e; I wrote a better headline than the ABC editors decided to and excerpted a bit more
According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel, 86% of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president. That figure includes 59% of Americans who think both he and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, are too old and 27% who think only Biden is too old.
Sixty-two percent of Americans think Trump, who is 77, is too old to serve as president. There is a large difference in how partisans view their respective nominees – 73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve but only 35% of Republicans think Trump is too old to serve. Ninety-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to serve, and 71% say the same about Trump.
Concerns about both candidates’ ages have increased since September when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 74% of Americans thought Biden – the oldest commander in chief in U.S. history – was too old to serve another term as president, and 49% said the same about Trump.
Part that drew my eye,
The poll also comes days after the Senate failed to advance a bipartisan foreign aid bill with major new border provisions.
Americans find there is blame to go around on Congress’ failure to pass legislation intended to decrease the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border – with about the same number blaming the Republicans in Congress (53%), the Democrats (51%) and Biden (49%). Fewer, 39%, blame Trump.
More Americans trust that Trump would do a better job of handling immigration and the situation at the border than Biden – 44%-26% – according to the poll.
So that bipartisan border bill stunt was terrible policy, and it doesn’t seem to have done anything for the Democratic party politically
Can we please stop trying to compromise with fascists now?
Anything with eyes would say they are old. Yes, a 2-party system is broken in the modern world. Still Biden/ Harris as president is better then Putin’s cuddle buddy.
And a president isn’t just the presidency, it also sets tons of agency heads and tons of judicial appointments including potential Supreme Court nominations. It’s a major mistake to think of a presidential vote as a vote for one person, it’s for tons of incredibly important positions that the president decides.
Even if that’s true, wouldn’t a younger person be better equipped to appoint and oversee those positions?
Yes, but that conversation gets too close to having a conversation about the people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. And we can’t have a conversation about that because the rational conclusion would be: it was selfish and foolish to vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries.
It is true, that’s not up to debate, it’s just how the government works. Yes a younger person would be better but the point is that the effects reach much further than the single candidate.
It is true, that’s not up to debate
Is it though? If it weren’t up for debate then saying the people who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries were selfish and foolish wouldn’t be controversial. If a younger person would be better equipped to be president then there’s no excuse to vote in the primaries for someone who shouldn’t be driving, nevermind leading a country.
Maybe you were referring to a different part of my comment when you said “even if that’s true”. I’m referring to where I said that the president gets to appoint tons of other positions, that’s objectively true.
I agree that there are better candidates than Biden and that they would have better appointments. My point is just that the stakes are really really high, much higher than just the difference between the presidential candidates, it’s multiplied by the tons of positions they have control over. I just want people to think about those super high stakes when it comes to their motivation to get out and vote.
You don’t have to pick any of the 2.
Go away RFK jr., no one is buying you as a candidate. Fucking lurking around here!
cornel west is running too
and jill stein
A multi party system needs to start at local levels and build upward. People that actually know what they are doing. Not crazy people with Republican views except for one extreme left thing.
calling Cornel West crazy is really showing your colors. implying he or Stein are almost identical to Republicans is just incorrect.
Yes, a 2-party system is broken in the modern world.
I would love to have a 2-party system. But we have closer to a constellation of one party systems. Red States and Blue States, with a smattering of battlegrounds.
Between Winner-Take-All districts and the Electoral College, there’s very little incentive to participate in an election in a municipality or state that’s overwhelmingly one team or the other. And even when you do participate, you’re limited to… what? People blowing up your phone and email with donation requests? A few months of block walking for a local candidate who you get to meet maybe twice and who barely knows your name? Running around bothering your friends a week before voting day not to sleep through this one? Getting drunk at a campaign event on election night, only to be dropped like a bad habit in the morning?
The parties themselves aren’t really political entities. They’re more like boosters for professional athletics teams or celebrity tours that you’re expected to cheer for but never really interact with. They don’t do anything outside of an election season. They don’t provide any kind of constituent service or artery to the leadership themselves.
This consumerist politics is genuinely very different from the kind of organizing and activism that takes place throughout the rest of the democratic world. If it feels like Biden and Trump are just kinda being foisted on us by a cartel of party insiders, there’s a good reason for it.
