this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
248 points (92.8% liked)

politics

18672 readers
2720 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
  2. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  3. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  4. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  6. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] ironhydroxide 52 points 6 months ago

Old man in politics that doesn't say fuck the constitution performs better against old man that says fuck the constitution than younger woman who hates progress.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Dropping Harris would only benefit the Biden campaign.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

I hate it, but if Biden dropped Harris and picked up Adam Kinzinger, the election would be in the bag. He wouldn't lose any Democrats and he would pick up all the never trumper Repubs and a majority of centrists/undecided voters. (And Trump might just have a stroke when he hears about it).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (9 children)

She just wasn't the VP we need. At 81 there are some that will take that into account.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

At his age, he should be considering his VP very carefully. It matters.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I'm sure whoever Trump picks would also do worse against Biden

[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

I still feel like we haven't had really strong candidates for some elections now.

2016:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/

Americans’ Distaste For Both Trump And Clinton Is Record-Breaking

The Democratic primary will technically march on, but Hillary Clinton is almost certainly going to be her party’s nominee. Same with Donald Trump. And voters don’t appear thrilled at the prospect: Clinton and Trump are both more strongly disliked than any nominee at this point in the past 10 presidential cycles.

2020:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/us/politics/polls-trump-biden.html

Both Candidates Are Widely Disliked (Again). This Time, Biden Could Benefit.

This could be the second straight presidential contest in which both candidates are viewed negatively by a majority of voters.

2024:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/25/politics/biden-trump-unpopular-president-election-2024/index.html

Biden vs. Trump: The 2024 race a historic number of Americans don’t want

[–] [email protected] 81 points 6 months ago (3 children)

We had a strong candidate in 2016 and the DNC literally committed fraud to deny him a nomination.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago (20 children)

Yep. Thanks for mentioning it. Wasserman Schultz and her cronies gave old Sanders the shaft after HRC paid off the DNC debt.

"Democracy."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

I'd also like to add gerontocracy, oligarchy, and corptocrasy

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Imagine if Bernie had broken with the party. There's a good chance he could've attracted a lot of otherwise disillusioned people and formed a real, viable third party candidate.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago

Nope. Would have been overall worse with 2 parties splitting dnc votes.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

Yeah but then enlightened centrists would have blamed him for Clinton's loss, and used it to push the party further right.

Oh wait, they did that anyway.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Regretfully, our system is designed against us, and has been further corrupted over the years. So, no, there wouldn't have been any positive outcome from that type of action.

load more comments (18 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The strength of Bernie in the general election remains an unproven hypothesis. But I agree that the DNC behaved inappropriately. The nature of primaries as “private” elections controlled by the party makes this type of behavior fairly inevitable.

Though the RNC also tried to stop Trump, they just failed at it, so parties don’t necessarily have complete control over the outcome.

[–] winterayars 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

He was polling ahead of Trump, Clinton was polling behind. We don't know if that would've continued to the actual election but we do know that Clinton lost.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

There was a reasonably strong slate in 2020, and Dem primary voters passed them over for the old white guy as a hedge against the voting preferences of casually-racist and sexist boomer voters in the general electorate. The shit of it is that their reasoning wasn't without merit either. But that's left us where we are now, with a milquetoast octogenarian as the last bulwark against putting the fascist septuagenarian dementia patient back in charge, and nobody likes those options even if one is obviously less bad than the other.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Good thing Biden's not running against Harris.

Also, you can't really in good faith talk about Biden's"increased questions about his mental acuity to serve for another term" without quoting one of Trump's incoherent ramblings about the difficult tests his doctor gave him.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

It's a poorly phrased title; they're trying to say that Biden is doing better against Trump than Harris hypothetically would if she was running instead of Biden

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Pollsters for Emerson found a higher percentage of voters who said they were undecided in the match-ups with Newsom and Whitmer than with Biden or Harris. Only 11 percent were undecided in the match-up with Harris, while 18 percent were undecided with Newsom and 22 percent were undecided with Whitmer.

