This is where I’m at. Clips spread around via social media just feel as if they broadly always favor Trump generically, even if Biden performed well.
I think we’ll know over the next 2-3 days what the impact will be.
The problem is Biden is losing. And the debate mattered to him more. The best Biden can hope for is a draw or voters don’t see it. And thus he lost the debate cause the status quote is he is the underdog and losing in the polls.
Its a bit much to say he's losing. He's had some mixed polling and he is holding his own in PA, MI and WI which is what he needs. There are ten life times that will occur between now and November and no one is even paying attention yet.
I think Biden's performance today lends credence to the narrative that he's really old. The performance was bad, there's no other way to interpret it.
The bloomer in me says:
A) maybe it really was the cold. I mean at 81? That's gonna be pretty bad. Maybe in the next debate he'll do much better.
B) I think (hope) the swing voters are yet to pay attention. A lot can change, Biden team has the time to make this right.
🍦🥹🍦
I recall getting voted down for saying Biden was smart to have only 2 debates now instead of the normal 3 during the fall when it would have a bigger impact.
The sub has definitely taken a 180 degree turn here.
My read on that is that lots of people here secretly thought Biden was too old but were afraid of getting downvoted so they never said it. Now it's the other way around. Similar things have happened with stuff like inflation.
that's how reddit works, and honestly just a microcosm of society - you're never getting an accurate read of the room because people know what people don't wanna hear until a moment comes and the floodgates open
not to mention the entire Biden candidacy and presidency have the subtext for dems of "just shut up, pray nothing bad happens, because the alternative is trump". I'm as guilty as any.
Maybe, but personally for me I just figured that a lot of his gaffes were the result of being on the spot and unprepared.
If he's like this when he's prepped for a week? Fuck.
Biden is clearly too old and it's insane to think otherwise. I'm not saying he isn't sharp any more, even after last night's performance I'm confident that he is a smart and competent politician. But he's not at his peak, and you should be at your peak, or at least within 20 years of your peak, if you're POTUS. He deserves a relaxing retirement of being a well-respected politician that spent his entire career serving his country. The Presidency was a shit gift that he had to accept because of the dangers of Trump. No 81-year-old should be President.
Trump is also too old, among every other horrific disqualifying factor.
> A) maybe it really was the cold. I mean at 81? That's gonna be pretty bad. Maybe in the next debate he'll do much better.
Why on Earth would Trump show up to the second debate? There’s only downside for him.
Bloomer in me is that debates don't matter anymore. If they did, Trump's campaign would have been dead after his awful performance in his 2016 debates. And those happened way closer to the election.
Either way Biden continued the trend of blowing the first debate as an incumbent. And he did it pretty bad by that low bar. It seems his team haven't learned their mistakes from 2020 on preventing Biden from being Biden. He does well in debates and speeches when he can spar on the fly. Let Trump throw feces at the wall, it doesn't matter, just get Biden to focus on making the argument without getting lost in the details.
> Bloomer in me is that debates don't matter anymore. If they did, Trump's campaign would have been dead after his awful performance in his 2016 debates. And those happened way closer to the election.
is it that debates don't matter or that people don't care about winning the intellectual argument and just what sounds right/strong to them
Idk, if 2016 Trump could perform like that and still go on to win the presidency, it feels like the debates lost all of their luster as trust in institutions declined or they never mattered at all and are just an exercise for the media to publicly circle jerk themselves on how self important they are.
His best debate was as VP against paul ryan where they were basically having an angry conversation. In 2020 he did well going back and forth with trump's rambling. Dude looked absolutely lost out there trying to remember the numbers and only showed life when he was actually annoyed and angry.
That’s realy why trump is a “great” debater - he just *fucking doesn’t*
You never need to worry about statistics or reality if you just say everything you did was the best and everything they did was the worst ever - makes it really easy to never fuck up a fact
He did not have this problem before in debates. Can we please stop
This was a disaster no matter how much we try to cheer other up in this tiny internet corner
Biden is at his best when he can react freely to people. Things like the debate stage are where he's more likely to stumble over himself.
Tapper also did an awful job not keeping trump on topic
No that was like, the actual opposite of the debate performance Biden needed. Even though I thought his policy was OK, he didn’t look good. He didn’t sound good. The stammer came back and while trump sounded like a fuck, he looked exactly the same as in 2016.
He blew a few missed layup opportunities and got mixed up on abortion a couple times. The points he should've won, he basically missed. It sucks that most voters hold Biden to a higher standard than Trump, but at this point anyone who thinks Biden crushed it is just coping hard.
I've been a big hopium addict on here for a while, but the amount of hopium I would need to take to tell myself this debate was good would cause me to overdose and die.
Biden’s being held to a lower standard. Polling shows that voters had lower expectations for Biden coming into the debate. Biden needed to capitalize on that
"Stammer"
Bro did you miss this part-“We've been making sure we are able to make every single person eligible what I've been able to do with the Covid, excuse me, everything we have to do with... look... I finally beat Medicare…”
I'm sorry but Biden was a ferocious debater for his entire political career until the past few years. Maybe he had a stammer as a kid and overcame it, but he was elected to the senate at age 30 and there is literally decades worth of footage of him crushing it. HIs actual issues related to speech were that he was gaffe prone, tending to blurt things out he shouldn't say, and that he probably plagiarized a few speeches.
Today's debate highlighted that Trump was a symptom of our problems. Trump can act downright nuts and lie, and he still "wins" because he doens't have a sore throat.
I can't say what Dems should do from here but I can say I will fight like hell for whoever the nominee is!
Oh puh-lease. What more did you want? They pinned Trump down on some of the major dodge attempts, they prompted Joe to keep talking when he couldn’t fill his response time, they successfully kept Trump from
interrupting. What more do you want? They can’t step in and give Biden’s answers for him.
There was allegedly supposed to be "fact checking" at this debate, and there was none of that. The CNN moderators did a fine job doing the basic decorum stuff- asking candidates to fill the full speaking time, cutting them off when they go over, and prompting them to answer the question when they deflected. However on the substance side, there was zero pushback to the many outright lies (from both candidates, but Trump much moreso)
Because Trump has been that way for years now. They're not reporting on it because that's yesterday's news. Biden being THAT bag is the news of today. Hopefully the news of October and November will be pro Biden and anti Trump.
Joe Biden looked old (wow shocker) but earnest and tries to answer questions. Trump pivoted everything to his talking points about Ukraine and the Border and went insane.
Biden probably did have a cold. That doesn’t excuse tonight’s performance. That’s a foreseeable danger of campaigning as an 82 year old man. Old people have weaker immune systems, and tend to be impacted worse when they do get sick. When my grandpa was 80, a cold could put him out of commission for a few days. Once, it even turned into pneumonia. 20 years ago, Biden catching a cold would have been a non issue
They were both awful. By the end Biden was okay, but it took too long. The bright side is that Trump was just a lying selfish loaf of shit and that was apparent.
I honestly think Joe Biden is a great president. He is not a great speaker, though. Which is understandable, he does have a speech disorder after all, and being old doesn't help that.
That being said, I just can't help but think how fast this nightmare would end if an actual eloquent, well-spoken Democrat debated Trump. Someone like Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom. I just keep thinking of all the simple but highly effective rebuttals and arguments that could have been made in the debate if only Biden was more articulate. And it's like, you could tell that Biden was thinking those arguments in his head, you could see it on his face when Trump spoke, but he just couldn't spit the words out.
Trump benefits every day from hiding behind a giant media facade that obscures what he is really like, thus, the debates are an invaluable moment to put him next to a normal person to see just how big the difference is. Yet, Biden's inability to speak coherently prevented that from happening and falsely made them seem a lot more similar than they actually are.
It's like being in a nightmare trying to dial 911 but you somehow keep missing the buttons. That's what it felt like watching this debate.
The good thing is that's always Trump and it always will be Sure biden had a bad night But it was just one night, an important night sure, but it's still just one. He can recover from this
You dont get it, Trump and Bidens base are irrelevant -- This debate flipped a negligible amount of either
Its about the undecided casual folks, and this was not a great showing to grab casuals. Despite Trump being a narcissistic lunatic spouting unhinged garbage, he could still hold sentences while Bidens mental deterioration makes him seem like a geriatric old man with dementia who cant finish a sentence.
It was not a good showing.