I was under the impression that even in other countries, activism is generally separate from the political parties and it’s more like activist groups putting pressure on candidates and organizing for them if they are more favorable, and sometimes getting something in return.
I’ve seen exceptions, but I gather they are rare (and we can already see some change as the party is under pressure to become more “normal” and “competitive”).
I was under the impression that even in other countries, activism is generally separate from the political parties
You can see activist political movements operating in real time, in Pakistan and India right now. The Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf has been openly contesting the soft coup imposed by the state security services against former Prime Minister Imran Khan. And the India National Congress has been a big part of the outright mass mobilization of northern Indian farmers shutting down highways and blockading exports over the current President’s plan to privatize the agricultural sector.
59% of Americans should have been paying attention a year ago when something could have been done about it. The choice is made now, so accept the reality and choose one (preferably the one who is not a convicted sex offender with 93 felony indictments).
59% of Americans should have been paying attention a year ago when something could have been done about it.
What thing? The Democrats basically didn’t have a primary. All the potential internal rivals to Biden bowed out.
The Republicans had a conga-line of sacrificial lambs. I even saw a few spicy Op-Eds suggesting that a true anti-Trump Democrat should be actively campaigning for Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. But… Trump’s a fucking hog. He’s got every AM radio and Evangelical Church repping him. What were “59% of Americans” who’d been otherwise alienated from the political process supposed to do? Build an entirely new party from first principles and put… idfk… Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk on the top?
What were “59% of Americans” who’d been otherwise alienated from the political process supposed to do? Build an entirely new party from first principles and put… idfk… Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk on the top?
Jesus is that the 59% you think are alienated?
If the parties had been pushed hard enough for other options, they would have followed suit. The fact of the matter is that Trump and Biden beat everyone in the primaries. Biden won a primary where he wasn’t even on the ballot. Nikki Haley lost a ballot to "none of the above. The majority got the candidates they want. We are the minority.
If the parties had been pushed hard enough for other options
The parties were pushed. The problem is that the party leadership pushed back. And since they had all the money and the organized manpower and the influential media figures, they won.
It’s too little too late now.
Which is why Biden’s cruising for a bruising in November. His team made an executive decision to square off against Trump a second time, because the Dem Party assumed “ancient white male fossil” = “safe bet”. They had all the cards, so they got their way. And now they’re stuck with the weak hand they’ve chosen to play.
Biden won a primary where he wasn’t even on the ballot.
Biden won an unofficial NH contest in which his well-funded and professional GOTV team managed a better write-in campaign than a couple of nobodies.
The majority got the candidates they want.
95% of the primary vote hasn’t even happened and every other candidate besides Nikki Haley has suspended their campaigns.
The parties were pushed.
Not hard enough or by enough people.
team managed a better write-in campaign than a couple of nobodies.
A couple of nobodies is all that stepped up which is why Biden has to stay on. No better option stepped up.
every other candidate besides Nikki Haley has suspended their campaigns.
Because they lost every primary so far.
Saying we need better options is hindsight at this point. The time to push new candidates was more than a year ago, not once the primaries have already started.
The 41% of Americans who don’t think Biden and Trump are too old for this bullshit, are probably beyond elderly themselves.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/24/donald-trump-cpac-speech
Wow, was this a joke too?
Well, who do y’all think can beat trump, because that’s who’s running in 4 years regardless of this election’s outcome.
Boy did I love this argument in 2016
I’m not making an argument, I’m quite plainly asking for names, because the reality is that now is the time for whoever that is to start building a base. 2016 taught us that pure fucking charisma is enough to win an election, and that’s what the GOP is going to bank on from now until eternity since it worked for them once.
(And for anyone doubting Trump’s charisma, remember that a Sibriex has 25 CHA https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=sibriex)
Any Democratic candidate with a pulse, and tbh we could probably get voters to moderate their expectations on both of those points if we had to
60% of the country has grown to hate and fear Trump just as much as 40% of it adores him
I meant my question literally. If Biden wins 2024, Kamala 2028 feels like a bad decision. If it goes the other way, there’s a non-zero chance the Dems are running against trump3, or a trump-like that beats him in the gop primaries, or both.
Whoever the Dems field in 2028 has to start making a name for themselves sooner rather than later, and I’m mostly disappointed the Dems aren’t using the primaries as a way to show off that candidate.
