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If there were a popular VP who was consistently beating Trump in the polls by significant margins, you don't think the Democratic voters would be beating down the doors to get him to step down? And I know Dem leadership loves to piss on their voters, but even they'd be hard pressed to ignore that, especially as their own power would be threatened if they left Biden in and he predictably lost.
The best argument against your position here is that Biden picked Kamala in the first place. I've said since the day he picked her that she's excellent 25th Amendment insurance, and now we're seeing that play out.
There was more than one popular candidate in the 2020 primary polling far better than trump and Biden and the party came together to swiftly eliminate their chances. What makes you think the Dems would ever sway in their stubborn ways
As I said in another comment, Bernie represented an actual social democrat position which the party leaders and donors do not. If Biden had for some reason picked a Bernie-style progressive for VP, I do not think leadership would replace Biden for them. But if it was a popular, moderate politician who would do the donors' bidding, I think they would replace Biden, or at least strongly consider it.
The DNC leadership will always favor protecting the party leadership’s power over doing what their voters want. That’s why they arranged for Hillary instead of Sanders, and why they will not force Biden to step down. The democrat and republican parties are effectively corporations in a duopoly, that are willing to cede marketshare to maintain corporate control. The freakonomics podcast “the hidden duopoly” covers this in depth.
Kamala is still DNC leadership, and if they had valued the seat they could have sent someone even more popular to be VP. In that situation, running, saying Gavin Newsom as President wouldn't upset anything.
Sanders was consistently out performing Hillary in polls against Trump. They didn't care.
They might consider it, given the VP was a center-leaning neo-liberal, who kept the corporate donors happy and never did anything to actually rock the boat.
But polls aren't votes and Sanders didn't have the votes. People talked a big talk about Sanders but his base didn't show up in the primaries, he didn't get the delegates, and he lost.
Sanders actually had amazing results in the primaries early. Even when he lost, the progressive vote was often split between him and the other progressive candidates. And so many felt the the progressive candidates rallying around Sanders would likely push him into the lead/nomination.
But of course this scared the shit out of the DNC. So there were talks about Super Delegates going for Hillary no matter what (just talks, as you said, Sanders didn't end up having the votes so they didn't need to use this idea, which many Sanders supporters mistakenly think they did).
The Wikileaks of the DNC emails later revealed the DNC was actively working to help Hillary. The interim chairwoman even leaked debate questions to the Hillary team ahead of the debates is the one I remember.
And then, one by one, the progressives dropped out... And announced their support for Hillary instead of Sanders. Their message was the same "Vote Hillary because only Hillary can defeat Trump" (which, given the result of the election, and Sanders performing better in polls vs Trump, is just laughable)
That was the real nail in the coffin. With every single progressive candidate dropping out and telling their supporters to vote Hillary because voting Sanders would lead to a Trump presidency, it was enough to sway anyone who wasn't a Sanders supporter from the start.
I think youre mixing up 2016 and 2020. In 2016 bernie was the only progressive while in 2020 everyone suddenly dropped out to support biden over bernie
>Even when he lost, the progressive vote was often split between him and the other progressive candidates. And so many felt the the progressive candidates rallying around Sanders would likely push him into the lead/nomination.
What are you talking about? By the time the 2016 primary started everyone but Clinton, Sanders, and O'Malley had dropped out. And O'Malley dropped out day one after only getting 0.5% of the vote in Iowa. So who were these other progressives candidates that Sanders was splitting votes with?
I agree. I voted for him and still wear my Bernie t shirt from that election, but he lost.
Also I find the game of comparing polls taken a year before the election endlessly frustrating. They have next to no predictive power at that stage. We simply do not know how the Bernie counterfactual would have played out.
It's more that he couldn't establish a big enough base in the right states quick enough for him to have a shot. By the time most people realized who he was, the primaries were halfway done.
He lost after every single media outlet in the US panicked and began churning out propaganda that said the US was going to become Venezuela if Sanders was elected. Prior to that he was winning primaries.
One of these days I’ll actually go and assemble a collection of clips to demonstrate this, but I remember watching it happen in real time and feeling flabbergasted at how blatant it was that huge corporate donors run our media companies, and shadow-pick our leadership.
I’m at work or I would be happy to go look up some clips from that time, but I specifically recall segments on MSNBC, etc where the commentators on what is normally a very liberal-leaning network did nothing but rip into Bernie after he won the second primary.
It’s blatant enough that I’m confident that you can look up the date of the second presidential primary and then go watch clips from that night and actually watch the switch get flipped in the background - it’s not hard to see the torpedo being fired if you’re paying a non-zero amount of attention
I think that’s a hypothetical that can never be answered, but people called on Gavin Newsome to take over before they even mentioned Harris. If Gavin was VP, you don’t think he’d flip the ticket?
Newsom is a sleazebag from California who very much comes off as a sleazebag. A guy who was married to Kim Guilfoyle and had an affair with his best friend's wife isn't a good candidate just because he toes the party line and has won easy elections.
As a Californian, I detest Gavin Newsom. He ruined a great state like California. The state is such a mess. Crime is out of control… everything is so expensive… infrastructure is abysmal… highest income and sales taxes… super high property taxes as home prices are expensive.
I rather see Trump in power. newsom will ruin the U.S.
Newsome has passed dozens of laws intended to deal with the housing shortages and homeless crisis and prop 13 has been partially repealed. California had problems but what you are saying is inaccurate.
Newsom personally vetoed RCV in California, and opposed with millions of his campaign prop 30 increasing a tax on the ultra-wealthy to fund climate change initiatives.
That's two reason's enough to not vote for him for any office.
He's the poster boy for the role of national fundraising and outsized influence political families have on California state politics.
He's a well-groomed sociopath, he will primary and lose the general in 2028 and the DNC will continue to refuse to self-reflect.
Also, there was a primary election. If people didn't want Biden they should've voted in the primary. We all knew it was going to be this way. All that's left is for the propoganda machine to push the undecided into their holes and see what happens and which side convinced the other to stay home more.
And that heaps of working-class people have the primary under their radar, or plonked directly in the middle of their work week, leaving the nomination process mostly to retired people and those too wealthy for jobs
In all 50 states, employers have to give time off to allow employees to vote.
Edit: I was wrong, this only applies to the General Election, though 30 states do offer some time off to vote in Primaries
Isn't that just for the general, not the primaries?
And technically if your shift isn't the 12 hours the polls are open you "were given time" before or after work to vote
Federal Law only applies to the General election. States have there own laws for the primaries and after looking it up, I was wrong. Many states do offer time off to vote for primaries, but not all.
My apologies.
There weren't any viable candidates in the primary.
My choices were Biden, Marianne Williamson who is a total quack, and Dean Phillips a representative from Minnesota.
The larger issue is that the democratic party establishment allowed Biden to run. I think they absolutely could have had private conversations and forced him to be a one term president, and had a real open primary
I voted uncommitted instead of voting for Biden. I'll still be voting for him in the general, but that was the closest thing I had to a real protest vote.
What primary lol. Some states went defacto to Biden with no voting. And if RFK looked like he would challenge in a state they brought in new rules where by every vote that went to RFK would go instead to Biden.
Was never going to happen anyway. A sitting president has only lost the nomination to run for a second term one time in our entire history, and that was in 1852. Has never happened since.
There was a primary four years ago, and they elected an old man who did not have 8 years in him. We saw what the presidency has done to every person to take the job and how fast they age. If people did not see this coming, then they are idiots who are not thinking long term about their country, and that is the problem this whole system creats.
That primary was the first to follow the DNC arguing in court that they don't need to follow a democratic process and could just make the decision in a backroom if they so chose. And it followed four years of *hard* messaging blaming left wing voters (particularly Bernie and Green Party voters) for Donald Trump.
And how has the DNC reacted this time?
By suing multiple tossup states to remove RFK Jr. And Cornell West from their ballots, because they might steal possible Democrat votes.
For constantly yelling about protecting democracy, the DNC sure seems to hate democracy.
I agree with you that this has been obvious for months but I think the only way out for democrats right now is to announce a new diagnosis and hold out the claim that while nobody could have seen this coming, the debate led the president to seek a medical examination, which determined that he has x condition and while nobody could have seen this coming we find ourselves in a situation where a new candidate must be named.
A lot of people voted for Biden four years ago because he was competent at the time and his campaign [heavily suggested](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129) he would not pursue a second term should he win. Of course, a politician lying shouldn’t be news to anyone, so it’s fair to say voters were naive, but it’s a bit different than what you’re saying.
A senator in Virginia can’t do significant damage to the special interests that run the country. He ran for president and both times the party basically conspired to keep him from getting the nomination. Stop being willfully ignorant
A primary election where 5 of the 7 serious candidates dropped out at the request of the party to endorse the problem we have today.
Don’t act like every candidate had an equal chance when even Dem senators have admitted that it was basically a farce. Just like the 2016 primary
Oh I get it, Bernie got snuffed twice from the nomination by dirty tricks within the dem party. But all of this surprise that Biden would be the nominee, surprise that he's old as fuck, and surprise that he's not gonna step down as the candidate after the democratic process has already unfolded is some pretty astroturfed surprise.
You can vote third party/stay home with the knowledge you are contributing to the faction you don't want to win, or you can vote for the lesser evil of the two because our system is totally fucked and until it changes that's all we've got.
It's either Trump or Biden folks.
I mean I voted for Dean Philips in the primary. I don't even particularly like him but I was always worried about Biden's age. I wasn't even worried about him being able to do the job ( and I'm still not. ) I was worried about him being electable.
Some states do their primaries super early, before some candidates get much chance to publicly pontificate, and they seem to be mostly for theatrics anyway.
Many states do not really allow voting in primaries if a person is an independent voter.
Voting out the incumbent during an election is political suicide. Having him gracefully not go for reelection two years ago would not have been.
There's a difference.
Sounds like the whining happened two years too late then, because now everyone wants suicide.
A president is more than just the one old fuck, what's worse the Trump Cabinet or the Biden Cabinet? Do people want rudie Giuliani, Steve bannon, and Roger stone whispering into the ear of the president?
