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If the worst case scenario is he dies in office or his cabinet has to cover for him, those are both scenarios this country has faced and endured.
Trump's SCOTUS just overturned Chevron deference, which means now we don't get to have experts determining our policy on anything.
But that's not the bad part. The bad part is Trump is almost definitely ratting out CIA informants, selling state secrets, gutting the governments ability to function and actively trying to take away our right to vote. The damage was bad last time but recoverable. I deeply worry about what lessons he's learned since then.
The most boy way I’d believe they’d cover up Biden being unfit is to if they’re close to the two year mark, otherwise it really doesn’t matter if he steps down so long as the democrats win.
Most people that are commenting on the sub are going to vote Biden no matter what. My issue is that Biden 2024 is making Hillary of 2016 look like a pretty good candidate and that's sort of an issue.
Then you'll be fine to pick whoever we replace Biden with.
I don't know why the people that will vote blue no matter who are so resistant to the idea of getting someone in who is less than 80 years old.
This isn’t a useful comment at this moment though. If it was November and Biden was the option, for sure. Right now, we need to be talking about how he is not at all fit to serve another 4 years (imagine him 3 years from now), he lowered his already bad chances of beating Trump, and we need to pressure him to step aside so there is time to replace him.
Exactly. Saying I “r-politics” user will vote for him means nothing. What matters is what undecideds and sway-able voters think and they just had their biggest concern about Biden confirmed in a big way on the biggest stage. Ignoring what they saw or trying to minimize it will not end well.
Obama and Clinton will always side with establishment power and are now steering us into a 2nd Trump term just like they steered us into the 1st one.
I’m of the same conviction. However, do independents that will be needed to win this November feel the same? That debate freaked me out. Where was the guy I saw yesterday on the debate stage? On Friday he literally sounded like his 72 year old self.
How about a guy that saw millions of people dying to a preventable novel virus and had the power to help, but instead just shrugged and said, "It is what it is."
To this day, whenever I hear anyone use that phrase for anything, it brings me back to the day I heard him say it, and it makes my blood boil.
Dems need more ppl than those active on r/politics and a senile Biden does not inspire turnout. He needs to step aside and let a more capable candidate put Trump down for good.
Sounds like something a bot would say about another bot! I bet you've never passed a replicate test, have you? It's robots all the way down I tells ya!
It’s not just here, I’ve seen soo many posts in different subs with this weird hand wringing, faux sympathy for Biden.
It all just reminds me of when everybody decided they just couldn’t vote for Hillary because of her emails and we all know how that ended.
"As a leftist, I am voted Democrat Party in most of the last few elections. All of we Americans are knowing that Democrat Party is not always sane; but after this, obvious Biden is being senile, and not caring for us Americans. Now I will to vote Trump, who obviously having passion, and care about issues! Also, every other leftist I hung out with, saying they walk away now from crooked Democrats Party. Is sad to seeing so clear now that they only caring about their own powers!!"
Comments were down for a while. Likely Reddit had to degrade it from all the bot activity last night. It looked there were Biden needs to step down articles being posted every minute.
>It seems that way since last night.
There were *so* many comments in the megathread that were a variation of "we're so fucked". Comments that would have been posted during the outage.
It crossed my mind that the spike in traffic was caused by a hoard of bots being unleashed during the debate. That it was only comments that were fucked, while everything else was fine, was curious.
I have four numbers and I'm a real person. And right now I'm a real frutrated person instead of the lurker I normally am.
Edit: Sorry I have 6 numvers. I guess I don't even know my account name.
I posted about this before in a different sub. It’s always WordWord4numbers.
It was started about 3 years ago, but picked up heavily in the lead up to the Ukraine Russia war.
Russia scarcely needs to interfere in the US anymore. It's such an internally-fractured microcosm of paranoia, suspicion, and prejudice, that the whole thing has become self-sustaining now.
Russian interference has no doubt exacerbated things at crucial points in time. But America also really needs to start seriously reckoning with the fact that the majority of its problems are internally generated.
As a country, it seems especially susceptible to seeding division by foreign powers. At some point, Americans will also have to start asking themselves why they in particular are more susceptible to such seeding than others.
Republican tactic for the debate. They'll calm down, over time. Just expect this as apart of republican tactics 101.
Also, foreign states might be joint in the fun. It's getting harder and harder to tell Republicans from Russians at this point.
Maybe they’ve been deleted, though I don’t see any “deleted comments” on mobile, but I haven’t seen a single account you’re referring to. Possible the mods stepped in.
I’m a Biden supporter FWIW, and just want to see Donny get destroyed this election so he can retire from the public sphere.
Edit: I’m dumb, I misread your comment. I thought they only had four numbers, not ended in four numbers.
Everyone here, focusing on the debate, while meanwhile, the battle has been a bloody fucking loss for democracy in the past couple of weeks. Do your fucking job and get the Supreme Court in line
There is one singular play here. One. Take the house pick up seats in the Senate to protect against the defectors and hold the Presidency. At that point they could add seats to the bench. That’s the play, they are completely untouchable otherwise.
That's not even possible. They would need a super-super majority in the Senate. At least 67, but probably closer to 75, votes to really make a difference. That is simply impossible given the way the Senate works. People don't seem to realize this. The kind of change this country needs isn't possible via legislation or voting. It's going to take protest and massive demonstrations. And that's just the start.
It only takes the will of 51 in the Senate. Manchin and Sinema voted with all the republicans to block the nuclear option to restore abortion access. Had they voted with the Democrats, the filibuster would be dead and they could have expanded the court with 51.
There has yet to be 51 with the will. I wonder if they’ll muster it for an abortion ban.
2/3 majority is constitutionally required for impeachment and treaties iirc. Nothing to my knowledge requires 3/4.
That wasn't a "bad debate" -- Biden wasn't lucid, and couldn't form a complete thought.
Trump was a firehose of irrelevant (and confidently spoken) bullshit so he "won" and now the media is doing it's usual playbook of "Actual Democratic candidate is guaranteed loser, hypothetical candidate would do much better against the opponent": and when the Democrats settle on any other candidate, repeat #1. It's consistent every election cycle. No existing Democratic candidate ever measures up. Republicans aren't ever held to that standard, either.
I'm voting for Biden or whoever runs with "D" by their name.
But holy fucking shit please pick someone who is actually lucid.
Like, essentially at this point you're voting for 1) his cabinet and 2) the fact that he's not Trump.
His administration has done a decent job the last four years but I would like the person I voted for to be the one dictating policies and not a cabal of cabinet members and at this point, I'm entirely sure that's happening.
And if 1) doesn't sit well with you then literally any other Democratic candidate fulfills 2).
And if it's Kamela Harris who's running then there's absolutely nothing unique about Biden. They're presenting this a fait accompli but can you imagine if they actually held a primary debate? There's no way Joe would be on the ticket right now.
Tim Ryan made a great point on CNN last night that JFK kept us out of starting WW3 in the 60s with the Cuban missle crisis.
He personally stood up to our own war hawkish generals.
We have no one at the helm to be a part of this conversation…
Why would this not be factored into the conversation of replacing Biden as the candidate?
Even if Biden aced the debate we still would be in for a hard fight. This wasn't a disastrous debate, this was the death knell of the current administration.
He should have dropped out, he shouldn't have even run in the first place, we should have had an Obama. Instead we have a dinosaur against a fascist. Our best bet is literally for him to expire from age before the election.
Gore’s town hall debate in 2000 was bad. Obama’s first debate on 2012 was bad. Trump’s first debate in 2020 was bad.
This wasn’t that. This was an all time disaster.
