It seems evident Biden will only stop due to natural reasons and not political ones.
I like Joe, who is inoffensive and traditional. I attach no value to trivial mistakes that must occur for anyone who travels widely and deals with great stress. But some voters do. Although older candidates tend to be better in many respects, one hardly wants to rely on choosing an effective veep. In this regard, I don’t see Trump as any different. But younger age was one reason many found Obama charismatic.
Thanks for the laugh.
ETA … I can see two or three of the group that can be thought of as reasonable bench for ‘28. None who are remotely ready now.
I agree but find this surprising given the size and plurality of the United States. With so many governors and senators and politicians, the failure to find a better candidate moderate enough to appeal to various interests is unfortunate.
That’s a pretty short list. Hobbs from Arizona and Whitmer from Michigan. But as @DSeid stated, neither of them are viable in 2024.
The issue is not moderate enough. This isn’t our parents’ presidential election cycles. There is no large swayable “moderate middle” who will vote D or R based on the candidate.
There is some hard floor to R and a slightly less low hard floor to D. No matter who it is. Biden is more than moderate enough. The issue is motivating turn out for and against and a small sliver of swing voters in a handful of states.
And our Josh Shapiro.
As for viability, they might do something between 2024 and 2028 that voters dislike. The longer in the public eye, the more chance for voters to decide they don’t like them.
Before Obama, we used to talk about the senatorial curse. It mostly had to do with overexposure.
Trump and Biden are both overexposed. The main reason Trump is viable is that the other guy is also overexposed.
As a voter, I like experienced and well qualified. As a Democrat who thinks it important to beat Trump, I like a newcomer.
Nobody had better experience than Hillary.
I disagree. The reason Trump is viable is that he’s turned the GOP into a party of one: his strong base of support within the Republican party is loyal to him; not for his policies, not for what he’s done, but because of him.
I posted this earlier today in the “moderate Republicans” thread, but it bears repeating here:
Anti-Trump Republicans seem to have given up on the primaries, and will save their money now for the general, when they presumably will spend their money in support of Trump, a candidate that they despise, rather than Biden, a candidate they despise more.
For those concerned with Biden’s age (including me, though I plan to vote for him):
Trump is 3½ years younger than Biden. This is (1) statistically not very significant in this age range (upper 70s / early 80s), and (2) means that were Trump to be elected in November (gods forbid), he would be starting this term older than “too old” Biden started his. Per (1), a lot more depends on the individual’s overall health and wellness at this age, and while I don’t have enough information to judge, I’d put my money on Biden in this regard.
In other words, age may well be a factor, but in the likely Biden v. Trump, they are both too old, so there’s no viable younger candidate to vote for.
But Trump himself is not really who we need to worry about in that regard. He will surround himself with people who are like a John Eastman or a Jeffrey Clark. Hell, he could bring back Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. He’ll put all these people in “acting” positions and let them have at it while he rails against his enemies, has rallies and plays golf. Trump is not running for President because he wants to do governing stuff. He will be fine with letting others make him a dictator.
While modern politics is far more polarized than during the last generation, I do believe there are many independents who would vote based on candidate. There are many reasons a Republican might want an alternative to Trump: he is focused only on himself, he is probably dangerous to democracy and the economic stability that subsumes, he is too law abiding, he seems to kowtow to dictators, it would be difficult to get appropriate hair on the statues of himself he would place in every zócalo, and he angered millions when he stopped merchandising delicious steak, quality neckwear and a prestigious university.
Maybe moderates and independents don’t make good television and are not the force of yesteryear, but there are still plenty of them and the Democrats do need to persuade them.
And yet I agree with your post. Trump isn’t just viable for the nomination; he’s an overwhelming favorite.
My argument is that Trump is also highly viable among swing voters who will determine the November 2024 outcome, at least if Biden is the Democratic nominee.
Um, what?
A little Saturday humour.
I live in a city (300 000 or so) but spent a little time in Trump country (about 90% of my state area).
Listening to that Trump California speech and spending about an hour at a Casey’s gas station in rural Nebraska I came to a simple conclusion. It really works. Trump had made a bond with all these rural people. It has nothing to do with jobs or the economy or Ukraine. They see themselves in him. Most of them only see a tiny bit of themselves in Biden. And completely at odds with Kamala Harris. A Trump-Harris election would go 60% Trump.
