One House Democrat said he spoke for others in the wake of the president’s stunningly feeble debate performance on Thursday: “The movement to convince Biden to not run is real.”
The House member, an outspoken defender of the president, said that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should consider “a combined effort” to nudge President Joe Biden out of the race.
Crestfallen by the president’s weak voice, pallid appearance and meandering answers, numerous Democratic officials said Biden’s bet on an early debate to rebut unceasing questions about his age had not only backfired but done damage that may prove irreversible. The president had, in the first 30 minutes of the debate, fully affirmed doubts about his fitness.
A second House Democrat said “reflection is needed” from Biden about the way ahead and indicated the private text threads among lawmakers were even more dire, with some saying outright that the president needed to drop out of the race.
Bidens about to go down as one of the worst Democrats in the last century because of his hubris if he doesn’t. His decent domestic agenda will be overshadowed by him ushering in another trump presidency by ignoring all the signs for him to drop out. He didn’t early last year when polls repeatedly showed that people thought he was too old. He didn’t when unnamed democrat was leading him by 10 points. He didn’t when his Gaza policy alienated large chunks of his base. If he doesn’t in the next couple weeks when there will probably be polls coming out showing majority support for him stepping down then he’s gone full head in the sand.
It’s like RBG all over again, if these people could just get it through there heads to quit while there ahead they could preserve a decent legacy, instead of tarnishing it by leading the way to a regressive order that overturns everything they’ve done.
This is one of the core problems of the Democrats: hubris. When Obama had a majority in the House and Senate, he could have easily pushed through a Supreme Court appointee to replace RBG. But she wouldn’t go. Because in her mind, there was no one qualified to fill her shoes. She was convinced that she was the GOAT and that to voluntarily step down when it was safe to do so would be an insult. This is coupled with the fact that Democrats were absolutely, completely certain that they would win every election for the presidency after Obama without trying and that the “coalition of the ascendant” would easily put Hillary into the White House, and then she could be the first female president in US history and have an easy PR win by replacing an aging female supreme court justice.
I’m willing to bet we have the the same problem here, but in one person: Biden probably thinks the Democrats could never field anyone for president better than him and that his victory is a lock without any real effort to campaign for it again.
Fun fact: the last time anything like this happened it was with Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was the 22nd president of the United States who lost his re-election bid the first time around, and then got re-elected to be the 24th president of the United States. We are officially in the second Gilded Age.
Dont worry the DNC will find a way to blame Bernie for it
And lemmings and redditors will blame progressives for it.
I’m going to blame the people that have been trying to gaslight everyone into thinking that Biden was fine.
He was fine. He has never sounded like this before. Just look at the State of the Union for what people were expecting.
This was him being unprepared and trying to remember statistics from 3 and a half years of accomplishments, with a cold, while running a country, while being 81. It reminded me of some bad interviews I’ve been in, honestly.
Bullshit homie, he sounds like this all the time, it’s just progressing faster. They made up a new term to cover it up a few weeks ago and then grampa ran off in his bathrobe and CNN had to call some silver alerts.
For all the people that talked about how horrible cnn has been to Biden, they were cutting him off to help him. Look back on his ‘gaffes’. They’ve been bad for a long time.
I literally don’t know what you’re talking about with bathrobes and silver alerts. What are you smoking?
Never work or live near an old folk’s home?
I live 4 blocks from an old folks’ home and have no idea what you’re talking about.
I don’t know what YOU are talking about with silver alerts. Or are you just bringing up irrelevant topics. Are you going to talk about burgers next?
it wouldn’t be an issue if people didn’t keep saying it
Which is just like ignoring/not testing for covid and calling it over
I don’t blame people for wanting to distance from the topic. The problem with Biden isn’t his ability to lead and govern. It’s his image. Talking about it directly hurts his image. BUT it’s still a discussion that needs to be had.
It would be like Covid if talking about Covid also made it worse.
But we’re already past the primary period… Are we suggesting having a quick primary anyway? Who should we put in his place? I haven’t heard a single suggestion for who else to elect. Are we saying Harris should step in? Who should she run with?
Newsom; Whitmer; Pritzker; Buttigieg; Shapiro; Khanna; Klobuchar; Walz; Booker.
I even saw someone mention Wes Moore and I was reminded that he’s a pretty good moderate governor of Maryland now instead of “only” a West Point graduate and author.
Pritzker is the only name on there with the chops for it. Maybe Walz, but he is DFL so I can’t see the DNC even looking at him.
No mention anywhere of Warren… Did she fail too hard in the primaries?
Gosh I’d love to see her debate Trump. He would never agree to it though, as she’d rip him to logical pieces.
No, in an election where age would be a larger issue than it already is I’m assuming anyone who would hit 80 in office is a non starter.
We need to be training up some younglings.
Wow, you’re right, I didn’t realize she was that old.
Warren is a woman and economically progressive and America hates people who are either of those things, let alone both.
Well, half of those were people who ran against Biden, so that makes sense.
I remember being impressed with Klobuchar, and incredibly impressed with Buttigieg (though sadly he’d lose a lot of the religious vote, sigh). I wish I liked Booker more… But yeah there are some acceptable options there, that’s a relief.
So yeah, lightning primary?
Fuck me that’s just fucking laziness innit?
It’s too late for this kind of thinking. We can’t change horses mid stream
It’s not too late now, but it’s absolutely too late in October when Biden needs to appear multiple times per day and across about 5 states. If he can’t do that, then he should step down now.
Don’t look up!
I disagree. I actually think you’d see a boost.
Acknowledging age concerns of the electorate = good.
Running someone fresh that appeals to this American Idol-esque popularity contest = good.
Running someone Republicans don’t have their talking-points fleshed out on = good.
Me too. I think you could change to more or less anyone and get a bump.
