Aren’t the same people freaking out about Biden the ones perfectly happy to weekend-at-Bernie’s Feinstein — or play along with that — as long as they could?
This is a genuine question; I don’t know.
Oh yes, definitely.
Eh. I’m not freaking out about Biden; I am freaking out about the press, the pundits, the donors, and especially the campaign.
This seems to me to be the You Have One Job of a campaign and that they can’t manage it scares me. It’s not a surprise!
Right. And folks can (and plainly do) have lots of opinions on what to do now, but the overriding concern here, and in the D party apparatus isn't "will Biden be ok in the Oval Office" but "is his campaign going to get him there" and if not, can we fix it, and can someone else fix it, in that order
I didn’t much like Biden and never liked the primary system. I thought he was too old in 2020! But the time to fix it was before the primaries. I don’t have the impression that he’s changed much, only the world, both in very predictable ways.
I think the thing for me is there's still 4 months left. That's not a giant amount of time, but it's also plenty if they really did light the fight in the campaign
The problem is this is just a really hard election to properly model; in some profound ways it's not like any election up to 2016, and has some very important differences to 2016 or 2020 too in lots of important directions. Which isn't great for anxiety. But it does mean it's still all to play for.
Is it? Most international commentary I read have been assuming a Trump WH for months - not as something that will necessarily happen, but as a strong likelihood. Most polls have went only one way so far.
Aren't there still big money differences, campaign offices, staffing and staff quality differences favoring Biden - the mechanics aren't much changed are they?
Yes. Lots of advantages there. The number that worries me more than favorability tho (which is the big one that's usually quoted) is "enthusiasm to vote" numbers, where Ds consistently poll below Rs
But many will vote out of desperation, or fear...No one who isn't corrupt, deluded, or very, very stupid will vote for Trump.
Unfortunately, there are far too many people out there who fit in one of the above slots, or more than one.
Deluded is all of us, unfortunately. I was just thinking yesterday about how deluded I've been these last 10 years, imagining the politics of average American following my life experiences just because my entire social circle did as well
Astute point. I do however talk to people across the barriers, class or other social categories. (I'm an anthropologist.) The thing I notice now is that it's much more difficult to communicate with people now, because we speak different languages and inhabit different realities. One Trump supporter>
told me that January 6th was a "peaceful rally: I've seen the real videos" he said. Also, Trump supports "family values" but Biden doesn't.
I found myself absolutely without words, because you can't argue with alternative facts, when the truth of things no longer seems to matter.
Yes. I have several similar experiences. I've had so many longsilences where I carefully go backwards and backwards to the last point of commonality... and sometimes I can't even find one. And that's with family I grew up with! They occupy an America I've never been to
That's the point, isn't it? It's almost impossible to find commonalities. These people don't even think of Putin as an enemy. Finding someone to hate in common used to be a quick and dirty way (which I don't like, actually) to establish commonality. Even that low method is useless now.
