Could probably google this but you guys tend to know your onions. If Biden stays and wins then retires first day, do the Dems stay in with a new president chosen by them same as us?
I doubt if Obama is going to intervene either privately or in public. There is still bad blood between the two after Obama embraced Hillaryâs campaign run. Even if he could be persuaded to , itâs doubtful Biden would listen.
2 Likes
Odd question , but Iâm assuming the VP would naturally step up.
1 Like
Permanently? In Westminster the party in power would vote on the next leader.
25th amendment: VP takes over if President resigns.
Not sure what you mean by permanently. The only person thinking permanent presidency is probably Trump.
1 Like
He doesnât have to resign as president. I donât think anyone is asking for that. He should step down as candidate. Harris would still be the logical successor.
I didnât say he has to resign. @Klopptimist asked a question above.
Although I wish heâd resign. If he really is sick, he shouldnât be making decisions that are impacting lives and deaths.
Surely Biden would then see that as a betrayal? It really needs the people closest to him, but even then its difficult. It also appears that they arent interested in him stepping aside.
Horrible situation with such high stakes
2 Likes
Of course heâd see it as betrayal, but heâs betraying the country by standing and enabling Trumpâs election. Something has to give.
The longer he holds on, the uglier it gets.
I just canât see how he gets to a winning position from here.
2 Likes
The doctors DailyMail.com spoke to said Biden had been aging normally up until 2021/2022 - when the decline became sharper
Yeah thats a fair shout.
Honest answer is I dont know.
Under the circumstances it would then go to the VP.
The whole âthey knew and were hiding itâ is, respectfully, a really bad take.
Firstly, that requires you pathologize what we saw in the debate, rather than accepting it as a bad performance from an aged man that took his team by surprise. @Sweeting has made an argument to this already, but ignoring the personal interpretations of that performance, he has had enough other public appearances to contrast this against. His public schedule has been lighter than other recent presidents (the lightest since Regan, which is a telling comparison), but he has had had enough to allow us to see him in action. He has definitely slowed in all respects, but the only things his opponents have been able to take from those to advance the âDementia Joeâ narrative are the deceptively edited pieces from them.
But if you donât find that convincing, play out the implications. His team were the ones who pursued these debates and made this one happen. This was not something they did after being backed into a corner and would have been very easy to have found ways to have avoided having to do any (bad politics IMO, but would have been easy to spin). So why send him out there if they had seen that he wasnât up to it? There just arenât any good answers to that. The only ones for why they pursued the debates require you to think they thought he was up to it and then saw him not meet their expectations. FWIW, I dont find the âit was one bad performanceâ argument convincing, and think it is more likely that the thinking on his feet aspect a of a debate is now beyond him, especially against someone as challenging to âdebateâ as Trump, and that genuinely surprised his people.
But to call back to what @Sweeting said above about how Trumpâs own incoherence and the debate has now been overlooked (when asked about his administrations record on climate change, he said they had H20), this was Trump from 5 years ago. This is genuinely worse than anything biden did in the debate, and this has always been the biggest grievance of the biden crowd. Not that debates about his age were misplaced, but that centering his age in a âits about mental competencyâ election and ignoring [waves hands] is absurd
7 Likes
Yeah. Biden was involved as VP to an unusual degree, but it was never the tight chummy relationship the memes portrayed. But what closeness they had was damaged badly in 2016. They expected full throated public support for Joe to push for a third term for their administration, and instead he got a private recommendation to step aside to spent time with his family and grieve Beau properly, something he wouldnât be able to do healthily while campaigning. Biden and his team have always had this chip on their shoulder about being under estimated, so they took it as a slight that Obama didnât think they were up to it. Everyone close to him now who was around in 2016 has a very âweâll show himâ attitude their work in this administration, and it means he is one of the people least likely to have sway in a private conversation.
Going public with a recommendation would be different, but that would be a real nuclear option for Obama.
2 Likes
There is also a really weird thing happening in the right wing information areas about how the press were part of the âtheyâ who knew and covered it up. Bidenâs age and concerns about his competency has been the biggest theme of his candidacy. The only narrative that remotely competes is the one that argues the press has taken a legitimate story but irresponsibly focused on it to the exclusion of every other important issue in the election. Yet there are now large groups of people treating this as a gotchya moment where something was demonstrated (it wasnt) that the press were refusing to talk about (they were very much not refusing).
Itâs a weird dynamic, but is similar to lots of the discourse around covid cover ups.
His other public performances prior to the debate have not been reassuring. And those had nothing to do with a debate setting against Trump (which anyway he should be able to handle if he is vying to be commander in chief). He confused the presidents of Mexico and Egypt without Trump confounding him with lies (I realize that is an isolated example but maybe not). The reports of a Walter Reed specialist visiting him 8 times in 11 months arenât comforting either (I do not wish anyone poor health, by the way). And the shifting excuses of travel and a cold and not being able to sleep until after 8pm and the lack of clarity on whether he saw a doctor or not raise questions.
As for why his team sent him out to the debate if they knew he would underperformâŚthey just sent him out to the ABC interview again. Why did they just do that? Politicians have full confidence they can fool all the people all the time. Absolute power corrupts and deluded absolutely and all that.
All I know is Biden needs to step down, look after his health, and the party needs a massive makeover if it truly cares about preserving our democracy.
As for your point on Trump, I agree. I have no interest in the rubbish he is incoherently peddling, but am more focused on the Dems fixing all thatâs gone wrong.
4 Likes
Good points above on my comment that maybe Barack Obama might have a word.
I do feel something will have to give. It might just well up into enough lawmakers speaking up that Biden will resign. But itâs a double-edged sword, as if more and more people speak up and he does not step down, it strengthens the Republican case against him further, and they will rightly say that he doesnât even enjoy the full backing of his own tribe.
Itâs a real pickle.
My take remains that at this point it is a guaranteed loss with Biden at the helm, but if a new leader is put in place soon, and the party unites around her/him, a win is possible again. They will be able to make a much better case than Biden, and with new hope and new momentum they might just win the day.
1 Like
Looks like someone is going to have to have a serious chat with Biden,says every day he is fine,he is not,Iâm older than him and you can recognise any decline,he surely does and denying he need s to see a doc,and the story coming out about the 8 visits from a shrink in less than a year is pretty telling.Maybe he needs to be told that if he stays the Dems likely lose,that will destroy his image,and of course it will.The easiest and logical way out is for him to withdraw and Harris becomes the presumptive candidate.She has stayed loyal and has come out of her shell a bit,certainly would work with women,particularly because of Trumps attitude to them,and of course they are half the population.
Really donât see any obvious other path for the Democrats to pull this off now.
3 Likes
Leading Democrat committee members in the House met yesterday to discuss Bidenâs viability. A similar exercise is scheduled for Tuesday in the Senate. The drumbeat grows louder âŚ
(Free to read)
2 Likes
Interesting. The NYT is explicitly naming names. Thatâs about as public as these people can get at the moment.
1 Like