The recent NYT-Siena poll showing Trump leading Biden in all the swing states minus Wisconsin tightened sphincters all across the Democratic cinematic universe. Some folks went full Chicken Little. Others theorized the poll was rigged by Big Journo so they can craft narratives that serve their plutocratic masters. Others shrugged it off (full disclosure: I’m an aspiring shrugger-offer).
News orgs are making much of the finding that reinforces a favorite prior, i.e., 71% of respondents think Biden is “too old,” including a majority of his supporters. Another popular angle is the finding that a “generic Democrat” beats Trump, which is reviving talk about the soundness of the ticket in some quarters.
I think Josh Marshall’s take in this essay at TPM (gift link) is correct. Here’s an excerpt:
The first thing to remember is that there is no generic Democrat. There are specific people with their own drawbacks, their own lack of experience in a national campaign. It’s hard to find out how they play on the big stage. How they poll today isn’t really the issue. It’s what they’d look like next October after being bruised up in a national campaign. Set aside all the shock and turbulence of a de facto presidential resignation and an out-of-the-blue primary cycle contest. I’m not sure any of the current 5 or 6 possible contenders would do better than Biden is now. One or more could do better. But I’m not confident of it. That informs how I engage in the hypothetical of whether it would be preferable for Biden not to run, setting aside the extreme unlikelihood of that happening.
The second point is that the entire news environment today is one focused on Joe Biden – his record with the economy, jobs, inflation, with Ukraine, with Israel and Gaza. Clearly the Democratic coalition and the country generally looks at him and finds him wanting. Part of that is clearly his age or at least generalized misgivings which are collected together in a feeling that he’s too old. But that’s not what a general election campaign news environment looks like. It’s focused on a binary choice – two possible presidents (even if there are more than two voting options) both of whom we know a fair amount about. I think it is highly likely that that news environment will be a significant help to Joe Biden.
In a binary choice, quite a lot of these straying Democrats won’t want to vote for Donald Trump or not vote at all. But that’s not the end of the conversation either. What is absolutely true is that the Israel-Hamas war is wreaking havoc on the Democratic electoral coalition. It’s not only between Jews and Arabs and Muslims in the US. It’s also between the old and the young. Whether that persists or fades in the intensity of a presidential campaign is something I wish I knew.
That last point touches on this truth: We have no idea what the situation will be a year from now — and precious little role in shaping it. The stakes are incredibly high, so it’s understandable if people panic or comfort themselves with pet truisms or insist that polls are utterly meaningless.
But as Marshall notes, fear affects decision-making, and often in a negative way. Exhibit A is Rep. Dean Phillips, who has absolutely no chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. If you take Phillips at his word that he decided to mount a primary challenge out of fear that Biden will lose to Trump, his is an example of panic-driven decision-making.
Even if you allow that his fear is well founded, how does Phillips’ candidacy help? It doesn’t. If anything, it does the opposite.
I guess the moral of the story is this: Keep calm, and carry the fuck on. I can’t think of another realistic choice. Maybe you can.
Open thread.
Baud
Baud! 20
XX24!Betty Cracker
@Baud: See what happens when you go away? Out of sight, out of mind! ;-)
randy khan
I think a poll of registered voters (and many people don’t really know if they’re registered) a year out from the election is not terribly meaningful. A year from now, among many other things, we may well have verdicts in one or more of the Trump trials, the Israeli invasion of Gaza likely will be over, we will be a year further removed from the big inflation numbers (and may even be seeing falling interest rates, although I’m not holding my breath), and we could be on our 4th Speaker of the House this cycle.
All of that said, I am very interested in the Palestinian/Muslim/Arab groups who are saying they will tell their people not to vote for Biden. I understand their pain, and there is no doubt that the Israeli invasion is inflicting terrible harm on the people of Gaza. But at the same time, I can’t recall a single previous Administration doing a single thing for Palestinians, and this one has been actively engaged in working on humanitarian aid, ways for people to get out of Gaza, and urging some level of restraint on Israel. Not to mention, as many people already have, that a Trump Administration probably would be actively encouraging Israel just to take over Gaza and kick all of its residents out. So while I recognize they don’t like what they’re seeing, the alternative seems a lot worse.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
This is very, very true.
schrodingers_cat
Panic and whine, and keep doom mongering, that’s what the MSM wants Ds to do. How is discussing opinion polls about an event one year in the future, news?
HumboldtBlue
Meh, I’ll wait for the only poll that counts, the tallies on election day.
RepubAnon
Hopefully, these voters will remember Trump moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights…
schrodingers_cat
@HumboldtBlue: Same here.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Are you back?
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Yep.
If you want to console yourselves, pull up the blasted NY Times article, and look at the top rated reader comments. They think it’s a bullshit poll (too, speaking for myself). I don’t really want to share a gift link, because why give that crap any more clicks, but it is worth checking out.
In fact, the FTF NY Times was loading up a second story about reaction to that poll, which seems to have been incredibly flawed.
Interesting it comes out the weekend before some important state elections. What. Not a coincidence.
Cacti
Biden isn’t a strong candidate.
He’s old and he’s not beloved.
But he’s decided to run again and he’s what we have.
Elizabelle
@HumboldtBlue: Tomorrow night could be instructive. State elections in Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, all over the place.
