post malone ergo propter malone: sticking with Biden is the obvious correct choice until and unless Biden decides otherwise, and anyone who suggests otherwise is either dishonest, an idiot, or a handmaiden of fascism.

sticking with Biden is the obvious correct choice until and unless Biden decides otherwise, and anyone who suggests otherwise is either dishonest, an idiot, or a handmaiden of fascism.

It's been interesting to see the consensus on this site harden in realtime around the idea that not only is sticking with Biden the obvious correct choice for Dems no matter what other facts might emerge, but that anyone who suggests otherwise is either dishonest, an idiot or a handmaiden of fascism

none of the mechanisms to replace Biden will work, in the sense of a Dem in the WH in 2025, without his enthusiastic backing.

if you are advising Biden directly, please do so honestly and to the best of your ability. if you are advising Biden via blind quote, no you’re not.

I've settled on this position and affirmatively think Biden should remain in the race come hell, high water, or his own death. The utter panic everyone has felt is not a sign that Biden should resign but that the moment when the election is *real* and its outcome uncertain has arrived.

The NYT is not going to be nice just because AG Sulzberger’s ego was fed. We will have 1,001 stories between now and Election Day about how weak democrats are for running a candidate who didn’t win a Democratic primary, framed by “Trump is so powerful he caused a sitting D President to resign.”

And it turns out: Yes, being on the precipice of electing a fascist who will work hand in glove with the partisans he's already put on the Supreme Court to usher in an era of dictatorship actually is scary. People are scared.

One thing that this media feeding frenzy about Biden has done is stop their flood of stories on how terrible the economy is. There is a good chance that in a few weeks, Biden does some interviews and press conferences to quell the noise and people don't want to risk the economy on the other end.

it’s also probably pushed back, and maybe affected, Trump’s VP pick. if he picks a Palin type with too little time to smooth them out before the convention, it’s easy to imagine a polling rebound there

Well, looking at the polls this week I don't think you can say the election is uncertain. It's looking more and more likely to that Trump will win. But sure, keep bullying a feeble old man into doing debates and campaign rallies he's clearly unfit to do, what could go wrong?

Yeah, this is the distinction I think. If Biden called me and asked me what was best for the country, my real answer is that I don't know, but I'd probably say that passing the torch is ideal. If the NYT asked me, I'd say I'm voting for Biden and nothing's changed.

There's no way to FORCE Biden off the ticket anyway, so it's really just a question of whether we should all be going in on calling Biden a senile dunce while he makes up his mind, which is not gonna help.

Ok. I’m not sure I disagree with any of this. But is truly the only choice for anonymous online non-campaign nobodies like me to say “everything is fine, we are full steam ahead”. There’s some rhetorical sleight of hand going on here. But I don’t think me saying it’s not the correct choice is

The same as the actual choice. All that said; if I did happen to get a man on the street interview with NYT I might even feel compelled to say “full steam ahead”. But I hope we’re not quite at the point online where even anonymous comments are obliged to be blind boosterism.

I just want people to start saying things based on reality rather than gut reactions. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Experts describe what happens to our brains and memories as we agewww.pbs.org As America braces for a rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump, polls show the ages of both likely nominees are troubling many voters this election year. We have perspectives from some voter...

yeah, I do think that randos like us should just say what we're really thinking.

I would like it if, while the Middle East is teetering on the brink of an enormous regional war, America was being run by someone who is not (by his own staffs admission) incapacitated for 3/4s of the day

Agree and also it is not at all clear that any of the mechanisms to replace Biden will work even with his enthusiastic backing. Ballot access issues should end the conversation entirely.

It’s worth noting that Trump has no campaign events scheduled at this time. The dude glitches, lies all the time, and says the most bizarre shit, but somehow Jake Tapper isn’t calling for him to do a two-hour press conference to settle concerns about his fitness.

I have so little tolerance for these smug dipshit reporters at this point

I find it very funny that they consider work like tech reporting qualifies them in any way on presidential strategy more than any of us shitposters. If they have any insider info it basically can only be overhearing what their colleagues intend to do through November

This is what access journalism has wrought. No expertise or depth. Just who you can get a juicy quote from, on the record or off.