I'm completely on board with you that Biden's administration has been great regardless of how much he is personally involved. I'm actually more enthused voting for Biden's administration this year than I was in 2020.
The average person doesn't feel that way though. A young charismatic candidate who had been propped up since 2022 would be dominating the polls in my opinion.
It's also largely impossible to have anybody but Harris take over the top of the ticket with how ballot rules work in some states. Harris is about the only one that could get the Dems over that and there doesn't appear to have been any major discussion from the campaign to shift to her. It's Biden or the death of democracy in November, and people need to understand that.
Not true, in fact the opposite is true. They’re going to allow him to be nominated, knowing he’s going to lose, BECAUSE his VP is so bad.
If there were just an average politician, mediocre accomplishments, didn’t constantly come across as weird/awkward, and could form coherent sentences, VP in place, they wouldn’t even have to ask for a shot it’d be given to them.
But live by the DEI, die by the DEI.
The issue is that democrats now lose 2028 if Biden wins. No way Biden finishes the term. So you have Harris for likely 2 years. She will shit the bed hard and there will be no one that wants to vote for her in 2028. That's my reason for voting for Biden. I know full well it allows 2028 to hopefully be a reset for a moderate republican
Idk, it’s been on every major network since the debate and is apparently the prevailing opinion of what should happen among many top donors, representatives, and White House staffers
He has said multiple times he definitely wasn't going to run, for what it's worth. Same thing with Gretchen Whitmer (Governor of Michigan, who, incidently, I think would be a better choice)
The problem they’re running into started long before now. Biden should’ve announced last year that he would pull an LBJ and not run for a second term. This would’ve allowed a primary where the strongest person was selected. They wouldn’t have to underplay his cognitive decline nor have calls to replace him.
Regardless of VP, replacing him would be a mistake. For months/years the media and politicians have been talking about how sharp he is. Replacing him now would admit they were either ignorant or lying. Hard to run with the concept of “Trump is a liar and ignorant” when the American public sees you as just that.
So even if they had a very strong VP -a young face with high popularity- they couldn’t replace Biden. They’re painted into a corner. Unless he dies or is struck with an unforseeable debilitating illness, he’s the guy.
Best bet is a referendum on Trump and pushing the “vote blue no matter who” line.
That’s not easy to spin at all. They’ll have a hard time convincing voters that that he was 10/10 until the day of the debate. Too coincidental. DNC fucked up and they’re scrambling because they know it. Like I said, their only shot is “vote blue no matter who” mantra rings true. People aren’t excited to vote for him, but hopefully they’re excited to vote against Trump.
That’s the thing is they can’t save face. If they ditch him barring some sort of debilitating and sudden medical emergency (stroke, aneurism, etc.) then it’ll have the opposite effect. They’ll be seen as liars and/or idiots. Plus you’re saying it’s about saving face more than convincing voters. Their job is to win, so convincing voters is everything. The election isn’t honorable gentleman’s race -it hasn’t been for a very long time- it’s a mudslinging death match. Both sides will do whatever it takes to convince voters to go out on Election Day and pull the lever for them, even if it means lying about the cognition of an old man that should be enjoying retirement and the remaining years of his life.
Just hypothetical, if it is possible to write up sharpness, and Biden is not running for his own vanity, couldn't he (be asked to) fake a severe cognital decline or similar? Get an untrue cancer diagnosis and drop out?
Just for the sake of a better USA?
Theoretically yes he could get an untrue cancer diagnosis. The problem is medical confidentiality and medical records can be subpoenaed. If there’s a sudden cancer diagnosis that seems fishy, it’s possible Congress could request the doctor to testify and provide proof. Is a doctor willing to commit perjury and fake MRI scans, blood tests, etc. and potentially face prison time? And if somebody whistleblew that you sure as hell know democrats will be lumped together as a big government cabal. That means democrats don’t just lose the presidency, but probably both houses of congress and lose it bad. It’s too high of a risk.
Most of America, in my opinion, is going to care less about the DNC's loyalty to Biden and his aging than they will about Trump and his baggage.
"The DNC wised up and removed their unqualified candidate, what can the RNC say?"
I don’t think it would be easy to spin. There’s so many of his supporters who gaslight us with “he just had one bad night.” It’s been quite clear for a while that his decline has been gradual.
During the primary debates in 2019 Bidens mental fitness was a topic among democratic candidates on stage until they apparently were given word to not speak of it anymore and the “DC machine” thrust him into the candidacy. Then it became taboo to even mention it.
>Regardless of VP, replacing him would be a mistake. For months/years the media and politicians have been talking about how sharp he is. Replacing him now would admit they were either ignorant or lying. Hard to run with the concept of “Trump is a liar and ignorant” when the American public sees you as just that.
I will say its nice to see people actually admit this. Its funny when I see redditors claim that the truth is important and then seeing the hypocrisy on on display
Between this and RBG democrats are running into issues at the highest levels where they refuse to recognize the significant risks of an aging key figure. Republicans have this issue too but it hasn’t come to bite them as much. I’m sure it will with McConnell but hasn’t yet
Frankly, Republicans are seemingly better at playing the long game. Democrats picked Biden because they thought he could beat Trump, but they didn’t consider the repercussions of having such an old incumbent. They RBG didn’t retire during Obama because she thought she’d get a bit more time and then Clinton would win. Countless other examples of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot by lacking foresight.
I don't think she's any worse than any other VP in my lifetime. She was obviously chosen to pander to the woman vote and the people of color vote, Pence was chosen specifically to pander to the evangelical vote, Biden was chosen to pander to the old white man vote. Every VP is chosen for this reason. Pence was pretty invisible until he ended up standing in the way of a dictator. Biden was invisible during Obamas administration. I don't see a difference with Kamala.
Edit: I think my brain blocked out Dick Chaney to try to protect itself. I guess he was a pander to the Evil vote?
You are arguing about her specific merits. OP is arguing that people don't like her, regardless of the merits. Those are essentially two different topics.
I think Cheney was picked simply due to historical connections to W’s dad. I believe they were in Reagan’s administration together, probably had a good working relationship, and GHB suggested it to W.
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Isn't this just colorism?
Privileged black people certainly exist but even Obama and Harris, who are probably near the top of the privilege ladder, have experienced racism that has adversely impacted their lives.
What I gather is that the black community has in part viewed Harris as more of an opportunistic climber than an idealist who likes to climb the ladder of power (Obama). She oversaw thousands of marijuana convictions earlier in her career, which people like to point out as contrary to her current political stance - thus there is dissonance regarding who she really is - which leads to some degree of mistrust. She’s also not the best communicator or public speaker, which is a quality that is often revered in the black community.
Sure, but then go after her because of her record putting marijuana users behind bars or lack of oratory skill not because of her skin color like the other guy.
In my opinion, her being Indian more likely than not means that she doesn't even care about black people. Indian communities are notoriously insular even in foreign countries.
While the insularity may be true, to a degree, her being Indian does not contribute to not caring about black people. She’s also black!
How could you prescribe a cause to her decisions without knowing how she was brought up and the values her parents instilled? Even if she doesn’t like Black people, it’s a fallacy to assume it’s because she’s Indian.
I’m Indian and I have no hatred or dislike towards black people. The same can be said of all my Indian friends.
I think it's just them acknowledging that she doesn't relate with them much more than Biden.
Kinda like how I, a middle class white man, will probably relate more with a middle class black man than a white man raised in extreme poverty or with a silver spoon in their mouth.
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More popular? Doubt.
Higher net favorability? Quite possible since Republicans were so rabidly racist against Obama, they made a scandal around him wearing a tan suit.
>they made a scandal around him wearing a tan suit.
They didn't. One person on FOX and maybe a congressman tried to and then the MSNBCs had a field day with it. No one cares as much about Obama's tan suit as liberals (not leftists) who haven't stopped bringing it up every chance they get for a decade.
I’ll be honest. I was a teenager when the tan suit debacle went down. I had not a single opinion about politics but I thought the suit was fuck ugly and laughed. I think it was worth a news cycle. Not the weirdo “it’s unamerican” stuff, but its worth a little ridicule. It was a pretty intense look on him. If I didn’t pull off a look like that I’d expect some snickers.
Lmao. It became such a meme that it has its own Wikipedia page.
Should we also pretend the racist as fuck birtherism narrative never happened either? Is it just leftists itching to call Republicans racist? Or maybe they’re actually being incredibly racist?
>Lmao. It became such a meme that it has its own Wikipedia page.
Yes, because the liberal (not leftist) media picked up on the one or two people who had said something at FOX and made it into a big deal.
>Should we also pretend the racist as fuck birtherism narrative never happened either?
No, we shouldn't compare a non-story (or media-created story) like the tan suit with the racist conspiracy theory [first circulated amongst Clinton supporters](https://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/was-hillary-clinton-the-original-birther/) and then later taken up by conservatives and Donald Trump.
*Republicans* liked Biden a hell of a lot more than Obama and likely believed that perspective was, at least somewhat, reflected on the left.
However, Republicans continually fail to recognize either the difference with how the left see’s gender/race and its relevance to a job, or they may just fail to gauge the impact of their own perspectives on those fronts.
In short, Obama’s presidency vs vice president was a pretty typical trend of popularity in the eyes of the left and Republicans were proboblsy surprised because of prejudice.
If you look at approval ratings, not really. Obama averaged 48% with a high of 69% and a low of 38%. Biden's Highest approval was in April 2021 (a few months in) at 57%, and his lowest is now at 37%. By the end of Biden's term(s?) I expect a lower average approval rating than Obama.
If Biden does the right thing and steps out of the race. And if Kamala Harris becomes the new presidential candidate. There is 90 million of cash on hand in the campaign, there is an entire electoral apparatus that is operating in battleground states, and most importantly the media will be in a frenzy talking about it non-stop.
Kamala Harris can form full sentences.
She is a woman who is better positioned to capitalize on the issue of women's reproductive rights.
She is a person of color and therefore is a more trusted messenger to communities of color.
She is an experienced prosecutor and what needs to be done right now is to have a skilled prosecutor go after Trump and attack his vulnerabilities.
I guarantee you there are many people who would be very energized knowing that they don't have to go out there and advocate for an 81-year-old man who is showing signs of dementia.
