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Because there's nothing new to say, really. The bar for Trump is so unbelievably low, he doesn't have to do anything to cross it.
We all knew everything he said would be a lie, and it was. Nothing new to report there, and no specific new lies that would be interesting to bring up.
Trump could literally shoot a person on 5th avenue and it would not cause any turbulence.
The SCOTUS would pardon him and everything would resume as is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSUcTcJJ2Rc&ab_channel=NewYorkTimesPodcasts
Some conversation with undecided voters, and apparently some even think Trump came across as SINCERE, and that he was open to mild rules on abortions etc.
Thats how much of a fucking disaster this was
Edit: stop complaining about the debate rules wtf, Biden had free uninturrepted time for rebuttals at every question to shut it down, but he didn't show up. The debate format was good.
As per Triumph the Insult Comic Dog from 2016 on such a notion:
https://youtu.be/fDryx4EM0Xg?si=pVGiHh1Kl0KNECwW
“Are they getting enough oxygen in there?”
And mere days ago:
“I look forward to seeing you all again in 4 years when you can’t decide between voting for AOC and Kyle Rittenhouse…”
Nah, Rittenhouse had a pr team try to groom him into being a fascist spokesperson so they could ride-along and grift on his success. Unfortunately the plan fell apart when it became apparent that it was impossible to groom an absolute fucking moron.
edit: I cant find the popular reddit post where I became aware of this story, but heres a link with the same content. Also keep in mind that like I said in my original comment, that this guy is a grifter and they only spent money on Kyle because it was an investment, not out of the goodness of his heart like the 4th image.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/1bw8frc/guy_who_did_pr_for_kyle_rittenhouse_outs_him_as/
This is part of what happened in 2016. In Michigan, something crazy like 90k people went to the polls to vote, but didn’t vote for president. Then trump won by like 10k votes.
Michigan is or was a swing state so this year will be also very close. The swing states are going to decide it. The whole election system in my opinion is bullshit.
This is exactly it. It’s young voters, those in underrepresented groups, and those who feel like they’re picking the “lesser of two evils” who simply won’t show up to the polls. “I had a bad night” isn’t a rallying cry to energize those groups. It’s terrifying.
Exactly this. The President doesn’t get to have a bad night. At least not publicly. That debate wouldn’t have gone worse if he’d coughed and shit his pants up on stage.
How is Trump able to get away with everything? He lied constantly throughout the debate and we’re still talking about Biden being 4 years older. wtf? How?
Because Trump is jacked up on Adderall and even though it’s pure verbal vomit that spews from his mouth, it’s loud, forceful and said with such fake sincerity that Americans don’t listen to the words, they just hear the voice and go “yeah, he’s tuff”
Because most voters are uninformed and don’t know how badly they’re being lied to. Meanwhile the media doesn’t hold them accountable during the debate so there’s no counterpoint to the lies.
All people watching see is Trump being bodacious and confident spewing nonsense and Biden looking like he was going to fall asleep like grandpa after eating too much mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving and struggling to get his words out.
At least some people are seeing through the insane media bias that's happening. I understand people are concerned, I understand that is relevant news... but there's clearly a nature of imbalance in coverage here.
Because Trump's base doesn't give a shit. That's also why the base his is ceiling. The problem isn't voters switching for Trump, it's voters not turning out for Biden or voting third-party and letting Trump when the election with his base that sits at under 50%. It's embarrassing.
But asking, "What about Trump?" Is moot everyone who cares knows that Trump is shit. They know that Trump is crazy. They know that Trump is unqualified. They know that Trump has the emotional intelligence of a chihuahua. They know that Trump is a wannabe autocrat. They know that Trump has the attention span of a gnat and will take advice from which ever advisor has the best pictures in their presentation. They know that Trump is running in large part so that he can avoid responsibility for his crimes. They know that Trump is a fat old fuck who could kill over at any moment. Most of this has been known for nearly a decade now. But those aren't the people you have to convince, the people you have to convince don't follow the news. They get their "news" from carefully selected clips on Facebook and TikTok.
Exactly. We didn't need an amazing candidate with the speech of a prime FDR, we simply needed a candidate who looked healthy and exposed Trump's crimes as well as damage he did during his presidency loud and clear, and the *entire* conversation about the debate would've been regarding Trump's lies, and the election would be nearly impossible for Trump to win from there. Now, a lot of low info, "undecided" voters were let to forget the horrible things Trump did, and all of a sudden focus directly and almost solely on Biden looking ill. The absolute worst possible outcome was the focus of the debate being on a weakness of Biden, and that honestly happened more than I ever thought it would/could going in to the debate.
I don't yet know what Biden's chances of winning the election are, but I know that whether by a small margin or large margin, his chances are lower than they were before the debate. And that's the last thing we need right now. There are hundreds of millions of non voters, they need to be convinced and spoken to.
Because the entire focus has been shifted to Biden. All he had to do was be okay and he would have been fine. He wasn’t and he isn’t. Trump has been gaining support by staying out of the news. A first, as far as I can remember, since he entered politics.
He sounded more confident vs. Biden sounding like a feeble, weak old man. Optics matter less to people paying attention to politics and see the threat of fascism if Trump wins. People who don’t pay attention tuned into the debate and saw a strong leader (Trump) vs. a weak leader (Biden) regardless of the words they were actually saying.
If you even listened passively alarms would have been set off every time trump talked because it was non sensical rambling. It wasn’t related to the question and wasn’t even internally coherent. Biden at least somewhat stuck to the question being asked but had a much weaker voice.
Yeah it's crazy when you consider all the horrible shit Trump has done, all the people that didn't have to die from COVID, and we're ready to move on from Biden because he has a bad debate. WTF?
I’m a college professor in a highly diverse northeastern college. I talk to so many people voting for the first time who are voting for Trump. They won’t say this to most people but I have a really good rapport with the students. “He tells it like it is”, “he’ll be strong for America”, “inflation is just terrible”, “I trust him to make sure there’s jobs when I graduate”, “Roe got repealed under Biden and he didn’t do anything about it”, “Biden is too old”, “Biden is too weak” and on and on and on. Its terrifying. These are people who are white, Indian, Hispanic, Asian, (I have not personally spoken to a student that was a Black Trump voter). And btw, almost all of these people are “embarrassed Trump voters” and do not consider themselves Trump supporters, acknowledging he is a liar and a bad person in most cases
"Roe got appealed under Biden and he didn't do anything about it."
They need to go back to school on civics and history.
I ask this. What can Biden do about it when congress is locked up due to heavy politics? Congress is the branch that makes the laws.
It's not about history - it's about feeling like they are on the cusp of a better future. It's not about policy, it's not about building a better world emergent from a solid political philosophy or a history of legal scholarship.
When they say "strong," they mean "I don't feel like the status quo suits me, and so a new status quo is at least exciting and might be profitable. It's better to gamble with the world so long as I get a shot at coming out ahead."
They are unwilling to fall on the sword of "things might be better in general, but it will be hard for you." They are unwilling to vote against their short term interests to improve everyone's long term interests.
It feels cathartic to rebel against the establishment because they've been trained to resent the establishment. Throw in a thread of cultural nihilism and a disdain for deliberation and you get a group of people who just want to feel like something is about to happen and that they'll be a part of it.
As a voting bloc, they're just looking to get high on feeling relevant.
What r they talking about the problem is he wants to be a dictator and sell pardons because he is a con man and pedophile
This is in the northeast? tf kinda college kids u got
This line of thinking comes up every election. Yes, undecided voters are real, no, they're not pretending to be undecided, no they clearly don't have the same mindset as someone who regularly consumes political news, yes a candidate still has to convince undecided voters to vote for them in order to win.
Yeah people act like undecided voters just appeared out of nowhere and are being deliberately obtuse. It's not like they're in political discussion boards engaging in the discourse and are just "not getting it", they literally have no idea what's going on
Imagine this: because of our shitty country you have to work 70 hours a week to pay for your living situation and kids. When you come home to your shitty apartment after taking the kids here and there all you want to do is watch tv and crack a beer. But even then you still have to put the kids to bed and clean the place up a bit. And hopefully get a solid 5 hours of sleep (you don’t).
You have basically no free brain power to consume the news. So finally you get a chance to watch the presidential debate as your first time paying attention in a year because you Actually want to try and be informed. And then this is all you are coming off of. They aren’t being disingenuous the system was created to make sure voters like this exist and are uninformed.
