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I don't understand you people in this thread.
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? Are you for real? They're doing EXACTLY what people have been asking for. They're doing EXACTLY what needs to be done if they want to win.
Fucking hell you guys, make up your fucking mind.
Sincerely,
A Canadian with severe anxiety over your next presidential election.
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.
I vaguely remember him saying he was going to be a 1 term candidate in 2020.
You're correct, he did. Everyone forgot that for some reason. Note that this article is from 2019:
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129
Another top Biden adviser put it this way: “He’s going into this thinking, ‘I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection.’ But he’s not going to publicly make a one term pledge.”
That source does not say what you're claiming it says.
Which is ironic, because he picked Harris then used her as the bearer of bad news at every single opportunity.
So add those together and it implies he doesn't think Harris has the chops. But, to be fair, if that was actually the plan, they would've given her much more PR over the last 4 years.
If it weren't Trump running I think he would have stepped aside. He believed in 2019, and probably still believes now, that he has the best chance against Trump and that Trump is a singularly existential threat.
it implies he doesn’t think Harris has the chops
Or that he changed his mind. Or that his assurances to aides that he wouldn't run for a second term were just to shut them up.
Power is seductive, and I think it's pretty likely that once he became president, he convinced himself that he was still the best one for the job, and that he uniquely deserved to continue to govern.
It feels like they have explicitly tried to prevent Kamala from getting positive coverage throughout.
He very specifically did not say publicly that he would be a 1 term president. Talking through the idea with aides and someone leaking it does not equal a campaign promise.
This is a new decision, obviously. He is going to be a 1 term president. But he never promised it.
Your own source contradicts this claim…doesn’t look like we forgot about anything.
Well, he didn't lie.
I vaguely remember him saying he was going to be a 1 term candidate in 2020.
He specifically denied that when asked. To be fair he did say he was a "bridge to a new generation" or something, that's where I think a lot of people are getting this one term commitment thing from.
All the sane countries can do their elections in less than a year, possibly because the stagecoach is no longer the best transportation or communication option. If you guys didn't run it like American Fucking Idol, maybe it wouldn't be this difficult.
Now I'll go sit in the corner and hope for the best for you guys while waiting to see if my country shits the bed in a year.
Biden definitely learned something from watching the Republicans screw Obama again and again.
Better president than Obama????? Nah... I miss those days. You just... like.... lived your life. Not worried about the president. He just did things. Improvement of the economy was slow, but there were regulations put in place to prevent the recession from happening again that slowed the growth. I am OK with that. Trump immediately repealed them and Biden never attempted to reinstate anything. So it will happen again.
I agree.
I'm pretty sure he said he wasn't going to run for a 2nd term on the Smartless podcast
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.
The US "election cycle" is insane. You don't need to be running a candidate over a year before the election. 3 months is more than enough time to tell people who your candidate is and what they are running on, and you have more than 3 months.
Yes, it would have been better to announce earlier, but jesus christ he is too fucking old for this shit. Stepping back now is still better than pushing through.
The longer the cycle is made, the more people can be distracted from the actual politics and the more it matters who gets the most money.
You can't just launder $2B of campaign contributions overnight. You need a year or two to filter it credibly through pundits, consultants, pollsters, and advertisers.
Basically, you can
Especially with how calcified the voting population is. Each candidate has something like a 44% floor of people who already know they're going to vote for "the Democratic candidate" and the only question is how many of them actually go to the polls and what the remaining randos decide. And only in a handful of swing states. Most of the system is already predetermined.
Bro, we start selling a Christmas decorations in July in the US. People need to be making money off this shit.
I agree the timeframe isn’t the main issue. It’s more concerning that the nominee isn’t getting selected through the primaries/caucuses where actual voters are involved in choosing the nominee.
Well now we have an old fascist, convicted felon, geezer that has no business running the country.
The good option would have been to run a good candidate over a year ago.
"Eight years ago" is indeed "over a year ago."
dead horse pummeling sounds
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.
I got fooled (like a lot of people) in 2016 to vote 3rd party and we got trump.
So rare to see someone actually say these words outside of pointing the finger at others. Kudos.
Biden was definitely good.
It's a shame he had to compromise though. But it got things pushed through, like you said.
He's just too old. Democrats need fresh blood.
Also, I wonder if that COVID ain't kicking his ass right now. Being so old, it's possible he won't even survive. Who knows.
He has the best medical help one could get, I don't think covid would kill him, but I think covid could be what finally made him realize how fragile he is and what would happen if he would die just before the election.
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.
You're a non-global superpower with a total population smaller than California, 90% of which lives 100 miles or less from the US border. It would be bizarre if your elections were as complicated as the United States.
This is your brain on American exceptionalism lmao
The United States isn't an exception here. There are many other countries with larger populations and/or that have dramatic geopolitical influence. Canada just isn't one of them.