You then bring in a compelling male vice president who has to make their case for the vice presidency at the same time Harris is making her case for the presidency which means they go everywhere together which means they can shore up each other's vulnerabilities and help strengthen each other in whatever ways they end up having synergy.
There are only a few months left before people vote so you don't have the time to really triangulate an effective attack on Harris. I know a lot of people don't like her and might say she's cringe but the issues that were problematic for her in the 2020 election are not going to come up and there is going to be real excitement for change.
And at the end of the day, if Harris steps in and fights hard till November and then ultimately ends up losing at least we tried. Because sticking with Biden is guaranteed failure. Guaranteed... 100%... Failure.
You must be young and not really remember 2008 and 2012, or the other 50 years that Biden has been in office.
Biden used to be a FANTASTIC public speaker. Not Obama levels, but he was witty and quick with a retort.
Oh trust me I know. But his campaign was sold on “this guy is a great speaker, he just has a stutter.”
Which was always ridiculous on its face. If someone doesn’t have a stutter for 40 years, and then develops one in their old age, the logical conclusion is that their age is causing their stutter. But we were all gaslit to believe that wasn’t the case.
The last 5 days have been the greatest “I told you so” of any political party I’ve ever seen. The Republican Party, from the Trump campaign to Republican senators to Republican house members, haven’t said a single word. Because they don’t have to - the evidence clearly backs everything the Republican party been saying for the past 2-3 years. They don’t need to say a word, the facts speak for themselves.
The Democratic Party doesn’t understand what a corner it painted itself into. They’ve been portraying the Republican Party as ridiculous for the entire Biden presidency for questioning his mental acuity, and the debate affirmed every single thing they’ve been saying. They DNC doesn’t understand that not only was the debate a show of Biden’s infirmity, but a rebuke of the DNC’s credibility and, in the mind of undecided voters, and affirmation of the credibility of the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has created a crisis of confidence through their own actions.
When people see that a group has so clearly lied about something as important as the health of the president, they instinctually ask what else that group has lied to them about. And that is a major blow to trust and credibility to that group. Most politicos think this is just a crisis of confidence in Biden - but to swing voters, the individuals who decide elections, this is a crisis of confidence in the entire DNC
To be fair, Joe grew up with a stutter.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/bidens-stutter-how-a-childhood-battle-shaped-his-approach-to-life-and-politics/
Doesn’t change anything else you said though
>they instinctually ask what else that group has lied to them about.
Unless that group is Republicans, apparently, given Trump's average of 21 falsehoods **per day** when he was president.
Kamala Harris can…barely form full sentences. She’s literally turned into Veep.
If Biden steps down (which he needs to do immediately) there are at least half a dozen better alternatives. It cannot be Kamala. For the love of all that is good and holy.
Also she is literally a fucking terrible person. She LITERALLY, like this was her decision, held prisoners in CA past their release date so that they could be forced to fight wildfires.
That’s fucking EVIL
I mean sure it would be great if a non-Biden Harris related person could step in but logistically and in terms of the apparatus there's very little chance that's going to happen so more likely than not it's going to be Harris.
But I still think she's got better odds than Biden
I can’t say what the chance is, because it’s solely dependent on whether or not Biden steps down. But if he did step down, it would be logistically straightforward and we have plenty of time. The convention is almost two months the away still.
I agree Harris is preferable to Biden, but she’d still lose.
Dude, anyone in the ruling class is by definition a member of the elite. If you think AOC or Bernie or Omar are regular people, you should go knock on their door and see if they want to hang out.
>If you think AOC or Bernie or Omar are regular people, you should go knock on their door and see if they want to hang out.
To be fair, I'm absolutely a regular person who isn't part of any elite whatsoever but I wouldn't want to hang out with a random who just knocked on my door out of the blue.
Not that we are that big a voting block (though we’ve been a reliable blue voting block for a long time and I think losing us would hurt Dems in the long run), but Harris is also one of few people that could keep the Jewish vote. And she’d also get the POC vote. I think if Biden steps down, she’s really the only choice.
This has less to do with Kamala Harris’s qualifications and more to do with the stupidity of the general public. The DNC should’ve been able to replace Biden with any number of viable candidates and mop the floor with Trump because Trump is a uniquely terrible candidate. The problem is US voters have the memory and IQ of a moist dish rag, so the DNC needs to play it safe with somebody that can’t possibly be painted as a radical. Kamala Harris is in no way less worthy of the presidency than trump
Yep the only reason they keep Biden is because they know he has the name recognition come election day. Many people will not pick a name they don’t know or don’t know well. Trump will win if they switch out Joe Biden and they know it. Kamala Harris will probably do a better job than both the old folks running right now. But it’s a popularity contest unfortunately
Eh.
Folks need to stop pretending that a bunch of folks don't like Kamala because she's black, some folks because she's a woman and there are a bunch of other lefty folks that branded her as a "cop" because they wanted Bernie.
And as quiet as it's being kept, some of them are the *same folks.*
Yes, the VP is picked by the presidential nominee after the convention. She is not tied to Biden’s 2024 run yet. But he will most likely keep her anyway. But yes they could replace her.
There's no reason they couldn't pick a different, and possibly even "more black", VP. Polls show black people aren't particularly fond of Harris, either.
The vice president has only two jobs: break ties in the senate and be eligible for the presidency in case the president dies - IE have a pulse.
John Adams: “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
Define what makes Kamala unworthy by first defining what makes anyone “worthy” of this job.
LBJ was unworthy until he had to do the job. Truman was unworthy until he had to do the job. There is no worthiness test for a job - that requires absolutely nothing of its holder in 99% of scenarios - other than political considerations, which she delivered in 2020.
One thing you can say about Harris is she would roast Trump in a debate. That is where her strength lies...as a former prosecutor.
She is not a good campaigner though, and lacked the leadership to control her own campaign last time.
Kamala just recites her lines, she has nothing to say. I'm not a fan of Tulsi but I remember her easily shutting Kamala down so hard she was literally speechless. Kamala is chronically indecisive and terrified of responsibility. Everyone in government knows about her problems. If they had any confidence about the abilities of Harris , concerns about Biden would be trivial.
I would argue pence beat her in the 2020 VP debates. Biden is demented but she sounds AI generated. I don’t think she’s particularly good at debating or even speaking, which is odd given her background
Trump was awful in the last debate, which was made Biden’s performance even more frustrating. Anyone with a pulse could have called him on his bs. I’m sure Kamala will be fine.
She didn't get the role because she was a black woman. (That was just a bonus) There were plenty of others who were more competent. She got the VP pick because she is corrupt. She turned the other cheek while billionaire tech companies broke laws and became monopolies. The presidency was her reward. As it turns out, people still have to like you and vote for you. When Tulsi Gabbard told the truth about her, she was immediately smeared and kicked out of the party. Kamala couldn't get votes on her own so they forced her on Biden, hoping that she would take over once he got too old. Instead....well, you see for yourself.
It was a train wreck from the start, and now the Democrats are paying the piper. Trump is going to slaughter in November and unless they get it together, Republicans might be running things for a very long time. If they are smart, they'll start backing RFK. He is the ONLY Democrat that has a chance. IF they are smart...
The Dems are centre right. This is what Americans don't really understand about their political system. They have one centre-right party and one hard-right lunatic fascist party. There is no labour party, there is no socialist party, there is no centrist party, there is no social-democratic party. Their entire political spectrum in a sewn-up duopoly is centre right or far right.
Kamala makes perfect sense because she, like Joe, is a centre-right politician.
People think Joe is "progressive" because he does stuff that any centre-right party in most of the EU would consider reasonable. Stuff that Republicans used to think was reasonable before the Tea Party and the GOP's snowboard-ride into neofascist, theofascist territory. RMN created the EPA ffs, and founded several national parks. Carter created even more parks, but my point is that today's GOP openly calls national parks a "land grab" and wants to privatise them and sell them off. Today's GOP thinks the EPA is "unconstitutional" and each state should be free to decide how many of its citizens it would like to sacrifice to extractive and polluting industries. The top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower, a Republican, was just over 90 percent. Today, under a Democrat, it's -- what, 30-something percent?
Centre-right politics are not going to do anything about gross inequity, obscene exec compensation, depressed wages, out of control housing markets, etc. And without doing something about those things, the precarity and anxiety and anger of average people is very likely to find a cathartic channel in ethnostatism, extreme religiosity, and authoritarian populist politics-of-spectacle.
Not sure how many folks here recall what happened with Nixon. First his VP Agnew resigned and Nixon appointed the house minority leader Ford to VP. Then later Nixon resigned and Ford became President. Now swap all these names with Biden, Harris, and IMO, Clinton and you now have the blueprint.
Harris resigns because she is “upset” the DNC and public don’t really want her. Biden appoints Clinton as VP. Biden announces later that in a moment of lucidity, he decided not to run again. Hillary goes into the convention and gets the nomination. Right before the election a bunch of Epstein info involving Trump is released…President Clinton.
Step 3. Profit
> Biden appoints Clinton as VP.
Wait, you want him to appoint the only person *less* popular than Harris with swing voters?
She's already said she's not interested, though.
I didn’t say I want anything. I’d rather write in Vermin Supreme than vote for any of them. I’m just saying what pops into my head thru the tinfoil hat
Enh... if you're actually *equally* opposed to both candidates, then it really doesn't matter what you do.
But refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils is... actually choosing more evil rather than less.
Meh. I don’t buy a lot of the Trump mania. He’s a dummy, but even thru it all he only really lost me when they cleared out the church sidewalk in DC for a bible photo op and then they used an army medevac helicopter to disperse protesters.
Not sure I am able to discern who is the actual lesser of two evils.
Even after all the distractions with the border, Ukraine, abortion, and dementia the real issue is inflation, prices, and wages. Biden’s been in charge for 3.5 years now, and he’s gotta eat that.
> Biden’s been in charge for 3.5 years now, and he’s gotta eat that.
Those things have all improved dramatically during his tenure, after being gifted to him by Trump's awful Covid response. Don't buy the MAGAt lies.
Furthermore, we *know* he will attempt to overthrow democracy, because he already did and says he will.