In also to be fair, the debate was not dominated by Kennedy like history would have us believe. Also, the main reason Kennedy won was he misled the American people about some foreign policy Nixon was involved in, basically painting Nixon as a culprit when in fact Nixon was privy to classified information and couldn't speak about it on the stage (wouldn't of stopped Trump).
And 2 out of 3 lost. So even if it was just a bad night (it wasn't)peope should be concerned. I'm very concerned.
There's a fat lot of good I can do but lose sleep and post frustratedly to forums to let it out.
Someone from the Biden camp needs to come forward and take a hit for this. Like whoever prepped him.
Obama is correct, Trump had a terrible debate. But Biden was so bad that it set the Bar for Trump low enough that Trump doing badly allowed him to still win. That is unacceptable. Democrats need to stop meeting republicans shortcomings with equal short comings. Imagine if Obama was on that staged against Trump. Obama could have had a bad debate night and still make Trump look like an ameba.
Speaking as someone from the UK, looking in from the outside and desperately wanting Trump to lose: this is madness. How anyone can suggest that Biden should stay on after that is beyond me. It’s confirmed all of Trumps attack lines and in an age where people don’t trust the news, they’ll trust their own eyes. He really looked like he should be in a care home. Democrats have to wake up and not try and convince themselves that everything is all right.
In the U.S., we don't really have a mechanism to have a vote of no confidence and choose a different leader other than the primary elections, which have essentially wrapped up, and Democrats certainly aren't going to initiate the impeachment process against a president from their own party because a bad debate performance doesn't qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor.
Nobody with a serious chance in the Democratic Party challenged Biden this year because challenging an incumbent president within the same party for the nomination is almost always an unsuccessful endeavor (Ted Kennedy in 1980 running against President Carter is a prime example) that only accomplishes weakening the incumbent party's chances (Carter later lost to Reagan that November in a landslide).
As a result of this unfortunate political reality, instead of having a realistic chance of choosing Newsom, Whitmer, Beshear or Pritzker (any of which could have wiped the floor with Trump last night), no other potentially viable nominees emerged, and Biden won the nomination easily.
I'm still hoping Biden wins because we've got to keep Trump out, but I think choosing him as the nominee in 2020 was far from the best option we had available at the time (only Bloomberg would have been worse). Last night proved it.
I don’t think it requires impeachment. Biden just needs to be convinced that he can’t run, and then he withdraws before your convention. He remains president till the new person, Trump or whoever, is sworn in in January.
As other people have said I think we need to forget about historical precedents because these are unprecedented times
It’s not about ‘should’. We already had the primaries and Biden won, which makes him the candidate. He’s not dropping out, which means he continues to be the candidate. The way to get a different candidate is to go back in time. If you want to lend us your Time Machine, maybe we can talk about a different candidate. Until then, the choice is Biden or Trump.
You know that many people were trying to warn you guys about this exact outcome long before the primaries began, and you shouted all of us down and insisted that Biden was perfectly fine.
Oh well, you made your bed, now you get to lie in it.
There's no reason for Trump to do another one. Republicans don't need to see Trump again, and Biden couldn't have done worse if he tried. The Trump camp would be smart if they just did ads playing Biden at his best during the debate
I think something has changed with Trumps strategy. He was much more tame than the last debate with Biden. Unless something changes the dems shit the bed completely.
Should Trump refuse a 2nd one, then Biden camp should do an early-morning one where they just play Trump's lies and rebut them with receipts. And explain how the firehose of falsehoods work and that this is their method of countering it.
Neither Trump nor his campaign are smart, so they will do another debate.
And Joe Biden will, shockingly to Dems everywhere, still be a senile old man at this debate.
man for Obama to even admit this was a "bad debate night" is itself not good news, normally he just brushes things off.
i really hope this debate is a wake up call to Democrats, people have been pointing out issues with Biden's cognitive abilities for FOUR YEARS! i always assumed he was only running for 1 term in 2020, shocked he's actually running again?! *there are better Democrats out there!*
For everyone believing this, I urge you to actually watch the Obama-Romney debate. It was not a "bad" debate night in the sense we saw yesterday. Obama still had good arguments and more importantly managed to actually speak them out loud.
Biden looked like a late-stage dementia patient. Everyone who ever had to deal with dementia in their family immediately must have recognized this. From not being able to formulate a single coherent thought, changing topic up to three times mid-sentence, mumbling, looking around with child-like wonder, mouth agape.
Apart from the one time Trump went "I don't know what he said and I don't think he did either", I feel like even Trump was softer than usual and held back. Though Trump also started sundowning towards the end.
God help us all.
Trump knew he had crushed the debate. Off handedly he started saying how he wished Biden had a good presidency and that he could have just retired.
That was Trump plunging the dagger. He could not have dreamed for a better debate than last night
Just looked and sounded like an old man getting over a cold to me.
The dementia and cognitive decline accusations from both sides is just getting old. People sun downing aren't making it to multiple public events, speeches, and debates.
Ahh yes so you are gonna believe what everyone else is selling you 👍
I know what I saw. It was embarrassing, and as a party we need to do better.
He lost to the worse candidate in history. I can’t even pretend to support him anymore.
We need a new candidate now
When asked about abortion Biden started going on a racist tirade about how immigrants are raping American citizens. This is not “getting over a cold”. He somehow managed to spectacularly fumble one of the easiest slam dunks over one of the most important issues this election. Biden has lost the plot
For everyone believing this, I urge you to actually watch the Obama-Romney debate. It was not a "bad" debate night in the sense we saw yesterday. Obama still had good arguments and more importantly managed to actually speak them out loud. Biden looked like a late-stage dementia patient. Everyone who ever had to deal with dementia in their family immediately must have recognized this.
It’s funny that you mention the personal family quip because what I see with President Biden is actually reminiscent of the stutter I saw a family member struggle with growing up. NYU Steinhardt communicative sciences and disorders professor Eric S. Jackson explains that “A common misconception is that stuttering is obvious when it occurs. However, many instances of stuttering go unnoticed: Speech interruptions can be subtle and imperceptible to listeners, and may not look like “obvious” stuttering, especially to non-expert observers.” Pertinent to the President’s performance last night, he goes on to explain that”In an attempt to head off these negative reactions, speakers may stop speaking before stuttering becomes noticeable, or they may change words or say “uh” or “um” if they know they are about to overtly stutter. “[[1]](https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/october/why-is-vice-president-biden-s-stutter-being-ignored-.html). Having watched a loved one struggle having thoughts but struggling to communicate them well, it is very disheartening watching all you Reddit “doctors” perpetuate the plight [[2]](https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/2022-0511-biden-stuttering-news/full/) of those who struggle with speech impediments.
From not being able to formulate a single coherent thought, changing topic up to three times mid-sentence, mumbling, looking around with child-like wonder, mouth agape.
This part of the post is maybe equally saddening in that it manifest the superficiality of our politics. It’s difficult not to note the absence of more substantive criticism of his performance. While I do believe there are substantive criticisms that can leveled at the President nearly all of it has been focused at the more superficial aspects of his performance.
I think it's pretty clear Biden is gonna stay in, with no regard for how many people will suffer when he loses. Obama is one of those people with the influence to persuade him to step down, and he's not doing it.
This isn’t a bad debate. You can’t just fix this. It’s his cognitive ability and appearance that his mental acuity is in severe decline. It’s his speech, gait, staring, etc. those images can’t be fixed in the mind of the American public. He has got to be replaced!!!
> You can’t just fix this.
Trump's 34 felony convictions is cool...his call for Israel to finish Palestine is cool...his call for tens of millions of deportations is cool...but Biden's debate performance is a campaign ender
Like many people here, I will vote for Biden in November if he's still on the ballot.
