It was a shorthand way to refer to people who will not be voting for Biden because they dislike his support of Israel. I didn’t think that would be confusing. But if it was, I apologize.
I think those people are short sighted and misguided because even if they dislike Biden’s policy, they should consider the fact that he has been an outspoken moderating force on Israeli policy and has bent over backwards to ensure aid comes into Gaza - things that Donald Trump will most certainly not do.
I certainly have no interest in debating that topic in this thread; that would be a major hijack and there are plenty of open topics to discuss it.
My point is, if you think Biden isn’t doing enough against Israel or for Palestinians, then not voting for Biden and getting Trump elected would be an immensely stupid thing for you to do, because Trump is not going to be better for Palestinians.
Speaking of, I hope everyone has seen conservatives calling Biden a leader of Hamas because of the policies some folks are insisting isn’t enough against Israel or for Palestinians.
Seriously: Yes, of course I am biased. That said, I do have backup that informs my views. It’s beyond the scope of this thread, but I have covered it frequently in the “Is polling broken?” thread, which I’ve seen that you have posted recently.
You can search my username in that thread (magnifying glass icon at top right, type in my username and specify “in this topic”) and get much of that backup all at one shot.
This is a personal attack. You know those are not allowed. Knock it off.
To both @Babale and @MyFootsZZZ, drop the side discussion on the situation in Gaza. There are plenty of other threads for that specific discussion. You’ve made your points with respect to its impact on potential Biden voters.
The polls this early have very little predictive value. It’s fine to have an opinion either way, but yours is really no more than a guess. So is mine, by the way.
While I understand you were presenting a counterfactual here, it should be noted that Joe Biden is most definitely not doing the bolded. He and his campaign are working the battleground states in earnest.
For one thing, the stubborn protest vote in the latest GOP primaries for Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race over two months ago:
She saw some of her highest marks yet Tuesday with 20 percent of the vote in Maryland and 18 percent in Nebraska as of the latest vote count. That came a week after she reached almost 22 percent in Indiana.
These were closed primaries for registered Republicans only, these aren’t crossover Democrats and independents. Not all of these disaffected Republicans are going to vote for Biden, but if a significant fraction of them stay home, Trump is toast.
Thank you for putting in the time to bring us facts. They are a refreshing change from the unsupported claims we’re seeing too often in this thread.
Yes. And you could add ‘or because they don’t like something Hillary Clinton, or any other person who doesn’t work for the Biden Administration, has said.’
When we assemble the excuses people give for declining to vote for Biden we basically see… delusions. For virtually every such justification offered, the reality that Trump Would Be Worse is being ignored. And the further reality that even voters in blue states are helping Trump by declining to vote Biden is never admitted. (The help comes in two main ways: a popular vote that distorts the actual will of the mainstream, and a declaration of voting non-Biden that may influence others to do the same–in other words, pro-Trump advocacy.)
It’s hard to respect those who won’t be open and honest about their wish to see Mr. Dictator-on-Day-One elected, but instead hide behind these flimsy pretexts.
I’ll admit there is a difference between those who cite the excuses for not voting Biden in a cynical attempt to influence the votes of others, and those who cite the excuses because they’ve actually fooled themselves that a Trump Presidency will be ‘no big deal.’ The first are dishonest and the second are head-in-sand foolish.
There’s no need to like Biden or think he’s wonderful or your favorite person or the guy you want to drink a beer with or the living embodiment of all your most-cherished values.
There’s simply a need to use your vote as what it is: a tool to get you as close as possible–given the two actual choices we have–to what you want.
Furthermore, the polls, such as they are, basically say its a coin flip between the two candidates. So it would be a guess even if they were accurately predictive of the future.
I just shared this part of your post (to the end of it) on Facebook (with proper attribution). I rarely get political there, but I will be doing so several times in coming months, as I happen to live in a state (Wisconsin) where every single vote will count big-time.
We have no idea how they’re treating polling data (and while public polling data are facts about the results of the poll, they’re not necessarily facts that tell us much about the state of the race, especially this early). Thankfully, the inner workings of the Biden campaign strategy are generally not publicly known. They could be doing exactly what you think they should be doing and we probably wouldn’t know about it (unless you think Biden should step down or run around screaming “oh no, we’re losing!”).
If we don’t promote the idea that the polls showing Joe Biden as struggling are unassailable fact, how can we reinforce the idea that Joe Biden is struggling for future polls?
I think when Biden agreed to two debates recently, including one in June, he was showing that he knows he’s down in the polls.
It is early, and there are still a lot of undecided voters out there. But I think Biden’s campaign is not just disregarding these polls. And they shouldn’t. As imperfect as polling is, they’ve been tending to show that Biden is behind in the swing states he has to win.
I don’t think they’re disregarding the polls either, but the debate stuff could have been planned already, could be meant to kick Trump when he’s down (in court), or could be based on a number of other strategies.
The thing Biden has going for him is Trump. He needs to make this election about Trump as much as he can. If the election is only about Biden in people’s minds, I’m worried he’ll lose. Personally, I like Biden alot. But he’s never been super-popular, and I doubt he would have ever defeated anyone other than Trump.
