I am so tired of reading how bad Joe's performance was.
If Joe's was bad - trump's was disgraceful.
Joe had a bad night, probably the consequence of several long haul journeys in a few days plus a bad cold. People are commenting on it BECAUSE IT WAS SO UNLIKE HIM.
Trump once again rolled out his litany of lies and idiocy. No one is commenting on it BECAUSE IT WAS WHAT HE ALWAYS DOES.
I agree-completely missing the forest from the trees. When Pepsi created the Pepsi taste challenge, was it geared toward keeping those lifelong Pepsi drinkers loyal to Pepsi? No way! It was about opening Coke drinker's eyes and 3rd-rate soda drinker's eyes while generating extra publicity.
Biden's the Pepsi and you , Bulwark subscriber, are a loyal Pepsi drinker. Biden's team isn't running a taste challenge to keep you in the fold; they've already got you. It's geared toward persuadable consumers of rival products.
Unfortunately, these persuadable folks have already taken the taste challenge and don't like Biden's particular brand of Pepsi. Normally, the marketing team and probably the strategy team would soon be fired. But this is politics and nothing will happen; there's no shareholder pressure for results.
No one is talking about Donald simply because Donald was just Donald being Donald. He was who we know he is. There's no "news" in that no matter how outraged we feel about it.
Everybody is talking about Joe because it was Joe being the Joe that everybody feared Joe was. The "news" in that is that it is not what most people wanted or expected to see, not when his handlers keep telling us that's not the real Joe and we don't want to accept what we saw.
My own theory is that his debate team overprepared him, and like a computer that freaks out when its memory capacity approaches zero remaining, they simply asked too much of him to handle in real time. There's no shame in that. We all have our limits, and age does not make that any better or easier to handle. If they had a redo, I suspect Team Biden would arm Joe with a handful of talking points and let him speak otherwise from the perspective of his own knowledge and experience, which are considerable. Joe still can bring the sizzle when he is in his element and able to play to his strengths rather than try too hard to counter all of Donald's weaknesses.
That said, there clearly are other issues involved as well, we are not experts in what they are and how to deal with them, and we do ourselves a disservice in talking like we know more than we do, we're right because we think so, and those who disagree are wrong because we say so. We need to listen no less than we talk and figure things out in real time, based more on what is the case than what we wish to be the case. There are big pros and cons to each approach, of Joe staying on the ticket versus passing the baton at this late date, and within a Democratic Party that does not speak with just one voice. (Consider an open convention where all those voices emerge at once, wanting their slice of the pie -- a likely political bloodbath playing out on live TV).
Bottom line: it is complicated. For better or worse, others are paid to sort it out and figure out the pathway forward, while we watch and wait for an outcome that we cannot control. It remains the supreme irony that the candidate with so many convictions, other pending legal matters, and so much personal baggage sits unchallenged to drop out while the one who has been honest, forthright, and is widely well respected as a person is being asked by many to yield the right of way. I'm guessing few had that on their Bingo card in 2020, when last we made such an important choice.
Agree. Also, it should not escape notice that Democrats are actually able to have these discussions / arguments pretty openly. It’s messy, but no one is afraid to speak for fear of receiving death threats or of being booted from the party.
Yea, speaking of those discussions, I quite a number today with Democrats and most importantly Republicans I know and Independents who are gettable for Democrats (and none of us are political operatives but mostly professionals or retired professionals). The strong belief was that anyone who is voting for Biden is already effectively voting for Harris and that Harris should be the nominee. Democrats will support her since she is already Vice President and part of the administration. The feeling was that abandoning her was too much of a repudiation of the last 4 years. The big question was who should be the Vice President and the overwhelming consensus was that is should be an experienced white male with significant military service. One name that came up repeatedly was Jack Reid, Senator from Rhode Island because he is very experienced and a West Point graduate, born in 1949 and very well respected in the party. Another name that came up quite a bit was Adam Kinzinger for more of a fusion ticket since he had already endorsed Biden and is another military veteran, but obviously would not be popular with progressives. Just a view from about a dozen people but interesting.
