Democrats keep doing surprisingly well in special elections. The party’s most vulnerable Senate incumbents are running ahead of their rivals in key battleground states. One of Democrats’ signature issues — reproductive rights — has repeatedly proved a winning message.
And yet Joe Biden is struggling to pull even with Donald Trump.
It’s another ominous sign for the president: Even as other Democrats are running strong, the party’s down-ballot successes aren’t translating into momentum at the top of the ticket. Biden trails Trump in many of the states he needs to win to keep the White House. His job approval is underwater. And the coalition of voters that ushered him into office four years ago is fraying.
“Democrats are enthusiastic about trying to win the Senate and trying to win the House,” said Neil Oxman, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist.
And they’re “not enthusiastic about Biden’s reelection,” Oxman said. “Period.”
For as long as FPTP voting exists and people won’t vote with their best interests in mind, you will be stuck with the least-worst option.
If you recognize that you’re stuck in a FPTP system, then voting for the least-worst option from the two major parties is the thing that is in your best interests.
Yeah, as an individual best interest, I meant that as a collective though.
What I’m saying is that the problem is systemic. It’s not stuck because the big parties are just better at blocking other parties than they are in Europe. It’s a consequence of a system that punishes similar candidates. It’s just not possible for everyone to simply decide to vote for more parties in this system, because whichever side has more parties will just lose, lose, lose as the similar candidates cannibalize each other.
is this a conservative psyop?
Yup.
Democrats had 4 years to prep a new candidate they screwed up
And collectively shot themselves in the dick for the sake of Hillary Clinton, letting Trump win 2016.
Who were they supposed to force to run, and how were they supposed to do that? Biden initially talked about being a single term president. Only running again if necessary. The only Democrat that really chose to try to primary was Dean Phillips. Who recently begged a state governor to pardon trump. Biden already appeases fascists too much. With Phillips begging a state Governor to Pardon their leaders crimes. I can see why Biden would run again.
I actually have some hope that there will be some decent Democratic candidates in 2028 if we can get there and still be holding elections.
Harris is standing right in front of you. Did you not see her?
First Harris didn’t run, she didn’t even try to run.
Second, Harris is 1/2 of Biden Harris. She’s going to have a lot of the same baggage as Biden at this point.
Third Harris has a ton of her own unique baggage. She’s not a significantly better candidate by any measure. And I’m not even referring to racists and misogynists. Which would happily add themselves on top of that baggage unfortunately.
Harris’s main qualifications for the presidency is that she is currently vice president.
Harris would do far worse because nobody, not even her own staff, likes her.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290
It should have been Bernie Sanders. Hillary lost to Trump in every poll, simulation, test, mock up, etc. Bernie Didn’t.
I voted for Sanders in the last two primaries. But the fact remains he lost both primaries ultimately. He did well. And it’s possible he might have drawn in enough people who wouldn’t have voted otherwise. But there’s no guarantee of that. It’s all just baseless speculation.
And let’s be honest it’s entirely possible he would have had more trouble than Biden or Clinton in the general. The fascists acted friendly to him in the primaries specifically because of how it divided Democrats and the left. In the general they would have turned on him with the fierceness equal to Clinton or biden. And I think we have to acknowledge that was a brilliant strategy. Now 8 plus years on it’s still paying heavy dividends for them. As you’ve shown.
Even as the Democratic party acknowledged his voice and gave him positions of leadership. And Sanders himself stayed part of the democratic party. For some reason failing to be as offended as other people were being offended for him. Instead those people choosing to abandon the Democratic Party and take power from them. Ultimately taking power from and abandoning Sanders in the process. An odd thing to do for people who claim to like Bernie Sanders.
I remember, and maybe I misunderstood, when he was up against Biden last time and the biggest issue he had was that Elizabeth Warren’s similar message split votes. She was clearly losing but for some reason stayed in and siphoned votes away from him just long enough for him to back out.
More people wanted either Sanders or Warren than wanted Biden but ya’ll ended up with Biden. We have the same problem here in Canada where more vastly more people hate the Conservatives than support them and yet that party always ends up dangerously close to gaining power.
They’re definitely was a lot of overlap on interests. But that doesn’t automatically equate to siphoned off votes. There were a not insignificant number of people who were direct fans of things Warren has pushed for and accomplished. That would not automatically have translated over to sanders. We can speculate that a large number would. But as stated that would be speculation. We could speculate as to why Warren didn’t drop out. But again that would be speculation. However I don’t think that she had anything to gain or owed any allegiance to party leadership to just stay in as a spoiler. Far more likely it was just good old wishful thinking and hubris on her part. It could happen to any of us.
What exactly has Warren accomplished?