After Obama’s upset rise it seems like the old guard are more dedicated to ensuring no such breakout could occur again. I can’t even recall who did the keynote address in 2020. AOC had to be invited in by Bernie to get some stage time. The only progressives I can remember were the actual primary candidates.
AOC is a fantastic communicator and Ayanna Pressley is probably the best orator in the party, but they’re just continually on guard from their left flank so instead of trying to build a youth operation that shares the same big tent but might be a little leftier than themselves they just shut them out of everything.
The 60/40 split is just untrue. And it’s untrue in a meaningful way. The favorability/unfavorability split is closer to 52/43 leaving 5% in afuzzy place. Without attuning to the needs and concerns of this 5%, a false sense of certainty can emerge leading to being surprised when things don’t go the obvious way.
Subsequently, people lean in to the only thing left to do, cantankerous online debate with people who just don’t get it.
These favorability polls don’t mean as much as giving the people who matter a story to pull that lever for your candidate. And the people that matter are the undecided in swing states. Without meeting and talking to these people, we don’t know what’s important for them.
That same metric for Biden is ~55/40, but he’s polling just barely ahead or even with Trump when the question is “who would you vote for” in pretty much all of the recent polls I’ve seen. I don’t think favorability is going to translate well into votes this election because there’s a decent number of voters out there who disapprove of Biden but are going to vote for him anyway, while all of Trump’s supporters are cult members who are going to give him 10/10 and everyone else 0s anytime they get the chance to.
These favorability polls don’t mean as much as giving the people who matter a story to pull that lever for your candidate
If it was a different election and we had different candidates, sure, but polls have been remarkably consistent - voters do not like Joe Biden. The best argument to get them to vote for him anyway “the Republicans will destroy the country, look at their nominee,” but it’s a really strong argument. That’s what won in 2020 and it’s only going to become a stronger message every time Trump gets a headline for saying something dumb and hateful.
The best argument to get them to vote for him anyway “the Republicans will destroy the country, look at their nominee,” but it’s a really strong argument.
I worry that tactic will result in low voter turnout. And that’s not good for Biden.
Polls consistently show that Biden does the best against trump compared to any other Democrat. Why so many people have deluded themselves into believing that Biden is the worst bet against trump will never cease to baffle me.
I tried to see if that had changed since this one poll, but it seems like they haven’t asked it since and I haven’t been able to find something comparable in another poll
Cross tabs for that October poll - https://web.archive.org/web/20240214192807/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/07/us/elections/times-siena-battlegrounds-registered-voters.html
Same poll in December without the question - https://web.archive.org/web/20240214192741/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/19/us/elections/times-siena-poll-registered-voter-crosstabs.html
The issue is that “Generic Democratic candidate” doesn’t exist. It doesn’t have any of the baggage or weaknesses of any actual candidate, and can represent anything to anyone. It’s kind of a pointless exercise. The funny thing is that Biden is kind of the generic democratic candidate.
Take a look here and search for any real democratic candidate (Newsom/Harris/Buttigieg/Whitmer/Etc) and you’ll see that he consistently does better against Trump.
Literally the first non-Biden result on that page is Michelle Obama +3 while Biden is -2. The next non-Harris poll has Whitmer +4 vs. Biden -8.
Interesting. On the desktop version, it has a filter right at the top. I assume you are using mobile because I don’t see it on my phone right now.
I just scrolled down reading results looking for not-Biden on the Democratic side.
What does it matter? Since one of them will serve another term unless Republicans decide to vote for Nikki Haley?
And yet nobody is willing to call out the selfish pieces of shit who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. They are dragging all of us down with them.
Literally.
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I believe he specifically said it during one of the debates. I really wish he would have followed through with it.
He has implied the only reason he’s running for a second term is because he doesn’t want Trump to be president again.
We can never know, but if Trump weren’t running, he might not be either.
Just because he has convinced himself that he is the only one that can beat Trump doesn’t make it true.
In fact I would argue that him running again is somewhat selfish.He has certainly had a good term, I am guilty of ignoring that, but he is old. Why have we let ourselves get into the position we are in.
Serious question: who do you think would be more likely to defeat Trump in November?
