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Biden resists allies’ calls to exit race after debate performance: ‘I know I’m not a young man’ (www.latimes.com)

submitted 4 months ago by ToastedPlanet to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] ToastedPlanet 95 points 4 months ago

The discourse around Biden exiting the race is moot because the only one who decides if he continues is Biden. Biden is still running so nothing changes. Biden is who we need to vote for to keep our democracy.

Biden had a bad debate performance. It was a missed opportunity to pick up new voters. Biden demoralized his base. But we're still stuck with him, because there is no external mechanism to stop him from running.

The most effective tool we have to prevent the christo-fascist takeover this November is voting. The debate did not change that.

[-] Tinidril@midwest.social 44 points 4 months ago

the only one who decides if he continues is Biden.

Got it.

Biden is who we need to vote for to keep our democracy.

Um, what? Vote Biden to save Democracy, and fuck you if you want a different candidate.

I'll vote for Biden's corpse in 2028 if it's still the only way to keep Trump out of the Whitehouse, but give up the "save Democracy" schtick. That ship has sailed. Democracy is dead, and it's not just the Republican's fault.

[-] ToastedPlanet 25 points 4 months ago

Democracy is still alive for now. That's why voting matters. Our flawed democracy is still our best chance at adverting fascism. Which is why the fascists want to take it away. Giving up early gets us nothing. So keep fighting.

[-] pjwestin@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

I think his point is that, if our only alternative to fascism is to vote for a senile old man who was forced upon voters without a primary, then this system can't credibly be called democracy.

[-] ToastedPlanet 4 points 4 months ago

It is still democracy. It doesn't matter how old the candidate is.

[-] Cityshrimp@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Its not about how old the candidate is, its about not having other valid alternatives when you dont like the candidate chosen for you.

Edit: just to make sure the point gets across. Imagine going to a restaurant, the waiter asks if you want to drink moldy water or toxic industrial waste. You see behind him lies an array of normal, refreshing beverages but sorry, you weren’t given those choices so you can’t have any of that. Thats basically this election.

[-] ToastedPlanet 4 points 4 months ago

We live in a first-past-the-post voting system. These choices, Biden and Trump, are in part the result of that system. We need to change to a different system like rank choice voting or approval voting. But despite being flawed, our system is still a democracy.

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[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 27 points 4 months ago

I don't understand this chain of logic why we need to keep Biden:

Biden isn't the best candidate.
Only Biden can drop (false)
Biden will never make the adult decision to retire.
We have to plow forward with Biden because he'll never change his mind on anything.

Like, the argument for why Biden has to stay, is just reasons he shouldn't stay...

And it's not just up to him. It's up to the DNC.

We are not stuck with Biden.

Biden and the DNC just know that's the only way people will vote for him, so they've been reporting it for like 5 years now.

[-] ToastedPlanet 12 points 4 months ago

Only Biden can drop

This is a true statement. Biden won the primary. The delegates are pledged to him. Biden is the one who has to decide if he drops out.

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[-] match@pawb.social 17 points 4 months ago

sounds like the party is dysfunctional if we can't replace a candidate with 120 days of leadup. that's longer than any other country's election season. the inability of the democratic party to do good things on purpose makes a strong argument against their leadership if what they think they offer is competence

[-] ToastedPlanet 4 points 4 months ago

The Democratic Party is still the best option when the only viable alternative is a christo-fascist party.

[-] rayyy@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

The guy didn't ace a debate with a sore throat and jet-lag so the media loses its shit. The orange liar has rape and 34 felony convictions- crickets. Nothing new here.

[-] AmidFuror@fedia.io 8 points 4 months ago

I searched for an editorial board opinion in the New York Times which said Trump should withdraw from the Republican ticket because he lied throughout the debate, but I couldn't find one. Why didn't they write one?

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Because the media is complicit and owned by the same oligarchs that have taken control of our country.

[-] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

There are two standards. Everyone expects Republicans to be lying shitheads so when they are, no one is surprised.

We somehow just accept this.

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 months ago

I'm running on an independent ticket. My platform: Unlike the other two candidates no one wonders if I can physically handle the journey from back stage to the podium.

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[-] riodoro1@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

the only one who decides if he continues is Biden … vote for to keep our democracy.

I … I don’t think that’s a democracy.

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[-] rayyy@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Biden was tired from too many engagements, jet lag and a sore throat. You could see he was tried. On the other hand, the orange felon/rapist/liar had one job - to not be an asshole - he failed spectacularly.

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[-] IzzyScissor@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

We're past "preventing" the Christo-fascist takeover. We're in damage control now.

VOTE.

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[-] Rottcodd@lemmy.world 52 points 4 months ago

I pessimistically expected that.

If he bowed out and the Dems nominated a halfway decent candidate (which they likely wouldn't do, but that's a different subject), they'd demolish Trump. He'd lose so badly he couldn't even pretend it was fraudulent (though of course he'd claim that anyway, since he has the emotional maturity of a spoiled five-year-old). The race would instantly go from a terrifying risk to a complete rout.

But between Biden's ego and the DNC's determination to stick with a wholly-owned establishment neoliberal hack at all costs - even if it means losing - I expected that they wouldn't take this golden opportunity.

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 38 points 4 months ago

On the stream of the debate I was watching, when they took a break they showed clips from previous debates and the difference was kind of mind-blowing.

I honestly kind of think that even a mid-level candidate who didn't make it like Romney or Kerry probably could have mopped the floor with either one of them.