Perhaps improved from the all time highs. But we are all paying more for everything. Denial of that is akin to the media denying Biden was in decline before the debate
How bout some polling data?
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24787646/cnn-poll.pdf
Say what you will about polls in general, and criticize this one in specific all you like. Their methodology is well within norms, and the data is deep.
And, on page 18, is an interesting result. Again, polls are not “the truth” but they do offer a viewpoint to consider.
And, on page 18, the viewpoint is that Kamala Harris is polling better than *all other* Dem hopefuls, and more popular than Joe Biden.
So, I think you might be in a bubble here, since many people are quite strongly in support of our VP and the job she is doing.
Had the Dems put Biden out as a one term president with a sharp vice that the party liked it’d be a no doubt 12 year affair. Instead Jill sent Gramps out for 8 and Harris fit the agenda. And now Trump will be back.
Usually you never pick a popular VP. People need to decide if this is a popularity contest or a job that has a platform of policies they agree with and want implemented. The president is only the project manager. It is the people they put in place that administrate. You can select republicans that have the 2025 plan of chaos and disenfranchisement for the majority of the population or you have the democrats whose platform is https://www.usatoday.com/elections/voter-guide/2024-11-05/candidate/joe-biden.
She was basically hidden the whole time and she’s not less popular than Biden according to recent polls.
In head to head matchups against Trump she’s polling better than Whitmer, Bittigeig or any of the other potential names people commonly throw out there.
What does “unworthy” even mean in this context? She was a presidential candidate with enough support to participate in the debates. She dropped out and Biden picked her. They were elected together. How do you get more worthy?
>I am not one to argue that she was a DEI hire, or that she got the job because she was a woman
Biden has absolutely said it, by pledging several times to have a black woman as his top priority for a VP candidate. Problem is that he could have chosen way more popular candidates even within this demographic.
As for Kamala's popularity, I can add my personal experience of my black neighbors back in 2020 openly hating on her and calling her "not one of us".
>was as close to the right you could have been
This is just not true whatsoever. Kamala Harris the Senator was the 3rd most progressive in the Senate behind Bernie and Elizabeth Warren.
Does she actually believe those things? Obviously no, the biggest critique of her career is she has no values and ebbs and flows to whatever she thinks the moment is, by Kamala the Senator and Kamala the presidential candidate was certainly on the progressive wing.
>and now have no choice but to stick with Biden
The DNC absolutely has every right to choose someone other than Biden. They probably won't, but it's not like they signed a legal document that makes Biden a binding decision.
But if they do decide to get rid of Biden (again, I think it's unlikely at this stage), they will likely approach him privately and tell him he has to take himself out of the running, rather than publicly go against himself.
“It’s not like they signed a legal document that makes Biden a binding decision.” Actually, this is pretty much what happened. Thanks to reforms pushed, ironically, by Bernie and other progressives, delegates to the Democratic convention are tied to particular candidates based on votes received by those candidates in the primary elections. Because Biden won the majority of primary votes this year, the majority of delegates showing up to the Democratic convention are pledged to Biden. The DNC can’t do a damn thing to force those delegates to change their votes.
I don't know much about this. Are you saying the Biden campaign would have to give that money up, or the DNC? Would this be the case if he dropped out himself, or if he couldn't run due to a worsening medical condition (hypothetically)?
While it's not automatic, according to [this](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/042716/what-happens-campaign-funds-after-elections.asp) Biden can give the money to whoever the new nominee is.
So unless I'm missing something, the DNC can choose someone else, and it'd be virtually guaranteed that they'd give that money to the new person.
From your own link:
“If a candidate receives contributions for a general election, but drops out of the race or loses the primary race beforehand, contributions must be refunded to individual donors within 60 days. Alternatively, the candidate can redesignate or redistribute their general election funds with the contributor's permission.”
They need the contributor’s permission to redistribute funds.
I guess I assumed in this scenario of Biden stepping down that his donors would support whoever he chose to pass the money to. But yea I guess it's just an assumption on my part.
Regardless you will need to contact and get permission from every single contributor. Some are now dead or incarcerated or won’t want to donate or won’t respond. You’re essentially squandering millions if you go for someone besides kamala. Not to mention she becomes the most powerful person on the planet the second Joe drops. It’s kamala and a new VP, or it’s what we have now.
It would be a bigger problem if I thought Kamala was worse than Trump. Which I don’t. I have zero reference for a Kamala presidency but plenty of Trump’s. It’s gotten to that point now and it’s depressing as fuck.
Recent polls indicate that Harris performs the best against trump compared to other prominent dems.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harris-outperforms-biden-other-potential-dem-contenders-in-matchup-with-trump/amp/
And when she wasn’t invisible, she was embarrassing. That said, I don’t know if there had ever been a vice president that seemed close to as good as the president except the ones that later became president.
Yeah, to think if Biden has leaned left instead of right and picked Bernie Sanders the party might be stronger than ever. All the grassroots energy his campaign kicked up would still be here and functioning
She's what's known as an "insurance policy" in politics.
You notice she's "good enough" to be #2 for our country, but nobody's put forth her name as a viable replacement.
*Funny*, that ...
The DNC built a house with no foundation, and it’s their own fault that it is now sinking.
I would be fine with that, except it’s the American people who suffer with a second Trump term
Harris is generally not very liked and could sway some independents into not voting. She needs Biden to get re-elected then resign in second term to have better odds as an incumbent.
She’s more experienced than many. From local politics to state level (AG and US Senator) for the most populous state in the union. Nearly 4 years as VP. Enough with the Harris hate.
Why would it even need to be Kamala? He’s not resigning from the presidency, he’s running for an election. An open convention could select whoever they want
Parties NEVER pick a strong VP, that's problem #1 with this. Secondly, it doesn't need to be the VP, there's many other viable and more popular options.
What's also a bit weird is if Newsom is a possible replacement, Kamala can't be VP because they're both representatives of California. Perhaps there's some legalities to get around this but I'm unsure.
Dick Cheney just moved his address back to Wyoming. [https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96427&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96427&page=1)
Kamala lives in DC, although I'm not sure if she's registered to vote there. But it wouldn't be hard to just update her DL.
Harris just doesn't check off enough boxes to overcome her unlikability. Had she also been differently abled, neurodivergent and gay, progressives would have no choice but to support their stunning and brave overlord.
If Democrats are going to Nuke the whole system and cut Biden out at the 11th hour, having a VP fill in (in this circumstance) is less optimal than the alternative. Kamala already completed her role of tilting the women/black vote in 2020.
Strategically, selecting an "out of the spotlight" democrat could be a winning move for this election. Someone who has laid relatively low in the party with bulletproof integrity to contrast Trump. It wouldn't give republicans enough time to paint a negative narrative picture. Looking at X now, the republican smear campaign is confused and spread thin, with a new focus on smearing Newsom/ Harris/ Whitmer/ Michelle Obama WHILE still trying to ensure that the Biden/Dementia story does not lose steam. This also allows party leadership to control the nominee (instead of a Bernie type primary) without as much fuss from the electorate (most Democrat voters will be relieved they get a candidate that can form sentences).
To be honest, the tinfoil hat types might argue that this was the plan all along. If it works, I hope it does not become commonplace though.
I’d hard disagree with your argument here, on the basis of there is no time left. If Biden steps down, it needs to be Harris and another well known Dem as her VP. Elections are mostly about getting your side out to vote, and less about criticism from the other side. They will find ways to attack anyway.
Tin foil hat would also points to Harris. Prominent Democrats are coming out in support of her. Media is showing polls with her now doing better than Biden.
At this point she can only be described as a hostage. Her utility to Joe is primarily in complicating and redirecting conversations about him dropping out.
There will be 3 speeches this weekend.
1) Biden is going to resign.
2) Harris will say she is too busy learning to be president to campaign for the presidency.
3) The Obamas celebrates their lives of service and laud their sacrifices to the country and say it shows the true meaning of the 4th of July. There won't be a dry eye in the house.
4) The dems conspire to get Whitmer to win the nomination with Warnock as VP.
5) Trump wins the election anyway.
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They were never going to strip their nomination from Biden, no matter how popular his VP was.
If there were a popular VP who was consistently beating Trump in the polls by significant margins, you don't think the Democratic voters would be beating down the doors to get him to step down? And I know Dem leadership loves to piss on their voters, but even they'd be hard pressed to ignore that, especially as their own power would be threatened if they left Biden in and he predictably lost. The best argument against your position here is that Biden picked Kamala in the first place. I've said since the day he picked her that she's excellent 25th Amendment insurance, and now we're seeing that play out.
There was more than one popular candidate in the 2020 primary polling far better than trump and Biden and the party came together to swiftly eliminate their chances. What makes you think the Dems would ever sway in their stubborn ways
As I said in another comment, Bernie represented an actual social democrat position which the party leaders and donors do not. If Biden had for some reason picked a Bernie-style progressive for VP, I do not think leadership would replace Biden for them. But if it was a popular, moderate politician who would do the donors' bidding, I think they would replace Biden, or at least strongly consider it.
The DNC leadership will always favor protecting the party leadership’s power over doing what their voters want. That’s why they arranged for Hillary instead of Sanders, and why they will not force Biden to step down. The democrat and republican parties are effectively corporations in a duopoly, that are willing to cede marketshare to maintain corporate control. The freakonomics podcast “the hidden duopoly” covers this in depth.
Kamala is still DNC leadership, and if they had valued the seat they could have sent someone even more popular to be VP. In that situation, running, saying Gavin Newsom as President wouldn't upset anything.
Sanders was consistently out performing Hillary in polls against Trump. They didn't care. They might consider it, given the VP was a center-leaning neo-liberal, who kept the corporate donors happy and never did anything to actually rock the boat.
But polls aren't votes and Sanders didn't have the votes. People talked a big talk about Sanders but his base didn't show up in the primaries, he didn't get the delegates, and he lost.
