President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Maybe not, in terms of politics. But make no mistake, Swift could/would probably win an election. Trump won the election he did, basically, on name- and face-recognition and public/TV popularity, not based on much of any actual substance, and Swift would be Trump on steroids in that respect.

Furthermore, with all her substantial, widespread and well-known goodwill, she could win over the world, not just the U.S.

So, maumann's idea is probably not as ridiculous as it might seem at first-post.

 

Perhaps, instead of days of debate prep at Camp David, Biden should have just spent the afternoon freebasing Geritol.

 

That's who I don't understand - how can you be remotely on the fence?

Frankly, if someone is an undecided voter right now, they're probably incredibly uninformed and unaware.

 

No idea. And I have no idea how many people watched. Maybe it's meaningless.

But goddamn. Tonight just highlighted how we have utterly failed as a nation. These are the two options? This is a disgrace.

 

Had it on in the background at work, so mostly heard the "debate" rather than saw it.

Biden sure didn't sound great, but unlike Trump, at least he attempted to answer the questions. Trump at first put off, then completely ignored whatever was asked so he could roll into his caffeinated rants about how the country's gone to hell since he was in charge.

Most specifically, Trump never directly answered about his views on Jan. 6 and whether he would accept the results of November's election. That should be a deal-breaker for anyone on the fence (but unfortunately, won't be).

 

That’s the thing about a democracy. We ARE our political system.

We, who make decisions based on physical appearance. We, who make judgments based on irrelevant details from candidates’ personal lives. We, who vote on name recognition and incumbency because we can’t be bothered to understand policy.

Possibly the best president of the last 100 years was Dwight Eisenhower. Could that bald guy be elected today?

And if you are one of the best and brightest in this nation, why the FUCK would you go into politics and expose yourself to 24x7 bullshit that gets in the way of, you know, actually being a leader?

The problem isn’t The System. The problem is us.

 

As someone who knows exactly who I am voting for, I promised myself I wasn't going to watch. And then I spent the entire evening on Twitter and here.

In terms of silver linings, many of which have been expressed here already:
1. It's June. The people who are going to decide this election haven't even begun to tune in and won't for another three months.
2. I think "convicted felon" is a harder label to shed than "old guy with a cold had a bad night."
3. Donald Trump's priors are baked in. There is a sizable mass of people that simply hates his guts. People aren't going to turn to him as an alternative option.

But:
1. Biden's performance as reported confirms every prior concern that hand-wringing "Dems in disarray" types have about his candidacy and is a great invitation for the "screw all these guys" option, several of which have already posted here. Biden losing will not be because Trump gained a significant amount of support, but because his own support from 2020 lost interest, which is a distinct possibility given all the "intersectionality" required of a progressive candidate these days and the progressive candidate no-win scenario that the Middle East currently is.
2. One party is kvetching about their nominee tonight and that alone is a significant problem.
3. Perception is everything, especially when people don't have time to sift through the tremendous volume of lies.

As I said on Election Night 2016, I wish I didn't care about politics so much. But I do. All I know is that I don't think my mother's sanity will survive a second Trump administration, and as a working journalist, I have my doubts about myself.

But, it's June, and it's a week before a holiday weekend. Hell, this time next month, Donald Trump could be in prison. One or both of them could stroke out. I know who I'm rooting for.

As for tonight, I'd say it was a pick-six for Biden ... late in the first quarter of a tied game.

Edit: And all these people thinking Biden should step down, that's just foolishness.

The simple fact is that if Biden had said in 2021 he was doing one term only, he'd get nothing done. If he walked away last year, he paints everything he did in the last four years as a failure. If he walks away now, he paints everything he did in the last four years as a failure AND basically makes Trump a de facto incumbent. That second term is a mandatory double-down in this political climate no matter who you are.

 

That is an excellent post, SoloFlyer. Some great, cogent, correct, true and much-needed perspective. Thanks for providing it.

Indeed, Biden's presidency was normal...except for one thing: We never lost Trump. He has been an ever-present, well, presence throughout Biden's term -- unfortunately, and also, unusually. Almost universally, when a President has left office, he has, more or less, gone away. (God, why hasn't that happened with Trump?).

Anyway, it never did, and obviously, it still hasn't, almost to the point of it seeming like he's practically been a co-President, or something. He's been that much in the public eye, and he has stayed there, and continued to influence issues and people. Heck, most of the time, he's not even referred to as former President Trump.

 

Anecdotes are not data, but I’ve seen quite a few people on my Facebook feed who usually have very little to say about politics who were watching tonight. (General consensus: Write-in vote for a player to be named later) It’s all well and good to say people don’t pay attention until the very end, but we’ve never had a summer debate before. And people do attention to debates.

I like Joe Biden. I think he’s put together a good team to man the controls of the executive branch (which is really what the job is mostly about but our peanut brains can’t handle that nuance.)

But by any objective standard he bombed tonight. And he’s putting the country in danger, because if Donald Trump is returned to power we will never have representative democracy again in anything but name, even after he’s dead and gone.

So he needs to figure out whether he can do better and then go do it. Or he needs to step aside. I’m done with the Pollyanna bullshit.

 

The problem is that a lot of the decided voters -- those voting for Trump - are uninformed and unaware (and they don't even realize it!), and, presumably, we're trying to move some of them over to other decided's.

 

I do have to say that I really liked the microphone shut-downs on whichever candidate whose turn it wasn't.

That tactic alone seemed to go a long way toward keeping the candidates and the debate on track, rather than having things devolve into total chaos as a result of unchecked back-and-forth in which one person is just trying to speak over the other.

I daresay it probably helped Trump, and made him appear stronger and sound not-as-bad as he might have, though.

 

I suspect if you had watched the debate you would understand why people are saying Biden needs to step down.

I'll put it this way: my mother-in-law is in hospice in a memory care facility. She has dementia and is in a unit filled with people with dementia. My wife has spent a lot of time there over the past year or so... and she immediately recognized the look on Biden's face and his mannerisms. She was rattled after watching that debate.

If this were a choice between Biden and a normal, sentient human being -- a Mitt Romney type -- this would be over.