Also as a side note, how lucky is Donald Trump? Just a whole life of being handed infinite money no matter how many times he fucked up a business, a bewildering assortment of crimes with essentially no hard consequences, and two presidential runs against pretty much the only two people he has any chance of beating in a debate.

He's had a life of almost non-stop softballs. It's kind of wild really.

[-] Jordan117@lemmy.world 26 points 4 months ago

But between Biden's ego and the DNC's determination to stick with a wholly-owned establishment neoliberal hack at all costs - even if it means losing - I expected that they wouldn't take this golden opportunity.

Biden has objectively been the most progressive president since LBJ, and the most effective progressive president since FDR. And he did it with about the slimmest possible congressional margins, a situation which would have made it very easy for an actual "establishment neoliberal hack" to say "my hands are tied" and accomplish nothing of substance. Instead we got the biggest climate reform package ever, the biggest infrastructure package since the Interstate Highway system, a child tax credit that massively reduced child poverty, the most significant industrial policy in decades (CHIPS and Science), a veritable bulldog FTC chair with an aggressive anti-monopoly stance, and that's just for starters.

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 7 points 4 months ago

He's pro genocide. That automatically makes him not progressive.

[-] itsgoodtobeawake@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

That's all well and good... And it will be for nothing. Biden's legacy will be that of RBG - your hubris handed the future to the opposition. These are dark days.

[-] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago

This is simply fan fic.

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 10 points 4 months ago

You're not wrong. Some truths are inconvenient and unpopular, but they're not wrong.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 44 points 4 months ago

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” the 81-year-old Biden said Friday. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong and I know how to do this job.”

trump didn't think he was wrong when he was breaking human rights laws on our southern border.

And Biden apparently doesn't either now that he's doing it.

My point being the people who do evil shit, usually dont think of themselves as evil.

The problem with Biden, is on issues like Israel where the vast majority of not only his party but the country won't him him to calm the fuck down. He never will

Because he is absolutely sure his outdated morals are the best, and he's not listening to anyone that disagrees with him.

[-] smokin_shinobi@lemmy.world 39 points 4 months ago

This gonna be the first time you have to choose between the lesser of two evils?

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 36 points 4 months ago

Personally, that has been the only way I've ever been able to fucken vote and I'm sick of it.

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[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago

The lesser of two evils is exactly how we fucking got her in the first place.

[-] FlowVoid@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

You get a chance to vote for your dream candidate in the primary.

If they're not on the ballot in the general, that's because other voters didn't find your dream candidate so dreamy.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Bullshit.

The primary process is so heavily fucked between superdelegates, and games played by the DNC that it’s pointless to even try.

Or did you forget it was the superdelegates that fucked Bernie in the early primary, as well as all the other games like removing his access to voter roles for a bug that was reported by his staff,

As well as the first few states generally dictate the course of the primary.

You’d have a point if a) every state primaries on the same day, b) superdelegates didn’t exist, and c) the DNC abided by its own rules.

[-] FlowVoid@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Bernie Sanders got fewer votes than Clinton in 2016 and fewer votes than Biden in 2020. That's why he wasn't the nominee.

Politics ain't beanbag. If you can't get the most votes than you deserve to go home.

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[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

They know and they love it.

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 9 points 4 months ago

I mean, the greater evil would presumably have gotten us worse. And in a system that is set up so as to inevitably produce two viable parties, and where "good" is not on the ballot from either, what else do you expect people to do?

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

change it, naturally.

contrary to popular belief, this system only lasts as long as we allow it to last.

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 12 points 4 months ago

"just change the system" is easier said than done, which I suspect you realize of course, since if it were so easy, you'd have changed it yourself already. The difficulty in such change is that it requires a very large number of people to act in unison, which is quite rare, especially when most people aren't literally starving, and have different ideas over what they want the system to be, some of which might be better, but some of which might be as bad or worse. It's a bit like how libertarian types sometimes remark that, if everyone stopped paying taxes, the government would run out of money and be unable to enforce them anymore: technically true, but requires humans to act with uncharacteristic unity towards a singular goal, against pushback from established power. Not to say that it never happens, but it does not seem to happen reliably or in a way that can be readily forced to occur.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Maybe everybody should just vote for me. I'll end our support for Isreal. I'll massively increase our support for Ukraine, and I'll send George Clooney a birthday card every year with a pop-up middle finger, that pops out of a card that says "You're getting older, you smug fuck!"

Also bacon. Just....just bacon.

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[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That quote is so stupid.

"yeah I'm in cognitive and physical decline, but I'm totally capable of leading one of the most powerful and influential nations in history. Trust me bro."

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

You're not wrong........but the other option is trump.

We're all fucked.

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 14 points 4 months ago

At least he sounded a lot more energetic and present in this speech. What happened on stage?

[-] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Didn't have a teleprompter on stage

[-] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You also don't really need to think for a speech. You've got a friendly audience who won't challenge you and you know exactly what the next topic is, so you can focus on inflection and timing and emotion. It's good to see him have some life in the speech, but it's not really much of a counter to his terrible debate performance.

And incidentally, that's probably why Trump's performance sounded better. He also didn't really need to think about substance because he was just speaking to whatever topic he felt like and making things up without concern for truthfulness or challenge.

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 months ago

I think he was just sick on an unlucky day.

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[-] Nobody@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

Biden could commit to only serving one more year and let the VP pick go to a brokered convention.

[-] ToastedPlanet 6 points 4 months ago

Biden has already committed to serving four more years.

[-] itsgoodtobeawake@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

He probably shouldn't serve another week. Where the fuck is the democratic leadership on this?

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this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024

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