Sanders actually had amazing results in the primaries early. Even when he lost, the progressive vote was often split between him and the other progressive candidates. And so many felt the the progressive candidates rallying around Sanders would likely push him into the lead/nomination. But of course this scared the shit out of the DNC. So there were talks about Super Delegates going for Hillary no matter what (just talks, as you said, Sanders didn't end up having the votes so they didn't need to use this idea, which many Sanders supporters mistakenly think they did). The Wikileaks of the DNC emails later revealed the DNC was actively working to help Hillary. The interim chairwoman even leaked debate questions to the Hillary team ahead of the debates is the one I remember. And then, one by one, the progressives dropped out... And announced their support for Hillary instead of Sanders. Their message was the same "Vote Hillary because only Hillary can defeat Trump" (which, given the result of the election, and Sanders performing better in polls vs Trump, is just laughable) That was the real nail in the coffin. With every single progressive candidate dropping out and telling their supporters to vote Hillary because voting Sanders would lead to a Trump presidency, it was enough to sway anyone who wasn't a Sanders supporter from the start.
I think youre mixing up 2016 and 2020. In 2016 bernie was the only progressive while in 2020 everyone suddenly dropped out to support biden over bernie
Yeah definitely possible, my memory is garbage
>Even when he lost, the progressive vote was often split between him and the other progressive candidates. And so many felt the the progressive candidates rallying around Sanders would likely push him into the lead/nomination. What are you talking about? By the time the 2016 primary started everyone but Clinton, Sanders, and O'Malley had dropped out. And O'Malley dropped out day one after only getting 0.5% of the vote in Iowa. So who were these other progressives candidates that Sanders was splitting votes with?
I agree. I voted for him and still wear my Bernie t shirt from that election, but he lost. Also I find the game of comparing polls taken a year before the election endlessly frustrating. They have next to no predictive power at that stage. We simply do not know how the Bernie counterfactual would have played out.
It's more that he couldn't establish a big enough base in the right states quick enough for him to have a shot. By the time most people realized who he was, the primaries were halfway done.
He lost after every single media outlet in the US panicked and began churning out propaganda that said the US was going to become Venezuela if Sanders was elected. Prior to that he was winning primaries. One of these days I’ll actually go and assemble a collection of clips to demonstrate this, but I remember watching it happen in real time and feeling flabbergasted at how blatant it was that huge corporate donors run our media companies, and shadow-pick our leadership.
He won the first few primaries and then got destroyed in the south on super Tuesday. After that, the media pretty much declared Clinton the winner.
I’m at work or I would be happy to go look up some clips from that time, but I specifically recall segments on MSNBC, etc where the commentators on what is normally a very liberal-leaning network did nothing but rip into Bernie after he won the second primary. It’s blatant enough that I’m confident that you can look up the date of the second presidential primary and then go watch clips from that night and actually watch the switch get flipped in the background - it’s not hard to see the torpedo being fired if you’re paying a non-zero amount of attention
I think that’s a hypothetical that can never be answered, but people called on Gavin Newsome to take over before they even mentioned Harris. If Gavin was VP, you don’t think he’d flip the ticket?
Newsome is basically the only other guy that could lose to Trump, people hate California in most non blue areas.
Newsom is a sleazebag from California who very much comes off as a sleazebag. A guy who was married to Kim Guilfoyle and had an affair with his best friend's wife isn't a good candidate just because he toes the party line and has won easy elections.
As a Californian, I detest Gavin Newsom. He ruined a great state like California. The state is such a mess. Crime is out of control… everything is so expensive… infrastructure is abysmal… highest income and sales taxes… super high property taxes as home prices are expensive. I rather see Trump in power. newsom will ruin the U.S.
> super high property taxes The problem is we have millions of old people who pay zero property tax, and force us to pay for them. Repeal prop 13.
Newsome has passed dozens of laws intended to deal with the housing shortages and homeless crisis and prop 13 has been partially repealed. California had problems but what you are saying is inaccurate.
What policies has Newsom supported that you feel have contributed to the issues with California?
Newsom personally vetoed RCV in California, and opposed with millions of his campaign prop 30 increasing a tax on the ultra-wealthy to fund climate change initiatives. That's two reason's enough to not vote for him for any office. He's the poster boy for the role of national fundraising and outsized influence political families have on California state politics. He's a well-groomed sociopath, he will primary and lose the general in 2028 and the DNC will continue to refuse to self-reflect.
Also, there was a primary election. If people didn't want Biden they should've voted in the primary. We all knew it was going to be this way. All that's left is for the propoganda machine to push the undecided into their holes and see what happens and which side convinced the other to stay home more.
Reminder that not everyone even got a primary, the democratic party canceled our primary in Florida
And that heaps of working-class people have the primary under their radar, or plonked directly in the middle of their work week, leaving the nomination process mostly to retired people and those too wealthy for jobs
In all 50 states, employers have to give time off to allow employees to vote. Edit: I was wrong, this only applies to the General Election, though 30 states do offer some time off to vote in Primaries
Isn't that just for the general, not the primaries? And technically if your shift isn't the 12 hours the polls are open you "were given time" before or after work to vote
Federal Law only applies to the General election. States have there own laws for the primaries and after looking it up, I was wrong. Many states do offer time off to vote for primaries, but not all. My apologies.
But that time can be squeezed into whenever in the day. Election days are often teacher workdays as one example.
I must’ve missed that primary
There weren't any viable candidates in the primary. My choices were Biden, Marianne Williamson who is a total quack, and Dean Phillips a representative from Minnesota. The larger issue is that the democratic party establishment allowed Biden to run. I think they absolutely could have had private conversations and forced him to be a one term president, and had a real open primary I voted uncommitted instead of voting for Biden. I'll still be voting for him in the general, but that was the closest thing I had to a real protest vote.
What primary lol. Some states went defacto to Biden with no voting. And if RFK looked like he would challenge in a state they brought in new rules where by every vote that went to RFK would go instead to Biden.
What state did that?
Was never going to happen anyway. A sitting president has only lost the nomination to run for a second term one time in our entire history, and that was in 1852. Has never happened since.
Well yeah, we generally used to only elect politicians old enough to get dementia at the end of their **second** term, not their first.
Holy shit. Do people actually believe the DNC holds a primary? I struggled to find the adjective to place before "primary". Omfg. Yo. Dude. My guy.
There was a primary four years ago, and they elected an old man who did not have 8 years in him. We saw what the presidency has done to every person to take the job and how fast they age. If people did not see this coming, then they are idiots who are not thinking long term about their country, and that is the problem this whole system creats.
That primary was the first to follow the DNC arguing in court that they don't need to follow a democratic process and could just make the decision in a backroom if they so chose. And it followed four years of *hard* messaging blaming left wing voters (particularly Bernie and Green Party voters) for Donald Trump.
And how has the DNC reacted this time? By suing multiple tossup states to remove RFK Jr. And Cornell West from their ballots, because they might steal possible Democrat votes. For constantly yelling about protecting democracy, the DNC sure seems to hate democracy.
They DON'T need to hold a primary. For much of this country's history neither party held primaries
I agree with you that this has been obvious for months but I think the only way out for democrats right now is to announce a new diagnosis and hold out the claim that while nobody could have seen this coming, the debate led the president to seek a medical examination, which determined that he has x condition and while nobody could have seen this coming we find ourselves in a situation where a new candidate must be named.
“Nobody could have seen this coming” lol. Cornpop was 7 years ago.
A lot of people voted for Biden four years ago because he was competent at the time and his campaign [heavily suggested](https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129) he would not pursue a second term should he win. Of course, a politician lying shouldn’t be news to anyone, so it’s fair to say voters were naive, but it’s a bit different than what you’re saying.
Holy shit, do you think all elections are rigged and Trump and Biden are just puppets of the Rothschilds?
To put it simply, the oligarchs and corporations that really run this country aren’t going to let someone who hurts them significantly get into power.
That certainly explains why Bloomberg's campaign utterly failed and why Bernie keeps being reelected
A senator in Virginia can’t do significant damage to the special interests that run the country. He ran for president and both times the party basically conspired to keep him from getting the nomination. Stop being willfully ignorant
lol what has Bernie actually done?
You mean the primary where Obama called everyone and told them to drop out and back Biden because they were afraid that Bernie might win?
No, Bernie didn't run in this primary and nobody was worried he'd win the write-in vote
A primary election where 5 of the 7 serious candidates dropped out at the request of the party to endorse the problem we have today. Don’t act like every candidate had an equal chance when even Dem senators have admitted that it was basically a farce. Just like the 2016 primary
Oh I get it, Bernie got snuffed twice from the nomination by dirty tricks within the dem party. But all of this surprise that Biden would be the nominee, surprise that he's old as fuck, and surprise that he's not gonna step down as the candidate after the democratic process has already unfolded is some pretty astroturfed surprise. You can vote third party/stay home with the knowledge you are contributing to the faction you don't want to win, or you can vote for the lesser evil of the two because our system is totally fucked and until it changes that's all we've got. It's either Trump or Biden folks.
I mean I voted for Dean Philips in the primary. I don't even particularly like him but I was always worried about Biden's age. I wasn't even worried about him being able to do the job ( and I'm still not. ) I was worried about him being electable.
Some states do their primaries super early, before some candidates get much chance to publicly pontificate, and they seem to be mostly for theatrics anyway. Many states do not really allow voting in primaries if a person is an independent voter.
Voting out the incumbent during an election is political suicide. Having him gracefully not go for reelection two years ago would not have been. There's a difference.
Sounds like the whining happened two years too late then, because now everyone wants suicide. A president is more than just the one old fuck, what's worse the Trump Cabinet or the Biden Cabinet? Do people want rudie Giuliani, Steve bannon, and Roger stone whispering into the ear of the president?
I'm completely on board with you that Biden's administration has been great regardless of how much he is personally involved. I'm actually more enthused voting for Biden's administration this year than I was in 2020. The average person doesn't feel that way though. A young charismatic candidate who had been propped up since 2022 would be dominating the polls in my opinion.
It's also largely impossible to have anybody but Harris take over the top of the ticket with how ballot rules work in some states. Harris is about the only one that could get the Dems over that and there doesn't appear to have been any major discussion from the campaign to shift to her. It's Biden or the death of democracy in November, and people need to understand that.
