I hate that this is the debate we’re having now

I also hate that I’m feeding into the NYT’s lazy and transparent attempt to undo their previous partisanship with new opposite partisanship like those two things cancel out and add up to journalism

But what the hell, if that’s where we’re at, this is a relevant data point about the landscape

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’ll keep saying it: Joe Biden has been the best president of my lifetime. Everything good he did will be undone if Donald Trump wins, and unless the Democrat strategy hugely shifts (up to and including a new candidate) then Donald Trump is nearly certain to win.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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      4 months ago

      ~Fuck yeah~ (Edit: I had misread the last part of the comment I was replying to)

      If he’s too old and someone else is better, then let’s do someone else. Figure out the plan, rock and roll with it, and get moving. Maybe Biden will or won’t be on board for that but that’s on him at that point.

      But this idea that in response to a transparently partisan hit job, Biden is supposed to wander away from the campaign a few seconds before the motorcycle hits the jump-ramp and hope the most incompetent single faction in Washington puts together a last-minute clutch plan for victory - when they JUST DEMONSTRATED that they are gullible to bad ideas being force-fed to them by their enemies, and are in all likelihood going to bumble around trying to nominate Michelle Obama, or suddenly blame the whole mess on Biden for resigning, or whatever the fuck they do, for a while before finally just putting Kamala in place and watching her crash and burn because few of the problems Biden was facing were caused by anything about Biden - is absurd, and Biden is right to laugh it out of the room and continue campaigning.

      Figure out an actual plan which you can pitch in all these anguished op-eds, or start trying to poach his delegates to usurp him, or fuckin do SOMETHING other than running around doing your best to lose the election

      • ceenote@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I think the main issue is that it would be much, much better if Biden stepped aside willingly. As in, better enough that it will significantly impact election results. I think this is largely a pressure campaign to get him to do that.

        • Wrench@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The problem is that many of us believe that Biden is our best hope even still.

          If we had a strong candidate that we felt could rally the party this late in the game, that would be one thing. But IMO, we don’t. Every potential candidate has major hurdles that would take more than 4 months to smooth out.

          Newsom is already the Right’s boogeyman. They targeted him years ago and made him the next Hillary Clinton because they saw him as a threat. I think he’s a generally strong Dem candidate for the future, but the Right has managed to brute force negativity to his name that it’s going to take some time to fight.

          Harris just isn’t well liked. She’s a bit of a dead fish candidate. I have no idea what she has been up to, all interviews I’ve seen of her, she holds her cards very close to her chest, and because of it, comes off bland and uninteresting. I do not see her doing well against Trump at this point.

          Whitmer just isn’t recognizable enough at large. She’d need more time to establish herself.

          Honestly, despite the very legitimate concerns with Biden after the debate and following appearances, he’s still the strongest candidate IMO. There could have been stronger candidates had he stepped down from the beginning, but the time left is insufficient for the front runner candidates, even if we picked one today.

          • ceenote@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I understand that a lot of people still think Biden is the best foot forward, but he’s losing right now and nobody has been able to even give me an outline of how that could get turned around. I can think of no realistic strategy for getting the concerns around his mental fitness to go away.

            You only flip the board when you’re losing, and we’re losing. Yes, switching candidates is a risk, but polls suggest it’s a viable, calculated one.

            • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              he’s losing right now

              He’s not. He’s in a statistical tie in the polls, even when looking at swing states. And that assumes the polls are accurate.

              Just yesterday I got a text message to “take a poll”. I’m not clicking on any link texted to me, so I won’t show up in any of those polls. Also, I don’t pick up any numbers that I don’t know. They’re 90% scams and the rest are wrong numbers.

              There’s no way for a pollster to get my opinion because they rely on methods from last century.

              • ceenote@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                I hope you’re right, but if the margin between the polls and election day is similar to how it was in 2016 and 2020 then Biden is about to get blown out.

            • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              I can think of no realistic strategy for getting the concerns around his mental fitness to go away.

              Ranked Choice voting would give people more options, giving us more chances to beat trump.

            • Wrench@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I think that’s a fair opinion that I just disagree with. Right now, we’re in a very awkward situation that doesn’t have much precedent to rely on, so no one really has much to rely on besides their instincts in public opinion, which is extremely unreliable.

              I’ll say that I personally disregard polling out of hand because I personally find it extremely unreliable, even when the polls are conducted with the intent of impartiality. When I also don’t believe is commonly the case.

              • El Barto@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                that doesn’t have much precedent to rely on,

                Oh we do have enough precedent: Donald Trump as a president.

                I’ll vote for a potato if it’s our only choice to keep that deplorable from stepping into the WH again.

                • Wrench@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  I meant about dropping the presumptive nominee last minute when there wasn’t a real primary to have a 2nd place with momentum to fallback on

                  • El Barto@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    I know what you meant. My point is that we don’t need to have a precedent for a scenario that will clearly fail. I don’t like Biden. I’d prefer Bernie. But at this point, if he drops the race (which he won’t), Trump will win. And screw that.

        • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          If trump were forced out as candidate, then he’d go thermonuclear and destroy the Republicans.

          If Biden were forced out as candidate, he’d get a heads up and claim it was his idea and work with the party to transition.

          There’s no way he’d leave kicking and screaming, though at the same time unless it was a done deal, he’s going to claim to be 100% in, cause the second he starts to show any doubt, he’s already destroyed his campaign.

        • El Barto@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          If he does this, we’ll lose to Trump.

          Google “professor who correctly predicted almost all presidential elections.”

      • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
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        4 months ago

        Curious and not knowledgeable about the politic system of the USA but Harris appears to be the current VP. Shouldn’t she be entirely in the loop? This would substitute perfectly; And Biden could still be VP if he is (and to me apparently he does) in for the purpose of the American citizen?

        I had this thought and saw something today about the election were Biden-Harris was mentioned. FINALLY I thought. Is there something I am missing?

    • El Barto@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Obama implemented ACA and a lot of people benefit from it without even knowing it.

      He could have done much more if it wasn’t because he was black. Yes, I said it. The GOP was relentless against him, to the point of even shutting the government twice. I will never forgive them for it.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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          4 months ago

          I completely missed that “Tuna” was involved with the actual username of this person you were talking to. I thought you were just being forthright and jocular with them. I like my version better.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.devOP
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          4 months ago

          Some of the shills were swearing to me the other day that they were around in the 1990s and they and all their friends were super excited about how Bill Clinton balanced the federal budget, and then Obama was this big swing to the right, which Biden was a continuation of, like light-years to the right of the progressive sea change that Clinton had been…

          My brother in Christ I was around activists in the 90s and the Obama years and I can promise you that that’s not how it played out. Depending on your age and how much you know about Biden’s economic accomplishments, Biden is either the best president the country has had in your lifetime or the second best. Full stop. For, I think, almost anyone who’s of an age to be realistically on Lemmy. The only way to make it any different than that is to go all the way back to JFK, and then still on top not to be aware of what’s been happening to income inequality in the last few years.

          • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            Clinton was an absolutely rubbish president. For all the shit I give Obama he was a far better president than Clinton - but, as someone born during HW’s presidency it is depressing that Biden is indeed the best president I’ve ever lived under.