Given the current state of partisan polarization, it’s unlikely Biden can get majority job approval next year even with the most fortunate set of circumstances. But the good news for him is that he probably doesn’t have to. Job-approval ratings are crucial indicators in a normal presidential reelection cycle that is basically a referendum on the incumbent’s record. Assuming Trump is the Republican nominee, 2024 will not be a normal reelection cycle for three reasons.
Don’t take it for granted. Hilary lost because of this. Get out and vote.
Hillary lost because she couldn’t read the writing on the wall and told everyone she deserved to win because it was her time. She was the worst person on the planet to go against Trump. The GOP spent 30 years demonizing her and she played right into their hands. Biden should have been the candidate then but that is hindsight.
And even with all of her mistakes and her total lack of charisma, she still only lost because of an archaic system that lets the winner of the popular vote lose.
And even with all of her mistakes and her total lack of charisma, she still only lost because of an archaic system that lets the winner of the popular vote lose.
It’s not like this system was sprung on her at the last second. She didn’t take it into account. She pretty much ignored key swing states that wound up going to Trump.
She was carried in a palanquin across the finish line in the primaries and didn’t understand that she had to run the rest of the way.
You are not wrong.
This is like saying basketball is archaic because it lets the team with the most hoops lose.
If we were deciding our leadership based on basketball games, I’d sure as shit say it was archaic.
Biden had just lost his son and didn’t want the job. He later said he regretted that decision.
The entire nation regrets that decision.
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She was the worst person on the planet to go against Trump.
She absolutely was. And with the pied piper strategy, she basically said who she thought the worst candidate was in the opposition’s field, then lost to him.
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Yeah, that electoral college really snuck up on her. Just popped out of the blue in 1789, giving her no time to prepare.
EDIT: Ok., that was harsh. I should go easy on her. After all, she just lost her dear friend Henry Kissinger.
biden would have easily won, being the outgoing vp of a well-liked (by most) two-term president. him not running in 2016 is, i think, ultimately what enabled the hateful, incoherent, diaper-wearing, buffoon to even have a chance–which was only enhanced by the dnc playing favorites and essentially handing the nomination to clinton.
i get the ‘why’ he didn’t run; but man, it sure fucked-up this country (and beyond).
him not running in 2016 is, i think, ultimately what enabled the hateful, incoherent, diaper-wearing buffoon to even have a chance
Nope.
What gave trump a chance was Hillary boosting him because she thought she had a chance against him, but no chance against even Jeb Bush.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
Also, the structure of the Republican primary meant that the person with a plurality of votes got all the delegates. And because there was such a split field and Trump was a celebrity, he got a lead in delegates which gave him more press.
if biden ran in 2016, clinton would have been a non-factor.
Then why did Clinton feel her team had to boost him?
Do you know more than her campaign team?
I totally agree.
That year was probably when we would’ve gotten “peak” or near-peak Biden, but that was around the time when his other son Beau Biden had died, which I thought was the reason he sat out the Primaries, which might’ve made them a bit more interesting, but would’ve had the same effect of shutting Sanders out. The way I remembered it, Biden essentially saved the 2012 Obama campaign against Romney, as Obama had been having a shitty campaign and debate performance up until Biden went up against Paul Ryan and dominated. After that debate, things seemed to turn around and I thought he was a shoe-in for 2016.
Moderates are really really motivated to only be just slightly better than Republicans.
They want to be as corporation/billionaire friendly as possible, so they get as many donations as possible.
It’s why Hillary spent money, time, and effort boosting trump and Ben Carson in 2016. There wasn’t much difference between her and Jeb Bush, so she didn’t think she had a chance at beating him.
The obvious risk was Hillary was/is a horrible candidate and might not have even been able to win against them, which she wasn’t.
It’s like if the pitcher in a MLB game bet for his team to win, but by less than the spread. He still wants to win, but he keeps throwing softballs over the plate if he starts to win too much.
But that’s just a game, this is literally playing with people’s lives.
But that’s just a game, this is literally playing with people’s lives.
Welcome to US politics.
If your state has mail-in voting, just use that. I like to vote while not wearing pants.
Pics or didn’t happen
I’m not giving this sweet ass away for free
Do you take expired Reddit gold?
Asking for a friend.
From what I’ve heard and seen, a lot of younger voters are disillusioned by the Democrats’ stance on genocide. I’ve heard the comment many are repeating that they are single issue voters when the issue is genocide.