Being politically aware is a privilege, straight up. Just like being educated. That's why we need to use our privilege for good. It's so frustrating to see so many people not understand this absolute basic core concept of political action. It's another reason why democrats always lose. Liberals always assume everyone is as politically aware, maybe not as much as them because they love to feel better than people, but they misunderstand the basic political awareness of the general populace. You know who doesn't? The conservatives. That's WHY you might think their messaging is reductive - but it's actually working and ours isn't. That's why our aunts and uncles on Facebook post terrible things when they didn't before- they were finally talked to. They were talked to by the wrong people, told lies, filled with hate, etc, but they were talked to, not talked down to. For the first time in their lives.
That's not true... a significant chunk of the country simply doesn't pay ANY attention. Source: my adult sister text me asking me who I was going to vote for after seeing the debate... as though Trump is "real" choice...
She just doesn't pay any attention to the "big picture" and was thinking of the 2 candidates as being more or less equal, but one was "present & alert" while the other seemed to have dementia. She was candidly asking which of the 2 we should trust as President for the next 4 years. Clueless... as I'm sure 20-50 million other Americans are.
We had a corporate lunch thing like two weeks ago and one of the sales reps from a different office literally had no idea who was even running for president until our COO made a comment about Trump and he went "wait... is he running for president again?"
My wife asks me before we vote and usually just does the same. I try to keep as informed as possible and tell her what I understand in a non biased way but there are plenty of people who do not pay attention and don't give a rip about politics
Same here.. when we met, my wife considered herself a Republican (she grew up in FL & MO). After lots of long discussions, she sort of came to a conclusion that she didn't really have many valid reasons to be a republican... just a bunch of empty platitudes.
She still doesn't pay as much attention to politics or government, but she's definitely moved on from her childhood indoctrination (red = good, blue = bad). She approaches politics with much more critical thinking and a lot less blind faith.
“Undecided voters are the biggest idiots on the planet”
This was discussed by family guy nearly 20 years ago lol.
https://youtu.be/qZxVBXv2h94?si=m5OuQYUdnP2bN-be
I don’t know any truly undecided voters but I know at least 3 people who, after the debate, basically said they’re not gonna vote now because they essentially don’t want to be apart of this shitshow. All three were gonna vote for Biden, I’m guessing.
Tbh It also occurred to me during the debate that Trump was holding back. He could have clobbered Biden, but he only had a few cutting remarks about Biden’s performance. I suspect that his coaches drilled it into him that he shouldn’t be a bully and, frankly, I bet he was a little surprised at Biden’s condition. Trump is notoriously afraid of his own mortality, so it probably scared him a little, and Trump also was probably surprised that some of his bullshit was actually truth.
Agreed. He was talking absolute nonsense, but watching I was thinking "Oh god he seems like a reasonable and confident speaker standing next to a puppeteered corpse".
Without fact checks (Amazing concession, way to go democrats) he legitimately seemed like a more stable candidate.
Trump lied, but there were times when Biden said absolutely incoherent nonsense you can't even fact check
[How do you fact check this?](https://youtu.be/i3eYmc1AkMs?si=O8sReRypUBbIr7UG)
And to be clear: CNN famously “fact checked” Romney during the presidential debate to the extent of arguing with him during the debate, and the anchor got it very wrong.
The only person who should fact check a candidates is an opposing candidate, or the media afterwards.
Dude exactly. I was reading comments earlier today and was blown away by how many people were suggesting the moderators “failed at their one job” by not fact checking. That’s not the job of a debate moderator. Not even by a long shot.
Trump even said "let's not be children" when Biden was poking fun at his physical fitness and rambling about golf.
I hate that it was a smart and effective move. He knew undecided voters would be watching and he came off as being more mature - ironically. He saved his obscene comedy routine for his rallies - which undecided voters largely do not see.
Bingo.
I feel like the liberal/democrat side, which most closely aligns with my values, is so focused on him being TOXIC and EVIL and blah blah blah they just refuse to accept he is EFFECTIVE. People don’t accidentally bumble their way into the presidency.
I can’t stand the man either. I do think he’s morally and ethically bankrupt and should not be a part of civilized society. However I cannot argue that he is very, very effective at what he does.
If the DNC actually focused on efficacy and impact instead of thinking “well if people would just REALIZE he sucks…” maybe we could actually get somewhere.
At this point it feels like the dnc is TRYING to suck.
Predatory instinct(s) probably kicked in. ‘This guy’s fucked up and doing himself in without me having to say or do anything. Just let him dig his own metaphorical grave.’
“I don’t think he knows what he said either.” That might just be the killer line that has decided the election already. Biden looked like he was seconds away from having a Windows ME blue screen of death moment.
Purely in terms of tactics, it was a good play. Genuinely seemed like Trump felt bad for him (yes we know that's not necessarily true, don't yell at me for pointing it out).
Look, I'm voting blue no matter who. Heck, I'll vote for a slice of old pizza if it's on the ticket, but I'm not who he needs to win over right now. Many of us on reddit who lean blue aren't the people he needs to win over. I appreciate the recognition of the poor debate performance, but we need to hear **a PLAN**. Just saying, "we're gonna win" isn't going to cut it. Please, for the love of whatever, ARTICULATE A PLAN FORWARD.
If the debate rules kept both mics hot, we would have seen Trump make a complete ass of himself. Unfortunately the rules and Biden's behavior made the debate a.....jaw-dropping spectacle; even for Biden himself, in the moment.
The plan appears to just be rely on negative partisanship for everything. And I think we're going to see the limits of negative partisanship in November if Biden's still on the ticket.
Dude when the penn gov said “stop worrying start working” my first thought was maybe give us a fucking candidate that doesn’t need so much work to defend, much less advocate for.
Or Biden can walk two doors down from the Oval Office into the press briefing room and have an hour long unscripted Q&A session with the White House press corps. He can do that every day.
This isn't rocket science for him to prove that he still has a brain.
Which makes the delays and the refusals for him to do these unscripted live activities all the more alarming. The coverup seems to confirm the crime, which is that he is indeed too old and too infirm that he can no longer function without a teleprompter.
It actually think they might attempt it next week, we'll see, this needs to end as the gaslighting is getting out of control. Show up in public and answer questions TODAY or drop out. It has been a week now since the debate and he hasn't taken one media question and has only been in friendly confines in comfortable settings.
Well a few governors repeated the same talking point about having Joe’s back….
*meh* who am I kidding. This is the DNC. They’re going to fumble the race by doing nothing - and then blame progressives for their failure.
If Biden really intends to win, he needs to spend every single day visiting every city in every battleground state, holding massive rallies at each stop, and makes 0 stumbles before the election.
Sitting in the White House whining about his "jet lag" is not going to win anything.
The people attending political rallies aren't the ones he needs to convince. It's the average American who sees clips of Trump and Biden passed around social media. The debate was the platform to really take over in front of the average American who will only watch the national debates.
You're right but it would at least help to show us if it actually was a one-off bad night (it wasn't) if he was out performing well in front of crowds every day
This is a disastrous way for him to try to spin the debate. He didn't "make a mistake" in the traditional sense. He looked and sounded like a feeble, declining old man, which is what he is. He is getting older every day. There is no way to reverse that. People are rightly going to be asking themselves, if this is what he's like now, what will he be like in a year or two, never mind 4? That's not a mistake that can be corrected.
I want his staff under oath explaining how the fuck this happened
They are around him every day, they know this isn't a one off. We know it wasn't a one off because he is still hiding from the public a week later.
So why the fuck would you: (1) issue an aggressive debate challenge; (2) push a bunch of stories leading up to the debate about Trump's supposed mental decline because he tells the same dumb electric shark story he always tells; and (3) send the incoherent president out on stage with makeup done by a mortician
Is his staff trying to sabotage the election?
I wondered if the early debate was precisely for this reason: to get Biden to reveal his cognitive state asap. He may have thought it was to change the narrative in his favour, but I imagine some people in his camp knew that if this kind of disaster happened then the sooner, the better.
But if the purpose was to knife him in the back, why weren't they ready with a game plan right after? Usually when you do a palace coup you have like, a successor ready to step in.
They might’ve been and it’s just not going well. If it’s his campaign manager trying to install Kamala instead, it might be that donors are saying she polls even worse so find someone else.
Well, go ask Brutus how that turned out.
A shocking number of coups end up "we've killed the king!
... now what?"
