I probably sound like a broken record, but Biden stepping down is the best way forward at this point. Regardless of what you think about his capacities, he’s lost the confidence of too many of the party’s representatives. That’s poison going into an election.
It’s too late. should he have stepped down yes. But he didn’t so now we need to push his corpse over the finish line. If we don’t then it’s a hand off to the other party because of how first past the post works.
Or, you know, have the convention that’s scheduled for 6 weeks from now.
You will never coalesce popular support around someone in the time between the convention and the election if they haven’t already been campaigning for months. And tno one has.
But he didn’t so now we need to push his corpse over the finish line. If we don’t then it’s a hand off to the other party because of how first past the post works.
I would argue that it’s not too late. The two-party system, for once, works in our favor. People overwhelmingly vote for parties anymore, not candidates. As long as we have someone with decent name recognition who isn’t falling apart or perceived as falling apart, we are very capable of getting to a better position for the election this November.
Unfortunately, the most likely candidate who meets those criteria is Harris. But c’est la vie.
Harris is very unpopular with a large portion of the democratic base because of her very close ties with law enforcement and resistance to criminal justice reform while Attorney General of California.
Anyone who can’t support Harris because she was a prosecutor wouldn’t be supporting Biden because he wrote the crime bill, something that’s WAY worse. It’s still an improvement.
Unfortunately, the most likely candidate who meets those criteria is Harris. But c’est la vie.
C’est la vie? Are you serious? Have you been in the US this last 20 years?
This country is too racist and too sexist for Harris to win… It’ll never happen, no matter how much money is pumped into her campaign, you can’t change the nature of the country, it’ll never happen.
I say this as a minority myself, this country sucks and it merely tolerates people who aren’t white men. Putting Harris on the Democratic ticket is a huge tactical error, I hate that fact, but it’s true.
If you want Harris to be president, reelect Biden and wait for him to resign due to health.
You’re unfortunately right. It doesn’t help that she can be combative from her years as an attorney. Working retail with many black people for years taught me that the ignorant white world has a much lower tolerance for strong black women. I was frequently called over for conflict resolution due to a “hostile employee” complaint, to find my team member was completely calm and collected, but the old white person perceived a black woman speaking with conviction as overly aggressive.
I love this bizarre narrative that the country who elected Obama and majority voted for Clinton is so racist and sexist that they’d be more supportive of a white man who can’t reliably form coherent sentences. Like yeah, racism and sexism is a thing, but it’s both not worse than public cognitive impairment and you’re deploying the specter of bigotry in order to implement its goals without even putting up a fight.
We did elect Obama, and look at the reaction that caused… The tea party, a completely obstructionist Congress who refused to consider anything the president touched and ultimately the election of Donald Trump.
Obama was elected and half the country freaked the fuck out.
I remember telling people in early 2008 that racists would go apeshit and our entire political landscape would change if he win the primary/got elected, and being treated as if I was somehow racist at the time.
In hindsight, I was wrong.
Yes, what I predicted, and what you said did happen. But we’re wrong because Obama ran as a progressive, and promptly switched into being a milquetoast centrist democrat. What’s more, is that his supporters didn’t extend their support to other liberal causes.
The tea party would have died on the vine if the Democratic Party let liberals feel empowered, rather than like pawns. And if his die-hard supporters had showed up in 2010, state legislatures wouldn’t have been able to gerrymander away/suppress turnout as much as they did - rendering his next 6 years fraught and an uphill battle.There are more liberal than conservative people in the U.S., but the Democratic Party does not engage with them, instead chasing the middle, and hoping the liberals hold their noses and cast their vote.
Yes, and those people are a minority and already fully on board with the racist that built his political identity around being racist. Obama not only won, but won reelection. These are issues, but they’re already baked into the two parties, not a prescription for automatic failure.
Yes, and those people are a minority and already fully on board with the racist
They’re a vocal minority that is managing to shift the opinions of the rest of the right, it’s a problem. If you think racism is not currently on the rise in the US, you should take another look.
And Obama was then reelected years after the Tea Party formed and fizzled out. It’s like you’re arguing that only white men should run for president because women and minorities will wind up causing too many problems for the country.
It’s like you’re arguing that only white men should run for president because women and minorities will wind up causing too many problems for the country.
Whoa! I said nothing like that! I think you know that’s a complete misrepresentation. I’m saying that there are too many people in this country (on both sides of the aisle) with racist and sexist leanings (that they may not even be aware of) for it to be likely for Harris to win right now. I think Harris would do a fine job if she did win.
I just don’t trust the voters of this country to see past their biases. I think if Harris had been the candidate from the start we would have had time to combat those concerns and make her a viable candidate, but coming in late like this she’ll seem like a replacement, like the Democrats’ plan B. And that’s a harder position to win a campaign from, a position I don’t think is viable given America’s many biases.
Yes, Clinton won the popular vote, but she certainly didn’t win the election. And that was largely because of the systemic bias, which favors the more racist, sexist elements of this country.
And Obama had to be the perfect candidate to win. A family man, no skeletons in his closet whatsoever, with a charisma the political world hasn’t seen since JFK. And his election brought those awful elements of our society to the fore, and touched off a fascist revolution that is still going on today, which the leader of won the presidency on the back of and is in danger of winning it again.
This country does have a lot of racism and sexism. More than most would like to admit, including you, it seems. And Kamala Harris isn’t a strong enough candidate to overcome that, especially when you combine it with the other factors of having to unite a fractured party, coming into the race late, and being chosen at the convention rather than through the primary process.
Obama won reelection, and Clinton was a bad candidate that lost on the margins in the EC. This isn’t a prescription for failure meaning we all need to be racist and sexist now. The people for whom racism and sexism is a guiding light are already baked into the electoral system. They have their party, and they have their king, and apart from this contest against Biden, they’ve been losing.
And all of this is in comparison to a candidate who is visibly mentally declining. We’re not comparing Kamala to white male Kamala in talking about this transition.
So basically the same thing happened to trump i 2016 but he still won, kinda funny how the news and even the people he worked with, the politicians, don’t know shit about politic.
Here’s my favorite quote: "The Republicans, you’ve got to remember, have been running for a long time. The reason they don’t win is because they don’t stick together.”
Yeah, and he lost the popular vote. I don’t think our demographics are so friendly as to let as lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, like Republicans do.
Commentary from someone on a podcast was that Biden thinks that he proved wrong everyone who doubted him in the past in 2020 and that he’s sticking with that mindset now. It was a scary idea.
What’s scary is the DNC basically forced Biden out of retirement because he was the only establishment person who could beat Bernie. Biden even said at that point that he only wanted to run for one term…
