Not that I’m suggesting that this was intentional or that he did right to wait, but there are a few upsides. Trump and the Republicans were fully prepared and frothing to take on that blubbering old man from that last debate, but now they’re actually going to make a case for Trump over a (hopefully) real contender. And many Democrat voters went from feeling defeated and apathetic, potentially enough to not even bother voting, to being charged with a second chance and a (again, hopefully) more exciting candidate to support. If Biden had declared his intention not to run again before the primaries, the Republicans would have had much longer to prepare and pick apart someone who wasn’t such an easy target, and Dems would have been infighting over the nuances of a dozen candidates and pissed off at each other. And, if Harris is the presumptive nomination, for better or worse, the knee jerk reaction from the Right will probably be to play up the racist and sexist angles, which should drive moderates away from the right, not away from Harris.
It’s all conjecture, but I only see this as a net positive compared to where we were yesterday.
More importantly imo: it put Biden and the Dems in the news and overshadowed the attempted assassination. Which kept its new cycle short and put the dems back on top. Trump hates being out of the news, and was right that the media wants him back because they loved the numbers he provided. The DNC should make a circus out of this to keep it in the news and with constant breaking news events. It’s stupid, and I hate it, but it would help them win.
agreed, never should have tried for the second bite.
however… dems now have an opportunity to own the news cycle from here until the election. if they do even a halfway decent job, we start trending from “narrow loss” -> “political landslide”.
I don’t think all the messaging in the world can fix the reality that Biden hasn’t improved material conditions of the people who voted for him in 2020, or even gone to the mat fighting for them.
The only things he’s really gone around congress or the SCOTUS for is to deny more asylum seekers and give more weapons to Israel and Ukraine.
the current reality is not the future reality - thats their sell, basically obama “hope-ishness”. personally, I think it can work to keep trump out of office. this is a generational moment and the dems have it on their side.
so, with luck, we get to reject trump and, depending on the turnout, watch where progressives settle around.the seat of power.
between the dems and republicans, they have whittled down progressive representation, but its still there.
The real powerplay if Trump loses would be to pass an amendment setting a maximum age to run for president. Maybe tie it to retirement age. Old enough to receive social security, too old to run. Ideally you make that apply to all political offices, but I’m not that optimistic. Not that I think there’s a snowballs chance in hell of this actually happening as that would be a sane and sensible thing to do and therefore antithetical to everything our current crop of politicians stand for.
Whoever the candidate is, they have to avoid talking about Israel and use vague language on the issue. If they come out swinging for Israel I think it would not be a good look.
No messaging or surrogate can have a good answer to “why haven’t you already done it?”
If instead of vaguely suggesting there might be a ceasefire sometime in the future if the dems remain in power, they stopped all arms shipments to Israel and sanctioned them until all Palestinians are granted equal political rights and right-to-return, you wouldn’t be asking yourself “How do I dress up support for an ongoing genocide”, you’d be telling people “We ended apartheid”
That works when you’ve had 8 years of Bush and are campaigning on free healthcare, ending the wars, federal legalization of cannabis. It works when you’ve had 4 years of Trump and everyone thinks the democrats will defund the police, provide free healthcare and college, abolish ICE, codify roe, pack the court, etc. Then when you fail to do any of that, you get the shit kicked out of you 2 years later.
The dems cannot campaign on hope when they’ve demonstrated that they will not give the people what they want.
This isn’t a messaging problem, it’s a “triangulating yourself to be 2 inches left of republicans and then acting surprised when your base doesn’t show up” for 30+ years problem.
How much of that was blocked in some way by the reps? Every time the peanut gallery chimes in with “what did Dems ever get accomplished?” they never provide the required addendum that reps are obstructionists.
agreed. the Democrats have been abusive. cant really do anything about that until we have a better nomination, funding and voting system.
trump is a time dilation machine. the closer we get to him the shorter my horizon gets. keeping him away from the near dictatorial powers the supreme court just sanctioned is my primary objective.
I (and perhaps you) and many others should remember that the age we grew in defined us. the younger see things a little differently
I am just tryng to make enough space between the ancient vampires and our kids to allow them to have a say in their future.
He absolutely has. We’re getting public transit built out. Caps on overdraft fees. Capped the price of insulin. Invalidated most non-compete clauses. Oh, and he didn’t encourage his supporters to attack the Capitol Building and hang Mike Pence.
Oh, and he didn’t get a bunch of Americans killed by Covid because he cared more about the stock market than people.
I’d also like to see Ukraine not fall to Russia.
That’s just what I can name of the top of my head. He was a better president than Obama.
Yeah, he fucked over everyone by participating in the primaries.
