Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) went after former President Trump for his legal woes in an interview on MSNBC Saturday.
“I’ll take the individual who’s 81 over the guy who has 91 felony counts,” Swalwell said, making a reference to President Biden’s age in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show” on Saturday.
“It’s not about two individuals,” Swalwell continued, speaking about the 2024 election. “It’s about the idea of competence versus chaos, or even greater, freedom versus fascism. If we make it about those ideas, and what they mean in our daily lives, we’re gonna win.”
Swalwell’s comments come after Trump was ordered to pay almost $355 million in penalties in a civil fraud case and amid increased scrutiny faced by the president on his age and memory in the wake of a special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report noted that Biden had problems with memory and recall.
You know what, Brandon is too old. But I’m voting for him anyway because I’ll be damned if I ever vote (passively or actively) for a filthy republican traitor cunt.
I would agree, but I kinda got forced to vote for a Republican Warden last election. The previous guy (Dem) and his administration had just overseen the worst case of prisoner deaths in a US jail, and the person the Dems ran to replace him was his deputy warden of the same administration.
The rest of my ticket was solid blue, or green.
Edit: I did look into the republican guy. He at least didn’t have huge scandals, just some small acts of assholery
He’s old, and as a leader he leaves a lot to be desired.
Having said that, he has a pretty good team. He has a lot of competent people in his cabinet, and they’ve achieved some pretty good things. I wish he’d run more on the strength of his team, rather than himself.
Trump can never run on the strength of his team because his team are incompetent sycophants. The only thing that matters to him is loyalty, so he’ll reward loyalty with cabinet positions. He can’t even name a cabinet because he’s so fickle that a rumour will come that someone said something bad and he’ll throw one of his cabinet members under the bus.
The comments by septics on Biden’s age reek of ageism.
His age is irrelevant. Can he do the fucking job?
Yes?
Then vote for him.
The poor bastard is destroying his retirement, health and twilight years to stop the US falling to fascism and all you can do is whine about his age?
I don’t think it’s particularly ageist to say that octogenarians should generally be avoided for a 4 year commitment to leadership roles. It’s no more ageist than barring 16 year olds from the job imo.
That said, in a battle between risky to lose competence midway and blatantly incompetent now the former always wins
Agreed. That being said it sucks to be stuck choosing between two ppl who won’t live long enough to see the ramifications of their decisions and policies.
I don’t see how that matters. Do you think Clinton, Bush or Obama made better choices because they got to live to see the outcomes materialize? I don’t think so which is why I don’t think it matters.
You want a president who makes decisions that benefit the people not a president who makes decision s that benefit them (or a group of elites). In that sense it doesn’t matter if Biden won’t see the results of his decisions, as long as he makes decisions that benefit the people. When it comes to Trump we can now be pretty certain he will make decisions that benefit him.
Trump isn’t exactly a spring chicken either. He now has a half a billion dollars in judgements that he owes in addition to being within 4 years of Biden’s age. The issue is the double standard and blatant disregard for the fact that he has numerous conflicts of interest that should disqualify Trump
I think it is different, 16 year olds have no experience, limited knowledge of the world, and under developed pre frontal lobes. You want experienced leaders with wisdom, much more than inexperienced leaders with a lack of wisdom, they aren’t equivalent
Yes, it’s obviously a different scenario. The risks are different. But, along with wisdom, you want presidents to be alive.
When Biden took office in 2020, he was 78. The government’s actuarial tables say that there was basically a 50/50 chance he’d make it 8 years.
Having survived 4 years, if he’s elected again he’ll be 82. The actuarial tables say he’ll probably still be alive at the end of his term, but he might not make it to the next set of midterms.
Now, Biden is in good health. With his health and the great medical care he gets, he’ll probably do better than the actuarial tables say. I’d say the odds are good he’ll outlive Trump, even if he’s an older man. But, it seems reckless to put a guy into office when there’s a very decent chance he’ll be dead before the end of his term.
Then there’s the matter of his mental sharpness. There are strong signs it’s fading. President is mostly a job about delegation, but still, you need to make some decisions, and at least understand what it is you’re delegating. Trump, again, is probably as bad or worse, but it doesn’t seem good to trust a guy with clearly fading mental abilities to a stressful job that benefits from a sharp mind.
If we all trusted his VP to step in and run things well if there were a problem, that would be one thing, but her approval ratings are even worse than his. Sometimes that happens when a president doesn’t want the VP to steal the spotlight. But, in this case you’d think both Biden and Harris would benefit from everybody thinking that she’s doing a lot of work, doing it extremely well, and could easily step in as president.
