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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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Except Biden is an awful canidate. This. Right here. This is what cost the dems the election in 2016.
Stop it with the boomer “You’ll vote for who we tell you to vote for- and you’ll like it” bullshit. He’s soft in the largest generational blocs (millennials gen z) and we all know it.
Only deluded morons think that’s a good idea.
It’s okay to feel out other canidates.
No-one in politics should give a fuck about millennials or zoomers because they don’t vote in large enough numbers to matter. If they voted, sure, cater to them. But as long as they keep having the woe is me, voting doesn’t do anything attitude, they’re going to keep getting ignored.
This is also why I think Bernie is a dumbass - not because I don’t agree with his policies, but because he tried to court people who won’t make the small effort to cast a ballot in his favor.
Boomers will all be dead before the Democratic Party considers trying to appeal to anyone else.
Maybe people under 45 would vote more if there were candidates that took our concerns seriously
They have no reason to take your concerns seriously if there isn't an incentive for it. Seriously - why would they do favors for one group who may reward them when they can do favors for another which will reward them.
Once again, I'm going to point to Bernie - he tried to go appeal to the youth vote. See how he did in the primaries.
inb4 bernie-bros cry about being shafted by The Man. No - people just didn't vote for him.
The incentive is votes from me and people like me.
Because they (presumably) want to win elections, and they don't get any closer to that goal by offering favors to people who would vote for them anyway.
Exactly. Bernie appealed to the youth and subsequently broke Obama's record for primary election turnout in that demographic.
The fact that he lost the primary doesn't change the fact that people are more likely to vote for candidates who offer them something and less likely to vote for candidates who don't.
You need to go do some research.
2020 millennials and gen z out numbered boomers in voting. Boomers are no longer the dominate force in demographics and ignoring this fact and being assholes is just entitled bullshit that… we’re not going to forget.
Imagine unironically putting words in my mouth. Broader population trends show that millennials already outnumber boomers, that Gen Z out numbers Millennials, and that Gen X will only outnumber boomers as they die off (sometime around 2028,).
it's long been 'known'- though is less true today- that older people are more able and more likely to go vote. In 2020, Gen X only outvoted Millennials by about 10% which is easily accounted for by the simple ability to actually go and vote (you know, for example, being able to leave work.) even your own source shows that. Further more, your own source shows that 17% of the voters were 18-29 (more or less Gen Z), while 65+ were 16% (silent and boomer.) at 2020, the youngest boomers were 56, so half of the age range between 45-64 were boomers and the other half were gen x.
In short, your source muddles the generations and doesn't entirely support your claim. here's some sources that support my side of it: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/here-s-comprehensive-look-how-younger-voters-are-breaking-2020-n1240299
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/the-2020-election-shows-gen-zs-voting-power-for-years-to-come.html
https://time.com/6049270/2020-election-young-voters/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/millennials-and-gen-z-will-soon-dominate-us-elections/616818/
TL/DR, you're delusional if you think you can dictate who we vote for, and many of us really don't like biden.
Name a better Democrat.
They need to have a better platform, have a lot of political and funding connections, and have at least as good name recognition as Biden to have a shot at overcoming incumbency bias.
Bernie. AoC ~~Fetterman~~. Dean Phillips (okay, so he doesn't have the name recognition, and he's not progressive enough for my tastes, but at least he's a decent compromise canidate- and he has the balls to say what needs to be said.)
do you really think all those superpacs and corpo donors that are propping up "the incumbency advantage" actually care who the democratic nominee is? they don't give a flying fuck.
He's extremely pro Israel, to the point that he came out to heckle pro Palestinian protesters while wearing the Israeli flag, and laughing in their face while they got arrested.
I liked the dude but he ain't it. Not anymore
Whelp he’s off the list, then. Did not know that.
Yeah it was really disheartening to hear. I can understand why he might take that position ideologically, but there's absolutely no reason for him to be a raging asshole about it.
All of those would lose to Trump by double digits.
Bernie - too old, Jewish, too extreme
AOC - minority, woman, young, inexperienced
Fetterman - health/mental fitness concerns
Phillips - zero name recognition and too inexperienced
(Not saying I agree with these, just that those would be what sinks them)
Sure, you might not agree with those statements. but you're willing to carry the water for people that do.
