If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas. Biden beat Trump in 2020 and he will beat Trump in November unless Democrats help Trump win, which is what anyone who is saying Biden should drop out is doing.
Ugh. I can’t remember an election cycle where so many Democrats behaved in such a craven and cynical manner. (2002-2004 comes close, but that was more cowardice than it was self-servingness.)
For the umpteenth time, things have changed between 2020 and 2024. This year, Biden is ten percentage points behind where he was four years ago. This isn’t the same as last time.
According to polls that we know are heavily biased in Trump’s favor.
You’re right. This time he’s running against a convicted felon who wants a nationwide ban on abortion and a holocaust and can’t stay awake at his own 4-day party that is literally all about him.
Again, no one other than Republican propagandists are claiming that Biden is senile. What some of us are worried about is credible evidence that Biden is in the initial stages of serious cognitive decline. Evidence since the debate suggests that if it’s the case, it hasn’t progressed far at all.
Personally, I’ve come around to the perspective that he’s just working too hard, and exhaustion explains the debate, but that’s still speculation and I think cognitive decline is still a possibility. Senility isn’t and never was.
That’s exactly what it is. Even with covid he’s been working himself to the bone.
We used to think that was admirable in a person before this party somehow got taken over by gerontophobes.
The Remove Biden movement is back in strength and he is at 41% at Polymarket down from 80% a few days back. The gyrations at Polymarket since the debate have been remarkable. He went down to around 40% recovered to around 75% went down again to 40% recovered again and is now down again all in the space of three weeks.
Covid will not help either reducing his public engagements just when he needs to be out there restoring confidence.
If Biden can’t defeat Trump despite their individual records and plans for a second term then the problem is the Democrats’ inability to sell the unquestionably better product, and not the product itself.
We do not know that even if you put it in bold. Pollster put in a lot of effort to avoid bias in polls. Sometimes they are wrong but there is no consistency to which side out does their polling.
Honestly this feels like talking to a Trump supporter. Everything that doesn’t fit your world view is wrong or a vast conspiracy.
I agree with this. People are talking about cynicism, but I find the attitude that only Biden can win an incredibly cynical attitude. (As is the attitude that people will ignore Biden’s shortcomings if we just don’t talk about them) The Democrats have a deep bench of talented politicians. If Biden is not up for it he should step aside, there are lots of other options of people who can deliver the Democrats message which in general is fairly popular.
If Biden chooses to withdraw from the race that comment will give him cover and a way to save face.
Joe’s a veteran politician. He knows to always leave yourself an Out. Heck, it’s not inconceivable he has already decided to exit and has very recently started building the foundation of the operation.
Nancy Pelosi must be one of them gerontophobes.
To me that would be disqualifying. He is the chief executive. He better have the skills to surround himself with a qualified team that he trusts to do all the heavy lifting. Any possible second term for him as an aging president relies on that skill.
You’re telling us that at this point in his career he doesn’t have a team that he trusts and that he knows how to delegate to? That he doesn’t know his own limits and over extends? That would not be reassuring.
I give him credit for more wisdom than that. For being better at the job of president than that.
My fear remains that the job of winning an election is a very different job than being president is. It is physically and cognitively an endurance event, and he is not looking to be in condition to run that event well.
He is slowed down. He can and has been a fine President slowed down, using a good team. But can he be a good enough campaigner this slowed down? Enough to dig out of the hole he is in as a fairly unpopular president?
This what’s fascinating/terrifying about this situation. Nobody knows what the best path is to defeating Trump: keeping Biden, dropping Biden, replacing him with … who?..or does it even matter. And it’s only the most significant decision of our time.
I’m with you here. I guess I’m one of these gerontophobes, too, because I suspect the problem is he’s not resting as much as he needs to at his age, because this is not a job where one can. Especially while campaigning. My guess would be that it’s not because he’s unwise or unable to delegate, but because his body is changing and because he’s frankly too busy to give that unpleasant issue the introspection it needs. But of course I really have no idea what the issues are. Clearly there’s something, or was for a while.
I think he can adjust and do the job, certainly until January, but I continue to have doubts as to whether he can do the more-than-full-time job while ALSO campaigning for the job (in our incredibly and unnecessarily drawn-out process). We’ll see, I guess, but the only people I see who are confident are those who are just wishing really hard for a different reality.
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying the Democrats should be able to sell Biden to the American public, given the alternative. The fact that they have decided they can’t says more about them than him.
But what if they think he is too old to serve a second term? Then they need to tell him that they can’t in good conscience sell him to the voters, not that he can’t win.
I am SO tired of these constant “Biden urged to drop out,” “Biden has COVID,” “Biden reconsidering dropping out” messages from the media. It feels like election interference at this point. WTF?
Get back to me, everyone calling for Biden to drop out, when haz Dem candidate that can magically project a personality while also pithily countering trump’s lies in a catchy way that captures the attention of the low-information potential voters.
“Senile” isn’t a clinical diagnosis, it’s just an English word which, per Google dictionary, means "(of a person) having or showing the weaknesses or diseases of old age, especially a loss of mental faculties: "
As, for example, someone who might be “in the initial stages of serious cognitive decline”.
This is really MAGA-level disconnect from reality here. In reality, the polls slightly underestimated Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
I think the distinction I am trying to make is that “senile,” without qualification, means “past it.” With qualification, you are quite correct, but when it’s getting thrown around in this thread, it seems to be because people are saying that he is not senile, and meaning by that that he’s not “past it,” in a more advanced state of senility according with the common colloquial use of the term.
I think there’s an important distinction to be made between someone who is always a bit confused and unable to track what’s going on, which is the right-wing narrative, and someone who is mostly fine but does have moments of inability to function, which is (to my mind) still a possibility for Biden, though not one I’m convinced of.
Couldn’t he just, like, support Biden and then present himself as the perfect candidate in 2028 anyway? Whether Biden wins or loses, there won’t be a Democratic incumbent in the 2028 primaries….unless someone else replaces Biden and wins. If you want to run in 2028, calling for Biden to drop out is completely counterproductive.