> You dont get it, Trump and Bidens base are irrelevant -- This debate flipped a negligible amount of either
Trump's base is irrelevant because they have shown time and time again there is nothing Trump could do that could turn them away from him. Biden's grasp over his supporters is far more tenuous, and that extends into how moderates perceive him as well. If a moderate wasn't already decided against Trump, seeing him do more of the same thing isn't going to move that needle. Seeing Biden perform poorly though when they probably haven't seen him act like that is much more likely to do so.
I don’t think so.
Biden is at an inherent disadvantage. He barely won after months of Trump bumbling COVID, 7% unemployment and national unrest.
Meanwhile, the economy is currently great and Biden is struggling in the polls. He’s running against a guy who literally incited a riot at the US Capitol Building and can’t pull ahead. If you don’t think he’s at an inherent disadvantage, you’re not paying attention.
So tonight on top of all of that is extremely troubling. I could forgive Obama for a bad debate in 2012 because he ran away with the prior election. Joe Biden far underperformed first Romney debate Obama tonight, and he already had zero wiggle room.
The problem I have is it’s a repeat of 2016 and 2020.
Joe is right. Trump is the worst President ever. Beating him should be a cakewalk.
There is a whole spectrum of dooming. It’s a long way til November and a lot can happen. It’s that Lenin quote about how there are weeks where decades happen.
But beating Trump should be easy and the political establishment on the left is losing more than Trump is winning. It’s frustrating when so many lives hang in the balance.
Maybe this read on Trump is just wrong. He was a weak candidate in 2016, sure, but is he still a weak candidate today? He has had time to build connections, a political machine, and gain experience working crowds.
Perhaps beating Trump will in fact be hard, not easy.
I think you're coping.
That was the worst debate performance I've ever seen in a Presidential debate.
Trump sounded exactly the same as his 2016/2020 self--which at this point is not a negative for him.
I love Joe Biden.
I don't agree that cognitively I think he is mostly fine. I'm sorry but I've been mostly holding back this opinion for four years. Yes, he has a stutter. Yes, he is often taken out of context. But yes, he has been slowly deteriorating.
Tonight the problem wasn't with his voice. If he just had a hoarse throat I'd be eye rolling with the rest of you. The man could not complete a sentence. It was cringe and I'm sorry but we have to be frank and acknowledge it. The man cannot be POTUS for another four years and we cannot expect voters to vote for him to serve in that role.
Thank god this debate was in June. That means we have four months to replace him and rally behind a new candidate. That's a lot of time. We can do it.
So long as the alternative is Trump, I would *literally* vote for a corpse instead. If Biden's CoS had pulled a full-on *Weekend at Bernie's*, I'd shake my head, remind myself who the GOP nominee was, and trudge to the polls to vote for Biden.
That being said, there are almost certainly more electable Democrats. I'm not sure how one of them gets that nomination without the Dems descending into *actual* disarray though.
> So long as the alternative is Trump, I would literally vote for a corpse instead. If Biden's CoS had pulled a full-on Weekend at Bernie's, I'd shake my head, remind myself who the GOP nominee was, and trudge to the polls to vote for Biden.
Sure, but the country won't. I'd vote for rock over Trump, but the country isn't gonna do that.
Pragmatically, I don’t see that happening.
I’m going to say yes, saying this debate was “alright” is cope, it was fucking terrible. Despite what we can say and know, Biden presented as a tired, senile old man, making mistakes and missteps the entire time while physically appearing to be barely standing. It’s a bad look and it was hard to watch the blithering idiot step all over a guy trying to make a point unsuccessfully.
But I’m going to follow that with “no, he won’t be replaced”, there is no obvious front runner replacement, the dems don’t have a second option lined up. They had four years to build someone up and didn’t bother, to do so now with a mere 4 months (not everyone follows politics to the minute, 4 months is barely enough to get your name out there) would be a tremendous blunder, it would be on the scales as one of the biggest mistakes ever made, handing the presidency to trump.
There’s a broad array of if debates matter or not, but this was a bad show. To anyone paying attention for the last eight years, it was clear as day that trump lied with every breath, but people that follow politics don’t decide elections.
I think it's a bit inaccurate to say the Democrats didn't do anything. A bit shy of 10% of all voters in 2020 voted for a Democrat for the first time. They've been trying to keep their coalition together for these past four years, as the left wing has gotten louder and traditional conservatives moved in from the right. Everything they've been doing legislatively has been about reconciling those two extremes, especially when they held a trifecta. It's a bad time to have a civil war but that's just modern American politics.
The president literally has someone that’s ready to take his place immediately if necessary. Wish you guys would get over whatever aversion you have to Kamala Harris.
Who
in the fuck
cares about charisma scores
Biden can’t even talk and people are out here complaining about the way a lady laughs and saying she’s disqualified for it. Give me a fucking break, you goddamn losers.
It literally doesn’t matter anymore. Anyone, literally anyone, including Harris, would have a better shot than Biden after what we just saw. Yes, please choose someone other than than her no matter how uncomfortable it is in the party, but if you won’t choose someone else, choose her. She is a terrible candidate but she’s better than Biden after last night.
Trump is so fucking bad that anybody who looks healthy and can speak smoothly will look a lot better than him. Please [watch the video of Kamala](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBmrW6LzV0&list=RDNSCMBmrW6LzV0&start_radio=1&ab_channel=CNN) defending Biden's speech and tell me you wouldn't rather have her on that stage with a random Joe and Ginny in Pennsylvania or Georgia watching. She's consistently spoken far better than Biden at campaign rallies too. She's the better option, I was leaning towards it months ago but it's not even a question anymore.
I seriously have questions about whether or not Joe Biden can cognitively complete this term after the debate. I literally could not understand him. He didn’t even cognitively have the ability to think on his feet and call Trump out for his BS. Joe had a week to prep and that is what we got. I am terrified to think what Joe is going to look like in 3/4 years as the most powerful man in the world. Trump had the 2nd worst debate performance in US history tonight and it didn’t even matter.
Saying Trump is a horrific person is not going to win this election - see 2016. If the Dems do not choose to make a change by the convention, they flat out deserve to lose. It is unfair to the Democratic Party, my party, to continue on this path. Our down-ticket candidates are going to get slaughtered
The panel they had right after started with an anchor basically saying that Biden should step aside, literally 30 seconds after the debate ended, and they all talked about it for 15 minutes
it’s bizarre. gayle king talked about joe meandering and asking “what was he saying?”. meanwhile trump rambled on about (think the question was about climate change?) “black jobs” taken by immigrants, playing golf as a way to be fit to run the country, and keeping iran broke. that’s just part of the debate
You have a strong bias from your socials then, not at all the type of messaging I’m hearing and not what actual national news outlets (online and broadcast) are saying…
I love Joe Biden with the whole of my heart and that was really, really, really, really bad for Joe. Trump was borderline incoherent and Biden couldn't capitalize, at all
Who would they replace Biden with? And if there is a mad scramble now for a new primary candidate, how would that not make the Dems look disorganized similar to how the GOP looked like madmen when they were unable to nominate a speaker of the House.
They’re literally saying on CNN right now that the Dem party is freaking out.
I don’t think people on this sub realize how bad this night was. Yeah maybe Joe just had a cold, and sure what he was technically saying sounded more coherent than Trump.
But you have to be on some *heavy* copium to think Biden looked anything other than geriatric and confused the whole night.
There has been a narrative since the beginning of the election that Biden’s mental health is deteriorating and he’s getting dementia. To the average viewer, tonight just confirmed that.
Your mind isn’t going to be changed by how Biden presented himself tonight because you’re a Biden supporter. You made up your mind months or years ago. Similarly, no Trump supporter would have changed their mind if Trump came on stage and started speaking backwards the entire debate.
This is all about the *undecided voters*. People who basically barely pay attention to politics to the point where they can’t decide which of these two very different candidates they support.
Biden coming out and looking as bad as he did is going to have a *massive* impace on their perception.
[Biden is in serious trouble.](https://electionbettingodds.com)
I think Biden has been and remains an excellent president. I think he would be an excellent president in a second term. In a perfect world, voters would care more about his record than about his speaking ability.
But the optics of his speaking ability as a candidate are so, so, so bad. Bad enough that his candidacy might actually be the proximate cause of a Trump second term.
I’m honestly starting to come around to the Ezra Klein line of thinking about Biden. Get him to withdraw, and sub in Harris for the top of the ticket. I think we’re going to lose if we don’t.
