rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Whomsoever amongst us can forget the Battle of Tassafaronga

What they're afraid of now isn't his ability to be president, its the loss of his perceived ability as a candidate to win again

otm. My concerns about his age have almost entirely to do with its non-negligible impact on his chances of winning the election. What happens after the election is a secondary issue that we can worry about if he actually manages to win.

I don’t think you need a list of things younger person would be doing better to not assume you’d feel better if someone who wasn’t declining in front of our eyes was in control of the world’s largest military and a nuclear arsenal that can destroy humanity.

The President is the vibes leader and low energy and confused is not a good vibe.

We still need a better alternative suggestion than "none of the above"

If they both keel over one month before elections, how does everyone's predictions change? Would Harris be the backup against ... ?

I don’t think you need a list of things younger person would be doing better to not assume you’d feel better if someone who wasn’t declining in front of our eyes was in control of the world’s largest military and a nuclear arsenal that can destroy humanity.

Sorry, but I think you kinda do. Most young people are fucking morons and I can't think of one I'd want as president.

Philip, I know you know this, but we don't vote for candidates; we vote for electors who are pledged to a candidate.

When the candidate is unavailable, electors can do whatever the fuck they want. Mostly. Kinda. I think. Who the hell knows?

Maybe we just dissolve the whole dumb project and return to the tundra or jungle or whatev

I have a pretty good loincloth ready to go, and a decent slingshot

Any Generic National Democrat between the ages of 40 & 65 is going to be functionally indistinguishable from Biden aside from not being senescent (and probably being better on Israel). I would choose any of them. Pete, Kamala, Klobuchar, Whitmer, Pritzker, whatever.

The only argument for Biden at this point is the incumbent advantage and when the national conversation for the rest of the year is going to be “are we sure he isn’t senile?” that advantage is negated.

A president's staff and appointees are supposed to do most of the work of running the executive branch. As for ageism vs. gerontocracy, yes, it's much better to have a president who is vigorous and able to absorb new information rapidly and decisively, but these qualities aren't an absolute necessity. What you really don't want is a situation where a president's incapacity or indecision creates a power vacuum and there is no way to resolve conflicting factions at the top levels of the administration. That can happen to any president, but the risk is much higher with an elderly one.

We still need a better alternative suggestion than "none of the above"

I have had this argument with friends who are like, "Who would be more electable?" My point is that we can't know that without a competitive primary. That's why we have primaries. If Biden hadn't run, we would've had probably 5 to 10 Democrats vying for it, and one of them would have shown the political skills to win the primary. Whoever that was would have been (imo) more viable and electable than Biden.

Open primaries are good for identifying political talent. It's how we got both Clinton and Obama, who — whatever you think of them as presidents — were very good presidential candidates.

_I don’t think you need a list of things younger person would be doing better to not assume you’d feel better if someone who wasn’t declining in front of our eyes was in control of the world’s largest military and a nuclear arsenal that can destroy humanity._

Sorry, but I think you kinda do. Most young people are fucking morons and I can't think of one I'd want as president.

It is mildly interesting that there is exactly one professional field wherein I (52) would be considered a young upstart whippersnapper, and happens to be extremely important

I wouldn't trust this guy to run a bath let alone the most powerful nation on Earth.

When I asked a 50+ and 40+ how young a candidate could be, everyone agreed 35 was too young, mostly citing how ignorant and immature they felt at 35. (But I didn't want to tell them they didn't strike me as that much more mature now!)

it would be good to have a president who could frequently and effectively communicate about issues facing the country imo

Sad thing is Biden once could have

The President is the vibes leader and low energy and confused is not a good vibe.

it would be good to have a president who could frequently and effectively communicate about issues facing the country imo

I don't think Biden was ever good at that sort of thing - he's been a gaffe machine for 40 years now. hes definitely worse than he used to be though.

Biden wasn't even my third pick in 2020. He beat Trump. He has signed more significant legislation than Obama (ACA excepted). He shouldn't have gotten this far, yet here he is. Having lived through Reagan, the second Bush, and Trump -- pretty traumatic experiences! -- I've seen how the presidency largely depends on a chief executive vaguely or forcefully espousing certain views about what he expects from his government, then lets the staff and Congress sort it out. I don't care if he's feeble. I don't care if he's a figurehead. His party supports things I believe in -- Reagan's brain was toilet paper the last two years of his administration while Bush II's never existed. Edith Wilson ran the goddamn government in 1920. I just don't have time to worry about Biden's purported senility.

Of course a younger and more leftist candidate should've run in 2020; instead we got septuagenarians.

Alfred OTM

Paul Campos at LGM:

Biden is three and a half years older, but chronological and cognitive age are separate things, and there’s absolutely no basis for believing that advanced age is a more troubling factor in Biden’s case than it is in Trump’s, given Trump’s terrible lifestyle and propensity to avoid exercising his brain, which is a massive risk factor in terms of age-related cognitive decline.

So focusing on the fact that both candidates are really old is pointless, given that it’s not a distinguishing factor between them, unlike say the fact that one of them wants to install an authoritarian cult of personality in the service of primarily, keeping himself out of prison, and secondarily, theocratic ethno-nationalism, and the other doesn’t.

That Biden is very old is a huge negative in the abstract. In the concrete present of America 2024, it’s totally meaningless — not that this will stop Peter Baker et. al. from talking about it endlessly for the next nine months.

Yeah, again, I don't particularly care about his cognitive abilities from a governing standpoint. And as discussed elsewhere, I won't personally have any trouble voting for the guy, for a number of different reasons (only some of which have anything to do with his performance in office).