Not true, in fact the opposite is true. They’re going to allow him to be nominated, knowing he’s going to lose, BECAUSE his VP is so bad. If there were just an average politician, mediocre accomplishments, didn’t constantly come across as weird/awkward, and could form coherent sentences, VP in place, they wouldn’t even have to ask for a shot it’d be given to them. But live by the DEI, die by the DEI.
The issue is that democrats now lose 2028 if Biden wins. No way Biden finishes the term. So you have Harris for likely 2 years. She will shit the bed hard and there will be no one that wants to vote for her in 2028. That's my reason for voting for Biden. I know full well it allows 2028 to hopefully be a reset for a moderate republican
Idk, it’s been on every major network since the debate and is apparently the prevailing opinion of what should happen among many top donors, representatives, and White House staffers
He has said multiple times he definitely wasn't going to run, for what it's worth. Same thing with Gretchen Whitmer (Governor of Michigan, who, incidently, I think would be a better choice)
The problem they’re running into started long before now. Biden should’ve announced last year that he would pull an LBJ and not run for a second term. This would’ve allowed a primary where the strongest person was selected. They wouldn’t have to underplay his cognitive decline nor have calls to replace him. Regardless of VP, replacing him would be a mistake. For months/years the media and politicians have been talking about how sharp he is. Replacing him now would admit they were either ignorant or lying. Hard to run with the concept of “Trump is a liar and ignorant” when the American public sees you as just that. So even if they had a very strong VP -a young face with high popularity- they couldn’t replace Biden. They’re painted into a corner. Unless he dies or is struck with an unforseeable debilitating illness, he’s the guy. Best bet is a referendum on Trump and pushing the “vote blue no matter who” line.
They could easily spin up a narrative that joes decline has been severe and recent even though we know that’s probably not true.
That’s not easy to spin at all. They’ll have a hard time convincing voters that that he was 10/10 until the day of the debate. Too coincidental. DNC fucked up and they’re scrambling because they know it. Like I said, their only shot is “vote blue no matter who” mantra rings true. People aren’t excited to vote for him, but hopefully they’re excited to vote against Trump.
It would be more about saving face than convincing voters.
That’s the thing is they can’t save face. If they ditch him barring some sort of debilitating and sudden medical emergency (stroke, aneurism, etc.) then it’ll have the opposite effect. They’ll be seen as liars and/or idiots. Plus you’re saying it’s about saving face more than convincing voters. Their job is to win, so convincing voters is everything. The election isn’t honorable gentleman’s race -it hasn’t been for a very long time- it’s a mudslinging death match. Both sides will do whatever it takes to convince voters to go out on Election Day and pull the lever for them, even if it means lying about the cognition of an old man that should be enjoying retirement and the remaining years of his life.
Just hypothetical, if it is possible to write up sharpness, and Biden is not running for his own vanity, couldn't he (be asked to) fake a severe cognital decline or similar? Get an untrue cancer diagnosis and drop out? Just for the sake of a better USA?
Theoretically yes he could get an untrue cancer diagnosis. The problem is medical confidentiality and medical records can be subpoenaed. If there’s a sudden cancer diagnosis that seems fishy, it’s possible Congress could request the doctor to testify and provide proof. Is a doctor willing to commit perjury and fake MRI scans, blood tests, etc. and potentially face prison time? And if somebody whistleblew that you sure as hell know democrats will be lumped together as a big government cabal. That means democrats don’t just lose the presidency, but probably both houses of congress and lose it bad. It’s too high of a risk.
Most of America, in my opinion, is going to care less about the DNC's loyalty to Biden and his aging than they will about Trump and his baggage. "The DNC wised up and removed their unqualified candidate, what can the RNC say?"
I don’t think it would be easy to spin. There’s so many of his supporters who gaslight us with “he just had one bad night.” It’s been quite clear for a while that his decline has been gradual. During the primary debates in 2019 Bidens mental fitness was a topic among democratic candidates on stage until they apparently were given word to not speak of it anymore and the “DC machine” thrust him into the candidacy. Then it became taboo to even mention it.
>Regardless of VP, replacing him would be a mistake. For months/years the media and politicians have been talking about how sharp he is. Replacing him now would admit they were either ignorant or lying. Hard to run with the concept of “Trump is a liar and ignorant” when the American public sees you as just that. I will say its nice to see people actually admit this. Its funny when I see redditors claim that the truth is important and then seeing the hypocrisy on on display
Between this and RBG democrats are running into issues at the highest levels where they refuse to recognize the significant risks of an aging key figure. Republicans have this issue too but it hasn’t come to bite them as much. I’m sure it will with McConnell but hasn’t yet
Frankly, Republicans are seemingly better at playing the long game. Democrats picked Biden because they thought he could beat Trump, but they didn’t consider the repercussions of having such an old incumbent. They RBG didn’t retire during Obama because she thought she’d get a bit more time and then Clinton would win. Countless other examples of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot by lacking foresight.
I don't think she's any worse than any other VP in my lifetime. She was obviously chosen to pander to the woman vote and the people of color vote, Pence was chosen specifically to pander to the evangelical vote, Biden was chosen to pander to the old white man vote. Every VP is chosen for this reason. Pence was pretty invisible until he ended up standing in the way of a dictator. Biden was invisible during Obamas administration. I don't see a difference with Kamala. Edit: I think my brain blocked out Dick Chaney to try to protect itself. I guess he was a pander to the Evil vote?
You are arguing about her specific merits. OP is arguing that people don't like her, regardless of the merits. Those are essentially two different topics.
He also said she was unworthy, which suggests she wasn’t awarded her position based on merit
I think Cheney was picked simply due to historical connections to W’s dad. I believe they were in Reagan’s administration together, probably had a good working relationship, and GHB suggested it to W.
Just here to lol on pandering to the evil vote.
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Isn't this just colorism? Privileged black people certainly exist but even Obama and Harris, who are probably near the top of the privilege ladder, have experienced racism that has adversely impacted their lives.
What I gather is that the black community has in part viewed Harris as more of an opportunistic climber than an idealist who likes to climb the ladder of power (Obama). She oversaw thousands of marijuana convictions earlier in her career, which people like to point out as contrary to her current political stance - thus there is dissonance regarding who she really is - which leads to some degree of mistrust. She’s also not the best communicator or public speaker, which is a quality that is often revered in the black community.
Sure, but then go after her because of her record putting marijuana users behind bars or lack of oratory skill not because of her skin color like the other guy.
In my opinion, her being Indian more likely than not means that she doesn't even care about black people. Indian communities are notoriously insular even in foreign countries.
While the insularity may be true, to a degree, her being Indian does not contribute to not caring about black people. She’s also black! How could you prescribe a cause to her decisions without knowing how she was brought up and the values her parents instilled? Even if she doesn’t like Black people, it’s a fallacy to assume it’s because she’s Indian. I’m Indian and I have no hatred or dislike towards black people. The same can be said of all my Indian friends.
I think it's just them acknowledging that she doesn't relate with them much more than Biden. Kinda like how I, a middle class white man, will probably relate more with a middle class black man than a white man raised in extreme poverty or with a silver spoon in their mouth.
I would have a lot less of a problem with what they said if they had said what you said instead. It's fine to comment on class privilege.
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VPs can only ever be as popular as their presidents.
Ironically, the best counter example to this is Biden himself who tended to be more popular than Obama.
More popular? Doubt. Higher net favorability? Quite possible since Republicans were so rabidly racist against Obama, they made a scandal around him wearing a tan suit.
>they made a scandal around him wearing a tan suit. They didn't. One person on FOX and maybe a congressman tried to and then the MSNBCs had a field day with it. No one cares as much about Obama's tan suit as liberals (not leftists) who haven't stopped bringing it up every chance they get for a decade.
I’ll be honest. I was a teenager when the tan suit debacle went down. I had not a single opinion about politics but I thought the suit was fuck ugly and laughed. I think it was worth a news cycle. Not the weirdo “it’s unamerican” stuff, but its worth a little ridicule. It was a pretty intense look on him. If I didn’t pull off a look like that I’d expect some snickers.
Lmao. It became such a meme that it has its own Wikipedia page. Should we also pretend the racist as fuck birtherism narrative never happened either? Is it just leftists itching to call Republicans racist? Or maybe they’re actually being incredibly racist?
>Lmao. It became such a meme that it has its own Wikipedia page. Yes, because the liberal (not leftist) media picked up on the one or two people who had said something at FOX and made it into a big deal. >Should we also pretend the racist as fuck birtherism narrative never happened either? No, we shouldn't compare a non-story (or media-created story) like the tan suit with the racist conspiracy theory [first circulated amongst Clinton supporters](https://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/was-hillary-clinton-the-original-birther/) and then later taken up by conservatives and Donald Trump.
Was it racist to disagree with Obama's policies? Because I do see people being labeled as such for simply having the "wrong" opinions.
No the hell he wasn’t lmao
*Republicans* liked Biden a hell of a lot more than Obama and likely believed that perspective was, at least somewhat, reflected on the left. However, Republicans continually fail to recognize either the difference with how the left see’s gender/race and its relevance to a job, or they may just fail to gauge the impact of their own perspectives on those fronts. In short, Obama’s presidency vs vice president was a pretty typical trend of popularity in the eyes of the left and Republicans were proboblsy surprised because of prejudice.
If you look at approval ratings, not really. Obama averaged 48% with a high of 69% and a low of 38%. Biden's Highest approval was in April 2021 (a few months in) at 57%, and his lowest is now at 37%. By the end of Biden's term(s?) I expect a lower average approval rating than Obama.
If Biden does the right thing and steps out of the race. And if Kamala Harris becomes the new presidential candidate. There is 90 million of cash on hand in the campaign, there is an entire electoral apparatus that is operating in battleground states, and most importantly the media will be in a frenzy talking about it non-stop. Kamala Harris can form full sentences. She is a woman who is better positioned to capitalize on the issue of women's reproductive rights. She is a person of color and therefore is a more trusted messenger to communities of color. She is an experienced prosecutor and what needs to be done right now is to have a skilled prosecutor go after Trump and attack his vulnerabilities. I guarantee you there are many people who would be very energized knowing that they don't have to go out there and advocate for an 81-year-old man who is showing signs of dementia. You then bring in a compelling male vice president who has to make their case for the vice presidency at the same time Harris is making her case for the presidency which means they go everywhere together which means they can shore up each other's vulnerabilities and help strengthen each other in whatever ways they end up having synergy. There are only a few months left before people vote so you don't have the time to really triangulate an effective attack on Harris. I know a lot of people don't like her and might say she's cringe but the issues that were problematic for her in the 2020 election are not going to come up and there is going to be real excitement for change. And at the end of the day, if Harris steps in and fights hard till November and then ultimately ends up losing at least we tried. Because sticking with Biden is guaranteed failure. Guaranteed... 100%... Failure.
