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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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She's right. It's annoying at best to have these people saying Biden is a problem, without articulating at least an idea of who should be nominated and how that would work this late in the game.
In my opinion, it's quite similar to Brexit: maybe you can get a majority coalition to disapprove of the status quo, but good luck getting them to actually propose a more popular alternative. Much less proposing an actual procedure for getting that alternative onto ballots.
Structurally and functionally, our political systems are not set up to run anyone other than the person who won the primary. Changing a presumptive nominee this late in the cycle is fraught with potential complications, but can be done if there's sufficient support for a specific alternative candidate. Realistically, it's Biden or it's Harris. There's no feasible way to get someone else at the top of the ticket.
Exactly
Everyone can agree on something being an issue but there needs to be consensus on solutions
Personally I think Kamala Harris is a viable plan. She's already VP, she's instantly recognizable, and she's also polling well against trump.
And honestly I'm starting to think the plan might be something along the lines of "Keep Biden in until after the election then scoot Harris in under the 25th amendment"
I don't know if she can. There's still a lot of latent racism and misogyny in American culture, and she'd have to overcome both. Bidens old, but he's a he and the color of skin that's important, for some reason. I wish it weren't so, but it is. I think she could beat a Jeb Bush hands down, but Trump has a knack for flaming those racist and misogynistic feelings in people that aren't usually that way.
Also, she is the VP of the incumbent administration. Any complaints people have about Biden, other than his personal age, also can be applied to her. Economy? Immigration? Isreal/Gaza? All Harris' administration. Doesn't matter that she has little input or control of any of those, she is the VP, Trump and Conservatives will blame her all the way until election day, and Fox/Conservative media will be there to parrot and distribute the word.
Without the advantages of being the actual incumbent.
She can just say Biden made the decisions, because it's true. Forget how Fox propagandizes things. If you think they have that power to shape reality, we've already lost. Everyone else will take a statement of "that was something I disagreed with, but it was Joe's choice" at face value, because we all know VPs are powerless.
It's amusing to see people ponder whether a black person could become president, or use that as essentially an argument against running a black candidate.
You're about 16 years late to the party.
Are there LOTS of racists and misogynists out there? Yeah, absolutely. But if you discount candidates based on what you think the bigots will do, you're just preemptively doing their discrimination for them.
Saying, "I don't think we should run a black female candidate because of the racists", and saying, "I don't think we should run a black female candidate because I'm racist" has the same net effect.
There is a precedent of a black president, but there is still no precedent of a woman president... and the reaction to a female candidate after Obama, was Trump.
Running a black woman candidate, is both unprecedented for the misogynism AND for the combination. The barely 8 year old precedent of voters picking an obvious con artist over a white woman, points to misogynism being still a serious issue in the US.
IMHO, the best that could happen would be having Biden re-elected, then him deciding he's no longer capacitated, and the job defaulting onto Harris. But if Biden can't make it to the polls... well, SOL.
The reaction to Hillary Clinton was Trump. A wicker chair painted red would have beaten Hillary. Holding her up as indicative of the general sentiment towards women as leaders is about as far from accurate interpretation of 2016 as you can get. Notice how many people are suggesting Whitmer or even Michele Obama to run (nevermind Harris, obviously), but no one is suggesting Clinton?
Heh, not sure about a wicker chair (LOL)... she's 76 now, so definitely not an option. Maybe I didn't follow US politics too closely in 2016, were there other women running in the primaries back then?
Not in 2016.
In 2019, Elizabeth Warren was leading in the primaries (and both she and Sanders were ahead of Biden), until Super Tuesday when a bunch of the centrist candidates dropped out together and jointly endorsed Biden, in order for them not to go to a contested convention.
That's the worst possible plan, IMO. Biden can lead, I would be fine with him being president for another 4 years. The issue is he can't win against Donald Trump. He was behind in all swing states, and that was before the debate, multiple gaffes and speech mistakes, moments of confusion and freezing, etc...
Democrats need to be winning by 3-4% in the popular vote to overcome the electoral college bias. Maybe he's squeaking by in the popular vote isn't enough to win.
50 other Democrats, like Joe Biden himself said. This isn't a close election because people love Joe Biden, it's because they hate Donald Trump. Trump isn't some electoral force of nature, he's a weak candidate who's had the fortune to run against another weak candidate (now and in 2016). There isn't a big focus on "double-haters" in normal elections. Most people don't want these candidates.
Do you have links to her polling well against Trump? That's my one (very large) concern.
She is polling the same as Biden was, as of today.
Given the remaining months until the election, she has plenty of time to raise her status, assuming she doesn't footgun herself.
My biggest concern is her running mate. Being strategic, I'd say Buttigieg is the way to go, since he's also already part of the current admin, and is an excellent orator and debater.