The only things in your list that are reasons that don't also apply to Biden are being 'too-much-of-a-woman', 'too-much-of-a-minority', 'too extreme' and 'too inexperienced'.
I don't really want to get into the first two any further than I just did, but as far as too extreme goes. Bernie sanders is a socialist.. which is why so many Millennials (and Gen Z) supported him. it wasn't a coincidence. we support that extremism. to be perfectly honest, it's only 'extremism' compared to... you know.. the conservatives like Joe Biden (Republicans are not conservatives. Conservatives seek to maintain the status quo. Republicans are regressives. Biden is a conservative.) So, the only people who really find Bernie and other progressives "too extreme"... are the very people who're right now screaming at us to "VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO". Pretty sure they're frothing at the mouth by now.
TLDR: they're not too extreme if you actually pay attention to your electorate.
Now, as for the 'Too inexperienced' bit. Sure. Biden has a shitload of experience. Too bad more than 3/4's of it apply to a world that fundamentally no longer exists. biden was born in 1942 (81 yo). the WordWideWeb was first released in 1990 (33 years). Friendster and Myspace were first launched in 2003, face book in '04 (20 years). More than half of biden's much-vaunted experience predates the internet as we know it. More than 3/4's of his this experience predates modern social media. The world is fundamentally different, and that experience isn't just something to be outright dismissed... it's something that's actively an issue. Because it creates a sort of inertia. You can see that inertia in things like his attitude towards climate change (We're society as we know it is fucked if nothing changes, and he's really quite '[meh]'(https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html).), in policing and drug policy reform (who fucking cares about social justice, huh? the corporations that put him in power don't.), in how he expects everyone to just fall into line and vote for him cuz he says so (typical boomer bullshit. Probably taught it to the boomers himself.)
Biden has been part of government for longer than I've been alive. And government has been not-working (or not working very well,) for actual Americans (it has been working very well for corporations and billionaires.) for as about as long, too. he's part of the problem. he's not being part of the solution. TLDR: Biden has a long track record of not being part of the solutions to the problems that pose an existential risk.
Oh, and a note about "name recognition". lets look at the reason no one under the age of 60 has name recognition to begine with: Its because of all the er... long-serving... senators and representatives that have refused to retire, while also failing to develop and groom the next generation to replace them. It's just another policy fuck up on the part of the DNC. a pretty egregious one, you ask me. Either way, we're going to have the crisis of "nobody else" either now or in four years, so we might as well face it now. You know. Like how Biden promised he'd only go for one term, so that, you know, they could find that candidate.... why should we believe them this time?
(edit some formatting)
I really appreciate what you are saying here. Look, I was a huge Bernie supporter. He's still the only politician I have ever donated to support.
I am a single issue voter and I think everyone should be this election. That single thing is keeping Trump away from the presidency. We are FUCKED if he gets in again.
The fact is, only 10 times in history (Trump being one) has the incumbent president lost. I don't like Biden any more than you do, but incumbency and having beaten Trump once is a resume no other candidate can match.
I think we need to be talking about Biden getting a new VP. Kamela Harris does not add to Biden's chances of winning. Whether it is simple racism/sexism or whatever, the public hates her. Let's get a VP candidate who could carry the torch for Biden after 4 years (or less if he dies in office). That would go a long way to assuage the public's concerns over Biden's age. Dean Phillips would be a great option for that. He would be perfect to pull undecided moderate voters and he would be a great public face for Democrats. (My first choice would be Fetterman, but putting that behemoth standing next to Biden would do little to help the image of Biden being feeble).
Here’s the thing.
Look at why trump and the others all lost. They were unpopular.
Your single issue is “not trump”. Yet, there are many better canidates than Biden who are also not-trump.
Incumbency is only really an advantage if your incumbent isn’t fucking the pooch. And Biden is definitely fucking the pooch. Climate, Israel/Palestine. The economy (and the disparity between their propaganda and people hurting,). The only thing he’s really got running is that he’s not trump, and somebody explained why he needs to keep his mouth shut on abortion.