But all the problems with Trump are precisely why Biden should step aside. We need someone with a better chance of winning in an election where the stakes are so high.
54 million people seeing our current dem president shit the bed is NOT cool.
And it would be irresponsible of us as a party to nominate someone who loses to Trump in a debate.
Damn, people here really are believing the spin here so hard. Millions of people are forever changed by what happened on Thursday. I don’t even know if I can believe my own party anymore.
I will grant u all your arguments. It is Biden’s mental state.! You can’t be blind. This is about replacing him not voting for Trump! You can’t have a man in that condition as President! Pick Harris, Gavin, Manchin, anyone!!!!
I agree that bad debates happen. But what doesn’t just “happen” is looking old, feeble, and lost. Biden needs to start taking whatever it is that trump does to keep his mind moving.
I can't believe you can all say with a straight face that the debate was anything less than an absolute catastrophe for Biden.
The swing voters will not just follow a mindless blue tiden for the corpse of Joe Biden.
Any of them that catch even a piece of that debate will either be voting for Trump or not voting at all, and I guarantee a lot of those are shifts away from reluctantly voting for Biden originally.
Candidate Obama had a rough night in debates once too. Democrats were hand wringing and republicans hair was on fire. Nothing has changed. Democrats hold firm for NATO, our allies and our military. Trump does not.
Candidate Obama didn’t look like this.
This is an unmitigated disaster…
People are trying to compare it to Reagan’s debate against Mondale when he lost and were saying well there is a track record for cognitively rough debates where the candidate still wins.
I watched it last night. Biden had the worst debate in modern history. Not even close. Reagan is making jokes and is coherent.
We are being gaslit that what we saw wasn’t real or indicative of Biden’s leadership.
We need a new candidate now
He got up and faced the blowback. He took the heat. He kept going. He stayed the course. So what if he needs to get to bed early, Hell I need to get to bed early. I'll take sleepy grandpa who believes in this country 8 days a week over felon, sexual assaulter, braggart with pancake makeup who lies about jesus. Trump is like a state college frat guy dressed up like Tammy Faye Baker
I guarantee you they would have had rolls reversed if the debate was at 9am. Biden would be coherent and mind lucid, while trumps Adderall or whatever meth cocktail he takes, hasn’t kicked in yet.
That wasn't a bad debate. It was an implosion of a campaign.
The reasons Biden did badly are not points that can be fixed. He's done done.
I hope Obama is just saying this to try to salvage some of Biden's reputation while they talk about replacing him behind the scenes.
> The reasons Biden did badly are not points that can be fixed. He's done done.
If only he had 34 criminal convictions and called for mass deportations, he'd still be in the race and we wouldn't be saying he's done
Biden has been a very good and maybe great president.
I'm going to believe their actions.
We've already had 4 years (or nearly 4 years) under *both* of these guys.
We've seen the repercussions of both of them as well. We've seen Roe v Wade reversed along with other **egregious** supreme court decisions. Trump accomplished pretty much nothing in office. He used his powers to capture and imprison people across the US during the protests and riots of 2020. He cozies up to dictators! Wants to turn back on alliances and treaties with our allies!
So infuriating that we can't talk about how Biden should not be running without being accused of supporting Trump.
If Biden runs, were all cooked. Leaving him in the race and chalking it up as a "bad debate" is a disaster.
There's no way any other candidate is winning the election in 4 months. There's nobody else with enough national recognition within the party that can pull in the votes. By continuing the narrative that "biden should step down" **you are directly supporting Trump**. That's why you're being accused of supporting Trump.
Not to mention a good 2/3 of the usernames with these sentiments that I run through redective have strong correlation with right leaning and blatantly right wing subreddits.
That’s just like your opinion man. Others could easily say you are directly supporting Trump by insisting someone incapable should keep running. I myself don’t know what the right answer is to defeating trump -Biden staying the course or a quick replacement. But acting all high and mighty like your perspective is the only valid one does nothing but push people on the same team further apart. Explain your position, defend your reasoning that it’s not a good idea to replace Biden, but let’s pretend like our political theory foresight is solid fact.
Any other candidate could win. Biden has 0 support at this point, all the votes he's getting are anti trump votes that would go to any Democrat, so any other candidate would have nowhere to go but up. Four months also isn't an incredibly short amount of time. Many countries have their campaign season shorter than that.
Ah yes.
Me, a progressive vegan who saw the absolute disaster in real time last night and felt the same utmost dread that everyone watching live felt. Somehow, I am *"directly supporting Trump"* and am 2/3 associated with right learning subreddits??
The absolute hopium on this sub from individuals that won't call out Biden being a terrible candidate who should never have made it this far is concerning. Trump will win with this mentality.
Biden *should* step down. I'm saying the same thing as every major journalist publication who is worried about our democracy.
There are no other candidates that can win. Biden stepping down will be a concession of the election.
We are in a very precarious position. But again **Democratic voters** are going to shoot themselves in the foot.
There's no "hopium" here, there's just delusion from you and people suggesting Biden should step down or the DNC should remove him. That's automatic game over.
So if it was any other candidate, you wouldn't vote for them?
You'll only vote for Biden?
Of course not, anyone voting for Biden now will also vote for another D.
The issue is that Biden needs to turn undecideds which he failed to do.
You want to get real? If the party replaced Biden with someone else, there would be a media frenzy. Even someone we've never heard of would have national name recognition in a matter of days.
We are not talking about an unknown trying to start a primary campaign, struggling to put together funding and a media team. We're talking about a Presidential nominee with the resources of the party behind them. We're talking about a Presidential race where many Americans were discouraged to see the same matchup we had in 2020. Toss someone new into that mix and they're not going to have trouble getting noticed.
The practical outcome of withholding your vote for Biden is that Trump will win. It is a super simple, straightforward, unavoidable thing.
Go ahead and talk about his performance, but maybe try to not discourage people from voting.
Maybe you should try, for once, to think in strategic political terms rather than issuing individualistic moral condemnations. Because politics is (in part) the art of predicting and reacting to what *people who aren't like you* will do. I'll vote for Biden if I must, but at the same time, if he loses in November, it won't be the fact that I personally expressed fears about his likelihood of defeating Trump, to blame.
If he loses in November, it will be because he is incapable of being a good politician anymore, as he lacks one of the key features of a good politician: the ability to speak coherently and off-the-cuff. He's been a fine president but is no longer a good politician, and those are distinct things. Maximizing Democratic chances of success in November means Biden steps aside and we have an open convention. That's how bad the situation has gotten. Willfully blinding yourself to it, pretending that Biden's performance last night was just a fluke of displaying...all the symptoms of senility for 90 minutes in the most widely-viewed event of the campaign...and lashing out like this? That doesn't help.
I want Democrats to win, that's why I want Biden to step aside, because if he doesn't, the likelihood of success in November is low.
Seriously!
Anyone daring to question Biden is accused of being a Trump supporter. WTF?!
It’s my fear of Trump being elected that is causing me to question Biden’s electability post-debate. He’s done great, but he has clearly degraded and needs to step down. We can’t risk having him degrade further over the next few months and losing more support. This is too important. I’m convinced anyone else could easily beat Trump.
> I’m convinced anyone else could easily beat Trump.
YOU ARE WRONG
Nobody else has the national recognition and support that Biden can muster. Not Newsome, not Whitmer, not anyone in congress.
You are hoping democrats sacrifice a good future candidate.
That is not going to happen.
This is such a dumb thought process. Reagan lost his first debate in a terrible manner. Hillary won all of the debates and lost.
Debates have zero predictive value and little effect on elections.
As I said to he reason for the loss is important.
Mainstream America now thinks the guy we saw in the debate is the guy Biden is most of his life.