From what I’ve heard and seen, there’s a massive astroturfing effort to discredit Biden over the actions of an allied nation. It’s as if a massive propaganda machine is at work that completely ignores the fact that Republicans would have an even worse stance than Biden on this issue.
Charles Manson would make a better US president than Hitler…
Doesn’t mean people are going to get hype to go vote for Charles Manson.
And telling people those are the only options will depress turnout.
And when turnout is depressed, republicans win.
So how about we try running someone who actually cares about genocide and will at least stop trying to get the perpetrators even more money while telling their own citizens we’re the only first world country that can’t afford universal healthcare?
Like, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that would get more votes.
But the people running the Dem party aren’t going to just turn down those AIPAC kickbacks if they can get away with “at least we’re not republicans, so shut up and vote for another genocide supporter”.
They’ll always aim for “barely better than a Republican”. So let’s fucking replace them with people willing to do more than the absolute bare minimum
There are absolutely very important reasons to still vote for Biden, but you can’t rely on millions of people to all do the right thing just because it’s logical. The person who’s running for office ultimately has the responsibility to ensure people want to vote for them. It’s just not really useful to blame millions of people when you know that there are statistically for sure going to be disaffected people out of those who need to be motivated. It doesn’t even matter whether most voters who would vote for Biden turn out to vote for him - they almost certainly will - because this fight is at the margins, and to win, you have to capture the irresponsible and unreliable people too.
The “but it could be much worse” argument doesn’t carry much weight for many people on this issue.
Has anyone tried explaining that if you allow in the people literally trying to take their rights away, they won’t get another chance to vote in a politician against genocide?
Like the genocide is awful but it shouldn’t make people forget they have very close to home issues currently happening right now.
I hear that excuse every single election and have always found it lacking.
If we always have to wait until after the next election to demand better of the Democrats then we’ll never see any change. “Lesser evilism” will only allow the Democrats to continue sliding the overton window to the right.
Even if you’re already planning to vote a straight Democrat ticket, don’t tell them that. Make them think you’re a swing voter they need to pander to.
How are you hearing it every single election? The main issues didn’t start popping up (or at least blatantly enough to change voter turnout) until the 2016 election.
Like that’s not nearly enough elections in between to hear the excuse every election.
How are you hearing it every single election?
He’s only seen 2 that he remembers.
With my ears, of course. Trump isn’t the only threat to the Democrat party, just the most recent one.
These tired ass arguments will no longer work for the younger generation.
Thank god
Which is still an ignorant take, because we’ve only got two realistic options. Bad and worse.
Any complaints otherwise are ignorant at best, if not maliciously deceptive.
Which is still an ignorant take, because we’ve only got two realistic options. Bad and worse.
The solution isn’t “shut up and be grateful we’re not worse”. It’s actually running someone that’s good.
We’ve tried the “shut up you don’t have a choice” strategy and that just keeps ending up with republicans in office.
Why not just run good candidates that want to help America if they get in office?
You push the Democratic Party candidate to the left. Supporting Republicans (which is what you’re doing if you don’t vote for Joe Biden, full stop) isn’t going to help anyone and won’t get you better candidates in the future. It will literally have the opposite effect. There’s a great batch of possible candidates for 2028 (Witmer, Shapiro, Newsome, etc). Sure I’d prefer them over Biden for 2024 but they’re not running.
Why not just run good candidates that want to help America if they get in office?
Because that doesn’t make nearly as much
moneydonations as “Look at how awful the Republicans are.”If the D’s ran a real candidate that actually cared about the country, they’d get blasted in fund raising…People like Booker would go broke overnight if we got universal healthcare. Pelosi would lose her ass if we outlawed congressional trading.
We’re fucked…irrevocably completely and utterly fucked.
If the D’s ran a real candidate that actually cared about the country, they’d get blasted in fund raising
Not really, Bernie and even trump made enough off “small” donations to run effective campaigns.
The difference is small donations from voters don’t come with all the perks and kickbacks as the same amount from a single PAC/billionaire/organization.
And as long as the bare minimum is having a D next to your name, grifters are going to run with the D, and get those huge donations because the people making them expect a return.
So yeah…
People like Booker would go broke overnight if we got universal healthcare. Pelosi would lose her ass if we outlawed congressional trading.
Those are two great examples of politicians that need to be replaced, and why our standards need to be more than a single letter.
