How Popular Does Biden Need to Be to Beat Trump? Not Very.
How Popular Does Biden Need to Be to Beat Trump? Not Very.
Presiding over an unhappy nation makes reelection hard for any president. But running against Trump makes it easier for Biden.
Given the current state of partisan polarization, it’s unlikely Biden can get majority job approval next year even with the most fortunate set of circumstances. But the good news for him is that he probably doesn’t have to. Job-approval ratings are crucial indicators in a normal presidential reelection cycle that is basically a referendum on the incumbent’s record. Assuming Trump is the Republican nominee, 2024 will not be a normal reelection cycle for three reasons.
You're viewing a single thread.
Don't take it for granted. Hilary lost because of this. Get out and vote.
Hillary lost because she couldn't read the writing on the wall and told everyone she deserved to win because it was her time. She was the worst person on the planet to go against Trump. The GOP spent 30 years demonizing her and she played right into their hands. Biden should have been the candidate then but that is hindsight.
And even with all of her mistakes and her total lack of charisma, she still only lost because of an archaic system that lets the winner of the popular vote lose.
And even with all of her mistakes and her total lack of charisma, she still only lost because of an archaic system that lets the winner of the popular vote lose.
It's not like this system was sprung on her at the last second. She didn't take it into account. She pretty much ignored key swing states that wound up going to Trump.
She was carried in a palanquin across the finish line in the primaries and didn't understand that she had to run the rest of the way.
Bruh. She ignored a lot of close call battleground states and instead spent the end of the campaign doing "victory laps" in solid blue states like Cali because she was obsessed with beating Obama's popular vote total...
You could argue her and her campaign should have known better, I just don't know where you'd find someone who disagreed to have that argument with.
And that's not even getting into how with population growth, popular vote totals will be record breaking damn near every election.
She was supposed to have the best campaign team in modern history, and either they were too stupid to know what the electoral college is, or they were unable to talk sense into Hillary and get her to actually win the election instead of her fucking self esteem tour to make her feel good about herself after losing to Obama.
I'm just tired of people making excuses for her one second like it's her first day in politics, then trying to claim she's the greatest political mind of her generation the next.
It can't be both.
"Shattered" is a book which goes into a bit more detail about what went wrong with the Clinton campaign. Also, this particular review represents a rare moment of lucidity from Matt Taibbi, back when he hadn't quite completed his devolution from whip-smart political correspondent into a Trump apologist for some fucking reason.
I'm not defending Clinton in the least, man.
You said she only lost because of the electoral college like it's some weird thing no one knew about...
Maybe you didn't intend to defend her, but that's what you did.
He also said "with all her mistakes and total lack of charisma". It read, to me at least, as anti-Trump and not pro-Clinton. (Even a bit anti-Clinton, as defending someone by saying they have no Charisma is... a weird way of going about it at least.)
She "only" lost if she didn't know how the scores were counted?
If neither her nor or her entire campaign team knew what decided the winner of a presidential election, I highly doubt that was the only issue with her campaign...
You will have to talk to @PugJesus@kbin.social about the valid usage of the word "only". They also said "many mistakes", so they also seem to agree that there were many other issues with her campaign.
My only point was rightly accusing Clinton of having a complete lack of charisma is a weird way to defend her. But honestly this hill has already made me too tired to bother dying on. Have a good one!
You are not wrong.
This is like saying basketball is archaic because it lets the team with the most hoops lose.
If we were deciding our leadership based on basketball games, I'd sure as shit say it was archaic.
Biden had just lost his son and didn't want the job. He later said he regretted that decision.
It's not just that, also remember that Biden had made a minor career out of losing the Democratic Presidential Nomination before Obama asked him to be VP. Much of the reason for that is that he had the tendency to say dumb shit. Remember all those "Gaffes"?
I don't think Biden could have ever become President before Trump, because we used to have higher standards for what was "Presidential". But once Trump became President, now all the dumb gaffes Biden makes are no longer a liability.
I admit I have been more impressed with Biden then I thought I would. I think a big issue is he is a much better President than he is a candidate for President.
All those "dumb gaffes" are because he has a stutter. It's actually way more impressive how well he's trained himself out of doing it constantly.
They're not all due to his stutter. He didn't stutter when he said this about Obama:
I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man.
The entire nation regrets that decision.
Hillary lost because she couldn’t read the writing on the wall and told everyone she deserved to win because it was her time.
I still held my nose and voted for her, even though I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary, because voting for her was a way to fuck over the Republicans.
She was the worst person on the planet to go against Trump.
She absolutely was. And with the pied piper strategy, she basically said who she thought the worst candidate was in the opposition's field, then lost to him.
Permanently Deleted
Yeah, that electoral college really snuck up on her. Just popped out of the blue in 1789, giving her no time to prepare.
