Oh dead lord, you want to blame the performance on DayQuil or Tylenol and not the fact that he’s over 80 years old? Could you step off your train of thought for a few moments and think about that?
The only reason people have receded calls for Biden to be replaced is because sadly, there isn’t a better option, not because his performance wasn’t a disaster.
The author is a professor of medicine at Yale. I accept the validity of his opinion on the topic.
Man, that sounds desperate. All you quoted was a doctor that said basically “sometimes when people are acting funny, it’s because they’re on drugs.” Yeah, no shit. He’s not diagnosing Biden, he has no inside information, he’s just making an obvious statement. He’s not even saying he thinks Biden was on cold medicine. And you’re hiding behind that as though Biden’s own doctor was releasing his medical chart or something, just so you can try to take a false intellectual high road by saying “I trust the experts!” even though he wasn’t giving a judgment that proves your cold medicine theory.
It’s funny that you say anyone that’s concerned that we have an 81 year old as the best candidate to defend the country from fascism are “panicking” but you’ve manned this thread desperately replying to every concern trying to dismiss them like your denial is the only thing holding up this whole house of cards.
What SenorBeef said.
Now that Ronny “Candy Man” Jackson is in Congress, I’m thinking the White House physician is no longer a nincompoop.
I’m not intending to link to the content of this reddit thread, but if a video is hosted on reddit you can’t link to it separately from the discussion thread (as far as I know). But someone put together a few clips of Biden in the 2019 debates and 2024. It’s even worse than I thought put in stark contrast like that.
Thank you Aspen. That’s the Joe I know.
My wife is of course a never Trumper like me, but she thinks Joe needs to be replaced. Bad idea. I’ll ask her watch that.
And Putin beat him like the rented mule that Trump is.
Almost all the points are, from an electoral standpoint, weak or mistaken.
As for Democratic civil war, my first thought is no, except for convention Gaza protests that will look bad and are inevitable. Any replacement will be from the same party center as Biden. The nominee would have to be someone from the squad, or Manchin, to divide the party. And that Is not happening.
However, I admit to being a little worried about a Democratic Party civil war if the Democratic nominee loses in November. The mainstream responsible elites, and party centrists in the Biden/Harris lane, would be discredited. That I do not like but it is a risk worth taking due to the current high probability of a second Trump term due to the static race where Biden runs 6 to 10 rolling average points behind where he was four years ago — day after day, month after month, year after year. Plus, even if Biden remains the nominee, you get the same post-election Democratic civil war, with the New York Times being implausibly blamed for why people in Scranton voted for Trump,
To be clear for the rest of the house: The points quoted in my post are merely section headers for which Abramson presents cogent arguments.
It would be fascinating to see how Trump attacks Gretchen Whitmer. What’s he gonna do…blame her for inflation? Migrants crossing the border? Attack the “Whitmer crime family”?
His idea of how the so-called brokered convention works is utterly lacking. If there was serious opposition to Kamala (or she decided not to run), they wouldn’t tear each other down in public. It’s the terrible extended modern campaign process, taking two years, that results in the Democrats destroying each other. The smoke filled room idea was because they did not want to air dirty linen in public. But here it will not be needed because the party motivation to beat Trump is sky high, and because virtually all the delegates are Bidenites.
Logic leads to Kamala picking Shapiro for veep — almost guaranteeing my state for the Democratic ticket — and also insuring Casey keeps his senate seat, and gaining us one or two house seats.
Do not panic over the brokered convention phrase. 2/3 is no longer needed. Think 1932, not 1924.
Yes I was a U.S. history major 
One of the many issues the punditry has raised with Biden’s performance is that he missed easy opportunities to attack trump; specifically, for example, on abortion. So I went back and re-watched the beginning of the debate, and this isn’t wholly true.
When the abortion question was raised, Trump responded with 2 lies: that “everyone”, all constitutional scholars, everybody…wanted Roe repealed. And that Democrats are allowing abortions after birth (ie, infanticide). Biden responded forcefully, calling Trump a liar and saying that he would veto any federal abortion ban sent to him.
The problem isn’t that he didn’t respond; it’s that he didn’t respond eloquently. And it came right after the lowest moment of the debate, his “we beat Medicare” mess.
I think Trump would start by coming up with a nickname. Perhaps Grody Gretchen, Gross Gretchin, or something else Topps would have put on a Garbage Pail Kid card back in 1985. He’d attack Whitmer’s performance as governor blaming her for the outrageous crime in Lansing and he wouldn’t shut up about the terrible state of Detroit. Lansing doesn’t have a serious crime problem? The truth doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t put it past Trump or his surrogates to bring up her sexual assault and he would link her to every Democratic idea/policy he’s been railing against the last few years.
Lincoln Project sez don’t panic.
Gretchen Witless, surely.
Too clever. He’d just call her “that nasty woman” and that she came at him with blood in her whatever.
Forget about Big Gretch, her family is her priority, not jumping into a presidential campaign to save face for the Democrats.
I think this is such an important point.
It doesn’t matter who the Dems run. That individual will receive the full smear treatment from Republicans.
The only thing they could find that stuck to Joe Biden is that he’s old, and from that, flows the meme of frailty. Boy howdy, has it stuck. Even people who claim to affiliate with Dems loudly and proudly proclaim it to be the case, despite the fact that Trump is only 3 years younger and displays many more signs of mental deterioration than Biden ever has, to say nothing of the fact that virtually every word out of Trump’s mouth is a lie. Against that, Biden also has one of the most enviable records of presidential accomplishment in history. But let’s ignore that! He’s old, dammit! He walks funny! He might miss a step climbing onto Air Force One! He’s worthless! He’s useless! Didn’t you hear me? He’s old, dammit!
To think that any subsequent choice to Biden would be spared the same treatment demonstrates a naivete of MAGA politics that is breathtaking to me. Any new candidate would be subjected to the full smear machine that is the right wing. It works so well.
Biden’s debate performance was poor, no one is arguing the contrary. But it was obvious to regular Biden watchers that he was ill and that his style was a poor match for a debate where Trump’s fire hose of lies was permitted to stand unchallenged. The time moved too fast for him, his illness slowed down his response times and his ongoing difficulties with his stutter made him appear stupified at times. But his record speaks for itself. His fitness for the job is displayed daily in his achievements. In my lifetime, I’ve never seen a more formidable president, one who accomplished more in such record time against all odds. Joe Biden took over a mess. He quickly turned things around, both on the domestic and foreign policy fronts.
We’d be fools to abandon him now.
Thank you, Aspenglow. I’ve rarely read such a clear and concise description of the situation, especially Biden’s extensive but barely acknowledged accomplishments.
And the phrase, “Trump’s fire hose of lies,” is destined for immortality. What an apt description of that loser’s entire campaign !
So well said. I am stupefied why this isn’t obvious.