The president often had a weak, raspy voice during his first debate against Trump, in what Democrats had hoped would be a turning point in the race.
What a disaster. I can’t remember the last time I saw a decent presidential debate, they all devolve into completely failing to answer the questions and just attacking the opponent. The only thing this new format did was prevent them from constantly talking over the opponent when their time was up.
What the hell happened to Biden? I mean, he’s old…but normally his speaking is far, far better despite his stutter. He could hardly get coherent rebuttals out half the time and had a hard time enunciating his policy goals.
Trump…nothing but a torrent of lies, [insert group] loves me, and “hurr durr you’re stupid, Biden.” But he was able to spew his word salad clearly.
They should have had fact-checkers, but the problem is that trump told so many lies so fast that 75% of the debate would have been the moderators having to correct trump’s bs.
This was embarrassing, to put it mildly. Terrifying to see trump look better than Biden - if you ignore what was actually said.
It was dumb just going along with Biden as the nominee, hubris and status quo thinking. Now the Democratic party needs to come up with something to energize the electorate. Scaring people with democracy being on the line, while completely true, isn’t gonna do it. Hoping the attacks on reproductive rights will carry them over the finish line is a bad idea. Trying to bring Harris out now into the limelight isn’t gonna work. People are tired and struggling. The youth feel betrayed and themselves are struggling. There is no energy coming from up on top. Dems have always sucked at messaging.
Bernie Sanders would have eaten Trump alive in every debate, including this last one.
Dem leaders prefer Trump to a real structural progressive economic reform.
The billionaires buy both parties now. Capitalism sucks chunks.
The billionaires of today love the status quo.
Is a full on fascist dictatorship the “status quo” now? Surprised billionaires would be behind this.
Fascism is great for any buisness that is already established. These people are already buying off the government, they’re not the little guys who could be taken over by a fascist government, they’re the ones pulling the strings.
Fascism is great for any buisness that is already established.
Fascism is actually terrible for capitalism in general though. Not that billionaires are smart enough to understand that.
So is oligarchy, the invisible hand, if it ever did exist, clearly no longer does if the market movements are determined by insider information and government bribes, I mean lobbying. Innovation is constantly stifled when that innovation costs rich people potential profit. Stock brokers shut down their consumer apps when those consumers invest in ways they threaten large hedge funds. Capitalists are about as good at following their dogma as Evangelical Christians.
Stock brokers shut down their consumer apps when those consumers invest in ways they threaten large hedge funds
Only an
idiotunwise person would use their phones to make stock trades.You realize most consumer level brokers have apps right? The vast majority of Americans have retirement and other investments with brokers that have apps. You don’t seriously expect me to believe that inherently makes it dumb.
The thing is, nobody ever said billionaires were smart. A lot of people conflate being wealthy with being intelligent, and that’s simply not the case.
The fatal mistake the billionaire donor class is making here is that they think Trump can be controlled if he does win. They aren’t worried about fascism because money is the real king of America and always has been.
And that line of thinking is solid until a fascist dictator who doesn’t want to give up their power or have it limited by anybody else decides that the wealthy are no longer their allies and has the secret police “deal with them”.
The elites thought Hitler was going to be their puppet, too.
Most of them are probably like „Republicans want less taxes for the rich and less taxes is more money for me“
You shouldn’t be. The rich supporting fascists (and vice versa) is nothing new.
Excerpts from Blackshirts and Reds, by Michael Parenti
To impose a full measure of austerity upon workers and peasants, the ruling economic interests would have to abolish the democratic rights that helped the masses defend their modest living standards. The solution was to smash their unions, political organizations, and civil liberties. Industrialists and big landowners wanted someone at the helm who could break the power of organized workers and farm laborers and impose a stern order on the masses. For this task Benito Mussolini, armed with his gangs of Blackshirts, seemed the likely candidate.
In 1922, the Federazione Industriale, composed of the leaders of industry, along with representatives from the banking and agribusiness associations, met with Mussolini to plan the “March on Rome,” contributing 20 million lire to the undertaking. With the additional backing of Italy’s top military officers and police chiefs, the fascist “revolution”—really a coup d’état—took place. . .
In Germany, a similar pattern of complicity between fascists and capitalists emerged. German workers and farm laborers had won the right to unionize, the eight-hour day, and unemployment insurance. But to revive profit levels, heavy industry and big finance wanted wage cuts for their workers and massive state subsidies and tax cuts for themselves.