Warblewarble
Guardian headline “US planning$320m transfer of precision bombs to Israel’ Gotta teach them Palestinian kids.
hueyplong
Remember when President Romney rode those 2011 polls to victory?
Chris
@randy khan:
I feel like for the last fifteen years or more, the more the Republican Party descends into naked irredeemable fascism, the more the political system has determinedly thrown up people and factions who, instead of drawing the obvious conclusions and going over to the Democrats, insist on finding ever-more-granular reasons why I Just Can’t Support The Democrats.
And in some cases it’s honest: Israel/Palestine is an issue on which Democrats have never exactly covered themselves with glory. But a lot of the time, to go back to the poll mentioned in the OP, it’s a product of bad faith actors – like the way the media has covered essentially every political issue from August 2021 onwards.
CaseyL
I’m seeing quite a lot of “Biden supports genocide, therefor how can progressives vote for him” toots on Mastodon. I suspect they’r’e mostly trolls, and therefor I ignore them.
I’m sure there are people of honest good faith who are agonizing over this issue, but the public comments I’ve seen (like the ones describing the Hamas’ attack as “brilliant”) lead me to believe the uproar is being stoked by people who are, to put it delicately, not of honest good faith. IOW, either Purity Progressives or trolls masquerading as such (though that may be a redundancy).
karen marie
The media created the narrative that Biden is too old. Now that it’s baked in, people who have no idea what’s going on except as far as what they hear from the media are now regurgitating that back in polls.
Great job, kids!
Stephanopoulos repeatedly asking Scalise about the 2020 election was done purely so that it could be used as an example of how “we’re tough on both sides.”
Got to protect that narrative!
Alison Rose
Are the people who say Biden is “too old” ever asked the obvious follow-up question about Trump only being a few years younger? Like, if someone thinks Biden is too old, then they should also think Trump is. And when was the last time you saw Trump riding a fucking bicycle?
schrodingers_cat
@CaseyL: Many are ex-Paulites and tankies who never vote D anyways.
Chris
@hueyplong:
TBF, that’s a somewhat different situation. The polls were never as good for Romney as he and his campaign wanted to believe. The entire reason for the “unskew the polls!” pseudo-scandal of 2012 is that the polls were showing from quite a ways before the election that the Romney campaign was in deep shit, so they – and the media – responded by attacking the polls and saying they were liberally biased. And things did, in fact, play out pretty much the same way the polls predicted.
Nowadays, polling is a much more broken process than it was ten years ago, as shown most drastically in 2016 but even in other times since. So we’re far fuzzier on what these polls mean. (Not that, as many people have pointed out, they necessarily mean anything this far out).
randy khan
@Chris:
Yeah. Israel policy in the U.S. historically has had a range from “reflexively support whatever Israel does” to “occasionally criticize Israel but never do anything about it,” with occasional efforts to broker peace with neighboring countries, but no real pressure on addressing the Palestinian issue. And if I were a non-Jew connected to that part of the world, I would find that incredibly frustrating.
Yutsano
Bupkis.
It’s all bupkis.
RevRick
In 2011, Obama trailed a generic Republican challenger. In May 2012, he trailed Romney in a NYT/CBS poll by 3%. We all know what the outcome was six months later.
Polls today reflect two things more than anything else:
1). Grumpiness. A huge chunk of the populace thinks the country is on the wrong track. Which leads us to…
2). The average American thinks the President is in charge of everything. So the President gets blamed for everything. A campaign (like Truman’s against the Do-Nothing Congress) is designed to remind folks of the reality. Biden’s challenge is to make this a Choice election instead of a Referendum election.
But he knows that.
Ryan
Maybe Johnny Q. Uniteus will throw his hat into the ring.
Chris
@CaseyL:
A lot of them are trolls, but there are more bad actors than ever – the media, the Republicans, and the Russians to name only the most obvious ones – pouring absolutely everything they have into narratives of “Biden’s Failed Presidency” specifically and “both parties suck, we need to break the two-party gridlock” generally. Using every possible topic and usually from multiple ideological directions at once. Even for a lot of people with good intentions, it’s easier than ever to end up going all the way down a rabbit hole of bullshit.
TeezySkeezy
@schrodingers_cat: To say the polling today does not have strong predictive ability for an election a year from now is reasonable; saying the current polling lacks all informational value and can be safely ignored is not.
Lacuna Synecdoche
I think any poll that shows Trump getting 49% in a swing state that went for Biden in 2020 provides its own proof that it’s flawed. I mean, think about it. Who the hell, after voting for Biden, is going to look at Trump and think, “I wish we could go back to those halcyon days when everyone was dying from Covid and the president was advocating to bleach our bodies internally with Clorox and UV light”?
Any poll showing Trump gets a greater percentage of votes in a swing state in 2024 than he got in 2020 is, to my mind, inherently and obviously flawed. And the trials of the next year are not going to help him.
MattF
Kevin Drum notes, over and over, that Biden is not, in fact, especially unpopular. And I will note, again, that elections are decided on the margins. By people who can’t make up their minds. Which is quite a different group from any of the readers of Balloon Juice. It’s very frustrating, but we-all are among the least likely to understand WTF is going on here. So… we shall see.