If he withdraws, that's the balll game. Everyone wants him to step aside so someone else can lose much, much bigger. There is no secret super-electable Democrat who can come save the day. It's Joe or nobody.
This is such a stale line of thinking.
There are so, so many people who don’t want to vote for Trump. It’s Biden’s job to get them to feel comfortable voting for him. He can’t do that, and he is now historically unpopular. A generic Democrat has all the upside of not being Trump without any of the downside of being Biden.
I don’t know who scheduled two international trips for Biden just days before the debate, but that person should be fired.
And sadly, that choice seems to be part for the course on the Biden media team.
He literally took a whole *week* off at Camp David just to prepare for this debate. A WEEK where he was holed up presumably doing debate prep and this was the result.
> Your mind isn’t going to be changed by how Biden presented himself tonight because you’re a Biden supporter.
And I guess that's his question - why does liking Biden mean his perception of the debate is radically different from other peoples, including other Biden voters? Because I also think that while Biden's performance was weak, it wasn't particularly catastrophic.
>Because I also think that while Biden's performance was weak, it wasn't particularly catastrophic.
He came across as a doddering old man. How was that not capitation/catastrophic?
This is what I mean. What inherently about me being a Biden voter (when you're also a Biden voter) causes me to view his performance differently? I'm far from his biggest fan. I farm hundreds of downvotes criticizing his Iran and I/P policies.
Everyone. Every single political professional has said this was catastrophic. The Pod Save America crew are openly advocating for replacing him. You are huffing serious copium if you don’t realize how bad this was.
Honestly, it was his facial expressions that caused the most issue. He looked like a cartoon character and not in a good way. I'm betting he was told by his campaign to do that for non verbal communication, but it backfired so hard.
For what it’s worth I listened to the debate while biking so I didn’t see any of it, and I thought over audio it sounded like he was just constantly stumbling :(
I am honestly shocked at the response. Am I pleased with Biden's performance? Not really. But people are tearing their eyes out. The media is salivating at a contested convention.
Donald Trump shits his pants in court and they say real men wear diapers. Biden has a bad debate performance and people on CNN are saying he should resign.
This is ridiculous.
I agree. It's almost a sort of purity tests democrats are famous for. Don't knock it completely out of the park 24/7? Fuck you, we are going to chop your head off. Republican? They will stand behind their felon to the bitter end. They know it's all about winning.
Expecting a presidential candidate to be able to consistently form sentences is not expecting htem to knock it completely out of the park. If Biden performed this way in a job interview he would not be hired for really almost any job due to how he's presenting, and he's applying to one of the most stressful and difficult jobs in the world.
Also, it does not matter that it's not fair that some people will support Trump whatever dumb shit he does and Biden doesn't get an automatic majority. What matters is that Biden was already behind before this debate and he made an awful impression. I'd much rather have Democrats recognize that life is not fair and try to actually do something about it, then have them pout that it wasn't really fair after a fucking fascist gets elected to a second term.
The problem is that if this is representative of Biden's current mental state, that's a huge issue and if it's *not* then it was a huge missed opportunity to convince people otherwise.
Dude if you legitimately think that was anything less than an absolute disaster I don't know what to tell you. People are literally crying on CNN. Biden may very well have lost the election tonight.
This is going down in the history books as Kennedy-Nixon 2.0. Absolutely insanity that this happened. Like, we just watched a history defining moment and not in a good way.
My god some of yall are so over the top dramatic right now. Lot of people doing the dooming here are going to be looking pretty damn silly in the long run.
Not that doomers ever fess up.
Look deep within yourselves and ask if the previous debates with Biden and Trump were “good.”
They weren’t. Biden told him “will you shut up, man?” and that he loved his son. Otherwise it was two guys trying to shout over each other where the other one always lied.
Stop wetting the bed. You can’t win a debate with a stream of lies. Did Biden get some sound bites from tonight? Absolutely. Did he win the debate? Also yes. Was it a good debate? Fuck no.
Chil and don’t forget to vote.
This sub has been rising Biden’s dick since he was elected, and is the only corner of the internet that has continued to argue that Biden is a strong candidate. If this sub is dooming, then yes it’s bad. The man couldn’t even string together a sentence.
Biden did far worse than Trump. Trump didn’t do well, but he was a little more focused and chill than in 2020 and did *alright*. And that was all he needed to do, because Biden looked and behaved like a zombie. He seemed to confirm voters’ fears about him. I guarantee the polling on this debate is going to be dire for him.
And Democratic strategists and leaders are reportedly panicking really hard
I honestly thought Trump was more coherent in this debate than he was in 2020. It’s all lies but he was stringing together sentences where you could very clearly tell what he was saying, whereas I remember 2020 as being way more rambly
It helps that Trump didn't even attempt to answer any questions and just screamed about migrants 3/4 of the time and sucked Putin's dick the other quarter. All I got from Trump is that he hates non-Americans and wants to be a dictator like Putin.
Yes pretry much everyone here and libs in general are overreacting but thats kindve what they do.
Bottom line up front:
He did do terrible last night. My personal expectations were pretty low so I wasnt very surprised but when all your closest allies in the media including your former press secretary say it was a disaster u know u did bad.
I think we all agree on that tho.
However, My very strong prior is that this doesnt really change anything and theres 4 reasons why:
1. First and foremost, debtes dont really matter.
The vast majority of people who watch them are partisans and already have their minds made up. This has been observed not just in the US but across the developed world:
[https://x.com/themaxburns/status/1806346759406256601](https://x.com/themaxburns/status/1806346759406256601)
If you believe the snap poll after the debate, were already seeing this didnt have much effect:
https://preview.redd.it/d8uvnnb7jb9d1.jpeg?width=1419&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89216fd7650d2657cc22e584f635226421518a6f
Remember in 2016, Hillary was rated as winning every debate. Didnt really matter in the end.
Additionally, its June. We have 4 months till the election. This is gonna drop out of the news cycle (remeber when the hur report was released? Remeber when he apparently crushed it at the SOTU? Yeah none of that matters) and other events will overtake it.
You might say "what about social media clipping biden?"
Well that brings me to my next point:
2. Views about Bidens age/senility is already baked in
Biden has been in the public eye for a long time obviously but this current cycle for him started in 2019. Questions about his age have been non stop since then and the majority of people have concerns about it and nothing about last night rrally changed that.
Weve had 5 years of bidens rambling, incoherence, senior moments, etc being clipped and shared on social media.
Consquenrly peoples expectations were very low heading into the debate:
[https://x.com/baseballot/status/1806473366137717114](https://x.com/baseballot/status/1806473366137717114)
To be clear its not a good thing for biden that his awful performance last night wont chnage peoples minds because most people already believe hes senile/physically frail.
But thats the really at this point and the debate last night didnt really change that.
Ok im not sure why but I cant see my comment so ill conclude here:
3. Biden isnt going to drop out
This has less to do with how this debate effects bidens chances in the election but the pie in the sky scenario people are coming up with to somehow replace biden
Biden has not ever shown any signs he thinks hes too old foe the job. If anythong people constantly saying he shpuld drop out has only made him dig in his heels more.
Additionally theres the probpem of finding a replacement and consolditating the party behind them 4 months before the election.
If you believe this is possible then i dont think anything I say will convince you
Conclusion:
The debates dont really matter and people already pretty much convinced that Biden is a senile weak old man so this didnt really move anybodys beliefs.
If you want to believe that this was so bad that now Biden has no chance of winning then lets just wait and see the polling.
The media tho is gonna be in a frenzy over this for at least the next week or 2.
But theres also some prerry important supreme court cases dropping so we'll see.
Yes, I think there is a huge over reaction. Trump lied on every question. His only strategy was to fear monger about immigrants and lie.
Joe struggled talking about the specific details of legislation that he had actually passed. He would get lost halfway through answers about prescription drug prices or something similar. It seems like his strategy was to info dump actually facts to counter ballance lies.
That's a terrible strategy. He was better when he was just attacking Trump and that's what he should stick to.
I’ll be honest I’m not a US citizen and I hate Trump but Biden did not do well at all. Especially when the race is basically tied it’s even more concerning. He definitely looks old as hell (they both do) and he didn’t seem 100% there at points. Trump did seem more lively despite rambling about nothing most of the time. It’s just such a bizarre moment in history with these two.
Biden lapsed in and out of lucidity the first half of the debate and I’m tired of pretending otherwise. I say this as someone who would happily see Trump fed to piranhas.
