President Joe Biden is a bigger person than any of us can be. To honor him we have to work like hell is around the corner to elect Kamala Harris as our Next President of the United States of America
A friend who is a Biden delegate from CA reports that the CA party chair has sent out endorsement forms to all members of the CA delegation—let’s see Dems everywhere endorse Kamala wholeheartedly and come out with flamethrowers against the GOP. This is an energizing moment and I hope Dems don’t waste it with handwringing. We don’t have to cower! Love this, Brian!!
Brian, thank you for sticking to your guns and staying relentlessly on message while even some of your own subscribers seemed to want you to just fall in line. These last few weeks were a great reminder, and one that I hope sticks, that we all create the reality we live in. We are not innocent bystanders watching events take place, the collective voices of those who care and pay attention shape the options we have in front of us.
Joe Biden did the right thing, one that was painfully obvious was the only path forward after the debate but still a very difficult decision for him, and all that matters now is when September hits and people really start tuning in to the election, the democrats will have a candidate that can campaign vigorously against Donald Trump.
After the Dems in Congress caved to the blackmail by the Billionaire Class that asserts it has the right and the means to run everything, regardless of what the Dem voters desired, we have no choice left to not only elect Kamala Harris, but to secure a solid majority in the Senare and the House to make sure the massive tax cuts that the billionaires want to keep will sundown and the tax rates will go back to where they should have been all along, when the US economy was busting at the seams with growth and prosperity during the 50s. Those bastards would have been completely happy with the t-Rump, but needed to maintain their "open minded" image, at our expense. All their corporate Media owner and CEO buddies have been backing Trump all along. Look at the FEC list.
As a Biden supporter, I take great umbrage at your claim that those of us who supported the President did so because we were brainwashed or frightened by MAGA. At least I supported the President because he had the wisdom and judgment to see that he needed to adopt policies that were more progressive than his natural inclination would have otherwise proposed, he had the political skills to make it happen. Maybe I am delusional, but I don’t think I’m the only one who felt that way. To be honest, I think just as good a case can be made that you Biden doubters were the ones who got spooked by the MAGAts and jumped ship prematurely and without forethought for what Biden’s withdrawal would mean in practical terms. I think an argument can be made that you are just projecting your own mental process on us Biden supporters (in MAGA style, I might add). Rather than trying a dishonest argument to make us Biden supporters shut up and sit down and let you smarties and your rich avatars run things, as is their natural and God given right, you ought to have taken your win with grace and allowed us to join together to defeat Trump. I sure hope the other smarties out there don’t follow your lead. The last the the nation needs is for Democrats to keep pointing fingers at each other. I’m willing to let it drop, but only if you are too.
Respectfully, I don't see where Mr Beutler claimed that those who supported the President "did so because [you] were brainwashed or frightened by MAGA." I think he was, if anything, chastising Democratic elite for historically retreating from winnable fights, or reacting defensively to obviously bad-faith rhetoric from Republicans. "Obeying in advance." For my own part, as someone who thinks that Biden's decision today was the correct and selfless one, I've never believed those who thought otherwise to be deluded or unprincipled or without a meritorious argument. It's a fraught situation, no? No pathway is clear, no decision is the obviously correct one. We all want to beat Trump, there's clearly disagreement on how best to do so in the moment, but one reason I align with the Democratic party in this moment is that, unlike the Republicans, we're pretty much all engaged in good faith disagreements over here, and not slinging transparent and intelligence-insulting bullshit. I genuinely don't know how they live with themselves. But we're on the same team, we all have the same broad goals, not the least of which is defeating Fascism, and the disagreements on how to get there, even if they feel high-stakes, are utterly sincere.
I was responding to this: “ Over the past couple weeks, a number of liberal elites and Biden allies argued for bow to those GOP threats. Stick with Biden, because if we don’t they’ll take us to court and maybe Biden’s name will end up on the ballot after all. ”
As you say, we all are in this for the common greater good. Let’s join together to get the job done. No need to spike the ball.
fair. treacherous waters, for sure. and given the composition of the federal judiciary there are no guarantees even if such threats are absolutely absurd on the merits. but i think as a general principle it’s best not to let the (probably) empty threats of bad-faith actors to determine one’s actions, or else it does sort of feel like surrendering prematurely, and a guarantee that you’ll practically never fight. but i definitely understand the concern.
