Yes, he’s been far more effective than i expected. I voted for him with some reluctance due to his age, but i will vote for him enthusiastically this time around.
And you know, i like Harris, too. If Biden truly becomes disabled, i think he’ll step down.
It’s a pretty clear-cut choice to me. On one hand, we have a 2024 Presidential candidate who is really starting to show his age-- increasingly misspeaking in public, confusing the names of people he should know very well, constantly getting his facts all wrong, seeming to speak with a speech impediment at times, and generally losing a grip on reality that he never had a firm grip on in the first place.
Then on the other hand, we have Biden.
Haha, I did the classic misdirection joke. But seriously, it’s no choice at all. We have Biden, who yes, is old, but is still a very capable leader who has had a very successful first term and is the victim of a very successful smear campaign by the right to paint him as this senile old fool.
Then there is trump, who is not only almost as old as Biden, and not only showing the exact signs of incipient dementia that Biden is being accused of, but apart from all that, is a monster who not only tried to subvert an election, has been saying in no uncertain terms that if he becomes President again he is out for revenge against his perceived enemies, and will tear the system down- gut government institutions, cripple the NATO alliance, and God knows what else.
Biden is 1000 times more qualified to be President than trump. I’ve posted this in another thread, but here is a recent podcast that Biden appeared in. It’s a comedic podcast, yes, so it’s not like Biden is getting any hard-hitting policy questions thrown at him, but he speaks at length, and is at turns funny, engaging, and shows a strong grasp of policy.
This should work
Thank you, and thanks, @survinga . That’s an excellent article, and the OP and anyone else who wants to opine on Biden’s memory would do well to read it.
LOL. That’s quite the generalization there. Americans are all over the map on politics. Some of us are wrapped up in our daily lives and don’t pay attention. Some of us are extremely informed on policy minutae. Some of us come at it through special interest groups, or ethnic/racial groups, or specific issues (guns, abortion, etc). We come at politics the same way we do everything else in this country, from a million directions.
But calling American voters “morons” is just not correct.
re: Stewart about age
Stewart spent a lot of time showing both Trump and Biden saying stuff in public. Trump’s were obviously super crazy. Biden’s was solely in the context of the Hur report/memory comments, and how Biden’s public response to that was not that great and he could have done better.
The “that’s not being ageist” comment was about Trump being “old”. Stewart said a person who is 77 years old is objectively old. The comment was strictly within the context of a person’s age and whether their age means they are old or not.
The bigger context of the 20min segment was, regarding both, are we not allowed to discuss their age, how they come off in the public, and whether they are able to handle the job of the Presidency. Voters should be allowed to scrutinize them on how their age might affect their abilities.
Or more simply, he acknowledged voters concerns about their age.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, any article that has the term “prefrontal cortex” in it isn’t going to reach the people who need it the most.
Last month I did a read-aloud for kindergarteners that included “prefrontal cortex.” Maybe in twenty years we’ll be better.
Joe Biden is old, he stutters, and he stumbles. He also misspeaks more than many people speak.
Donald Trump tried to overthrow the legitimately elected government of the United States of America. He also said that he’d invite Russia to have their way with any NATO member in ‘monetary default.’
There’s just no contest here, shame though it may be.
Please don’t forget that Biden has manage to misspeak most of his public life. Even back the first time he ran for President back in 1987. I’m not sure he is doing it much more now, I feel like he was more prone to it as VP.
Already happening.
That said, AFAICT four of the seats on the Supreme Court are currently Gen X; what do you figure the odds are that the next Justice puts them in the majority?
I presented that in a way that I thought would be recognized as obviously snarky hyperbole and not intended as a serious comment. What I do seriously believe, though, is that commercial media in America does a terrible job of informing American voters about the vital issues that they need to know about if democracy is to function. That, plus the proliferation of sleazy lying RW media, the lack of truly vibrant public broadcasting, and the incredible degree of public apathy about the issues and policies that affect them, pretty much explains why Trump’s vapid and deceitful demagoguery has been so successful.
Meh it’ll just give Gen-Xers something to whine about, which is where they feel most comfortable anyway
100% disagree on this. Trump indeed has proven this to not be the case. As incredibly stupid and malicious as he is, the damage he did was still limited, and he was only able to do that much because three Supreme Court seats were made available for him to fill and he had the nearly-full complicity of Republicans.
This, to me, proves that literally anyone who is not incredibly stupid and malicious could actually do a pretty decent job. Probably not be the greatest president ever, but if you pick a random person off the street that has good intentions, they will not wreak havoc out of ‘lack of experience’. Much less someone who is intelligent, insightful, and well intentioned, who is already used to relying on a staff of experts to give him information about the relevant topic.
While this is technically true, the damage he did was considerable, and some of it is still reverberating, such as people’s trust in the government, and their willingness to challenge and violate the norms that have quietly held things together.
In other words, Trump caused a leak in the plumbing, which has been patched, but water is still leaking from somewhere: I don’t think the limits of his damage have quite been reached yet.
This is key. Trump tells them “I love you just the way you are” and it feels GOOD. Democrats generally – Hillary is the very worst example of this, but it goes back at least to to Kennedy* – have a way of saying “You need to be the best you can be” which is not nearly as feel-good a message.
*“Ask not what your country can do for you - ask you can do for your country.” Has there ever been a slogan more antithetical to what Republicans now preach?
Whatever
Pretty high, now that “life expectancy at time of nomination” is considered an important attribute for a Supreme Court Justice.
Though the Millennials will soon be the favored group by that measure as well. A lot will depend on this presidential election - I’m sure Thomas will be, uh, “encouraged” to retire from his seat in the event of a Trump victory, and depending on their health and the political outlook for 2028, even Alito and Roberts may come under some similar pressure.
No. Trump didn’t just break this norm, he took a shit on it for all time. All we need, in a country that elected Trump even once, is merely the absence of active malevolence. I’d cheerfully vote for any pop star at all, as long as they had no open plans to disenfranchise, oppress and loot. Trump is the lowest bar imaginable. Statesmanship is no longer a thing Americans value, clearly, so why should Democrats hobble ourselves with this requirement?