He can’t do the job. He’s a terrible candidate and he’s not mentally fit. His only qualification is that he’s not openly fascist. Definitely vote for the not fascist, but that won’t stop fascism in the long run.
Being forced to choose between senile and psychotic is fucking bullshit, and I’m sick of being told to just suck it up.
Yeah, I mean, beyond senile. He doesn’t even pass for human, he’s indistinguishable from a racist LLM. Fuck he’s not even an LLM, he’s a Markov model.
Afghanistan withdrawal alone was a fucking abortion. SO hella dumb, SO rushed, I mean that was done in the worst way possible. We left so much shit behind, we didn’t destroy it, we didn’t burn it up & just shoot the shit out of the Taliban before we left, we left our people there with no way home, what was it 13 American soldiers died?? It couldn’t have been done any worse. And that’s on Biden’s head, that’s on all the people that just went along with it & were like, “Okay, whatever you say President Potato Head”.
It’s just not enough to say these people shit the bed with Afghanistan. They shit the bed multiple times, rolled around in their filth, slaughtered a goat on the bed, lit the bed on fire, tried to put the fire out by spraying it with gasoline, burning down the whole goddamn house, and shuttling in the Taliban in a full service limo on the American dime to do a Gangnam Style breakdance where the house once stood.
Biden is putting the country at serious risk of having another Trump term vs if he were to concede to literally any other Democrat.
Voter shaming has never worked as a strategy and has only made people want to be less involved in politics. People need something to vote for, not against.
Also note how both sources strongly lean towards the Democratic Party. Not like I’m citing Fox here.
More evidence of low voter turnout with Biden: https://news.yahoo.com/only-4-registered-voters-show-122000488.html
Biden performs better against Trump than Newsom or Harris. Name another democrat even close to having the name recognition to win the general election.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4470956-biden-trump-harris-newsom-poll/amp/
Even in the link you posted, Biden is still down 1 point vs Trump. That’s not a risk that I think the country should take.
Also to answer your question, either Jon Stewart or Bernie would kick Trump’s ass in a general. Y’know, people who inspire people to get out and vote instead of staying home because “both sides are shit anyway, what’s the point?”
Age-related cognitive decline is real and inescapable. All people over 80 have declining mental abilities, less ability to handle stress, etc. Old age is fundamentally a handicap and to suggest it isn’t is a delusion.
Providing the weapons for a genocide is not doing the job.
Ignoring people saying we won’t vote for genocide with the strategy of ‘Vote Harder!’ is stupid and dangerous if you believe the alternative is the end of democracy.
Edit: people here are mad at the people saying ‘we won’t vote for genocide’ but not at the person directly responsible for the mass murder of babies.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
To all those downvoting or responding with “he’s all we have”, be honest: fucking outright say “I’m willing to have babies slaughtered to prevent Trump.” That is a choice you are making. Have the courage of your convictions and say it out loud.
Look at the cost you are paying without flinching.
Providing the weapons for a genocide is not doing the job.
Actually, it kind of is. America has interests in the middle-east and Israel is key to them. Plus, the rich warmongers who own all our politicians want this. So it doesn’t matter who is in the White House, the weapons will flow.
Ignoring people saying we won’t vote for genocide with the strategy of ‘Vote Harder!’ is stupid and dangerous of you believe the alternative is the end of democracy.
Ignoring people ignorant of the bigger picture is how we keep the entire house from burning down. Trump will literally do everything most Democrats don’t want while Biden only does a few. If you’re willing to throw away everything over a few issues, then you’ve failed to be an educated voter.
How many dead and murdered children do I need to walk over to be an educated voter?
You’re literally happy justifying genocide.
Also, I just cannot believe Trump can be both wildly incompetent and the end of democracy at the same time. Do i want him at the helm? Fuck no, those 4 years aged me like 10, the next 4 might kill me.
But will he be the guy who “ends democracy”? Fucking lol. We’re all here, weve all experienced the last decade, we have had front row seats to “the end”. Its dying with him or without him.
Trump is just a grifter. Hes a symptom, not the cause.
He’s saying this like Trump being 77 is somehow young or any different than Biden being 81
Clearly it is because 4 years ago, when Biden was 77 the election didn’t revolve around age.
I’m just going to throw it out that I think people are only looking at the first number and don’t care about the second one, kinda like in stores 9.99 seems much cheaper than 10.00 despite the actual difference only being a penny. It’s not a 77 year old vs an 81 year old, it’s 70 year old vs 80 year old. 70 year old is an old man, 80 year old is your demented grandpa.