Chris
@randy khan:
I do find it incredibly frustrating, though my connections to that part of the world are minimal. And I’m inclined to be charitable in letting people vent, because there really is a lot to be outraged about.
But, as you say, everything that’s frustrating is baked in. U.S. policy towards the region has always been a bipartisan shit-show of “Israel can do no wrong,” with the Democrats being at least somewhat well-meaning, but sharply limited in what they can do by the strength of pro-Israel consensus.
Tinare
I find it hard to believe that Trump, who has never won a majority of the electorate, does better in 2024 as a fully known quantity with 91 indictments than he did in 2016 or 2020. I know there are hardened Trump supporters, but then there are the rest of us. Polls at this point are fantasy.
CaseyL
@Chris: Arguing with people online about who to vote for is a great way to raise your BP and not accomplish much else. I gave up a couple of cycles ago.
Maybe people who’ve known each other for a while can argue it out constructively, but I have my doubts about even that, having seem flame wars erupt even here on BJ.
geg6
Meh. Philips is not in any way frightening, especially based on how badly his first town hall meeting went. People were yelling at him and saying he was gaslighting people. The interviews I read from supposedly undecided people who were there were uniformly negative.
As for that FTFNYT poll, I also take it with a grain of salt and I pretty much sit with Josh on the reasons why.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Chris @ 24:
So we run an “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” campaign.
We should also be running an “Are you better off now than you were on Jan. 6, 2021?” campaign.
West of the Rockies
The media adores, pines for a horse race, and will do everything it can to foster one. Uncertainty and turmoil generates clicks and sales. If it bleeds, it leads.
azlib
@CaseyL:
I do not understand how any progressive can call the Hamas attack “brilliant” except it was a brilliant way to show us what a war crime is. As Adam Silverman said in an earlier post, Hamas got what it wanted in setting the peace process back indefinitely.
Omnes Omnibus
Let’s see what happens when Trump has a criminal conviction or two under his belt and people are think about the actual choice in front of them rather than a notional flawless candidate who is just the right height.
Redshift
@CaseyL:
In addition to the low-level personal trolls, there are definitely operations going on to try to turn off Democratic voters on both sides of this issue, as well as the fake “parents rights” anti-trans/anti-gay moral panic and “be terrified of crime!”/liberal prosecutors, among others. They know as well as we do that TFG isn’t getting any more supporters than he did in 2020, so the only way they win is by getting Democratic voters not to turn out.
I’m never sure what we can do about it, but I’ll be back to volunteering with the Indivisible Truth Brigade once the VA elections are over.
TeezySkeezy
@geg6:
For all my pessimism, I wholeheartedly agree here. He’s going to completely fade into the background. No energy, no appeal. Philips isn’t the problem.
trollhattan
In a peculiar concurrence, #45 thought so as well.
Hoodie
The polls mostly tell me that poll participants seem to have forgotten what a shitshow the Trump administration was and that a lot of this is just grumpiness being voiced when there are no imminent consequences for choosing Trump. There’s a good chance that memories of that shitshow will resurface once the campaign begins, e.g., they’ll start to remember how exhausting the nonstop drama was. There’s also reason to believe that Trump is in even further cognitive decline given recent appearances, and that will become more apparent once campaign coverage kicks in. I’d be more worried if Biden is facing a new GOP candidate, which might be a situation somewhat like GHWB in 92.
karen marie
“Trump was filmed exiting a van and heading to the courthouse building.”
Are vans the new limousine?
How the mighty have fallen!
Redshift
Echoing others, I never see a poll showing “generic Democrat” or “someone else” polling better than the candidate as a cause for much worry. The reason generic always does better is that different people can project a different imagined candidate onto it, but any real candidate will only satisfy some of those people.
lowtechcyclist
Neither can I. I’m not going to get tossed around by the latest news, whatever it’s good (charged with 91 crimes, TFG’s dead meat!) or bad (Biden sux in swing state polls!). The 2024 election is still 365 days away. Let’s do what we can to move things in the right direction.
Chris
@CaseyL:
Oh, I haven’t done it in ages. But it’s not really people in online arguments who are the problem (they’re a minority 99% of whom have already made up their mind either way), so much as the majority of people who don’t really engage, but still notice and ingrain all the background noise.
Mai Naem mobile
I am not trying to be a Debbie Downer but you ignore these polls at your own peril. I am not saying Biden is unpopular or that TFG is popular but its just a weird scary time. I really think false info spreads through social media really quickly and I don’t know what you do with that. The GOP is really perfecting their voter suppression efforts. There’s a lot of balls Biden has to keep juggling to win next year.
Tony Jay
I’ve given this whole polling thing/FTFNYT narrative spin a lot of thought over the last three minutes or so and decided, based on the direction of flight chosen by a particularly large duck and the distinctive colour of a bruised lemon, that it’s just a load of desperate old bollocks and Biden/Harris are going to win by 5 million votes and an electoral college majority of (licks finger, tests the breeze) 100.
Unless Baud enters the race on a ticket with Randy the Singing Palomino of Esmeralda County, in which case all bets are off.
davecb
And in Toronto, the three papers all say the current prime minister of Canada is horrid. One paper says they support the left, one the center-right and the third the right. However, all three are owned by people on the pretty-much-far-right.