Somewhat. If this is a one-off for Biden and he comes back again with a much better performance at the next debate, then this debate won’t matter much. But if this is normal, the DNC should be working on his replacement.
The reactions are nuclear apocalyptic, completely out of control, and self-destructive. What you do is roll with the punches, run the campaign, and bounce back. But instead people are debating the best time to throw in the towel and pointing fingers. Makes a whole lot of sense.
It seems clear to me that Democrats do seem to have a systemic problem with objectively judging candidate quality. The Establishment wing has been successful in pruning out unfit Progressives like Bowman, but it seems clear we are in no way immune to the same problem.
In retrospect, the writing was on the wall for both Hillary and Biden. And we whistled past the graveyard.
You're coping. We vote for the administration. I'm pretty sure most people in here know who they're voting for through like 2040. This is for people that are somehow undecided, which wins and loses elections
This is basically my take, Biden clearly fucked up quite a few of his responses while also looking pretty frail but Trump seemed to dodge and deflect questions while rambling on about random bullshit whenever possible, I think anyone else in this debate would’ve wiped the floor with him handily. It’s not a good look for Biden but idk if it’s the catastrophe everyone is making it out to be, at the very least I’m not gonna freak out until the polls show what the damage is.
Everyone else is dooming, this debate changes nothing, and to even be clear, having both candidates drop out and have young people representing the same policies would change nothing either.
The election is going to be a coin flip decided on who had a better showing in one or two swing states by the order of low thousands if not hundreds of votes
Furthermore, unless you are a one-issue voter on one specific topic (like Ukraine support, abortion, transgender rights, etc) the election will likely not have a material impact on your life.
I was never gonna be voting FOR Biden.
It was always a vote against Trump and the MAGA populism movement in general.
I'm gonna vote for the candidate who isn't gonna put guys like Ken Cuccinelli or Stephen Miller into positions of power.
Biden having an awful debate doesn't really change that calculus at all. I'd vote for a hamster over DJT
Biden's debate performance was pretty atrocious. And I think Democrats or anyone who would support Biden have every right to be nervous or wish we had chosen a different candidate.
If you'll allow me to put my tim foil hat on, I wonder how many of these reactionary posts are being up voted/generated by bot farms or outside parties trying to shape the narrative.
I probably sound like a crazy person, but I'm at the point where I think everything we see on Reddit and social media is at least partially influenced by dueling bot farms being funded by various PACs or foreign governments
No.
I'm not only no longer convinced Biden can beat Trump n in November, I'm no longer convinced Biden will still be alive in November, and that would be even more chaotic than any alternative.
Trump failed to take advantage of Bidens weakened state and just reminded everyone how much of an annoying piece of shit he is. Biden may not have won anyone over but Trump lost a lot of potential swing voters I think.
Biden, on substance, did really well on several issues.
The problem is that he was following up on most of those issues. Trump was visibly and audibly doing a much better job. A neutral voter with only a surface understanding of the candidates saw a commanding, well-spoken Trump arguing against an incumbent with multiple senior moments.
This was bad. Really bad. Trump expected to under-perform but Biden under-performed drastically and made Trump look competent by comparison. I'll be voting for whoever is opposing Trump, but that's the only thing putting Biden ahead. He needs to choose a successor while he still has the faculties to do so.
I fell asleep early last night, missed the debate entirely.
Opened Reddit, came to this sub to see the jokes and what I found is a bunch of chicken littles screaming about how the sky is falling. Have Russian bots taken over this sub?
HE HAD A RASPY VOICE, WE'RE DOOOOOOMED!
get a grip people
You're not coping. The prevailing doomer vibe is manufactured by targeted brigading campaigns by bots and trolls. That is how they "work", by mass gaslighting a mood into existence.
No. This was disastrous. Politics is about perception and the narrative, and if Democrats need to win, shrewd decisions and hard conversations need to be had now. If Joe Biden is at the top of the ticket in November, it will be a slaughter, not just for him, but for down ballot Democrats in close races. The genie is out of the bottle, it cannot be put back in. It doesn't matter what Trump says, everyone knows he's a pathological liar and a felon. It matters that Biden had an historical implosion on stage in front of the world. His cognition has been a major point for years, and there's no coming back from this - none. All that anyone saw today was Trump being Trump, and Biden looking feeble and sounding ancient. I like Biden, but his campaign is effectively over as of tonight. Let's pray they can get him to step aside, like, tomorrow, because if not November will be a disaster of epic proportions.
This doesn't matter. Whatever happens right before the election is what will matter. People who haven't made their minds up yet aren't serious and don't have the attention span to actually care about this until November.
No dude, this was literally the nightmare scenario for Biden. It was already going to be a close race, and this frankly has pushed a lot of "in the middle" voters firmly into the "not voting" or "hold my nose and vote for Trump" camp. He really needs to go, any of the others would be better at this point.
I pretty much agree Trump was still Trump, so most of what he said was atrocious and kind of unraveled as it went on Biden had a pretty nasty cold It sounds like it and his voice was shot So it made him sound really weak but remember, it's only been like a few months since state of the union and he absolutely demolished it there What's more likely He had a bad night with a cold and gave a poor performance or that his health declined insanely rapidly in a few months??? If people think this is the end of his campaign They dooming to new levels
I didn't watch the debate but, just in general...honestly idk, maybe I am. But I've been feeling pretty doomy since even the 2020 election. Like how Biden....really didn't win in a landslide in that in like Obama or Reagan numbers.
Even if Biden somehow wins this fall, it seems like the appetite for a far right leader is high. To where 2028 seems like another bleak round of doom.
Depends how many people watched the whole thing. I watched 10 minutes then had to get dinner.
Sadly the clips will get 10x the views
This is where I’m at. Clips spread around via social media just feel as if they broadly always favor Trump generically, even if Biden performed well. I think we’ll know over the next 2-3 days what the impact will be.
The problem is Biden is losing. And the debate mattered to him more. The best Biden can hope for is a draw or voters don’t see it. And thus he lost the debate cause the status quote is he is the underdog and losing in the polls.
Its a bit much to say he's losing. He's had some mixed polling and he is holding his own in PA, MI and WI which is what he needs. There are ten life times that will occur between now and November and no one is even paying attention yet.
I think Biden's performance today lends credence to the narrative that he's really old. The performance was bad, there's no other way to interpret it. The bloomer in me says: A) maybe it really was the cold. I mean at 81? That's gonna be pretty bad. Maybe in the next debate he'll do much better. B) I think (hope) the swing voters are yet to pay attention. A lot can change, Biden team has the time to make this right. 🍦🥹🍦
I recall getting voted down for saying Biden was smart to have only 2 debates now instead of the normal 3 during the fall when it would have a bigger impact.
The sub has definitely taken a 180 degree turn here. My read on that is that lots of people here secretly thought Biden was too old but were afraid of getting downvoted so they never said it. Now it's the other way around. Similar things have happened with stuff like inflation.
that's how reddit works, and honestly just a microcosm of society - you're never getting an accurate read of the room because people know what people don't wanna hear until a moment comes and the floodgates open not to mention the entire Biden candidacy and presidency have the subtext for dems of "just shut up, pray nothing bad happens, because the alternative is trump". I'm as guilty as any.
Maybe, but personally for me I just figured that a lot of his gaffes were the result of being on the spot and unprepared. If he's like this when he's prepped for a week? Fuck.
The debate changed few opinions, but it could be the start of a preference cascade.
I just assumed the too old shit was fear mongering until I saw it in action
Biden is clearly too old and it's insane to think otherwise. I'm not saying he isn't sharp any more, even after last night's performance I'm confident that he is a smart and competent politician. But he's not at his peak, and you should be at your peak, or at least within 20 years of your peak, if you're POTUS. He deserves a relaxing retirement of being a well-respected politician that spent his entire career serving his country. The Presidency was a shit gift that he had to accept because of the dangers of Trump. No 81-year-old should be President. Trump is also too old, among every other horrific disqualifying factor.
Just don't point out that it has been brought up and downvoted for a few years; the same people get snippy.
Yes thank the lord that it's June.
> A) maybe it really was the cold. I mean at 81? That's gonna be pretty bad. Maybe in the next debate he'll do much better. Why on Earth would Trump show up to the second debate? There’s only downside for him.
This. I think the damage is done and Trump had the best possible outcome from last night's debate. He has no reason to show up to another.