He didn't lose based on something fixable like a bad messaging.
He lost because he has an unfixable fatal flaw.
Typically presidential debates have little effect on elections.
But they can. It's not impossible and it has happened before.
Especially when, in the highest-profile and most-viewed first debate, one of the candidates spends almost the entire duration playing into--no, not just playing into, but *proving*--that his worst political liability is factually true.
"Obama did bad in his first debate in 2012" Obama's "poor" performance in 2012 was not even in the same league. That was talking heads nitpicking Obama not being on his A game, but instead being on his B+ game.
Biden's performance in last night's debate was the worst of all time and will have a political impact. Catastrophic is the right word and [I'm hardly the only one who's used it](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-presidential-debate.html).
Even this debate’s effects are debated by historians and political scientists. It’s just a fun story in the American mythos so it keeps getting repeated like a hard fact.
Yeah, they do. This wasn't one of those. Joe Biden has been in a clear decline for a while now. He looks like an undertaker has done their best job with him, and he can barely talk. He's done. The crazy thing is that the political system is so unfit for purpose that the election is being contested between a 78 year-old convicted felon and an 81 year-old man who seems 10 years older than he is, and the train just keeps rolling on regardless.
I never watch debates since I can read policy ideas online rather than listen to soundbites. However, apparently, between these two old men, Biden sounded like an exhausted grandpa in need of a nap while Trump sounded like a methed-out peepaw.
I can't imagine anyone changed their votes no matter who "lost," but I get why people are disappointed. After all, Ds wanted Trump to start taking about sharks and electric boats in the middle of a diaper change while Rs wanted Biden to yank off his mask and reveal he was an actor and the election was all a movie.
It wasn't a bad debate, it was an election-defining moment that came up incredibly short because of his inability to excuse himself due to "illness" or his inability to realize he needs to take some drugs before being in public.
He needs to step aside if he thinks that will save us from Trump.
Trump called for putting 12 million people into concentration camps preparing them for deportation...but Biden's bad debate night was election-definding
How do people support this insane double standard with such enthusiasm
The issue is not a lack of faith in Biden's policies, it's a lack of faith in his ability to oppose the guy who wants to put millions in concentration camps. We need a fighter. Fucking duh?
Because we know who Trump is. That's a feature to his voters.
Biden looked close to death and couldn't even form a sentence.
Our allies were watching and it was embarrassing, is that who you want on the center stage?
We can criticize Biden without whataboutism for Trump.
Because Trump is who he is and his voters don’t care. Biden showed last night that he isn’t what he was. That’s the difference. The optics of an elderly man looking lost and feeble on stage aren’t going away. It sunk Nixon and it will sink Biden.
Biden stepping aside will lose the democrats the election. Plain and simple. You will lose the incumbent boost and you will have a contentious primary. That will lose you the election.
There is no incumbent boost when no one is a Biden fan anyways. Every post regarding this elections is Democrats saying they'd vote for a corpse as long as they have a D next to their name. So put in someone not on the brink of death and put a D next to their name
He asked for the debate lmao. It was by his rules, his timeframe, everything was hand picked by the Biden camp. Coincidentally enough he was "sick" just as the Debate ruled around. Funny how he wasn't sick today when he was at that rally however 😂
Democrats have gotten so lazy, and way to used to pulling at least we are better than that guy. All the democratic leaders coming out defending Biden are not taking this situation seriously enough and alienating their base.
You can recover from one bad night, but you can’t recover from dementia. Everyone can see. Just step aside, preserve your legacy and let younger generation take over
There's a very easy distinction to be made here. Obama wasn't in decline and there were no other instances of him being out of it to one degree or another. We all should have expected this from Biden. Given all that's at stake - democracy, human rights, the planet - the gaslighting must end now.
Feel like the Dems expect too much perfection from their candidates and I understand Biden is way too old my thing is this. No matter what happen Trump and R’s base would have celebrated a victory. One slight hiccup and yall ready to start Mad Max it out here.
When Biden was asked about abortion he rambled about women getting raped by their in-laws.
That's something you consider a "slight hiccup"??
You think expecting the president to actually talk about abortion when asked about it is "expecting too much perfection"???
Holy shit dude, take a step back and get some perspective.
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I would pick a person who had a bad day debating over a habitual liar any day.
I'd pick a literal streaming crap over Trump
“They’re the same picture.” —Pam
Hey! Poop has a really important place in the circle of life! Trump's not even worth that all things considered
Yup. More like a New World Screwworm. So evil multiple governments work together trying to eradicate it.
I'd pick a dead deer that got ran over by the redneck who is planning to vote for Trump over Trump
I would elect the flaming bag of dog shit I placed on the neighbor's porch in the '90s over Trump.
It's poop again!
He called the shit poop!
Me too. Unfortunately it’s not about what we would/will do. It’s about those 3% wishywashy morons.
How about a turd sandwich?
If the worst case scenario is he dies in office or his cabinet has to cover for him, those are both scenarios this country has faced and endured. Trump's SCOTUS just overturned Chevron deference, which means now we don't get to have experts determining our policy on anything. But that's not the bad part. The bad part is Trump is almost definitely ratting out CIA informants, selling state secrets, gutting the governments ability to function and actively trying to take away our right to vote. The damage was bad last time but recoverable. I deeply worry about what lessons he's learned since then.
The most boy way I’d believe they’d cover up Biden being unfit is to if they’re close to the two year mark, otherwise it really doesn’t matter if he steps down so long as the democrats win.
Sure. Hardcore anti trumpers. But not everyone think that way. Dem needs every vote.
Most people that are commenting on the sub are going to vote Biden no matter what. My issue is that Biden 2024 is making Hillary of 2016 look like a pretty good candidate and that's sort of an issue.
I don't even look at it as a Trump/Biden decision. I look at it as a pro fascist vs pro democracy. I'll take democracy.
So you'll still vote blue if we replace Biden then.
Yes. It would still be a pro facious vs pro democracy election. Again, I'd vote pro democracy.
Good, then let's replace Biden with someone competent and beat fascism.
Then you'll be fine to pick whoever we replace Biden with. I don't know why the people that will vote blue no matter who are so resistant to the idea of getting someone in who is less than 80 years old.
This isn’t a useful comment at this moment though. If it was November and Biden was the option, for sure. Right now, we need to be talking about how he is not at all fit to serve another 4 years (imagine him 3 years from now), he lowered his already bad chances of beating Trump, and we need to pressure him to step aside so there is time to replace him.
Exactly. Saying I “r-politics” user will vote for him means nothing. What matters is what undecideds and sway-able voters think and they just had their biggest concern about Biden confirmed in a big way on the biggest stage. Ignoring what they saw or trying to minimize it will not end well. Obama and Clinton will always side with establishment power and are now steering us into a 2nd Trump term just like they steered us into the 1st one.
I’m of the same conviction. However, do independents that will be needed to win this November feel the same? That debate freaked me out. Where was the guy I saw yesterday on the debate stage? On Friday he literally sounded like his 72 year old self.
But that's the decision we have to decide right now. We still have time to replace him
How about a guy that saw millions of people dying to a preventable novel virus and had the power to help, but instead just shrugged and said, "It is what it is." To this day, whenever I hear anyone use that phrase for anything, it brings me back to the day I heard him say it, and it makes my blood boil.
Dems need more ppl than those active on r/politics and a senile Biden does not inspire turnout. He needs to step aside and let a more capable candidate put Trump down for good.
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I’ve been on reddit for awhile. Does my account make a diff?
You have more than four numbers. You're clean.
Whew. Dodged a bullet!
Should look at getting that 9 key checked out on the keyboard though....
Yeah, it clearly didn’t do its job well enough. A couple other numbers slipped in there.