The Trump campaign wants Biden in because they know they can beat him. Biden has been a good President. But its about the next 4 years. Biden needs to drop out. The Biden campaign assured us he was up for the job. On Thursday, President Biden proved he is not up to the task of campaigning against Trump.
Soon all the screaming about Biden will get old and, if the Dems do it right, they can start showing clips of Trump. Trump lies reached a new high of gaslighting the world. Nancy Pelosi didn’t cause January 6, Trump did have sex with Stormy, Trump did call soldiers losers. Immigration is not the cause of inflation or why we don’t have child care, and immigrants are not coming from mental hospitals. Trump does know what a tariff is, or anything about the effects of global warming. Also, many of the people Trump will bring into government are felons like he is. When will the press begin to protect the country. Biden is old but he has put together a great administration. The real question is do you want to live under a Biden Administration or under someone who wants to be Putin?
It’s about optics. If a good performer has good substance, we are all blessed. But to act like it’s all about substance is fool’s gold. After all, that’s why we have Trump.
And no one can forget Donald’s role in overturning Roe, how proud he is of that accomplishment and that he’s convinced himself - and literally no one else - that simply all the people wanted the issue of abortion returned to the states to decide. In this political environment, those are pretty salient facts that won’t sit well with the majority of Americans.
Today, on Proof, Seth Abramson quoted fact checkers who found that True lied about every 3.5 seconds. 602 lies in 40 minutes. And not little lies, real "he really didn't say that?" kind of lies. Trump said he has prepared his whole life for this debate. He's correct. He stated lying at 6. He stole from people by the time he was14. He stole from his family at 20. He has never finished an entire honest sentence in his life.
BTW: Early polls show that Biden is doing better after the debate than before it. But who really knows anything?
You’re missing the point. Yes, Trump lied endlessly. Yet, how much time is being spent on fact checking Trump’s lies, vs the media attention calling for Biden’s resignation, or use of the 25th amendment? Many of Trump’s lies will become truth or legend. And when the legend becomes fact, they always print the legend.
Trump’s lies are going unanswered because of the distraction that is Biden. And it’s not you, me or anyone else at the Bulwark that will be moved by Biden’s performance, or lack thereof. It’s the swing state voters in three to five states that will elect the next president.
With an entire media ecosystem in Trump’s pocket, and an MSM more concerned with Biden’s age and lack of cognitive abilities during the debate, it’s easy for many people to be confused; and they are!
Thursday was Biden’s chance to convince the naysayers that all is well, and that Trump is a lying, incompetent fool.
If that was the goal, Biden failed miserably, and this country is worse off for the matter. That said. it might just have cost us the presidency with democracy on the menu.
The “Biden just had a cold” excuse is likely as phony as the “Biden just has a stuttering problem” excuse. Biden never had a stuttering problem as an adult!! Go and watch thirty-plus years of C-SPAN videos of Biden talking, and he was a self-assured, confident speaker who never exhibited the slightest trace of a stutter. What he’s doing now isn’t “stuttering” so much as it’s it’s slurring his words like a drunk. I’m not a medical expert (as you’ll be quick to point out), but this sure resembles Parkinson’s disease to me.
It’s probably true that he had a stuttering problem but as an adult developed the cognitive control to overcome it. Now he’s losing that control. Something similar happened to my father. He always a “worrier,” but not pathologically so. Then in his late seventies he started having serious anxiety problems. He wasn’t “senile,” but diminished nonetheless.
This is just not right. He definitely had a stuttering problem, and was better at finding work arounds when he was younger and quicker. In his old age, it is coming back. Are there possibly other problems? Yes, maybe so, but it is silly to say that because he had managed to overcome his stutter (a very difficult thing to do), it didn't exist or that managing it didn't affect him as an adult We all know that Joe was always a gaffe machine, and some of those "gaffes" always had to do with trying to avoid problem words and getting his syntax mangled.