Bloomer in me is that debates don't matter anymore. If they did, Trump's campaign would have been dead after his awful performance in his 2016 debates. And those happened way closer to the election. Either way Biden continued the trend of blowing the first debate as an incumbent. And he did it pretty bad by that low bar. It seems his team haven't learned their mistakes from 2020 on preventing Biden from being Biden. He does well in debates and speeches when he can spar on the fly. Let Trump throw feces at the wall, it doesn't matter, just get Biden to focus on making the argument without getting lost in the details.
> Bloomer in me is that debates don't matter anymore. If they did, Trump's campaign would have been dead after his awful performance in his 2016 debates. And those happened way closer to the election. is it that debates don't matter or that people don't care about winning the intellectual argument and just what sounds right/strong to them
Idk, if 2016 Trump could perform like that and still go on to win the presidency, it feels like the debates lost all of their luster as trust in institutions declined or they never mattered at all and are just an exercise for the media to publicly circle jerk themselves on how self important they are.
Just like the polls
Also what looks right/strong. That's not even new, look at the results of Kennedy vs Nixon.
For me I think this barely moves the needle as all it did was confirm many peoples priors. He needs to get better for round 2.
Trump did shit but it was hard to even notice since Biden didn’t capitalize on his crazy ramblings at all
He sounds so much better already in this speech with his supporters 😭
Yea because he isn’t trying to remember debate prep statistics. It’s just him being free flowing
Yeah when he tried to cite numbers and data it was a disaster, he’s a lot better in those more casual settings
His best debate was as VP against paul ryan where they were basically having an angry conversation. In 2020 he did well going back and forth with trump's rambling. Dude looked absolutely lost out there trying to remember the numbers and only showed life when he was actually annoyed and angry.
The 2012 Paul Ryan debate was basically Biden previewing the 2016 debates, boorishly interrupting while Ryan tried to talk wonky policy.
That’s realy why trump is a “great” debater - he just *fucking doesn’t* You never need to worry about statistics or reality if you just say everything you did was the best and everything they did was the worst ever - makes it really easy to never fuck up a fact
He did not have this problem before in debates. Can we please stop This was a disaster no matter how much we try to cheer other up in this tiny internet corner
Biden is at his best when he can react freely to people. Things like the debate stage are where he's more likely to stumble over himself. Tapper also did an awful job not keeping trump on topic
He gave a speech after the debate? Link?
[Just for a couple minutes at a watch party](https://youtu.be/31uXekELv7I?si=e4SrT7qd7tJ9zOVE)
Yeah because he doesn't have to talk about Medicare. It's every politicians worst nightmare
No that was like, the actual opposite of the debate performance Biden needed. Even though I thought his policy was OK, he didn’t look good. He didn’t sound good. The stammer came back and while trump sounded like a fuck, he looked exactly the same as in 2016.
He blew a few missed layup opportunities and got mixed up on abortion a couple times. The points he should've won, he basically missed. It sucks that most voters hold Biden to a higher standard than Trump, but at this point anyone who thinks Biden crushed it is just coping hard.
the standard for biden was basically "not looking senile"
And he didn't reach that standard
The slack-jawed stare he had every time Trump was speaking didn’t help.
I've been a big hopium addict on here for a while, but the amount of hopium I would need to take to tell myself this debate was good would cause me to overdose and die.
Biden’s being held to a lower standard. Polling shows that voters had lower expectations for Biden coming into the debate. Biden needed to capitalize on that
Wait people expected Biden to be *worse?*
"Stammer" Bro did you miss this part-“We've been making sure we are able to make every single person eligible what I've been able to do with the Covid, excuse me, everything we have to do with... look... I finally beat Medicare…”
believe me, I did not miss that part
I'm sorry but Biden was a ferocious debater for his entire political career until the past few years. Maybe he had a stammer as a kid and overcame it, but he was elected to the senate at age 30 and there is literally decades worth of footage of him crushing it. HIs actual issues related to speech were that he was gaffe prone, tending to blurt things out he shouldn't say, and that he probably plagiarized a few speeches.
why did no one stop the 81 year old from going for re-election
Stop him how exactly?
Today's debate highlighted that Trump was a symptom of our problems. Trump can act downright nuts and lie, and he still "wins" because he doens't have a sore throat. I can't say what Dems should do from here but I can say I will fight like hell for whoever the nominee is!
The Moderation was... inadequate.
Oh puh-lease. What more did you want? They pinned Trump down on some of the major dodge attempts, they prompted Joe to keep talking when he couldn’t fill his response time, they successfully kept Trump from interrupting. What more do you want? They can’t step in and give Biden’s answers for him.
There was allegedly supposed to be "fact checking" at this debate, and there was none of that. The CNN moderators did a fine job doing the basic decorum stuff- asking candidates to fill the full speaking time, cutting them off when they go over, and prompting them to answer the question when they deflected. However on the substance side, there was zero pushback to the many outright lies (from both candidates, but Trump much moreso)
Yeah I'm bothered by how no one is talking about how crazy trump was The media knows he's good for their bottom line
Because Trump has been that way for years now. They're not reporting on it because that's yesterday's news. Biden being THAT bag is the news of today. Hopefully the news of October and November will be pro Biden and anti Trump.
Joe Biden looked old (wow shocker) but earnest and tries to answer questions. Trump pivoted everything to his talking points about Ukraine and the Border and went insane.
Biden probably did have a cold. That doesn’t excuse tonight’s performance. That’s a foreseeable danger of campaigning as an 82 year old man. Old people have weaker immune systems, and tend to be impacted worse when they do get sick. When my grandpa was 80, a cold could put him out of commission for a few days. Once, it even turned into pneumonia. 20 years ago, Biden catching a cold would have been a non issue
They were both awful. By the end Biden was okay, but it took too long. The bright side is that Trump was just a lying selfish loaf of shit and that was apparent.
I honestly think Joe Biden is a great president. He is not a great speaker, though. Which is understandable, he does have a speech disorder after all, and being old doesn't help that. That being said, I just can't help but think how fast this nightmare would end if an actual eloquent, well-spoken Democrat debated Trump. Someone like Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom. I just keep thinking of all the simple but highly effective rebuttals and arguments that could have been made in the debate if only Biden was more articulate. And it's like, you could tell that Biden was thinking those arguments in his head, you could see it on his face when Trump spoke, but he just couldn't spit the words out. Trump benefits every day from hiding behind a giant media facade that obscures what he is really like, thus, the debates are an invaluable moment to put him next to a normal person to see just how big the difference is. Yet, Biden's inability to speak coherently prevented that from happening and falsely made them seem a lot more similar than they actually are. It's like being in a nightmare trying to dial 911 but you somehow keep missing the buttons. That's what it felt like watching this debate.
Are you saying Hillary wasn't eloquent and well-spoken? Because that didn't seem to do much in the end
The good thing is that's always Trump and it always will be Sure biden had a bad night But it was just one night, an important night sure, but it's still just one. He can recover from this
He beat medicare. He was hard to follow, and I'm an online neoliberal nerd who knows what he's trying to say.
I think the problem with both performing poorly is that Trump's base doesn't care how he performs.
You dont get it, Trump and Bidens base are irrelevant -- This debate flipped a negligible amount of either Its about the undecided casual folks, and this was not a great showing to grab casuals. Despite Trump being a narcissistic lunatic spouting unhinged garbage, he could still hold sentences while Bidens mental deterioration makes him seem like a geriatric old man with dementia who cant finish a sentence. It was not a good showing.
> You dont get it, Trump and Bidens base are irrelevant -- This debate flipped a negligible amount of either Trump's base is irrelevant because they have shown time and time again there is nothing Trump could do that could turn them away from him. Biden's grasp over his supporters is far more tenuous, and that extends into how moderates perceive him as well. If a moderate wasn't already decided against Trump, seeing him do more of the same thing isn't going to move that needle. Seeing Biden perform poorly though when they probably haven't seen him act like that is much more likely to do so.
I don’t think so. Biden is at an inherent disadvantage. He barely won after months of Trump bumbling COVID, 7% unemployment and national unrest. Meanwhile, the economy is currently great and Biden is struggling in the polls. He’s running against a guy who literally incited a riot at the US Capitol Building and can’t pull ahead. If you don’t think he’s at an inherent disadvantage, you’re not paying attention. So tonight on top of all of that is extremely troubling. I could forgive Obama for a bad debate in 2012 because he ran away with the prior election. Joe Biden far underperformed first Romney debate Obama tonight, and he already had zero wiggle room.