Are you a "liberal elite or Biden ally"? Pretty sure he was referring to the people directly working for the Biden campaign or who were closely associated with it who were repeating the GOP's arguments about ballot access and such verbatim in order to scare other stakeholders in the party into doing the 7/21 virtual roll call that would have locked down Biden's nomination. Essentially repeating the GOP's arguments in order to justify keeping Biden, which is wild considering that not even the Republicans making those arguments believed them lol. Just pure cynicism
This seemed weirdly confrontational and ignored the countervailing concern that people wanting him to quit were seemingly adopting the RW/MSM argument that he should. And that it undermined the party by having that argument in public instead of determining the best course in private and then navigating it.
I'm pretty sure 99% of the people who have publicly stated that Biden should drop out did so AFTER their attempt to talk to Biden or Biden's people privately didn't work out. These are all people who want the Democrats to win in November, they aren't going to take the step of publicly talking shit about the Democratic nominee unless accomplishing that goal privately isn't working out.
It's an unfortunate but necessary calculus. Imagine a scenario where every elected Democrat that went public in telling Biden to drop out kept silent. Does Biden still drop out? Why? The party is publicly united behind him. Everyone publicly agrees that Biden is the candidate and we are sticking with him. Biden's campaign is using that as a pretext for staying in (imagine how frustrating that is if you're one of the people talking to Biden and his people privately and you know how many of your colleagues privately feel the same way).! Maybe you have a private come-to-Jesus moment with him and he does the right thing, but what if he doesn't?
When that's the case (and it definitely seemed like the case for at least two weeks after the debate), then the only leverage you have is going public. Because at the end of the day, the best way to get a nonviable nominee out of the way is to ensure he's nonviable by publicly saying he's not up for it. You do it enough you create a fait accompli where the candidate is so damaged that they basically have to drop out. It's not nice, but also probably would not have happened if the private persuasion campaign had had the desired effect. And now we have a new nominee whose success the party's top people have staked their careers and credibility on. I think you will be surprised at the party's unity in the coming months, as all those people work very hard to make sure that ditching Biden was not the wrong call
If true, then that means there was a disqualifying problem being hidden from voters as Biden insisted he was good. Which also erodes trust in the party. Either we can't trust party members not to shiv each other or we can't trust leadership to pick a viable candidate. Notwithstanding the other portion of my comment about a *lot* of these calls being oppositional/ made for clicks or media spotlight.
The idea of calling on your party's presidential nominee to drop out of the race as something you do to increase the amount of clicks you get that week is deeply strange. No one is going to make a bunch of potential enemies in their own party just to slightly boost their engagement for the week. Also you can only make that announcement once, so it doesn't work from that angle.
It's clear that you have a lot of difficulty ascribing honest motives to the people calling on Biden to drop out, and this bizarre belief that people calling on Biden to drop out were trying to slightly raise the number of clicks they got that week is certainly a result of that.
And yes, you cannot trust the leadership of the Democratic party to pick a viable candidate. They all lined up behind Biden because they were worried the voters were going to pick Bernie, many of them are on the record about that now. A lot of those same people were calling on Biden to drop out, but just because the wrongest people in the world were saying that he didn't have what it takes to run doesn't mean it isn't true. I didn't really want him in 2020, so I'm hardly sad to see him go now
Joe Biden did the right thing by stepping down. And you're right that this is a moment that needs to be seized. It was inexcusable that the Biden campaign decided not to run ads countering the lies that were spewing from the Republican so-called "leaders" at the Republican Convention. That has to stop now.
Project 2025 should be mined to provide content for those ads. Starting, somewhat at random, with the dismantling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. I guess the P2025 view is that what you don't know is coming can't hurt you. "Deny, deny, deny, deny" seems to be their mantra.
And with all due respect for those who disagree with Biden's decision, thank you for continuing to recognize the importance of getting behind Democrats up and down the ballot.
I had hoped Biden would find a way to get back on his feet and carry on, but I think getting Covid was the final straw after wasting too much time trying to re-establish himself. I deeply feared a lot of turmoil and "Thundeerdome" antics if Biden quit. This does not seem likely now. Moreover, as you argued, Biden withdrawing seems to have opened the floodgates of enthusiasm and commitment on the part of all those eager to work to defeat Trump.
You were right and I was wrong, and this mooring I fee quite good about that.
I can accept most of what you say except for two points. (1) The legal problems in many states are real but were ignored by Democratic elites. (2) The news media continually harped on Biden's age while seldom m mentioning Trump's increasing difficulty's. No both-sidesism there!