Sound familiar, folks?
teezyskeezy
@Yutsano: I think completely dismissing the poll as having zero informational value is as silly as assuming the election is already lost a year out. It tells us this election isn’t going to be the slamdunk it should be. In a sane world, Trump should never be close, but looks like it’s going to take as much work this time as last time.
R-Jud
@Tony Jay: Tell me more about this palomino.
cain
@CaseyL: Mastodon being what it is has a lot of hand wringing on this. My wife as I said in a previous thread – she watches and read a lot of what Palestinians journalists are saying about the conditions there.
It’s hard to be sympathetic to the administration when here we selling them “precision” bombs so they can bomb a targets in a field of women and children.
Israel is simply creating more recruits for right wing Islamic paramilitary groups like Hamas and continue the cycle of revenge and anger. That’s why Hamas exists and why Bibi funds them. I absolutely can’t stand either one of these groups.
We need new approaches. I’m not sure what but this approach is flawed. So we’re gonna do humanitarian aid while we sell the people doing the destruction weapons? Ultimately, I don’t know if this is because of evangelicals or Jewish population who I can’t believe approves of this.
Alison Rose
@azlib: There are a lot of so-called progressives who are very antisemitic. They’ve just usually been better at cloaking it.
schrodingers_cat
@TeezySkeezy: The information it gives me is that NYT and the MSM doesn’t want Joe Biden to be our nominee. If they can’t stop that they will poison the well against him, just like they did against HRC, John Kerry and Al Gore.
They tried their damndest against Bill Clinton and Obama too.
Butch
@karen marie: But the fact that he was “filmed exiting the van….” If I say it reminds me of the White Bronco am I making any sense?
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I don’t think we should question the pols. Polish voters are a crucial swing demo in the Midwest.
Another Scott
Made me look, at the cross-tabs and footnotes.
That seems really high, but is probably a good sign. Or not – who answers their cell phone from unknown numbers??
Those are really big in-state error bars. Unsurprisingly.
Biden won Georgia by 0.23% (11,779 votes). The raw numbers in the poll show him beating TIFG by 4% points. So, they apply some magic sauce to account for that.
Whether the results mean anything – at this point in time – depends on how correctly they apply the magic sauce.
It still doesn’t mean anything about how the November 2024 election will go, of course.
FWIW.
tl;dr – Don’t Panic!!
Fingers crossed for Tuesday!!
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@karen marie:
Even better, “Free Kandy” scrawled on the sides.
schrodingers_cat
@Alison Rose: They are anti-immigrant as well. Its centering of white grievance but from the left.
teezyskeezy
@schrodingers_cat: That implicitly sounds like you think the poll results are intentionally falsified or biased. You would not just be questioning the honesty of the nytimes, but also of the people at Siena College. And hell, maybe so! Not impossible! However, it can be simultaneously true that the intentions of the editors and ownership in the MSM are dispicable, but also that the polling is honest with good methodology. I can also simultaneously be angry they keep pushing their bullshit to demoralize dems, but also realize that poll means I guess I better volunteer because the election isn’t going to win itself.
Tim C.
@RevRick: This.
Should we freak out to the extent we engage and do whatever we can? Yes.
Should we go mentally insane and freak out and being a circular firing squad of retribution? No.
schrodingers_cat
@teezyskeezy: I don’t they are intentionally falsified. But everything they write feeds into the narrative that Democrats suck. It can be applied to any D running for President.
Biden is old
But her emailz.
John Kerry has a foreign born wife.
Gore wears earth tones.
I can go on.
ETA: I am the Treasurer of the Town Democratic Comittee and I have been a delegate to the state convention for the last 3 years. So yes I am involved. I have canvassed, written postcards etc.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
In other words, describe the USA sub population that answers their cell phones from unknown numbers.
Are they representative of the voter population?
syphonblue
I would’ve hoped last years “RED WAVE RED WAVE OH GOF WE’RE ALL DOOMED RED WAVE” polls that weren’t had taught people a lesson that A) polls a year out from the election, and B) polls in general are pretty worthless nowadays.
Guess I hoped wrong.
Lyrebird
I remain firmly in the JoeBot club. He and Harris are doing a flippin’ amazing job. Biden himself, in his later years, has so few FLTG, he’s done so many different stunningly gutsy things (getting our troops out of Afgh, visiting Kyiv, walking with the UAW strikers…).
I guess the NYT reaction to Madame VP merely dancing along to a song on stage leaves me unsurprised at how they’re acting now.
Wish they’d spend more page space on tough stuff like how can we see what’s price gouging and what’s real price jumps due to, for instance, climate disaster.
Cheryl from Maryland
I remember in 2020 when the President had won the primaries, and his polling was horrible – respondents from polls wanted “another Democrat, “ whom one blog named “Johnny Unbeatable.” My fingers are crossed for a big D win tomorrow in VA, which I think will change things up.
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
My new favorite thing about Butter Emailz is that a year or two ago, they caught Kamala Harris using non-wireless-headphones for something, and there was a whole freakout of, oh my God, isn’t she being too obsessed with security? What can she be hiding?
This after spending an entire campaign season pretending that email server security was quite simply the most important issue in the entire world.
trollhattan
Why was I not informed?