While implying that Trump, a literal white nationalist authoritarian fascist, somehow doesn’t support the genocide of brown people
A lot of people are clueless that Trump is going to be the GOP candidate.
The issue with that is that Republicans hold an even worse position on genocide in multiple ways and would have been gunning for not only Israel killing all Palestinians, but ejecting all Muslims from the US as well. Which they will also totally do if they win the election.
Two fascist parties?
Time to stay home on election day. I refuse to be complicit in the crimes of the State.
If the Democrats want my vote, they can start pandering to me instead of AIPAC.
I don’t have to like Joe or his policies to know that voting for him is the better choice. It sucks to have vote for the lesser evil, but right now the gap between the lesser and greater evils is so large that it makes the decision simple.
Joe will be
a lame duck in 28’ineligible to run in 28’which will hopefully give us a chance to force the issue on not wantting to vote for the lesser evil then. However right now the greater evil is the issue, if we want to have a system to reform in 28’ the choice on who to vote for now isn’t a choice at all.I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when my best choice is to vote for someone who I know will not adequately address the multitude of extremely time sensitive issues facing our planet and country.
Like yeah, Trump will be worse, and the system is such that you literally have to vote blue if you want to mitigate the damage. But climate change isn’t waiting for us to “fix the system”, Americans dying of inadequate health care don’t have time to wait, the rich aren’t going to stop widening the wealth gap just because. And for all of this, my vote goes to an administration that will only employ soft tactics to stop genocide…
But hey, at least it could be worse right…
Lesser evil might have been a thing 20 years ago, calling Biden lesser evil is just ignorant.
He’s going up against a man that does not believe in democracy or the peaceful transition of power.
It’s like looking at broccoli and dog vomit and saying I’ll eat broccoli it’s the lesser of two evils… 🤷♂️
Pretty good metaphor since the only one who’d say that for real is a fucking child who’s mad they don’t get ice cream for dinner
?
He can’t run a third time, even if he’s alive by then.
I was under the impression that “Lame Duck” refers to a sitting president that can no longer run. I was incorrect. I ment to state that with Joe being unable to run, 28’ is the better time push the lesser vs greater evil issue.
Ah, ok.
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Russia stopped pushing Jill Stein quite so hard once they compromised the major parties (democrats by releasing their emails, republicans by using their email trove as kompromat.)
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Presuming whatever party emerges from the ashes doesn’t manage to still be worse. Which… gestures vaguely at the kind of humanity that gains and keeps power
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Are people this dumb? Would they really consider Trump for another presidency, let alone another insane Republican candidate?
Imagine if the DNC gave democrats a worthy candidate. Then we wouldn’t have to strongarm democrats to vote for democratic candidates.
Who?
The problem is sort of chicken and egg: if there were an obvious democratic alternative the party could agree on, Biden would be out. There is no such person, so we get stuck with what we have right now.
Hard to fault the party for not wanting to bruise their most likely candidate in a tough primary, either.
This sucks, but it’s not the Democrats’ fault: it’s our first past the post voting system.
Who would’ve been better?
If the DNC hadn’t shoved Hillary down our throats, Bernie would have certainly won the primary. But on policy the best candidate would have been Andrew Yang.
The DNC would rather lose elections than give us non-establishment politicians.
I was under the impression that Bernie was too left even for a lot of Democrat voters, so winning the elections could’ve been a tough one
And just like that, the party’s voters aren’t expected to fall in line for a candidate they don’t want in order to stop Trump.
Oh yes how the DNC shoved Hillary down our votes by mind controlling millions of so called Bernie supporters to not even turn out for him and then throw a tantrum that other voters didn’t vote for him on their behalf.
Imagine if people who pissed and moaned on this point actually turned out to vote in the primary process that selects the candidates.
Sadly, yes. Even a lot of people who talked about how dangerous he was while they worked in his administration aren’t willing to commit to voting for Biden over Trump if it comes down to them in the general election.
Pence is going to vote for him despite that whole attempted murder thing. What I want to know is what Mother thinks about that.
If Trump is still the nominee, he will likely have been convicted in at least one of those 4 criminal cases, but still holds sway in the party to win anyway and will double-dog-dare Georgia to throw him in jail. In that case, I don’t think enough people would willingly vote for a felon (even a Republican one) to give him a chance.