Like…there may very well be someone that you personally like more, but from a political strategy perspective, who’s out there that you think has better odds at defeating Trump?
Harris? Bernie?
I’m not arguing the implications of any position, but strictly making observations, I feel that, love him or hate him, Biden is the one person with the best odds to beat Trump in a nationwide general election, and I feel that this will still be true in November.
In 2020, I’d have said Warren. She was able to bring in almost every demographic, if she didn’t lose progressive votes to the infighting with Bernie.
In 2024, nobody has a better shot than Biden.
Totally agree, and I don’t have an answer. I am a filthy liberal so who I would want as president probably isn’t who the nation wants.
Bernie is good but he has age issues as well.
Kamala is probably the only reasonable choice. She was vice president so she has the experience and she is an ok orator to my knowledge.I haven’t really paid much attention though to be honest. I want someone with AOC’s politics leading the Democrats but that is never going to happen for lots of reasons.
In fairness, if 2020 had fallen differently Warren could’ve done it. If Bernie had backed her as a VP candidate instead of running, there was a solid shot they could’ve beaten Biden. She actually was leading the betting odds for “president” when the 2024 campaign began.
Warren had the opposite of what the Clintons had. She was a constantly progressive voter who could rally the moderate vote of a Harvard-trained law professor with a no-nonsense mindset.
She was also Obama-level known (unknown to common voters, but known to people who paid attention) so there wasn’t years of hate-news on her. The worst they could get was a true story about her having Native American ancestors that was intentionally blown out of proportion. That’s some Tan Suit shit there.
Kamala would rally the right so hard if she was the candidate. Heck when Biden ran in 2020, him picking her as a running mate caused the right to freak out enough already. They started these huge conspiracies saying day one Biden would step down and hand the presidency to her. Which even amongst some of my peers, I heard. It’s scary how conspiracy theories can spread.
Matter of fact, I wonder if reminding them of this point would have them be more skeptical for the next scheme…
Isn’t this an admission on your part that you believe moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with progressives and leftists?
What a warped view of the situation.
No.
First of all, it’s not “an admission” it’s an observation.
Second, it’s not about what I believe, it’s an observation.
Third, I’m not going to speculate on what a bloc of MI l millions of voters would “rather” do in your framework.
Biden was the nominee in 2020 not because he was the candidate anyone liked best, but because he was the candidate that everyone disliked least. In 2024 he’s still that candidate.
Further, and more to your point, the entire notion of “moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with progressives and leftists” is a wild misrepresentation if voting weight at best, and a total disconnect with the reality of the situation in all likelihood.
More accurately: if the left flank of the American left cannot get onboard with a candidate that the majority of the rest of the American left supports…not even when the alternative is a fascist…then it’s that left flank of the party who bears responsibility for being uncompromising, and letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I’d love to see a progressive president, but for that to happen, they need the votes. And it’s wildly unreasonable to expect the majority of the Democratic party back someone who won’t be able to carry moderates in swing states just because the progressives won’t back them unless they do.
Like it or not, leftists and progressives are a far more politically expendable bloc than swing state suburban moderates.
Maybe enough of them would to shift the election towards Trump. Even if it’s 60/40, losing 40% of the moderates could be a be death sentence for the Democratic candidate. Look at how many people “voted to send a message” in previous years. It’s sad but it might be true.
Just because he has convinced himself that he is the only one that can beat Trump doesn’t make it true.
An unpopular president typically does better than a popular candidate. That’s just how encumbancy works.
In fact I would argue that him running again is somewhat selfish.
Screw stats and precedent? Would you feel the same way if your favorite candidate ran and Trump crushed them by historic margins?
Why have we let ourselves get into the position we are in.
Because we’re a party of compromise, and the other side is a party fo extremism. Our compromise involved someone with a lot of bullet points in his favor for our older voters while still appealing to enough of our younger voters.
crew stats and precedent? Would you feel the same way if your favorite candidate ran and Trump crushed them by historic margin
Not entirely sure I follow but I guess that, that attitude is from my pessimism that an 81 year old can win the presidency. You are right that incumbents have a major advantage and it does seem silly to throw that away.