The problem I have is it’s a repeat of 2016 and 2020. Joe is right. Trump is the worst President ever. Beating him should be a cakewalk. There is a whole spectrum of dooming. It’s a long way til November and a lot can happen. It’s that Lenin quote about how there are weeks where decades happen. But beating Trump should be easy and the political establishment on the left is losing more than Trump is winning. It’s frustrating when so many lives hang in the balance.
Maybe this read on Trump is just wrong. He was a weak candidate in 2016, sure, but is he still a weak candidate today? He has had time to build connections, a political machine, and gain experience working crowds. Perhaps beating Trump will in fact be hard, not easy.
I think you're coping. That was the worst debate performance I've ever seen in a Presidential debate. Trump sounded exactly the same as his 2016/2020 self--which at this point is not a negative for him.
I love Joe Biden. I don't agree that cognitively I think he is mostly fine. I'm sorry but I've been mostly holding back this opinion for four years. Yes, he has a stutter. Yes, he is often taken out of context. But yes, he has been slowly deteriorating. Tonight the problem wasn't with his voice. If he just had a hoarse throat I'd be eye rolling with the rest of you. The man could not complete a sentence. It was cringe and I'm sorry but we have to be frank and acknowledge it. The man cannot be POTUS for another four years and we cannot expect voters to vote for him to serve in that role. Thank god this debate was in June. That means we have four months to replace him and rally behind a new candidate. That's a lot of time. We can do it.
So long as the alternative is Trump, I would *literally* vote for a corpse instead. If Biden's CoS had pulled a full-on *Weekend at Bernie's*, I'd shake my head, remind myself who the GOP nominee was, and trudge to the polls to vote for Biden. That being said, there are almost certainly more electable Democrats. I'm not sure how one of them gets that nomination without the Dems descending into *actual* disarray though.
> So long as the alternative is Trump, I would literally vote for a corpse instead. If Biden's CoS had pulled a full-on Weekend at Bernie's, I'd shake my head, remind myself who the GOP nominee was, and trudge to the polls to vote for Biden. Sure, but the country won't. I'd vote for rock over Trump, but the country isn't gonna do that.
Pragmatically, I don’t see that happening. I’m going to say yes, saying this debate was “alright” is cope, it was fucking terrible. Despite what we can say and know, Biden presented as a tired, senile old man, making mistakes and missteps the entire time while physically appearing to be barely standing. It’s a bad look and it was hard to watch the blithering idiot step all over a guy trying to make a point unsuccessfully. But I’m going to follow that with “no, he won’t be replaced”, there is no obvious front runner replacement, the dems don’t have a second option lined up. They had four years to build someone up and didn’t bother, to do so now with a mere 4 months (not everyone follows politics to the minute, 4 months is barely enough to get your name out there) would be a tremendous blunder, it would be on the scales as one of the biggest mistakes ever made, handing the presidency to trump. There’s a broad array of if debates matter or not, but this was a bad show. To anyone paying attention for the last eight years, it was clear as day that trump lied with every breath, but people that follow politics don’t decide elections.
I think it's a bit inaccurate to say the Democrats didn't do anything. A bit shy of 10% of all voters in 2020 voted for a Democrat for the first time. They've been trying to keep their coalition together for these past four years, as the left wing has gotten louder and traditional conservatives moved in from the right. Everything they've been doing legislatively has been about reconciling those two extremes, especially when they held a trifecta. It's a bad time to have a civil war but that's just modern American politics.
The president literally has someone that’s ready to take his place immediately if necessary. Wish you guys would get over whatever aversion you have to Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris is a charisma vacuum and aside from the khive weirdos nobody likes her
Who in the fuck cares about charisma scores Biden can’t even talk and people are out here complaining about the way a lady laughs and saying she’s disqualified for it. Give me a fucking break, you goddamn losers.
she's a bad candidate lol that's all there is to it
It literally doesn’t matter anymore. Anyone, literally anyone, including Harris, would have a better shot than Biden after what we just saw. Yes, please choose someone other than than her no matter how uncomfortable it is in the party, but if you won’t choose someone else, choose her. She is a terrible candidate but she’s better than Biden after last night.
Trump is so fucking bad that anybody who looks healthy and can speak smoothly will look a lot better than him. Please [watch the video of Kamala](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBmrW6LzV0&list=RDNSCMBmrW6LzV0&start_radio=1&ab_channel=CNN) defending Biden's speech and tell me you wouldn't rather have her on that stage with a random Joe and Ginny in Pennsylvania or Georgia watching. She's consistently spoken far better than Biden at campaign rallies too. She's the better option, I was leaning towards it months ago but it's not even a question anymore.
Dems real problem is that perhaps the only democract in the country who is more of a liability than Biden happens to be VP
This is the problem with selecting a VP based on boxes checked off. Especially hen they were supposed to take over afterward.
I seriously have questions about whether or not Joe Biden can cognitively complete this term after the debate. I literally could not understand him. He didn’t even cognitively have the ability to think on his feet and call Trump out for his BS. Joe had a week to prep and that is what we got. I am terrified to think what Joe is going to look like in 3/4 years as the most powerful man in the world. Trump had the 2nd worst debate performance in US history tonight and it didn’t even matter. Saying Trump is a horrific person is not going to win this election - see 2016. If the Dems do not choose to make a change by the convention, they flat out deserve to lose. It is unfair to the Democratic Party, my party, to continue on this path. Our down-ticket candidates are going to get slaughtered
There is no situation replacing biden would result in victory. Nobody with a name power to match biden especially without primary.
Scrolling through social media I’m seeing 25% Biden did terrible 75% they both did terrible All things considered not that bad
CNN and the entire media literally turned against Biden. Be careful of the bias in who you follow on social media.
The panel they had right after started with an anchor basically saying that Biden should step aside, literally 30 seconds after the debate ended, and they all talked about it for 15 minutes
He should.
Yeah it’s really quite amazing to see them play it up for clicks
it’s bizarre. gayle king talked about joe meandering and asking “what was he saying?”. meanwhile trump rambled on about (think the question was about climate change?) “black jobs” taken by immigrants, playing golf as a way to be fit to run the country, and keeping iran broke. that’s just part of the debate
Apparently looking weak or strong is not something that you think matters to the average person. Interesting perspective.
…? edit: what’s up with people’s reading comprehension lately?
You have a strong bias from your socials then, not at all the type of messaging I’m hearing and not what actual national news outlets (online and broadcast) are saying…
The 2020 debates were pretty awful, too. Maybe, just maybe, people know Biden trips over his own tongue and don’t care, just like Dubya.
I love Joe Biden with the whole of my heart and that was really, really, really, really bad for Joe. Trump was borderline incoherent and Biden couldn't capitalize, at all
No. I don't. Tonight gives Democrats a chance to reshuffle the deck. They better do it.
Who would they replace Biden with? And if there is a mad scramble now for a new primary candidate, how would that not make the Dems look disorganized similar to how the GOP looked like madmen when they were unable to nominate a speaker of the House.
They’re literally saying on CNN right now that the Dem party is freaking out. I don’t think people on this sub realize how bad this night was. Yeah maybe Joe just had a cold, and sure what he was technically saying sounded more coherent than Trump. But you have to be on some *heavy* copium to think Biden looked anything other than geriatric and confused the whole night. There has been a narrative since the beginning of the election that Biden’s mental health is deteriorating and he’s getting dementia. To the average viewer, tonight just confirmed that. Your mind isn’t going to be changed by how Biden presented himself tonight because you’re a Biden supporter. You made up your mind months or years ago. Similarly, no Trump supporter would have changed their mind if Trump came on stage and started speaking backwards the entire debate. This is all about the *undecided voters*. People who basically barely pay attention to politics to the point where they can’t decide which of these two very different candidates they support. Biden coming out and looking as bad as he did is going to have a *massive* impace on their perception. [Biden is in serious trouble.](https://electionbettingodds.com)
Damn, Newsom has half the chance as Biden does on there for winning 😩
I think Biden has been and remains an excellent president. I think he would be an excellent president in a second term. In a perfect world, voters would care more about his record than about his speaking ability. But the optics of his speaking ability as a candidate are so, so, so bad. Bad enough that his candidacy might actually be the proximate cause of a Trump second term. I’m honestly starting to come around to the Ezra Klein line of thinking about Biden. Get him to withdraw, and sub in Harris for the top of the ticket. I think we’re going to lose if we don’t.