Very few people plan for success.
(Although to be fair I think any speculation of a palace coup seems pretty removed from reality. I guess we'll know in a few decades when the history books are written).
It WASN'T A BAD NIGHT.
It's a GIANT NEON SIGN that you're 81 and too fucking old.
We all had that relative who would rather die than give up his car keys even after multiple accidents.
This is the exact same fucking thing.
Agreed. Pretending like it was just a mistake is such a terrible narrative and shows how incompetent the team is. Thinking they can gaslight away his performance is ridiculous. We all watched the debate. It was a horror show. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable during a debate. It shocked and frightened everyone I know who is leaning Biden, but not sold on him yet (which is crazy at this point). It’s clear the team doesn’t have confidence in Biden’s ability to perform, because they have been aggressively protecting him from exposure. No live interviews. No townhalls. Biden should be everywhere right now, proving he is still with it. They are giving the election to Trump.
I’m know this sounds hyperbolic, but the last time in my life I remember feeling that sudden sense of dread and of “*is this really happening?*” was watching the towers come down on 9/11.
It was a combination of the horror of what I was witnessing and the contemplation of its ramifications.
It’s not hyperbolic. I was thinking the same thing. I actually cried yesterday because I’m so scared for our country and furious at Bidens team as well as his family
What's worse about that statement is ignoring the fact that if he beats Trump like he did in 2020 - by the skin of his teeth - it will go to the supremes who will install him.
He doesn't understand that 2024 is not 2020. He has to win convincingly to even have a chance of it not going the way of Fake Electors and Insurrection.
SCOTUS could have installed Trump in 2020 and refused to hear the cases. If SCOTUS installs Trump in 2024 when he loses the election then we will have an honest to God civil war. Not gonna happen
Also Biden is the current President… it would have been much easier to keep Trump in place as the current President rather than replace an existing one.
I have no doubt SCOTUS will act in Trumps favor if it comes down to something like the 2000 election. But in an election with results similar to 2020 I don’t think they’ll do anything.
I agree. I’m not even sure what they COULD do that they couldn’t in 2020? Like chevron and the presidential immunity stuff have NOTHING to do with elections. They didn’t rule that the VP could cast aside votes (which wouldn’t work now anyway)
> when you get knocked down, just get back up.
If he was gonna get up then he'd be doing town halls and calling for more debates. Rematches when he doesn't have this "cold". But he can't, and probably shouldn't get back up.
There is a reason that the boxer isn't the one who decides when to throw in the towel. A damaged brain doesn't always know it's been knocked out.
Trump was fucking terrible at the debate. He lied constantly. He forgot about Afghanistan. He started with far right conspiracy theories and veered right off the tracks to incoherent schizophrenia. He literally said abortions were being done right after the child was born.
Any of the other Democrats in the primary would've **destroyed** Trump. Hell, even the Republicans would've, there is a reason Trump refused to debate in the primaries.
Ah well. Biden should've dropped out in 2022. Its probably too late now. Hecan stay down and the party will have to win without him.
You know what's messed up? If the Democrats somehow do the right thing and get another candidate in there Trump won't debate them. That second planned debate won't happen.
Trump knew he was going up against a weak old man. I'm sure all of his strategists knew what Biden is really like behind the scenes and knew what would happen.
If they put a competent coherent candidate out there Trump won't invite that challenge. Sure he could try ranting about conspiracies and lie like he did with Biden but I'd hope and pray a coherent 40-60 year old would call Trump out on his shit. I think Trump and his team know that and they'd cancel the second debate.
Then again if they do run Biden out there for a second debate then it's going to look even worse than last time.
> I'm sure all of his strategists knew what Biden is really like behind the scenes and knew what would happen.
If only the Democrat strategists were half as good. How did they not see this coming? I wonder what the practice debates were like.
I think the opposite. If I'm Trump I never debate Biden again. I say "The last time I debated Biden, he gave the worst performance in the history of this country. Out of respect to him and his family, I refuse to put him through that again."
Biden should have made plans long ago to drop. When the democrats get dunked on and Trump is president again, they will have no one to blame but themselves for being fully unable to put up a palatable candidate.
Unfortunately I think his increasing senility has made that impossible. Jill should have found a way to help him step down gracefully but I think they all got caught up in covering for him and having a strong team around him doing all the work & thought they could make it through on that
Yup, 2016 all over again.
Bernie would have destroyed tRump, but it was Hillarys "turn'. And now here we are again, having a candidate nobody wants, jammed down our throats.
Why can they not use these newly established"supreme court powers" to do something about tRump? Is it not his duty to "protect the country from enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC"?
Nope, they're gonna just put up Joe and we are gonna get screwed AGAIN.
Sure anyone can have a bad debate, buy this was a slaughter. Biden has over 50 years of experience, and a whole team that prepped him. When you look at how he debated just 4 years ago, you know this wasn't just a "bad day." His ego is dooming this country. They should have used the past year to prep a new candidate and have him gracefully pass the torch.
I think you hit the nail on the head here.
Here is my major problem: I feel like I could have done 100x better in that debate than Biden did. Now to be clear, I am a 40 something year old IT professional, who has no political experience, no foreign policy experience other than reading the news, and at the most has decent to high public speaking skills. I should NOT be watching a debate for the most powerful position in the world and think "fuck, I could have won that debate". I should be watching it thinking "look at these two people, the height of their game, verbal sparring, I only wish I could be that good".
That's so deeply concerning I want to curl up into a ball.
Yes every question was pretty straight forward and the talking points are so easy to hit for anyone who has even a casual passing knowledge of current events and common sense
I’m 23 and I literally had the same thoughts, also in IT and would not consider myself a genius but JFC fuck the old debilitated fucks I’m not trying to die because some god damn geriatrics couldn’t read the room. I’m tired of this grandpa
It really wasn't his speech that was the problem. It was his body language. I don't think people have seen Biden outside of a few news segments. The empty stares downwards with mouth slightly ajar. The slow movements when looking around. Looked like a god damn turtle. I also think he may have been wearing an earpiece and that tripped him up even more. There were a couple of times he scratched his ear and stuck his finger in.
In any case, I am still voting Blue no matter what!
The decline has been shockingly fast. Remember when Biden used to ride a bicycle all the time? Here's Biden 11 months ago, August 2023: https://www.delawareonline.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2023/08/03/president-biden-bike-ride/12313550002/
Now it looks like the man can barely stand up anymore. It looks like he needs a walker. There's no way he's riding a bicycle anymore.
And thats just his physical decline. The mental decline we saw last week was just as stark.
They are content with a Christian Nationalist government because they are wealthy and feel safe from it. They don't care if you and I have the same privilege, though.
Yep. I will support the Dem top of ticket whoever it is but at this point it’s hard to feel like they actually believe there is a threat to democracy if this is really the best they can do.
A guy who on national TV could not even form coherent sentences is really the bulwark against the fall of democracy? A guy with 38% approval?
It just undermines their claims of the stakes of the election if they cannot do better than this.
It's the same as Feinstein. People shouldn't have to vote for a candidate that they know is not going to be making the decisions. Biden will be paraded about and go to sleep at 8PM every night while his aides and Chief of Staff effectively run the country.
Trump is a literal piece of shit, who lies, steals and will make horrible decisions for the country. But those will be his own decisions.
This is an election between an immoral conman and an old man's unelected handlers.
Biden needs to step down now.
Serious question non American.
Is there no one else but these two?
Looking in from the outside u.s politics has all the houses and states, but this is the choice?
It’s going to keep coming across as disingenuous as long as he keeps avoiding the visible fact of the matter. He did not have a “bad debate.” Rather, he appeared to be cognitively incapable of debate.
That’s not a “screw up.” There’s no shame in getting older, even losing capacity. It will happen to us all. A “screw up” of biblical proportions would be to continue as a candidate if you are no longer able to function at the level of demand.
And, rather than going forward to demonstrate that it was an “episode” and not a “condition,” he didn’t follow that up with public or media appearances featuring extemporaneous thought and speech. Rather, he sheltered for days, held private meetings with family, avoided key political allies and did nothing to suggest otherwise.
There are only two explanations for that that I can think of. Pride, which is unforgivable in light of the stakes, and incapacity, which is forgivable though not acceptable in a candidate.
Keeping in mind we lost fundamental rights (and potentially our entire democracy) due to RBGs hubris in resisting the signs of age, Biden’s protests are hollow at best and horrific at worst.