I also don’t have any idea who I would want to be running in his stead. As I have said elsewhere I am far left and like the Squads politics, but I am under no illusion that they could win a nationwide race. Even though the planet is burning.
Honestly, this sounds like an attempt to excuse the people who voted for him in the primaries but the reality is there is no good excuse. There were much better options. Voting for Biden in the primaries was selfish and foolish. If we aren’t clear about that the people making selfish and foolish decisions in the primaries will continue to make selfish and foolish decisions.
For curiosity sake, what’s selfish about voting for Biden?
Give me an example of a reason to vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries that wasn’t selfish or foolish.
I understand there are arguments to be made about it being foolish. I don’t agree but I could understand the arguments.
My question is how is it selfish? There are infinite reasons why it’s not selfish. For example, maybe you like moderates. Maybe you didn’t want trump to win and you thought he was the best candidate. Maybe you like that he likes ice cream. Maybe you closed your eyes and picked randomly. None of these are selfish reasons. I struggle to think of a selfish reason to vote Biden, unless you are Biden voting for yourself.
They ignored the voices and pleas of progressive and leftist voices who have been suffering under establishment Democrat leadership. Rather than find a compromise candidate they chose the epitome of establishment Democrat expecting that those voices would show up to vote for him anyway.
That’s selfish in my view.
Would you agree for the same logic for Republicans.
By voting a progressive leader, we would be ignoring the voices and pleas of those who have been suffering under the established Democrat leadership? Is this selfish?
What about of the roles were reversed? What if we had a progressive leader for the last 4 years and the moderates wanted Biden now. Would we be ignoring the voices and pleas of the moderates to keep our current progressive in? Is this also selfish?
You say “better options” but a clear majority of Democrats thought Biden was the better option. And all the other candidates that anyone took seriously are in the same age range as them. Nobody younger knocked on the door with a platform really worth backing. Buttigieg had no Federal chops whatsoever, Harris was a freaking prosecutor.
Or if you’re just talking “better in general”, then you’re talking about the Progressives war. Bernie still hasn’t realized he’ll never win a Primary, and the way his campaign sabotaged and undercut Warren’s with necessary voting demographics was a killshot. Grassroot movements to call her a secret Republican. They should be ashamed of themselves.
You say “better options” but a clear majority of Democrats thought Biden was the better option.
Were they right?
He did better than he promised at basically everything. I really wanted someone who would push the envelope to the Left, but he never promised that and a lot of Democratic voters didn’t want that anyway. He did recover us from COVID and dramatically improve the economy. He attempted some things that were more progressive than I expected of him, with various levels of success.
EDIT: he also compromised more with the Left than any president since Carter. Not much, but something
Sounds like you’re fine with the way things are working then.
I will not be voting for Joe Biden in 2024. I will be voting 3rd party.
You’re asking for an opinion.
A majority of Democrats thought Biden was the better option and despite the complaints of terminally online leftists, it appears they still do.
Yes I’m asking what your opinion is.
I personally liked Bernie but he sounded like a broken record at times. In hindsight I have my doubts he’d have won in the general anyway. Biden was easily the strongest candidate, who do you think was better?
Didn’t Warren’s campaign just shoot itself in the foot, trying to play political games rather than focusing on things like policies? I never saw anyone call her a secret Republican. Just someone who picked incompetent people who run her campaign.
I mean…no. Her campaign was arguably the polar opposite of that to her detriment. She said she wanted to do something. Then she wrote up a detailed plan for it and published it, letting the other candidates find something in the details they didn’t like and tear it apart.
She’s a policy wonk who is a law professor first and a politician second.
I never saw anyone call her a secret Republican
There were a lot of “grassroots” youtube videos that came out and took lines of hers out of context. They would softball questions like “Warren is just as good as Bernie because they vote the same a lot, right? WRONG! Warren is a capitalist pretending to be progressive to steal your vote”. And those grassroot video efforts started to trace back to Sanders campaign leadership. Nobody ever quite confirmed if Bernie directly knew his campaign was doing it, but the rule is usually that the campaign’s action sare the candidate’s responsibility.
She was doing fine when the focus was on policy. Then it turned to weird personal attacks and gotchas, and people stopped caring.
She was specifically asked if she had a conversation with Bernie where he said a very specific sentence. Nobody knows where the media got that information, but she answered truthfully and moved on. Then Bernie denied it up and down and turned it political.