I think it's healthy to have these conversations, although not this late in the game. At the very least, the Trump campaign would need to completely shift if someone else is nominated which would set them back a bit.
I doubt anyone who was going to vote for Biden before the debate changed their mind and decided to vote for Trump afterwards. The biggest concern is people who have not been paying attention to the news and getting them to mobilize on election day. If the Democrats can't get people excited to vote, then we'll have another 4 more years of Trump.
It's also not just voting, but donations and volunteering. People don't think Biden can win, so they're directing efforts to other candidates. Exciting those that are already team players has real impacts.
Biden may very well not survive to the election. Plenty of people were raising concerns about his age and the physical and mental decline that were patently obvious four years ago, and were briskly told to shut the fuck up.
Run Harris. That’s the solution, because the democrats are allergic to actually cultivating new leaders.
But, how does that work? Does the DNC just declare a new candidate without an election? What kind of rules are there for this sort of thing?
If there is a rule written down somewhere, then follow those rules if they want.
The DNC is a private organization, they can do whatever they want for whatever reason they want.
It probably wouldn't make everyone happy if they skipped steps in their normal procedures, but I say "When has the DNC ever cared about making everyone happy?" It's a big tent with a foundation of begrudging compromise. Some people will be upset, but they have months to get over it.
The same could be said about Biden.
You think Biden will get younger? The media will stop covering his fuck ups every time he steps foot in front of a camera? I don't see how Biden can gain so much ground short of discovering the fountain of youth.
To my point- that's all I've ever heard about a Biden presidency.
Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely in "vote blue no matter who" mode. That said, if I can vote for someone that I actually like and that I feel has a better chance of winning, then all the better.
Kinda makes you wonder if they’re democrats at all….
Right?
It's guaranteed that the issue is being boosted by the opposition, and probably foreign interests. Who wouldn't take advantage of the seed of doubt?
I wonder…..
You're right, I'm not a Democrat. I'm a socialist and anti-fascist. My interest right now is seeing the fascist lose. I don't see a path for Biden to win.
Biden shouldn't have run again. The Dems should have primaried him. If they had, all of this would have been apparent long ago, but instead his aids have tightly controlled his media appearances for months to hide his cognitive decline from everyone except those playing close attention.
It only gets worse for Biden from here. He is at both his floor and ceiling, he has the "vote blue no matter who" and that's it.
There is definitely risk in running Kamala or someone else at the top of the ticket. They might lose anyways. But any other Dem would start approximately at Biden's spot in the polls and then have numerous paths to get where we need to beat Trump.
In the US there seem to be only two relevant parties: the "non-Democrats", and the "non-Republicans".
Kinda sounds like an Autocratic Monarchy would keep both sides happy, doesn't it? 🤦
We have a convention for a reason. Biden says he's dropping out, his delegates are released to vote for a different candidate.
Someone nominates Mark Kelly for the top of the ticket, the delegates vote him into the nomination, he accepts, and Trump loses.
It's a pretty simple plan, and rests on the assumption that Biden and Harris can put country and party ahead of their pride.
I think Mark Kelly would be a safe bet for the nomination. I heard he was already approached about it
I think there is money involved to create this narrative
Move Biden left in 2020 became just take Biden again 2024. I will keep the language US centric. Democrats are surprised they are losing progressives by appeasing conservatives and moderates. A better progressive option is Jill Stein or Dr. Cornel West. Would be surprising for a coalition between Democrats and Greens.
The same Jill Stein that attended a dinner with Putin and Michael Flynn? That Jill Stein?
That's informative. I haven't paid much attention to her. I know she is the Green Party candidate.
Sanders or West would be better candidates. I admit ignorance on Stein's relation to Putin. I mentioned her since she is the Green Party candidate.
What are Biden's progressive accomplishments? I remain unconvinced Biden is left or progressive. I hope you can help me see my shortcomings.
The best of the Biden Administration's work has been coalition building for Ukraine. That work is fatigued by support for Gaza. Support for suppression of student protests is not progressive. Infrastructure seems to be a corporate bailout. Handling of COVID was roughly the same as under Trump. Waiting for pandemic fatigue and the virus to become endemic ended the War on COVID. Wages are not keeping up with cost of living. I am against gun control, so that failure is fine.
Swing state voters decide elections. Since I am not one, voting against Biden is not equivalent to voting for Trump. My vote will not swing the outcome in my state.
What?
Progressives are concentrated in states that are going to vote blue no matter who. Democrats already win the popular vote because of these states, but lose in the electoral college, specifically because they ignore the swing states and the red states.
Go look at every living Democrat who has won an election in a red state. Those are the candidates who can poach voters from Trump's base and win the election. One of those candidates is your nominee.