If I wanted specific policies to win there's nobody available to vote for. Unless you think "the one viable option that isn't theocratic fascism or a reich" is a policy, since that's what I'm voting for this year.
The majority of people who objected to Biden were Democrats that wanted a better candidate because we were afraid that Biden would lose to Trump. The majority of Republicans can't conceive of a universe where Trump ever loses an election so there hasn't been an equivalently loud push on the GOP side.
Also, while I'd personally rather Trump be off the ballot entirely a fair chunk of democratic voters seem to think we're better off with Trump on the GOP ballot than someone who is younger and may be better able to seem less openly deplorable. I disagree with that notion and also think Trump should step down because any chance that he wins the election is too high of a chance.
Basically, this article is drawing an equivalence between two very different situations.
Trump on the GOP ballot than someone who is younger and may be better able to seem less openly deplorable. I disagree with that notion and also think Trump should step down because any chance that he wins the election is too high of a chance.
I REALLY would hate to see a Harris v Haley election.
Harris would have it in the bag. Haley is a true believer in pro-life policies in a way that would really turn off independents. Haley is an absolutely awful national candidate and can only really thrive in regions where Christianity has a death grip on the electorate.
Trump's agnosticism is actually one of his political strengths - it should be a weakness with his base but for some reason he's viewed as the second coming of jesus fucking christ and I really don't understand how the fuck those delusional religious folks managed to square that in their mind. Especially when it was Biden vs. Trump with Biden being a deeply religious and non-shitty Catholic.
The GOP is seriously unhinged right now... and every GOP politician who has called that out has been instantly destroyed... that's actually another contrast of this article - Pelosi openly and really fucking brazenly called for Biden to step down, Johnson, Scalise... fucking McCarthy? Those clowns would never dare because unless they act as a group it's political suicide.
Would the main MAGA group shift to support her? I don't think you can just switch out cult leaders like that. How would she do with policy vs. Harris? What would be fascinating is having a race where someone is going to be the first woman President, regardless, so that is removed from the reasons for voting for them - which it shouldn't be...I want someone who can be a leader, period. And for what it's worth, Trump could have been a leader (not a great one, but one still), he got a few chances during his term, even soft ball ones. And he failed them all.
Nikki Haley couldn't win the GOP primary for the same reason Kamala Harris couldn't win the Dem Primary. They've got these very fancy resumes built up through a lifetime of insider political brown-nosing and horse trading. But they were still trapped under the glass ceiling, by organizers and mega-donors that don't respect women.
Hilary - for all her flaws - did "crack the glass ceiling" by hitting a critical mass of insider support that women, up until this point, hadn't enjoyed. That won Harris a place on Biden's ticket four years later as a kind-of concession to the PUMAs. But Haley was never going to manage it, because the racism and misogyny in her party is that much thicker. There is no large active feminist wing of the Republican Party.
I don't think the GOP is realistically going to be able to put up a woman candidate unless the base of the party is drastically altered. Democrat insiders tolerate women, begrudgingly. Republicans hate them at a biblical level.
I also love the implication that it somehow wouldn't be a massive waste of time for Democrats to go tell Trump he's too old to run. Like how worthless is your time if you're gonna spend it barking up the worlds dumbest tree. If I wanted to be ignored, I'd at least ask for something like no longer selling weapons to nations credibly accused of genocide.
I want Trump off the ballot (and planet) but I do think that another GOP candidate would have been much more likely to win.*
Public opinion on the current administration and the economy is negative to the point that one would expect the incumbent party to be facing an extremely uphill battle. But Trump is even more unpopular, brings a ton of baggage, energizes his opposition and alienates his allies by threatening democracy and the rule of law, says crazy nonsense that drives away independent voters instead of focusing on issues, and sabotages his own campaign through mismanagement.
* Of course, that would only have happened if Trump hadn't run, since he would almost certainly have caused chaos and infighting if someone beat him in the primaries.
Are people really just now realizing he's barely coherent? That's why he got so much coverage 9 years ago in the first place. It's been the #1 joke every fucking day for night show hosts since he rolled down that escalator to say Mexicans are rapists.
They never cared that about Bidens age, they just needed something to dislike him for. Notice they don't have any policies they talk about. They just say Biden opened the border and is letting everyone in and it's all his fault. Ignoring all evidence that arrests/detainments/returns are up, meaning they clearly aren't just letting everyone in.
No, just liberals. It’s literally just a sports game to them. This is one of their funniest sneers because it’s so obvious why leftists don’t give a shit about Trump.
The reason, for the liberals reading, is because Donald Trump is not the DNC candidate for President of the United States of America.
