She's right. It's annoying at best to have these people saying Biden is a problem, without articulating at least an idea of who should be nominated and how that would work this late in the game.
In my opinion, it's quite similar to Brexit: maybe you can get a majority coalition to disapprove of the status quo, but good luck getting them to actually propose a more popular alternative. Much less proposing an actual procedure for getting that alternative onto ballots.
Structurally and functionally, our political systems are not set up to run anyone other than the person who won the primary. Changing a presumptive nominee this late in the cycle is fraught with potential complications, but can be done if there's sufficient support for a specific alternative candidate. Realistically, it's Biden or it's Harris. There's no feasible way to get someone else at the top of the ticket.
Everyone can agree on something being an issue but there needs to be consensus on solutions
Personally I think Kamala Harris is a viable plan. She's already VP, she's instantly recognizable, and she's also polling well against trump.
And honestly I'm starting to think the plan might be something along the lines of "Keep Biden in until after the election then scoot Harris in under the 25th amendment"
I don't know if she can. There's still a lot of latent racism and misogyny in American culture, and she'd have to overcome both. Bidens old, but he's a he and the color of skin that's important, for some reason. I wish it weren't so, but it is. I think she could beat a Jeb Bush hands down, but Trump has a knack for flaming those racist and misogynistic feelings in people that aren't usually that way.
Also, she is the VP of the incumbent administration. Any complaints people have about Biden, other than his personal age, also can be applied to her. Economy? Immigration? Isreal/Gaza? All Harris' administration. Doesn't matter that she has little input or control of any of those, she is the VP, Trump and Conservatives will blame her all the way until election day, and Fox/Conservative media will be there to parrot and distribute the word.
She can just say Biden made the decisions, because it's true. Forget how Fox propagandizes things. If you think they have that power to shape reality, we've already lost. Everyone else will take a statement of "that was something I disagreed with, but it was Joe's choice" at face value, because we all know VPs are powerless.
It's amusing to see people ponder whether a black person could become president, or use that as essentially an argument against running a black candidate.
You're about 16 years late to the party.
Are there LOTS of racists and misogynists out there? Yeah, absolutely. But if you discount candidates based on what you think the bigots will do, you're just preemptively doing their discrimination for them.
Saying, "I don't think we should run a black female candidate because of the racists", and saying, "I don't think we should run a black female candidate because I'm racist" has the same net effect.
There is a precedent of a black president, but there is still no precedent of a woman president... and the reaction to a female candidate after Obama, was Trump.
Running a black woman candidate, is both unprecedented for the misogynism AND for the combination. The barely 8 year old precedent of voters picking an obvious con artist over a white woman, points to misogynism being still a serious issue in the US.
IMHO, the best that could happen would be having Biden re-elected, then him deciding he's no longer capacitated, and the job defaulting onto Harris. But if Biden can't make it to the polls... well, SOL.
The reaction to Hillary Clinton was Trump. A wicker chair painted red would have beaten Hillary. Holding her up as indicative of the general sentiment towards women as leaders is about as far from accurate interpretation of 2016 as you can get. Notice how many people are suggesting Whitmer or even Michele Obama to run (nevermind Harris, obviously), but no one is suggesting Clinton?
Heh, not sure about a wicker chair (LOL)... she's 76 now, so definitely not an option. Maybe I didn't follow US politics too closely in 2016, were there other women running in the primaries back then?
In 2019, Elizabeth Warren was leading in the primaries (and both she and Sanders were ahead of Biden), until Super Tuesday when a bunch of the centrist candidates dropped out together and jointly endorsed Biden, in order for them not to go to a contested convention.
"Keep Biden in until after the election then scoot Harris in under the 25th amendment"
That's the worst possible plan, IMO. Biden can lead, I would be fine with him being president for another 4 years. The issue is he can't win against Donald Trump. He was behind in all swing states, and that was before the debate, multiple gaffes and speech mistakes, moments of confusion and freezing, etc...
I think it's healthy to have these conversations, although not this late in the game. At the very least, the Trump campaign would need to completely shift if someone else is nominated which would set them back a bit.
I doubt anyone who was going to vote for Biden before the debate changed their mind and decided to vote for Trump afterwards. The biggest concern is people who have not been paying attention to the news and getting them to mobilize on election day. If the Democrats can't get people excited to vote, then we'll have another 4 more years of Trump.
It's also not just voting, but donations and volunteering. People don't think Biden can win, so they're directing efforts to other candidates. Exciting those that are already team players has real impacts.
Biden may very well not survive to the election. Plenty of people were raising concerns about his age and the physical and mental decline that were patently obvious four years ago, and were briskly told to shut the fuck up.
Run Harris. That’s the solution, because the democrats are allergic to actually cultivating new leaders.
If there is a rule written down somewhere, then follow those rules if they want.
The DNC is a private organization, they can do whatever they want for whatever reason they want.
It probably wouldn't make everyone happy if they skipped steps in their normal procedures, but I say "When has the DNC ever cared about making everyone happy?" It's a big tent with a foundation of begrudging compromise. Some people will be upset, but they have months to get over it.
You think Biden will get younger? The media will stop covering his fuck ups every time he steps foot in front of a camera? I don't see how Biden can gain so much ground short of discovering the fountain of youth.
To my point- that's all I've ever heard about a Biden presidency.
Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely in "vote blue no matter who" mode. That said, if I can vote for someone that I actually like and that I feel has a better chance of winning, then all the better.
Move Biden left in 2020 became just take Biden again 2024. I will keep the language US centric. Democrats are surprised they are losing progressives by appeasing conservatives and moderates. A better progressive option is Jill Stein or Dr. Cornel West. Would be surprising for a coalition between Democrats and Greens.