Well I’m canadian so I’m not the best person to judge how americans would potentially react to her. I’m basing my opinion on how poorly she did in the last primary and the fact that Biden’s admin largely made sure we rarely saw her. This signals to me that she is simply not a favored person in the democratic political establishment.
That being said, the VP should be the person to replace him. That’s a given. And if democrats were to replace him with someone other than harris, I suspect many african americans will be pissed off. The whole thing is a massive cluster fu**, let’s be real.
The worst part is that I think this will already start affecting things in Ukraine and other places as people will start hedging their bets in anticipating of a second Trump presidency.
I’m not sure this is any different than any other administration. We rarely saw pence, Biden, Cheney, etc.
Given Bidens age, you could argue that was a bad call. It’s a cluster fck for sure now that Bidens age popped up as a major issue 4 months out.
But agree it’s hard to not go with her. She’s going to be POTUS at some point anyway with a Biden win.
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My impression before the 2020 election was that Joe intended to be a one term president and it was felt at the time he was the best person to beat Trump.
I expect though that once Joe drank the Kool-Aid of being POTUS he did not want to give up that heady office. It was still however a surprise to me that he decided to run in 2024 given my 2020 expectations.
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I often wonder if the Parties have control. Obviously they have a lot of power. And obviously they have a lot brains. But the people with the brains don’t control the power. And the people with the power have limits.
I think there are a bunch of solid candidates. Even ignoring all of them, Harris is fine. She will have to take over anyway, so she should be front and center now.
Imo, the big cost to Biden quitting is that it means admitting that we were wrong. And that the current Democratic president is unqualified. That is a big psychological blow. Not just to the party, but to voters and Americans.
(Of course Trump is completely unqualified, but neither he nor his voters will admit that, so it doesn’t count.)
In Australian politics, like British politics, it’s fairly common to change leaders mid-term. We had a leader that won three elections in a row (only three-year terms) and before the third election he said he was going to hand the reins over to his very capable deputy.
Of course, he changed his mind, the deputy quit politics altogether in disgust and they lost the next election terribly (including losing his own seat, which a sitting prime minister had never done before). It’s very hard to quit at the top. I believe Diocletian was the only Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate.
So, let it be. Anyone Republican who wants to use that against Democrats has to immediately look in the mirror at their own candidate that will be about 6 months older than Biden is now when the next term is over.
Also, the decision to go with Biden was not made last week, it was made almost a year ago, and perhaps at that time Biden was still sufficiently capable of getting through a debate. My own observation is that while most portrayals of Biden being too old have been dishonest, the amount of editing required to show that has been decreasing significantly recently. When you start to slip, it can go quickly.
If the Democrats turn to Harris, this puts the age issue 100% on Trump and the Republicans.
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I think the problem is that they don’t have to look in the mirror. It’s asymmetrical warfare because Trump voters just don’t care about whether he is fit for the job.
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Yup. Tears of liberals are all that matter.
What about the non-Trump voters? “The Democrats can’t lead because they almost ran an 81 year old and chose not too at the last minute” might be an interesting point from any team except the one that is definitely still running a 78 year old that everyone knows has batshit crazy personality defects.
Because those are the votes that are up for grabs.
They are also the ones that have been saying pretty loudly “these two teams suck if they can’t find anyone better than mentally unfit 80 year olds” for the last year.
I think it’s a lose-lose situation for Democrats. If they replace Biden quickly and get their messaging together it could be fine, but I don’t see that happening. Or they try to rally behind Biden and hope people can get over it by November (99.9% chance of this btw). All the public infighting does them no good at all imo.
What public infighting? There have only been a few from within the party that are really calling Biden to leave the race, with most saying they will support his decision whatever it is.
If they rally behind Biden, people can forget it, but only if this was truly a one-off night for him. If it is the public start to a fast decline, all else being equal, Trump is POTUS 1/20/2025.
I guess I’m more referring to the press narrative that seems to be wildly overreacting and calling way more attention to this than it deserves, instead of doing the vastly more important job of highlighting the absolute catastrophe that comes with a second trump administration. I know they want to keep him relevant because it means $$$ for them, but it seems short-sighted.
Maybe, I’d still argue it was much more gut wrenching to witness live having no idea how it would go, and the press would have all been watching closely.
At this point, I am not sure what more the media can do to highlight the danger of a second Trump presidency. Who is listening that might hear something new? Trump has been effective at getting people to tune it out.
Getting people, in particular young people, excited about a “not Trump” option that isn’t Biden has been a path buried in polling for months now.
Joe Biden has a pretty big role in this as well.
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Agreed. He needs to be out there doing media and being energetic.
the american public deserve to have an independent expert evaluate both candidates for mental acuity. disclose the results. if biden fails then he drops out. otherwise he comes out pretty well and we move on.
you need to be transparent about these things. look at fetterman and how he handled his own issues.