and 4. Again in years 5 and 6. And then lost both the house of representatives and the Senate in Obama's years 7 and 8.
And you're wondering why they didn't make a big move left after? They lost control in 3 out of 4 elections under Obama. There is more than just the presidential election you know. The left voters never showed up after the first election.
(And imo Hilary did make a move left in climate change with the map room. And guess what, the left voters didn't show up.)
And guess what, the left voters didn’t show up.
To be fair, Clinton didn't show up in a lot of swing states, either. She just assumed her Blue Wall would vote for her.
So what do you as the informed left voter, that wants things to move left do? You vote for Dems. You don't wait to fall in love, you vote.
As a European, I miss seeing Obama being nice to everyone he meets. I also liked the tan suit btw.. Shame he didn't run again.
Biden has been a far more successful president than Obama when it comes to implementing policies in a progressive direction.
Obama was by far the best US president in recent history and maybe ever. Then the Dems just went like OK we'll never ever do something like that again.
Here's what I told someone else:
The Dems lost the house of representatives in Obama's years 3 and 4. Again in years 5 and 6. And then lost both the house of representatives and the Senate in Obama's years 7 and 8.
You need more than just the president. They lost in 3 out of 4 of Obama's cycles. And you're wondering why they aren't running to the left? They lost 3 out of 4.
You think they lost because Obama was too far to the left? He was extremely centrist in office.
Sigh.
Why was Obama center for 6 years? Because he didn't have control of Congress. You need Congress to pass anything. So he was forced to reach across the aisle.
Why? Because left voters never show up. And because left voters never show up, the Dems move to the center to find votes.
Left voters showed up to vote for him and then he basically abandoned the coalition he formed. He had a super majority and did like one, watered down Republican healthcare policy. He should've kept up the organizations and email lists he utilized to get into office to keep up the pressure on Congress in midterm elections, but that basically stopped as soon as he became President. He's not unusual in that regard, every President except for Trump, does this. But it's especially annoying for Obama because he had the closest to a broad coalition in recent history and it got him a super majority.
Bernie is basically the only Presidential candidate who has shown any awareness of how bottom up coalitions are used, not just to get one into office, but to continue to pressure with the power of the people. That's why socialists were excited for him. Because he would've been an organizer-in-chief. Every other politician rules the same standard way.
Well, Trump does a bit of the organizing thing, too, makes good use of the bully pulpit, and keeps up his movement between election cycles, but mostly to keep himself in power and enrich himself from them. Still, he's done a similar thing of gotten a lot of non-voters to show up, and pushed the party right. Democrats could do the same thing, and actually push the party left if they wanted to try, instead of showing open contempt for leftists, but it's admittedly harder because you'd have to fight the corporate owned media and pass legislation, or show you're actually trying hard to help normal people in public.
He’s not unusual in that regard, every President except for Trump, does this. But it’s especially annoying for Obama because he had the closest to a broad coalition in recent history and it got him a super majority.
Every president does this, right. The DNC will only let in presidents who do this, who never reach out to their voterbase, and instead focus on an increasingly shrinking, aging, middle class centrist population. So they can then go out and every single time compromise with republicans on policy that makes them look good, and then basically be the exact same on most other policy issues, most notably on foreign policy. Then when they don't get anything done, oh, well, oh darn it's gonna be by the metric of whoever the rotating super-corrupt bad guy is in the DNC, by whatever margin they might need. Oops, looks like you guys needed to all vote harder to get rid of manchin and sinema.
Point this all out, and people will call you a conspiratorial "both sides" -ing nutcase, but then people plod along every election with basically all of this baked in as a ground floor assumption, and the same exact strategy as always, and then are either surprised when it blows up and nothing happens, or they stand around with their hands in their pockets and bloviate about how everyone else just needed to vote harder, even though people will endlessly point out about how we have an electoral college, so it doesn't matter, how the candidates pushed in the primary are guaranteed to be institution candidates, so it doesn't matter, how voting districts are gerrymandered to shit, how we live in a two party fptp system, how studies confirm that well-funded political interest groups and lobbyists shape policy. How even if we give consistent and overwhelming victories we've been shown no indication that things are going to change beyond this, further down the line, because no change is even being attempted earlier on with less power.
They've actually shown the opposite by trying to outflank trump on whoever can be the most racist to migrants. They're totally unwilling to even briefly entertain the idea that they could or should actually take a progressive stance on that issue, or try to explain how maybe migrants are all pretty much more chill than your average american, so instead their genius-level play is to try to take the same position as the guy who's entire deal has been how racist he can be to migrants. It's like they basically want to lose and keep the pendulum swinging.
It's nuts, I don't understand how nobody's seeing this shit, we're totally cooked.
Ok Obama and ACA (or more broadly his first two years). He likely reached out for two reasons. One: he wanted to mend the divisions after Bush’s disastrous wars. Get the country unified and back on track and all that jazz. Two: any intelligent candidate knows it’s unlikely they’re going to have control of Congress for all eight years, so he wanted to come off as reasonable and could be worked with, so that he could still accomplish things later in his presidency. I barely blame him for that. Who knew that the GOP was going to explode and become obstructionist to that degree because a half black man got elected. (BTW Biden learned from that and said nuts to it, he’s doing what needs to be done. Biden ran center, but is acting left. Let's see if it costs him the election when left voters don't turn out.)
And what was the thanks for the most progressive healthcare legislation? He lost control for the next 6 years. And then the GOP tried their hardest to overturn it. (So no, not a watered down Republican healthcare policy. They fucking hate it.)
pressure with the power of the people
It's congress. The house or reps and the senate. It's not the people, it's congress. That's why Obama couldn't do much for his last 6 years. He lost control of the house of reps and the senate.
And to further prove this point, congress even shut down the fucking government under obama. That's where the power is. Bernie or obama or bill clinton, doesn't fucking matter. It's CONGRESS.
Democrats could do the same thing,
Dems need all 3 of presidency, house of reps, and senate to pass anything. They've had all 3 for 4 years of the last 24 years. And when they don't have that they need to reach across the aisle to do something as basic as pass a budget.
The GOP needs only one of those to block literally everything. That's mostly what the GOP wants to do: Block progress. Hit the big giant pause button on society. And they can do that with only 1 of those, which they've had for 20 years of the least 24 years.
That's the unfortunate reality of progress. Progress takes all 3 houses. Progress takes time, effort, and hard work.
Stagnation (or regression) requires fuck all.
So no, the Dems can't go left like the GOP goes right. If you want things to go left, then you need to give Dems consistent and overwhelming victories on all 3 houses.
The problem is even when they have control they can barely do anything because of dumb rules like the filibuster, or blue dog senators.
Biden also doesn't act very left. He's passed a couple good pieces of legislation, but he doesn't support popular movements like labor strikes and prefers to make backroom deals (which residues their power for the future organizing), and he's very staunchly pro genocide for some reason, and been as hard on the border as Trump. He's just not as fascist as Trump but don't let the skewed Overton Window deceive you. He's a centrist moderate Democrat, like an Obama who learned to stop trying to reason with Republicans earlier and picked a few really good people for some cabinet positions (not Blinken, but like for the Secretary of the Interior BLM or FTC) and many meh people for others.
Biden is acting more left than expected. Because when you run against an incumbent (when he ran against Trump) you run a center candidate. You then have that candidate for 8 years. Considering that, he's pretty left with the green energy, trains, student debt, weed, drug prices, and yes unions, etc. I don't blame him for stopping the rail workers from striking. A rail strike would be absolutely devastating for the economy.