What would it mean if you are the crazy that you imagine you see everywhere around you? Have you ever had a physiological health workup or general mental health focused therapy?
He has no plans at all except to bloviate like an idiot at any given opportunity, take massive dumps in his depends, avoid prison because he's the president again, start up some concentration camps if he can stay off truth social that long, and cheat at golf.
If there is another crisis in the next four years (which is almost guaranteed because he's also a moronic crisis generator and so are the dimwits that he'll nominate to cabinet positions), he will handle that just as poorly as he handled COVID.
He'll also probably die in office. In fact, I think the odds of him dying in office are far better than the odds of him coming up with a healthcare plan or a plan to increase housing affordability.
It's not just Republicans, but Republicans are notorious for their universal double standards that only one without shame can have.
To varying degrees, every single person has things in their life that they like, and no amount of accurate, undeniable, objective, information about it being bad/wrong/inefficient etc will change their mind unless they decide they want to.
There's plenty of disqualifying traits for Republicans, which is a large part of why they now have a God king who wears diapers and has more fingers than functional brain cells.
There’s plenty of disqualifying traits for Republicans
What are they? This guy literally tried to overthrow the government. He openly courts Russian influence in elections. He openly admits to being easily corrupted and persuaded by individual campaign donors to the point of changing his entire position on the basis of what companies they own. He has been convicted of felonies. He has been convicted of fraud. He has been found in court to have sexually assaulted women. He had his charity organization shut down due to fraud. Many of his attorneys can no longer practice law because of the things he had them attempt in courtrooms. He conspired to bring fake electors to Washington DC. He sent love letters back and forth with a North Korean dictator. He bragged about assassinating a murder suspect in the Pacific Northwest. He's incontinent. He's unintelligible. He was impeached twice. He said "we'll take the weapons first and then do process later". He said of John McCain "I like people who weren't captured". He fucked a porn star while his wife was pregnant and then he paid the porn star off to cover up the story during the election. He mocks disabled reporters. He smells like a full diaper. He said he can "grab women by the pussy" because he is a star. He sold beans from the oval office because a Goya executive said they supported him. He called Nazis "very fine people". He told the American public that "they're looking into" injecting disinfectants in order to cure COVID. He refused COVID testing and then went on-stage for a planned debate with an active case of it. He wanted a military parade. During the passage of his meager working-person tax cut, he forced the US treasury to attach his signature to the checks. He's fundamentally weird and never appears to laugh or ever even tell a coherent joke. He rarely even smiles. He likely gave secret documents to the Russians. He and his family used private email servers continually despite pretending that his political opponent deserved to be in jail for doing so. He complains constantly about the state of the country whether or not he is leading it. He does not appear to have a single friend in the world. Everyone who works with him winds up regretting it. He goes on strange rants where he speaks as if "the late great Hannibal Lecter" is or was an actual person that died. He lies about his mental and physical health. The list goes on and on and on.
Yet despite all of that....HE IS THE GOP NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT.
The guy is a walking version of "the aristocrats" joke.
As far as I can tell a disqualifying trait for the Democratic candidate for President is looking too old or letting out a "BYAAAAW" at a campaign event. So this isn't exactly a "both sides" type of thing. One party's candidates have to walk on water to barely win, while the other's continually rack up absolutely absurd would-be dis-qualifiers and continue to be taken seriously by the media, the government, and the public.
The donor class doesn't really care about Trump's mental (and psychological) issues, and really don't even care much about Trump at all. They're not actually supporting him - they're supporting the handlers and advisers with which they intend to surround him, and the policies (and primarily Project 2025) that they intend to enact through him.
If anything, his incoherence is, to them, a benefit, since he's just that much easier to manipulate. Since he can't form a coherent thought on his own, he can be readily filled up with someone else's ideas, just so long as they're framed correctly.
He's like a wind-up toy - all they have to do is feed him carefully crafted stories and get him wound up and pointed in the right direction, then just let him go.
If anything, his incoherence is, to them, a benefit, since he's just that much easier to manipulate. Since he can't form a coherent thought on his own, he can be readily filled up with someone else's ideas, just so long as they're framed correctly.
This is pretty much what was going on in the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush too. I'm so sick of sharing a country with people who eagerly elect feeble-minded puppets... I guess because they find them relatable.
Trump being senile doesn't matter to Trump voters. As long as he hates the same people they hate, they'll decorate their trailers and go out and put him in power.
Biden being senile did matter to Biden voters. That's why they attacked him on it. And rightly so. Let the poor man retire. It's not an easy job if you actually bother to do it.
The GOP won't replace Trump even if they his health does concern them, because if they do they go from just under half of the votes to being obliterated.