We’re not “pushing you aside,” Joe. It’s not your personal right to run for President. The PEOPLE are rightly concerned and deserve clear evidence of your ability to express our will in an increasingly dark and dangerous age.
It wasn't just a bad night or one bad debate. You are too old for the job. MOVE OVER. A man your age should be taking a nap in a chair someplace with a blanky laid over his legs.
Problem is all the people around him 'advising' him have their own personal interests wrapped up in him as well as a hefty dose of sunk costs. He's gonna need to get out of that bubble to see that stepping down is the right call.
Exactly, the people in his immediate circle are people who want to keep getting paid and his family, who enjoy the lifestyle and want to keep an increasingly senile man busy with his presidential “hobby”
I don’t care about Biden, I really don’t. I’d actually care more about you if you got the fuck out of the way after your first term, as you would have shown yourself to be a man of principal and vision, and not just another predictable politician whose ego eclipses his brain. Fuck your legacy, fuck your family’s feelings, fuck your feelings you old shitbird. I and my children have to live in the nation your not long for this world’s ass is playing ego games with. He better hope to fucking god he wins, because it will 100% be his fault that people will get hurt and lives will be ruined for generations, because some old turd didn’t recognize it was well past time to be flushed.
Nancy Pelosi stepped down as Democratic Leader in 2023. She gave up her power and allowed the new generation of Democrats to move into those roles. She's just a normal Democratic Representative now. So I really don't think Nancy is in the same conversation as Biden, RBG, or Feinstein, especially considering House elections are every 2 years.
Back in 2020, I loved Biden. I felt like he came out of retirement for one last battle to save the nation from doom.
And right know I fucking despise him and his wife for clinging to power and for their hubris in thinking “I alone can win this”.
GTFO now and pray we can come back from this.
That's what gets me too. All his handlers who knew this and kept quiet, didn't speak up back in 2023 when new candidates could have entered the race but Biden froze everyone else out.
I am sure they all gossiped about it to each other and crossed their fingers he could limp across the finish line before face-planting. Or maybe they thought Trump would be in jail and Biden wouldn't even need to be tested.
But what really pisses me off is how they are telling us "it was just one night" and stop being "bed wetters" and "chill the fuck out" when it clearly is deeper than that.
There is a lot of talk about how Americans distrust institutions. Can you blame them? Biden was supposed to be a trustworthy institutional man and he tried to con all of us. He has done colossal damage.
If he refuses to step down and loses the election, he will go down as one of the most hated figures in American history. I hope he knows what he’s doing.
No no, it was a stutter, no wait actually it was bad camera angles, scratch that it was jet lag! Wait he was at camp David for over a week prepping for the debate beforehand?
Uh… we’re beating Medicare!
Can't unring that bell. Most of the country is seriously concerned about his ability to think. Jill Biden after the debate: "Congratulations! You answered almost the questions!", like he's a freaking toddler. Jesus Christ.
And having Hunter in on White House meetings now? WTF is going on? Who's in charge?
Everyone sobered up realizing just how badly Kamala Harris would do as well if she were to head the ticket.
This is what one gets when someone tries to do a sympathetic portrait of Kamala Harris.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/kamala-harris-vice-presidency-2024-election-biden-age/675439/
She just doesn't have it when it comes to actually relating with people. At all.
My father started sundowning in 2019. He's gone now. No one in their right mind thinks Joe can hang until January 2029. It's over. Please Joe, listen to reason.
My underlying concern through all of this is that Biden's debate performance should not be making Trump as palatable to as big a portion of the country as the polls are suggesting that he now is. What happened to decency? How does Biden being old make people open to having such a horrible person at the helm? Does no one care that he attempted to obstruct the peaceful transition of power? About his lasciviousness? About his constant bullying, or his perpetual obsession with power? Or that he doesn't know anything and doesn't care to learn? Why do the democrats need to field a perfect candidate to convince people not to go with Trump? I just feel so lost.
I think if democrats were to field anyone else at all then people would have a different view. It’s the whole parties own fault for not choosing someone that can speak in a clear sentence
Biden did not screw up, what he said was mostly fine. What he did was show up acting just like the republicans said he would, a feeble old man.
I dont know how you overcome that.
Fuck you Biden and fuck the democratic establishment. We needed a stronger candidate to contend against a fucking dictator and we get a corpse who fumbles the ball when needed the most. We had 4 years to prepare for this.
He’s gaslighting us. It’s not just the 90 minute debate. He has been declining and we all see it. Don’t patronize us. The fact that you’re hiding, not doing events like press conferences where you can actually dispel the impression and prove us wrong, demonstrates we are right. The burden is on you now. Don’t tell us, show us.
This!
While I, personally, do fall into the "I'll vote for a ham sandwich as long as it's running as a Democrat" category, even I remember back in 2020 that Biden ran on the campaign promise of being a one-term, transitional president that would not seek reelection but would instead usher in the next generation of Democratic leaders in 2024.
He's breaking a promise that he made and I am angry about that.
Still gonna vote for whoever the Democrat is, even if it's him, but if I'm pissed. And if he's lost this much confidence from *me*, he's not getting the swing voters.
A lot of responses on this sub don’t understand this nuance. My doom and gloom isn’t leading me to Trump. It’s because the rubes we depend on to bring it home for Biden are lost for good after Thursday.
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You know the plot has been lost when NOBODY is talking about Trump.
Because there's nothing new to say, really. The bar for Trump is so unbelievably low, he doesn't have to do anything to cross it. We all knew everything he said would be a lie, and it was. Nothing new to report there, and no specific new lies that would be interesting to bring up.
Trump could literally shoot a person on 5th avenue and it would not cause any turbulence. The SCOTUS would pardon him and everything would resume as is.
This was my attitude heading into finals after skipping an entire semester of assignments.
Did you pass?
With that strategy? Absolutely not.
You probably just didn’t believe hard enough
It was the media lying about my inability to pass.
Test was rigged to those who read the material they wanted you to. You did your own research. Never forget.
I had a cold, and when I get a cold my brain turns into melted butter.
I'm not a doctor, but that sounds like a very serious medical condition.
It’s not. I’ve convinced the folks I need to I’m fine.
Can you person, woman, man, camera, TV? Because that's important
gd nytimes
The important part is that you just show up on test day.
You joke, but that's how the election will work. What really matters is who shows up in the polls in Nov 5 2024
Don't worry bro I'm sure Democrats can win the election with the power of positive thinking and nothing else.
“Vibes” is a good strategy.
It's worked so far for Trump. All bluster, zero substance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSUcTcJJ2Rc&ab_channel=NewYorkTimesPodcasts Some conversation with undecided voters, and apparently some even think Trump came across as SINCERE, and that he was open to mild rules on abortions etc. Thats how much of a fucking disaster this was Edit: stop complaining about the debate rules wtf, Biden had free uninturrepted time for rebuttals at every question to shut it down, but he didn't show up. The debate format was good.
As per Triumph the Insult Comic Dog from 2016 on such a notion: https://youtu.be/fDryx4EM0Xg?si=pVGiHh1Kl0KNECwW “Are they getting enough oxygen in there?” And mere days ago: “I look forward to seeing you all again in 4 years when you can’t decide between voting for AOC and Kyle Rittenhouse…”
Why can I 100% see that happening?
Nah, Rittenhouse had a pr team try to groom him into being a fascist spokesperson so they could ride-along and grift on his success. Unfortunately the plan fell apart when it became apparent that it was impossible to groom an absolute fucking moron. edit: I cant find the popular reddit post where I became aware of this story, but heres a link with the same content. Also keep in mind that like I said in my original comment, that this guy is a grifter and they only spent money on Kyle because it was an investment, not out of the goodness of his heart like the 4th image. https://old.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/1bw8frc/guy_who_did_pr_for_kyle_rittenhouse_outs_him_as/
Haha, funny stuff
They live and breathe the False Balance fallacy…
Anyone who's an "undecided" voter is just disingenuous at this point. They've had plenty of time to see who each candidate is.
The real issue we have to reckon with are voters who are unsatisfied with both options and won’t turn out. Undecided voters are a red herring.
This is part of what happened in 2016. In Michigan, something crazy like 90k people went to the polls to vote, but didn’t vote for president. Then trump won by like 10k votes.
Michigan is or was a swing state so this year will be also very close. The swing states are going to decide it. The whole election system in my opinion is bullshit.