During the 1920s, the Nazi Sturmabteilung or SA, the brown-shirted storm troopers, subsidized by business, were used mostly as an antilabor paramilitary force whose function was to terrorize workers and farm laborers. By 1930, most of the tycoons had concluded that the Weimar Republic no longer served their needs and was too accommodating to the working class. They greatly increased their subsidies to Hitler, propelling the Nazi party onto the national stage. Business tycoons supplied the Nazis with generous funds for fleets of motor cars and loudspeakers to saturate the cities and villages of Germany, along with funds for Nazi party organizations, youth groups, and paramilitary forces. In the July1932 campaign, Hitler had sufficient funds to fly to fifty cities in the last two weeks alone.
In that same campaign the Nazis received 37.3 percent of the vote, the highest they ever won in a democratic national election. They never had a majority of the people on their side. To the extent that they had any kind of reliable base, it generally was among the more affluent members of society. In addition, elements of the petty bourgeoisie and many lumpenproletariats served as strong-arm party thugs, organized into the SA storm troopers. But the great majority of the organized working class supported the Communists or Social Democrats to the very end. . .
Here were two peoples, the Italians and Germans, with different histories, cultures, and languages, and supposedly different temperaments, who ended up with the same repressive solutions because of the compelling similarities of economic power and class conflict that prevailed in their respective countries. In such diverse countries as Lithuania, Croatia, Rumania, Hungary, and Spain, a similar fascist pattern emerged to do its utmost to save big capital from the impositions of democracy. . .
Both Mussolini and Hitler showed their gratitude to their big business patrons by privatizing many perfectly solvent state-owned steel mills, power plants, banks, and steamship companies. Both regimes dipped heavily into the public treasury to refloat or subsidize heavy industry. Agribusiness farming was expanded and heavily subsidized. Both states guaranteed a return on the capital invested by giant corporations while assuming most of the risks and losses on investments. As is often the case with reactionary regimes, public capital was raided by private capital.
At the same time, taxes were increased for the general populace but lowered or eliminated for the rich and big business. Inheritance taxes on the wealthy were greatly reduced or abolished altogether.
Many billionaires are not only morons, they’re racist morons. They also love the trappings of fascism—as long as they get to be the ones on top.
Have you seen that article about that one techbro rich boy and how he wants to structure San Francisco? How the techbros would wear grey shirts, and their Republican friends would red shirts, and everyone else would be forced to wear blue shirts, and those with grey and red shirts would get preferential treatment, because they would buy out the cops?
The
billionairesrich buy both parties now.🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀
Dem leaders prefer Trump to a real structural progressive economic reform.
Literally no Dem in the entire country prefers Traitorapist Trump to even a house plant. Trump and “real structural progressive economic reform” are completely disconnected things. It’s not even remotely an either/or choice.
He could energize the electorate by ending the genicide in Palestine, nationalizing the rail industry or Boeing, expanding the Supreme Court and investigating their corruption, or displaying unlimited support for clean energy and dismantling the fossil fuel industry. But I doubt any of that will happen.
It won’t happen because Biden doesn’t want to do any of those things. The DNC would rather risk the nation crumbling into fascism than take any of those steps to stop it.
The DNC would rather
The newly elected delegates this year literally is the DNC. The smaller group of caretakers do not have the legal power to purge the large number of elected delegates. And these delegates are bound by the party charter to vote Biden on the first ballot. Unless Biden releases his delegates, which he could do and might do if convinced he is not the best choice to defeat Trump. So I am hoping that behind the scenes Dems are working furiously to convince Biden to release his delegates so that Gavin Newsome can be the nominee instead.
I think we’ve been operating on the false assumption that the Democratic partys primary goal is to win. I would wager that as far as campaign contributions go, it’s likely better for them financially if they barely lose. I feel like the past few presidential races have been the American populace trying to force them to win anyways when they obviously didn’t want to.
A lot of their decisions make a lot more sense in that context.
It’s easier to fundraise as an opposition party.
It’s easier to fundraise as an opposition party.
Any funds raised can only be used to win elections, not to buy themselves candy and ice cream. But if they don’t win they don’t get any personal gifts from lobbyists or cushy jobs after leaving office.
it’s likely better for them financially if they barely lose
LMFAO that makes absolutely no sense. The only use of the money they raise is to win elections. It’s not like if they lose they can use the leftover money to buy a new car. If there even is any leftover money, which there almost always is not.