National political leader has better name recognition than state level political leaders in national poll, news at 11

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

news at 11

Sarcasm totally unfounded here because there are plenty of people arguing that anyone but Biden would be a better bet against Trump. But you point out one of the huge advantages of an incumbent has: name recognition.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I'm pretty sure that disadvantage for those candidates would disappear in about 24 hours if Biden suddenly became unavailable to run and voters got told "If you don't want four more years of Trump, vote [whoever]"

e; an attempt at better phrasing

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It's an inconvenient truth for people that Biden is the strongest and safest opponent against Trump. His incumbency advantage is significant.

It's possible another candidate would do better against Trump, but that's where "safest" comes into consideration. There's more unknowns and it's more risky. Our best bet would be to focus on a better candidate for 2028 and get started early with them

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

She really should have spent these last few years portraying herself as a better politician and more sympathetic person. She's mostly been this sort of non-entity in the background and has significant disadvantages due to her race and gender as well as her political background prior to becoming VP.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Her husband might

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Hey guys, I got a poll over here. It doesn't mean anything though. Do they just post these dumbass polls to publish something because they don't have anything else?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

Almost anyone would. If the crookedly right wing Supreme Court had a head on their shoulders they'd ban trump from running. It would leave the country thinking the government wasn't a complete sham and almost guarantee that the next election would favor the right. If Biden runs against anyone other than Trump the democrats are fucked. Biden is too damned old to face a coherent opponent.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's almost like the average voter knows we are prisoner to the two party system. And no matter how many "centrists" say one or the other party should switch candidates, neither can.

Which is its own false equivalency because the bad traits of the two major party candidates are just not comparable.

Our electoral system is outdated and cannot survive an entire political party abandoning democracy.

There's no alternative to Biden at this point with the rules we have in place. 🤷

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

This article dares to ask: Biden may be hated, but does he poll well against other hated Democrats?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Wait what? When was the match held? HOW DID I MISS IT???

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Because Harris has no charisma and Newsom lacks the name recognition.

[–] xmunk 22 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Personally, I dislike Harris because she's "tough on crime" and a former DA. As someone who's supported Sanders in the past, I've got no problem with direct politicians that don't small talk well. I don't know if you've ever spoken with Sanders but he has no tolerance for chit chat and isn't particularly charismatic himself.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Sanders has old professor charisma. He's passionate and articulate about the issues that matter to him.

But as he himself notes, and you point out, he's not quite a 'people person', not one for small talk.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Harris has less charisma than Hillary Clinton. She was a poor choice. And her establishment, prosecutorial background doesn't help her with the left-leaning crowd.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Probably because Harris locked up millions for simple possession and Newsom bulldozed homeless camps for the CCCP

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Not to forget closing down breweries while leaving wineries open during COVID. While owning a winery. The kind of shit I expect of a morally compromised “rules are for thee, not for me” politician.

Edit: forgot he also attended some fancy party while telling people to not attend large gatherings. The definition of what I just stated. I wrote him off a while ago.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Newsom hasn't done himself any favors lately with the bills he's been vetoing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

He's been endearing himself to party leadership with those vetoes.

And it's not like voters are ever gonna matter again in Democratic primaries.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

European here. Why is Biden so tied to his presidency? What about, for example, Sec Blinkin? From afar he seems like a clear minded, likable guy. There have to be other people in your enormous country. Bidens age is becoming a problem day by day and he is losing a lot of support from the younger, left wing and Muslim voters. Maybe someone like AOC could be a benefit on the vice president ticket?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There are multiple levels here.

Incumbents come with a large advantage. So large that no one ever lost the primary in modern history. The advantage comes in the form of recognition, records, and in general the president communication tools (state of the union, press coverage, etc).

Also, nobody really wants to challenge Biden. There are a few but they’re waiting for 2028 basically.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Also, Biden isn't losing much support. Every informed person knows that Biden is better for Israel and Palestine than Trump, simply because his foreign policy makes sense. Trump would help Russia (again), which helps Iran and Syria, which hurts sane dialogue in the Middle East.

load more comments
view more: next ›