Michigan is about 50% Detroit, 50% militia.
The swing states always decide it. And usually just a handful of counties in those swing states.
Yes and some people flat out voted Harambe. Someone I know admitted they wrote Harambe in.
This is exactly it. It’s young voters, those in underrepresented groups, and those who feel like they’re picking the “lesser of two evils” who simply won’t show up to the polls. “I had a bad night” isn’t a rallying cry to energize those groups. It’s terrifying.
Exactly this. The President doesn’t get to have a bad night. At least not publicly. That debate wouldn’t have gone worse if he’d coughed and shit his pants up on stage.
How is Trump able to get away with everything? He lied constantly throughout the debate and we’re still talking about Biden being 4 years older. wtf? How?
Because Trump is jacked up on Adderall and even though it’s pure verbal vomit that spews from his mouth, it’s loud, forceful and said with such fake sincerity that Americans don’t listen to the words, they just hear the voice and go “yeah, he’s tuff”
Because most voters are uninformed and don’t know how badly they’re being lied to. Meanwhile the media doesn’t hold them accountable during the debate so there’s no counterpoint to the lies. All people watching see is Trump being bodacious and confident spewing nonsense and Biden looking like he was going to fall asleep like grandpa after eating too much mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving and struggling to get his words out.
Biden should be the counterpoint but...he had a bad night.
Even beyond Trump’s general banalities, that was the prevailing story of the debate (CNN’s lack of factchecking) that *nobody is covering*…
sure and that explains the right parroting the pro trump spin. What the fuck is the excuse of every left of center pundit and figure
At least some people are seeing through the insane media bias that's happening. I understand people are concerned, I understand that is relevant news... but there's clearly a nature of imbalance in coverage here.
Because Trump's base doesn't give a shit. That's also why the base his is ceiling. The problem isn't voters switching for Trump, it's voters not turning out for Biden or voting third-party and letting Trump when the election with his base that sits at under 50%. It's embarrassing. But asking, "What about Trump?" Is moot everyone who cares knows that Trump is shit. They know that Trump is crazy. They know that Trump is unqualified. They know that Trump has the emotional intelligence of a chihuahua. They know that Trump is a wannabe autocrat. They know that Trump has the attention span of a gnat and will take advice from which ever advisor has the best pictures in their presentation. They know that Trump is running in large part so that he can avoid responsibility for his crimes. They know that Trump is a fat old fuck who could kill over at any moment. Most of this has been known for nearly a decade now. But those aren't the people you have to convince, the people you have to convince don't follow the news. They get their "news" from carefully selected clips on Facebook and TikTok.
Exactly. We didn't need an amazing candidate with the speech of a prime FDR, we simply needed a candidate who looked healthy and exposed Trump's crimes as well as damage he did during his presidency loud and clear, and the *entire* conversation about the debate would've been regarding Trump's lies, and the election would be nearly impossible for Trump to win from there. Now, a lot of low info, "undecided" voters were let to forget the horrible things Trump did, and all of a sudden focus directly and almost solely on Biden looking ill. The absolute worst possible outcome was the focus of the debate being on a weakness of Biden, and that honestly happened more than I ever thought it would/could going in to the debate. I don't yet know what Biden's chances of winning the election are, but I know that whether by a small margin or large margin, his chances are lower than they were before the debate. And that's the last thing we need right now. There are hundreds of millions of non voters, they need to be convinced and spoken to.
Taylor swift needs to show up soon lol
Because the entire focus has been shifted to Biden. All he had to do was be okay and he would have been fine. He wasn’t and he isn’t. Trump has been gaining support by staying out of the news. A first, as far as I can remember, since he entered politics.
He sounded more confident vs. Biden sounding like a feeble, weak old man. Optics matter less to people paying attention to politics and see the threat of fascism if Trump wins. People who don’t pay attention tuned into the debate and saw a strong leader (Trump) vs. a weak leader (Biden) regardless of the words they were actually saying.
If you even listened passively alarms would have been set off every time trump talked because it was non sensical rambling. It wasn’t related to the question and wasn’t even internally coherent. Biden at least somewhat stuck to the question being asked but had a much weaker voice.
Yep. A lot of us are very dumb.
"how would you address the climate crisis" Immigrants bad, millions crossing every day from prison
Yeah it's crazy when you consider all the horrible shit Trump has done, all the people that didn't have to die from COVID, and we're ready to move on from Biden because he has a bad debate. WTF?
I’m a college professor in a highly diverse northeastern college. I talk to so many people voting for the first time who are voting for Trump. They won’t say this to most people but I have a really good rapport with the students. “He tells it like it is”, “he’ll be strong for America”, “inflation is just terrible”, “I trust him to make sure there’s jobs when I graduate”, “Roe got repealed under Biden and he didn’t do anything about it”, “Biden is too old”, “Biden is too weak” and on and on and on. Its terrifying. These are people who are white, Indian, Hispanic, Asian, (I have not personally spoken to a student that was a Black Trump voter). And btw, almost all of these people are “embarrassed Trump voters” and do not consider themselves Trump supporters, acknowledging he is a liar and a bad person in most cases
So they think he tells it like it is but they also acknowledge he's a liar? We're fucked.
I'm not from USA, but here "all politicians lie" so being bad at hiding that doesn't really detract much.
"Roe got appealed under Biden and he didn't do anything about it." They need to go back to school on civics and history. I ask this. What can Biden do about it when congress is locked up due to heavy politics? Congress is the branch that makes the laws.
The more ignorant a person the greater likelihood of being a supporter of stinky.
It's not about history - it's about feeling like they are on the cusp of a better future. It's not about policy, it's not about building a better world emergent from a solid political philosophy or a history of legal scholarship. When they say "strong," they mean "I don't feel like the status quo suits me, and so a new status quo is at least exciting and might be profitable. It's better to gamble with the world so long as I get a shot at coming out ahead." They are unwilling to fall on the sword of "things might be better in general, but it will be hard for you." They are unwilling to vote against their short term interests to improve everyone's long term interests. It feels cathartic to rebel against the establishment because they've been trained to resent the establishment. Throw in a thread of cultural nihilism and a disdain for deliberation and you get a group of people who just want to feel like something is about to happen and that they'll be a part of it. As a voting bloc, they're just looking to get high on feeling relevant.
I work for a state university and pretty much every single student I've ever heard talk politics on campus is 100% for Biden.
I feel like that is because the ones voting for trump are too embarrassed to say so. But won’t change their vote.
What r they talking about the problem is he wants to be a dictator and sell pardons because he is a con man and pedophile This is in the northeast? tf kinda college kids u got
This line of thinking comes up every election. Yes, undecided voters are real, no, they're not pretending to be undecided, no they clearly don't have the same mindset as someone who regularly consumes political news, yes a candidate still has to convince undecided voters to vote for them in order to win.
Yeah people act like undecided voters just appeared out of nowhere and are being deliberately obtuse. It's not like they're in political discussion boards engaging in the discourse and are just "not getting it", they literally have no idea what's going on
Imagine this: because of our shitty country you have to work 70 hours a week to pay for your living situation and kids. When you come home to your shitty apartment after taking the kids here and there all you want to do is watch tv and crack a beer. But even then you still have to put the kids to bed and clean the place up a bit. And hopefully get a solid 5 hours of sleep (you don’t). You have basically no free brain power to consume the news. So finally you get a chance to watch the presidential debate as your first time paying attention in a year because you Actually want to try and be informed. And then this is all you are coming off of. They aren’t being disingenuous the system was created to make sure voters like this exist and are uninformed.
Being politically aware is a privilege, straight up. Just like being educated. That's why we need to use our privilege for good. It's so frustrating to see so many people not understand this absolute basic core concept of political action. It's another reason why democrats always lose. Liberals always assume everyone is as politically aware, maybe not as much as them because they love to feel better than people, but they misunderstand the basic political awareness of the general populace. You know who doesn't? The conservatives. That's WHY you might think their messaging is reductive - but it's actually working and ours isn't. That's why our aunts and uncles on Facebook post terrible things when they didn't before- they were finally talked to. They were talked to by the wrong people, told lies, filled with hate, etc, but they were talked to, not talked down to. For the first time in their lives.
exactly I don't think the deplorables speech alone ruined Hillary but all she did was reinforce the perception she was the eltiest's candidate
Most realistic take on here
That's not true... a significant chunk of the country simply doesn't pay ANY attention. Source: my adult sister text me asking me who I was going to vote for after seeing the debate... as though Trump is "real" choice... She just doesn't pay any attention to the "big picture" and was thinking of the 2 candidates as being more or less equal, but one was "present & alert" while the other seemed to have dementia. She was candidly asking which of the 2 we should trust as President for the next 4 years. Clueless... as I'm sure 20-50 million other Americans are.