Not that I’m suggesting that this was intentional or that he did right to wait, but there are a few upsides. Trump and the Republicans were fully prepared and frothing to take on that blubbering old man from that last debate, but now they’re actually going to make a case for Trump over a (hopefully) real contender. And many Democrat voters went from feeling defeated and apathetic, potentially enough to not even bother voting, to being charged with a second chance and a (again, hopefully) more exciting candidate to support. If Biden had declared his intention not to run again before the primaries, the Republicans would have had much longer to prepare and pick apart someone who wasn’t such an easy target, and Dems would have been infighting over the nuances of a dozen candidates and pissed off at each other. And, if Harris is the presumptive nomination, for better or worse, the knee jerk reaction from the Right will probably be to play up the racist and sexist angles, which should drive moderates away from the right, not away from Harris.
It’s all conjecture, but I only see this as a net positive compared to where we were yesterday.
I mean, 5d chess if true.
but that would be a dangerous, stupid game - and we know they would never do that, right? right?
its more of a mr bean dodging a certain death by finding a penny after wandering into a closed off area scenario, but I’ll take it.
More importantly imo: it put Biden and the Dems in the news and overshadowed the attempted assassination. Which kept its new cycle short and put the dems back on top. Trump hates being out of the news, and was right that the media wants him back because they loved the numbers he provided. The DNC should make a circus out of this to keep it in the news and with constant breaking news events. It’s stupid, and I hate it, but it would help them win.
agreed, never should have tried for the second bite.
however… dems now have an opportunity to own the news cycle from here until the election. if they do even a halfway decent job, we start trending from “narrow loss” -> “political landslide”.
I don’t think all the messaging in the world can fix the reality that Biden hasn’t improved material conditions of the people who voted for him in 2020, or even gone to the mat fighting for them.
The only things he’s really gone around congress or the SCOTUS for is to deny more asylum seekers and give more weapons to Israel and Ukraine.
the current reality is not the future reality - thats their sell, basically obama “hope-ishness”. personally, I think it can work to keep trump out of office. this is a generational moment and the dems have it on their side.
so, with luck, we get to reject trump and, depending on the turnout, watch where progressives settle around.the seat of power.
between the dems and republicans, they have whittled down progressive representation, but its still there.
The real powerplay if Trump loses would be to pass an amendment setting a maximum age to run for president. Maybe tie it to retirement age. Old enough to receive social security, too old to run. Ideally you make that apply to all political offices, but I’m not that optimistic. Not that I think there’s a snowballs chance in hell of this actually happening as that would be a sane and sensible thing to do and therefore antithetical to everything our current crop of politicians stand for.
dream big dreams.
if we manage to hobble past this brush against the mirror, then cool. maybe we don’t like the monster after all.
Whoever the candidate is, they have to avoid talking about Israel and use vague language on the issue. If they come out swinging for Israel I think it would not be a good look.
this is where you use surrogates. signal with the surrogates and keep yourself out of the fray.
we will learn a lot by who is doing the most interesting talking on behalf of the campaign.
No messaging or surrogate can have a good answer to “why haven’t you already done it?”
If instead of vaguely suggesting there might be a ceasefire sometime in the future if the dems remain in power, they stopped all arms shipments to Israel and sanctioned them until all Palestinians are granted equal political rights and right-to-return, you wouldn’t be asking yourself “How do I dress up support for an ongoing genocide”, you’d be telling people “We ended apartheid”
That works when you’ve had 8 years of Bush and are campaigning on free healthcare, ending the wars, federal legalization of cannabis. It works when you’ve had 4 years of Trump and everyone thinks the democrats will defund the police, provide free healthcare and college, abolish ICE, codify roe, pack the court, etc. Then when you fail to do any of that, you get the shit kicked out of you 2 years later.
The dems cannot campaign on hope when they’ve demonstrated that they will not give the people what they want.
This isn’t a messaging problem, it’s a “triangulating yourself to be 2 inches left of republicans and then acting surprised when your base doesn’t show up” for 30+ years problem.
many of biden’s appointees such as his NLRB pick are better than the last 3 democrats.
How much of that was blocked in some way by the reps? Every time the peanut gallery chimes in with “what did Dems ever get accomplished?” they never provide the required addendum that reps are obstructionists.
agreed. the Democrats have been abusive. cant really do anything about that until we have a better nomination, funding and voting system.
trump is a time dilation machine. the closer we get to him the shorter my horizon gets. keeping him away from the near dictatorial powers the supreme court just sanctioned is my primary objective.
I (and perhaps you) and many others should remember that the age we grew in defined us. the younger see things a little differently
I am just tryng to make enough space between the ancient vampires and our kids to allow them to have a say in their future.
He absolutely has. We’re getting public transit built out. Caps on overdraft fees. Capped the price of insulin. Invalidated most non-compete clauses. Oh, and he didn’t encourage his supporters to attack the Capitol Building and hang Mike Pence.
Oh, and he didn’t get a bunch of Americans killed by Covid because he cared more about the stock market than people.
I’d also like to see Ukraine not fall to Russia.
That’s just what I can name of the top of my head. He was a better president than Obama.
… Unlike Johnson, who didn’t. And that worked out well for president Humphries in '68.