“Katy Perry’s beloved Las Vegas Strip show closes”
Bill Arnold
@syphonblue:
Tracking polls, where the same individuals (mostly the same) are used each time, continue to be useful as indicators of changes in sentiments.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: Yeah I remember that nothingburger.
HumboldtBlue
@Elizabelle:
Yes.
Geminid
I take Palestinian Americans at their word when they say this war makes them less likely to vote for a Democrat. The presidential election is not tomorrow though, but a year from tomorrow. I think a lot here will depend on the course of this war between now and then.
As to younger voters, I would like to see some pollling data. There are a lot of young people out there demonstrating for a ceasefire, but in aggregate they are not that many compared to the rest of their age cohort. I would like to know how big an issue this is for the rest of that age group.
lowtechcyclist
@Mai Naem mobile:
What exactly can we do about it if we don’t ignore them?
Things might be as bad as they say, or they might not. Either way, what do I do differently?
‘Keep calm and carry on’ really does seem to be the right approach.
gwangung
The thing to remember, though, is that Biden voters were REALLY motivated to vote against Trump in 2020. Trump voters were really motivated to vote for Trump in 2020 and may again be that way in 2024.
The key is to motivate potential Biden voters and not allow them to slack off. The economy may not be the key…but abortion may be.
New Deal democrat
Here is the take by Dan Guild’s (who I recommended this morning):
https://nitter.net/dcg1114/status/1721231599293853981#m
“ NV is a clear outlier. The others lean right [in the partisan makeup of the electorate]except for WI. The partisan makeup in the polls is quite different from the ’20 electorate.”
Also,
“ Biden has not consolidated all of the D base yet – I think he will.”
oldgold
Biden’s primary problem is he “appears” to be too old. There is no getting around it. And, over the next year it is going to get worse. The rigors of his office and the campaign trail are not going to be kind to him.
The media is already primed to watch for and over-report every gaffe, slip and stumble.
We (Democrats) need to do some soul searching and make some tough decisions – soon.
jonas
Yeah, Trump may only be a little younger than Biden, but he can throw a tantrum like a two-year old, so that makes a difference.
Mike in NC
That’s a miniscule number of people.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@R-Jud: @Tony Jay:
Also, the palomino isn’t really old, right?
Captain C
@Tony Jay:
That’s a 400-Electoral Vote ticket right there.
kindness
Our MSM is a funny beast. Horseraces create clicks/sell papers. The MSM in every instance plays down what Republicans have said they are going to do and plays up the ‘what if’s’ on the Democrats. What is ‘funny’ is that were there to be a new Trump administration, the Kreskin in me tells me that several of those very same MSM people might well find themselves jailed for doing their jobs. It’s exactly that the MSM is the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party and will be astonished to find themselves faceless. Who coulda known, right?
RaflW
When Phillips first ran to swing a purple-red seat, I donated. I’d long since disengaged, though two years ago I did attend a joint Klobuchar-Phillips gotv event, mostly in support of Amy K.
Two days ago I got spammed by Dean’s new campaign. FWIW (nothing, surely) I used the ‘other’ tab to tell him to f*ck off as a Republican traitor with my unsub request reason.
I’m just livid over his arrogant bullshit. It sounds like he’s burned quite a few MN local and state Dem bridges in this moronic tilt at the head of the party.
(I’d somehow not be totally surprised to someday learn that Phillips is have a clandestine affair with Sinema. They seem perfect for each other [wretching emoji].)
Omnes Omnibus
@Mai Naem mobile: I am not ignoring them, but I am giving them the weight I think they deserve. Not very much.
trollhattan
@Geminid: Because they’d fare so much better if a Republican were in the White House?
Right.
Cacti
Joe is old, bland, and uninspiring. His erstwhile opponent is a fascist dumpster fire.
Do I trust the American people not to give the second guy the win?
Nope.
Tony Jay
@R-Jud:
Randy by name, but a born-again Christian of the Koblenz Reformed Church of Christ the Well-Stretched Before Dancing by nature.
Hobbies include Mouse Wrestling, Artichoke Leaf Basket Weaving and appearing in the guise of a haunted dachshund every second Thursday of the month outside the bathroom window of Emeline Ramirez-Colby, 63, because she knows God damned well why and she knows how to stop it too.
Interesting but unconnected personal factoids; Randy’s birthname was Keith and not only has he never seen Splash, but he never intends to.
Can I put you down as a Maybe leaning towards Okay Then?
Captain C
@RaflW:
Someone should write this fanfic and post it on LGM on Loomis’ daily hate post (he’s using the grave of Peter Mayhew to crap all over fanfiction and Star Wars) just for giggles. Warn all of us, though, so we don’t have to see it if we don’t want to.
JPL
@trollhattan: Especially since trump mentioned using nuclear weapons on Gaza. Supposedly Biden lost ground with those who said democracy was important. Yup, let’s give the guy who tried to overturn the election the keys.
hells littlest angel
Serious question: why should anyone consider this poll to be at all meaningful?