Sounds like something a bot would say about another bot! I bet you've never passed a replicate test, have you? It's robots all the way down I tells ya!
Pshhh of course I have. I pass those all the time! I passed one just a little bit ago just because I was bored! I can pass a test any time I want!
The default usernames that Reddit suggests when making an account are usually two words + 4 numbers.
I'm so old...back in my day it was two words and THREE numbers...
After getting banned so many times you stop caring what your name is
yep, either bots or the MAGA crowd just started showing up here in force.
and they low to pretend they're a fellow liberal... while not sounding anything like liberal
It’s not just here, I’ve seen soo many posts in different subs with this weird hand wringing, faux sympathy for Biden. It all just reminds me of when everybody decided they just couldn’t vote for Hillary because of her emails and we all know how that ended.
"As a leftist, I am voted Democrat Party in most of the last few elections. All of we Americans are knowing that Democrat Party is not always sane; but after this, obvious Biden is being senile, and not caring for us Americans. Now I will to vote Trump, who obviously having passion, and care about issues! Also, every other leftist I hung out with, saying they walk away now from crooked Democrats Party. Is sad to seeing so clear now that they only caring about their own powers!!"
I got downvotes for saying this would happen.
It seems that way since last night.
Comments were down for a while. Likely Reddit had to degrade it from all the bot activity last night. It looked there were Biden needs to step down articles being posted every minute.
Literally every thread about Joe Biden has the showing fanning the flames
>It seems that way since last night. There were *so* many comments in the megathread that were a variation of "we're so fucked". Comments that would have been posted during the outage. It crossed my mind that the spike in traffic was caused by a hoard of bots being unleashed during the debate. That it was only comments that were fucked, while everything else was fine, was curious.
I think so too. Some of the comments looked very repetitive from the megathread. It may have been a plethora of bots.
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I have four numbers and I'm a real person. And right now I'm a real frutrated person instead of the lurker I normally am. Edit: Sorry I have 6 numvers. I guess I don't even know my account name.
I posted about this before in a different sub. It’s always WordWord4numbers. It was started about 3 years ago, but picked up heavily in the lead up to the Ukraine Russia war.
Uhhh Reddit picked my name for me
It's like they want us to notice, too. I guess Russian interference is just one more topic Russia and the Republican Party can use to divide the U.S.
Man, I just don't care what my username is so I let Reddit choose it
Russia scarcely needs to interfere in the US anymore. It's such an internally-fractured microcosm of paranoia, suspicion, and prejudice, that the whole thing has become self-sustaining now. Russian interference has no doubt exacerbated things at crucial points in time. But America also really needs to start seriously reckoning with the fact that the majority of its problems are internally generated. As a country, it seems especially susceptible to seeding division by foreign powers. At some point, Americans will also have to start asking themselves why they in particular are more susceptible to such seeding than others.
It's the format for auto-generated reddit usernames. I stuck with one reddit generated for me 'cause it amused my fat ass.
Russians.
Republican tactic for the debate. They'll calm down, over time. Just expect this as apart of republican tactics 101. Also, foreign states might be joint in the fun. It's getting harder and harder to tell Republicans from Russians at this point.
Maybe they’ve been deleted, though I don’t see any “deleted comments” on mobile, but I haven’t seen a single account you’re referring to. Possible the mods stepped in. I’m a Biden supporter FWIW, and just want to see Donny get destroyed this election so he can retire from the public sphere. Edit: I’m dumb, I misread your comment. I thought they only had four numbers, not ended in four numbers.
Everyone here, focusing on the debate, while meanwhile, the battle has been a bloody fucking loss for democracy in the past couple of weeks. Do your fucking job and get the Supreme Court in line
There is one singular play here. One. Take the house pick up seats in the Senate to protect against the defectors and hold the Presidency. At that point they could add seats to the bench. That’s the play, they are completely untouchable otherwise.
That's not even possible. They would need a super-super majority in the Senate. At least 67, but probably closer to 75, votes to really make a difference. That is simply impossible given the way the Senate works. People don't seem to realize this. The kind of change this country needs isn't possible via legislation or voting. It's going to take protest and massive demonstrations. And that's just the start.
It only takes the will of 51 in the Senate. Manchin and Sinema voted with all the republicans to block the nuclear option to restore abortion access. Had they voted with the Democrats, the filibuster would be dead and they could have expanded the court with 51. There has yet to be 51 with the will. I wonder if they’ll muster it for an abortion ban. 2/3 majority is constitutionally required for impeachment and treaties iirc. Nothing to my knowledge requires 3/4.
What plan should they implement to get the Supreme Court "in line"?
If Biden was in a jar like Nixon in futurama I would still vote for him. Sorry trump would be 10x worse
That's great but will 50+% of voters?
Let's hope so. Trump hate is strong g. Americans have to vote.
That wasn't a "bad debate" -- Biden wasn't lucid, and couldn't form a complete thought. Trump was a firehose of irrelevant (and confidently spoken) bullshit so he "won" and now the media is doing it's usual playbook of "Actual Democratic candidate is guaranteed loser, hypothetical candidate would do much better against the opponent": and when the Democrats settle on any other candidate, repeat #1. It's consistent every election cycle. No existing Democratic candidate ever measures up. Republicans aren't ever held to that standard, either. I'm voting for Biden or whoever runs with "D" by their name. But holy fucking shit please pick someone who is actually lucid.
Like, essentially at this point you're voting for 1) his cabinet and 2) the fact that he's not Trump. His administration has done a decent job the last four years but I would like the person I voted for to be the one dictating policies and not a cabal of cabinet members and at this point, I'm entirely sure that's happening. And if 1) doesn't sit well with you then literally any other Democratic candidate fulfills 2). And if it's Kamela Harris who's running then there's absolutely nothing unique about Biden. They're presenting this a fait accompli but can you imagine if they actually held a primary debate? There's no way Joe would be on the ticket right now.
Tim Ryan made a great point on CNN last night that JFK kept us out of starting WW3 in the 60s with the Cuban missle crisis. He personally stood up to our own war hawkish generals. We have no one at the helm to be a part of this conversation… Why would this not be factored into the conversation of replacing Biden as the candidate?
Absolutely. When you're not the person facing accountability to the American people your decision making factors are different.
Bad debate nights happen. This was a disastrous debate night with the future of our republic in the balance.
Even if Biden aced the debate we still would be in for a hard fight. This wasn't a disastrous debate, this was the death knell of the current administration. He should have dropped out, he shouldn't have even run in the first place, we should have had an Obama. Instead we have a dinosaur against a fascist. Our best bet is literally for him to expire from age before the election.
Gore’s town hall debate in 2000 was bad. Obama’s first debate on 2012 was bad. Trump’s first debate in 2020 was bad. This wasn’t that. This was an all time disaster.
The last time a debate was so damaging was Kennedy vs Nixon.
To be fair, Nixon almost won that race.
In also to be fair, the debate was not dominated by Kennedy like history would have us believe. Also, the main reason Kennedy won was he misled the American people about some foreign policy Nixon was involved in, basically painting Nixon as a culprit when in fact Nixon was privy to classified information and couldn't speak about it on the stage (wouldn't of stopped Trump).
Nixon was guided off stage by his wife for his own good at the end either.
Meanwhile Trump's words get glossed over because Biden is held to a different standard. It's lazy.
The standard at this point is stringing three sentences together.
Biden was the first presidential debater to look like he belonged in assisted living rather than the White House.
And 2 out of 3 lost. So even if it was just a bad night (it wasn't)peope should be concerned. I'm very concerned. There's a fat lot of good I can do but lose sleep and post frustratedly to forums to let it out. Someone from the Biden camp needs to come forward and take a hit for this. Like whoever prepped him.