Please - Go and watch any of the massive numbers of C-SPAN videos of Joe Biden speaking throughout his Senatorial career. He *never* exhibited even the slightest degree of a stuttering problem. I’m highly skeptical that such a problem could just “re-emerge” as an older person, unless something else is involved. In any case, when Biden isn’t losing his train of thought entirely, he isn’t really “stuttering” so much as slurring his words like a drunk. People should stop putting lipstick on a pig.
I really think you are wrong about this, but I do think that at the very least, a qualified doctor (not along the lines of Ronny Jackson Johnson) should do a complete exam and directly answer the questions about a complete dementia exam (not just a screening tool, a la Trump) and Parkinson's disease. My personal preference would be for Biden to step down, hand it over to Kamala, with a VP already secretly lined up and all important Dems ready to be in support, similar to the way Klobuchar and Buttegieg lined up behind Joe in 2020. I don't know anything about how all that works with the money and getting on the ballot, however, and it may not be possible. In my scenario, Biden would announce that he is stepping aside but will be a senior advisor to President Harris, and she should announce that she will continue the economic and social policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
I agree with most of your policy prescriptions, but like a lot of other Democrats I’m highly skeptical that Kamala Harris would be a successful candidate against Trump. Her defense of Biden in the Anderson Cooper interview following the debate was especially cringeworthy and off-putting.
Harris' defense of Biden means she's doing her job as a partisan. Right now, that's her role. She does have another role under the 25th amendment but as a dedicated partisan I think she'd have a hard time calling for that, especially since I don't think we are really there. But Biden does put everyone in a difficult spot right now.
In my view, removing Kamala would do far more damage than moving ahead with her. But I'm just an ordinary politically-inclined Midwesterner, not an insider. I'm not accusing you, but I think a lot of that "cringeworthy and off-putting" response is less about what she says than who she is. Trump is the most "cringeworthy and off-putting" human since Adolph Hitler, but that benefits him.
I am so tired of reading how bad Joe's performance was.
If Joe's was bad - trump's was disgraceful.
Joe had a bad night, probably the consequence of several long haul journeys in a few days plus a bad cold. People are commenting on it BECAUSE IT WAS SO UNLIKE HIM.
Trump once again rolled out his litany of lies and idiocy. No one is commenting on it BECAUSE IT WAS WHAT HE ALWAYS DOES.
I agree-completely missing the forest from the trees. When Pepsi created the Pepsi taste challenge, was it geared toward keeping those lifelong Pepsi drinkers loyal to Pepsi? No way! It was about opening Coke drinker's eyes and 3rd-rate soda drinker's eyes while generating extra publicity.
Biden's the Pepsi and you , Bulwark subscriber, are a loyal Pepsi drinker. Biden's team isn't running a taste challenge to keep you in the fold; they've already got you. It's geared toward persuadable consumers of rival products.
Unfortunately, these persuadable folks have already taken the taste challenge and don't like Biden's particular brand of Pepsi. Normally, the marketing team and probably the strategy team would soon be fired. But this is politics and nothing will happen; there's no shareholder pressure for results.
No one is talking about Donald simply because Donald was just Donald being Donald. He was who we know he is. There's no "news" in that no matter how outraged we feel about it.
Everybody is talking about Joe because it was Joe being the Joe that everybody feared Joe was. The "news" in that is that it is not what most people wanted or expected to see, not when his handlers keep telling us that's not the real Joe and we don't want to accept what we saw.
My own theory is that his debate team overprepared him, and like a computer that freaks out when its memory capacity approaches zero remaining, they simply asked too much of him to handle in real time. There's no shame in that. We all have our limits, and age does not make that any better or easier to handle. If they had a redo, I suspect Team Biden would arm Joe with a handful of talking points and let him speak otherwise from the perspective of his own knowledge and experience, which are considerable. Joe still can bring the sizzle when he is in his element and able to play to his strengths rather than try too hard to counter all of Donald's weaknesses.
