Ohhhhh so ONLY Joe can beat Trump! That’s why he’s doing it everyone, no one else has any chance!
This makes zero fucking sense outside of the incumbents advantage. The biggest talking points around the country to get ’moderates’ and ‘undecideds’ to vote for Trump, vote third party, or abstain from voting are almost completely centered on him personally and to a lesser extent the DNC. It also ignores the many 2020 voters who were “I can’t believe they’re going to make me vote for Joe Biden”, people which anecdotally is everyone I know irl that voted for him.
If he had stepped aside and let another primary happen not only do we lose all that baggage(a good portion of which I will freely admit is horsehit and the remainder mostly also apply to Trump) and the candidates could use the primary to get the electorate excited about something new and different, which would be a big gain in the fight to stop fascism. I’m gonna vote for you again Joe, but this is a foolish take imo
We know Biden can beat Trump. We don’t know if that’s certain for anybody else.
We don’t know it’s certain he can do it again either
Biden didn’t have a four year presidency filled with deep economic issues for the average person last time, we were also in a plague, and had seen insane political activism all year. Inflation wasn’t on everyone’s mind and there weren’t two serious wars going on that we are funding with him as the CMC. He’s not popular or well liked even by his voters
Additionally Trump was and had been obviously more looming and visible to the average voter who really doesn’t pay much attention to politics or even the news for that matter. People were animated to get him out. I don’t think it will happen that way this time. Most folks have short memories and vote with their pocket book.
Again I’ll crawl over glass to for him because there’s only two possibilities and I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like they are playing prevent defense, and prevent defense prevents you from winning. I don’t feel confident in the slightest
Let’s all be completely honest, here. Far Left and Right folks are loud af, but the American Population is so Centrist that they made Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden the DNC Presidential candidates to begin with. A whitebread US Moderate old fucker like Joe probably has the highest chances, period.
No we don’t. Covid won 2020 for the democrats, Biden was just along for the ride.
And in the 2020 primaries Biden won the candidacy against Bernie Sanders with 2,720 delegates to 1,114. They also had 51% of the popular vote compared to Bernie’s 26% in the primaries.
Biden is the most popular DNC candidate, sadly he best represents the feelings of the most Americans total. Even if we had a further left and more overall popular candidate, we wouldn’t have nearly as many people cross the aisle from conservatives who are currently split down the middle between Trump loyalism and Rule of Law conservatives.
Historically incumbents have a huge advantage. It would be foolish to throw that away.
Like I said that’s the only part I can understand, but just because something has been a trend doesn’t mean it will stay one or even that there won’t be exceptions. I see that side of it, but I’m still suspicious he can do it again
It’s been more than 100 years since an incumbent didn’t run for a second term and their party maintained the presidency (excluding Calvin Coolidge who technically didn’t run two terms, but basically did). No one knows what would happen if he were not to run, but history has shown that it’ll probably lead to a Republican win. It’s easier to predict the outcome having the incumbent run, and probably against the same person last time. Not saying it’s the best decision, but it is the most logical one.
Yeah, one of them had a hostage crisis plague his presidency, the next got spoiled into total oblivion by a billionaire with some charts, and the last killed over a million Americans by sowing plague misinformation because it made him look bad.
A preponderance of extraordinary circumstances does not establish a trend worth placing bets on.
Biden thought that Trump would be politically finished if he lost the 2020 election --and in a rational world he would’ve been-- but he underestimated both the cowardice of Republican leaders and the slavish devotion of Trump’s followers, as did many of us, myself included. That’s why he feels obligated to take the safe route instead of stepping down. If Trump was gone or otherwise not the existential threat that I and many others believe he is, I doubt very much that Biden would be running again.
Not helpful.
This is why we have no honesty in politics.
For fucks sake. He’s trying to do everything he can to alert the country their democracy is in grave danger to the point of admitting he wouldn’t still be there if he didn’t think he had the best chance of stopping Trump.
And at the sidelines we have endless hand-wringing about his age and calls for a better candidate.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
Everyone complains the Democrats suck at messaging and then bitch about everything they say and do, even when it’s honest, straightforward, and easy to understand.
Yeah because the NoVote crowd sure made that easy to accomplish letting the GOP back into the house.
To be clear, I’m fine with him and his age, I just think the minimal quote that will inevitably be amplified may be too useful for the hand-wringers and GOP.
That’s fair, but they’ll also do that with anything he says while taking credit for his accomplishments.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
This is not at all the only conclusion one would draw from an incumbent president not drawing challengers. Incumbent challenges usually cause division and a divided party may be in a worse place than a party unifying around a bad candidate. If Biden decides to run, we’re pretty much stuck with him.
That is kinda fair.
I am totally dismissing both Cornell West* (thanks for the correction) and Robert Kennedy Jr because of their third party runs in this environment, and anyone else wanting to challenge Biden would need to make a very solid case that they are a better pick.
It’s worth saying I wanted Bernie. I don’t think even trying to pivot to him would be a good idea.
I liked it. Makes it seem like he isn’t disconnected from the world, he knows what we want.
Overall in total, I probably agree, but the raw quote of saying that he’d probably not be running if Trump wasn’t running is giving certain groups too much ammo. They won’t present or repeat everything said, just that tiny quote or versions of it.
OTOH if the GOP wants Biden to drop out all they have to do is get Trump to do the same. So it’s on them. They want Biden out all Trump has to do is continue to shit his pants in FL and never run again.
He didn’t say probably. He said he wasn’t sure. Those are two vastly different things.
How about both of you go the fuck home and let an actual progressive do some actual good for once?