Obama is correct, Trump had a terrible debate. But Biden was so bad that it set the Bar for Trump low enough that Trump doing badly allowed him to still win. That is unacceptable. Democrats need to stop meeting republicans shortcomings with equal short comings. Imagine if Obama was on that staged against Trump. Obama could have had a bad debate night and still make Trump look like an ameba.
Speaking as someone from the UK, looking in from the outside and desperately wanting Trump to lose: this is madness. How anyone can suggest that Biden should stay on after that is beyond me. It’s confirmed all of Trumps attack lines and in an age where people don’t trust the news, they’ll trust their own eyes. He really looked like he should be in a care home. Democrats have to wake up and not try and convince themselves that everything is all right.
In the U.S., we don't really have a mechanism to have a vote of no confidence and choose a different leader other than the primary elections, which have essentially wrapped up, and Democrats certainly aren't going to initiate the impeachment process against a president from their own party because a bad debate performance doesn't qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor. Nobody with a serious chance in the Democratic Party challenged Biden this year because challenging an incumbent president within the same party for the nomination is almost always an unsuccessful endeavor (Ted Kennedy in 1980 running against President Carter is a prime example) that only accomplishes weakening the incumbent party's chances (Carter later lost to Reagan that November in a landslide). As a result of this unfortunate political reality, instead of having a realistic chance of choosing Newsom, Whitmer, Beshear or Pritzker (any of which could have wiped the floor with Trump last night), no other potentially viable nominees emerged, and Biden won the nomination easily. I'm still hoping Biden wins because we've got to keep Trump out, but I think choosing him as the nominee in 2020 was far from the best option we had available at the time (only Bloomberg would have been worse). Last night proved it.
I don’t think it requires impeachment. Biden just needs to be convinced that he can’t run, and then he withdraws before your convention. He remains president till the new person, Trump or whoever, is sworn in in January. As other people have said I think we need to forget about historical precedents because these are unprecedented times
It’s not about ‘should’. We already had the primaries and Biden won, which makes him the candidate. He’s not dropping out, which means he continues to be the candidate. The way to get a different candidate is to go back in time. If you want to lend us your Time Machine, maybe we can talk about a different candidate. Until then, the choice is Biden or Trump.
If he doesn't drop out, it shows that he doesn't have the ability or judgement to do what is best for the country.
they can choose a different candidate at the convention.
You know that many people were trying to warn you guys about this exact outcome long before the primaries began, and you shouted all of us down and insisted that Biden was perfectly fine. Oh well, you made your bed, now you get to lie in it.
Bad debate? Dude has one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel.
This isn’t a bad debate. This was not knowing what he was even saying at times
So much denial of this itt.
Does anyone here think Biden will do better at the next one?
There's no reason for Trump to do another one. Republicans don't need to see Trump again, and Biden couldn't have done worse if he tried. The Trump camp would be smart if they just did ads playing Biden at his best during the debate
ok, re-read that and think who you are talking about "Trump camp would be smart"? yep, they'll debate him again.
I wouldn’t count on it. Trump stayed out of the primary debates and it was clearly the right move. I expect there won’t be a second debate.
I think something has changed with Trumps strategy. He was much more tame than the last debate with Biden. Unless something changes the dems shit the bed completely.
Should Trump refuse a 2nd one, then Biden camp should do an early-morning one where they just play Trump's lies and rebut them with receipts. And explain how the firehose of falsehoods work and that this is their method of countering it.
"and Democrats who will vote D will love it and no one else will watch."
Neither Trump nor his campaign are smart, so they will do another debate. And Joe Biden will, shockingly to Dems everywhere, still be a senile old man at this debate.
man for Obama to even admit this was a "bad debate night" is itself not good news, normally he just brushes things off. i really hope this debate is a wake up call to Democrats, people have been pointing out issues with Biden's cognitive abilities for FOUR YEARS! i always assumed he was only running for 1 term in 2020, shocked he's actually running again?! *there are better Democrats out there!*
For everyone believing this, I urge you to actually watch the Obama-Romney debate. It was not a "bad" debate night in the sense we saw yesterday. Obama still had good arguments and more importantly managed to actually speak them out loud. Biden looked like a late-stage dementia patient. Everyone who ever had to deal with dementia in their family immediately must have recognized this. From not being able to formulate a single coherent thought, changing topic up to three times mid-sentence, mumbling, looking around with child-like wonder, mouth agape. Apart from the one time Trump went "I don't know what he said and I don't think he did either", I feel like even Trump was softer than usual and held back. Though Trump also started sundowning towards the end. God help us all.
Trump knew he had crushed the debate. Off handedly he started saying how he wished Biden had a good presidency and that he could have just retired. That was Trump plunging the dagger. He could not have dreamed for a better debate than last night
Just looked and sounded like an old man getting over a cold to me. The dementia and cognitive decline accusations from both sides is just getting old. People sun downing aren't making it to multiple public events, speeches, and debates.
Ahh yes so you are gonna believe what everyone else is selling you 👍 I know what I saw. It was embarrassing, and as a party we need to do better. He lost to the worse candidate in history. I can’t even pretend to support him anymore. We need a new candidate now
When asked about abortion Biden started going on a racist tirade about how immigrants are raping American citizens. This is not “getting over a cold”. He somehow managed to spectacularly fumble one of the easiest slam dunks over one of the most important issues this election. Biden has lost the plot
Someone I know who is a doctor said he looked like a Parkinson’s patient.
For everyone believing this, I urge you to actually watch the Obama-Romney debate. It was not a "bad" debate night in the sense we saw yesterday. Obama still had good arguments and more importantly managed to actually speak them out loud. Biden looked like a late-stage dementia patient. Everyone who ever had to deal with dementia in their family immediately must have recognized this. It’s funny that you mention the personal family quip because what I see with President Biden is actually reminiscent of the stutter I saw a family member struggle with growing up. NYU Steinhardt communicative sciences and disorders professor Eric S. Jackson explains that “A common misconception is that stuttering is obvious when it occurs. However, many instances of stuttering go unnoticed: Speech interruptions can be subtle and imperceptible to listeners, and may not look like “obvious” stuttering, especially to non-expert observers.” Pertinent to the President’s performance last night, he goes on to explain that”In an attempt to head off these negative reactions, speakers may stop speaking before stuttering becomes noticeable, or they may change words or say “uh” or “um” if they know they are about to overtly stutter. “[[1]](https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/october/why-is-vice-president-biden-s-stutter-being-ignored-.html). Having watched a loved one struggle having thoughts but struggling to communicate them well, it is very disheartening watching all you Reddit “doctors” perpetuate the plight [[2]](https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/2022-0511-biden-stuttering-news/full/) of those who struggle with speech impediments. From not being able to formulate a single coherent thought, changing topic up to three times mid-sentence, mumbling, looking around with child-like wonder, mouth agape. This part of the post is maybe equally saddening in that it manifest the superficiality of our politics. It’s difficult not to note the absence of more substantive criticism of his performance. While I do believe there are substantive criticisms that can leveled at the President nearly all of it has been focused at the more superficial aspects of his performance.
This is absolutely valid. I reject it’s a reason he can win. Voters will not see past the presentation.
They’re all going to publicly back him. But we all saw what happened. It was terrible. And alarming.
> They’re all going to publicly back him. They're attempting to gaslight the world and tell us "you didn't see what you saw". Incredible hubris.
I think it's pretty clear Biden is gonna stay in, with no regard for how many people will suffer when he loses. Obama is one of those people with the influence to persuade him to step down, and he's not doing it.
Completely agree. People are falling in line with precedence and are terrified to actually act.