This leaves Biden a single thing he absolutely needs to win the election: a pulse. I think the only person keeping America from becoming a fascist dictatorship is not Biden, it’s his cardiologist. That doctor needs to keep Biden’s heart ticking until Jan 21 2025.
I don’t think enough people would willingly vote for a felon
It does lay the groundwork for a civil war. You know some redneck dumb fucks are going to try to break him out of jail, and then it’s on. It’s clear that Trump’s base is voting Trump no matter what.
His base sure, but his base aren’t all of the people who’ve voted for him, and being a convicted felon is going to tank his numbers outside that base
The other people that voted for him are still going to vote for him because R.
Pretending otherwise is why Biden is behind in the polls.
I’m equally happy with a Saddam style lookalike or if he kicks the bucket in the last few days, even a Weekend at Bernie’s solution.
The worst possible timeline is if Biden wins the election, but croaks before the election can be certified by Congress. There will be legitimate challenges over whether any Biden/Harris electors can be accepted at all, and the election may go to the House/Senate to decide. And even if the Democrats control Congress , if the House has to vote on who should be President each state’s delegation gets 1 vote, and that math favors Republicans.
In that scenario, a Trump/Harris administration is extremely likely, even if the Biden/Harris ticket won enough EC votes to win.
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Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy? If he hasn’t keeled over with hamberders and buckets of KFC, he still has 91 felonies hanging over his head. He likely will be imprisoned, or disqualified by then.
Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy?
Because he’s winning the primaries now by some distance, it’s not illegal for him to run from prison and at least one state court has already decided that he did engage in an insurrection but that that doesn’t disqualify him either.
I thought they decided that he did but that didn’t disqualify him.
Here I am thinking they decided that he did but that didn’t disqualify him.
What are you implying? That they decided he did but that didn’t disqualify him?
Most of those won’t go to trial until after the election, and the courts have shown zero desire to actually punish him in a meaningful way. I will be very surprised if he is not the candidate
Yeah it would be surprising, it would also upend the entire democratic election strategy so not planning for that outcome is still a risk. Biden is a huge liability if anyone but trump comes out to rep the gop.
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Tall me about one billionaire that suffered the consequences of his actions. You can’t because they’re no one.
He shouldn’t have been the nominee in 2016, either. It’s not safe to assume anything at this point.
The Russian playbook of getting dirt to smear an opponent did not work when the Biden hard drive was shown to be Russian sourced. Gulianni’s provider is charged as being a foreign agent, as of a week or so ago.
You really think Trump will serve any time? If it were anyone else I might agree. Can’t wait to see how this plays out.
Well for starters a lot of his full trial dates are being set for after the primaries
They’re basically trying to take what comy did to Clinton and dial it to 11
Speaking of which, the Russian emails, had presumably classified information. The rules over classified documents are to never comment about them, because any information released is another clue about what is contained in actual classified documents. This left Clinton in a limbo of not being able to defend herself, while being smeared. Comey, believed the emails, until they were fully investigated and well after the election. We didn’t hear about the planted parts, one way or the other, because of those same security rules. I DO remember the US security council trying to limit damage after Trump was elected.
The GOP has a choice of whom to run. I assume there will be a way that will be found, for them to switch candidates, if Trump is in prison, Even if it occurs in the window between his winning the primary, and election, they will find a way. It may even be to their advantage, as the new candidate receives Trumps blessing and gives Trump clemency.
Russian emails? Are you thinking of the Wikileaks stuff, with the hacked data from Clinton’s campaign staffers? I am pretty sure those are different and separate from the emails that Comey was investigating for the FBI.
There are two “Hilary’s emails” stories. It is easy to confuse the two – Republicans worked very hard throughout 2016 to make it easy to confuse the two – yet they are two different series of events and almost totally unrelated to one another.
The original “Buttery Males” story: Comey and the FBI investigated emails that were stored on a private server owned by the Clinton Foundation, a server that Hilary had used for official business while serving as Secretary of State. In July of 2016, Comey announced that while they did find a small number of documents marked “classified” stored on the server, this violation was obviously inadvertent and should not be prosecuted. “Sloppy but not criminal,” or something like that. Then later in October (after taking a few months of heat from his fellow Republicans for not going after Clinton harder) Comey announced that there may be files on a laptop owned by Hilary’s assistant, Huma Abedin, that the FBI had not yet had a chance to review. Comey announced this privately to a congressional committee and it was leaked almost instantly, about a week before election day.
