One adviser to major Democratic Party donors said they were texting from a meeting of donors in Atlanta on Thursday night, some writing “wtf.”
“Our only hope is that he bows out, we have a brokered convention, or dies,” the donor adviser said. “Otherwise we are fucking dead.”
Oof.
It was pretty bad. There’s not much more to say about that. Trump was bad too, but he was bad in almost the same way 4 and 8 years ago. If I was a conservative, I’d be pretty happy about that debate.
Could you imagine if both of them just suddenly died of natural causes from old age in the same day before the election… like… the power vacuum would be wild.
Ultimately you’re voting for the nominee from a particular party rather than the individual as a person. If one were elected and died before inauguration the party will be able to put someone else in via the electoral college and the same electors. If after Congress counts the votes, then the VP becomes president.
And this is precisely why no Republican should ever be allowed to win an election anywhere. Their whole party has been pro-racism and anti-democracy since they ran Goldwater on an anti-civil rights laws platform, and whenever the pressure is on the Adam Kinzingers and Liz Cheney’s and Mitt Romney’s of the world will always cave to the most heinous people and ideas within their party rather than accept some kind of political or policy defeat.
Technically, that only really applies for the Presidential election, largely because of the Electoral College. But still, you should never vote for any Republicans anyway, because even affiliating with that den of snakes at this point tells you all you need to know about that candidate.
I disagree strongly, this is actually more of an issue with lawmakers because working in the legislature is all about building political coalitions and cutting deals. Republicans’ political coalition since the 1960s has been economic conservatives (who I think are extremely misguided but I accept will likely be a part of any representative government) and klan members (who should never ever understand any circumstances ever be allowed anywhere near the levers of power). Even if Mitt Romney is a good person in the abstract, when he wants to get a bill gutting Social Security over the vote margin he’s going to be partnering with the Louis Gohmerts and Gym Jordans and MGTs of the world, who are going to expect something in return. Moreover, the Mitt Romneys of this world are capable of learning a lesson, and the lesson the electorate should teach them is that partnering with nazis and klan members leads to crushing political defeats.
There are no good Republicans for any elected office, period. Conservatives can spend a generation or two wandering in the woods asking themselves how they ended up where they did and come back with a new political party, but it’s about forty years past when the grand old one should’ve been thrown on the ash heap.
Well, yeah, I agree in that sense. I just meant that, if Biden dropped out, there would be a bunch of Democratic electors who would be uncommitted. As opposed to if someone dropped out after being elected to Senate or the like, which would probably lead to the government appointing a temporary replacement and scheduling a special election.
I was hoping Joe would faint and trump would explode last night. Then we could start over.
Since the only other likely alternative is a fascist, insurrectionist, felon, rapist who couldn’t finish a thought or sentence we’ve got ourselves a tough spot, but a clear better choice of the two: vote for Biden.
Having our government by a gerontocracy is not going well.
I didn’t watch it. Biden apparently did a bad job and so did Trump. But people are only hearing their side.
I seriously doubt much of anyone is going to change their vote because of this.
I watched it all, and Biden did a much worse job than Trump did. Trump lied his way through the whole thing, but we expected that going in. I don’t think Democrats expected Biden to look this feeble.
No, not many people are going to change their vote because of this. But the last few elections have been one with very close margins in a handful of states. It doesn’t take that many people in certain zip codes to decide they can no longer support Biden to turn the election. They don’t even have to turn to Trump, they can go third party or stay home.
I’m not a fan of replacing Biden this late in the process, if that happens for any reason other than Biden’s health then it basically renders all the Primaries invalid, and puts party officials in a position to make the decision, not voters. And let’s be fair: Democrats who were watching saw that Biden was actually able to make his points, and draw a clear distinction between his positions and his opponent. Nobody is saying that the substance of Biden’s performance was wrong, they’re all just upset over the optics of his performance, and his ability to attract those last few voters in PA and WI that he needs.