That said, there clearly are other issues involved as well, we are not experts in what they are and how to deal with them, and we do ourselves a disservice in talking like we know more than we do, we're right because we think so, and those who disagree are wrong because we say so. We need to listen no less than we talk and figure things out in real time, based more on what is the case than what we wish to be the case. There are big pros and cons to each approach, of Joe staying on the ticket versus passing the baton at this late date, and within a Democratic Party that does not speak with just one voice. (Consider an open convention where all those voices emerge at once, wanting their slice of the pie -- a likely political bloodbath playing out on live TV).
Bottom line: it is complicated. For better or worse, others are paid to sort it out and figure out the pathway forward, while we watch and wait for an outcome that we cannot control. It remains the supreme irony that the candidate with so many convictions, other pending legal matters, and so much personal baggage sits unchallenged to drop out while the one who has been honest, forthright, and is widely well respected as a person is being asked by many to yield the right of way. I'm guessing few had that on their Bingo card in 2020, when last we made such an important choice.
Agree. Also, it should not escape notice that Democrats are actually able to have these discussions / arguments pretty openly. It’s messy, but no one is afraid to speak for fear of receiving death threats or of being booted from the party.
Yea, speaking of those discussions, I quite a number today with Democrats and most importantly Republicans I know and Independents who are gettable for Democrats (and none of us are political operatives but mostly professionals or retired professionals). The strong belief was that anyone who is voting for Biden is already effectively voting for Harris and that Harris should be the nominee. Democrats will support her since she is already Vice President and part of the administration. The feeling was that abandoning her was too much of a repudiation of the last 4 years. The big question was who should be the Vice President and the overwhelming consensus was that is should be an experienced white male with significant military service. One name that came up repeatedly was Jack Reid, Senator from Rhode Island because he is very experienced and a West Point graduate, born in 1949 and very well respected in the party. Another name that came up quite a bit was Adam Kinzinger for more of a fusion ticket since he had already endorsed Biden and is another military veteran, but obviously would not be popular with progressives. Just a view from about a dozen people but interesting.
I’m at a point where I’ll take any silver lining, and this is one, so thanks for that reminder
The Trump campaign wants Biden in because they know they can beat him. Biden has been a good President. But its about the next 4 years. Biden needs to drop out. The Biden campaign assured us he was up for the job. On Thursday, President Biden proved he is not up to the task of campaigning against Trump.
Soon all the screaming about Biden will get old and, if the Dems do it right, they can start showing clips of Trump. Trump lies reached a new high of gaslighting the world. Nancy Pelosi didn’t cause January 6, Trump did have sex with Stormy, Trump did call soldiers losers. Immigration is not the cause of inflation or why we don’t have child care, and immigrants are not coming from mental hospitals. Trump does know what a tariff is, or anything about the effects of global warming. Also, many of the people Trump will bring into government are felons like he is. When will the press begin to protect the country. Biden is old but he has put together a great administration. The real question is do you want to live under a Biden Administration or under someone who wants to be Putin?
It won’t even take that long. Tomorrow is Immunity Day.
It’s about optics. If a good performer has good substance, we are all blessed. But to act like it’s all about substance is fool’s gold. After all, that’s why we have Trump.
And no one can forget Donald’s role in overturning Roe, how proud he is of that accomplishment and that he’s convinced himself - and literally no one else - that simply all the people wanted the issue of abortion returned to the states to decide. In this political environment, those are pretty salient facts that won’t sit well with the majority of Americans.
Today, on Proof, Seth Abramson quoted fact checkers who found that True lied about every 3.5 seconds. 602 lies in 40 minutes. And not little lies, real "he really didn't say that?" kind of lies. Trump said he has prepared his whole life for this debate. He's correct. He stated lying at 6. He stole from people by the time he was14. He stole from his family at 20. He has never finished an entire honest sentence in his life.
BTW: Early polls show that Biden is doing better after the debate than before it. But who really knows anything?
You’re missing the point. Yes, Trump lied endlessly. Yet, how much time is being spent on fact checking Trump’s lies, vs the media attention calling for Biden’s resignation, or use of the 25th amendment? Many of Trump’s lies will become truth or legend. And when the legend becomes fact, they always print the legend.