Thank you, Brian, for your sober, smart, levelheaded commentary. We count on you to provide that, and you never, ever disappoint.
Your point about the threat of lawsuits is spot on. It seemed to me, at least initially, that that threat was one factor that should be seriously considered in weighing whether Biden should step aside. Any such lawsuit would be meritless if not completely frivolous, but a legal action before a MAGA judge in state X could create serious problems for us, and if state X's appellate judiciary is also MAGA-infected, we could get really screwed - or so my thinking went. But if we accept that risk as a given and decide to hobble ourselves because of it, then I think we are pretty much surrendering pre-emptively in the war we are fighting in this election.
Legally meritless. A bygone concept in America. This whole fight over Biden somewhat distracted from a more important problem: GOP lawyers have a lot more traction than they did in 2020 to ratfuck a Democratic victory. Several states will honor Trump’s challenges this time, and the Alito court will give it to him.
Also, I think the debate over Biden is/was the most important problem, because had he stayed in the race, the chances of us ever getting to the rat-fucking stage of the process would've been nonexistent because they'd have won legitimately.
Yep - The election isn't going to end in November. It's going to be fought all the way through to Inauguration Day and possibly beyond. In addition to attracting swing voters and ensuring the base turns out, Dems need to plan for the post-election MAGA theft campaign to the greatest extent possible. There will be MAGA state election officials in place ready to screw us, and MAGA judges ready to hear frivolous lawsuits. MAGA won't accept defeat under any circumstances. But recall that SCOTUS (with the same composition as today) had an opportunity to help Trump out in 2020 and they declined to hear Trump's appeal. (Which is one reason why I was somewhat surprised by how far their immunity decision went.) I have no doubt that Alito and Thomas will do everything they can to give Trump the election, but I'm not yet positive that the other 4 conservatives will go along with them. It will depend on what the issues are.
No way I would ever subscribe to or even tolerate a voice that brought down the candidacy of Joe Biden and probably the freedom of the USA. You have contributed to, intentionally or not, the take-over by Trump and his minions of a highly functioning, mostly effective government that was closer to real freedom, justice, and democracy than anything else in modern history. We could have overcome the obstacles the Republicans set up, but we can hardly get past the betrayal of our own, which you have enticed and enabled. Go to Hell. The country will.
Biden was on track to lose in a landslide. His withdrawal is strategically brilliant because now that the GOP have made age and cognitive decline the primary issue it is now Trump who is the old demented man. Joejitsu, one could call it. Harris will now prosecute the case against Trump with coherence and vigor, relentlessly. This is the election choice we deserve.
Wow, i have a hard time thinking that is not actually a comment from Maga as they appear to be the angriest of all. I love Joe Biden, voted for him, in 2020 and in the primary this year. I don't feel my vote was taken away . Unlike the Maga party we can criticize our leader. I believe Joe was an incredible President and will be recognized for that, along with being a hero for putting country first, not himself. the DATA indicated that Joe was not overcoming the obstacles and Joe chose to allow someone else who maybe could overcome them. The country damn sure isn't going to hell unless Trump wins. I suspect that the large amount of Biden voters will honor HIS wishes. Guess you love Joe so much you just can't follow his lead, eh?
If the central question of this election is "Is Joe Biden too old to be president?" then the dems will get their butts kicked, and hard. As flawed as Harris is as a candidate, this is at least a chance to reset the race with a candidate whose age and fitness won't be a 24/7 obsession of the media
"Brian, you have utterly failed the promise of this country and helped bring the end of democracy in America. You IDIOT. You FOOL. Supporting democracy means having unconditional personal loyalty to Joe Biden and no one else! Only the senile cryptkeeper can safeguard our precious freedoms, and definitely none of the people who all poll better and can get through a debate without their brain melting""
The need for the Democratic party to immediately establish an alternative (and in this case 'alternative' means 'factual' and 'truthful') storyline is on full display right now. NBC and ABC have rushed onto the air their autopsy of the 'disarray' in the Democratic party presidential ticket although the 'body' is still on the cooling board. And Joe Manchin has already announced he may rejoin the party in order to put his name in contention for the Democratic nomination to be their candidate for President.
I wouldn’t give Manchin the time of day, much less a vote. While I, along with many wish Biden had come to this decision sooner, I’m happy he’s now definitively decided. If one sits down and thinks about it, it’s strategically brilliant. Trump and MAGA have spent millions on a campaign that no longer exists.