We had a corporate lunch thing like two weeks ago and one of the sales reps from a different office literally had no idea who was even running for president until our COO made a comment about Trump and he went "wait... is he running for president again?"
My wife asks me before we vote and usually just does the same. I try to keep as informed as possible and tell her what I understand in a non biased way but there are plenty of people who do not pay attention and don't give a rip about politics
Same here.. when we met, my wife considered herself a Republican (she grew up in FL & MO). After lots of long discussions, she sort of came to a conclusion that she didn't really have many valid reasons to be a republican... just a bunch of empty platitudes. She still doesn't pay as much attention to politics or government, but she's definitely moved on from her childhood indoctrination (red = good, blue = bad). She approaches politics with much more critical thinking and a lot less blind faith.
“Undecided voters are the biggest idiots on the planet” This was discussed by family guy nearly 20 years ago lol. https://youtu.be/qZxVBXv2h94?si=m5OuQYUdnP2bN-be
Many undecided just don't wake up to the election until the national debates. Although this one was a little earlier than normal.
Just wish Biden had woke up. He looked like he wanted to be home in bed.
Damn, Hulu used to be free lol that was a throwback
Lol, I think about this often. It’s nice to see someone has this family guy reference in the back of their mind, also.
Some people just don't care for politics at all. It's easy to hold the opinion that every politician is the same when all you do is watch football.
I don’t know any truly undecided voters but I know at least 3 people who, after the debate, basically said they’re not gonna vote now because they essentially don’t want to be apart of this shitshow. All three were gonna vote for Biden, I’m guessing.
god what an annoying intro of 4 minutes and that stupid music lol. just start the damn podcast, and stop the narrator voice
Tbh It also occurred to me during the debate that Trump was holding back. He could have clobbered Biden, but he only had a few cutting remarks about Biden’s performance. I suspect that his coaches drilled it into him that he shouldn’t be a bully and, frankly, I bet he was a little surprised at Biden’s condition. Trump is notoriously afraid of his own mortality, so it probably scared him a little, and Trump also was probably surprised that some of his bullshit was actually truth.
I would argue that having his mic cut was an idea that backfired. It ended up helping Donald remain somewhat disciplined. It was his crutch.
Agreed. He was talking absolute nonsense, but watching I was thinking "Oh god he seems like a reasonable and confident speaker standing next to a puppeteered corpse". Without fact checks (Amazing concession, way to go democrats) he legitimately seemed like a more stable candidate.
Trump lied, but there were times when Biden said absolutely incoherent nonsense you can't even fact check [How do you fact check this?](https://youtu.be/i3eYmc1AkMs?si=O8sReRypUBbIr7UG)
And to be clear: CNN famously “fact checked” Romney during the presidential debate to the extent of arguing with him during the debate, and the anchor got it very wrong. The only person who should fact check a candidates is an opposing candidate, or the media afterwards.
Dude exactly. I was reading comments earlier today and was blown away by how many people were suggesting the moderators “failed at their one job” by not fact checking. That’s not the job of a debate moderator. Not even by a long shot.
Absolutely. Biden really needs to fire his entire campaign staff, the mic thing was a terrible idea.
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Trump even said "let's not be children" when Biden was poking fun at his physical fitness and rambling about golf. I hate that it was a smart and effective move. He knew undecided voters would be watching and he came off as being more mature - ironically. He saved his obscene comedy routine for his rallies - which undecided voters largely do not see.
Bingo. I feel like the liberal/democrat side, which most closely aligns with my values, is so focused on him being TOXIC and EVIL and blah blah blah they just refuse to accept he is EFFECTIVE. People don’t accidentally bumble their way into the presidency. I can’t stand the man either. I do think he’s morally and ethically bankrupt and should not be a part of civilized society. However I cannot argue that he is very, very effective at what he does. If the DNC actually focused on efficacy and impact instead of thinking “well if people would just REALIZE he sucks…” maybe we could actually get somewhere. At this point it feels like the dnc is TRYING to suck.
Trump speaks very well to his base. That is undeniable.
Predatory instinct(s) probably kicked in. ‘This guy’s fucked up and doing himself in without me having to say or do anything. Just let him dig his own metaphorical grave.’ “I don’t think he knows what he said either.” That might just be the killer line that has decided the election already. Biden looked like he was seconds away from having a Windows ME blue screen of death moment.
Purely in terms of tactics, it was a good play. Genuinely seemed like Trump felt bad for him (yes we know that's not necessarily true, don't yell at me for pointing it out).
Look, I'm voting blue no matter who. Heck, I'll vote for a slice of old pizza if it's on the ticket, but I'm not who he needs to win over right now. Many of us on reddit who lean blue aren't the people he needs to win over. I appreciate the recognition of the poor debate performance, but we need to hear **a PLAN**. Just saying, "we're gonna win" isn't going to cut it. Please, for the love of whatever, ARTICULATE A PLAN FORWARD.
Best I can do is a 15 minute pre recorded interview.
Which will be pre-recorded several hours before broadcast.
The plan is to use a different makeup artist for the next debate. And no international traveling for at least five weeks beforehand.
Also some mouth-closing exercises for when he's not talking
I can’t blame him, my mouth was agape too. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing
If the debate rules kept both mics hot, we would have seen Trump make a complete ass of himself. Unfortunately the rules and Biden's behavior made the debate a.....jaw-dropping spectacle; even for Biden himself, in the moment.
You joke but I think that's their exact plan.
Good , whatever mortuary they used last time made him look pale and gray.
The plan appears to just be rely on negative partisanship for everything. And I think we're going to see the limits of negative partisanship in November if Biden's still on the ticket.
FFS did Biden hire the 2016 Clinton team?
“we suck less!!!”
That's what the DNC has been doing for a decade.
His entire strategy is just "Trump is bad; I'm your other choice". Why do these old politicians refuse to just retire with some dignity?
You don't run for such high office without some ego. Plus you have an entire staff telling you to keep going so they can keep their jobs
Pizza 2024
Dude when the penn gov said “stop worrying start working” my first thought was maybe give us a fucking candidate that doesn’t need so much work to defend, much less advocate for.
Cool, prove that it was an outlier by having a 2-hour town hall
Or Biden can walk two doors down from the Oval Office into the press briefing room and have an hour long unscripted Q&A session with the White House press corps. He can do that every day. This isn't rocket science for him to prove that he still has a brain. Which makes the delays and the refusals for him to do these unscripted live activities all the more alarming. The coverup seems to confirm the crime, which is that he is indeed too old and too infirm that he can no longer function without a teleprompter.
Will never happen, because it wasn’t an outlier. If it was he would have done it already.
It actually think they might attempt it next week, we'll see, this needs to end as the gaslighting is getting out of control. Show up in public and answer questions TODAY or drop out. It has been a week now since the debate and he hasn't taken one media question and has only been in friendly confines in comfortable settings.
Well a few governors repeated the same talking point about having Joe’s back…. *meh* who am I kidding. This is the DNC. They’re going to fumble the race by doing nothing - and then blame progressives for their failure.
If Biden really intends to win, he needs to spend every single day visiting every city in every battleground state, holding massive rallies at each stop, and makes 0 stumbles before the election. Sitting in the White House whining about his "jet lag" is not going to win anything.
The people attending political rallies aren't the ones he needs to convince. It's the average American who sees clips of Trump and Biden passed around social media. The debate was the platform to really take over in front of the average American who will only watch the national debates.
You're right but it would at least help to show us if it actually was a one-off bad night (it wasn't) if he was out performing well in front of crowds every day
dude needs to pump out tik toks like there is no tomorrow
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This is a disastrous way for him to try to spin the debate. He didn't "make a mistake" in the traditional sense. He looked and sounded like a feeble, declining old man, which is what he is. He is getting older every day. There is no way to reverse that. People are rightly going to be asking themselves, if this is what he's like now, what will he be like in a year or two, never mind 4? That's not a mistake that can be corrected.