The “From Russia with Love” email story: Meanwhile, Russian hackers infiltrated Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and stole thousands of personal emails and other data from her staffers and people they’d communicated with. None of these emails were classified and the FBI never investigated the Clinton campaign in this case (except as the victims of a crime). Wikileaks and Julian Assange got in on the action and built up lots of hype. That’s when, in the middle of a campaign speech, Trump made his famous on-stage plea: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Trump was clever, mendaciously associating the original “classified documents on your private server” controversy with the “Russia stole your data and is about to release it on Wikileaks” controversy, but the two stories don’t really have anything to do with one another, at all, and they never really did.
It may even be to their advantage, as the new candidate receives Trumps blessing and gives Trump clemency.
I also have been wondering what the race will look like in six months, when all this speculation about Trump’s trials (and potential prison time?) will be upon us for real.
Legally (so far at least) they say Trump can run from prison. If he were to win, as POTUS he’d have many options available to clear his name, dismiss his accusers, and attack his opponents.
I don’t think Trump will give another candidate his endorsement, even from prison. If he does, it won’t be without that other candidate publicly swearing fealty and promising to grant clemency, as you say. The way I see it, any candidate who’d be willing to do that will look weak and subservient, and probably look worse than Trump’s going to look, even from prison, by the time they get to the general election.
I think the only way another candidate wins the GOP nomination is by taking it from Trump – not by Trump lending it out to them.
Good points. A sycophant will rail about how unfair the partisan attacks have been against Trump. They will right this grievous wrong, and will pardon Trump. Anything less is akin to leaving a fallen warrior behind.
The GOP would never go against whomever wins the primary and he is facing state level charges as well as federal.
Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy?
Why do you assume that he will suddenly begin seeing proportionate consequences for his actions in the next 12 months when it’s never once happened in his life before this point?
I agree with your disposition toward him and admire and envy your optimism…I just don’t share it.
I’m old and cynical, but my opinion is that Trump will never go to prison. That is a pipe dream.
I think the most important metric for Biden and the Democrats in the upcoming us election is a blood pulse.
I would argue that some cognitive ability is required also, in order to perform at the debates. But Trump has already set the precedent that the front runner can ignore debates.
So the only metrics Biden needs to meet are
- earn more EC votes than Trump
- Have a pulse when the EC votes are counted in Jan 2025
- Be able to repeat what some guy in a robe tells him to repeat on Jan 20 2025
If he does all that, but keels over on Jan 21, his second term will still be a success.
I keep seeing messaging that essentially amounts to “Biden doesn’t have to try, everything is great actually, and, besides, Trump is unelectable”. Clearly the democrats learned nothing from 2016. This is too big to fuck up, don’t phone it in.
The secret here is the D’s aren’t actually trying to win this one.
I want to disagree with you, but I just can’t wrap my head around team Biden’s messaging feeling this completely disconnected from the reality on the ground for a lot of Americans. And when you call out the disconnection, the answer isn’t anything approaching empathy or understanding, it’s “you’re wrong lol”. It just feels like they’re not even trying.
Trump has all the weaknesses of an incumbent and few of the benefits. I knew some people who tried to play very agnostic about his record in 2016, but now as in 2020, the American people have a record to judge him on. And it’s not very pretty. Biden is going to start laying into that record. And soon the negative polarization will build back up, after the GOP decides who exactly the are with their candidate chosen.
The issue of abortion has already decided the partisan general.
Bar is low but I’m not sure if he reaches it
He’s already reached it. If he fails it won’t be a failure of his administration, it will be a failure of the electorate.
He seemed to lose in the most recent poll I heard of
So the American people would rather have a fascist that has sworn revenge on his political enemies, to Biden who actually helped American families. Telling.
Time for everyone to bemoan the two party system but you dont dare suggest they stop supporting it
How pathetic is it that we are forced into a situation where both candidates suck ass. Let me vote harder for shit to get worse either way.🙄
Yay, more “both sides” bullshit!
Yup, Biden is absolutely the same as Trump. Nothing progressive has come out of his administration at all.
Cool bro, my grocery bill is fucking outrageous the cost of living is going up with no raises for the regular guy. They do everything but actually help the middle class.
Yes, the president is single person that can change all of that for you at the snap of their fingers.
Yup. It’s definitely all about you.
Bye.
Good luck winning the average middle class American and young people lmao.
