Aggggghhhhh! I was trying hard not to call him “Bobby.”
Why are you assuming this? My understanding is that Biden got the nomination in 2020 because he was widely perceived as having the best chance to beat Trump of all the Democratic candidates then.
Beto’s Presidential campaign was a disaster and he couldn’t even unseat a semi-unpopular Senator in Texas.
There’s considerable baggage involved in being the governor of California, but Gavin Newsom might well have a better shot against Trump than Biden.
The Dems are missing out by not having a real 2024 primary battle. The big polarizing issue this time around compared to '68 is age*, not presiding over an unpopular war. But shaky primary performances now as then might be what’s needed to get Biden to give way.
*it should be an equally polarizing issue on the GOP side, combined as it is with crookedness and crazy.
…if you had asked me a month ago if the Democrats should run anyone but Biden, I would have said absolutely, under no circumstances, no. He was easily the best candidate, the only candidate, to be honest, and I think he would easily have won against Trump in another head-to-head.
Now?
I think the Democrats are fucked.
Nobody has mentioned Gaza here. Which for me indicates what a HUGE blindspot this is going to be for the Democrats. They have no real idea how badly Biden’s handling of this has resonated with certain elements of his base. Many consider what is happening right now a genocide. They won’t ever vote for Trump. But they can’t ever support Biden again. Not while they are watching live on TV while their friends and families are wiped off the earth.
The problem is that there isn’t a Biden replacement. There just isn’t. Nobody is challenging Biden because nobody would have a chance. I think Biden is the only person the Democrats could run that will have a chance at the next election.
But I think they have badly read this situation. I’ve never heard the Republicans so quiet. They aren’t needing to do anything to get a bump. And i don’t think that Biden can fix this. They are hoping people will just forget this in a few months. But that isn’t going to happen. People are not going to be able to forgive.
Sour mood of the swing voter electorate. They are convinced that it is time for a change and that only Biden, not Trump, is too old.
I am concerned that Biden never this year has gotten a month in which he pushed ahead of Trump (taking into account GOP electoral college advantage).
Of course there are no guarantees. Harris polls a bit worse than Biden against Trump, and lacks time-for-a-change appeal. I think Democratic primary voters would pick up on this and not nominate Harris unless her popularity picked up.
In 2020, a few swing voters I know thought that Biden was almost unique in his party in being a regular guy centrist. I think he has lost that aura. Maybe he could get it back, but he isn’t trying.
You could say something similar about Trump — he is running even further to the right this time than last. It’s frustrating that it does not hurt him.
The Democrats have a good bench: Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg are all good, young, articulate candidates. The problem is merely that Biden was a consensus candidate, few people’s first choice (he was about my 20th) but someone the Dems could agree upon to face Trump. All the negatives in my view are manufactured by the GOP hate machine, and are basically bullshit (except for his age, that’s counterbalanced by the GOP running an equally elderly, way more out-of-shape, ridiculously less coherent candidate.) Inflation, corruption, foriegn policy are non-issues as far I’m concerned–Biden’s done a decent job of coping with all of them, and he’s got a healthy economy and there are no troops fighting forever wars at the moment, which few 2nd term-seeking Presidents have had going for them, and those who have, have won comfortably. We wanted LBJ out because he was waging a very unpopular war and showed zero signs of ending it, which doesn’t apply to Biden, and we (American voters) have generally supported 1st term presidents seeking a 2nd term, certainly for the nomination of their parties. That’s why 2024 isn’t 1968.
Which is stupid given that the guy they’ll be allowing to be elected would ‘green light’ what everyone would consider to be an actual genocide.
As a Zionist this situation is too painful for me to debate on the issues. I can acknowledge that there is more than one powerful narrative.
As for the politics:
Israel is more popular than social-media posts suggest
It also is too soon to say what the political impact will be. In the horrible logic of war, if Israel defeats Hamas, other facts about what happened will fade. If after all this death, southern Israel still experiences frequent rocket fire from Gaza, the human cost to the Gazans, of a war Hamas arguably won, will perhaps weigh down Biden as you say.
And I see what you are saying about the base. Whether elections are decided by the base or by median voters is a continuing topic here because there is evidence on both sides.
…you can call it stupid all you like.
But for them: they consider that the genocide is happening now. It isn’t going to happen next year. They are watching it now, live on TV. And they cannot support the person who is standing side-by-side in solidarity with that genocide.
…paywalled.
…we’ve already seen a political impact. Waiting to see what further impact will be only means the hurt and division will grow.
Israel can’t defeat Hamas. Not by the time of the next election. And the people that consider this a genocide don’t see it as “Israel vs Hamas.” They see it as Israel vs the Palestinians. The Hamas framing doesn’t work when there are 4000 children dead.