I’m not a political strategist and this is more complicated than Game ofThrones ever was.
All I wish for now is for a non-contentious Democratic convention so we can get moving. There is not a lot of time, but sometimes you get the best results when you’re under pressure.
It's so funny that Manchin thinks there's a large base of Democratic voters who would vote for him for president. He is a good example of what happens when you go two decades with consultants and other electeds being the only voters you ever talk to. Maybe he falls for the old consultant's trick of making someone believe there's a constituency for a third-party candidate because a majority of voters identify as independent (but don't vote that way, is the part they don't say).
It would be *incredibly* funny if he was actually that stupid
I disagree with this: “Their vice presidential nominee JD Vance has intimated that if Biden isn’t fit enough to run for re-election and serve another full term, then he isn’t fit enough to serve out the next six months. It’s the kind of argument an intelligent person can only make in bad faith.” The party line is that Biden “has good days and bad days” and is generally good between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. I’m not sure it’s OK for a president’s cognitive state to be such a toss-up. What if Iran launches middles at Israel in the middle of the night? I’m not sure Biden needs to leave office, but it is a valid concern.
The very thought that Trumpists would try to make Joe Biden remain on the ballot after fully embracing Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election is laughable. One is essentially an intra-party management issue, while the other is a F—k the Constitution issue.
The very consideration of such an effort speaks volumes about how disoriented the Biden withdrawal has made MAGA world.
I love how the Republicans are scrambling with being the ones reacting to what the Democrats are doing instead of always the other way around. They have built a campaign against Joe Biden. They can say until they’re blue in the face that Harris or Biden, it’s the same agenda they’re running against. But they better than anybody that the messenger is key. After all, they didn’t just become right wing freaks with crazy ideas yesterday - they’ve always been those freaks. But it took a Donald J. Trump to sell those ideas. They haven’t had an effective messenger since Ronald Reagan.
Very grateful to Joe for putting his country over his career and bowing out. Hopefully the Democrats will temporarily overcome their addiction to squandering political opportunities long enough to shift this race's fundamentals
President Joe Biden is a bigger person than any of us can be. To honor him we have to work like hell is around the corner to elect Kamala Harris as our Next President of the United States of America
A friend who is a Biden delegate from CA reports that the CA party chair has sent out endorsement forms to all members of the CA delegation—let’s see Dems everywhere endorse Kamala wholeheartedly and come out with flamethrowers against the GOP. This is an energizing moment and I hope Dems don’t waste it with handwringing. We don’t have to cower! Love this, Brian!!
Brian, thank you for sticking to your guns and staying relentlessly on message while even some of your own subscribers seemed to want you to just fall in line. These last few weeks were a great reminder, and one that I hope sticks, that we all create the reality we live in. We are not innocent bystanders watching events take place, the collective voices of those who care and pay attention shape the options we have in front of us.
Joe Biden did the right thing, one that was painfully obvious was the only path forward after the debate but still a very difficult decision for him, and all that matters now is when September hits and people really start tuning in to the election, the democrats will have a candidate that can campaign vigorously against Donald Trump.
After the Dems in Congress caved to the blackmail by the Billionaire Class that asserts it has the right and the means to run everything, regardless of what the Dem voters desired, we have no choice left to not only elect Kamala Harris, but to secure a solid majority in the Senare and the House to make sure the massive tax cuts that the billionaires want to keep will sundown and the tax rates will go back to where they should have been all along, when the US economy was busting at the seams with growth and prosperity during the 50s. Those bastards would have been completely happy with the t-Rump, but needed to maintain their "open minded" image, at our expense. All their corporate Media owner and CEO buddies have been backing Trump all along. Look at the FEC list.
As a Biden supporter, I take great umbrage at your claim that those of us who supported the President did so because we were brainwashed or frightened by MAGA. At least I supported the President because he had the wisdom and judgment to see that he needed to adopt policies that were more progressive than his natural inclination would have otherwise proposed, he had the political skills to make it happen. Maybe I am delusional, but I don’t think I’m the only one who felt that way. To be honest, I think just as good a case can be made that you Biden doubters were the ones who got spooked by the MAGAts and jumped ship prematurely and without forethought for what Biden’s withdrawal would mean in practical terms. I think an argument can be made that you are just projecting your own mental process on us Biden supporters (in MAGA style, I might add). Rather than trying a dishonest argument to make us Biden supporters shut up and sit down and let you smarties and your rich avatars run things, as is their natural and God given right, you ought to have taken your win with grace and allowed us to join together to defeat Trump. I sure hope the other smarties out there don’t follow your lead. The last the the nation needs is for Democrats to keep pointing fingers at each other. I’m willing to let it drop, but only if you are too.