Citizen Alan
@Chris: IMO, two factors drive Democratic agita over Israel-Palestine. One is a sense of residual obligation that Dems feel towards Israel over the Holocaust. Another is the fact that, in the eyes of Evangelical Christianity, anything less than absolute support for Israel means that you are opposed to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and therefore are objectively on the side of Satan. And while in the abstract Democrats can and should tell Evangelicals to go pound sand, the Evangelicals are insinuated deep enough into mainstream Christianity that they can affect the beliefs of non-Evangelicals about Democrats enough to swing close elections. It doesn’t help, of course, when Palestinians continually do things that make it so easy for the Christian Right and the GOP to demonize both them and any Democrats who stand up for them.
Tony Jay
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
The palomino is precisely half your age plus seven, if you know what I mean and I really hope you do otherwise I just sound nuts.
@Captain C:
“Vote Baudy/Get Randy”
Brit in Chicago
@oldgold: “We (Democrats) need to do some soul searching and make some tough decisions – soon.”
What decisions are you talking about? If it’s whether to replace Biden, and if so with whom, you’re not helping. Biden will be the nominee. That’s been settled since he said he was running. Harris will be the VP nominee; likewise settled. Fall in line and get to work—give money, talk to people if your in a swing state, volunteer, whatever you can; stop blithering about tough decisions
ETA: also what JPL just said!
JPL
@oldgold: trump makes more gaffes.. just sayin. What I’m not interested in seeing is Kamala and Gavin up against each other. I’m voting for the democrat that we have, not the one we wished we had
also what Brit in Chicago said.
Brit in Chicago
@trollhattan: Because they’re discontented and want a change. Do they think Republican would help them? What is this “thinking” you speak of?
RevRick
@New Deal democrat: Here’s a prediction. Biden will get 90+% of the Democratic votes, Trump will get less than 90% of the Republican votes. (The latter is based on the results of 2022, which was 3% more GOP, yet the outcome was close).
That leaves those who call themselves Independents, who actually tend to act more partisan than actual partisans. Go figure.
In sum, whatever Trump is polling now is his ceiling. All the getables are Biden’s.
schrodingers_cat
@oldgold: Does Trump look young? And in the pink of health? Biden is old and experienced and in better health than Trump.
The elections tomorrow will be a better barometer of how Ds will do than polls touted by interested parties.
Citizen Alan
@Chris: Were the polls even that broken in 2016? My recollection was that it was always projected to be a very close election (because of the EC, not actual votes) and that because Nate Silver said Trump only had something like a 1 in 4 chance of winning, and innumerate people construed that as “Trump has no chance.” Personally, if I knew I had a 1 in 4 chance of winning a million dollars in the lotter, I would play it every chance I got.
Geminid
@trollhattan: Not sure who you mean by “they” because I mentioned two different groups. If you mean Palestinian Americans, I’d say that Joe Biden is in the White House now, and his administration is shipping ordinance to Irsrael as fast as that country can use it in Gaza. Personally, I do not fault Joe Biden for that but it’s not my cousins those bombs are landing around.
Right now I woild not tell Palestinian Americans they must “vote Democratic or else,” as someone put ot this morning. That’s for next October. Right now it would be callous because these folks are hurting. And personally I am wary telling any minority group they must vote Democratic. I think it’s patronizing.
Until this war ends-and it will end- I think Democrats should treat people genuinely upset about this war with respect because they have a lot to be upset about. We need to take them seriously now, and try to get them back on board after this war ends.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Many of the people threatening to not vote for D are mostly white tankies who never voted for Biden in 2020 either.
oldgold
Brit and JPL: I am voting for the Democratic candidate. Make no mistake about it. That expressed, you two are ignoring the reality of the situation. Biden “appears” to be too old. To ignore this or diminish its importance, has a high probability of biting us in the ass.
cain
@trollhattan:
They don’t expect any change because once again they expect the Democrats to fix it.
They’ll be hootin, and hollerin, and crying as the leopards eat their face that it was the Democratic party’s fault.
oldgold
@schrodingers_cat: Perception is reality. And, beyond that, to be honest, yes, Biden looks older than Trump.
If you do not believe me about this appearance problem, if you know a few millennials, ask them about it.
cain
@Geminid: Completely agree. We must protect both Jews and Palestinians and so the rest of us needs to show that we as the democratic party voting members have their back and is also trying to push the party to deal with this situation equitably.
I absolutely do not want the U.S. to sell weapons to Israel without strings attached.
Old School
@oldgold:
Do you think we should get him to wear a toupée?
rikyrah
I am looking side-eyed at the polls.
As for those who are turning against Biden because of what’s happening in the Middle East.
You have Biden, who is trying diplomacy and working all angles.
You have Trump, who instituted a Muslim Ban, and went on trying to strip citizens of their citizenship. If you think that won’t happen if he’s re-elected, and which groups will be targeted, then you are a fool.
I can criticize Israel AND say that Hamas is a terrorist organization.
It’s not either/or. It’s both/and.
and, for those who are trying to say that Hamas isn’t a terrorist organization – I’m not taking them seriously. They aren’t serious people. They are either clowns, or terrorist sympathizers.
cain
@oldgold: on the merits, I agree. He does look old and he does talk in that ‘old man’ way when he’s talking. I’m not gonna fight you on that.
He might be sharp as a knife, but outwardly that is true.
Next year is going to be about choices and if it is Trump, we know the choice will be stark. But the other choices might be problematic, but they don’t have the kind of pull that Trump does.