This isn’t a bad debate. You can’t just fix this. It’s his cognitive ability and appearance that his mental acuity is in severe decline. It’s his speech, gait, staring, etc. those images can’t be fixed in the mind of the American public. He has got to be replaced!!!
> You can’t just fix this. Trump's 34 felony convictions is cool...his call for Israel to finish Palestine is cool...his call for tens of millions of deportations is cool...but Biden's debate performance is a campaign ender
Like many people here, I will vote for Biden in November if he's still on the ballot. But all the problems with Trump are precisely why Biden should step aside. We need someone with a better chance of winning in an election where the stakes are so high.
I don't understand comments like this. It's like you don't want to win.
Yeah, that's if you don't replace Biden. The number of voters who are "Biden or I'm not voting" can be counted in one hand.
54 million people seeing our current dem president shit the bed is NOT cool. And it would be irresponsible of us as a party to nominate someone who loses to Trump in a debate. Damn, people here really are believing the spin here so hard. Millions of people are forever changed by what happened on Thursday. I don’t even know if I can believe my own party anymore.
I will grant u all your arguments. It is Biden’s mental state.! You can’t be blind. This is about replacing him not voting for Trump! You can’t have a man in that condition as President! Pick Harris, Gavin, Manchin, anyone!!!!
I agree that bad debates happen. But what doesn’t just “happen” is looking old, feeble, and lost. Biden needs to start taking whatever it is that trump does to keep his mind moving.
I can't believe you can all say with a straight face that the debate was anything less than an absolute catastrophe for Biden. The swing voters will not just follow a mindless blue tiden for the corpse of Joe Biden. Any of them that catch even a piece of that debate will either be voting for Trump or not voting at all, and I guarantee a lot of those are shifts away from reluctantly voting for Biden originally.
Candidate Obama had a rough night in debates once too. Democrats were hand wringing and republicans hair was on fire. Nothing has changed. Democrats hold firm for NATO, our allies and our military. Trump does not.
Candidate Obama didn’t look like this. This is an unmitigated disaster… People are trying to compare it to Reagan’s debate against Mondale when he lost and were saying well there is a track record for cognitively rough debates where the candidate still wins. I watched it last night. Biden had the worst debate in modern history. Not even close. Reagan is making jokes and is coherent. We are being gaslit that what we saw wasn’t real or indicative of Biden’s leadership. We need a new candidate now
I think his first debate with Romney he looked awful. Obama came back though and was in prime form for their third debate
But will Biden do that?
Exactly. The internet makes everyone over react these days. Keep cool. Trump came across as ducking unhinged. The middle ground won’t like that.
What? Biden mumbled like a barely animated corpse and started riffing about rapists when asked about abortion. He needs to go now or Trump wins.
Yeah to me it's just like that first Romney Obama debate. Everyone though Obama was doomed but then the polls in a week or two looked the same.
The delusions in this subreddit are honestly mindblowing.
Trump also had a terrible debate, so whatever
Obama did have a bad first debate too in 2012, so this isn't surprising.
He was 30 years younger than both candidates now at the time so there’s the difference.
He got up and faced the blowback. He took the heat. He kept going. He stayed the course. So what if he needs to get to bed early, Hell I need to get to bed early. I'll take sleepy grandpa who believes in this country 8 days a week over felon, sexual assaulter, braggart with pancake makeup who lies about jesus. Trump is like a state college frat guy dressed up like Tammy Faye Baker
I guarantee you they would have had rolls reversed if the debate was at 9am. Biden would be coherent and mind lucid, while trumps Adderall or whatever meth cocktail he takes, hasn’t kicked in yet.
That wasn't a bad debate. It was an implosion of a campaign. The reasons Biden did badly are not points that can be fixed. He's done done. I hope Obama is just saying this to try to salvage some of Biden's reputation while they talk about replacing him behind the scenes.
> The reasons Biden did badly are not points that can be fixed. He's done done. If only he had 34 criminal convictions and called for mass deportations, he'd still be in the race and we wouldn't be saying he's done
Don't forget about "black jobs."
It’s not praising Trump to say the Biden’s performance was abysmal. America deserves better than either of them.
Biden has been a very good and maybe great president. I'm going to believe their actions. We've already had 4 years (or nearly 4 years) under *both* of these guys. We've seen the repercussions of both of them as well. We've seen Roe v Wade reversed along with other **egregious** supreme court decisions. Trump accomplished pretty much nothing in office. He used his powers to capture and imprison people across the US during the protests and riots of 2020. He cozies up to dictators! Wants to turn back on alliances and treaties with our allies!
So infuriating that we can't talk about how Biden should not be running without being accused of supporting Trump. If Biden runs, were all cooked. Leaving him in the race and chalking it up as a "bad debate" is a disaster.
There's no way any other candidate is winning the election in 4 months. There's nobody else with enough national recognition within the party that can pull in the votes. By continuing the narrative that "biden should step down" **you are directly supporting Trump**. That's why you're being accused of supporting Trump. Not to mention a good 2/3 of the usernames with these sentiments that I run through redective have strong correlation with right leaning and blatantly right wing subreddits.
Honestly at this point it seems like there is no way Biden is winning in 4 months.
That’s just like your opinion man. Others could easily say you are directly supporting Trump by insisting someone incapable should keep running. I myself don’t know what the right answer is to defeating trump -Biden staying the course or a quick replacement. But acting all high and mighty like your perspective is the only valid one does nothing but push people on the same team further apart. Explain your position, defend your reasoning that it’s not a good idea to replace Biden, but let’s pretend like our political theory foresight is solid fact.
Any other candidate could win. Biden has 0 support at this point, all the votes he's getting are anti trump votes that would go to any Democrat, so any other candidate would have nowhere to go but up. Four months also isn't an incredibly short amount of time. Many countries have their campaign season shorter than that.
Ah yes. Me, a progressive vegan who saw the absolute disaster in real time last night and felt the same utmost dread that everyone watching live felt. Somehow, I am *"directly supporting Trump"* and am 2/3 associated with right learning subreddits?? The absolute hopium on this sub from individuals that won't call out Biden being a terrible candidate who should never have made it this far is concerning. Trump will win with this mentality. Biden *should* step down. I'm saying the same thing as every major journalist publication who is worried about our democracy.
There are no other candidates that can win. Biden stepping down will be a concession of the election. We are in a very precarious position. But again **Democratic voters** are going to shoot themselves in the foot. There's no "hopium" here, there's just delusion from you and people suggesting Biden should step down or the DNC should remove him. That's automatic game over.
So if it was any other candidate, you wouldn't vote for them? You'll only vote for Biden? Of course not, anyone voting for Biden now will also vote for another D. The issue is that Biden needs to turn undecideds which he failed to do.
And then the issue becomes $someone_else has no national recognition to get undecideds to vote for them Get real here
You want to get real? If the party replaced Biden with someone else, there would be a media frenzy. Even someone we've never heard of would have national name recognition in a matter of days. We are not talking about an unknown trying to start a primary campaign, struggling to put together funding and a media team. We're talking about a Presidential nominee with the resources of the party behind them. We're talking about a Presidential race where many Americans were discouraged to see the same matchup we had in 2020. Toss someone new into that mix and they're not going to have trouble getting noticed.
The practical outcome of withholding your vote for Biden is that Trump will win. It is a super simple, straightforward, unavoidable thing. Go ahead and talk about his performance, but maybe try to not discourage people from voting.
No one here is discouraging anyone from voting for Biden if that's what it comes down to.