I want his staff under oath explaining how the fuck this happened They are around him every day, they know this isn't a one off. We know it wasn't a one off because he is still hiding from the public a week later. So why the fuck would you: (1) issue an aggressive debate challenge; (2) push a bunch of stories leading up to the debate about Trump's supposed mental decline because he tells the same dumb electric shark story he always tells; and (3) send the incoherent president out on stage with makeup done by a mortician Is his staff trying to sabotage the election?
I wondered if the early debate was precisely for this reason: to get Biden to reveal his cognitive state asap. He may have thought it was to change the narrative in his favour, but I imagine some people in his camp knew that if this kind of disaster happened then the sooner, the better.
But if the purpose was to knife him in the back, why weren't they ready with a game plan right after? Usually when you do a palace coup you have like, a successor ready to step in.
They might’ve been and it’s just not going well. If it’s his campaign manager trying to install Kamala instead, it might be that donors are saying she polls even worse so find someone else.
Well, go ask Brutus how that turned out. A shocking number of coups end up "we've killed the king! ... now what?" Very few people plan for success. (Although to be fair I think any speculation of a palace coup seems pretty removed from reality. I guess we'll know in a few decades when the history books are written).
Running again is the mistake. He more or less promised to be a one term President.
It WASN'T A BAD NIGHT. It's a GIANT NEON SIGN that you're 81 and too fucking old. We all had that relative who would rather die than give up his car keys even after multiple accidents. This is the exact same fucking thing.
Agreed. Pretending like it was just a mistake is such a terrible narrative and shows how incompetent the team is. Thinking they can gaslight away his performance is ridiculous. We all watched the debate. It was a horror show. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable during a debate. It shocked and frightened everyone I know who is leaning Biden, but not sold on him yet (which is crazy at this point). It’s clear the team doesn’t have confidence in Biden’s ability to perform, because they have been aggressively protecting him from exposure. No live interviews. No townhalls. Biden should be everywhere right now, proving he is still with it. They are giving the election to Trump.
I’m know this sounds hyperbolic, but the last time in my life I remember feeling that sudden sense of dread and of “*is this really happening?*” was watching the towers come down on 9/11. It was a combination of the horror of what I was witnessing and the contemplation of its ramifications.
It’s not hyperbolic. I was thinking the same thing. I actually cried yesterday because I’m so scared for our country and furious at Bidens team as well as his family
What's worse about that statement is ignoring the fact that if he beats Trump like he did in 2020 - by the skin of his teeth - it will go to the supremes who will install him. He doesn't understand that 2024 is not 2020. He has to win convincingly to even have a chance of it not going the way of Fake Electors and Insurrection.
SCOTUS could have installed Trump in 2020 and refused to hear the cases. If SCOTUS installs Trump in 2024 when he loses the election then we will have an honest to God civil war. Not gonna happen
Also Biden is the current President… it would have been much easier to keep Trump in place as the current President rather than replace an existing one. I have no doubt SCOTUS will act in Trumps favor if it comes down to something like the 2000 election. But in an election with results similar to 2020 I don’t think they’ll do anything.
I agree. I’m not even sure what they COULD do that they couldn’t in 2020? Like chevron and the presidential immunity stuff have NOTHING to do with elections. They didn’t rule that the VP could cast aside votes (which wouldn’t work now anyway)
Also, where is his father now? Is he dead because he got too old?
Yeah sure and my grandpa still thinks he can drive.
1. Do not RBG the nation. 2. Bow out of the race gracefully. 3. Use the lame duck status to deal with the SCOTUS decision and Trump aggressively.
then we’re gonna beat medicare
Never would vote for trump but damn my stomach sank so fast at that part of the debate
I thought it was funny up until that moment, afterwards I was too sick to my stomach to laugh.
To be fair, I don't think he said that he was going to beat Medicare...I believe he said he had already beat Medicare. So, mission accomplished!
We're gonna beat it to death
> when you get knocked down, just get back up. If he was gonna get up then he'd be doing town halls and calling for more debates. Rematches when he doesn't have this "cold". But he can't, and probably shouldn't get back up. There is a reason that the boxer isn't the one who decides when to throw in the towel. A damaged brain doesn't always know it's been knocked out. Trump was fucking terrible at the debate. He lied constantly. He forgot about Afghanistan. He started with far right conspiracy theories and veered right off the tracks to incoherent schizophrenia. He literally said abortions were being done right after the child was born. Any of the other Democrats in the primary would've **destroyed** Trump. Hell, even the Republicans would've, there is a reason Trump refused to debate in the primaries. Ah well. Biden should've dropped out in 2022. Its probably too late now. Hecan stay down and the party will have to win without him.
I can tell you I certainly feel better now that he’s quoted Chumbuwumba lyrics…
🎶 Pissing the night away 🎵
You know what's messed up? If the Democrats somehow do the right thing and get another candidate in there Trump won't debate them. That second planned debate won't happen. Trump knew he was going up against a weak old man. I'm sure all of his strategists knew what Biden is really like behind the scenes and knew what would happen. If they put a competent coherent candidate out there Trump won't invite that challenge. Sure he could try ranting about conspiracies and lie like he did with Biden but I'd hope and pray a coherent 40-60 year old would call Trump out on his shit. I think Trump and his team know that and they'd cancel the second debate. Then again if they do run Biden out there for a second debate then it's going to look even worse than last time.
> I'm sure all of his strategists knew what Biden is really like behind the scenes and knew what would happen. If only the Democrat strategists were half as good. How did they not see this coming? I wonder what the practice debates were like.
I think the opposite. If I'm Trump I never debate Biden again. I say "The last time I debated Biden, he gave the worst performance in the history of this country. Out of respect to him and his family, I refuse to put him through that again."
Biden should have made plans long ago to drop. When the democrats get dunked on and Trump is president again, they will have no one to blame but themselves for being fully unable to put up a palatable candidate.
Unfortunately I think his increasing senility has made that impossible. Jill should have found a way to help him step down gracefully but I think they all got caught up in covering for him and having a strong team around him doing all the work & thought they could make it through on that
It will be 2016 all over again
Yup, 2016 all over again. Bernie would have destroyed tRump, but it was Hillarys "turn'. And now here we are again, having a candidate nobody wants, jammed down our throats. Why can they not use these newly established"supreme court powers" to do something about tRump? Is it not his duty to "protect the country from enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC"? Nope, they're gonna just put up Joe and we are gonna get screwed AGAIN.
Sure anyone can have a bad debate, buy this was a slaughter. Biden has over 50 years of experience, and a whole team that prepped him. When you look at how he debated just 4 years ago, you know this wasn't just a "bad day." His ego is dooming this country. They should have used the past year to prep a new candidate and have him gracefully pass the torch.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Here is my major problem: I feel like I could have done 100x better in that debate than Biden did. Now to be clear, I am a 40 something year old IT professional, who has no political experience, no foreign policy experience other than reading the news, and at the most has decent to high public speaking skills. I should NOT be watching a debate for the most powerful position in the world and think "fuck, I could have won that debate". I should be watching it thinking "look at these two people, the height of their game, verbal sparring, I only wish I could be that good". That's so deeply concerning I want to curl up into a ball.
Yes every question was pretty straight forward and the talking points are so easy to hit for anyone who has even a casual passing knowledge of current events and common sense
I’m 23 and I literally had the same thoughts, also in IT and would not consider myself a genius but JFC fuck the old debilitated fucks I’m not trying to die because some god damn geriatrics couldn’t read the room. I’m tired of this grandpa
It really wasn't his speech that was the problem. It was his body language. I don't think people have seen Biden outside of a few news segments. The empty stares downwards with mouth slightly ajar. The slow movements when looking around. Looked like a god damn turtle. I also think he may have been wearing an earpiece and that tripped him up even more. There were a couple of times he scratched his ear and stuck his finger in. In any case, I am still voting Blue no matter what!
It was a gut punch watching that.... within the first 5 minutes, I had to turn it off.
As soon as he walked out, my stomach dropped. He looked like he was about to collapse.
The decline has been shockingly fast. Remember when Biden used to ride a bicycle all the time? Here's Biden 11 months ago, August 2023: https://www.delawareonline.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2023/08/03/president-biden-bike-ride/12313550002/ Now it looks like the man can barely stand up anymore. It looks like he needs a walker. There's no way he's riding a bicycle anymore. And thats just his physical decline. The mental decline we saw last week was just as stark.
Imagine where he'll be in 4 years if he is reelected. FFS...he needs to drop out.
