Nate Silver was going to write this regardless of how Biden performed last night.
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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He's actually been quite reserved on the issue. While he's acknowledged it as a risk, he had not reached this point until now.
No one arguing that he should drop out has really thought it through. Like, TV ad time has been reserved and planned through September. Donor networks would need to be on board. It would be chaos at the convention while they fought over who it should be. It’d be a disaster.
This drop out framing also only applies to Biden. Trump says dumb outrageous shit all the time and is an actual criminal, and the framing is almost always "will this help or hurt his chances". Biden has a sore throat or whatever and the pundit class can't type their resign now pieces fast enough.
Exactly. Biden sounded a little confused and disjointed on a few answers, but always made his point. Trump sounds confused and disjointed literally 90% of the time.
They are both old af but Biden has done a good job as president and sounds like a normal dude most of the time. Trump sounded worse every year and ended his time in office by killing millions of Americans through inaction.
I think it's funny how folks think a sore throat causes one to jump from Abortion to an anecdote on Immigration mid-sentence. The copium is astounding.
It's ridiculous. Shit, I'd vote for a literal and figurative vegetable over Trump, but damn Biden failed miserably last night. Anyone who thinks anything different is simply delusional.
I do agree the DNC should be exploring an alternate candidate, as they should be very, very fucking concerned about President Biden's ability to perform the most basic functions of his job. I don't know who the answer is - my personal preference remains Bernie and I think he would be an easy sell - but they must take his performance really fucking seriously. He must take his performance really fucking seriously. Russia and China both are.
Alternatively, this could be a good opportunity to educate people on how much of a presidency is the cabinet rather than one person. Run ads highlighting the people actually responsible for things in Biden's administration. Make the narrative more about Biden's team and contrast them with Trump's chaotic mess of a cabinet.
No matter which old man gets elected, there is a solid chance the next president dies in office of age-related causes. Showing that we'd be in good hands if/when that happens, and that there are people paying attention to catch things Biden might miss could go a long way towards reassuring people.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love a different candidate, and voted for someone other than Biden in the primary in 2020, but I also don't trust the DNC to pick a replacement without making things worse. At least the Biden campaign has been admitting today that the debate went poorly, rather than pretending it was fine.
Well said. I wish Bernie was 20 years younger and I'd agree on that as well. Personally, at this point, I just think they need to be young-ish, and half-ways charismatic and they'd ride off the viral media energy of being a fresh face in what is an American idol popularity contest. Whitmer at this point would be my preference.
This is such a huge opportunity for Democrats to take back the narrative and steal all the energy in the room.
I don’t know who the answer is - my personal preference remains Bernie and I think he would be an easy sell
I have to disagree here. All Biden had to do was alleviate fears among independent voters about his age and health by simply not walking out there looking like a dementia patient that wandered off again. He failed at that, miserably, which only magnified and reinforced the exact fears among independent voters he was supposed to be alleviating. And, as expected after that disastrous performance, there were a lot of people waking up this morning saying "See, I told you. He's too old for the job."
Regardless of Sanders' mental fitness, health, competence, political positions, etc., replacing Biden on the ticket with somebody even older than he is would absolutely be the most tone-deaf thing they could do.
Policies aren't the problem. If these people cared about policy, they'd just stick with biden regardless of age.
In my opinion, most people are using "old" as a proxy for "not fit for duty." It's just that no one wants to say the President is not capable of performing his job.
If an employee showed up to your workplace as incoherent as Biden was at this debate, they would be sent home and may need to undergo a "fitness for duty" test to return. While I agree selecting an even older candidate would be difficult, you have to admit Bernie would absolutely skewer Trump on a debate stage and no one would ever have to worry about his mental competence, at least until November.
Again, I'm open to alternative candidates - I've only seen one mention of Whitmer, but...eh... Who else is there?
I've thought this through for quite some time and I think you're missing the opportunity for Democrats to seize the narrative.
- "We listened to voters who were unsatisfied with either candidate, a large majority who said age is a real concern for them."
- "Joe Biden stepped down for the American People to let a younger generation lead."
- FREE VIRAL MEDIA TIME for months on end about the fresh face of the Democratic party.
- A complete lack of developed right-wing talking-points to disseminate.
With perks like that who needs donors and TV ad time? This isn't the 80s. Elections aren't won on television ads.
All we know is what doesn't work, and what doesn't work was shown last night. It has been showing in poll after poll after poll despite people burying their heads in the sand: a President with approval ratings in the 30s, and a Presidential candidate who is FAR behind in every data-point compared to where he was in 2020.
I've listened to Jon Stewart, Katie Couric, 2 different NYT podcasts, post-PBS analysis, Pod Save America (former Obama/VP Biden staffers) -- and they are all echoing the same fucking thing:
It is time to try something different.
I didn’t vote for Biden in the 2020 primary and I don’t disagree with you on those points. That easily could be how it plays out. I just think if Biden resigns, there’s a high chance of a split in the party (after a contested convention) and we’re all imagining a new candidate we like (or just a “generic democrat”) replacement rather than a real person who possibly has baggage, hasn’t been tested on the national stage (or was bad on it like Kamala Harris), or won’t be able to unite the coalition that backed Biden in 2020.
