There's no "there" there: Breathless reports (with video!) of Joe Biden "having lost it" are untrue

I expect the GOP to believe their own lies. What’s annoying is how easily Democrats believe Republican lies.

Donald Trump is the Republican candidate. And yet, somehow, Democrats have just spent a week asking themselves if Joe Biden is an acceptable candidate. And convincing themselves he isn’t.

Here’s how to respond when somebody is “just asking questions”

“Is Biden losing it?”
“Donald Trump is a convicted felon.”
“What? No, I was asking about Biden.”
“Donald Trump has committed treason.”
But I want to talk about Biden."
“Donald Trump is a draft dodger.”
“I WANT TO MAKE THIS ABOUT BIDEN!!!”
“Donald Trump said he is sexually attracted to his own daughter.”

Not really. What we’re asking is if he’s too old. That debate was a fucking nightmare.

We can be both a very good president, and a very bad candidate. I’m not hearing concerns about his competency to govern. I’m hearing concerns about his ability to win the election.

This. It doesn’t matter if he’s senile and losing it. It matters if people believe that he’s senile and losing it.

Donald Trump has joked about committing rape.

Donald Trump has talked about shooting people.

Donald Trump called American POW’s losers.

Trump is the worst person imaginable.

Biden, however, doesn’t appear able to beat him.

Go figure

I love “West Wing.” To me, there’s just nothing new under the sun, and “West Wing” did a good job of presenting us with fictionalized versions of real events and hypotheticals that could easily come to pass, and … sometimes have.

This is about 3m30s, but it’s really the first 1m45s that the Biden issue reminds me of.

Vinick (Alan Alda) is an older candidate for Presidency, running against a young, virile, handsome opponent.

Bartlet (Martin Sheen) – for those unaware – is finishing up his 2nd term. He also hid the fact that he has relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

Age. Health. Just what do the voters have a right to know about their Presidents and Presidential candidates?

Good questions, all.

Yes, I know Trump is worse. Thanks.

Because conservatives get us to talk about how bad Biden is while they don’t talk about how bad Trump is.

Listen, I agree holding your own side accountable is a good thing. But timing is important. Right now is not the time for us to engage in self-criticism.

The polls are more or less dead even. And it is 3 months before the election.

Four months.

The polls show Trump ahead–and Biden has to beat Trump by at least 3% in the popular vote to win the electoral vote. [Trump is 6% ahead in the latest New York Times poll]

Biden might need to outperform by even more than that.

Four years ago, Biden beat Trump by 4.5 percent in the nationwide popular vote, and yet only won because of carrying Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by razor-thin margins. A slightly worse performance and he probably would have lost those three states - and with them, the election.

It’s possible that this year, even winning by 4% in the popular vote wouldn’t get the job done for Biden, especially considering that Census re-allotment has kicked in and now given the Republicans an extra 4 electoral votes as a baked-in advantage.

I’ve said this before but apparently it’s needs to be repeated; the general campaign has just begun.

Biden is an experience politician. As I pointed out, he’s won eleven consecutive elections. He’s not going to start running political ads against Trump in the spring. Anything he says about Trump would then be old news by November.

The conventions are this month and next month. Expect to start seeing a lot of ads reminding people about all of the reasons why Trump is a terrible choice.

Then see if he still is dead even.

People have been hearing for 8 years that Trump is a terrible choice. Countless TV shows, parodies, satires, magazines, op-eds, cartoons, Democratic quotes, Twitter posts, celebrity speeches, ads, posters, billboards, told America endlessly how terrible he was. In fact, he’s probably the most-criticized and warned-about individual in all of American history.

And yet: Trump won in 2016, nearly won in 2020, and is currently leading Biden.

Nobody knows what does work against him. But telling people “Trump is bad” isn’t it.

Nearly winning is losing.

We have a strategy that has worked against Trump. I say use it again.

Now let’s go watch some Lincoln Project videos.

Actually losing (2016) is losing.
We have a strategy that failed against Trump. I don’t think it’s good to repeat it.

Biden didn’t beat Trump? Have you been listening to QAnon?

I think we need a similar strategy anyway, with fixes to the weak points of last time.

Don’t believe what you see with your own eyes. And whatever you do, don’t say it out loud.

Yep sounds like a great campaign strategy.

Trump is a terrible choice. He barely beat a very unpopular Democrat the first time and lost the 2nd time. His party did terrible in midterm elections. Even now he is only up a couple points on a Democrat that the majority of the country doesn’t think is up for governing. A traditional Republican would be running away with this thing.