Alison Rose
@oldgold: Well, what are we supposed to do about it? What does “not ignoring and not diminishing” his age look like in practice? We can’t make him younger. We can’t cast a glamour over him so that he looks like he did 20 years ago. If there are people out there who are legitimately thinking of not voting for him simply because of his age, what are we supposed to do about that? His age is his age. It’s not going to reverse itself. It is what is is. We’re not “ignoring the reality” of his age, we’re recognizing it. But short of going Chicken Little over it, what do you think “not ignoring it” means in terms of on the ground, GOTV work?
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
This. About 96%.
Shoving billions of dollars in ordnance into the arsenal of an already overwhelmingly dominant military power while it bombs the fuckitty out of a trapped civilian population, not a good look. Demanding that people who are outraged and appalled over it should shut up and smile or else be labelled Trump enablers, that’s Nu-New Labour levels of entitlement, and also a terrible look.
That’s my opinion, and Randy the palomino agrees with me.
Warblewarble
If they could see headlines about the US sending yet more bombs. What could those who have seen death and destruction rained down on their loved ones be expected to think about how much we care about their children. Unavoidable casualties? No ,every bomb dropped is a decision made
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: You are right here. But the second group I spoke of, the young people demonstrating against Israel and the older tankies egging them on, are not very significant to me. Like I said, I want to see data on that whole age cohort before I agree with the premise that there is a “young/old divide” on this conflict.
I think part of what is going on here is that a lot of people who want to see an immediate ceasefire are projecting their wishes on a whole age group of Americans.
We are right in the middle of this war. It will end, hopefully sooner rather than later, and after that is when we’ll start to know how much real damage has been done to the Democratic coalition.
catclub
Trump and the Republicans were best buddies with Netanyahu. Biden is NOT. How do they not realize this choice?
Jeffro
Thank you.
Both of these reasons + Dobbs + continued steady leadership from Biden + continued descent into madness from trump.
jonas
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
The poll in question here basically asked people that and the overwhelming answer was “No!” The problem is, the numbers — jobs, consumer spending, productivity growth, declining inflation, etc. — say that’s technically not true. But people “feel” it is. There’s also the migrant crisis freaking people out and now dealing with another Mideast war. It does seem overwhelming to your average voter who may not have a grasp on these hugely complex issues.
I think the best thing Biden can do is run on being a steady, calm, and focused leader and heighten the contrasts with Republicans and Trump’s completely impulsive, erratic, corrupt, and treasonous behavior and remind people why they tossed him out of office three years ago. He was an unmitigated disaster. He needs to address the housing crisis with the same energy he did student loans and show how he’s going to get a handle on the migrant issue. Of course the GOP will fight anything he puts out there tooth and nail because they don’t want these problems solved — they’re too useful as a political cudgel — but that’s another place where Biden can contrast his leadership with Republican intransigence. All they have to offer is religious extremism and obstruction. That’s it. Do people really think that will solve problems?
Jeffro
Someone (Matt Yglesias?) was tweeting about how a fully-bearded Biden would be polling at 60%. Probably true and also probably better than 95% of the political commentary out there, and yet…a sad reflection on what passes for political commentary in America.
Alison Rose
@Jeffro: Um, he could also end up looking like Santy Claus.
Matt McIrvin
@Alison Rose: President Santy Claus? What better counter to the “war on Christmas” silliness?
RaflW
@Tinare: “I find it hard to believe that Trump … does better in 2024 as a fully known quantity with 91 indictments than he did in 2016 or 2020.”
I’m not going to get too worked up right now, but there have been other polls showing how ludicrously close the race is (with all the poll caveats, yes).
But I watched with horror as GWB, with all his absolutely glaring faults and failures, win a second term even as well known as he was.
I think Biden has been a very effective president, but he’s had the age issue smashed on him in ways that feel too similar to how Kerry got defined and could never get past (not the specific negatives, but how a press narrative was set and became unshakable).
I’m aghast that Trump’s rising incoherence isn’t being reported at all. It’s a gross — or intentional — failure of the media.
But I am sort of permanently stung by how much Americans willing take “the Devil they know”, and the country suffers repeatedly for it.
Jeffro
@Alison Rose: Joe Biden? The dude is THIN. He’d need a sofa’s worth of cushions to stuff his Santa suit. =)
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Or as Chat GPT would spit out after running it through multiple language translations and back into English, invisible idiot.
:)
(Modern take on a joke from the Jurassic Age of computers.)
oldgold
@Alison Rose: It will not be easy. Things like this never are. I think you stage a very quiet intervention using people he trusts.
NotMax
@Jeffero
Santa from Rare Exports. Dark Brandon Claus?
;)
Geminid
@RaflW: George W. Bush and his minions were able to sweep a lot under the rug in 2004. If the Iraq war had been another year further in its regression, Bush would not have have pulled out the close win of 2004. Americans finally got to show they rejected the administration’s war policy in 2006 midterms.
Elizabelle
@oldgold: Wait. Are you discussing how to get Biden to stand down?
Are you auditioning for the pie filter? You just made it out a few months ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@oldgold: An intervention with whom?
Matt McIrvin
@oldgold: And then who? Kamala Harris? An open primary?
I preferred Harris to Biden but at least half of the fretting about Biden’s age is really people who for… some reason are horrified about Kamala Harris being in charge, and young tankie types particularly loathe her, so it wouldn’t solve the popularity problem.