Respectfully, I don't see where Mr Beutler claimed that those who supported the President "did so because [you] were brainwashed or frightened by MAGA." I think he was, if anything, chastising Democratic elite for historically retreating from winnable fights, or reacting defensively to obviously bad-faith rhetoric from Republicans. "Obeying in advance." For my own part, as someone who thinks that Biden's decision today was the correct and selfless one, I've never believed those who thought otherwise to be deluded or unprincipled or without a meritorious argument. It's a fraught situation, no? No pathway is clear, no decision is the obviously correct one. We all want to beat Trump, there's clearly disagreement on how best to do so in the moment, but one reason I align with the Democratic party in this moment is that, unlike the Republicans, we're pretty much all engaged in good faith disagreements over here, and not slinging transparent and intelligence-insulting bullshit. I genuinely don't know how they live with themselves. But we're on the same team, we all have the same broad goals, not the least of which is defeating Fascism, and the disagreements on how to get there, even if they feel high-stakes, are utterly sincere.
I was responding to this: “ Over the past couple weeks, a number of liberal elites and Biden allies argued for bow to those GOP threats. Stick with Biden, because if we don’t they’ll take us to court and maybe Biden’s name will end up on the ballot after all. ”
As you say, we all are in this for the common greater good. Let’s join together to get the job done. No need to spike the ball.
fair. treacherous waters, for sure. and given the composition of the federal judiciary there are no guarantees even if such threats are absolutely absurd on the merits. but i think as a general principle it’s best not to let the (probably) empty threats of bad-faith actors to determine one’s actions, or else it does sort of feel like surrendering prematurely, and a guarantee that you’ll practically never fight. but i definitely understand the concern.
Are you a "liberal elite or Biden ally"? Pretty sure he was referring to the people directly working for the Biden campaign or who were closely associated with it who were repeating the GOP's arguments about ballot access and such verbatim in order to scare other stakeholders in the party into doing the 7/21 virtual roll call that would have locked down Biden's nomination. Essentially repeating the GOP's arguments in order to justify keeping Biden, which is wild considering that not even the Republicans making those arguments believed them lol. Just pure cynicism
This seemed weirdly confrontational and ignored the countervailing concern that people wanting him to quit were seemingly adopting the RW/MSM argument that he should. And that it undermined the party by having that argument in public instead of determining the best course in private and then navigating it.
I'm pretty sure 99% of the people who have publicly stated that Biden should drop out did so AFTER their attempt to talk to Biden or Biden's people privately didn't work out. These are all people who want the Democrats to win in November, they aren't going to take the step of publicly talking shit about the Democratic nominee unless accomplishing that goal privately isn't working out.
It's an unfortunate but necessary calculus. Imagine a scenario where every elected Democrat that went public in telling Biden to drop out kept silent. Does Biden still drop out? Why? The party is publicly united behind him. Everyone publicly agrees that Biden is the candidate and we are sticking with him. Biden's campaign is using that as a pretext for staying in (imagine how frustrating that is if you're one of the people talking to Biden and his people privately and you know how many of your colleagues privately feel the same way).! Maybe you have a private come-to-Jesus moment with him and he does the right thing, but what if he doesn't?
When that's the case (and it definitely seemed like the case for at least two weeks after the debate), then the only leverage you have is going public. Because at the end of the day, the best way to get a nonviable nominee out of the way is to ensure he's nonviable by publicly saying he's not up for it. You do it enough you create a fait accompli where the candidate is so damaged that they basically have to drop out. It's not nice, but also probably would not have happened if the private persuasion campaign had had the desired effect. And now we have a new nominee whose success the party's top people have staked their careers and credibility on. I think you will be surprised at the party's unity in the coming months, as all those people work very hard to make sure that ditching Biden was not the wrong call
If true, then that means there was a disqualifying problem being hidden from voters as Biden insisted he was good. Which also erodes trust in the party. Either we can't trust party members not to shiv each other or we can't trust leadership to pick a viable candidate. Notwithstanding the other portion of my comment about a *lot* of these calls being oppositional/ made for clicks or media spotlight.