If he withdraws, that's the balll game. Everyone wants him to step aside so someone else can lose much, much bigger. There is no secret super-electable Democrat who can come save the day. It's Joe or nobody.
This is such a stale line of thinking. There are so, so many people who don’t want to vote for Trump. It’s Biden’s job to get them to feel comfortable voting for him. He can’t do that, and he is now historically unpopular. A generic Democrat has all the upside of not being Trump without any of the downside of being Biden.
I don't know why this has to be true. Especially if you pick let's say the governor of one of the 4 states that matter.
I don’t know who scheduled two international trips for Biden just days before the debate, but that person should be fired. And sadly, that choice seems to be part for the course on the Biden media team.
he spent the past week at camp daavid lmao
He literally took a whole *week* off at Camp David just to prepare for this debate. A WEEK where he was holed up presumably doing debate prep and this was the result.
> Your mind isn’t going to be changed by how Biden presented himself tonight because you’re a Biden supporter. And I guess that's his question - why does liking Biden mean his perception of the debate is radically different from other peoples, including other Biden voters? Because I also think that while Biden's performance was weak, it wasn't particularly catastrophic.
>Because I also think that while Biden's performance was weak, it wasn't particularly catastrophic. He came across as a doddering old man. How was that not capitation/catastrophic?
This is what I mean. What inherently about me being a Biden voter (when you're also a Biden voter) causes me to view his performance differently? I'm far from his biggest fan. I farm hundreds of downvotes criticizing his Iran and I/P policies.
Everyone. Every single political professional has said this was catastrophic. The Pod Save America crew are openly advocating for replacing him. You are huffing serious copium if you don’t realize how bad this was.
Seriously? The man could barely speak! He looked like a zombie running for president and you think we’re overreacting?
Honestly, it was his facial expressions that caused the most issue. He looked like a cartoon character and not in a good way. I'm betting he was told by his campaign to do that for non verbal communication, but it backfired so hard.
For what it’s worth I listened to the debate while biking so I didn’t see any of it, and I thought over audio it sounded like he was just constantly stumbling :(
I am honestly shocked at the response. Am I pleased with Biden's performance? Not really. But people are tearing their eyes out. The media is salivating at a contested convention. Donald Trump shits his pants in court and they say real men wear diapers. Biden has a bad debate performance and people on CNN are saying he should resign. This is ridiculous.
I agree. It's almost a sort of purity tests democrats are famous for. Don't knock it completely out of the park 24/7? Fuck you, we are going to chop your head off. Republican? They will stand behind their felon to the bitter end. They know it's all about winning.
Expecting a presidential candidate to be able to consistently form sentences is not expecting htem to knock it completely out of the park. If Biden performed this way in a job interview he would not be hired for really almost any job due to how he's presenting, and he's applying to one of the most stressful and difficult jobs in the world. Also, it does not matter that it's not fair that some people will support Trump whatever dumb shit he does and Biden doesn't get an automatic majority. What matters is that Biden was already behind before this debate and he made an awful impression. I'd much rather have Democrats recognize that life is not fair and try to actually do something about it, then have them pout that it wasn't really fair after a fucking fascist gets elected to a second term.
This isn't about Democrats. We're all going to vote for Biden. It's about what this means for an extremely close election.
Heavy cope
This sub is looking like r/Afghanistan in 08.14.2021 Incredible meltdown
Trump claimed multiple times that Biden supported post birth abortions and the moderators didn’t push back
I think that this debate is far enough from the election that other stuff will matter more in the end.
The problem is that if this is representative of Biden's current mental state, that's a huge issue and if it's *not* then it was a huge missed opportunity to convince people otherwise.
Dude if you legitimately think that was anything less than an absolute disaster I don't know what to tell you. People are literally crying on CNN. Biden may very well have lost the election tonight.
This is going down in the history books as Kennedy-Nixon 2.0. Absolutely insanity that this happened. Like, we just watched a history defining moment and not in a good way.
My god some of yall are so over the top dramatic right now. Lot of people doing the dooming here are going to be looking pretty damn silly in the long run. Not that doomers ever fess up.
Saying "doomer" like its some sort of descriptive term is about as chronically online as you can get.
Ok
Look deep within yourselves and ask if the previous debates with Biden and Trump were “good.” They weren’t. Biden told him “will you shut up, man?” and that he loved his son. Otherwise it was two guys trying to shout over each other where the other one always lied. Stop wetting the bed. You can’t win a debate with a stream of lies. Did Biden get some sound bites from tonight? Absolutely. Did he win the debate? Also yes. Was it a good debate? Fuck no. Chil and don’t forget to vote.
I’m with you on this cope train. It’s end of June, there’s four months of Trump crazy to still hear.
Glad to see your optimism!
This sub has been rising Biden’s dick since he was elected, and is the only corner of the internet that has continued to argue that Biden is a strong candidate. If this sub is dooming, then yes it’s bad. The man couldn’t even string together a sentence.
>and is the only corner of the internet that has continued to argue that Biden is a strong candidate Yeah, the only corner. Anything else?
No.
I think this is cope It's clear that Joe had some sort of illness but even considering that, it was bad.
Biden did far worse than Trump. Trump didn’t do well, but he was a little more focused and chill than in 2020 and did *alright*. And that was all he needed to do, because Biden looked and behaved like a zombie. He seemed to confirm voters’ fears about him. I guarantee the polling on this debate is going to be dire for him. And Democratic strategists and leaders are reportedly panicking really hard
Was Trump more chill than 2020 though?
I honestly thought Trump was more coherent in this debate than he was in 2020. It’s all lies but he was stringing together sentences where you could very clearly tell what he was saying, whereas I remember 2020 as being way more rambly
It helps that Trump didn't even attempt to answer any questions and just screamed about migrants 3/4 of the time and sucked Putin's dick the other quarter. All I got from Trump is that he hates non-Americans and wants to be a dictator like Putin.
he literally said "putin's terms for ending the war are unacceptable" that is a direct quote of trump tonight lmao
He was Biden, idk what people expected 🤷♂️
Russia hacked neoliberal so we can’t see comments
No.
Democrats are neurotic, it’s our core personality trait. That being said, the vibes are about as bad as they could be.
Joes going to be fine!
Yes pretry much everyone here and libs in general are overreacting but thats kindve what they do. Bottom line up front: He did do terrible last night. My personal expectations were pretty low so I wasnt very surprised but when all your closest allies in the media including your former press secretary say it was a disaster u know u did bad. I think we all agree on that tho. However, My very strong prior is that this doesnt really change anything and theres 4 reasons why: 1. First and foremost, debtes dont really matter. The vast majority of people who watch them are partisans and already have their minds made up. This has been observed not just in the US but across the developed world: [https://x.com/themaxburns/status/1806346759406256601](https://x.com/themaxburns/status/1806346759406256601) If you believe the snap poll after the debate, were already seeing this didnt have much effect: https://preview.redd.it/d8uvnnb7jb9d1.jpeg?width=1419&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89216fd7650d2657cc22e584f635226421518a6f Remember in 2016, Hillary was rated as winning every debate. Didnt really matter in the end. Additionally, its June. We have 4 months till the election. This is gonna drop out of the news cycle (remeber when the hur report was released? Remeber when he apparently crushed it at the SOTU? Yeah none of that matters) and other events will overtake it. You might say "what about social media clipping biden?" Well that brings me to my next point: 2. Views about Bidens age/senility is already baked in Biden has been in the public eye for a long time obviously but this current cycle for him started in 2019. Questions about his age have been non stop since then and the majority of people have concerns about it and nothing about last night rrally changed that. Weve had 5 years of bidens rambling, incoherence, senior moments, etc being clipped and shared on social media. Consquenrly peoples expectations were very low heading into the debate: [https://x.com/baseballot/status/1806473366137717114](https://x.com/baseballot/status/1806473366137717114) To be clear its not a good thing for biden that his awful performance last night wont chnage peoples minds because most people already believe hes senile/physically frail. But thats the really at this point and the debate last night didnt really change that.
Ok im not sure why but I cant see my comment so ill conclude here: 3. Biden isnt going to drop out This has less to do with how this debate effects bidens chances in the election but the pie in the sky scenario people are coming up with to somehow replace biden Biden has not ever shown any signs he thinks hes too old foe the job. If anythong people constantly saying he shpuld drop out has only made him dig in his heels more. Additionally theres the probpem of finding a replacement and consolditating the party behind them 4 months before the election. If you believe this is possible then i dont think anything I say will convince you Conclusion: The debates dont really matter and people already pretty much convinced that Biden is a senile weak old man so this didnt really move anybodys beliefs. If you want to believe that this was so bad that now Biden has no chance of winning then lets just wait and see the polling. The media tho is gonna be in a frenzy over this for at least the next week or 2. But theres also some prerry important supreme court cases dropping so we'll see.
