I know that it’s popular to dismiss President Biden. I get it. He’s old. This is the first election featuring the 2 oldest candidates, ever. So what? The future of the WORLD is literally dependent on this election. To boot Biden from the ticket and try to bootstrap another candidate is madness. Booting this incumbent and hoping his VP will succeed is like firing the cook and hoping the dishwasher will give you Michelin-quality food. Stick with the old man, and figure out a way to enact his popular policies while also expanding the Supreme Court, enacting term limits and limiting “Christian” Nationalists.
Republican voters: well known for understanding politics 👍
“They go low we go high” is a losing strategy.
As for the “will of the voters”? Look at the polls! Voters don’t want Joe and the will of the voters will demonstrate it when Trump fucking wins, and if you really believe that’s the end of democracy then maybe that matters a little more than primary tradition.
EDIT Relevant article to our discussion just dropped on Jacobin, here’s what Democratic Rep. Adam Smith had to say:
Republicans will believe what Trump tells them to believe. You’re just fighting this to be stubborn, it makes no sense that republicans would weaken themselves just to be consistent. They are horribly inconsistent very often.
It doesn’t matter. If everyone in this country starts betraying their values just to save it, then the nation might not be worth saving anymore. Someone has to stand up for democratic principles. And polls are not that great these days, you remember they predicted Hilary’s victory? The voters voted, and they were primaries even if you didn’t have anyone you liked running.
Don’t presume my values. I’m trans in a red state. When Trump wins I’m probably going to die.
Dumping Biden is life or death to me, so no shit I’m going to be stubborn.
Meanwhile, you would rather Trump get elected than Democrats replace Biden.
Your priorities are fucked dawg 😞
No, I actually think Biden would beat Trump if we actually had the election with him. If we look at the polling before the race to replace Santos’ seat, the dems outperformed their polling average by 8 points, and I expect something similar in the national. As I said, polls are not that great these days.
Additionally, I hope Biden does drop out, I think Harris would be a stronger candidate and improve our chances. However, I will fight this silly idea that some backroom, democratic party behind-the-scenes conspiracy group can magically save us. It cannot. The only ones that can save us is us, the voters who have to get out the vote with grassroots effort. No matter who the dem candidate is. Biden can help by resigning, but that is outside of the control of everyone but Biden. I actually think he will, though, he’s a good man.
I guess we’ll see.
I’d put $20 on him dropping out in the next week, actually.
So, what, does that have nothing to do with the Party slowly coming out against his candidacy? Democratic donors freaking out? The endless parade of opinion pieces? Elected representatives asking for him to step aside? The Party is putting the pressure on!
If he drops out I think that shows Party power.
You have a fondness for exaggeration and absolutes it seems. It has to be party control, or nothing to do. Consider a spectrum, shades of grey. As I said, they have influence, sway, they can lobby. Pressure. This is not control, command, force. The difference involves free will.
You understand a spectrum, yes? How, much like gender, something can be beyond a simple binary? We can have an in-between thing?
Where were the debates? I’ll tell you! The Party decided there would be no debates, because they had already chosen Biden to be the nominee. No debates means no media coverage for those other candidates, which means their campaigns are dead on arrival. That’s something the Party controls absolutely. That’s not a spectrum.
Voters weren’t going to choose Dean Philips or “that one author lady whose name I can’t remember” because those candidates didn’t get to speak on prime-time or get put into our news-feeds, the debates are where candidates make their case to voters.
A real primary means having debates. So. Where were the debates? There were some private forums and townhalls held by colleges and independent media outlets, but the Democratic National Committee didn’t sponsor or host debates because they had already chosen Biden. They said “no debates on CNN or MSNBC” and that was that.