I’m confused. How on the earth can either Trump or Biden be legitimate candidates for POTUS?
Look, Biden is a decent well meaning bloke with decades of public service behind him, but his cheese is barely clinging to his cracker. He’s showing all the signs of dementia and that ain’t going to get better. Watching getting wheeled out to make statements is like watching Weekend at Bernies, the man should be in a nursing home with a blanket on his lap, not running the USA.
And then there’s Trump, who isn’t much younger but has a whole long list of reasons why he should be considered unsuitable for any public office ever again, let alone POTUS.
What the hell is going on over there? How do 2 geriatrics clearly unsuitable to manage a lemonade stand let alone the USA get to be the 2 primary candidates for next POTUS?
Isn’t there anyone under 60 let alone under 50 FFS with the skills and profile?
At the moment from the outside looking in it’s like you’re going to choose between a dead body weekend at Bernies style and trust the people carrying the body around and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.
For one thing, nothing in this paragraph is remotely true. There has not been any sign of dementia from Biden. Such claims are only made in right wing, anti-Biden sources, not in reputable journalist sources. And the supposed “signs” don’t actually align with actual symptoms of dementia. Usually, they play on his stuttering disorder or normal slips of the tongue.
Biden is older, and that is a potential liability, because something might happen to him in the future. But he’s also the incumbent. Parties that replace the incumbent lose their elections. It’s basically an admission that the previous four years were a failure. The incumbent has a massive advantage, and thus you only don’t run them when you can’t.
As for Trump: he still has enough sway over enough of the Republican base that he is a formidable figure in the party. His message of “I will cheat on your behalf” resonates. His message of anger towards modernity and promise to fix it all makes sense to people. And his strongman populism appeals to the authoritarian streak that has always been in the American populace–the ones who want a strong person to fix everything.
While he has lost support, he hasn’t lost enough among the common everyday voter who doesn’t actually follow politics. He also has a cult of personality that follows him. He also broke the party, so the people who want to get rid of him don’t have the power to do so. They did—back when they could have impeached him—but they chose not to.
Neither really have strong candidates to run against them, either. Even if any Democrat wanted to risk not running the incumbent, most of the alternatives already lost to Biden in 2020. The rest are up-and-comers who are still building their political careers, and could use the extra four years to do so.
With Trump, he mostly had mini-Trump running against him, and there’s no reason to pick those over the real thing. There were also some who had already lost to him in 2016, or in other less formal battles. And, while Nikki Haley appeals to the never-Trumpers in the party, there just aren’t enough of them in the type of Republicans who vote in primaries. She has anti-appeal to the type who want a strongman to fix things.
Republicans who are politically savvy know that Trump is even less likely to win against Biden than in 2020. Like the incumbent thing, it’s a well known political truth that you don’t rerun the exact same matchup. They know he has a strong appeal to his base but not to independents. But they can’t seem to successfully challenge him–even when they have all their big donors put their money behind Haley.
People got their permission from Trump to be their worst, and that is intoxicating. And staying even partially tethered to reality has a hard time competing with a fiction people want to hear.
I have to agree with @Smapti . Biden is old, yes, but he reminds me of my father when he was Biden’s age: maybe taking his time over selecting the right word, but always finding the right word. Maybe not as steady on his feet as he once was, but no need for a walker or a wheelchair. He’ll get where he’s going on his own.
Biden is running because there’s no one else that has the visibility and popular support, as weak as it is. That’s because American voters are uninformed morons. There are good potential alternatives like Gavin Newsom, but he’d be pummeled by the right because of the perceived baggage of his California governorship. That’s because American voters are uninformed morons.
Trump is popular among Rs both because Rs will always be Rs – cut taxes until taxes are zero, and then cut them some more, and shoot immigrants on sight – and because of a minority of Trumpists who are dissatisfied with their failed lives and blame “the Deep State” for their own failures. That’s because American voters are uninformed morons, but I may already have mentioned that.
For those seeking corroborating evidence, I suggest they watch Fox News. For the weak or infirm, and especially for those suffering from high blood pressure, I recommend a dose of no more than about five or ten minutes of exposure to Fox.*
* The above restriction does not apply to morons or the brain-dead. They may watch Fox News as much as they like, and it won’t affect them.
“Do not watch Fox News if you suffer from high blood pressure. Avoid Fox News if you are pregnant, or plan to be. Common side effects of Fox News include a hoarse throat, the inability to use your remote to tune to a real news channel, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Advise your doctor if you watch Fox News, and discontinue watching if your doctor advises such. Your friends at Fox News may be able to help you save; call them at 1-800-FOX-NEWS, and see if they can. Above all, ask your doctor whether Fox News is right for you.”
Yeah, I’ve seen far too many American prescription drug ads.
My late father, as a Canadian Liberal with no dog in the fight, used to like watching Fox News to find stupid stories to bait one of his Trumper friends.
Look, I have admitted in other threads that I somewhat cringe when Biden takes the mic. He’s not a great orator at this point, and there’s something about the way he’s looking out in the middle distance that appears like he’s confused…
But when you actually review his words it’s pretty hard to find examples of genuine confusion, let alone dementia. Articles that I’ve read will talk about things like Biden forgetting the name of one of his advisors…in a press conference more than 2 years ago.
If that’s dementia, then see you at the care home; I call shotgun on the south-facing room.
Meanwhile Trump gets the words out somewhat easier (though he also slurs and trails off) but watch any rally or any interview…he makes embarrassing errors virtually every other sentence.
Also, I was very disappointed that much of the media, including here in the UK, covered the Hur report uncritically as though there was objective evidence that Biden had cognitive difficulties. Hur is a Republican, and a special counsel report is not even supposed to contain any such commentary; it’s totally inappropriate. But from the very start it contains all sorts of sneering comments about Biden right up to saying that Biden talks about his son’s death to “score political points”. So no, I don’t trust at all what Hur has said.
I’ll admit, Biden getting wheeled out in full Hannibal Lecter setup would be fun. But yes, all of that stuff about Biden is malarkey, until and unless Biden actually takes some kind of dementia test, for example.
Trump speaks in sentences??? The usual term I’ve heard about Trump’s speach is word salad. I don’t think he’s completed a sentence of more than three words since before he was elected.
I think the USA would have to see a huge crisis in order to choose one outside of Trump or Biden. It would have to be something close to events in Niger last year or Hungary this year, where the presidents changed out for various reasons.
I’ve noticed that discussions around US political leaders always seem to revert to mental decline - Biden is senile, Trump has dementia etc, with his notorius mental agility test he’s so proud of. Maybe it’s because you seem to like your politicians old (Mitch McConnell? Nancy Pelosi?) which just presents an easy target, but it isn’t something we see in the UK. We criticise our politicians for all kinds of failings, but we don’t think any of them have actual mental health problems. We just think they’re immoral.
Just my two cents, but it kind of started with Reagan and the idea that he was suffering a mental decline. No one brought it up with the younger Presidents like Obama and Clinton (apart from suggesting general insanity). As for being old, we seem to appreciate wisdom until they’re “too old.” TIL that the UK doesn’t have a minimum age requirement for their leaders. Interesting.