I admire your optimism, but even if you aren’t willing to bend the rules and stick to the letter of the ethics rules, you can still use campaign funds for a fairly broad amount of items. And, if you are willing to bend the rules… when’s the last time you heard of someone getting in trouble for misuse of campaign funds? If you remember one at all, i’d wager it was George Santos, and it took a huge amount of misuse there for people to start paying attention.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Show real people who have been helped by Biden’s policies in the commercials.
People don’t trust institutions anymore. They don’t trust authority anymore. But put a real person in front of them and there’s a chance a plurality won’t call them paid actors and will understand that things are getting better.
People who aren’t the VBNMW crowd saw the writing on the wall for Biden. This debate only helped Trump even tho Trump literally didn’t answer anything. That is Trump’s style all insults or jokes and no substance. Not sure what happens here it is way too late to switch to anyone else. We’re cooked.
I literally counted every one of Convicted Felon and Sex Offender Treason Trump’s lies and the total was over 200.
As for Biden, I am deeply hoping that behind the scenes other Dem politicians are furiously trying to convince Biden to drop out and be replaced with Gavin Newsom. The party rules are that Biden would need to agree to formally release his delegates. But since Biden has maintained all along that he only ran to keep Treason Trump out of office, I think it would be possible to persuade Biden to drop out. Leave Harris as VP because she would need to have buy in as well. The convention is not till August so it doesn’t have to happen tomorrow but it does need to happen before the convention so they need to start working on it right now.
I watched about 30 minutes, gotta say Trump was all over the map and not answering questions. Biden was raspy and stuttered, like he does , but he actually answered the questions. Trumps answer about what he would do about the fentanyl crisis was ‘I bought a dog’
When asked if he supports some restrictions on abortion, Biden said he “supports Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters. The first time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation. A third time is between the doctor, I mean, between the women and the state.”
He missed a slam dunk when he pivoted from abortion to immigration, there was no logical reason to do that. Let alone some of his other statements. We need an open convention, if Trump is as big of a threat to democracy as Dems (accurately) claim then it is far past time that they start acting like it.
He missed a slam dunk when he pivoted from abortion to immigration, there was no logical reason to do that.
The Republican strategy has been to focus on immigration as the root of all economic evil. And since Biden’s economic gains have been heavily overstated, he’s forced right back into the old “We have to force foreigners out in order to keep our wealth in” fascist politics.
We need an open convention
Idk who this “We” is supposed to be. Are you speaking as a well-positioned party superdelegate, member of the DNC leadership committee, or mega-donor? Or are you some internet armchair asshole watching this trainwreck from the nosebleed seats?
Are you speaking as a well-positioned party superdelegate, member of the DNC leadership committee, or mega-donor? Or are you some internet armchair asshole watching this trainwreck from the nosebleed seats?
Oh, I’m neither. I’m someone who is going to be forced to deal with the consequences of this shitshow however it plays out. Since I, through no choice of my own, have skin in this game, I’m as entitled to my opinion as you are. Biden should step aside, and it is the morally correct move to do so.
he’s forced
Biden isn’t forced to do anything. He wasn’t forced to adopt Trump’s immigration policies, and he sure as shit wasn’t forced to pivot from the strongest issue the Dems have to one of the weakest.
Biden’s economic gains have been heavily understated.
This whole night was so many layers of exhausting, but probably not for the reasons you think… No rational, serious person was expecting Biden to Willy Wonka front somersault into this debate? it was going to be what this was, the only true surprise was probably the volume of his voice (which they chalk up to a cold, okay fine, I guess) and actually how well he did quickly processing and responding to trump’s gish gallop and unchecked stream of consciousness mistruth firehose with little help from the impotent moderators for the majority of the night.
The people in this country, in their immediate reaction to this debate, demonstrate that they just fundamentally lack the focus, empathv and frankly basic intelligence to process the substance of this or any debate. On average, we respond solely to voice pitch, tonality, body language and facial expressions, like a still developing toddler… Or a dog.
On average, we respond solely to voice pitch, tonality, body language and facial expressions, like a still developing toddler… Or a dog.
And so knowing that, the DNC should have put somebody up who appeals to those… dogs.
Like, obviously the smart decision is to vote for Biden anyway, but fuck me if they aren’t making this November win, what should be a slam dunk against a fascist, the most difficult in recent history.
If Trump wins, the DNC owes us blood.
Or a gorilla, but I think a gorilla is too much credit.