It's interesting that out of the republican base, there are that many more of "people who want a person [trump] who hates the same people they do" rather than "people who care about [traditional republican values]."
That they're running trump in the hopes to win means the party has traded its soul of traditional values for hate.
I have a theory that they'll tolerate anything to get into the whitehouse again, get proj 2025 rolling, then Vance et al do the ol 25th Amendment cha-cha and Peter Theil gets to control the white house.
By himself, Vance can't get Theil there, but riding the deranged tangerine palpatine into office is extremely plausible.
Right, in a sane world, Trump has been proving himself unfit to hold any more responsibility than a burger flipper for decades now. The fact that anyone could possibly be on the fence about him at this point means the game is already lost.
The bothsiderist media didn't even bothsides things when both candidates were older. Now that only the Republican one is older, I have zero expectation of them asking why donnie is so old.
...i mean, to be fair he was barely coherent at seventy, too: that's kind of his whole thing, sputtering out incoherent word salad so his fanbase can infer whatever they want to hear...
"Well, yes, he said that but what he really meant was this. I like him because he tells it like it is."
People need to start talking about a possible President Vance. If Trump wins, it is a near certainty that he will die or be declared unfit within a year or two at most. If that were to happen, Vance will become president. Project 2025 would have Vance's full support and the support of the Federalist Society and the backing of billionaires like Thiel and Musk.
Sadly, Trump's Klan enthusiast father lived to 93.
In addition to Reagan effectively destroying the nation, he and his enabler wife Nancy kept his Alzheimer's decline quiet so he could complete his second term to protect muh legacy. Being declared unfit requires your own cabinet turning on you, that requires appointing people of integrity to begin with.
Not only could we be governed by someone deep into senility. We already have.
Project 2025 is so dystopian. I am somewhat triggered by it. Realistically I think anyone should oppose it with any fiber of their body, on the other hand, living in a cyberpunk hell is so romantic&cool in movies, games and books (it won't be in real live). Hard to understand how any sane person would support shit like that.
On the Left and amid the DNC, there has always been a lack of unity. The Democrats in general display a stark willingness to turn against their own, to eat their own candidate, in the event of a failure. A favored politician gets caught sending inappropriate pictures to someone who isn't their spouse? Their career is over. An incumbent fucks up a debate? Their base splits and explodes and forces them out. On the left, you can't fuck up and still expect unwavering support like you could on the Right.
On the right, the cries about age and fitness are being shown as bad faith arguments. The fact that they still support their pants-shitting senile rambler felon of a candidate makes it pretty clear that they don't actually care THAT MUCH about age and fitness. It was just a convenient weapon they could turn turn against Biden, because he was very slightly older than Trump, and when Trump babbles like an imbecile that's just his normal. He's always been unfit, as opposed to recently declining to that level.
There's no solidarity like fascist solidarity. They stick to each other like stink on shit, unless one of them does something nice or normal. Then it's straight to cancel town.
He had no controversies, He said no outrageous things. The worst thing Biden ever did was show up, heavily jetlagged, to a debate, and still managed to perform decently in it (despite what the mass hallucination the media has incited would have you believe)
He did his job, he did it well.
And because of that, people didnt turn into broadcast media in droves to see the latest tidbits on what he had done. So ratings, and viewership, and profit declined for broadcast media.
Which is why they love and want another Trump presidency.
Because he is always saying something horrible, doing something horrible, has some new horrible controversy, almost every fucking day.
Things that drive people to turn to the news every day and watch, in numbers that havent been seen since 9/11, and those numbers endured for 4 years of presidency.
The Broadcast Media is addicted to trump, and will stop at nothing to ensure they can continue hit their drug of choice every. single. day. multiple times a day, if possible. and the best way to do that is to whitewash everything he does and says, and go after his opponents with an aggression that is worthy of lawsuits, to ensure he can be president again and give them those ratings, viewership and income again.
So I'm thinking out loud here and this is probably going to be controversial ... But what if Harris took on a comedian (or an oaf) as communications director, to purposely do gaffes and create controversies, so maybe the for profit media might like her more. Basically a modern court jester.
I always thought things like Sean Spicer hiding in the bushes were very funny. A bit embarrassing for sure, but also pretty funny.
.ml here, I hope he goes to prison for a very long time.
Granted I knew nothing of the differences between .ml, hexbear, etc at the time I joined, and still kinda don't. To be fair I question what the hell im doing half the time anyway lmao.
Maybe someone that is a little more involved in the different servers could shine some light? Cause man I get frustrated seeing some of the stuff I do, even when I try to tailor my feed to certain subs it still bleeds through lol.