The first thing Just quickly off the top of my head Period the consumer Financial Protection Bureau was her baby.
The fact that Warren herself is a former republican. I disagree with her on a ton of shit. But I still have to respect her for some of the things she’s done. I think she’s wrong and misguided. But she definitely tries to do good/help in her eyes. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is absolutely a good thing.
Yeah, but did you consider that, in Hillary’s words, “No one [i.e. the big club of lobbyists and consultants that fucked up the country in the first place and also lost her the election] wants to work with him”?
It really was the strategy that will pay off for generations to come. Fascists by is simply temporarily acting friendly to Sanders managed to drive a wedge between Democrats and the left. That even the candidate himself doesn’t feel exists because of his continued association with the party. All these people will make sure that the Democrats and by extension the candidate they supported won’t have their support or power to do the things their candidate wanted to do. Talk about self-destructing.
As an anarchist Lefty type I have no love for status quo or establishments democrats. But I have to still pragmatically acknowledge that the only way to fix or improve things is through them. Or at least by replacing them from the inside out.
Oh I’m not saying any of this from any standpoint other than, Biden did some impressive things with a shit hand, and the idea of not voting this year as a way to somehow spur forward progress towards the leftist goals that refusing to vote for him is supposed to provide, is absolutely laughable propaganda, and the actual impact will potentially be the opposite of that, times 10 or 20 or 50.
Just saying that also, Bernie got fucked and it’s a big shame and fuck Hillary for taking part in it and then expecting people to be excited to vote for her.
I generally agree with you on everything but the getting fucked part. That implies that Sanders was unaware or unprepared for what happened. If there were those of us outside politics who could see and understood what was going to happen. Which there were a lot of us. I don’t think Sanders is that young naive or inexperienced. If anything I have a feeling it went better than he expected it would.
The man went up against the core of party leadership and the candidate they desired. And while he didn’t win outright. He came out more powerful than he went in. If success is getting fucked Perhaps we should all get fucked.
Right! They’re forced to run! So fuck it vote for trump… you have no other options right?
In your own words… Who were they supposed to force?
It’s not like you have a choice, it’s not like this world lets you participate…. Keep whining…
No one is forced to run. That’s the point. You can only vote for the choices you’re given. Not the choices you’re not. That’s the point. If you want better options better choices. Force yourself to run. We always have choice, we always have agency. Even if you choose not to vote. It’s generally the worst thing you can do. But it’s still a choice. And if you don’t believe me just listen to the band Rush.
Every man who’s been president has the “I must complete two terms” stuck on loop in his brain. And that kind of thinking short-circuits critical thinking skills that would/could otherwise see their own selfish stupidity.
In Biden’s case, I really do believe he would have stepped aside if it had been anyone but Trump.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign outside of Boston. “We cannot let him win.”
Same shit as in 2016, dems putting the weakest candidate.
Not quite the same because 2016 was an open primary.
You can’t expect the sitting President to just NOT run. Johnson stepped out, but by '68 he had already served 5 years.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign outside of Boston. “We cannot let him win.”
The irony of this is breathtaking. If Biden wasn’t running there’d be much less of a chance of Trump winning. I really wonder what would happen at this point if Biden dropped dead of a heart attack tomorrow. I find it hard to believe anyone else could possibly be doing worse than him. Harris might do just as badly because of guilt by association, but at least she wouldn’t do any worse.
If there’s any justice in the world both Biden and Trump will kick the bucket before the next election, and we’ll actually get a couple candidates that aren’t a few decades past the average life expectancy for once. Maybe get a fresh faced 50 year old for a change. God forbid we get a candidate that we don’t seriously have to worry about if they need a diaper change for once.
Harris would do far worse because nobody, not even her own staff, likes her.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290
We have the same issue in France. The problem is there is no more negotiation with the legislative, everything gets voted on party lines, and what little gets done happens via executive orders. How can viable candidates emerge in this climate? It’s maddening.
I mean, if any country knows how to deal with a bad government, it’s France.
I don’t know how they have not prepped Sen Whitehouse to run. Dude should win based on his name alone.
I saw a comment somewhere that can be summarized as “the biggest chance of either party to immediately gain a popular vote lead for presidency is for their own candidate to keel over before the election”, and frankly, I can’t say it’s incorrect. Neither one has any business making decisions for a future they won’t have to live through the consequences of. Biden is basically just running off of “not the other guy”, “business as usual”, and “we’ll totally do (insert predictably broken campaign promise)”.
I think if Biden dies the Dem debate performance might actually get worse.
The entire ticket falling into the Bermuda triangle would work out well though.