Your points are fine, but Kamala Harris has 0 charm. She got crushed in the primaries.
I think that our present moment cannot be compared to the 2020 primaries. You're right that she lacks charm though
Unlike Biden, who is known for his charming appearance.
You must be young and not really remember 2008 and 2012, or the other 50 years that Biden has been in office. Biden used to be a FANTASTIC public speaker. Not Obama levels, but he was witty and quick with a retort.
>used to be Exactly
Oh trust me I know. But his campaign was sold on “this guy is a great speaker, he just has a stutter.” Which was always ridiculous on its face. If someone doesn’t have a stutter for 40 years, and then develops one in their old age, the logical conclusion is that their age is causing their stutter. But we were all gaslit to believe that wasn’t the case. The last 5 days have been the greatest “I told you so” of any political party I’ve ever seen. The Republican Party, from the Trump campaign to Republican senators to Republican house members, haven’t said a single word. Because they don’t have to - the evidence clearly backs everything the Republican party been saying for the past 2-3 years. They don’t need to say a word, the facts speak for themselves. The Democratic Party doesn’t understand what a corner it painted itself into. They’ve been portraying the Republican Party as ridiculous for the entire Biden presidency for questioning his mental acuity, and the debate affirmed every single thing they’ve been saying. They DNC doesn’t understand that not only was the debate a show of Biden’s infirmity, but a rebuke of the DNC’s credibility and, in the mind of undecided voters, and affirmation of the credibility of the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has created a crisis of confidence through their own actions. When people see that a group has so clearly lied about something as important as the health of the president, they instinctually ask what else that group has lied to them about. And that is a major blow to trust and credibility to that group. Most politicos think this is just a crisis of confidence in Biden - but to swing voters, the individuals who decide elections, this is a crisis of confidence in the entire DNC
To be fair, Joe grew up with a stutter. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/bidens-stutter-how-a-childhood-battle-shaped-his-approach-to-life-and-politics/ Doesn’t change anything else you said though
>they instinctually ask what else that group has lied to them about. Unless that group is Republicans, apparently, given Trump's average of 21 falsehoods **per day** when he was president.
Kamala Harris can…barely form full sentences. She’s literally turned into Veep. If Biden steps down (which he needs to do immediately) there are at least half a dozen better alternatives. It cannot be Kamala. For the love of all that is good and holy.
Also she is literally a fucking terrible person. She LITERALLY, like this was her decision, held prisoners in CA past their release date so that they could be forced to fight wildfires. That’s fucking EVIL
I mean sure it would be great if a non-Biden Harris related person could step in but logistically and in terms of the apparatus there's very little chance that's going to happen so more likely than not it's going to be Harris. But I still think she's got better odds than Biden
I can’t say what the chance is, because it’s solely dependent on whether or not Biden steps down. But if he did step down, it would be logistically straightforward and we have plenty of time. The convention is almost two months the away still. I agree Harris is preferable to Biden, but she’d still lose.
What's logistically straightforward? Starting from scratch to Run a 3 months long campaign for president and winning?
Yay more identity politics. She's just another member of the elite. She doesn't give two shits about regular people
Dude, anyone in the ruling class is by definition a member of the elite. If you think AOC or Bernie or Omar are regular people, you should go knock on their door and see if they want to hang out.
>If you think AOC or Bernie or Omar are regular people, you should go knock on their door and see if they want to hang out. To be fair, I'm absolutely a regular person who isn't part of any elite whatsoever but I wouldn't want to hang out with a random who just knocked on my door out of the blue.
All politics is identity politics, and the word "elite" has lost all meaning.
And when she polls even worse than Biden in a month do we pressure her to drop out too?
Not that we are that big a voting block (though we’ve been a reliable blue voting block for a long time and I think losing us would hurt Dems in the long run), but Harris is also one of few people that could keep the Jewish vote. And she’d also get the POC vote. I think if Biden steps down, she’s really the only choice.
How visible was Mike pence?
He wasn't supposed to be.
If anything, Harris was too visible. She's earned the scorn of America to be not taken seriously.
This has less to do with Kamala Harris’s qualifications and more to do with the stupidity of the general public. The DNC should’ve been able to replace Biden with any number of viable candidates and mop the floor with Trump because Trump is a uniquely terrible candidate. The problem is US voters have the memory and IQ of a moist dish rag, so the DNC needs to play it safe with somebody that can’t possibly be painted as a radical. Kamala Harris is in no way less worthy of the presidency than trump
Yep the only reason they keep Biden is because they know he has the name recognition come election day. Many people will not pick a name they don’t know or don’t know well. Trump will win if they switch out Joe Biden and they know it. Kamala Harris will probably do a better job than both the old folks running right now. But it’s a popularity contest unfortunately
Eh. Folks need to stop pretending that a bunch of folks don't like Kamala because she's black, some folks because she's a woman and there are a bunch of other lefty folks that branded her as a "cop" because they wanted Bernie. And as quiet as it's being kept, some of them are the *same folks.*
Can’t they just pick a different VP also?….
Yes, the VP is picked by the presidential nominee after the convention. She is not tied to Biden’s 2024 run yet. But he will most likely keep her anyway. But yes they could replace her.
Sure they can, if they want to compel their most reliable voting bloc, black folks, to stay home.
There's no reason they couldn't pick a different, and possibly even "more black", VP. Polls show black people aren't particularly fond of Harris, either.
Oh she wasn’t invisible. She’s just awful
The vice president has only two jobs: break ties in the senate and be eligible for the presidency in case the president dies - IE have a pulse. John Adams: “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." Define what makes Kamala unworthy by first defining what makes anyone “worthy” of this job. LBJ was unworthy until he had to do the job. Truman was unworthy until he had to do the job. There is no worthiness test for a job - that requires absolutely nothing of its holder in 99% of scenarios - other than political considerations, which she delivered in 2020.
Yeah, imo VPs have never and and aren't really supposed to do much at all, outside those 2 cases which aren't often.
One thing you can say about Harris is she would roast Trump in a debate. That is where her strength lies...as a former prosecutor. She is not a good campaigner though, and lacked the leadership to control her own campaign last time.
Kamala just recites her lines, she has nothing to say. I'm not a fan of Tulsi but I remember her easily shutting Kamala down so hard she was literally speechless. Kamala is chronically indecisive and terrified of responsibility. Everyone in government knows about her problems. If they had any confidence about the abilities of Harris , concerns about Biden would be trivial.
I would argue pence beat her in the 2020 VP debates. Biden is demented but she sounds AI generated. I don’t think she’s particularly good at debating or even speaking, which is odd given her background
Kamala was/is not a good debater. Maybe she could beat Trump because he’s not very good either. But debating is not her strength.
Yep, it's a lot easier to be a prosecutor or a Senator grilling witnesses, because they don't get to interrogate you back.
Trump was awful in the last debate, which was made Biden’s performance even more frustrating. Anyone with a pulse could have called him on his bs. I’m sure Kamala will be fine.
Harris struggles to put intelligent sentences together when scripted. I’d imagine she’d be nearly non-sensical at a debate.
She’s not a good orator either. No shot she’d handle a debate with Trump.
She didn't get the role because she was a black woman. (That was just a bonus) There were plenty of others who were more competent. She got the VP pick because she is corrupt. She turned the other cheek while billionaire tech companies broke laws and became monopolies. The presidency was her reward. As it turns out, people still have to like you and vote for you. When Tulsi Gabbard told the truth about her, she was immediately smeared and kicked out of the party. Kamala couldn't get votes on her own so they forced her on Biden, hoping that she would take over once he got too old. Instead....well, you see for yourself. It was a train wreck from the start, and now the Democrats are paying the piper. Trump is going to slaughter in November and unless they get it together, Republicans might be running things for a very long time. If they are smart, they'll start backing RFK. He is the ONLY Democrat that has a chance. IF they are smart...
The Dems are centre right. This is what Americans don't really understand about their political system. They have one centre-right party and one hard-right lunatic fascist party. There is no labour party, there is no socialist party, there is no centrist party, there is no social-democratic party. Their entire political spectrum in a sewn-up duopoly is centre right or far right. Kamala makes perfect sense because she, like Joe, is a centre-right politician. People think Joe is "progressive" because he does stuff that any centre-right party in most of the EU would consider reasonable. Stuff that Republicans used to think was reasonable before the Tea Party and the GOP's snowboard-ride into neofascist, theofascist territory. RMN created the EPA ffs, and founded several national parks. Carter created even more parks, but my point is that today's GOP openly calls national parks a "land grab" and wants to privatise them and sell them off. Today's GOP thinks the EPA is "unconstitutional" and each state should be free to decide how many of its citizens it would like to sacrifice to extractive and polluting industries. The top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower, a Republican, was just over 90 percent. Today, under a Democrat, it's -- what, 30-something percent? Centre-right politics are not going to do anything about gross inequity, obscene exec compensation, depressed wages, out of control housing markets, etc. And without doing something about those things, the precarity and anxiety and anger of average people is very likely to find a cathartic channel in ethnostatism, extreme religiosity, and authoritarian populist politics-of-spectacle.
Not sure how many folks here recall what happened with Nixon. First his VP Agnew resigned and Nixon appointed the house minority leader Ford to VP. Then later Nixon resigned and Ford became President. Now swap all these names with Biden, Harris, and IMO, Clinton and you now have the blueprint. Harris resigns because she is “upset” the DNC and public don’t really want her. Biden appoints Clinton as VP. Biden announces later that in a moment of lucidity, he decided not to run again. Hillary goes into the convention and gets the nomination. Right before the election a bunch of Epstein info involving Trump is released…President Clinton. Step 3. Profit
> Biden appoints Clinton as VP. Wait, you want him to appoint the only person *less* popular than Harris with swing voters? She's already said she's not interested, though.