Yes, we wish the fascist is dead, but the things we talk about will put the fascists in power. Somehow putting the fascist in power will definitely end up killing them and not giving them everything they ever wanted. Trust us.
... I don't think anyone on .ml is mad about Trump not winning. And yeah, Trump is too old. Of course Biden was worse, but Trump's cognitive abilities are also not good enough to lead a country.
Well since Biden's leaving office shortly I don't care that he's too old for reelection anymore. Trump on the other hand has always needed to go; his mental degeneracy, the cognitive kind not the part where he's just a degenerate, it's just a new reason to add to the list.
No, that would be stupid. I never cared about Biden having a stutter, and being a jackass about one sucks. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike her. I'm gonna vote for her anyway, because the alternatives are all bad (3rd party in a 2 party system) or insanely bad (Trump). Part of being an Independent that borders on socialist is that it pays to be able to understand that you're never gonna get your way and do you just have to see what your people actually do and vote based on which one's a best fit. You're never gonna get anyone for any office that's much more than "good enough" because that's just how politics works. But there's a wide sold between "meh I guess she'll do" and "oh good were all fucking doomed."
The fact that Biden's brain was turning to jello before our eyes was only a big topic of conversation because delusional libs refused to acknowledge it for years. "Trump is incoherent" is not a big topic of conversation because no one who is human denies it, it's been obvious since before Biden was a serious candidate
What are your favorite top 3 "wow, Trump is nuts" videos to show your uncle who's only seen the Fox News version of Trump? The nuclear engineer monologue is pretty good.
Now I get this article is rhetorical, but just we're all clear: When Democrats recognize truth, then they adjust; when Republicans recognize truth, they ignore, spin, lie, and double-down on said lie. We saw the truth behind both Biden and Trump being old; but naturally, their criticism only applies to the (D).
It's also literally in their brain wiring. Their Anterior Cingulate Cortex tends to be smaller, which reduces the capacity to recognize patterns or introspect on cognitive dissonance...
Easy. We wanted the Democrats to have a better, more competitive candidate so we needed to take down Biden. His age was frankly, only a minor component of that that came into play at the end.
I have no interest in adding the Republicans swapping out for a more viable candidate.
This man is far too old to be learning for the first time that the press treatment of Trump ranges from ‘with kid gloves’ to ‘trying to get him elected’. Has he been asleep since 2016?
This also has the taste of a dude that is seething about Biden being pressured into not seeking re-election, in which case he needs to get the fuck over it.
Am really pissed off when interviewers or reporters don't just call him out there and then. They do it to people here in UK (a lot of the time) unless you're on a dog whistle station.
No one has even hinted at this belief for years. Mostly you hear his supporters wishing he would STFU. Hell, even people still motivated enough to go to his rallies are walking out early, shaking their heads.
Probably because he's done so much illegal shit his only hope is to regain the presidency so he has some immunity until either the various cases and charges get dismissed or he's simply old enough that he can ride out the clock and die either too senile to know he's under house arrest or die before he could start a prison sentence
Still here and still not voting for trump. I do appreciate being able to vote for someone who is coherent. It would be nice to have a candidate progressive enough to address current and approaching crisis instead of the continuing this slide to the right.
Trump shouldn't be up there. I got no issue saying that and it isn't ageist. I'm not going to also memory hole all the people that blindly defended Biden when you could see with your own eye's his decline. GOP people never cared from the start it was just a talking point for them.
You didn’t have to, plenty of people were talking about pressuring Biden to step down and let someone else run way before his disastrous debate performance. Nothing about wanting a different candidate for Dems implies that you want Republicans to win.
for the GOP, it was never about age or fitness with Biden-- that was just another weakness to attack; it didn't even matter if it was true. With Trump, it's all about "our team must win"
They're not questioning him for the same reason questions about Biden's fitness were brushed aside until the debate; no one's actually listening to the old guy right now. For Biden, this was because his team was carefully controlling his public appearances. For Trump, it's because no one goes to his rallies except his supporters, and they're obviously not going to question him. Most people get the headlines and clips of his most outrageous statements, but almost all of them (myself included) would rather bash our own heads in with a crowbar than sit through one of his rambling, racist speeches.
At the debate, a large portion of the population is going to sit down and listen to Trump speak, and this time, his opponent won't be an even older, even more incoherent man. If that doesn't lead to questions about his fitness or mental state, then I will be concerned. But right now, the fact that no one is paying attention to Trump's mental decline makes sense to me.
Republicans understand that projecting faultless confidence is an advantage in a head to head race.