Trump’s lies are going unanswered because of the distraction that is Biden. And it’s not you, me or anyone else at the Bulwark that will be moved by Biden’s performance, or lack thereof. It’s the swing state voters in three to five states that will elect the next president.
With an entire media ecosystem in Trump’s pocket, and an MSM more concerned with Biden’s age and lack of cognitive abilities during the debate, it’s easy for many people to be confused; and they are!
Thursday was Biden’s chance to convince the naysayers that all is well, and that Trump is a lying, incompetent fool.
If that was the goal, Biden failed miserably, and this country is worse off for the matter. That said. it might just have cost us the presidency with democracy on the menu.
Here is the fact check from WA PO ( it is a gift from me, so no paywall if you aren't a subscriber)..also Daniel Day of CNN did one too
https://wapo.st/4bvy8vo
The “Biden just had a cold” excuse is likely as phony as the “Biden just has a stuttering problem” excuse. Biden never had a stuttering problem as an adult!! Go and watch thirty-plus years of C-SPAN videos of Biden talking, and he was a self-assured, confident speaker who never exhibited the slightest trace of a stutter. What he’s doing now isn’t “stuttering” so much as it’s it’s slurring his words like a drunk. I’m not a medical expert (as you’ll be quick to point out), but this sure resembles Parkinson’s disease to me.
It’s probably true that he had a stuttering problem but as an adult developed the cognitive control to overcome it. Now he’s losing that control. Something similar happened to my father. He always a “worrier,” but not pathologically so. Then in his late seventies he started having serious anxiety problems. He wasn’t “senile,” but diminished nonetheless.
This is just not right. He definitely had a stuttering problem, and was better at finding work arounds when he was younger and quicker. In his old age, it is coming back. Are there possibly other problems? Yes, maybe so, but it is silly to say that because he had managed to overcome his stutter (a very difficult thing to do), it didn't exist or that managing it didn't affect him as an adult We all know that Joe was always a gaffe machine, and some of those "gaffes" always had to do with trying to avoid problem words and getting his syntax mangled.
The reality is that is this how Americans view Biden. This includes me.
Our democracy is at stake. This is above Biden. His hubris for not stepping aside is risking our children’s future.
Please - Go and watch any of the massive numbers of C-SPAN videos of Joe Biden speaking throughout his Senatorial career. He *never* exhibited even the slightest degree of a stuttering problem. I’m highly skeptical that such a problem could just “re-emerge” as an older person, unless something else is involved. In any case, when Biden isn’t losing his train of thought entirely, he isn’t really “stuttering” so much as slurring his words like a drunk. People should stop putting lipstick on a pig.
I really think you are wrong about this, but I do think that at the very least, a qualified doctor (not along the lines of Ronny Jackson Johnson) should do a complete exam and directly answer the questions about a complete dementia exam (not just a screening tool, a la Trump) and Parkinson's disease. My personal preference would be for Biden to step down, hand it over to Kamala, with a VP already secretly lined up and all important Dems ready to be in support, similar to the way Klobuchar and Buttegieg lined up behind Joe in 2020. I don't know anything about how all that works with the money and getting on the ballot, however, and it may not be possible. In my scenario, Biden would announce that he is stepping aside but will be a senior advisor to President Harris, and she should announce that she will continue the economic and social policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
I agree with most of your policy prescriptions, but like a lot of other Democrats I’m highly skeptical that Kamala Harris would be a successful candidate against Trump. Her defense of Biden in the Anderson Cooper interview following the debate was especially cringeworthy and off-putting.
Harris' defense of Biden means she's doing her job as a partisan. Right now, that's her role. She does have another role under the 25th amendment but as a dedicated partisan I think she'd have a hard time calling for that, especially since I don't think we are really there. But Biden does put everyone in a difficult spot right now.
In my view, removing Kamala would do far more damage than moving ahead with her. But I'm just an ordinary politically-inclined Midwesterner, not an insider. I'm not accusing you, but I think a lot of that "cringeworthy and off-putting" response is less about what she says than who she is. Trump is the most "cringeworthy and off-putting" human since Adolph Hitler, but that benefits him.