The idea of calling on your party's presidential nominee to drop out of the race as something you do to increase the amount of clicks you get that week is deeply strange. No one is going to make a bunch of potential enemies in their own party just to slightly boost their engagement for the week. Also you can only make that announcement once, so it doesn't work from that angle.
It's clear that you have a lot of difficulty ascribing honest motives to the people calling on Biden to drop out, and this bizarre belief that people calling on Biden to drop out were trying to slightly raise the number of clicks they got that week is certainly a result of that.
And yes, you cannot trust the leadership of the Democratic party to pick a viable candidate. They all lined up behind Biden because they were worried the voters were going to pick Bernie, many of them are on the record about that now. A lot of those same people were calling on Biden to drop out, but just because the wrongest people in the world were saying that he didn't have what it takes to run doesn't mean it isn't true. I didn't really want him in 2020, so I'm hardly sad to see him go now
Joe Biden did the right thing by stepping down. And you're right that this is a moment that needs to be seized. It was inexcusable that the Biden campaign decided not to run ads countering the lies that were spewing from the Republican so-called "leaders" at the Republican Convention. That has to stop now.
Project 2025 should be mined to provide content for those ads. Starting, somewhat at random, with the dismantling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. I guess the P2025 view is that what you don't know is coming can't hurt you. "Deny, deny, deny, deny" seems to be their mantra.
And with all due respect for those who disagree with Biden's decision, thank you for continuing to recognize the importance of getting behind Democrats up and down the ballot.
Brian,
You were right and I was wrong.
I had hoped Biden would find a way to get back on his feet and carry on, but I think getting Covid was the final straw after wasting too much time trying to re-establish himself. I deeply feared a lot of turmoil and "Thundeerdome" antics if Biden quit. This does not seem likely now. Moreover, as you argued, Biden withdrawing seems to have opened the floodgates of enthusiasm and commitment on the part of all those eager to work to defeat Trump.
You were right and I was wrong, and this mooring I fee quite good about that.
I can accept most of what you say except for two points. (1) The legal problems in many states are real but were ignored by Democratic elites. (2) The news media continually harped on Biden's age while seldom m mentioning Trump's increasing difficulty's. No both-sidesism there!
Thank you, Brian, for your sober, smart, levelheaded commentary. We count on you to provide that, and you never, ever disappoint.
Your point about the threat of lawsuits is spot on. It seemed to me, at least initially, that that threat was one factor that should be seriously considered in weighing whether Biden should step aside. Any such lawsuit would be meritless if not completely frivolous, but a legal action before a MAGA judge in state X could create serious problems for us, and if state X's appellate judiciary is also MAGA-infected, we could get really screwed - or so my thinking went. But if we accept that risk as a given and decide to hobble ourselves because of it, then I think we are pretty much surrendering pre-emptively in the war we are fighting in this election.
Legally meritless. A bygone concept in America. This whole fight over Biden somewhat distracted from a more important problem: GOP lawyers have a lot more traction than they did in 2020 to ratfuck a Democratic victory. Several states will honor Trump’s challenges this time, and the Alito court will give it to him.
Also, I think the debate over Biden is/was the most important problem, because had he stayed in the race, the chances of us ever getting to the rat-fucking stage of the process would've been nonexistent because they'd have won legitimately.
Yep - The election isn't going to end in November. It's going to be fought all the way through to Inauguration Day and possibly beyond. In addition to attracting swing voters and ensuring the base turns out, Dems need to plan for the post-election MAGA theft campaign to the greatest extent possible. There will be MAGA state election officials in place ready to screw us, and MAGA judges ready to hear frivolous lawsuits. MAGA won't accept defeat under any circumstances. But recall that SCOTUS (with the same composition as today) had an opportunity to help Trump out in 2020 and they declined to hear Trump's appeal. (Which is one reason why I was somewhat surprised by how far their immunity decision went.) I have no doubt that Alito and Thomas will do everything they can to give Trump the election, but I'm not yet positive that the other 4 conservatives will go along with them. It will depend on what the issues are.
No way I would ever subscribe to or even tolerate a voice that brought down the candidacy of Joe Biden and probably the freedom of the USA. You have contributed to, intentionally or not, the take-over by Trump and his minions of a highly functioning, mostly effective government that was closer to real freedom, justice, and democracy than anything else in modern history. We could have overcome the obstacles the Republicans set up, but we can hardly get past the betrayal of our own, which you have enticed and enabled. Go to Hell. The country will.
