But I’ve still got it says Joe
Biden’s poor performance sent leading Democrats into a panic on Thursday night, after the US president appeared shaky and at points struggled to finish sentences. It amplified fears about his age and fitness for office that it had been hoped the debate would allay.
It seems kind of stupid and reality-denying to hope that given the realities. What’s he going to do, rip off his shirt to reveal the Superman leotard underneath?
The former US president Barack Obama defended Biden in a social media post on Friday. “Bad debate nights happen,” he said. “But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”
Yes but there are other people who have fought for ordinary folks their entire lives and are not as fragile and fumbling as Biden is now.
In a campaign stop in North Carolina on Friday, Biden appeared far more energised and coherent. He acknowledged his widely panned debate performance.
“I don’t walk as easily as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said. “But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth.”
Oh ffs. Those are skills you need in order to do the job, and for that matter to get the job. You can’t be telling us you’ve lost them but you’re still the right guy to defeat Donald Fucking Trump.
We’re doomed.
We’re being asked to risk the future of the planet to avoid hurting an old man’s feelings. Fuck the fuck right off with that.
We don’t do that with driver’s licenses: if you’re too old to pass the driver’s test, you gotta relinquish the steering wheel. We all know why: because someone could get hurt or killed.
So why is it any different with the White House? Shouldn’t the same logic apply, only more urgently? If you’re too old to win a debate against an uhinged criminal madman, you gotta relinquish the Presidency? Because the whole planet could go up in flames?
The fucking entitlement of these men. Mind you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to step down when she was way too old. And it cost us a crucial seat on the Supreme Court bench. So it’s not just men who act this way.
Regardless, we have to say no to people in power when they can’t do the job anymore. Even people we respect and care about.
Thanks Obama!
Nobody wins debates against an unhinged criminal madman.
Too late. Biden drops out, Trump wins. There are no other options.
What is the empirical evidence that these debates move voters? If you support abortion rights, separation of Church and State, improved access to healthcare, etc, are you now going to Vote Trump because Biden was piss-poor on a TV rating fest?
Again, too many people are falling for the mass media setting the agenda.
Outside the beltway and the boardrooms of CNN/MSN/Fox, do the punters really give a tinker’s cuss about these “debates”, or are they more focused on policy?
Stop playing the media’s game. Stop giving up on your democracy by wasting time over this manufactured garbage, and engage with your family, friends, colleagues, and yes, even your enemies, and discuss policies., talk about the America you want and how to get there.
Be less Tucker Carlson and more Noam Chomsky.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
The debates absolutely move the voters — especially when something newsworthy happens in them. This debate was definitely newsworthy, and not just over who “won” or “lost”. Chatter about Biden’s performance goes much further than CNN and the beltway. It’s all over all the media, including the all-important social media. If the only thing that mattered was big-ticket ideological positions like abortion and church-state separation, the candidates wouldn’t bother to campaign. This is very very bad, and wishful thinking about good intentions won’t make it go away.
Personally I hate the debates and wish the tradition had never been started, but that ship sailed long ago. It’s no good saying oh just ignore them.
As for “engage with your family, friends, colleagues, and yes, even your enemies” – excuse me? I can decide for myself what people I engage with.
Normally the debates don’t move the needle much, but it highlighted a problem general wisdom said Biden already had… He doesn’t look like your grandfather anymore, he looks like your great grandfather (and yes I know I’m the babbie here). What the Biden team wanted us to see was Trump acting insane, which he did slightly less than usual. It generated a stack of decidedly unflattering clips that will be splattered all over Internet memespace.
So yes, Rev, it’s terrible because the issues are immigration and the economy and the only voters who can sway the election are too stupid to think beyond “stuff cost less in 2017 and migrants are streaming over the border”.
I think debates have an effect on voters. They don’t change people’s minds on issues of policy or moral stance, but they solidify or undermine perceptions of the candidates’ competence, which people judge through the proxy of how confident and articulate they each seem. Coming across as frail and confused is disastrous.
I haven’t watched the debates, but the reports are horrifying. (Which is in itself a further problem – many voters won’t watch the debates, but will pick up the message the Biden was awful from the commentary around them.)
What I have difficulty in understanding is how doddery old Biden got the Democratic candidacy in the first place. He must have been able to call in a whole lot of debts.
On the other hand, Trump is such a loose cannon that Vlad Putin and Xi Jinping probably treat him with respect, simply because he keeps them guessing. Best not push him too far, lest he push the button. Dumb and egotistical is a powerful combination, and Trumpenstein is both.
What I found horrifying in the little of the debate I could bear to watch was, rather than Biden’s ineffectualness, Trump’s malevolent and unchecked firehose of lies. Biden has done a great many worthwhile things in his presidency, but he should have had the sense to hand things over to someone younger at the end of his first term. The only thing left now to do, it seems to me (as a non-American), is to vote for him despite one’s grave misgivings in order to avoid a second Trump term, which will be a disaster not only for the USA but for the world.
Meidas Touch on the response to the debate:
https://youtu.be/bmfxCkhpqvA?si=eAe93BMBCCy1h7CKv
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have made the point that the Republican Party is far more homogenous than the Democrats. The G.O.P. is still overwhelmingly white and Christian and greatly over-represented in rural areas, whereas the Democrats are an uneasy coalition of many different groups and interests with very little in common appart from opposition to the MAGA crowd. To find a candidate who’s not too offensive to any of these factions, the Democrats have a permanent lowest common denominator problem. Another reason the ”First Past the Post”/”Winner Takes All” electoral system, as well as the (de facto) two-party system it favors, is such a terrible idea.
And Brian Tyler Cohen talking to a rather good man from Fox:
https://youtu.be/Q4k5P8vZaVA?si=Sn5sRt8Gn148F-gs
Omar #10
I doubt very much that Putin or Xi have any respect or fear for Trump. If anything, they feel contempt. For them, he’s a useful idiot, and a splendid tool for the weakening of the USA and for the weakening of democracy everywhere.
#10 Omar
The incumbent president is by far the most likely to win, thanks to the incumbency. Therefore it is assumed the president will go for term #2 to begin with, and he doesn’t even need to say so – other potential candidates will not step forward while there is the possibility they will clash with the incumbent.