He seems like he’s doing a-ok today. Wtf???where was this guy last night?? https://youtu.be/eWylhLOPk8c?si=E5uZIHS15XQ_TKma
Jesus effing Christ, if this huge difference in energy was down just to some misfortunate cold at the time of the debate, it would be one of the most unfortunate timings. I don’t know if Trump would agree to a second debate now that he’s reaped some positives (or more like negatives for Biden), and also on another network that does any fact-checking. So sadly this failed debate might turn to be a pivotal point for the election.
They forgot to give him his stims last night /s
They did this to themselves. Total strategy failure, holding this debate so early in the race. Also trusting CNN’s moderator to follow all the rules and fact check both candidates live.
Why do liberals fail at strategy? I suspect it’s due to their tendency to spend more time thinking about how to go about things than on what things they should go about. Valuing the means at the expense of the ends, yet again.
In this instance, the moderators specifically refused to be fact checkers and declared that fact checking would be left to the candidates. It was a bit of a missed opportunity that Biden didn’t refute more of Trump’s falsehoods.
You’re not wrong, but the mics being turned off worked against Biden. Because his mic was cut off during the debate, Trump had free reign to spew falsehoods like a damn fire hose, and Biden had no time to even go, “Will you shut up, man?”
Wow, you’re smart! You should be president! You can fix everything right?
This sarcasm doesn’t help. But to answer your obviously facetious question, no, I can’t fix everything. But what I can do, is consider that perhaps pursuing justice rather than manners might actually be “going high”. And if Republicans are going to break rules, I’m certainly within my rights to bend them. We can all agree that “The ends justify the means” is a shitty moral philosophy, but you liberals tend to overcorrect to the point where thinking about the ends at all is -in some vaguely reflexive kinda way- innately immoral.
And I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but even I know there is a moral imperative to disobey the rules when following will not lead to justice.
I can also call a fascist, a fascist. Instead of simply requesting that the rules be followed, and trusting that fascist ideas will be voted against, we should do to fascists, everything that they would do and have already done to us.
The only realistic person who would replace Biden is Kamala Harris, and I don’t think people would vote for her.
She’s not Trump. People would vote for her.
Those of us who pay attention and give a shit would vote for her, but Biden (or what’s left of him) already has our votes whether we like it or not.
But for the people who are disconnected or ignorant enough that they aren’t already itching to vote against Trump? They can be influenced by the dumbest things.
Hillary isn’t Trump. And people still hated her, more than they disliked Trump. And now, the DNC and the Biden campaign has the onerous and extremely difficult, if not impossible task of making people hate Trump more than they dislike Biden.
extremely difficult,
Let’s see now, should I vote for Demoracy (D) or several decades of Fascism ® and decadence and depravity? Such an extremely difficult choice. /s
if not impossible task of making people hate Trump more than they dislike Biden.
Treason Trump is the most hated politican in America dude. And I don’t dislike Biden at all. He’s been a decent and very effective president. But I would like to have a stronger candidate and see Biden release his delegates and be replaced with Gavin Newsom.
Hillary won the popular vote.
That happened before Trump’s first term, and Biden beat Trump before 1/6. Take all that into context.
This seems to be the only criteria anyone can evaluate. But if that’s the case, why bother removing Biden? Let the man drool his way into a second term. Its all the same, so long as he isn’t Trump.
The only realistic person who would replace Biden is Kamala Harris, and I don’t think people would vote for her.
Nope. We need Gavin Newsome. If Biden released his delegates they would not be bound to Harris they could vote for anybody. But it would be helpful to have her buy in and I think she should be kept on the ticket as VP.
Still better than the Traitorapist.
Traitorapist.
OMG Awesome label! I am so stealing that from you!
Please spread it far and wide
Traitorapist
Oh come on, you’re not even trying now, lol
No doubt it’s easy pickins…
I dont get why people attack Biden for having a stutter. He stutters. We know. He always did, its why he does these breaks when speaking. Everything else is warranted though. He is way too old and slow. Still much better than the other old and slow dude.
Bruh he sounded ancient. I actually found it challenging to follow what he was saying.
he wasn’t so bad in 2020. he just aged a lot
Shoulda given him the juice!
The gaslighting ran out of gas
There’s a rumor that they are going to replace Biden with Jimmy Carter, so he can get a second term. I joke.
I find it ironic when the Left says “I don’t care if Biden is senile and incoherent, I’ll still vote for him!” no one cares… But, when the Right says “I don’t care that Trump is being charged with all these different things, I’ll still vote for him!” they’re idiots… funny how that works on Lemmy and Reddit…
Because one of these wants to destroy democracy and the right of many people to even exist.