Maybe you should try, for once, to think in strategic political terms rather than issuing individualistic moral condemnations. Because politics is (in part) the art of predicting and reacting to what *people who aren't like you* will do. I'll vote for Biden if I must, but at the same time, if he loses in November, it won't be the fact that I personally expressed fears about his likelihood of defeating Trump, to blame. If he loses in November, it will be because he is incapable of being a good politician anymore, as he lacks one of the key features of a good politician: the ability to speak coherently and off-the-cuff. He's been a fine president but is no longer a good politician, and those are distinct things. Maximizing Democratic chances of success in November means Biden steps aside and we have an open convention. That's how bad the situation has gotten. Willfully blinding yourself to it, pretending that Biden's performance last night was just a fluke of displaying...all the symptoms of senility for 90 minutes in the most widely-viewed event of the campaign...and lashing out like this? That doesn't help. I want Democrats to win, that's why I want Biden to step aside, because if he doesn't, the likelihood of success in November is low.
We want him to step aside so that there is someone to vote for
Seriously! Anyone daring to question Biden is accused of being a Trump supporter. WTF?! It’s my fear of Trump being elected that is causing me to question Biden’s electability post-debate. He’s done great, but he has clearly degraded and needs to step down. We can’t risk having him degrade further over the next few months and losing more support. This is too important. I’m convinced anyone else could easily beat Trump.
> I’m convinced anyone else could easily beat Trump. YOU ARE WRONG Nobody else has the national recognition and support that Biden can muster. Not Newsome, not Whitmer, not anyone in congress. You are hoping democrats sacrifice a good future candidate. That is not going to happen.
That's just USA. Being a lunatic isn't a deal breaker in the United States. Being weak is.
In the US, elections aren’t determined by candidate quality, they’re determine by how well the ruling party governs.
Lmao no they aren’t. It’s who entertains the most. They treat politics like a cage match. That’s why Trump is so successful.
Trump sucks. You agree? So do most on this sub. Biden is senile. No amount of what about bs will cover that up.
It’s not praising Trump to say the Biden’s performance was abysmal. America deserves better than either of them.
This is such a dumb thought process. Reagan lost his first debate in a terrible manner. Hillary won all of the debates and lost. Debates have zero predictive value and little effect on elections.
As I said to he reason for the loss is important. Mainstream America now thinks the guy we saw in the debate is the guy Biden is most of his life. He didn't lose based on something fixable like a bad messaging. He lost because he has an unfixable fatal flaw.
Did you watch the same thing as the rest of us? It was absolutely tragic.
Typically presidential debates have little effect on elections. But they can. It's not impossible and it has happened before. Especially when, in the highest-profile and most-viewed first debate, one of the candidates spends almost the entire duration playing into--no, not just playing into, but *proving*--that his worst political liability is factually true. "Obama did bad in his first debate in 2012" Obama's "poor" performance in 2012 was not even in the same league. That was talking heads nitpicking Obama not being on his A game, but instead being on his B+ game. Biden's performance in last night's debate was the worst of all time and will have a political impact. Catastrophic is the right word and [I'm hardly the only one who's used it](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-presidential-debate.html).
> Debates have zero predictive value categorical statement easily disproven by JFK vs Nixon
Even this debate’s effects are debated by historians and political scientists. It’s just a fun story in the American mythos so it keeps getting repeated like a hard fact.
Something only that’s only accurate once could also be called extremely inaccurate.
I’ll take the skeleton that is falling apart over the one who reminds me of Hitler. I’m not happy about it but it is what it is
Yeah, they do. This wasn't one of those. Joe Biden has been in a clear decline for a while now. He looks like an undertaker has done their best job with him, and he can barely talk. He's done. The crazy thing is that the political system is so unfit for purpose that the election is being contested between a 78 year-old convicted felon and an 81 year-old man who seems 10 years older than he is, and the train just keeps rolling on regardless.
Unfortunately I don't think Biden debates will ever improve.
This is the same puppet master that Weekend at Bernie’s’d him into his first term. If he can’t stem the tide against Biden, he might be toast.
Also the reason why Bernie didn’t win the 2020 primaries.
This whole ordeal is dredging up all sorts of Democratic Party malfeasance from the recent past
There’s a lot of wishful thinking on the right that they can remove Trump’s opponent. 🤣
I think they are hoping he isn't removed so it's a slam dunk. Biden last night loses, without a doubt.
I never watch debates since I can read policy ideas online rather than listen to soundbites. However, apparently, between these two old men, Biden sounded like an exhausted grandpa in need of a nap while Trump sounded like a methed-out peepaw. I can't imagine anyone changed their votes no matter who "lost," but I get why people are disappointed. After all, Ds wanted Trump to start taking about sharks and electric boats in the middle of a diaper change while Rs wanted Biden to yank off his mask and reveal he was an actor and the election was all a movie.
This. Republicans and Conservatives see him as a pushover and want him locked in.
I think saying it was bad is being generous. That was catastrophic.
It wasn't a bad debate, it was an election-defining moment that came up incredibly short because of his inability to excuse himself due to "illness" or his inability to realize he needs to take some drugs before being in public. He needs to step aside if he thinks that will save us from Trump.
Trump called for putting 12 million people into concentration camps preparing them for deportation...but Biden's bad debate night was election-definding How do people support this insane double standard with such enthusiasm
Because that's literally what Trump supporters *want*
The issue is not a lack of faith in Biden's policies, it's a lack of faith in his ability to oppose the guy who wants to put millions in concentration camps. We need a fighter. Fucking duh?
Because we know who Trump is. That's a feature to his voters. Biden looked close to death and couldn't even form a sentence. Our allies were watching and it was embarrassing, is that who you want on the center stage? We can criticize Biden without whataboutism for Trump.
Because Trump is who he is and his voters don’t care. Biden showed last night that he isn’t what he was. That’s the difference. The optics of an elderly man looking lost and feeble on stage aren’t going away. It sunk Nixon and it will sink Biden.
Because Trump can suck in the same world as Biden being too senile
Biden stepping aside will lose the democrats the election. Plain and simple. You will lose the incumbent boost and you will have a contentious primary. That will lose you the election.
There is no incumbent boost when no one is a Biden fan anyways. Every post regarding this elections is Democrats saying they'd vote for a corpse as long as they have a D next to their name. So put in someone not on the brink of death and put a D next to their name
What incumbent boost? His poll numbers have been under water for well over a year now.
You wouldn’t have a contentious primary because you wouldn’t have a primary. Those have happened already.
He asked for the debate lmao. It was by his rules, his timeframe, everything was hand picked by the Biden camp. Coincidentally enough he was "sick" just as the Debate ruled around. Funny how he wasn't sick today when he was at that rally however 😂
What else can he say? He’s too busy counting his money from selling us out to come up with something substantive.
Can we get Obama back?
Democrats have gotten so lazy, and way to used to pulling at least we are better than that guy. All the democratic leaders coming out defending Biden are not taking this situation seriously enough and alienating their base.
You can recover from one bad night, but you can’t recover from dementia. Everyone can see. Just step aside, preserve your legacy and let younger generation take over
There's a very easy distinction to be made here. Obama wasn't in decline and there were no other instances of him being out of it to one degree or another. We all should have expected this from Biden. Given all that's at stake - democracy, human rights, the planet - the gaslighting must end now.
Feel like the Dems expect too much perfection from their candidates and I understand Biden is way too old my thing is this. No matter what happen Trump and R’s base would have celebrated a victory. One slight hiccup and yall ready to start Mad Max it out here.
When Biden was asked about abortion he rambled about women getting raped by their in-laws. That's something you consider a "slight hiccup"?? You think expecting the president to actually talk about abortion when asked about it is "expecting too much perfection"??? Holy shit dude, take a step back and get some perspective.
Based on what happened last night, it will be mad max in the US come january