I don't know what was wrong with Joe Biden. It's hard to imagine that they ever would have asked for a debate if this was the way he is normally. We've seen him recently holding press conferences and giving speeches and he seemed to be fine. They said he had a cold so maybe he really was on drugs — Nyquil or Mucinex or something that made him seem so shaky and frail. Whatever it was, it was a terrible debate for him and if he does stay in the race (which is almost certain in my opinion) the campaign is going to have a lot of work to do to dig out of the hole that was dug last night. The media smells blood and they are circling like a bunch of starved piranhas.
. . . For some odd reason, moderator Jake Tapper told Trump in the beginning that he didn't need to answer the questions and that he could use the time however he wanted. Trump ran with that, essentially giving a rally speech whenever he had the floor and was unresponsive to the vast majority of the questions. He made faces and insulted Biden to his face, at one point calling him a criminal and a Manchurian candidate. If anyone had said 10 years ago that this would happen at a presidential debate they would have been laughed out of the room.
After the debate when most of the country had turned off cable news or gone to bed, CNN aired its fact check. And it's a doozy:
It sure would have been good if even some of that epic litany of lies could have been checked while people were still watching. The decision to have the moderators sit like a couple of potted plants woodenly asking questions about child care while Trump responded with irrelevant lies was inexplicable. Why did they even bother to ask questions at all? They could have just run the timer and let the candidates talk for two minutes each about anything they wanted. It probably would have been more enlightening.
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The dems suspended the primaries in a number of states and more or less coronated Biden.
The Dems believe in democracy only when against the GOP but do not believe in democracy when deciding matters inside their party.
The "Democratic" Party my ass cheeks. Clowns and hypocrites.
That’s not feasible in a FPTP system. Best you can do is keep voting for the least bad between the two “real” candidates and shift the Overton window overtime.
Or have a violent revolution, but that’s a bit more difficult to coordinate.
I’ll admit I’m not that well-informed on those elections, but would’ve they really been capable of being more than a spoiler candidate, had they not been “listened to”?
Looking at the data, every election in the past 200 years has been won with more than 50% of the electoral college. Latest one where a state has been won by a third party is ‘68. If those phenomena have been studied I’m interested, because it really doesn’t seem like they did anything looking at the results at a surface level.
What I’m saying is, how did those studies reach the conclusion that said third parties were actually a factor in those changes, and didn’t just happen at the same time?
Because again, considering the statistics for recent years’ elections, third parties haven’t been a threat to the major two for over 50 years. I’m interested in why would they care about the relatively small voter base of those parties when they wouldn’t have changed any recent American election.
You said “if anecdote isn’t enough, they’re both well-studied”, so I thought some research actually existed about it.
I’m not saying third party campaigns are useless or always spoilers, I just don’t think they can actually force a change since it seems they can successfully be ignored with no repercussions. Sure, major parties can pick up bits from their programs if they want to, but they’re definitely not in a situation where they have to or else they’ll risk the election.
Even now for example, I think every non-major candidate except Kennedy is against funding Israel. But despite that, and despite (I think?) the majority of Americans being against it as well, both Biden and Trump are running with it. Because they know it’s not an issue that actually “matters” to the campaign, since there’s no viable alternative that doesn’t support it.
Thanks for the sources, I was genuinely not aware of how many people supported Perot.
But even then, it’s usually not enough support for it to actually change the outcome. In the case of Perot it was, apparently, but even then it still didn’t push either of the candidates to change their views on nafta. If support that big is still not enough for them to worry, it’s hard to believe it can ever make a difference.
No, it’s because the US got so divided on stuff that’s supposed to be a given, that contributing to an ongoing genocide isn’t the most important thing for voters right now. When the main candidates are polar opposites on key issues in people’s lives like Abortion or LGBT rights, anything happening outside of the country becomes an afterthought.
It is, but not by voting third party. I can understand it if the candidate is actually leading in polls like Perot was, but right now hoping for a third party (or worse, Kennedy is apparently the most supported after the main two so FOURTH party) exploit is way too unrealistic to take the risk.
