The president’s inadequate performance in the debate made it clear he is not the man he was four years ago.
  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Mr. Biden has said that he is the candidate with the best chance of taking on this threat of tyranny and defeating it. His argument rests largely on the fact that he beat Mr. Trump in 2020. That is no longer a sufficient rationale for why Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee this year.

    At Thursday’s debate, the president needed to convince the American public that he was equal to the formidable demands of the office he is seeking to hold for another term. Voters, however, cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago.

    The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence.

    This isn’t just one person’s opinion, it’s coming from the Times editorial board.

    And while I don’t often agree with them, it’s telling that such a “moderate” organization is saying Biden needs to step aside.

    But I’m sure people are going to call them trump supporters now.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      He should.

      But if the only defense of Biden is trump is worse, that’s still not a reason to not replace Biden with someone better.

      Hell, it’s a reason to replace Biden.

      trump is a major threat to American democracy. We should be running a capable and charismatic candidate against him to maximize the chances of stopping him.

      Like, if you’re lost at sea, and had the choice of a life raft with radio beacon and supplies to last a month or one of those unicorn ring floats…

      Sure. We’d all take the unicorn floaty over nothing, but you’d be insane to insist on it over the raft because there’s a shark in the water.

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    This whole freakout over one bad debate (that had lousy ratings) in effing June is more embarrassing than productive. Maybe everyone should calm the fuck down and wait for enough high quality poll data to see if it even caused a shift in the race. For all we know, it changed zero minds or people were turned off by Trump’s angrier, dumber rambling old man answers.

      • growsomethinggood ()@reddthat.com
        0·
        5 months ago

        Yeah, I’m suspicious that at least Warren isn’t on that list given her performance in the last primary was higher than several of the folks there. Bernie could be more polarizing (and is also quite old, if that’s the problem) but obviously I’d be interested in his statistics as well.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          Yeah, be cautious of anyone that sources polls with screenshots and not links.

          I looked into Data for Progress, and it seems like they sold out last election.

          https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/12/us/politics/data-for-progress-democrats.html

          Party establishment started favoring them because they were good at coming up with polls that led to donations. So they’ve moved away from pushing for progress, and now push polls that defend the establishment.

          A few years ago the founder was forced out of the company because it came to light he was betting on elections and using the company to try and effect the races so he’d win his bets…

          And trying to recruit his employees for a straw donor scheme…

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_McElwee#Data_for_Progress

          So them putting out a shady poll like this, is actually an improvement for the company over what they were doing in 2022…

          • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            My initial post was saying to wait for high quality polling data and stop having panic attacks over one debate. The downside risk to Biden dropping out is real and everyone is acting like it’ll be a simple situation where everyone unites around their preferred candidate.

            I didn’t vote for Biden in any primary but I’m not convinced a convention where they nominate (for instance) Harris, Newsom, or Whitmer would be anything but chaos that angered at least some constituencies and led to more Republicans winning up and down the ballot. Everyone is assuming things at this point and I’m saying “Wait to see if this even moves the polls.”

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              high quality polling data

              What does that have to do with Data for Progress?

              Even before they sold out, the whole point was cheap and fast, not high quality…

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        I have bad news about who a convention of Biden loyalists will nominate regardless of what horrors Israel does. Or a committee of wise party elders (which doesn’t exist), for that matter. The time to challenge Biden was before he won every primary with like 80% of the vote.

        There’s just not a realistic way that I can see where the convention nominates a progressive option. Even just replacing Biden with someone younger and the exact same policies would be nearly impossible.