Chronically out of touch centrists neoliberal dems are handing the country over to Christian nationalists
They are content with a Christian Nationalist government because they are wealthy and feel safe from it. They don't care if you and I have the same privilege, though.
Yep. I will support the Dem top of ticket whoever it is but at this point it’s hard to feel like they actually believe there is a threat to democracy if this is really the best they can do. A guy who on national TV could not even form coherent sentences is really the bulwark against the fall of democracy? A guy with 38% approval? It just undermines their claims of the stakes of the election if they cannot do better than this.
It's the same as Feinstein. People shouldn't have to vote for a candidate that they know is not going to be making the decisions. Biden will be paraded about and go to sleep at 8PM every night while his aides and Chief of Staff effectively run the country. Trump is a literal piece of shit, who lies, steals and will make horrible decisions for the country. But those will be his own decisions. This is an election between an immoral conman and an old man's unelected handlers. Biden needs to step down now.
Serious question non American. Is there no one else but these two? Looking in from the outside u.s politics has all the houses and states, but this is the choice?
It’s going to keep coming across as disingenuous as long as he keeps avoiding the visible fact of the matter. He did not have a “bad debate.” Rather, he appeared to be cognitively incapable of debate. That’s not a “screw up.” There’s no shame in getting older, even losing capacity. It will happen to us all. A “screw up” of biblical proportions would be to continue as a candidate if you are no longer able to function at the level of demand. And, rather than going forward to demonstrate that it was an “episode” and not a “condition,” he didn’t follow that up with public or media appearances featuring extemporaneous thought and speech. Rather, he sheltered for days, held private meetings with family, avoided key political allies and did nothing to suggest otherwise. There are only two explanations for that that I can think of. Pride, which is unforgivable in light of the stakes, and incapacity, which is forgivable though not acceptable in a candidate. Keeping in mind we lost fundamental rights (and potentially our entire democracy) due to RBGs hubris in resisting the signs of age, Biden’s protests are hollow at best and horrific at worst. We’re not “pushing you aside,” Joe. It’s not your personal right to run for President. The PEOPLE are rightly concerned and deserve clear evidence of your ability to express our will in an increasingly dark and dangerous age.
It wasn't just a bad night or one bad debate. You are too old for the job. MOVE OVER. A man your age should be taking a nap in a chair someplace with a blanky laid over his legs. Problem is all the people around him 'advising' him have their own personal interests wrapped up in him as well as a hefty dose of sunk costs. He's gonna need to get out of that bubble to see that stepping down is the right call.
Exactly, the people in his immediate circle are people who want to keep getting paid and his family, who enjoy the lifestyle and want to keep an increasingly senile man busy with his presidential “hobby”
I don’t care about Biden, I really don’t. I’d actually care more about you if you got the fuck out of the way after your first term, as you would have shown yourself to be a man of principal and vision, and not just another predictable politician whose ego eclipses his brain. Fuck your legacy, fuck your family’s feelings, fuck your feelings you old shitbird. I and my children have to live in the nation your not long for this world’s ass is playing ego games with. He better hope to fucking god he wins, because it will 100% be his fault that people will get hurt and lives will be ruined for generations, because some old turd didn’t recognize it was well past time to be flushed.
I came here to say exactly this. Between Biden and RBG, these people need to know when to move on and enjoy the sunset.
Don’t forget good ole Diane and Nancy
Hell, look at Clyburn - he's 83. And Republicans kept Strom Thurmond around at the age of 99. Time for some younger candidates to step up.
Nancy Pelosi stepped down as Democratic Leader in 2023. She gave up her power and allowed the new generation of Democrats to move into those roles. She's just a normal Democratic Representative now. So I really don't think Nancy is in the same conversation as Biden, RBG, or Feinstein, especially considering House elections are every 2 years.
Ruth Bader Biden seems almost inevitable.
At least if he dies while in office it’s of somewhat less consequence than hers was. She really fucked up
Back in 2020, I loved Biden. I felt like he came out of retirement for one last battle to save the nation from doom. And right know I fucking despise him and his wife for clinging to power and for their hubris in thinking “I alone can win this”. GTFO now and pray we can come back from this.
Same here. I feel like I was conned. And I've lost my trust in everyone who let this drag on so that we got to this point.
That's what gets me too. All his handlers who knew this and kept quiet, didn't speak up back in 2023 when new candidates could have entered the race but Biden froze everyone else out. I am sure they all gossiped about it to each other and crossed their fingers he could limp across the finish line before face-planting. Or maybe they thought Trump would be in jail and Biden wouldn't even need to be tested. But what really pisses me off is how they are telling us "it was just one night" and stop being "bed wetters" and "chill the fuck out" when it clearly is deeper than that. There is a lot of talk about how Americans distrust institutions. Can you blame them? Biden was supposed to be a trustworthy institutional man and he tried to con all of us. He has done colossal damage.
He could pull a George Washington and go out a hero, instead he will go out looking like a fucking fool.
If he refuses to step down and loses the election, he will go down as one of the most hated figures in American history. I hope he knows what he’s doing.
I thought it was a cold?
His aide said the debate was too late and Biden only functions well early in the day. Can't make this shit up.
That was after his team told us he had a cold.
No no, it was a stutter, no wait actually it was bad camera angles, scratch that it was jet lag! Wait he was at camp David for over a week prepping for the debate beforehand? Uh… we’re beating Medicare!
If you can't get over jet lag TWELVE* DAYS after returning from Europe, you might be too old to be president.
The strategy of just brute forcing the same old solutions and unpopular candidates is how we got to this point.
Can't unring that bell. Most of the country is seriously concerned about his ability to think. Jill Biden after the debate: "Congratulations! You answered almost the questions!", like he's a freaking toddler. Jesus Christ. And having Hunter in on White House meetings now? WTF is going on? Who's in charge?
Everyone sobered up realizing just how badly Kamala Harris would do as well if she were to head the ticket. This is what one gets when someone tries to do a sympathetic portrait of Kamala Harris. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/kamala-harris-vice-presidency-2024-election-biden-age/675439/ She just doesn't have it when it comes to actually relating with people. At all.
My father started sundowning in 2019. He's gone now. No one in their right mind thinks Joe can hang until January 2029. It's over. Please Joe, listen to reason.
My underlying concern through all of this is that Biden's debate performance should not be making Trump as palatable to as big a portion of the country as the polls are suggesting that he now is. What happened to decency? How does Biden being old make people open to having such a horrible person at the helm? Does no one care that he attempted to obstruct the peaceful transition of power? About his lasciviousness? About his constant bullying, or his perpetual obsession with power? Or that he doesn't know anything and doesn't care to learn? Why do the democrats need to field a perfect candidate to convince people not to go with Trump? I just feel so lost.
I think if democrats were to field anyone else at all then people would have a different view. It’s the whole parties own fault for not choosing someone that can speak in a clear sentence
Biden did not screw up, what he said was mostly fine. What he did was show up acting just like the republicans said he would, a feeble old man. I dont know how you overcome that.
Biden: “we’re gonna just beat Donald Trump”. Yeah, just like an old grandpa tells a young asshole “come here son, I’ll teach you a lesson.”
Fuck you Biden and fuck the democratic establishment. We needed a stronger candidate to contend against a fucking dictator and we get a corpse who fumbles the ball when needed the most. We had 4 years to prepare for this.
Simply owning a shortcoming shows such a colossal difference between him and Trump
He’s gaslighting us. It’s not just the 90 minute debate. He has been declining and we all see it. Don’t patronize us. The fact that you’re hiding, not doing events like press conferences where you can actually dispel the impression and prove us wrong, demonstrates we are right. The burden is on you now. Don’t tell us, show us.
Just like r/politics has the past year at least
This! While I, personally, do fall into the "I'll vote for a ham sandwich as long as it's running as a Democrat" category, even I remember back in 2020 that Biden ran on the campaign promise of being a one-term, transitional president that would not seek reelection but would instead usher in the next generation of Democratic leaders in 2024. He's breaking a promise that he made and I am angry about that. Still gonna vote for whoever the Democrat is, even if it's him, but if I'm pissed. And if he's lost this much confidence from *me*, he's not getting the swing voters.
A lot of responses on this sub don’t understand this nuance. My doom and gloom isn’t leading me to Trump. It’s because the rubes we depend on to bring it home for Biden are lost for good after Thursday.
thinking of your voters as "rubes" is a pretty good example of why those rubes just don't fall in line.