As I’ve said in another post, to me the only feasible way to get stuff to actually change is to keep voting for the “least bad” of the main candidates. If Republicans keep losing every election, eventually they’ll resign to the fact that they can’t keep running on christofascism and give their platform to a candidate that at least has the same opinion as the Dem one about basic human rights. And only at that point, when Dems won’t be able to run on “my opponent is literally Satan”, they’ll have to shift to more progressive positions to keep getting elected. If at that point they still don’t, you can safely vote for third parties because “wasting your vote” isn’t that much of a risk.
You answered yourself, it’s because Republicans need to lose consistently, and it’s been over 70 years since the last time they even lost three consecutive terms.
Meanwhile, did you see what happened after three consecutive Republican terms? Clinton. Reagan + H. W. in a row definitely shifted the overton window to the right, and forced Dems to react accordingly. That’s what needs to happen, in reverse. Allowing Trump in office again would send the message that racism is the winning strategy, and Dems might get even worse.
Waiting for the window to shift might look like a pie in the sky to you (and you’re not even that wrong, considering how the DNC keeps pushing their worst), but a third party winning is a pie in straight outer space.
And splitting the votes of the sane Americans among multiple parties, allowing Trump to get a second term and enact Project 2025 is a productive and thought-out strategy?
Right, stick to what's not working, voting Democrat. 🥾👅
Sorry but opposing genocide and imperialism overrides all other interests, IMO.
Build an alternative in... checks calendar, 4 months that can gain more votes than the active democratic nominee and beat the stir mad republican candidate whose supporters are voting for out of pure spite. This comment is either in bad faith or you literally have no idea how the election works. Best case here isn't even winning, it's taking as few votes from the sane candidates as possible because all this'll do is split the democrat voting block.
These are not equivalent losses. I think that's what you're not getting. Biden wins we get a senile leader with near dementia in charge for 4 years. Trump wins we get a Russian puppet who would literally kick start an insurrection over admitting his own losses. These are not the same thing, although both objectively suck.
Attempt a coup? Did we not live through the same January 6th. He already bloody did. And we still haven't locked him up for it.
You already gave up. Don't try to blame it on the time left being only 4 months. If you're willing to for for a genocide enabler you're already commenting in bad faith.
You're talking like there's even a independent candidate that has the experience and willingness to do this. Normally it takes a life time of experience to even apply for the position. Trump being a complete nobody throwing money to get elected was a bad thing and now you expect some random guy on the Internet to find and sell an alternative to the American people 4 months before an election and beat both 2 people that've already begrudgingly won the election and can at least claim to have some experience. It isn't giving up to admit somethings impossible. I ain't giving up on becoming an astronaut if I can't do it by next week. If you'd like a 3rd party candidate feel free to find and prop someone up but best case they aren't going to be ready for a presidential run until 2028.
I see you have the 4 months so we have no choice talking point locked in. The Democrats got you with that one. Stay reactionary. 👍
I look forward to the new independent party candidate you prop up to win in 4 years. Good luck buddy.
Nice strawman. I never said this was possible. Stay classy .world user.
What the he is your point here if you think it's impossible. Both candidates suck, someone else should run, no one can be prepped to run in time, so... do nothing. That's your master plan. Responding to you is a collective waste of time for everyone myself included.
History, procedure, common sense, and logic all said that was what was going to happen. They didn't cancel the primaries. They never started the primaries. A lot of states started holding primaries assuming the incumbent wasn't running again. But that was never the case. Biden never said that he was only going to run the one time and not again. People in his orbit discussed that he might do that. But that was nothing that he said or that they ever committed to.
You and I are welcome to believe this what he should have done. But historically if an incumbent decides to run for another Term. No party ever Has primaried them. We can criticize Biden on not telegraphing that well enough. That's fair. We can absolutely criticized Biden on things like that. But policy-wise and as far as his administration goes. He's been fairly popular and consequential. Despite the one really big issue which seems to be all people want to talk about ignoring the fascist in the room.
And this lack of pragmatism and adherence to "tradition" when the republicans openly don't stick by those rules will cause the Dems to contribute to the coming of fascist amerika
Fascists support genocide so you must be taking about supporting Biden?