I think most Dems, especially those who are highly politically engaged and closely follow election news, are going to vote blue no matter who. So, I think Bernie is preaching to the choir here. I think the Dems who are worried about Biden are worried he doesn't have enough support among independents, and they feel independents are much less likely to just vote for the Democrat, no matter who it is.
Now, could just any candidate replace Biden and automatically win back any of the independents he is believed to have lost? I don't know. A lot of Dems seem to think that just about any other candidate would do better than Biden among independents right now, but I'm not so sure.
Hillary, much like Trump, is a symptom of what is wrong with the Democrats. "It was her turn" spat in the face of people who were excited about a progressive candidate and made the whole primary a sham.
She was a terrible candidate. She was a bitter pill that many independents said "enough is enough" and voted third party or not voted at all.
I am deeply concerned that as the Republicans move more toward fascism, the left are not going to have great candidates. We're going to get established, wealthy-class friendly candidates who are willing to throw crumbs at the working class. They'll bitch and moan about how they are losing voters, never looking at themselves, never realizing that we are literally voting to just survive.
This election will be just like 2020. We aren't voting for Biden. We're voting against fascism.
And I'm personally getting fucking tired of Democrats seeing that as a win.
I think the other concern is voter turnout/enthusiasm. The last presidential election had extremely high turnout. Even if voters (in swing states) don't switch candidates but opt to stay home instead that could translate into a significant electoral problem too.
You do have a point that turn out Is important, but a potential replacement candidate isn't guaranteed to increase turn out, they could be worse.
And they would only have 4 months to try to fix things, which isn't a lot of time.
Those highly politically engaged Dem voters who will vote blue no matter who are bickering about whether Biden is the right choice, and the swing voters are paying attention.
To an undecided voter, it doesn't inspire much confident to see that Biden's own supporters don't think he can do the job.
The bickering amongst those who will vote blue anyway is costing the votes from the undecideds that Biden so desperately needs.
Let's see, just to name a few: openly against civil gun ownership, openly against expensive private healthcare, openly against zionism and Israel's occupation of Gaza. This pisses off a lot of very powerful people, so probably not gonna happen
Exactly. I cannot fucking believe he can say with a straight face that it's not an entertainment contest. It's the biggest American Idol contest there is and sure as shit isn't a job interview.
You are the reason conservatives win elections, because you tell Democrats not to vote for Gore because he's boring or Hillary because she's ill, or Biden because he's old.
None of these irrelevant insults are stopping these people from doing their job.
But really, I don't think this is bickering. I think it's an intentionally slow drip of news to get people more receptive to the idea of replacing him with Kamala, so that it's not a bomb dropping all of a sudden, which would likely freak out a bunch of voters and cause them to lose votes. Boil the frog slowly and there's less of a splash.
Well honestly it’s going to be a splash either way and the sooner they replace him, the better. Kamala is going to need more time to cook with and the sooner she can get out there, the sooner she can challenge Trump to a debate and flip this country around.
We saw mass media and the Dems pull the same thing in 2004. Decide a candidate is unelectable, before the election, and then make it happen. What happened to letting the voters decide? What happened to democracy? Meh.
It was sick then, and it is sick now. If the man is too old, OK, but we all knew his age a year ago. To pretend to be surprised and concerned now is laughable.
If the man is too old, OK, but we all knew his age a year ago.
Which is why its crazy he didn't have any kind of primary contender. Hell, its crazy he didn't just wrap this at one term and pass the torch to any of a number of popular and highly competent governors.
I totally agree with you. My speculation is that people in power in the DNC didn't want to push for a younger candidate because then that candidate would immediately seize a lot of power. Perhaps they were disagreeing on who would be the best person, and they figured that some old man is low risk because he's going to retire soon enough anyway. But that's all blind speculation. A lot of what the DNC does happens behind closed doors.
I have an unpopular opinion. Swapping candidates a couple months from election will look really disorganized and even weaker than keeping him. Especially to swing voters. And it’ll be rushed. I doubt the replacement will be well known, so you expect me to get to know, learn who they are and develop a platform in a couple months? I think they’d lose too.
It’s too late. The spineless centrists controlling the party waffled too long and I bet they cost the election again. Just like in 2016. I’m really disappointed in the Democratic Party and how it’s condensed it’s power more towards the top and quite frankly, am tired of their muted response to things like project 2025 until months before the election. It’s been around since. Before trump was elected, but without a catchy name. I passed around the leaked documents on it in 2017.
I’m just reminded of ‘Baby I’m an Anarchist’ by Against me! Lately. I’m not an Anarchist, but I feel the lyrics about the my fellow spineless liberals
Swapping candidates would look really, really bad.... unless he comes up and says "I had a talk with my doctor, he says I've developed a chronic condition that I didn't know about past year. I can't do it anymore, but here, vote for my VP, who you all already voted for once anyway, and would take over anyway if this thing kills me".
He can leave out that the chronic condition is just notgonnawinatall, and his doctor is also his pollster.
I think that's why they're floating it now. They're getting people primed to accept someone as the replacement that they already recognize. (My money is on Kamala Harris.)
He understands the two party system we're left with. If we don't back the democratic candidate we will be fucked by the 30% of the population that wants Cheeto Messiah in the white house.
Yep. But let's explore this further under the hood.
Nobody of the progressive caucus can break ranks lest that be used against the party as a wedge-drive issue by operatives later, whether Biden stays in or not.
Bernie was essentially promised a high level committee position if he traded falling in line with Biden. This his returning of the favor.
Calls for Biden to step down will be completely ineffective from the progressive coalition anyway. Biden is a centrist and doesn't hold much respect for them. The people who matter are the likes of Clyburn and Pelosi.
A thought I haven’t seen offered much, but could give Biden an ego-soothing role instead of being put out to political pasture - a Harris:Biden ticket.
She gets to be the energetic go-getter at the front (that the Maga hate-oil salesmen are shrieking about atm) while Biden can play the ‘elder statesman’ role of advice and experience to Kamala instead of running himself. You defuse a lot of the competency/decline arguments against Biden, and gird against one of Harris’s biggest threats - her lack of international experience.
Kamala is not a political unknown, but Biden is losing/equal right now to Trump with the DNC money & publicity machine working for him the last eight years. I’d argue Harris has a better shot if those efforts are swung her way. I don’t like Harris, but needn’t convince me to vote team blue - it’s the ~9% undecided we need to convince.
I'm with him 100% on the first bit - at this point, the single most important thing the Dems have to do is stop bickering.
As for the rest, at this point I don't even much care. I can see arguments both for and against in both directions - either choice is going to involve some risk but either choice can be made to succeed.
So the important thing, and really the ONLY important thing, is to pick one and run with it. Stop with the dilly-dallying and the second-guessing and the bitching and moaning and hand-wringing and make a choice and stick with it, so we can focus ALL of our attention on pounding those fucking fascist traitors' dicks into the dirt.
tbh, I don’t think reasonable people would think an 80yr old is the best fit to run a country. Edit: Especially after publicly shitting the bed on multiple occasions
The US might be a capitalist, colonialist country sprinkled with panderings of faux-socialism and heading towards fascism, but I would hardly call that an improvement over another capitalist-in-all-but-name, fascist, colonialist country with eroded communist foundations.
Whatever atrocities you believe the US is committing in terms of subjugating and exploiting poorer countries and its own working class, China is doing the same thing but only with a bit more subtlety.