politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Absolutely nothing was stopping him from remaining in the race until the convention and becoming the official nominee. That was a viable path forward, if he had wanted to choose it. That he did not, deserves acknowledgement and respect.
I agree in principle with what you're saying.
However, a sitting president is not entitled to the nomination. It's happened before where a sitting president is denied a nomination for a second term, and it's been given to someone else in the party instead.
If it had gone that way with Biden though, I think the optics would have been so bad that there would be no hopes of salvaging the election though, so it's still praiseworthy that he dropped.
He was not going to be the nominee due to being the sitting president. He was going to be the nominee due to defeating his main rival "uncommitted" in the primaries, along with Rep. Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson.
Delegates are bound to support in all good conscience the person for whom their primaries results reflect.
This bizzare turn of phrase has been largely been untested in the courts... But if, in good conscience, the delegates believe that the results of the primary were for the candidate who was best poised to defeat Trump (as in, they're not supporting Biden specifically as much as they are against Trump, for example) then they could argue that based on events that have occured since the primaries that they are in good conscience representing those wishes.
So, I dunno. I'm very glad Biden took the high road here, but I am unconvinced that this was truely set in stone. This is the exact justification for having delegates choose the nominee in the first place; that in certain critical conditions they can act in good faith.
I think that would be an extremely minority opinion far outside of the moderate dem mainstream. Since the electors get specifically chosen by the winning campaign, expecting some kind of broad revolt out of them is very wishful thinking.
Additionally, Biden was polling very close to Trump during a time when dems have been outperforming polls in our recent elections. Someone would have to be fairly ignorant of the actual voting results of recent races to actually think Biden genuinely had no chance. I do not think very many chosen delegates are ignorant of these election results, unlike more casually-engaged citizens online.
while technically true, had uncommited gotten more than 2 weeks to campaign and made it onto every ballot, the dems might not have had to modify the ticket this late.
Yeah, I think there's not nearly enough single-issue Palestine voters to make that happen. Also, it was a write-in campaign, it was never "on" a ballot anywhere.
"uncommitted" / "no preference" were explicitly on some state ballots and palestine is a bigger culminating issue than people give credit for. "none of the above" running a distant, but meaningful, second is not encouraging.
regardless of your thoughts on biden in 2020, a diminished biden was a disaster for the Democrats and (potentially) the country in 2024.
No, not really. Single issue voters are fairly unusual in the dem party. There are always some, no question, but the very small size of the peace protests compared to those during, say, the Vietnam War era demonstrates a fairly niche issue imo. While most dems believe in peace for Palestine, relatively few would rank it among their top issues.
Regarding Biden's diminishment, delegation is the most important skill a leader can possess. It is not a leaders responsibility to make all the decisions, but to organize and provide vision for a group of people that can accomplish far more than any individual. Many people past their youth understand this, due to direct life experience in the broader world. Biden's diminishment would have had minimal impact on his actual presidency. At the polls, however, yes it definitely was a concern, eventually leading to him dropping out after all. The idea he actually could not win was very, very overblown though. He was still in the running. I think the broader concern was his impact on down-ballot races.
Regarding uncommitted actually being on some ballots, it seems you're right. Thank you for the correction, that's actually sort of funny. lol
thanks for the good convo. ignoring any other problems (including palestine being much more than just "single issue")
given the importance of controlling as many branches as possible to make the vitally important needed changes... isnt that innately disqualifying?
No, not to a more traditionally-minded dem. You could say that's a mistaken thought, that's my opinion personally. But it reminds me of a democratic leader reportedly saying he was resigning himself to a Trump presidency. It's common among dems to play with "honor" so much they lose, the much-debated "they go low, we go high" philosophy.