Across the road is a sports field with youth sports going on. All white people. Might be one Latino kid out there.
@DSeid that’s an excellent response to @Dr_Paprika. I’ll continue with …
The problem is not finding a “better” D candidate. The problem is finding a widely known D candidate.
Governors are well known in their state, maybe knowns in adjoining states, and total unknowns in the other ~45 states. Similarly for most (not all) Congressfolks.
Over the last ~20 years the Rs have perfected politics as reality TV, where they’re constantly promoting state and state-associated federal pols as up and coming stars in their own right. Lots of Americans know who Tuberville is for example; he’s not just famous in AL. Etc.
The Ds so far have no corresponding system to ensure their own up and comers have similar favorable name recognition. In fact the opposite: the R fake hate machine gets started the moment any D pol begins to achieve any position of influence. So by the time this person begins to achieve true prominence and is being pushed by the D news machine, they already have 10 or 15 years of fake R bullshit stuck to them in the eyes of half the electorate.
This is a very tough problem that, frankly, nothing less than widespread criminality on the part of the Ds can overcome. And that’s something that’s beyond the pale for most of their supporters.
Yes, racist bigots. I’m mountain rural, and Trump could not possibly be further away from what I or the people I know want.
They admire a stupid piece of shit that screws up again, and again. So I guess they do see themselves in him.
Yes, it’s not just trump, it’s the horrible people he brings with him, and the entire mindset toward government and its institutions. trump, as you mentioned, used that neat trick of appointing department heads as permanent interim positions, so they had.less autonomy and he could run roughshod over them while gutting their departments.
Biden, on the other hand, surrounds himself with much more competent and less evil people who are (arguably,perhaps) there for the right reasons. No matter what happens to Biden in a second Biden term, no matter how diminished he may be in capacity, there’s not the same risk of the entire house of cards collapsing that there would be in a second trump admin.
And how diminished is Biden really, and how much of it is Repub propaganda? The examples of Biden gaffes I’ve seen have not been terribly egregious; mistakes I might make, and he’s got more than 20 years on me. He still appears to be an effective public speaker as of the excerpts of his recent speech to the UN I saw. And Biden gaffes pale in comparison to the many, many batshit insane things trump has said over the years. Both pure stupidity, such as saying soldiers took over the airports during the Revolutionary War, or using bleach to cure Covid. And then there are the things he’s said that are both stupid and evil, like asking why couldn’t border crossers just be shot, or why not dig a moat at the border and fill it with alligators. His ideas are those of a 5 year old who likes to torture bugs.
Well put. How do you respond to a person that has no idea how the world works. I would not call Trump insane, but he is absolutely clueless.
I have run into a few of those folks. But that would be for a different thread. I may have to start one.
Working his part of the world his way has worked out very well for him. I’m not sure clueless is quite the right word to use. Ruthlessly single-minded in pursuit of personal advantage maybe.
For damned sure the world could not operate successfully if everyone behaved that way. But for him, “everyone” doesn’t matter even a little bit.
Him calling for alligator-filled moats and shooting immigrants has proven very popular with the people whose adulation he is courting. Nothing about that seems “clueless”. Profoundly evil, Yes. But not clueless.
Further, although he’d probably not mind if the shootings and moat digging had actually happened on his watch, he never expended any real effort to try to make them happen, beyond appointing like-minded assholes to some high level positions.
For him it’s mostly about the “I say, they cheer. I say more, they cheer more.” loop. With a small retinue of loyal hangers-on dedicated to shoveling the resulting money into his pockets.
I don’t for a minute think a 2024 trump win will be limited to malign but ultimately ineffective blather. 2016-2020 was a learning experience and next time it’ll be very very real. Again driven by appointments of truly evil and effective people into the top few tiers of Federal power. All of whom will be feeding money and adulation to the leader.
I didn’t understand the point about white people.
I don’t think he’s much diminished, but it’s inevitable, as a human, that he will be. It could be in ten years, in which case no problem, but it’s a bit of a gamble: remember Diane Feinstein, or any number of other politicians who didn’t know when to step away. People will be paying a lot of attention to the VP this election cycle; I wish Harris were getting more favourable responses. As I said above, though, it’s equally a gamble for Trump, and as far as I can tell literally nobody is pointing out that Trump is too old, even though he’ll be 80 in a couple of years unless the fates have other plans.