But it was an incredibly risky gamble for him to seek a second term — much riskier than not, imo — and I deeply resent him taking that gamble for the whole country. And people (not anyone here) who think perceptions of age and infirmity don't matter in leadership decisions are just whistling past the graveyard. Of course they matter. Probably they even should matter. If Biden wins, OK, I'll forgive him the high-risk behavior. But if he doesn't, I won't. This was his call, so he'd better deliver. Stakes is high.

To contextualize a little, I don't resent him running only because of his age. If he was Reagan sitting on a 58 percent approval rating, I'd say go for it big guy, you've earned it. But that's not the situation. His popularity is very low, and his age is an intrinsic part of that.

I have had this argument with friends who are like, "Who would be more electable?" My point is that we can't know that without a competitive primary. That's why we have primaries. If Biden hadn't run, we would've had probably 5 to 10 Democrats vying for it, and one of them would have shown the political skills to win the primary.

I pay pretty close attention to Democratic Party politics and I couldn't come up with 10 potential presidential candidates if you gave me 24 hours and $1000. I suspect you couldn't either.

Newsom, Shapiro, Whitmer, Pritzker, Kamala Harris, Buttigieg, Warren, Beshear, Wes Moore, and Raphael Warnock.

Are you sure you pay close attention?

Whitmer
Pritzker
Harris
Petey Butts
Newsom
Walz
Inslee
Brown
Duckworth
Markey

Why not throw in Warren and Beto for good measure.

I didn’t even include people who will certainly run in 2028, like Klobachar, Booker and Adam Schiff. Or dream candidates like AOC or Bernie.

The clear-eyed realist 'I know the Democratic Party/Biden/etc. sucks but by god it's the only option we've got' schtick doesn't work too well in this case - if "beating Trump" is the important thing (vs. "re-electing Biden") Biden's mental state (or more accurately, public perception of his mental state - 2/3 of Democrats already think he's too old!) matters a great deal.

Even if you want to go with the line that they're both old and losing it - accurate! - someone who is not old and losing it would thus be a competitive advantage.

by god it's the only option we've got' schtick doesn't work

so what other option do you propose?

Supposedly Obama tried to talk him out of running in 2020. You just can’t turn this old mule around

Whitmer
Pritzker
Harris
Petey Butts
Newsom
Walz
Inslee
Brown
Duckworth
Markey

Why not throw in Warren and Beto for good measure

The first three names on your list are the only serious options. The others are nobodies (yes, even Newsom) or proven losers.

nothing in the constitution that says losers can't run for president

Primaries, notorious for having 10 guaranteed winners each time.

I'm less worried than in 2020, I think Biden is going to win this election and serve out 4 more years, and that will be that

The first three names on your list are the only serious options. The others are nobodies (yes, even Newsom) or proven losers.

a.) You're probably right; but

b.) We have no way to know! Again, it's why we have primaries. Look how many people touted as frontrunners have flamed out at different points. Politics is hard, you have to be good at it to get elected president. The value of a primary system is finding out who can best put together votes (and money, and marketing, and all of the other things politics requires). You don't know who's actually going to win the game until you play it. Besides the high-risk nature of his candidacy, Biden is also stifling the party figuring out who its next best bet is.

Honestly this is what Boomers have been doing for years

Amen brother

lol otm

BOOMER LXXX THE FINAL TOUR WE SWEAR

don't stop believing!

oops sorry I meant "don't stop thinking about tomorrow", damn boomers and their songs

Tell me one song that isnt by a boomer

Markey

Biz?

We have no way to know! Again, it's why we have primaries. Look how many people touted as frontrunners have flamed out at different points. Politics is hard, you have to be good at it to get elected president. The value of a primary system is finding out who can best put together votes (and money, and marketing, and all of the other things politics requires). You don't know who's actually going to win the game until you play it.

Come on. Yes you fucking do. I don't know why politicians can't look in a mirror and know that the person looking back at them will never be president; I don't know why political journalists can't tell (honestly, I suspect most of them can, but they get paid to be stenographers for losers and idiots); but a normal person can look at a row of presidential candidates and say, "Nope, nope, nope, nope, maybe" and be absolutely right. Mike Dukakis? Was never gonna be president. Howard Dean? Was never gonna be president. John Kerry? Chris Christie? Pete Buttigeig? Vivek Ramaswamy? Nikki Haley? Ron DeSantis? Even absent Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis was never gonna be president. The only close calls in recent years were Mitt Romney (had he been the nominee in 2008, he might have beaten Obama) and Elizabeth Warren. You can look at the candidates every time and judge them on the stupidest, most superficial grounds — their height, their weight, the sound of their voice, their last name — and be absolutely right about their prospects, because the American people are stupid and superficial and are casting a president as much as they're voting for one.

You may count Clinton as a "close call"; I count her as having the election stolen from her by whatever the evil version of a miracle is.

unperson otm

You may want a primary, but a sitting president after their first term is going to be the nominee, and there won't be a primary!

I don't see how it's that high-risk, or that Biden will be stifling the next party figure.

I had an argument last night with a friend, who thought Biden wouldn't last out the campaign "because he is so senile", and that it would end up being somebody else, like Whitmer or Newsom. I thought, I mean, really, are you that influenced by your personal preferences? Do you really think somebody else could come in at this late date and raise funds and be a viable candidate and defeat Trump?

yeah, tipsy, I'm shocked you're making the argument -- I think? -- that a sitting president would resign or let the party replace him/her. That way lies loss. 2020 was the time not to have Biden as a nominee.

Uh, primaries have already started. It's too late for a viable nonBiden. If Whitmer of Newsom or whoever were running, we'd already know it. If Biden keels over, you get Harris, like it or not.