rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

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.

Newsom is perfect for the Democratic establishment. Like Warren, he is a pseudo-progressive who fundamentally believes in nothing and flip-flops whenever he needs to, and Republicans have been conditioned to hate him for years

is Newsom any good or is he one of those Dems thats just way way way into corporate donors

he definitely has the look/personality for a national profile

Like Warren, he is a pseudo-progressive who fundamentally believes in nothing

beamish13, you're so full of shit

Personal attacks are always classy.

Newsom campaigned on a single-payer system for Californians and has spent years trying to backpedal. He’s a joke

Also, Warren is a hawk paid for by AIPAC, but she was a registered Republican for decades, so no one with more than one brain cell should believe a fucking word that comes out of her mouth

“I knew these losing candidates were never going to be President, I can clearly see the future” is some
amazing bullshit.

The two most successful Democrats post-FDR would not have been President based on such gut instinct genius. A hillbilly governor weighed down by numerous scandals and a two-year Senator running against the hillbilly’s wife and Anointed One of the party.

The two most successful Democrats post-FDR would not have been President based on such gut instinct genius. A hillbilly governor weighed down by numerous scandals and a two-year Senator running against the hillbilly’s wife and Anointed One of the party.

You are not judging superficially; you are judging based on facts. In 1992, Bill Clinton ran in the primaries against Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas, Tom Harkin, and Bob Kerrey. Look at pictures of those five men and decide which one should be president. Clinton was the only choice. Similarly, in 2008, Obama ran against Biden, Clinton, John Edwards, Christopher Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, Evan Bayh, and Tom Vilsack. If you can't see how much cooler Obama looked than all of those people put together, how much more like a president, you're not thinking superficially enough.

look I get it, I'm one of those who actually thinks that "who sells more Halloween masks" metric actually *is* important, but I think Biden very much does not have the *it* factor so his victory I think may be some response to Trumpism as a whole...maybe not the worst to run him again

No Republican was going to win in 2008, and certainly not Romney.

Picking the candidate who looks the best is also why everyone mentions Newsom as a contender

I mean people respond more favorably to people who look good, that's why a lot of certain people get cast in movies

Not sure how to explain Dukakis getting nomination in 88 over hot young Al Gore though

Because Gary Hart really should’ve gotten it in ‘88, but infidelity matters for some fucking reason to puritanical idiots

his victory I think may be some response to Trumpism as a whole...maybe not the worst to run him again

Wasn't this the entire purpose in his selection in 2020? That he was perceived to be the safest choice and most suited to just being "not Trump"

I thought the choice was a bad one at the time, but I was wrong. But it was always going to have a second run baked in, giving up incumbency is seen as a risky move that generally isn't pursued successfully

I seem to have slept through the John Edwards and Beto O'Rourke Administrations.

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

lol I don't know why we keep rehashing this. We've never ever had an octogenarian running for president, this isn't normal times. And more to the point Biden openly fueled speculation during his 2020 campaign that he might only serve one term. He deliberately fed it as a possibility in order to assuage exactly these concerns about his age, it's not like the notion came from nowhere. And again, if he was popular and polling well, it would be a lot easier to make the case for him running. But he's massively unpopular! You can dismiss that or explain it away or whatever, but there is precious little enthusiasm for him out there.

And I love how people think they can just automatically know who can get elected president. I've watched like 200 elections up close — talked to candidates, watched them in action, tracked their donations and mailers and political consultants. And you absolutely cannot know who can win an election until they do it. Politics is complicated. Lots of people are bad at it who you think would be good, and sometimes people are good at it who you think would be bad. At the national level, politics is way more complicated and subject to wide-ranging variables than, say, college football is — but no one would say you can know the national champion for sure before the season's been played.

Anyway, if he wins, this is all beside the point. And, given nothing else to hope for this time around, I hope he does.

I agree with some of that, but there's not much of a track record of parties primarying a sitting president successfully. Especially when there's no real way of knowing who can. win an election until they do it, which Biden was able to demonstrate

The overperformance in the midterms may have closed off any ideas of replacement. If they had done badly in 2022 the swap him out for someone else might well have been less muted

Yeah, I'm not talking about primarying him. He just should've retired, like normal people do. I actually think the midterm success set him up perfectly to bow out on a high note and say he was going to spend the next two years fighting for his priorities etc etc.

This is an old man's ego trip, is what I'm saying, and if we have to live with it we should call it what it is.

And coming on the heels of RBG's own catastrophic ego trip it feels especially galling.

Yeah, I'm not talking about primarying him. He just should've retired, like normal people do. I actually think the midterm success set him up perfectly to bow out on a high note and say he was going to spend the next two years fighting for his priorities etc etc.

And if we lived in an Aaron Sorkin script, the Democrats would win the next presidential election in a blowout and achieve all their legislative priorities, carried forward on a wave of public admiration for its oh-so-noble public servants.

Except that the exact opposite of that would happen. Biden would announce his retirement, the Republicans would block anything and everything he tried to do for the next two years while the media portrayed him as even more feeble and worthless than they currently do, and whatever Democrat tried to run to succeed him would get steamrollered by Donald Trump and yay! Fascism ascendant!

For someone who's "watched like 200 elections up close" you seem to have no idea what country you live in or how it works.