Democrats... And those who claim to be Democrats... Seems to believe that passing through a labyrinth of strife and tribulation is somehow an advantage. Vetting candidates with fire only makes sense if you are in an environment where good faith prevails.
As somebody who watches this whole US election circus from the outside, it seems to be like Americans treat the election like fantasy football, except at the end of the day if you player gets injured somebody has to go out there and break the dudes legs for real.
Trump could be in a vegetative state, literally medically braindead, and Trump voters would still line up to cast their ballots for him.
That's what happens when you have a cult of personality, it takes on a life of it's own and becomes more of an identity than an ideology. They don't care what Trump stands for or even if Trump stands, all that matters is that they are Trump people and they only want to associate with their kind.
For the rest of us, things like fitness and policy matter, which is why Biden was held to account and Trump will never be. There is no line that cannot be crossed.
There is a very distinct double standard when it comes to the candidates and what the media and citizens focus on. Kamala has to be flawless and Trump gets a "Trump will be Trump" attitude.
No this is Republicans demanding something they never actually wanted and Democrats actually doing the right thing for once. Trump misses Biden so much already. Even if Trump is too old I'd rather Republicans think he isn't than to try to convince them to change him out for a better candidate.
I think the important answer to this question is that enough of those who were questioning Biden's age/fitness to the effect that he would lose the election are now willing to vote for Kamala to the effect that she wins it (knocking on wood til I put a hole through it).
Iunno Rex Hupke but don't act like you were ever on their side. All this opinion artiste ever said was in defence of biden's age and his candidacy. Is he now saying he considers age a factor in his reasoning?
Whatever point this mf might have on this topic i don't want to hear it from him
Since his run for 2016 his speech has been teetering on coherency... It's part of how he became a meme. How far gone he/it is is more or less meta and par for course.
He drifts between topics more regularly and in fewer words that he used to. Like in 2016 he would say dumb stuff, but could say two sentences in a row or more on the same subject before switching to something else tangentially related if you squint hard enough. It was word salad, but you could follow it if you just pictured it was the utterance of an excited four year old.
Now he has trouble finishing sentences without switching subjects and instead of saying nonsensical things it is more of a word puree than word salad. Everything is mixed together and completely incoherent instead of stupid. It was a low starting point, but it has gotten worse.
Agreed. Unfortunately the number of words strung together hasn't been all that important (wrong, sad,..). Shockingly today he's done well in forming sentences and deflecting to other subjects.
Ehhh go look at some clips of Trump in 2015-16 and compare to now. He's lost so much energy and he's much less coherent now than he was then. Granted his speech style was rambly and disjointed back then too, but it's gotten so much worse after 8 years
I'm not really debating that he's old and he's lost a lot, I am questioning the comparison between the reaction Biden received and the reaction Trump receives. I don't think it's hypocrisy. I think the difference between them is stark.
I was one of the people who was concerned when Biden was our candidate and I was so glad when he stepped aside and Kamala became our candidate. Biden was like an Alzheimer's patient who had wandered away from home. I don't mean that lightly; I'm not joking. He obviously has something very serious going on.
I hope I don't hurt anyone by bringing up that disease. My grandmother died of dementia, and it's horrible. I don't throw the term around lightly.
I actually don't think this is correct. Whom is used when the unknown person is the object being impacted (to whom did you sell your car). In this sentence, "who" is actually referring to a person performing the action (the sentences "who questioned him?" And "where are those who questioned him?" Would use who, not whom. You wouldn't say "whom questioned him," but whom could be used to replace "him," such as "he questioned whom?").
As I alluded to above, you can usually see if it's who or whom by changing it to he/she (who) or him/her (whom). You may need to adjust the sentence slightly, but it will normally work. Above you need to remove the "where are those" portion to find the answer.
So I believe that your correction came across a bit rude, and I'm fairly certain it is also wrong.
Why was it rude? Was your correction rude simply because your explanation (which is valid by the way, nice catch. I was more focused on the fact that it sounded weird, not why) was more in depth? You're also weirdly latching to the whom when my focus was the in pronoun group choice, as in: where are those whom who**.
I don't correct out of rudeness. Making assumptions makes you look more of an asshat than correcting someone. I want people to correct me. As I said, nice catch.
Why get so offended? Just because he rambles like someone with ADHD doesn't mean that Biden didn't sound like someone with Alzheimer's. People will think ADHD people are better off cognitively than those with Alzheimer's.
"Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down. You know, I was somebody — we had, Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka, was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue."
"But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about — that, because look, child care is child care, couldn’t — you know, there’s something — you have to have it in this country. You have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to. But they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us. But they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have — I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country."
"Because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just — that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers will be taking in."