Basically, I think it’s a huge gamble this late in the election. Biden shouldn’t have run again and when he did, should have faced a real challenge in the primary. But that isn’t what happened and now I think changing course over one debate isn’t worth the risk.
I'll agree that it's a dilemma for sure. To me I think both situations carry baggage. At this point, things are looking so atrociously bad that I think the risk is worth it and any candidate nominated at convention who may have baggage will probably running off the highs of being a fresh face before the baggage becomes a serious issue (and sad we have to talk about baggage when Trump is the opposition). Realistically it would probably be Whitmer or Newsom.
The thing to me is that this debate isn't a one-off. It's the culmination of what people have seen and been warning of and what's been reflected in polls for quite a long time now.
I'll be clear that I didn't vote for Biden either during the 2020 primaries but I did ultimately vote for him in November. I'll vote for him again if it comes down to it. But I'm not who you need to convince, unfortunately.
Edit: Let me also just say that it's better now than later. What if Biden has a medical emergency in October? At the rate of his decline and age that is a very real possibility.
Also never been a fan of Biden (but voted for him, and will again, if I have to). You're falling into a Sunk Cost Fallacy. Yes, anyone chosen to replace Biden would be a gamble. But, Biden is a losing horse. The right time to replace him was last year. But, just because we missed that opportunity doesn't mean we should throw good time after bad. He should be replaced before things get so late it literally cannot be done.
This wasn't some otherwise strong candidate, who just had a bad day. Biden is already struggling in polling. While the economy hasn't been fantastic, it's good enough that he should be crushing Trump. Even in 2016, Clinton was polling ahead of Trump and still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Biden isn't winning. He's maybe tied and maybe losing in current polling. Trump had already proven that he can be convicted in court and not lose support. There's just not much left to hurt Trump. And Biden doesn't seem to have anything left to gain support. Things are not going to get better for Biden.
Biden is losing this race. It's time to follow the rats off the ship, before we're trying to escape a ship on the bottom of the ocean.
With perks like that who needs donors and TV ad time? This isn't the 80s. Elections aren't won on television ads.
No, but they are still very much won with money. Advertising of various forms (TV, radio, Internet, billboards, yard signs, T-shirts, the list goes on), local outreach, field offices, door to door campaigners, booths at events, social media, and countless more. All of it is driven by money.
Citizens United fucked every election since. It exclusively dealt with campaign finance.
Oh I agree, don't get me wrong. But let's be honest: Biden doesn't have the grassroots fundraising that propelled Obama to victory and also gave Bernie a good shot at the primaries for how fringe he was.
Even I who've given loads of money in the past am exhausted by the fundraising calls under Biden and at this point post-debate think it's a wasted investment.
I'm just assuaging concerns about money when you can substitute viral marketing which would naturally come from the unprecedented nature of having an incumbent president step down and endorse some other individual. Months of free coverage.
It's already a disaster. It's been a disaster since last election. Anti opposition votes can only get you so far, before people start to feel indifferent, since their voices clearly don't matter in the slightest.
What would happen if Biden straight up announced: "I'm not able to serve another 4 years. I'm passing my whole campaign to <insert Biden's pick here>. I trust as does my whole administration." Is that not allowed?
It’s allowed but the convention delegates choose the nominee. So, it’d probably have to be agreed ahead of time who the nominee would be and that the other contenders (and donors) would fall in line. Maybe if it’s Whitmer, they promise Harris and Newsome a cabinet secretary position. I’m not sure anyone has that sort of support, though. VP Harris would be the logical option for that sort of transition but she’s not popular and Trump is already making ads saying a vote for Biden means Kamala Harris will be president before the term is over.
I mean, anything is possible. We’re in uncharted waters. But to me, that’s also the problem. And we don’t know for sure why Biden was off in the debate. Maybe he had a cold. Maybe he’s so old, his childhood memories are in black and white. Maybe a month from now, there will have been a whole new news cycle and the debate will be forgotten.
Silver knows this. What's his game?
Perhaps Silver knows this, but perhaps also Nate Silver knows even more things, especially compared to the armchair Lemmy political analyst?
Nate sliver should choke on a donkey dick
Wish they'd both drop out....
Nate Silver should have marital relations with a rusty rake
Trump should drop out, being a convicted felon, racist and traitor.
Imagine how easy this would be if Democrats nominate someone that wasn’t in their 80s.
Bots out in full force.
Everyone knows their vote and what they're gonna do December of 2022 when we knew it would be these two again
Anyone who says anything else has a very clear agenda. I don't care how old Biden looks I'm voting for the democratic party and the platform.
While I agree with you about swing voters, there is a very large number of potential non-voters, sometimes known as the enthusiasm gap. People that believe that both options are the same, or that neither will affect their lives very much. There's also the ones that think Trump can't get re-elected, which of course is part of how he got there in the first place.
There aren't a lot of people excited to vote Biden. But we'll do it anyway, because we really don't want to see more Trump. If I didn't see Trump as a threat to democracy itself, I could understand people not voting at all.
People wouldn't be so concerned if he had a stronger VP.
Like who?
Nate Silver is 100% correct.
He is right. No one over 75 should hold the job. I'd much rather DeSantis or Haley vs Newsom or Harris.
Airlines have a mandatory retirement age of 65. I could support that for politicians and judges.