One House Democrat said he spoke for others in the wake of the president’s stunningly feeble debate performance on Thursday: “The movement to convince Biden to not run is real.”

The House member, an outspoken defender of the president, said that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should consider “a combined effort” to nudge President Joe Biden out of the race.

Crestfallen by the president’s weak voice, pallid appearance and meandering answers, numerous Democratic officials said Biden’s bet on an early debate to rebut unceasing questions about his age had not only backfired but done damage that may prove irreversible. The president had, in the first 30 minutes of the debate, fully affirmed doubts about his fitness.

A second House Democrat said “reflection is needed” from Biden about the way ahead and indicated the private text threads among lawmakers were even more dire, with some saying outright that the president needed to drop out of the race.

  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Who?

    Kamala? She’ll lose to Trump.

    Newcom? Not even liked in California.

    Pete Buttigieg? LGBT rights are being wiped out right now because a huge upswing in recent homophobia and you think an openly gay candidate has a chance?

    You need to start listing names if you want this discussion to be taken seriously. There’s a reason why Biden was chosen in the first place, because no one could list a better choice. The same problem exists today.

    Just give them someone they aren’t completely ashamed of.

    People are surprisingly creative at being ashamed of Democrats. But are never ashamed of Trump. At some point, you need to just stop being so ashamed at the Democrat’s current choice: Biden.

    I recognize this is a tough time, but you need to seriously start listing names. I’m not a Democrat so I’m not going to be at the primary or convention or whatever. But I would like to see a strong Democrat party so that I can confidently vote against Trump in November. I don’t care if its Biden, Pete or whoever honestly. But this gnashing and wailing when you can’t even deliver a name in your post is annoying to me.

    • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Literally every one of those names is one I would vote for if put on the ballot. The bar is that low. It is dangerously low, they could run anyone and people would show up to vote, red flags or not. We’re mostly interested in taking a loan to pay the piper at this point, a future catastrophe can be dealt with after we deal with the current catastrophe.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, but you’d vote for Biden too.

        The question isn’t about who you or I’d vote for. The question is who’d “Joe Moderate” would vote for?

        And spoiler alert: “Joe Moderate” isn’t exactly a feminist or LGBT ally. “Joe Moderate” is the various citizens of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan who flipped from Red to Blue in 2020.


        So you’re saying Joe Moderate is going to vote for a Female Governor? An openly gay politician? Or the California man who is proudly pushing ACCII to force people to buy Electric Cars? I don’t think so.

        • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Fuck sake, why do you have to be right?

          My immediate response was “well anyone who is paying attention absolutely would vote for one of them given the alternatives of Trump and Biden” but that’s exactly the point, most people aren’t paying enough attention. I can’t even argue with that. And the people whose vote we have to court the most are the fence sitters who definitely especially aren’t paying proper attention. Fuck.

          I don’t even have more to add to that, now I’m just depressed. Because you’re right, I WOULD vote for Biden anyway even if I hate it, I said so myself, so I’m not even the target audience here. And Joe Moderate is going to ratchet us three clicks further right just in order to attempt preventing even worse.

          On some level I definitely already knew all this but I have to say this is throwing it all into some pretty stark light.

          • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Rest assured, Biden’s methodology has reached across the aisle and really solidified my support for him. I’m not liberal in the slightest and I recognize I’m probably a minority of people who considers themselves “conservative”. But Biden’s approach did reach out to me in a way that no other Democrat has.

            I think you’re underestimating Biden.

            That’s where my confusion comes in. I really don’t think Trump did very well on that stage, and you should instead be talking about how Trump literally defended January 6th to your cohort. Instead of a few missed lines and typical Biden blunders.

            Biden always sucked at these debate settings. Yes, he’s older and even worse at it, but Biden wasn’t really that good in 2020 either. None of this shit is new to Biden voters.


            Liberals really go hyperbolic and freak out at little things. Yall should learn from the Conservatives and I dunno… put a bit of Trust in the leader yall chose? Republicans have put too much faith in Trump, but Democrats consistently put too little faith in their leaders (and this entire episode of people calling on Biden to step down / be replaced is a continuation of this Democrat tradition).

            So Trump is a charismatic liar / Reality TV Star who uses his literal WWE experience to form a bullying debate style that’s popular amongst the US Public. You already knew that, right? How else did you think this would go? It went like this last time in 2020.

        • Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Is Joe Moderate going to vote for an old man that can easily be legally declared incompetent to manage his own life, let alone an entire country? I doubt it.

          • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Joe Biden stumbled but what the hell?

            Trump was the one talking in circles about immigrants and was literally unable to respond to the moderator’s questions.

            Biden’s age is showing, but Trump’s brain is turning into cheese. The difference is that Republicans proudly rally behind their cheese-brain candidate while yall scardy-cats backstab Biden the first chance yall get.

            • Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Pretty sure Biden was asked about abortion rights and went on a rant about a woman murdered by an immigrant and then trailed off into nothingness.

              • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                The entirety of the 2nd half of the “Debate” had Trump talking about how Social Security is ruined by immigrants. Medicare ruined by immigrants. January 6th is ruined by immigrants.

                It was some fucking nonsense. And somehow, I go online and not a single Democrat in a discussion is pointing out this severe weakness of Trump.

                • Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Because everyone, including his own base, knows he is a liar. It isn’t new and is honestly exhausting to talk about. Nobody fucking cares anymore. People are either not voting for him or they have already decided to disassociate from reality. Trump is too polarizing and Biden will not pull any votes from Trump. Biden needs to pull in people that are on the fence between voting for Biden or not voting at all. Debates will not pull anyone from Trump and are a waste of time. Unless he can do something in a debate that can convince fringe people to show up to vote, debates will only hurt him. And it very much hurt him. Now people realize the guy who could barely complete a sentence when he was 77 didn’t miraculously get better before he turned 81.

                  • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    It isn’t new and is honestly exhausting to talk about.

                    And yet talking about Biden’s advanced age is new and not exhausting to talk about?

                    Because let me tell you one thing: the discussion you’ve chosen to get worked up about, plays to your political opponent.

    • Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yes, Kamala, Newsom, who the fuck ever. Biden isn’t on this ticket because there was nobody else, he is on this ticket because they shoehorned in a sock puppet. The poor old man at one point had a name for himself but since there are a bunch of people around him that wanted to profit off the name he made for himself, he has instead turned into a senile old man on the public stage. That is the stamp he leaves in the history books because he is surrounded by shitbags that are taking advantage of an old man who cannot cognitively make decisions for himself anymore.

      There was a laundry list of candidates pushed out for him last cycle and they refused to primary him this cycle, because they can take advantage of him, worst case scenario they get Trump to lower the bar further for 2028.

      I would vote for any one of those people a thousand times over putting Biden or the country through what is happening now. AND SO WOULD ANYONE ELSE. If you think centrist dems will vote for Trump because the other option is a gay man, that’s crazy. If you think the far left will vote for Trump over Kamala because she’s a cop, you’re crazy. One thing a LOT of people won’t vote for is an old man that can’t even fucking talk.

      I will vote for Biden if that’s all that’s offered purely because I can handle stupidity due to an actual mental deficit. I can’t handle the willful ignorance of facts and pure evil from Trump and his cronies. Most people (and I am not referring to the type of people cruising a politics sub) just won’t fucking vote.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        If you think centrist dems will vote for Trump because the other option is a gay man, that’s crazy. If you think the far left will vote for Trump over Kamala because she’s a cop, you’re crazy.

        Its not centrist dems who are in charge of this situation. Its Joe “Independent” who kinda-sorta is flirting with Ron DeSantis’s Don’t Say Gay bill and has eaten 8 years of anti-Democratic women propaganda from the right. Kamala is a difficult to pronounce name and she ain’t exactly white looking. My racist buddies don’t like her face or how she talks.

        Honestly, I think Kamala has a chance vs Trump directly. She’s much more of a “fighter” type and I actually think her lawyer background would keep her more witty than both Trump and Biden. But you’re severely mistaken about the nature of Kamala’s problem as a Presidential top-of-the-line leader of the Democrats.

        People in the USA are racist fucks, and the moderates who flip the vote are “mildly racist” (not enough to say they’re against Kamala or Clinton on womanhood alone, but instead use weasel words like “Not strong enough” or “Bad politics for Russia”, etc. etc.).


        The main benefit we anti-Trumpers have going for us (note: I’m not a liberal), is that you Liberals have +4 more years off GenZ entering the voting pool and Conservatives have -4 years of Baby Boomers dying off.

        GenZ / Youth Vote is famously finicky but if everyone just votes the same as 2020, this is all quite in Biden’s favor actually. Do you think Biden’s performance yesterday was truly so bad that “Joe Moderate” is flipping over to Trump now?

        I don’t think so. Add the GenZ (however tepid their turnout will be) and we got this.