How do we know who told the truth? Because they hot-micced her at the end trying to talk to him, shocked at how he accused her of lying on national TV.
If one had anything bad to say about Warren it’s that she didn’t know how to fight dirty anymore than Mcain did in his campaign. I’d buy that.
What is the population percentage of boomers, around 40%, per chance?
20% of population got 100% of presidents. Fucking iron throne.
98% of poll takers won’t do a goddamn thing about it. Even though that’s all it takes to get someone else elected.
If 59% think that they are both too old and 62% think that Trump is too old (regardless of Biden), does that mean that 3% think that Trump is too old but Biden isn’t too old, despite the objective fact that Biden is 4 years older than Trump?
Age is more than a number. Some people are very sharp at 80. Some are rapidly deteriorating at 60.
Nobody is very sharp at 80. What kind of bullshit is this? Would you get in the plane knowing the pilot and copilot were 80+ years old?
No, but I’d trust an 80 year old career pilot who is mentally sharp to write or weigh in on policies surrounding aircrafts.
Let me try again:
I don’t want anyone over the age of 70 to have anything to do with policy, law, etc.
It’s funny to see that some online commenters, including progressives, would happily point out what’s wrong with society and welcome the proposed most sensible solutions. But when it comes to placing mandatory retirement age for politicians, these commenters would quickly object and say age doesn’t matter so long as the person could perform the job well. And these same people are also happy with keeping the minimum voting age at 18 years old and the minimum age to become eligible for POTUS at 35. If age doesn’t matter to these objectors, they should also be open to lowering the age to vote and become president of USA. It says a lot that these objectors are old people themselves.
Here here.
Wild, because commercial airline pilots are forced to retire at age 65 in your country.
Edit: man I’m so baked I read the literal opposite meaning of your comment. I’m done for today, lol.
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I would vote for VP Kamala Harris to be POTUS before any of them others.
So Biden it is. The “Eisenhower Box” bends to No Hitler.
Where I’m at is that we vote for Biden, he survives 2 years and 1 day into his next term, then we get 10 years of President Harris.
Yikes. The only way Harris gets in office is if Biden leaves office early. There’s no way she’d win an open contest. Now maybe the machinery of the party could weasel another two terms of unpopular leadership, and maybe the Republicans just keep becoming more crazy and unelectable, so it could actually happen, but it’s in not exactly a scenario to look forward to.
“I’m not a Hitler!” Screams the politician
“That’s probably exactly what a Hitler would say!” - Americans treating politics like a game of Werewolf.
I literally don’t care if they Weekend at Bernies Biden, I will vote for him happily if the alternative is Trump.
Also.
Yup. Gladly and without a doubt or second thought.
Pretty much
Biden could drop out and they could nominate a literal piece of driftwood covered in seagull shit, and I would vote for the driftwood if it were between that and Trump.
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Which illustrates the missing piece of this conversation: When are we going to talk about the people who voted for him in the 2020 primaries? When are we going to state, repeatedly, voting for Biden in the 2020 primaries was a selfish and foolish thing to do?
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Then again, we can be certain that Biden won Trump.
There’s an argument to be made he defeated Trump because there were leftists and progressives who were willing to give him a chance. Do you feel confident he can count on those votes for a second time?
Well, first thing i would do is insult them. Then I’d tell them who they were supposed to vote for.
When are we going to state, repeatedly, voting for Biden in the 2020 primaries was a selfish and foolish thing to do?
Ah i see you already covered my main tactic. Now onto the spicy stuff: who’s the candidate they’re supposed to vote for? Or is it only important to vote for not-Biden? I’m curious who else would have crushed Trump in the election. Bernie?
Rather than attempt to defend my approach since you clearly disapprove of it help me understand what your plan is. The DNC primaries continue to produce shit candidates. How does that change?
I’m not claiming my plan is above judgement and your critique is certainly fair. But without an alternative to compare against those concerns are moot.
The DNC primaries continue to produce shit candidates. How does that change?
The Dem candidate is the representative for everyone who isn’t an insane far-right theocratic fascist. You aren’t going to convince anyone that they did anything wrong in 2020. People who don’t like Biden today aren’t the ones who voted for him in the primaries. We all voted for him anyway in the general because we don’t like flushing our ballots down the toilet.