There were definitely people 4 years ago trying to make the discourse about age but it didn’t really take hold.
They did the same crap for Hillary in 2016, proclaiming she was at death’s door. For some weird reason, she’s still alive despite all this rhetoric from the radicalized right wing and their Russian pals.
Absolutely. I think the argument was just as valid as it was 4 years ago, but now for some reason people seem to perceive it a lot more and specifically more with Biden than Trump.
Im just… So tired of this game. If we were even ever old enough to witness the zenith of the Democratic party, it is surely in its waning form.
“It’s not about two individuals,” Swalwell continued, “It’s about the idea of competence versus chaos, or even greater, freedom versus fascism. If we make it about those ideas, and what they mean in our daily lives, we’re gonna win.”
Don’t they all just sound like ad execs? “Make it about X” and we “win”…
Or maybe they sound like your middle manager who brought all the team together for a pizza party on Friday afternoon? You know the speech I’m talking about, the one where “we gotta tighten our belts” and how “we’re all in this together” because we’re “lucky we even have jobs in this economy”?
They arent even doing the thing we’re used to anymore, where they tell comforting lies about future policies they don’t plan on implementing.
They don’t even pretend to talk about policy. It is clear isn’t even on their minds! Now it’s all like, “this isn’t the time to gripe, we’re all in this together.”
and
“You’re lucky we even have a democracy”
So fucking tired…
Unfortunately, they are kind of right at least in terms of this coming election. The best thing we can do is to try to get the fascists out, then come January 20th, 2025 at 12:01pm, take them all to task and demand that they make good on their promises. Protests, rallies…hell, riots even…just make them understand that they serve at our behest and make them earn their keep. But we have to get through November first.
Unfortunately, they are kind of right at least in terms of this coming election.
They told me that last time, and i don’t feel like they held up their end of the bargain. I know, i know, republicans. But we just did this. We swallowed and voted joe hoping to move fems left, orbat least get rid of trump, and here he is again. I just don’t see how my actions this time will have a different result than last time. In fact I have a sinking feeling in my gut that it won’t
Don’t be discouraged. Trump and covid was unexpected to me. I see recovery happening since Biden took office. Not solving my problems personally, but overall the country is moving. Trump has a lot of people who think like him. And some think even worse. Those gains the country has made are in the right direction. Those positive changes may be stopped or reversed if people are divided over who to choose. Progress is important and there is a whole system of government involved, voting in primaries is important, also the local and state elections set the stage you live in. Those actions are important. Don’t burn yourself out, it is stressful.
The problem was the down-ticket candidates. There’s only so much a president can do when the legislature is polluted with or outright deadlocked by a bunch of sycophantic fascist toadies. That’s why I’m hoping that the RNC does blow its entire budget on Trump so that we can pack the House and Senate with candidates that aren’t hell-bent on executing every whim of a bloated, washed up reality TV personality.
Trump makes the DNC a lot of money, why would they give that up? They’re either too dumb to understand the danger or they’ve already got their foreign passports ready on their private jets. One side is useless and the other is stupid Hitler.
The US government has no future. Organize as though fascism is guaranteed, vote to delay it as long as possible so you have more time to organize.
Both instances are a huge fucking problem though. The first people who made the USA warned against a two party system.
I agree, but the reality is that it’s the system we have right now. We can try to change it. But sitting this election out or voting for a third party will only help Trump get elected. I said in another comment (and got downvoted for it) but I would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump.
The issue is that we’re not in this situation accidentally. Every 4 years we say “I know it sucks, but for now we just have to vote out the lesser evil, then we can focus on change” then go 4 more years without making any changes. We’ll always just be voting for the lesser of 2 evils, whether for this election or the 2064 election. Everyone with any real say in the government loves how things are working out right now, and has no intention to allow us to truly vote for anyone other than 2 candidates that have been vetted by the oil companies.
Push for ranked choice voting for your state, and if we can get that implemented nationwide then we might be going somewhere.
Mathematically, the system they set up - the first past the post system - will always devolve into a 2-party contest.
Strategically, it only counts for you to vote for one of the top two choices, and then only sometimes.
The two party system is the “vote against” system.
In a multi-party system, you have multiple options you can vote for who are not fascists. Unfortunately, true multi-party systems are rare. Even when there are other parties, there are often two dominant parties and then lots of other small parties who are brought into coalitions.