Virtually any one left of center-right republicans meet that standard.
If defeating trump is your goal, wouldn’t finding the best candidate possible- and do you really think if Biden kept his word, bowed out of the second term, do you really think, that’d be a disadvantage?
Are you okay with a liar, whose soft on the largest segment because he’s constantly ignoring that segment’s needs, after trump has bad 4 years to whip his base and retcon Jan 6, while Biden and the DoJ and everyone else sat for over years with their thumbs up their asses?
I think people are being immensely unfair to Biden. He has done a fat better job than I expected. Don't forget how bad off we were when Trump left office. I was certain we were going for another recession like 2008 and Biden's policies saved us from that. He got vaccines out to the public efficiently so people could live their lives again. He got the supply chain working again so we don't have shortages of essential products anymore. The Build Back Better plan put billions into expanding solar and wind (as well as expanding US production of these technologies) as well as expanding the availability of electric chargers across the nation.
I mean just look at all this stuff? Most of this has been on the progressive wish list for years.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/build-back-better/
I don't blame Biden for running again. There is a total lack of qualified leadership. The newer generation like Fetterman and AOC are promising but too inexperienced. Nobody has stepped up to take the lead.
Can I imagine a better candidate? Of course. Do I think anyone could have done better? Maybe Bernie, but honestly I don't even think he could have realistically made more progressive change.
What... policies? it amazes me how people trot out how good the economy is to support Biden; yet then when people point out it's not actually all that great for most people... "oh what's he supposed to do?! the Fed, the treasury, they're all independent! he can't do anything"
in any case... they kinda sorta had to redefine what a recession was, unless you forgot that part. Could it have been much worse? absolutely. is Biden better than trump? ABSOLUTELY. but acting like it's a binary choice is exactly how we got here, and following it will solve nothing.
What policies?! The policies that put $6 trillion into the economy so it didn't crash. The American Rescue Plan? The American Jobs Plan? The Build Back Better Plan? You know, all the shit that Republicans were screaming at about being socialist handouts that would destroy America?
Just going to address this specifically. what you mean to say is 'didn't crash yet. we're not out of this by a long shot; and there's still enough economic stressors on Americans that it might just collapse anyhow.
One of the major sources for inflation has been all that aid floating around. most of the covid relief was paid for with increased debt. (though taxation on certain types did increase,) I'm not saying they shouldn't have, but all that aid is a direct cause of inflation. I want to be clear on that. A lot of the aid- especially the aid that went to actual humans and not corporations- was vital and necessary. But then, there was a lot of it that was just straight up not- for example the PPP loans, of which the 1 million or so worth that remains unforgiven is almost entirely held by single-proprietor small businesses; aka the exact people who were supposed to be helped by it.
Also, Biden kept Powell on as the chairman of the fed- so Powell's shit flows up hill to land at his desk. (this was about the only influence biden has on what follows, mind you.) Which means that Biden is responsible for the inflation that was caused by Powell dropping the interest rates to zero and keeping them for 2 years Certainly didn't help inflation... Neither did his literally printing cash to
Nor did his blaming the wages of workers rising for inflation (which, yes, normally accounts for some of it. but not nearly as much as he seemed to believe.) we all know it's corporate greed that's largely to blame for the bulk of it.
Legislative acts rammed through by democrats who had control of both parties. Biden doesn't get to take sole credit here, and since this entire discussion is about who should be the DNC's nominee.... well, you see how that goes, right? there's a lot of people who worked on getting this done. Most of them not in the executive branch. Biden may have thrown his hat in to support them. He may even have contributed to them. but most of the ideas didn't originate with him. (that's just not how politics works. To be fair, it didn't originate with the senators and representatives, eiher. probably got handed to all three at the same time by the lobbyists.)
All of Biden's legislative agenda has stalled since the 118th congress was seated, because the way of doing things- the way he's always done things- no longer works with a party as inherently obstructionist as the republicans. especially the freedom caucus.
It was "easy" when democrats held both houses of congress and could (or should have been able to) ram through whatever they wanted. So much for all of that much-vaunted experience working across the aisle. welcome to a new era... we've been here for a while, and it sucks.