EDIT: Ok., that was harsh. I should go easy on her. After all, she just lost her dear friend Henry Kissinger.
biden would have easily won, being the outgoing vp of a well-liked (by most) two-term president. him not running in 2016 is, i think, ultimately what enabled the hateful, incoherent, diaper-wearing buffoon to even have a chance--which was only enhanced by the dnc playing favorites and essentially handing the nomination to clinton.
i get the 'why' he didn't run; but man, it sure fucked-up this country (and beyond).
him not running in 2016 is, i think, ultimately what enabled the hateful, incoherent, diaper-wearing buffoon to even have a chance
Nope.
What gave trump a chance was Hillary boosting him because she thought she had a chance against him, but no chance against even Jeb Bush.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
Also, the structure of the Republican primary meant that the person with a plurality of votes got all the delegates. And because there was such a split field and Trump was a celebrity, he got a lead in delegates which gave him more press.
if biden ran in 2016, clinton would have been a non-factor. dinglebutt would have still made it to the ballot only to waddle home in defeat.
Then why did Clinton feel her team had to boost him?
Do you know more than her campaign team?
I totally agree.
That year was probably when we would've gotten "peak" or near-peak Biden, but that was around the time when his other son Beau Biden had died, which I thought was the reason he sat out the Primaries, which might've made them a bit more interesting, but would've had the same effect of shutting Sanders out. The way I remembered it, Biden essentially saved the 2012 Obama campaign against Romney, as Obama had been having a shitty campaign and debate performance up until Biden went up against Paul Ryan and dominated. After that debate, things seemed to turn around and I thought he was a shoe-in for 2016.
If your state has mail-in voting, just use that. I like to vote while not wearing pants.
Pics or didn't happen
I'm not giving this sweet ass away for free
Do you take expired Reddit gold?
Asking for a friend.
Moderates are really really motivated to only be just slightly better than Republicans.
They want to be as corporation/billionaire friendly as possible, so they get as many donations as possible.
It's why Hillary spent money, time, and effort boosting trump and Ben Carson in 2016. There wasn't much difference between her and Jeb Bush, so she didn't think she had a chance at beating him.
The obvious risk was Hillary was/is a horrible candidate and might not have even been able to win against them, which she wasn't.
It's like if the pitcher in a MLB game bet for his team to win, but by less than the spread. He still wants to win, but he keeps throwing softballs over the plate if he starts to win too much.
But that's just a game, this is literally playing with people's lives.
But that’s just a game, this is literally playing with people’s lives.
Welcome to US politics.
really motivated to only be just slightly better
I could be wrong, but I think this impression comes because they are skewing more towards the mean or average, whereas on social media we are quite far left. So to us, they appear similar to republicans, because we as online users on Lemmy are quite far left. However, in reality Dems are quite left of Repubs.. just not left enough from our point of view because they appeal to the mean American. Am I making sense? I don't think I did a good job of explaining myself.
From what I've heard and seen, a lot of younger voters are disillusioned by the Democrats' stance on genocide. I've heard the comment many are repeating that they are single issue voters when the issue is genocide.
From what I've heard and seen, there's a massive astroturfing effort to discredit Biden over the actions of an allied nation. It's as if a massive propaganda machine is at work that completely ignores the fact that Republicans would have an even worse stance than Biden on this issue.
Charles Manson would make a better US president than Hitler...
Doesn't mean people are going to get hype to go vote for Charles Manson.
And telling people those are the only options will depress turnout.
And when turnout is depressed, republicans win.
So how about we try running someone who actually cares about genocide and will at least stop trying to get the perpetrators even more money while telling their own citizens we're the only first world country that can't afford universal healthcare?
Like, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that would get more votes.
But the people running the Dem party aren't going to just turn down those AIPAC kickbacks if they can get away with "at least we're not republicans, so shut up and vote for another genocide supporter".
They'll always aim for "barely better than a Republican". So let's fucking replace them with people willing to do more than the absolute bare minimum
So how about we try running someone who actually cares about genocide and will at least stop trying to get the perpetrators even more money while telling their own citizens we’re the only first world country that can’t afford universal healthcare?
This is an unpopular opinion and unpopular opinions lose you elections
The real world isn't lemmy.
There are absolutely very important reasons to still vote for Biden, but you can't rely on millions of people to all do the right thing just because it's logical. The person who's running for office ultimately has the responsibility to ensure people want to vote for them. It's just not really useful to blame millions of people when you know that there are statistically for sure going to be disaffected people out of those who need to be motivated. It doesn't even matter whether most voters who would vote for Biden turn out to vote for him - they almost certainly will - because this fight is at the margins, and to win, you have to capture the irresponsible and unreliable people too.
The "but it could be much worse" argument doesn't carry much weight for many people on this issue.
Has anyone tried explaining that if you allow in the people literally trying to take their rights away, they won't get another chance to vote in a politician against genocide?
Like the genocide is awful but it shouldn't make people forget they have very close to home issues currently happening right now.
I hear that excuse every single election and have always found it lacking.