Isn't the UK's voting process basically identical to Canada's?
The UK is smaller than Oregon.
Are American politicians visiting each citizen individually? The internet exists, population size does not limit how quickly you can get information out.
US elections are definitively complicated, but for no good reason. It is a lot because of the complex old laws, traditions, first-past-the-post and that primary elections don't happen together but individually in different states over a period of one year.
If we would just use the popular vote to decide the election and use ranked choice voting we would have election done much faster and would pickup a candidate, that most people would be happy with.
RCV already showed in Alaska that it makes it very hard for the least desirable candidate to win when there are two better candidates that people are divided over (i.e. with FPTP Palin (who most Alaskans hate) would normally win)
EU Parliament elections are fast like the Canadian too. It can definitely be done at a large scale.
Not speaking for the rest of the thread, but...
- Biden should have said he wasn't up for reelección since day 1
- The Democratic Party hasn't known what to do since the 2016 election... at least.
I haven’t known what to do since the 2016 election. The “Fuck your feelings” bunch are clearly in their feels and ignoring documented events in what most of us call “reality “.
The Democratic Party hasn’t known what to do since the 2016 election…at least
The Democrats have won nationally in 2018, 2020, arguably 2022, and like 85% of special elections since 2016. What the fuck are you talking about? They’ve been basically non-stop winning elections since 2016.
And yet we still don’t have abortion protections, gunshot wounds are the #1 cause of death in children, the housing market is on fire, the “minimum wage should be $15” conversation has been going on for so long that it should be nearly $30 now, there is an activist republican supermajority in the SCOTUS, and there are openly fascist candidates as republican front runners because the Overton window has shifted so far right.
Democrats haven’t been winning elections because people have been excited about good democrat candidates; They have been winning because democrat voters are terrified of a republican in office.
Not only that, Republicans often begin undermining their opponent's reputation from day one, spending nearly four years focused on convincing the public that Biden is ineffective. Now, all that effort is erased at the most crucial time of the election. They no longer have years to shape public perception. This sets the stage for a fairer fight, and Harris is a more compelling speaker than Biden. I believe It was a good play.
Biden was perfectly fine and IMO and him and his team do an excellent job at governing l, both domestically as well as with foreign policy (this looks like it was mostly him). He just let go of the pressure.
I would vote for him (not just against trump, but I genuinely think he was good at his job), but will vote for whomever will be the replacement (because I don't want trump to win).
Agree.
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.
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.
It's actually surreal to see more people with sane takes on Lemmy than Reddit, but here we are lol. Good on ya everybody
you thought those people were arguing in good faith
'are'
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.
None of those things matter if he can't campaign effectively to beat his opponent.
That's true, which is why I'm voting for whoever replaces them. I just can't view this as a victory.
I think he's just really sick with COVID and maybe thinks he doesn't stand a chance of recovering so he's stepping down in anticipation of him maybe passing away.
I think he has the best healthcare in the world, way beyond what the rest of us can even imagine. I think he's gonna be fine.
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.
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.
I said that when there were only a dozen comments in the thread at first. Other people have posted since then.
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.
IMO what is happening are disinformation bots trying to discourage people from voting.
It was first that you should stay home and not vote, because Democrats put an "old geezer who is not aware what is happening around him", now the same bots will be saying how Democrats were cheated by deciding their candidate without input of the voters, trying to replicate the upset that was over Bernie in 2016.
IMO I think Biden was excellent at governing, and no one will be as good as him when taking with foreign leaders, as he knew them all and had a good relation with them.
Having said that I will be voting for whomever Democrats put up (Kamala or anyone). I already got fooled to vote 3rd party in 2016 and won't make the same mistake.
I mean many here openly support Putin too, what can you do
It's fun, Lemmy having an option for searching user comments. See a user make a suss comment? Search their comments for 'Ukraine'. If they're a fascist, there's a good chance they can't help themselves but start talking about "Russia's legitimate security concerns" or "2014 coup"
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.
Non-issue. Kamala Harris is the heir apparent.
Who is a black woman. Which means that unfortunately she has a pretty steep uphill battle to win the presidency.
In fact I think it would drive more of the non voting republicans to the polls.
Honest question, are there that many non voting Republicans? They tend to be pretty rabid.
Honestly I don't know, but I assume just like with democrats there is a large poor population that normally cant make it to voting.
And with a black women running for president i just see the racists and sexists organizing more to help bring those voters in.
Obama won pretty hard though despite the racism, there were more people excited to see a black president than there were racists (although obviously there as a lot of vocal racism as well).
If Kamala tells a convincing story, I could see it working well.
True.
You know who would've been a good candidate in my opinion?
Pete Buttigieg.
They're not the same people.
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.
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 agree. Age limit for senators, state representatives, presidents and supreme court members.
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.
