It really is making *me* feel crazy to see a bunch of other Democrat voters running around screaming about how Biden is now unelectable, on the basis of one bad debate and an incredibly obvious ratfucking campaign by America’s most craven newspaper.
It’s a lot of despair and it’s (a) genuinely unpleasant to witness and (b) making me nervous that Democrats will let it fester into some abominable reality
It just scares the absolute shit out of me that so many usually level-headed people are losing their minds over what comes down to one bad debate performance by an octogenarian with a head cold.
I think what we're also seeing is a billionaire/donor class freakout that just spreads like lightning through their group chats, which includes a half-dozen NYT reporters.
I also think that a lot of that class have been really unhappy with Biden, mostly because he hasn't really "Brought them in", and they also see this as an opportunity to weasel in someone who is more to their liking (And a lot of them don't really mind Trump either..)
Particularly given that his opponent, who is incoherent on the best of days, literally could not stay awake in court on most days of his own felony trial.
It's completely understandable. The entire rationale for Biden's age not being a problem is that he'll have senior issues occasionally, but as a rule he's ready to deal with problems when they arise. The debate was a problem - a crucially important one - and he biffed it, so the rationale crumbles.
Why is everyone so concerned with how the President performs on live tv? What relevance does this have to his job? He’s not an actor, and these are not the Lincoln-Douglas debates. You don’t get to see anything except two candidates giving stump speeches at each other. Why IS this crucial?
No idea. Debates are meaningless. They’re not even proxies for performance, or platforms now that the GOP doesn’t have a platform outside of being mean to out groups.
A live chat between candidates in June is meaningless for a general and apparently a lot of people decided to forget that
Because there is no way for the average person to assess "how good is Joe Biden in a crisis" except the debates.
Also, the idea that public speaking has nothing to do with being the President is... not right? It's a major component of the job! It's also how you GET the job!
You can say "he's only one man, he'll appoint good people around him" all you like, but no matter how true that might be, the whole buck-stops-here ideal of the Presidency is bone-deep for a lot of people.
And he’s /perfectly good at public speaking/ in spite of a lifelong speech impediment. He had. A cold. And he’s in his fucking 80s. What on /earth/ does a TV debate tell anyone about candidates’ respective abilities to handle a crisis?
He’s been a public official for 50 years including president for 3! How is there “no way for the average person” to assess his crisis abilities?!? I am very sorry but what
We weren't in the room when Shit Went Down during Biden's presidency, so we have no idea of how *he* performed vs. his administration, which is why the "Biden has soup for brains and is being propped up by underlings" narrative can work. Tack on average citizen's lack of civic engagement and, well.
It isn’t average voters freaking out over his debate performance, it’s democratic donors and opinion columnists who got spooked. Few to none of the polls show any actual change since before the debate.