Seems a little harsh.
Biden was on track to lose in a landslide. His withdrawal is strategically brilliant because now that the GOP have made age and cognitive decline the primary issue it is now Trump who is the old demented man. Joejitsu, one could call it. Harris will now prosecute the case against Trump with coherence and vigor, relentlessly. This is the election choice we deserve.
Wow, i have a hard time thinking that is not actually a comment from Maga as they appear to be the angriest of all. I love Joe Biden, voted for him, in 2020 and in the primary this year. I don't feel my vote was taken away . Unlike the Maga party we can criticize our leader. I believe Joe was an incredible President and will be recognized for that, along with being a hero for putting country first, not himself. the DATA indicated that Joe was not overcoming the obstacles and Joe chose to allow someone else who maybe could overcome them. The country damn sure isn't going to hell unless Trump wins. I suspect that the large amount of Biden voters will honor HIS wishes. Guess you love Joe so much you just can't follow his lead, eh?
If the central question of this election is "Is Joe Biden too old to be president?" then the dems will get their butts kicked, and hard. As flawed as Harris is as a candidate, this is at least a chance to reset the race with a candidate whose age and fitness won't be a 24/7 obsession of the media
"Brian, you have utterly failed the promise of this country and helped bring the end of democracy in America. You IDIOT. You FOOL. Supporting democracy means having unconditional personal loyalty to Joe Biden and no one else! Only the senile cryptkeeper can safeguard our precious freedoms, and definitely none of the people who all poll better and can get through a debate without their brain melting""
I hope you guys were right.
The need for the Democratic party to immediately establish an alternative (and in this case 'alternative' means 'factual' and 'truthful') storyline is on full display right now. NBC and ABC have rushed onto the air their autopsy of the 'disarray' in the Democratic party presidential ticket although the 'body' is still on the cooling board. And Joe Manchin has already announced he may rejoin the party in order to put his name in contention for the Democratic nomination to be their candidate for President.
I wouldn’t give Manchin the time of day, much less a vote. While I, along with many wish Biden had come to this decision sooner, I’m happy he’s now definitively decided. If one sits down and thinks about it, it’s strategically brilliant. Trump and MAGA have spent millions on a campaign that no longer exists.
I’m not a political strategist and this is more complicated than Game ofThrones ever was.
All I wish for now is for a non-contentious Democratic convention so we can get moving. There is not a lot of time, but sometimes you get the best results when you’re under pressure.
It's so funny that Manchin thinks there's a large base of Democratic voters who would vote for him for president. He is a good example of what happens when you go two decades with consultants and other electeds being the only voters you ever talk to. Maybe he falls for the old consultant's trick of making someone believe there's a constituency for a third-party candidate because a majority of voters identify as independent (but don't vote that way, is the part they don't say).
It would be *incredibly* funny if he was actually that stupid
I disagree with this: “Their vice presidential nominee JD Vance has intimated that if Biden isn’t fit enough to run for re-election and serve another full term, then he isn’t fit enough to serve out the next six months. It’s the kind of argument an intelligent person can only make in bad faith.” The party line is that Biden “has good days and bad days” and is generally good between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. I’m not sure it’s OK for a president’s cognitive state to be such a toss-up. What if Iran launches middles at Israel in the middle of the night? I’m not sure Biden needs to leave office, but it is a valid concern.
The very thought that Trumpists would try to make Joe Biden remain on the ballot after fully embracing Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election is laughable. One is essentially an intra-party management issue, while the other is a F—k the Constitution issue.
The very consideration of such an effort speaks volumes about how disoriented the Biden withdrawal has made MAGA world.
I love how the Republicans are scrambling with being the ones reacting to what the Democrats are doing instead of always the other way around. They have built a campaign against Joe Biden. They can say until they’re blue in the face that Harris or Biden, it’s the same agenda they’re running against. But they better than anybody that the messenger is key. After all, they didn’t just become right wing freaks with crazy ideas yesterday - they’ve always been those freaks. But it took a Donald J. Trump to sell those ideas. They haven’t had an effective messenger since Ronald Reagan.
Very grateful to Joe for putting his country over his career and bowing out. Hopefully the Democrats will temporarily overcome their addiction to squandering political opportunities long enough to shift this race's fundamentals