But tell me again how the tangerine terror isn’t going to corrupt everything…
How did Trump destroy democracy when he was president? How horrible was your life? What freedoms did you lose when Trump was President? Again, scare tactics from the Left that we’ve been hearing for years now… I’m old enough to remember when they said the same shit about Bush Jr…
“said the same shit about Bush Jr…”
And would you trust a government run by a bush, a dick, and a colon?
I don’t care if Biden is senile and incoherent,
There is not a big overlap between what skills a candidate needs and what skills a president needs. 99% of the job of president is to make decisions. That’s the job. Even if he lost his voice entirely and was in a wheel chair like FDR, he could still make excellent decisions. President Biden absolutely killed it for 2 hours at the state of the union speech. Nobody who was “senile” could have done that.
I’ll still vote for him!”
Have you not been paying attention to current events? The country is at a critical junction between democracy and neofascism. OF COURSE I’m going to vote for the continuation of democracy. Anybody who does not would be an idiot. I would vote for a literal corpse over Convicted Criminal and Sex Offender Treason Trump.
Neofascism an overrated word thrown around by the Left. That’s like me saying that the Democrats are going to turn our country into socialism, when we know that’s not true. We heard all these things before, how horrible the country would be if Trump got elected, the “end of democracy”…and yet, under Trump none of those things happened. Both sides use scare tactics, the Democrats are no better.
when we know that’s not true.
NO NO NO NO NO!!!
Dude both Democrats and Republicans still loyal to America are scared to death that Traitorapest Trump is going be the end of democracy.
WHY WOULD LYNNE CHENEY THROW HER CAREER AWAY IF SHE DIDN’T REALIZE TRUMP IS TRYING TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY??
WHY WOULD ADAM KINZINGER THROW HIS CAREER AWAY IF HE DIDN’T REALIZE TRUMP IS TRYING TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY??
Why did Trump’s Vice President, Sec of State, 2 Attorneys General, National Security Adviser – ALL REPUBLICANS – warn us that Trump is a threat to democracy.
Trump ordered an attack against America on Jan 6, 2001. The previous 2 months he spent every single day trying to figure out a way to overturn the election and disenfranchise millions of Americans. ONLY A POWER MAD NEOFASCIST WOULD DO THAT. There is overwhelming evidence that Trump knew he lost on election night and Steve Bannon admitted on audio tape before the election that Trump was going to lie “and say they stole it”.
Every time Loser Trump loses an election or a court case he slanders our country and attacks our core values of democracy and the rule of law.
He admitted he would be a dictator “on day one”.
He promised to abuse the justice system to go after political enemies.
He threatened to “pull the license” of news media that criticize him.
He tried to blackmail Ukraine to interfere in our elections.
He cooperated fully with Putin to interfere in our elections.
That’s like me saying that the Democrats are going to turn our country into socialism, when we know that’s not true.
Because there is no evidence for that whatsoever. With Treason Trump we have overwhelming evidence of his complete contempt for our longstanding core values of democracy and the rule of law.
Trump’s action’s between election day and Jan 6 ABSOLUTELY DISQUALIFY HIM from holding office. All Republicans who still support Treason Trump ARE SUPPORTING THE END OF DEMOCRACY.
TRUMP KNOWS THAT IF DOESN’T OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY THEN HE IS GOING TO PRISON.
The system leaves us with a binary choice. Even the third “option” of inaction is essentially leaving it up to fate at best, and at worst is just handing the controls over.
The room you’re in is sealed, filling with water, and you can access a snorkel or a fire hydrant.
One of these things is not like the other…
If you are upset with Bidens chances, Bidens genocidal foreign policy, bidens too little too late climate policy or bidens xenophobic foreign policy:
Consider voting for a third party that actually has a platform and politics that aligns with your own.
Now that it’s clear the democrats won’t win. Now that it’s clear the only people throwing their votes away are the ones who carefully, tactically, thoughtfully attach their support to the democrats. Now that it’s clear a new American political formation has to emerge.
Take this opportunity to record your needs in the only way that cannot be ignored, glossed over, deepfaked or otherwise denied.
Voting won’t be enough, but it’s the start to a new alignment within the power structure we have. Be kind and understanding towards your neighbors.
Classic bloodfart.
If you got a messed up Linux I’ll help you with it.
The conspiracy theorists all say Joe is supposed to step down and Gavin Newsom somehow is added to the ticket which then will win. These conspiracy theorists also say that candidates are selected in advance by the powers that be and it’s all pagentry to deceive the gullible masses. Try to look surprised when he gets replaced and they add Gavin.
