if you’re playing the wrong-rock game about Biden doing events at which he campaigns normally and demonstrates that he’s not senile, I kind of think the onus is on you to reassure people like me that you’re not going to wrong-rock Nominee Harris
what you want isn’t Nominee Harris. it’s a comfortable lead over Trump. the evidence that switching to Harris will produce that comfortable lead is nonexistent.
so reassure me that you’re not going to continue filling your drawers if you get what you say you want.
I fully believe that this media-led panic over Biden's fitness for office will simply shift over to Harris ... and there will be an equally frenzied media-led panic over *her* fitness & preparedness for office.
What way too many people are failing to understand is that this isn't REALLY about Biden's age & well-being; it's about the media being desperate to come up with something, anything!, to keep the focus away from the GOP's direct attack on our democracy. They don't want *that* to be the story.
Because if they admit that's the *real* story—the story of the century, even!—then they'd have to admit that they are playing a pivotal role in helping them successfully pull it off, and they will literally come up with ANYTHING to keep from ever holding themselves accountable like that.
Saw yesterday a WaPo guy I've often liked say that Biden's age is interesting because it's "unresolved" and impying that SCt making Trump the king somehow is resolved. An admission they can't think of any more stories to pursue about the latter b/c of total incompetence or malevolence imo
I used to think incompetence was the primary driver, but atm I'm leaning a lot more into the idea that this is malevolence. There's so much of this media-driven discourse that doesn't make any sense unless they're actively making these decisions *on purpose* because they want Trump to win.
Not only did the multimillionaire and billionaire owners of major media outlets benefit from Trump/GOP tax cuts, but their business interests benefited from increased readership and viewership from frightened audiences. And shallowly covering the Trump administration was dead easy, no work required
I mean, we’ve seen this play out with gore and lying, Kerry and flip flopping, clinton and emails, and now Biden and old. Excessive focus on the dem candidate and a perceived flaw, no way to prove that the dem candidate isn’t meeting that standard, every story framed through that one negative frame
the charitable version of this is that the rank-and-file reporters and columnists are being manipulated and are too stupid (or too attached to their jobs) to realize it.
I don't think they want Trump to win; I think they want to avoid a 55/40 Biden lead with 5% undecided, where we all tune out and stop subscribing or buying papers because we're not driven by panic.
(To be clear, this is much worse than being in the tank for Trump)
Or the media’s obsession with having the fun of writing hair-on-fire stories every day got for years of a Trump administration as opposed to a quiet competent team of ptoffesionals that are BORING (to them).
No. They are worried that Trump will win against a President who is sundowning. They don't believe the American people will vote for a President who is too old to do the job and will start going to bed at eight. The evidence in the polls suggests this is true.
www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...
i disagree, they don't seem to be particularly worried that trump will win or i believe they'd hammer him about all the fucked up shit he constantly says and does and has done, even if it's old hat
they focus on his opponent for some reason instead... how curious
The media has harped on this issues constantly, and yet polling data demonstrably proves that Trump voters do not care about their candidates many many flaws. The same isn't true for Democratic voters and independents that lean D. They care a great deal in fact. 3 out of 4 think Biden is too old.
and yet biden utterly swept the primaries just a few months ago at 81 years and 6 months old -- but now 81 years and 8 months is a gamechanger? like his birthday was a secret until recently? lmfao
the idea of replacing him as nominee is absurd (AND undemocratic besides)
“what did the vice president know about the president’s infirmity and when did she know it” “White House sources allege vice president took a more active role in forcing out president than is currently admitted”
There is no lead people will find reassuring. This site is full of weirdo neurotics. If the numbers are high the polls will be untrustworthy. If the numbers are even higher people will switch to insisting there is enough room to do their one weird trick.
Following politics closely is such an abnormal thing to do and we do it more abnormally than that because of the way social media compresses everything.
I think this is right, for the sickos, but I think there's a much broader range of Democrats and "elites" for whom Trump is Winning has become a narrative off the back of +2 RV polls and that has fed a panic. Biden +2 on average has a different emotional weight even if almost identical stats-wise
My baseline assumptions are on that in November 2020 the enthusiasm for ousting Trump was high and Biden still barely won the states he needed, now the enthusiasm gap has narrowed or even flipped,
And the downside risk of failure is catastrophically bad, so yeah I’m deeply concerned
The legal issue Roberts thrust into the NY case is so fraught, open-ended, & unanswered, I find it very hard to believe that there will be an unstayed sentence in September–November
The trial court will be the first-look and if he imposes a sentence it’ll likely be stayed on appeal
There's a lot to be freaked out about, but that's not a good place to make decisions or interpretations of reality from. Also reality being actually scary is compatable with everyone on here being primed to freak out. bsky.app/profile/tznk...
Depression is sometimes misunderstood, including by the depressed, as being sad when you don't have a reason to be. And it's more like you're predisposed to be sad (or anhedonic, or or or) so normal triggers are worse for you.
It seems weirdo neuroticism in political hobbyists works the same way.
The case for switching isn’t that Harris will be treated fairly or sail thru, it’s if one accepts Biden’s numbers & media coverage are irrevocably cooked that Harris has less downside / more upside potential
But there should be no illusion that it would be easy or smooth
bsky.app/profile/saba...
In other words, there’s no silver bullet to escape bad-faith media narratives, and if people are suggesting Harris would be a better candidate than Biden bc she isn’t bogged down with the “too old to do the job?” narrative, it fails to appreciate the media would come to browbeat Harris too
Right the most persuasive case to switch rests on Biden’s downside not Harris’ upside—it’s the assumption that Biden is an electoral sinking boat, not that Harris is a gleaming rescue vessel
but in that scenario it’s vital that we not then spend a month bitching about Harris and I have no confidence at all in either intention or ability to do that
I’m less concerned about the Poasters (I’m not even sure we’re a meaningful bellwether) and more about insiders, normies, and establishment media producers & editors (who I’d guesstimate would get suckered by the right into running stories questioning her “merit”)
bsky.app/profile/saba...
My thing is, how long would it take them to start brow beating Harris and how effective would it be. If they need a month to land on “shes got a weird laugh” I think we’re in good shape.
“Get Harris into a honeymoon campaign in October” was my earlier fantasy, but I’d failed to consider the problem with filling a VP vacancy
bsky.app/profile/saba...
“We like Harris better than Biden” is mostly a product of her being out of the limelight and therefore being a relatively untarnished “not-Biden” candidate
She’d face a tough campaign though (hypothesis: the optimal Harris campaign would be from a Biden death in October & Harris honeymoon)