If we always have to wait until after the next election to demand better of the Democrats then we'll never see any change. "Lesser evilism" will only allow the Democrats to continue sliding the overton window to the right.
Even if you're already planning to vote a straight Democrat ticket, don't tell them that. Make them think you're a swing voter they need to pander to.
How are you hearing it every single election? The main issues didn't start popping up (or at least blatantly enough to change voter turnout) until the 2016 election.
Like that's not nearly enough elections in between to hear the excuse every election.
How are you hearing it every single election?
He's only seen 2 that he remembers.
With my ears, of course. Trump isn't the only threat to the Democrat party, just the most recent one.
I don't particularly care about the democratic party threat, I care about the uptick in voting issues, the supreme court, and...you know...that the opposing party is trying to vote in someone who attempted to not give up the office
So you know, the recent ones that a lot of people started voting in about.
If you truly believe that's nothing new, i'll just consider you to be part of that astroturfing described above and ask you to stop wasting my time. Seriously.....
I'm not going to compromise my principles out of fear. I'd rather write in "none of the above" than hitch my wagon to a party that gets campaign donations from corporate bombmakers like Raytheon.
If the Democrats want my vote, they should start acting like it. They need to stop pretending they can coast to victory on "lesser evilism" before they end up repeating all their mistakes from 2016, and the threat of withholding my vote is the only leverage I have.
These tired ass arguments will no longer work for the younger generation.
Thank god
Which is still an ignorant take, because we've only got two realistic options. Bad and worse.
Any complaints otherwise are ignorant at best, if not maliciously deceptive.
Which is still an ignorant take, because we’ve only got two realistic options. Bad and worse.
The solution isn't "shut up and be grateful we're not worse". It's actually running someone that's good.
We've tried the "shut up you don't have a choice" strategy and that just keeps ending up with republicans in office.
Why not just run good candidates that want to help America if they get in office?
You push the Democratic Party candidate to the left. Supporting Republicans (which is what you're doing if you don't vote for Joe Biden, full stop) isn't going to help anyone and won't get you better candidates in the future. It will literally have the opposite effect. There's a great batch of possible candidates for 2028 (Witmer, Shapiro, Newsome, etc). Sure I'd prefer them over Biden for 2024 but they're not running.
Supporting Republicans (which is what you’re doing if you don’t vote for Joe Biden, full stop)
"Vote red no matter who, because Dems are worse" is how trump became the face of the Republican party...
If the Dem party's only standard is "there's a D next to their name" we'll gonna keep getting shitty candidates that lose half the elections to republicans. And even when they do win, nothing gets fixed.
Normally I'd push for primary participation and then begrudgingly voting for the winner of the primary.
But we don't even get a primary because a private organization controls that, and they decided we don't get one.
Will I still vote for Joe?
Sure, I've voted for every single shitty D candidate in the general since I turned 18. But telling people to just shut up and stop complaining about how fucked it is won't fix anything. Hasn't for decades.
And pretending that shitty milk toast candidates don't depress turnout and give Republicans a chance, is like asking why poor people don't just make more money. But you're not going to reach that 1/3 of eligible voters on a political sub on a fringe social media website
The absolute easiest way to get them to vote, is run a good candidate.
So how about you spend your effort communicating that to the Democratic party? That might actually accomplish something....
Although, they're probably just say "shut up and vote for me, at least I'm not a Republican".
Why not just run good candidates that want to help America if they get in office?
Because that doesn't make nearly as much
moneydonations as "Look at how awful the Republicans are."If the D's ran a real candidate that actually cared about the country, they'd get blasted in fund raising...People like Booker would go broke overnight if we got universal healthcare. Pelosi would lose her ass if we outlawed congressional trading.
We're fucked...irrevocably completely and utterly fucked.
If the D’s ran a real candidate that actually cared about the country, they’d get blasted in fund raising
Not really, Bernie and even trump made enough off "small" donations to run effective campaigns.
The difference is small donations from voters don't come with all the perks and kickbacks as the same amount from a single PAC/billionaire/organization.
And as long as the bare minimum is having a D next to your name, grifters are going to run with the D, and get those huge donations because the people making them expect a return.
So yeah...
People like Booker would go broke overnight if we got universal healthcare. Pelosi would lose her ass if we outlawed congressional trading.
Those are two great examples of politicians that need to be replaced, and why our standards need to be more than a single letter.
While implying that Trump, a literal white nationalist authoritarian fascist, somehow doesn't support the genocide of brown people
A lot of people are clueless that Trump is going to be the GOP candidate.
The issue with that is that Republicans hold an even worse position on genocide in multiple ways and would have been gunning for not only Israel killing all Palestinians, but ejecting all Muslims from the US as well. Which they will also totally do if they win the election.
Two fascist parties?
Time to stay home on election day. I refuse to be complicit in the crimes of the State.
If the Democrats want my vote, they can start pandering to me instead of AIPAC.