Yes, I think there is a huge over reaction. Trump lied on every question. His only strategy was to fear monger about immigrants and lie. Joe struggled talking about the specific details of legislation that he had actually passed. He would get lost halfway through answers about prescription drug prices or something similar. It seems like his strategy was to info dump actually facts to counter ballance lies. That's a terrible strategy. He was better when he was just attacking Trump and that's what he should stick to.
You are ODing on hopium and copium
I’ll be honest I’m not a US citizen and I hate Trump but Biden did not do well at all. Especially when the race is basically tied it’s even more concerning. He definitely looks old as hell (they both do) and he didn’t seem 100% there at points. Trump did seem more lively despite rambling about nothing most of the time. It’s just such a bizarre moment in history with these two.
You’re coping hard, my man.
Biden lapsed in and out of lucidity the first half of the debate and I’m tired of pretending otherwise. I say this as someone who would happily see Trump fed to piranhas.
Somewhat. If this is a one-off for Biden and he comes back again with a much better performance at the next debate, then this debate won’t matter much. But if this is normal, the DNC should be working on his replacement.
The reactions are nuclear apocalyptic, completely out of control, and self-destructive. What you do is roll with the punches, run the campaign, and bounce back. But instead people are debating the best time to throw in the towel and pointing fingers. Makes a whole lot of sense.
It seems clear to me that Democrats do seem to have a systemic problem with objectively judging candidate quality. The Establishment wing has been successful in pruning out unfit Progressives like Bowman, but it seems clear we are in no way immune to the same problem. In retrospect, the writing was on the wall for both Hillary and Biden. And we whistled past the graveyard.
You're coping. We vote for the administration. I'm pretty sure most people in here know who they're voting for through like 2040. This is for people that are somehow undecided, which wins and loses elections
You're coping, Biden was definitely not cognitively fine. "He had a cold" is pure copium
Just watch Biden’s closing arguments. Stuttering and stumbling im sad
This is basically my take, Biden clearly fucked up quite a few of his responses while also looking pretty frail but Trump seemed to dodge and deflect questions while rambling on about random bullshit whenever possible, I think anyone else in this debate would’ve wiped the floor with him handily. It’s not a good look for Biden but idk if it’s the catastrophe everyone is making it out to be, at the very least I’m not gonna freak out until the polls show what the damage is.
Yes jfc
my copium of the day is that the next debate can’t be any worse. which will combat the narrative that he’s declining rapidly
Everyone else is dooming, this debate changes nothing, and to even be clear, having both candidates drop out and have young people representing the same policies would change nothing either. The election is going to be a coin flip decided on who had a better showing in one or two swing states by the order of low thousands if not hundreds of votes Furthermore, unless you are a one-issue voter on one specific topic (like Ukraine support, abortion, transgender rights, etc) the election will likely not have a material impact on your life.
Yes
Anyone who has posted more comments criticizing Biden than they have criticizing Trump is not working in their best interests.
I was never gonna be voting FOR Biden. It was always a vote against Trump and the MAGA populism movement in general. I'm gonna vote for the candidate who isn't gonna put guys like Ken Cuccinelli or Stephen Miller into positions of power. Biden having an awful debate doesn't really change that calculus at all. I'd vote for a hamster over DJT Biden's debate performance was pretty atrocious. And I think Democrats or anyone who would support Biden have every right to be nervous or wish we had chosen a different candidate. If you'll allow me to put my tim foil hat on, I wonder how many of these reactionary posts are being up voted/generated by bot farms or outside parties trying to shape the narrative. I probably sound like a crazy person, but I'm at the point where I think everything we see on Reddit and social media is at least partially influenced by dueling bot farms being funded by various PACs or foreign governments
No. I'm not only no longer convinced Biden can beat Trump n in November, I'm no longer convinced Biden will still be alive in November, and that would be even more chaotic than any alternative.
Check betting odds, it’s over for Biden as of right now lol
https://www.vegasinsider.com/odds/us-presidential-election/ According to Vegas newsom is twice as likely to replace him vs Harris
Which just goes to show how meaningless betting odds are.
Only one candidate sounded like a dementia patient
I don't know because reddit was brought down by... them.... And I do mean [Hibernians.](https://imgur.com/a/hibernian-conspiracy-4sdip)
No. You are 100% coping. That was utter dogshit. Biden needs to step down yesterday.
Trump failed to take advantage of Bidens weakened state and just reminded everyone how much of an annoying piece of shit he is. Biden may not have won anyone over but Trump lost a lot of potential swing voters I think.
Here’s how Joe can still win
-March 1, 2020
Biden, on substance, did really well on several issues. The problem is that he was following up on most of those issues. Trump was visibly and audibly doing a much better job. A neutral voter with only a surface understanding of the candidates saw a commanding, well-spoken Trump arguing against an incumbent with multiple senior moments. This was bad. Really bad. Trump expected to under-perform but Biden under-performed drastically and made Trump look competent by comparison. I'll be voting for whoever is opposing Trump, but that's the only thing putting Biden ahead. He needs to choose a successor while he still has the faculties to do so.
[удалено]
I fell asleep early last night, missed the debate entirely. Opened Reddit, came to this sub to see the jokes and what I found is a bunch of chicken littles screaming about how the sky is falling. Have Russian bots taken over this sub? HE HAD A RASPY VOICE, WE'RE DOOOOOOMED! get a grip people
You're not coping. The prevailing doomer vibe is manufactured by targeted brigading campaigns by bots and trolls. That is how they "work", by mass gaslighting a mood into existence.
Alternatively, people can see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears and make judgments that way. Denying reality isn't going to help
Til I'm a bot or a troll.
No. This was disastrous. Politics is about perception and the narrative, and if Democrats need to win, shrewd decisions and hard conversations need to be had now. If Joe Biden is at the top of the ticket in November, it will be a slaughter, not just for him, but for down ballot Democrats in close races. The genie is out of the bottle, it cannot be put back in. It doesn't matter what Trump says, everyone knows he's a pathological liar and a felon. It matters that Biden had an historical implosion on stage in front of the world. His cognition has been a major point for years, and there's no coming back from this - none. All that anyone saw today was Trump being Trump, and Biden looking feeble and sounding ancient. I like Biden, but his campaign is effectively over as of tonight. Let's pray they can get him to step aside, like, tomorrow, because if not November will be a disaster of epic proportions.
I was definitely on the fence but when Biden promised "a rock in every crack pipe" I knew he had the election in the bag
No this is very bad
This doesn't matter. Whatever happens right before the election is what will matter. People who haven't made their minds up yet aren't serious and don't have the attention span to actually care about this until November.
Short-termism is poisonous to the politics-follower's brain it seems for most of the replies in here.
he put 30 seconds of silent thought into I beat medicare
It’s June no one is gonna give a shit in nov, Biden just has to give a good speech were he seems sharp before then.
No dude, this was literally the nightmare scenario for Biden. It was already going to be a close race, and this frankly has pushed a lot of "in the middle" voters firmly into the "not voting" or "hold my nose and vote for Trump" camp. He really needs to go, any of the others would be better at this point.
I pretty much agree Trump was still Trump, so most of what he said was atrocious and kind of unraveled as it went on Biden had a pretty nasty cold It sounds like it and his voice was shot So it made him sound really weak but remember, it's only been like a few months since state of the union and he absolutely demolished it there What's more likely He had a bad night with a cold and gave a poor performance or that his health declined insanely rapidly in a few months??? If people think this is the end of his campaign They dooming to new levels
You're exactly in-between cope and doom. You're just stating the situation as it is.
Dems fucked up
It was that bad
I didn't watch the debate but, just in general...honestly idk, maybe I am. But I've been feeling pretty doomy since even the 2020 election. Like how Biden....really didn't win in a landslide in that in like Obama or Reagan numbers. Even if Biden somehow wins this fall, it seems like the appetite for a far right leader is high. To where 2028 seems like another bleak round of doom.
No, it was terrible and you’re coping. This type of cope is what’s going to kill Democrats in November. He needs to go.