This is the blind spot I was just talking about. This is the “they are hoping people will just forget this in a few months.”
Why would people forget about what they consider a genocide of their people? How do you expect them to just put that aside and return to “business as usual?” Why do you think people would just let this go?
Like every election in America, this will be fought at the margins. And there are always plenty of people in America who don’t like Biden, or don’t like the Democrats, but they will vote for them because the alternative is worse.
But they think he’s crossed that line here. And I think there are enough people who are so disgusted with Biden that they will sit the next election out. And that will be enough to turn the election.
Since we’re in Politics, I wonder if the purely self interested and political consequences would’ve been better or worse had Biden set himself up to be called antisemitic and/or “anti Israel.”
And we have discussed current geopolitical events here: https://boards.straightdope.com/t/president-joe-biden-and-the-runup-to-the-2024-election/
Few people who consider 1948 the Nakba will ever. Nor will people whose friends or relatives died. Then, when you move to America, and maybe have parents from more then one ethnicity, your priorities may change.
Biden has been calling for a “humanitarian pause” for several days. So, just from a political standpoint, this is something he can use in the debates with Trump next year to make a pretty strong contrast with DJT’s advocacy of a vengence policy.
Whatever you think of U.S. policy, this is an issue, like affirmative action, where Biden is doing what he thinks is right rather than following the polls. It used to be that voters could, up to a point, forgive a politician for disagreeing with them if they felt it was a sincere stand on principle. The Trump phenomena does put that positive view of the electorate to the test, .
…the use of the word “humanitarian pause” is a political calculus. It isn’t an accident. It’s the same wording that has been adopted by leadership all around the world. They’ve all agreed not to use the word “ceasefire.” You can see Trudeau almost slipping here.
And its using words like “humanitarian pauses” when people are calling for a ceasefire is just emblematic of the problem Biden faces. It isn’t about doing the right thing. Its about saying the right thing. And its the big problem with the focus-tested-down-the-centre approach. “He has to support Israel or else we set up up to be antisemitic.” But have you seen how many Jewish groups are calling for a ceasefire?
Under Biden multiple states have banned abortion. Under Biden multiple states have banned gender affirming care for youths, and are trying to ban gender affirming care for adults. Under Biden “CRT” has been banned from multiple educational institutions. All over the country marginalised people have had their rights stripped during this administration. Things materially aren’t any better under Biden than under Trump. And I know that none of this are things that Biden or his administration had direct control over. But there is no plan to do anything about this.
And now he’s done this.
What are the Democrat offering at the next election? Marginalised people have to fight like no other every election just to be able to vote. It gets harder for them every single time. It would be different if they had something to vote for. But what is the next Biden administration actually going to do? Because “better than Trump” isn’t an election platform. That better not be all the Democrats have got.
Seems to me that as a default assumption, everyone is assuming that Biden will be running against Trump. Trump is a phenomenon but not an unstoppable force. His health alone makes him an iffy candidate in a year’s time, not to mention the many trials awaiting him in 2024. Biden would be insane to assume that the opposition might not change by next November. Would any other Republican be a realistic replacement?
The loss of Arab-Americans is truly to be regretted, for more reasons than just a change in their voting. But a reduction in the percentage voting Democratic is a critical issue only if the next election is yet another one with swing states being decided by fractions of a percent. Polls do make that outcome seem to be decided but that’s illusory. No polling now can truly predict next year’s outcome. Who foresaw a war started by Hamas and factored that in?
As for the OP, the answer to the thread title question is Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam.
Why would Republicans say anything that even implies support of Palestine?
…I never said they would. I wasn’t talking about Palestine. I was talking about the Republicans in general. The “culture war” stuff has dropped out of the headlines. Any damage that Biden does over the next few weeks will be entirely self-inflicted.
The Republicans (or at least a large part of them) are still on concussion protocol after repeatedly hitting themselves upside the head with the Speaker’s gavel for near a month. Give them a chance to figure which way is up again.
Also a (perceived) toning down of the Culture War as Issue #1 helps the Republicans in the odd-year elections such as the Virginia legislative ones on Tuesday. If people are not riled up they have better chances in races where turnout is expected to be low.
I certainly don’t consider it a foregone conclusion that Trump will be the 2024 GOP nominee.
But maybe it’s a reasonable assumption that the best candidate to run against Trump would be the best candidate to run against whoever the GOP nominee turns out to be?
I think that’s a matter of personal perspective.
And FTR, the reason I interpreted your comment as being about Palestine was that the sentence previous to the one I quoted was; I didn’t see a transition.