It really seems as though the populace is extraordinarily weary of these two tired old assholes.
Anyone under 60 would mop the floor with Trump’s toupee.
You have to understand that the average American functions off of lizard brain impulses. It would be probably go like this:
Acknowledging age concerns of the electorate = show of weakness.
Running someone fresh that appeals to this American Idol-esque popularity contest = show of weakness.
Running someone Republicans don’t have their talking-points fleshed out on = show of weakness.
America operates on principles of running someone strong who says they will always be strong and that if they ever become weak while in office and they acknowledge this to be replaced, the entire party goes with them like a tug boat latched to a sinking oil tanker. Trump didn’t win because he’s smart or a decent human being. He won because he exudes baseless confidence like a broken nuclear reactor exudes gamma radiation.
You know I agree with much of what you say here. All I’ll say is that while there’s uncertainty in the outcome of this route, I’m convinced there is certainty at this point that Joe Biden will lose. Why? Because there is all there is to know about Joe Biden. Call it media saturation; diminishing returns… There is fundamentally nothing Joe Biden can do or say that people don’t already know and now their minds are pretty much made up. The desperation-play of even asking for that debate shows the Biden campaign knows how bad of a position they’re in… And it of course backfired tremendously.
So at this point, I view it as uncertainty versus a known loss.
And in that respect, I’m looking at this alternate path as appealing to those lizard-brain American Idol-watching popularity-contest voters. If we could distill election cycles down to a handful of things, chief among them would be “People Vote for the more interesting candidate” and “People vote for the fresher face” – Within the backdrop of age being a huge issue for >70% of American voters when polled, that rings even more truthful now.
So personally, I say we take the chance.
What if no such person exists?
Then you just lose and Trump becomes President by default. Do you have confidence that Democrats can rally behind an actually named person? And if so, what is the name of that person?
I’m no Democrat. But I wouldn’t consider “replacing Biden by somebody” to be a serious option. You need to say “Replace Biden by SPECIFIC NAME HERE”. Otherwise you’re just throwing away the election before it even begins.
Are you asking that because you believe nobody is lining up wanting to be President, or that there is no candidate who fits that bill? Because I can think of half a dozen who both fit the bill and have obvious political ambitions:
All far more youthful; all far more charismatic. All who have enough national name recognition and would trounce Trump in debates and contrast of age alone.
The question to me isn’t, “who else,” it’s, “Will Biden voluntarily step down and endorse such a person at the convention?”
The polls prove this could work:nobody likes either candidate, people want new faces, and age is a problem. Just give them another choice on the Democratic ticket and it’s game-over for the convicted felon. If I could I’d be money this gives better odds than sticking it out with Biden.
I’m not into Democrats, so I honestly don’t know half the people on that list.
Newsom needs to start resigning today to make the election. I think he’s off on technical grounds. And others have pointed out that he’s lower than Trump on a lot of polls. Buttigieg is homosexual and sad to say it, homophobia is on the rise. After the party’s experimentation with Hillary Clinton / Kamala I’m not sure that its a winning strategy. I know middle-aged white guy WASP is annoying, but its a trope for a reason.
In all cases, Trump will deny the other pick as a “loser” and refuse to debate. You’ll be going into the election without ever getting on National stage. Its a huge set of risks.
I’m not necessarily against it. But I also don’t think Biden’s performance was worse than Trump’s last night. A lot of this seems to be just Democrats getting nervous about themselves and their own choices.
I see she’s getting some press. I wouldn’t be against her, but I also don’t know much about her in general. Can she hold up against the Republican hate machine? We all know that Hillary couldn’t do it, so what makes Whitmer any better or more prepared?
Biden did hold up vs Trump. Better or worse, he did prove himself. I recognize that people are worried about “newer, older Biden”. But there’s severe risks in switching a candidate now, especially as vetting likely hasn’t been completed by either side yet. (Democrats need to vet to figure out how Republicans are going to attack her). Its a complete mystery.
If your horse is on death’s door. And you’re crossing a stream. You’d better be prepared to swim.
Biden will lose against Trump. Changing candidates this late isn’t ideal but it’s better than guaranteed failure, and it’s better than after the convention if Biden deteroriates from where he’s currently at.
I’m not worried about him “deteriorating”. Anyone who has paid attention to him at all knows that was not reflective of his actual ability to lead. Hell, right after he sounded fine at the after party for anyone still listening.
I’m only worried about people thinking he’s deteriorating. A lot of people have literally only seen that debate from him in the last year and nothing else.
If we stay with Biden, he needs to get really aggressive with his image. Hang out with influencers, go to games, don’t talk about controversial politics while having fun (like with the ice cream).
If we go a different direction it needs to happen now.
I really don’t care which we do. But it’s an important conversation to have. This debate fiasco is 99% on Biden being unprepared. But image is everything for a candidate.
I thought that, but after last night, I wouldn’t let Biden cook in my kitchen without supervision.
You have to, if your horse literally can’t make it across. It may not go well, but you have no choice.
I see the down votes, but I took this as a Wag the Dog reference. They’re pointing out just how terrible an idea it is for Biden and the democrats to keep trying to sleepwalk through this election while Trump and the republicans pull out all the rhetorical stops.
Okay enjoy drowning I guess.
Stay the course
We can change horses if there’s overwhelming pressure to do it and it’s exceptionally well planned.
What we absolutely can’t do is nominate someone else against Biden’s wishes and still have him on the ballot as an independent… that’s how you get folks like Woodrow Wilson.
I, personally, think it’s doubtful that much pressure will materialize, but I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
Meh. Planning be damned. Just float someone under 60 and they’ll crush it.
It depends on how the democrat’s civil war goes in that case. If the replacement gets the lion’s share of the funding then people will abandon Biden. His polling really isn’t great.