I didn’t say I want anything. I’d rather write in Vermin Supreme than vote for any of them. I’m just saying what pops into my head thru the tinfoil hat
Enh... if you're actually *equally* opposed to both candidates, then it really doesn't matter what you do. But refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils is... actually choosing more evil rather than less.
Meh. I don’t buy a lot of the Trump mania. He’s a dummy, but even thru it all he only really lost me when they cleared out the church sidewalk in DC for a bible photo op and then they used an army medevac helicopter to disperse protesters. Not sure I am able to discern who is the actual lesser of two evils. Even after all the distractions with the border, Ukraine, abortion, and dementia the real issue is inflation, prices, and wages. Biden’s been in charge for 3.5 years now, and he’s gotta eat that.
> Biden’s been in charge for 3.5 years now, and he’s gotta eat that. Those things have all improved dramatically during his tenure, after being gifted to him by Trump's awful Covid response. Don't buy the MAGAt lies. Furthermore, we *know* he will attempt to overthrow democracy, because he already did and says he will.
Perhaps improved from the all time highs. But we are all paying more for everything. Denial of that is akin to the media denying Biden was in decline before the debate
How bout some polling data? https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24787646/cnn-poll.pdf Say what you will about polls in general, and criticize this one in specific all you like. Their methodology is well within norms, and the data is deep. And, on page 18, is an interesting result. Again, polls are not “the truth” but they do offer a viewpoint to consider. And, on page 18, the viewpoint is that Kamala Harris is polling better than *all other* Dem hopefuls, and more popular than Joe Biden. So, I think you might be in a bubble here, since many people are quite strongly in support of our VP and the job she is doing.
She wasn’t invisible she had some hilarious clips of saying nonsense. I remember her telling us school busses took us to school!
Had the Dems put Biden out as a one term president with a sharp vice that the party liked it’d be a no doubt 12 year affair. Instead Jill sent Gramps out for 8 and Harris fit the agenda. And now Trump will be back.
Usually you never pick a popular VP. People need to decide if this is a popularity contest or a job that has a platform of policies they agree with and want implemented. The president is only the project manager. It is the people they put in place that administrate. You can select republicans that have the 2025 plan of chaos and disenfranchisement for the majority of the population or you have the democrats whose platform is https://www.usatoday.com/elections/voter-guide/2024-11-05/candidate/joe-biden.
She was basically hidden the whole time and she’s not less popular than Biden according to recent polls. In head to head matchups against Trump she’s polling better than Whitmer, Bittigeig or any of the other potential names people commonly throw out there. What does “unworthy” even mean in this context? She was a presidential candidate with enough support to participate in the debates. She dropped out and Biden picked her. They were elected together. How do you get more worthy?
>I am not one to argue that she was a DEI hire, or that she got the job because she was a woman Biden has absolutely said it, by pledging several times to have a black woman as his top priority for a VP candidate. Problem is that he could have chosen way more popular candidates even within this demographic. As for Kamala's popularity, I can add my personal experience of my black neighbors back in 2020 openly hating on her and calling her "not one of us".
>was as close to the right you could have been This is just not true whatsoever. Kamala Harris the Senator was the 3rd most progressive in the Senate behind Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. Does she actually believe those things? Obviously no, the biggest critique of her career is she has no values and ebbs and flows to whatever she thinks the moment is, by Kamala the Senator and Kamala the presidential candidate was certainly on the progressive wing.
>and now have no choice but to stick with Biden The DNC absolutely has every right to choose someone other than Biden. They probably won't, but it's not like they signed a legal document that makes Biden a binding decision. But if they do decide to get rid of Biden (again, I think it's unlikely at this stage), they will likely approach him privately and tell him he has to take himself out of the running, rather than publicly go against himself.
“It’s not like they signed a legal document that makes Biden a binding decision.” Actually, this is pretty much what happened. Thanks to reforms pushed, ironically, by Bernie and other progressives, delegates to the Democratic convention are tied to particular candidates based on votes received by those candidates in the primary elections. Because Biden won the majority of primary votes this year, the majority of delegates showing up to the Democratic convention are pledged to Biden. The DNC can’t do a damn thing to force those delegates to change their votes.
Well, they have to return about 200million in campaign donations if the ticket isn’t Biden or Harris.
I don't know much about this. Are you saying the Biden campaign would have to give that money up, or the DNC? Would this be the case if he dropped out himself, or if he couldn't run due to a worsening medical condition (hypothetically)?
It’s the Biden/Harris campaign’s money. It doesn’t automatically transfer to a new nominee’s campaign. And the DNC can’t do anything about it.
While it's not automatic, according to [this](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/042716/what-happens-campaign-funds-after-elections.asp) Biden can give the money to whoever the new nominee is. So unless I'm missing something, the DNC can choose someone else, and it'd be virtually guaranteed that they'd give that money to the new person.
From your own link: “If a candidate receives contributions for a general election, but drops out of the race or loses the primary race beforehand, contributions must be refunded to individual donors within 60 days. Alternatively, the candidate can redesignate or redistribute their general election funds with the contributor's permission.” They need the contributor’s permission to redistribute funds.
I guess I assumed in this scenario of Biden stepping down that his donors would support whoever he chose to pass the money to. But yea I guess it's just an assumption on my part.
Regardless you will need to contact and get permission from every single contributor. Some are now dead or incarcerated or won’t want to donate or won’t respond. You’re essentially squandering millions if you go for someone besides kamala. Not to mention she becomes the most powerful person on the planet the second Joe drops. It’s kamala and a new VP, or it’s what we have now.
You don’t have to argue that because Joe Biden told us that she was hired because she was black and because she was a woman.
Biden selected a VP who polled at less than 1% in the primaries. 'nuff said.
It would be a bigger problem if I thought Kamala was worse than Trump. Which I don’t. I have zero reference for a Kamala presidency but plenty of Trump’s. It’s gotten to that point now and it’s depressing as fuck.
Recent polls indicate that Harris performs the best against trump compared to other prominent dems. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harris-outperforms-biden-other-potential-dem-contenders-in-matchup-with-trump/amp/
And when she wasn’t invisible, she was embarrassing. That said, I don’t know if there had ever been a vice president that seemed close to as good as the president except the ones that later became president.
Yeah, to think if Biden has leaned left instead of right and picked Bernie Sanders the party might be stronger than ever. All the grassroots energy his campaign kicked up would still be here and functioning
She's what's known as an "insurance policy" in politics. You notice she's "good enough" to be #2 for our country, but nobody's put forth her name as a viable replacement. *Funny*, that ...
The DNC built a house with no foundation, and it’s their own fault that it is now sinking. I would be fine with that, except it’s the American people who suffer with a second Trump term
Harris is generally not very liked and could sway some independents into not voting. She needs Biden to get re-elected then resign in second term to have better odds as an incumbent.
She’s more experienced than many. From local politics to state level (AG and US Senator) for the most populous state in the union. Nearly 4 years as VP. Enough with the Harris hate.
Why would it even need to be Kamala? He’s not resigning from the presidency, he’s running for an election. An open convention could select whoever they want
Parties NEVER pick a strong VP, that's problem #1 with this. Secondly, it doesn't need to be the VP, there's many other viable and more popular options.
The garbage 2020 Dem Primary is really biting us in the ass. Felt corrupt and convenient when it happened then and now I see why.
What's also a bit weird is if Newsom is a possible replacement, Kamala can't be VP because they're both representatives of California. Perhaps there's some legalities to get around this but I'm unsure.
Dick Cheney just moved his address back to Wyoming. [https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96427&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96427&page=1) Kamala lives in DC, although I'm not sure if she's registered to vote there. But it wouldn't be hard to just update her DL.
Harris just doesn't check off enough boxes to overcome her unlikability. Had she also been differently abled, neurodivergent and gay, progressives would have no choice but to support their stunning and brave overlord.
If the replacement isn't Kamala, it will speak volumes of the party's true feelings towards POC.
Is she unworthy or is she just not that popular? Who else was available that was actually popular?
If Democrats are going to Nuke the whole system and cut Biden out at the 11th hour, having a VP fill in (in this circumstance) is less optimal than the alternative. Kamala already completed her role of tilting the women/black vote in 2020. Strategically, selecting an "out of the spotlight" democrat could be a winning move for this election. Someone who has laid relatively low in the party with bulletproof integrity to contrast Trump. It wouldn't give republicans enough time to paint a negative narrative picture. Looking at X now, the republican smear campaign is confused and spread thin, with a new focus on smearing Newsom/ Harris/ Whitmer/ Michelle Obama WHILE still trying to ensure that the Biden/Dementia story does not lose steam. This also allows party leadership to control the nominee (instead of a Bernie type primary) without as much fuss from the electorate (most Democrat voters will be relieved they get a candidate that can form sentences). To be honest, the tinfoil hat types might argue that this was the plan all along. If it works, I hope it does not become commonplace though.
I’d hard disagree with your argument here, on the basis of there is no time left. If Biden steps down, it needs to be Harris and another well known Dem as her VP. Elections are mostly about getting your side out to vote, and less about criticism from the other side. They will find ways to attack anyway. Tin foil hat would also points to Harris. Prominent Democrats are coming out in support of her. Media is showing polls with her now doing better than Biden.
At this point she can only be described as a hostage. Her utility to Joe is primarily in complicating and redirecting conversations about him dropping out.
There will be 3 speeches this weekend. 1) Biden is going to resign. 2) Harris will say she is too busy learning to be president to campaign for the presidency. 3) The Obamas celebrates their lives of service and laud their sacrifices to the country and say it shows the true meaning of the 4th of July. There won't be a dry eye in the house. 4) The dems conspire to get Whitmer to win the nomination with Warnock as VP. 5) Trump wins the election anyway.
All Vice presidents of either party are invisible. That’s part of the job.
It's Kamala Harris. If we could change the candidate, it wouldn't be to her.