We will always have shit candidates until the general election uses an intelligent voting system such as score or STAR.
I’m not seeing anything in your comment about an alternative plan to change the outcome. Do you have a plan for changing the general election to use the voting system to use score or STAR?
Again, I’m okay with the critique of my approach but if you don’t have one of your own then as you said “we will always have shit candidates”.
Driftwood probably wouldn’t form the best cabinet though
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You can always give money to the platform that made it possible - https://join-lemmy.org/donate
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Where’s the donate link for Lemmy world? I was actually looking for that, but hitting the donate button on their homepage took me to that link in already posted.
The best surprises come from unexpected places.
The bothsiderist media is happy to let a fascist slide into office all while acting like they just have to harp on Biden’s age.
Suppose Biden becomes unable to do the job. So what? There are plenty of capable people are him, and Harris will just assume the office. Big deal; not much changes.
But if tiny d gets into office…he’s been promising to be the con movement’s “vengeance” and promising to be a dictator (but only for a day, yeah right).
Depends on what you mean by the “media” because I’ll agree there are a lot of shitheel columnists and hack journalists out there, but I think there are a lot of very good ones too who are trying hard to do a very difficult job in a difficult historical moment, and I think they wouldn’t be doing their jobs properly if they didn’t talk about Biden’s age because it’s an obvious potential issue.
That all said, I agree with your second paragraph and strongly agree with the third.
But if tiny d gets into office…he’s been promising to be the con movement’s “vengeance” and promising to be a dictator (but only for a day, yeah right).
In that case the Democrats better put up somebody else besides Biden to vote for, so we don’t go there.
Age is more than a number. Some people are very sharp at 80. Some are rapidly deteriorating at 60.
This is the point I wish everyone would remember when they’re discussing this issue. It’s not the age, but the ‘wear and tear’ that matters.
Some people age more gracefully than others, and we truly do want to have our elders wisdom, especially during trying times.
Having said all that, my personal opinion on all of this is that Biden seems to have cognitively/physically worn down past the level required for the decision-making/stresses of the office of the Presidency.
If he wants to have a third party doctor give him a cognizant test, and he passes it, and he publicly notifies all of us voters of that, then I would be up for voting for him again.
But judging based on the very little I’m allowed to see, as a voter, based on how few public news conferences that he does, and having seen him faltering in some of those, it truly does seem like it’s time for him to move on.
Also IMO, Trump is a semen stain on the soul of America, and he quite literally is a test to see if America is America, or not. If we reaffirm our leader as someone who, as a ‘wolf in sheeps clothing’, is a very immoral and unethical grifter, then we are lost. All of us.
Not that it’s going to happen, but both parties should be putting someone else up as their candidates for the presidency of the United States of America in 2024.
If he wants to have a third party doctor give him a cognizant test, and he passes it, and he publicly notifies all of us voters of that, then I would be up for voting for him again.
Except for the fact that it’s generally military physicians who treat the President, he gets a cognitive test every year as part of his physical. Trump got one every year too, and was as proud as a toddler with a gold star sticker when he “passed” it. The white house releases the results of the President’s annual exam and, presuming you do not distrust the doctor, it is what it is.
Nobody is going to be administering some mental agility test on the President any more than they’ll be asking him to complete and pass the ACFT (Army Combat Fitness Test).
(IMO he should have stepped aside last year and let Kamala Harris take over as President to give her a chance to make her own case for re-election, making way for the next generation to lead.)
Kamala Harris probably has less chances than Hilary unfortunately. Remember whoever the Dems choose have to beat Trump. And the election cycle is sort of repeating what happened in 2016.
Nobody thought Trump had any chances. At the start of this election cycle DeSantis was beating Trump in polls. People thought Trump was done for. Then what happens? Trump is constantly on the news, just like in 2016. Then he dominates the GOP primary, just like in 2016.
The only candidate that has any chance to beat Trump is another populist candidate. Someone like Bernie but more aggressive and controversial.
Biden only won because he was the VP for Obama who was a popular president (relative to modern presidents). He was a great public speaker and was the last real “presidential” president we’ve had. A coherent and articulate speaker.