Lemmy is full of wealth social liberals who would rather be conservative if it wasn't for the fascism. So they think things should just stay the same as long as possible for them to feel comfortable in their life. But argue they are progressive cause they have trans friends.
I'm pretty happy with this change and have been rallying for it for 4 years.
Yeah, unfortunately people don't understand that, of the IT guys and linux users and sysadmins that are gonna be most likely to want to migrate over here as a result of reddit going to shit, a lot of those are going to be furries and trans people, sure. But the other half of that demographic is gonna be the most incredible middle class financial anxiety liberal grifter white dudes you've ever seen, no question.
Yeah I don't think any other candidate will stop supporting Israel, unfortunately. That's just US policy.
Americans aren't a monolith.
It's not people wanting a fair process. It's maga. They want a king.
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!
LoL username checks out.
If I had an upvote for every time someone thought that was even slightly original...
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.
I want to see actual demographics of the various Lemmy instances for this reason. There are tons of very loud and confident opinions but based on the simple facts they get wrong, there must be a large number of non-Americans or edgy teens who can't vote or wouldn't vote anyway.
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.
In Biden's defence he has Covid and that probably is really making him feel his age right about now.
Seriously, I was seeing banger ads I hadn't seen from him before as recently as last night
COVID probably ain't doing him any good, honestly.
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.
AOC posted hard core support for Biden just yesterday. Which makes be sad because I think she's great but she's obviously not even close to the inner circle with that timing. She could have convinced a lot of leftists that Biden was the best chance for a win, and now they feel betrayed. For the record I am glad he stepped down. I would even support a new one month primary campaign.
If someone could convince Jon Stewart to run we'd have fascism defeated in the bag. I understand he doesn't want the job, but I think the best person for the job would be someone who doesn't want it.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/johnson-replacing-biden-ticket-wrong-unlawful/story?id=112129063
Because it will be contested.
Just like everything else? They also contested the 2020 election but that doesn't mean they actually had the truth or law on their side. I don't know why you're giving any weight to what Mike Johnson says.
The Democratic candidate is chosen at the convention, which hasn't happened yet. What would a legal contest even be based on?
It doesn't matter. They can make up whatever justification they want and drag it through the court system. Maybe they get it up to the Supreme Court and get the win handed to them like in Bush v. Gore.
If you think things are that off the rails then it doesn't matter whether this is the inciting event or something else because they're completely disconnected from even the premise of law.
It certainly seems to be that way.
Booooo
from the article
Election law expert Richard Hasen wrote that there is "no credence" to the notion that the Democratic Party could not legally replace Biden on the ticket, as he is not the nominee yet -- the nominating process generally takes place during the Democratic National Convention.
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.
I think you're remembering it wrong and comparing different groups of people.
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 think it is a great time to try to take the news cycle away from Trump. Now just keep dropping big news.
Harris has already announced her candidacy. It will be difficult for anyone else to seriously challenge. Especially if/when Biden endorses her.
Everybody not voting for Trump WILL have to vote for wherever the Democrats pick.
What choice is there if we don't want Trump to be elected?
I disagree, simply because democrats are statistically much less likely to vote at all. There are more democrats than republicans, but history has shown that they simply don’t turn up to the voting booth when they don’t like the current pick. Maybe the fear of Trump will be enough to get them in to vote… But that was Biden’s strategy for getting votes too, and look how well that panned out for him.
There's multiple people on here with multiple opinions, and those opinions are subject to change as new information arises.
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
It was becoming more and more apparent that Biden didn't stand a chance of winning, so staying in would've just handed the presidency to Trump. Now that he's dropped out, the Democratic party can at least do something.
That was the narrative pushed by media and bots. According to https://www.270towin.com/ it doesn't look like even assassination attempt had any impact. Also the polls really start to matter after conventions.
Yeah Polls show that Hillary has this and we don't have to try anything different cause people will agree with me simply because I'm right, right?
Can you stop calling people bots and trying to still throw blame around the party and just get in line like your type keeps telling everyone else too?
Well there are bots that are influencing others and there are the influenced people.
Biden wasn't losing in polls despite the narrative, he is also extremely good at foreign policy and also was able to sneak some progressive things in bills. I don't expect younger candidates to do well in that environment unless we get an absolute majority.
While a younger candidate can encourage younger people to vote, we still don't know if Kamala (or whomever it will be) will do well in the swing states.
I hope it will turn out well though.
Getting someone who's more energetic and can run circles around Trump and his big mouth. Who's got the energy to call his bullshit.
Someone who's not fucking geriatric.
Wasn’t Hillary the same way?
The comments you saw aren't by the same people or are they?
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.
They're doomers
It's hard not to be one in this world context.
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.
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.
I am cautiously hopeful for harris. I 100% thi k she can win.
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. We did.
And I'm sorry. (Not trying to be Canadian polite here. I'm truly sympathizing with you.)
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.
I was posting when this thread was young. I reacted to the initial opinions.
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.