Every single one of them, almost to a T, thinks that bc theyve got a job at some top news org that they are The Smartest Little Lads that are just obviously more knowledgable & correct than the plebes when in fact, as you note, theyre just as full of half assed, uniformed opinions as the next person

i think when you frame it this way it's a stronger argument. *tactically* it makes sense for anyone representing the party to publicly stand by biden until or unless he steps down, unless they think he's so hopeless that it's worth the risk of undermining him.

but at the risk of insulting some folks' self-importance, this is bluesky, not the convention stage, and nothing we skeet is of any tactical importance to speak of. so we can probably chill with the idea that anyone who posts a critical thought about biden is bringing about the fall of the republic

That's true, but I'm looking at some people's takes on this & hoping their parents don't forget someone's name, because apparently they'll be shipped off to a nursing home asap.

yeah i don't have any special knowledge of biden's condition, but what i've seen and read suggests he's still mostly with it, most of the time. but also, the bar for staying out of a nursing home seems rather different from the bar for being elected to another four years as commander in chief

That's a sane approach. I'm pretty much over people making a dementia diagnosis based on watching a 2 minute video clip & rumors from suspect sources. Biden needs to show he's got the oomph for the campaign, but at least give him week or so before writing him off.

either we will feel somewhat better or much worse by Friday

the thing about small little uwu beans is that they matter in aggregate like CO2 molecules, trapping heat so you end up needing to keep track of them anyways

eh, i think as long as they stay here on bluesky they're pretty safely quarantined from the risk of ever reaching a single undecided swing-state voter

You could talk me into Kamala very easily but yeah the idea is kinda tactical suicide barring a public health thing

if he decides to step aside for Harris, great, we’ll proceed on that basis. But nobody can make him except via 25A or impeachment and neither of those results in an electoral W

Listen, I would happily vote for Biden's corpse at this point, since it seems the best choice for the democracy, but I will also point out that Kamala Harris debating Donald Trump would be such an epic fatality that I'm not even sure we're prepared as a country for it.

There's a growing and obvious divide between those who take Trump seriously, and those like you and me who take him literally.

God damn right.

If he’s not fit to run then he’s not fit to serve and he should resign today. No one thinks he’s really unfit - they are just panicking and no one makes good choices when they are panicked.

And here’s why that’s also a nonstarter anyway.

1/ I'm agnostic as to whether Biden should withdraw from the race. It's a genuinely tough question IMO. But I have clarity on one thing: He should absolutely not step down as president. If Harris becomes President, the Vice Presidency is empty. Under the 25th Amendment ...

Let’s not forget the huge win it would toss to Trump who can crow about how he called it years ago and (whoever the new nominee is) stood by Biden throughout. I’m not going to pretend Joe is ideal or in his prime, but he’s the best chance to beat Trump unless Michelle O does a complete 180.

No, choosing to run a feeble old man who's on deaths door because you're an ideologically inflexible centrist zealot is gifting the Presidency to Trump - a proposition you seem awfully relaxed about considering the risks. Libs are no allies in the fight against the far-right.

It is abundantly clear that the collective media feeding frenzy is a dishonest tantrum directed at a president insufficiently subservient to major press outlets. I don't mean this in some kind of critical way either, the motivations and mechanics are just painfully obvious.

“handmaiden of fascism” - isn’t that Jim Breuer’s new SNL character? Like GoatBoy but even less funny.

Those three categories aren't mutually exclusive...

Trumpism has lost every fucking election since 2017, every single one. Indeed, we even did this fucking election BEFORE in 2020. So, I'm skeptical that people have changed their mind on Trump when he's objectively worse NOW than he was in 2016, or 2020 & the danger is so much more clear too.

It’s one bad poll, run by the same organization that’s been going full-tilt anti-Biden since the opening moments of the debate. It concerns but does not panic me.

Here's the one scenario I support Biden stepping aside... He never wanted to run again but felt he had to, for our country's sake, and this is his chance to bow out gracefully and not be blamed for whatever happens next.

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