I recall thinking that Biden lost the first debate in 2020, also. He managed to come back then. We’ll see about this time.
Remember, though, debates are not conclusively won or lost. It’s all opinion-based. Lots of people like you said Biden did a terrible job. But do you know what I haven’t seen any reports of? A response from “regular viewers” who say they will change their votes.
The closest thing we’ll get to that is in the polls over the next few days, and the moving forward to the election.
But even then, the numbers don’t have to move very much in order to make a difference. GA has 11 million people, and Biden won there last time by only 11k votes. Do you think a GA poll (much less a national poll) would pick up 11k people there changing their votes, or 22k people deciding to not vote at all (or vote for the brain worm guy instead)? That can all happen in the margins, outside of any ability for the rest of us to detect it.
No, but, again, I also have my doubts that anyone is going to change their votes because of this. Just like in 2020, this is much more of a Trump vs. Not Trump election than anything else. Who is going to be won over to Trump by this? He still ranted and raved like a crazy person based on what I’m reading.
He still ranted and raved like a crazy person based on what I’m reading.
His ideas and concepts were crazy, but his delivery really hasn’t changed much since we first saw him in debates in 2016. Biden’s clearly has. If you were living under a rock and didn’t already know everything you needed to about these two men, you never would have guessed that only three years separated them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim Jordan pulled his contempt Citation for the AG after this. They don’t need the audio of the Special Counsel investigation to put in attack ads anymore.
I didn’t hear any ideas or concepts. It was the same Trump ranting that he’s the best and Biden is the worst. The mods kept asking him if he wanted to answer the questions.
Yes, Trump is just as crazy as he was in 2016 when he lost the popular vote and 2020 when he lost the popular vote, so no one’s going to suddenly believe he isn’t crazy.
I’m leery of polls these days. One thing I like about the Bulwark is they do a lot of focus groups, where you can hear from voters at a more detailed level, in their own words.
It’s still not a great method, since its such a small sample size. But I think it’s better than polls of poll-taking Americans.
With the debate, I’m not swapping my vote for Biden. It’s “not all there, can still hold a valid and truthful talk, but not as racist” or “lying fucking piece of shit, who’s brain is melting, and hates way more people” as the two options.
Biden is the saner option, but holy shit what a bad debate. I was flummoxed on why Biden’s team just allowed it to happen. Faux News is probably lapping this up like a dog on a summers daty.
It’s hardly unthinkable. Half the party has been thinking it, now the other half is waking up.
Yeah but it’s too late now.
No it isn’t. The Democrats haven’t had their convention yet.
This is true, it is very possible.
One thing not enough people are discussing is the incumbent advantage though. We’d lose that edge, and be subject to the standard backlash-against-the-last-party phenomenon.
We’d need a candidate strong enough to compensate for that lost advantage. And there’s the big problem, dems have had very few strong leaders since Obama retired. Bernie was our strongest, and he’s not even officially a dem.
Biden would have been better off skipping all the events and say he can’t validate Trump’s candidacy with a debate. He’s a felon and being tried for crimes unbecoming a president. But now it’s all blown up in his face.
I really don’t think the debate changed any minds, but it did energize one side and depress the other. I doubt that energy can be sustained, attention span is very fleeting.
Now that Dem donors finally see it is an acceptable talking point? The writing has been clear for a long time Biden isn’t the person for this critical time. It is too late now.
What s ridiculous premise.
"Somebody said ‘wtf’’
Guess that’s all she wrote, then.
“Wtf” sounds good enough for me in this case. Trump’s donors should say the same thing.
Good enough to replace Biden?
His first term was amazing(for the us and most countries, not great for Gaza).
Nah, wtf don’t cut it.
Ok he is old, but he is coherent, it’s time to bring out Bernie. You know that half the right wanted him…
Bernie decides if Bernie runs. He has already said he won’t though, he’d have to change his mind. He’s also getting up there in years unfortunately.