The issue is they’d rather have another republican than an actual progressive
See: Al Gore vs Bush
Also, still miffed about Bernie not being a “good candidate” for the DNC in 2016.
Fucking Gore couldnt even win his own home state, a state that overwhelmingly vote Clinton both times. Had he been able to do that he wouldnt have needed Florida.
And what is it with liberals always blaming the 3% that vote 3rd party, and never the 15+% of Democrats that flipped party?
Gore won. He just fucked up by playing by the rules back when people thought that mattered. The brooks brother rioters knew better, and the right wing court put the fix in.
Also, not to be a pill, but nader took a small percentage of the votes in Florida in that election as a progressive. Most of those probally would have gone to Gore, making the bullshit soft coup the GOP pulled off impossible if he wasn’t in the race.
First past the post means vote for the lesser evil and pressure the fuck out of them to get the system changed. Thats it. The system doesn’t let anything else work.
That would require getting elected, which would require them being broadly popular.
He sure as hell was at my (very close to national average demographics district’s) caucus in 2020. Damn near the whole room lined up for Biden nearly instantly. It was the same for Hillary in 2016, btw. These lies people like to repeat on the internet about how one progressive or another has overwhelming support and only loses out due to manipulation by the democratic party are not borne or by reality, and I think are often spread by those trying to either disenfranchise left voters, or are the voters that fell for it and are now doing the dirty work of repeating the lies.
More specifically, progressives would have to actually turn the fuck out for those progressives at the primaries.
Bernie can tell you counting on that is counting on pigs flying.
Bernie’s strategy to victory was turning out a huge number of young people and disaffected non voters. He lamented in the last months of his campaign that he wasn’t getting the numbers he needed.
It’s so much easier to blame the corrupt DNC than to recognize we need to work on turnout and a broadened message. It should be obvious after 2016 that the virtue of a righteous message is not enough on its own to get a following.
A platform of legal weed, free college, free healthcare, and student loan forgiveness couldn’t even achieve a 75% turnout of young voters – and I say that as someone who was mid 20s in 2020. You could hardly imagine a better platform for young people. There needs to be a much, much better ground game for progressives to win.
Barack Obama pulled off a surprise victory over the established Democratic candidates by campaigning on a message of hope and change. Of course his administration ended up only slightly more progressive than a standard Democrat’s, but the fact remains that a non-mainstream candidate can run and win on the promise of progressive reform.
And the established dem party learned from their mistakes. It will be much tougher to slide a progressive by again.
I think Biden has been more progressive then Obama. Yeah, Obama was a minority and he was a damn good orator and importantly he wasn’t Hillary. He represented progress. But his actual policies? Nah. There is something aspirational about having someone who isn’t another old white man, and I think Obama was a decent President, just not particularly progressive.
Do you think people actually want a progressive candidate?
The term “you get the politicians you deserve” is often correct, regardless of country and culture.
EDIT: Downvotes? I thought this place was better than Reddit… If you disagree, please highlight how the demand for progressive policies has been shown by the electorate…
Because Harris would then become the default nominee and Biden knows she can’t win. It’s either that or a punishing primary resulting in some other nominee, but who would that be? Could they beat Trump? It would be a big gamble. Biden running for a 2nd term is a gamble too, but it probably is the safer bet. His real mistake was having someone as unpopular as Harris as a VP.
I think he would be happy to hand it off to her if he thought she could win.
I also think that it didn’t occur to Biden that Trump would still be viable after being defeated in 2020, but of course, like many of us, he underestimated both the cowardice of most Republican leaders and the depravity of Trump’s base.
So who is supposed to run against Trump in 2028? Biden can’t… does he think the idea is to just kick the can down the road another 4 years?
The question wasn’t who the best candidate is, It’s who is supposed to run against Trump.
Pritzker or Manchin (though I doubt the democrats would allow it) have enough crossover they could get votes from all sides.
And yet, most people don’t want to vote for Biden. He won because people voted against Trump. I’m not convinced it will work again.
I do. I’m an old progressive and he’s been the most progressive president in my lifetime outside of Carter, and honestly he’s probably been more progressive than Carter.
I don’t get the ambivalence about Biden at all from anyone who’s not a hard core Republican.
I just believe there are better options out there that have been repeatedly snubbed by the players in power, media, and an overall systemic problem with the political system that Biden, and others like him, will never attempt to address, let alone acknowledge.
I don’t disagree with what you said, but I do believe that “the most progressive” so far is simply not good enough.
Though my problems are less about Biden directly, and more about the fact that last election and most likely the next election it is a complete illusion of choice. Do we want someone who has effectively promised to make everything worse for the 99%, or the only other name on the list?
I know progressiveness is a low barrier in the USA, but what makes him so progressive?
The Build Back Better plan is basically a list of stuff progressives have wanted for years.
Who’s most people? If you understand what’s at stake then you know Trump can’t be your option.
Aside from anecdotal evidence, according to cnbc surveys 70% of people surveyed said Biden shouldn’t run again and of that 70%, 57% identified as democrats. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/09/majority-of-americans-dont-want-biden-or-trump-to-run-again-in-2024-cnbc-survey-shows.html
I’m not saying people won’t/shouldn’t vote for Biden, but I am saying that more people will vote against Trump, not for Biden.
I don’t think any reasonable, rational person would vote for Donald Trump. The unfortunate truth is there are a lot of unreasonable, irrational people who are allowed to vote.
Well, I voted against Trump last time, and this time I’m split. Yes, I’m voting for Biden, but that doesn’t mean I’m not voting really really hard against Trump.