Yeah, I'm not talking about primarying him. He just should've retired, like normal people do

I can see that, I just think a second run was baked in the minute he won the nomination first time around. Its part of why I thought he was a terrible candidate. A good president but a bad candidate, and now he's a candidate again and back to being terrible

But thats sort of the deal, if you offered voters what they considered to be the best shot of winning in 2024 but that it came with the caveat of a problem in 2028, most would probably take it in a cross that bridge when we come to it fashion. and then the incentive to think about crossing the bridge get procrastinated away

Who knows, the donkey may learn to play the piano.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that Generic Democrat Alternative X is a shoo-in but assuming the incumbent advantage holds true when 70% of the population has concerns about the incumbent's age and mental acuity is... bold.

Biden would announce his retirement, the Republicans would block anything and everything he tried to do for the next two years while the media portrayed him as even more feeble and worthless than they currently do, and whatever Democrat tried to run to succeed him would get steamrollered by Donald Trump and yay! Fascism ascendant!

Republicans are blocking everything anyway and the media is portraying Biden as feeble and worthless anyway. You're not reading the polls about how many people wish there was anybody else at all than these two creaky fuckers. People are broadly sick of it. They're sick of Trump too, but they were already sick of him after 2020. Now they're sick of Biden. Not all for fair reasons, but that's how it goes.

Massively unpopular oldest-president-ever seeks reelection is a bad idea, period, under any circumstances. If he manages to win it will be because of the massively unpopular second-oldest-president ever in the other lane.

It's all a mental exercise because he didn't choose to retire and he's not dropping out but waving away a major concern of a supermajority of the electorate is some serious MSNBC brain.

assuming the incumbent advantage holds true when 70% of the population has concerns about the incumbent's age and mental acuity is... bold.

I've no idea whether the incumbency advantage is still present, or to what degree it is if so. Its more that historically this has never been the case, and Democratic voters in particular have always traditionally been reluctant to run someone other than the sitting president.

Now, obviously Democratic voters didn't have these concerns in 2020 - although its also possible they did the same concerns in 2020 but factored them in accordingly and thought it a risk worth taking. The question is whether this has changed over time, and at what point. I'm not sure there's really been enough momentum behind the idea to go much beyond concerns.

There's also the question not so much of incumbent advantage, but perception of incumbent advantage - though its arguable they're the same thing. Which may be similar to Biden's win in the first place, people didn't necessarily think he was electable, but they thought other people thought he was electable, in a weird type of monkey ladder scenario

Newsom vs. Haley, assuming the two guys don't make it through summer, would be an interesting matchup.

Democratic voters absolutely had these concerns in 2020, which is why at the front end of the campaign his campaign was leaking stuff like this:

“If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129

Also he was somewhat protected from age being an issue in 2020 by having his biggest challenge in the primary coming from a guy who was even older.

Right, so the concerns were there last time around too, but not strong enough to go with someone else. So the question then becomes, have those concerns become more of a factor this time around and to what degree

As to Bernie being older, chronologically yes, but Biden comes across significantly older than either Trump or Bernie, both then and now - which counts for more than actual age I think?

tipsy otm


so what other option do you propose?

why are you discounting his already-proposed “holding primaries” option

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

is “that” the end of US democracy, or of life on earth, or

Um, primaries are being held. Indeed, there have been several already. There just isn't a serious competitor in them. Rfkjr and Dean Phillips are not viable candidates. Whitmer, Newsom, etc. would have announced long before now if they were going to run.

One can certainly wish Biden had retired graciously. One can certainly wish there had been a plausible challenger. But neither thing has happened, nor will it. It's mildly interesting to think about alternate universes, but we live in this one.

We can do wishcasting, or we can drag sleepy ol' Joe across the finish line one more time.

Newsom is perfect for the Democratic establishment. Like Warren, he is a pseudo-progressive who fundamentally believes in nothing and flip-flops whenever he needs to, and Republicans have been conditioned to hate him for years

Personal attacks are always classy.

Newsom campaigned on a single-payer system for Californians and has spent years trying to backpedal. He’s a joke

Also, Warren is a hawk paid for by AIPAC, but she was a registered Republican for decades, so no one with more than one brain cell should believe a fucking word that comes out of her mouth

Good morning, table! You might as well call me by name if you're as usual going to be cranky in the morning.

I'm not going to re-examine Warren's career, but the person who wrote two books on in part how bankruptcy adversely affects the poor and POC and later raked the Bush and Obama administrations for not splitting up the big banks is not a person whom I'd consider a conservative regardless of party affiliation. Her foreign policy positions as I remember in 2019-2020 struck me at best as unformed and at worse gross.

I officially apologize, beamish.

I just think you apologize too much for these ghouls, Alfred. Whethet Warren has changed or not is immaterial— she can say all she wants and write many more books about breaking up the big banks, but by hoarding wealth (she’s worth a surprising amount!) she is simply talking out of one side of her mouth. The appearance of virtue and principle is not borne out in any sort of reality, the most notable being that she hasn’t achieved many of her goals of breaking up the big banks. Poor people don’t need some rich white wonk in Cambridge to do bad advocacy for them!! AIPAC- funded politicians can go to hell!!

that said, sorry for being cranky. But Warren is not it.

We can do wishcasting, or we can drag sleepy ol' Joe across the finish line one more time.

Think people can very easily do both?

We will drag him as we drag him.

It’s only February and we’re already snarling at each other. 2024, baby!