Because the prospects of President Cop just weren’t quite enough, she has a “holistic thought advisor”…
(well, it’s satire - but the clips of her saying a lot of nothing are real)
I have no idea about the Biden side (although people having no idea what he has to run on is more of a media thing than a what-he’s-done thing). But I’m confident saying that Trump dying before the election would be a catastrophe for the Republicans.
The GOP rank and file has figured out at this point that most people in Washington don’t represent them. It’s all just weirdos in suits who are making emotionally manipulative commercials and taking their money and health care and jobs and leaving them with nothing. I think a lot of Trump’s appeal was that, whatever his flaws, he definitely wasn’t one of those pod people, so there was quite a lot of appeal to the idea of sending him to Washington and if he wrecks the place like a deer trapped in a subway car then oh well nothing of value was lost.
I don’t think they were right about the harmlessness of Trump destroying things, but the understanding of Washington that underlay the core calculus wasn’t totally off base. DeSantis has enough authentic stupid meanness to be able to appeal to them a little bit, but he can’t hide that at his core he’s just another scumbag in a suit, and for anyone else (Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz and Matt Gaetz), I think they’re gonna say in record numbers you know what brother man I’m gonna pass.
Trump dying after he gets in office, and all the machinery of Project 2025 falling into the hands of someone who’s not the world’s most useless and failure prone individual, would on the other hand be an absolute global catastrophe.
And his approach is increasingly flawed, as he has backed an apparent genocide which sounds absolutely like something Trump would do. I keep hearing soooo many whataboutisms when mentioning this, about how Trump would be worse, about how questioning this could put Trump back in office if it causes people to not vote for Biden, etc. But that’s the issue, as Biden was elected largely because he was seen as a pretty nice guy who was pretty decently prepared for the role, and specifically would try to fix the problems Trump created. And to be fair, he has fixed a ton of them and has overall decent track record of recovery for the country. However, it’s pretty clear he’s trying to bow to AIPAC so that they don’t try to tank the democrats in the next election, and in turn it is greatly tarnishing their reputation, more so than I think they’ve realized.
I mean, Trump has stated he’ll let Russia have Ukraine.
So It definitely can be worse.
The Gaza genocide thing is fucking insane, the public is being shown the PR side from Palestinians, and are completely ignoring the military strategic side of things.
Why the media isn’t discussing the fact that this is a proxy war with Iran. This isn’t conspiracy theory shit either, it’s quite well documented over the last 40 years. Israel is definitely doing harm to the Palestinians, but these people are literally being used, funded, and armed by a foreign government to attack Israel with the actual objective having nothing to do with a Palestinian state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Israel_proxy_conflict
Iran sent 170 drones, 120 ballistic missiles and 30 cruise missiles in a direct attack against against Israel not two months ago after Israel bombed an Iranian embassy in Syria.
This is why the US and the entire west is helping Israel, because they’re fighting Iran too.
Maybe. I don’t really want President Harris either. She’d be in the same boat as NYC mayor Eric Adams: a “tough on crime” Democrat that hurts more than helps.
If I was only known for one thing at my job I would have been fired a long time ago. Hold these fucks against a higher standard.
“Generic Democrat” consistently outpolls Biden every time.
That’s almost always the case. It’s because “generic x” doesn’t have any baggage or negatives and people just project whatever positives they want onto it.
Right, but this also means a fresh face, with little political history would fit that description. We put up the exact oppsite of that.
IE, less of the fossils that currently make up the party.
It doesn’t mean that a fresh face with little political history would fit that description. The point is that there is no description, so people are able to fill in the blanks with what they imagine, which isn’t going to be the same for everyone.
Biden’s biggest problem is definitely Biden.
1992:
Public: “THE ECONOMY SUCKS!”
Bush: “Read my lips… no… new… taxes…”
Clinton: (Bites lip) “I feel your pain!”2024:
Public: “THE ECONOMY SUCKS!”
Biden: “What are you talking about, Jack? The economy is better than it’s ever been!”I’m not sure you’re making an argument you think you are here. Clinton felt your pain and then he deregulated the banking industry to the point that we have many of the problems we have today. Not to mention his dismantling of social programs . Clinton’s only second to Reagan among presidents who are the cause of many of our current economic woes.
Clinton felt the pain to get elected. What he did AFTER being elected is totally different.
Biden can’t get re-elected if he continues belittling voter complaints.
It’s a tough position to be in. He came in with 2 years of apocalypse to undo, and 45 years of neoliberal betrayal and exploitation to contend with, and he actually made a significant amount of progress in the face of those obstacles; so as a result I’m sure when he hears “Biden sucks on the economy, we want Trump back, those were great days and nothing good has happened since then” from news networks to whom unions and manufacturing jobs mean nothing in terms of economic priority, he wants to push back on it
But you’re not wrong about the optics of trying to tell anyone things are good for working people in America