Kamala Harris simply would not inherit any meaningful public opinion from Biden. It would be the opposite - she would have to start from a worse position.
Biden is less popular than Trump. Both current popularity and if we go back to Trump’a popularity at the same time during his presidency. If the election was held today, Trump would win with a strong margin - according to the polls.
according to the polls.
Yeah, about those - I’ve been wondering who and how they’re polling. Nobody I know under 50 even has a real landline, and most of them don’t pick up calls on their cell unless it comes up as someone in their contacts. Same with SMS or any messaging. Web ads? Facebook ads (LOL)? It sure as hell isn’t email, either. It’s probably nearly impossible to get any realistic data in person since most people avoid in-person marketing even harder than online. The only people I know who do answer the telephone are old people - like over 55 or 60, and that’s a pretty skewed demographic.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
there’s a website that catalogues and compiles polls from various different sources. each poll asks something like 1500~ people. they do both telephone and online polling, depending on the polling organization. if you click on the poll, you can find out more about the organization and they often publish exact methods and data so you can look for yourself how they gathered the data
now, you’re right that the sample size is going to be different than the population. however, there is a science and math to this stuff where you can use formulas in order to account for that. let me give a simple example
let’s say you live in Townsville with a population of 60 people. 20 of those people are male and 40 are female. you want to find out whether everyone likes vanilla or chocolate ice cream, so you go to the bowling alley. at the bowling alley, there are 10 men and 10 women. so you survey everyone but you realize
the sample size demographics are different than the actual population demographics. in the population, females outnumber males 2 to 1 whereas in the sample population it’s 1:1. so you need to weigh your votes accordingly
you can either do one of two things - you can count every vote from a woman twice. or you can count every vote for a men at a ratio of 50%. that way you are representing the population demographics more accurately
polling agencies do this but with a myriad of different demographic properties. age, sex, gender, income, ethnicity, etc, in order to try to get a more accurate number. you will never be able to exactly represent a population with a small sample size, but you can get pretty damn close within a margin of error.
tldr: polls are not perfect but they absolutely can help predict public sentiment because of some statistical axioms (Law of Large Numbers, Central Limit Theorem, Random Sampling)
I agree that there are statistical methods to everything, and they are quite powerful. My concern is that population sample is limited and, in many ways self-selecting, due to the ability of pollsters to access a representative cross section of the (population/voting population). I noted the impossibility of getting a representative sample using telephone polling. Online would be just as fraught - huge demographics literally don’t participate in those communication methods, by choice. Granted, actual voting is similarly inaccurate, and can be wildly so, do to voluntary non-participation; but the cross product of phone/internet poll users and voters, I would suspect, is pretty far from 1.0.
Having said all that, my personal opinion on all of this is that Biden seems to have cognitively/physically worn down past the level required for the decision-making/stresses of the office of the Presidency
If JFK and Reagan could do it with all their health problems I think Biden will be fine. It’s not ideal, but the staffers of the White House and Pentagon can hold things together for a while if needbe, and I will take that over a Republican administration any day.
It’s a fact that the chance of an incumbent has a higher chance of winning a reelection. So, I understand why we are going with Biden. Even Biden said he was only going to run once. But this isn’t just some random election. This will likely determine if America is going to exist past 2024
Even Biden said he was only going to run once.
I don’t think Biden ever said that he would run only once. The news was that a few anonymous sources who were supposedly close to the Biden campaign said that he would not run for re-election and his campaign then denied that.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474059-biden-campaign-denies-one-term-report/
According to the same source he will be a 1 term president. Maybe they just covering their bases?
Yeah. The link I posted is a followup to that story, in which the Biden campaign says those rumors are false.
You have to read more than the headline (but even the headline has a hint that this is not Biden speaking directly). The article says “Four people who regularly speak with the 77-year-old Biden told Politico that it is unlikely he would run for reelection in 2024” It’s just rumors at best. More likely it’s propaganda to get people to not worry about his age.
Ya likely. Who knows except for him I guess. Well, at least we got Harris if he passes away. Can’t be said with Trump right now.
A useless poll. Both are on their tickets and will stay that way. Hey, I’d like to have a pony too …
There can be hope that they get the message for 2028 at least…