And the open primary would be a liability in itself at this point.
Kathleen
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: That’s not a coincidence either.
Almost Retired
Meh. One year out and the people who actually answer unknown numbers on their cellphones express a vague dissatisfaction with their economic situation and favor the non incumbent? Will they feel the same way when they start paying attention after Labor Day 2024? Not freaking out, but not backing off my commitment to be active in this election cycle (organizationally and financially). I note that all of the political consultants on cable news think that Biden’s only hope is to hire more political consultants.
Warblewarble
On a day when Blinken is practically admitting that the US is being stymied by the Israelis, it is not a good look to be sending yet more bombs to those who have already killed so many innocents, even if you want to downplay the numbers of women and children, not to mention blameless men who have already been killed with US supplied weapons. Whatever happened to never again, oh I forgot these are animals,and we don’t even treat animals this way
‘
Elizabelle
@Almost Retired: I think something was really off on the methodology of that poll.
Some NY Times readers were suggesting that people who answer rando calls from unknown numbers might be more open to voting for Trump.
But: Trump better for the economy? For foreign affairs? That is laughable.
Anyway, not gonna worry about it, and no one serious takes anything in 2024 for granted.
Yarrow
@oldgold: What are you going on about? Biden is going to be the nominee. STFU and deal with it. If you want a Democrat – who will be Biden – to win the presidency and have strong coattails then stfu about his age and how he “looks old” or whatever other bullshit you’re slinging. If you want Democrats to lose, keep going. Your choice, but you’re making it pretty obvious what you want.
Suzanne
I still think the way to make people feel better about the economy and their personal lives is to make it almost a singular focus on solving the high-cost-of-housing issue.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
…just like the trees in Michigan.
Omnes Omnibus
@Warblewarble: Who in the administration or here is calling Palestinians animals. No one.
Eyeroller
@Alison Rose:
Chuck Grassley looks and is old as hell, yet Iowans had no problem voting for 88-year-old him in large numbers for a six year term. If they are complaining about age there is something else, like maybe who the VP is.
MattM
@Elizabelle: My concern is that a lot of the dismissive arguments being made in this thread seem awfully reminiscent of the hand-waving of Clinton’s favorability numbers in ‘16. I’d like to think we couldn’t get blindsided again, but “what are people going to do, vote for that idiot Trump?” is a question we learned the answer to the hard way.
Bill Arnold
@oldgold:
You are seriously asserting that Joe Biden is senile, and that the Democrats should throw away the incumbency advantage in the 2024 POTUS election. What exactly is motivating you?
Omnes Omnibus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Finally. Thank you.
Alison Rose
@oldgold: I don’t understand what you’re talking about. If the “he” you’re referring to is Biden, though, you are cordially invited to STFU.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry, I just got home from work.
Kathleen
@trollhattan: I was thinking the same thing. Trump and Republicans will do much more for them.
Elizabelle
@MattM: I am not going to dwell on that ridiculous poll.
We have elections to win tomorrow in Virginia.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
This will give us a far clearer picture of how voters are feeling than some shitty poll. See? Now I’m wondering if the FTFNYT is attempting to influence VA.
Geminid
@Suzanne: That would be to focus on one of the toughest issues out there, one that will take years to solve. I agree that the Biden administration should lay out a real plan to to create more and more affordable housing, but I think that in the short term- and November 2024 is getting to be the short term- Democrats would do better to center the tangible economic progress resulting from the ARA, Infrastructure, CHIPS+ and IRA bills.; and also issues like abortion rights, gun safety and defending Democracy.
Elizabelle
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I am sure of it.
The FTF NY Times is not our friend. The WaPost also illustrated their story on “elections coming” with a big four color photo of smiling Glenn Youngkin in a nice blue suit and red tie. No fleece.
Media owners do not want to pay taxes.
And: Jeff Bezos is planning to install a Murdoch guy as WaPost publisher. Endorsed by Boris Johnson.
It has been a hoot to read the reader comments on that one. The WaPost does not screen its comments, as the FTF NY Times does. Even the trolls are not trying to spin that dross. As of last night, they seemed to be running 99:1.
Warblewarble
Animals is a term frequently used by extremist Israeli politicians who have clout in Israel. Not suggesting it is used by the Biden administration,maybe some republicans.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: Sure makes you wonder about the timing for the release of that poll. Seems timed to freak out Dems the day before elections in various states.
Yarrow
@MattM: Be concerned all you want but dumping Biden is a loser of an idea. Want to lose the election, do that.
This election is between one incumbent and the closest equivalent to a second incumbent we’ve had in forever, as TFG is a former president running again. This election will be a choice for voters between two known quantities. That’s an entirely different situation than the 2016 election.
Kathleen
@Yarrow: There are no coincidences where media are concerned. They have an agenda.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: It’s the FTF NY Times, Jake.
MattM
@Yarrow: Not advocating for that, for the record. Just saying that hand-waving the concerns that are pushing some people to support that is dangerous.
RSA
Off-topic insanity in a Post story:
The world constantly proves to be a stranger place than I’d realized.
oldgold
@Alison Rose: You and Virginia Foxx have a lot in common. You both feel entitled to tell people you do not agree with to shut up.
oldgold
@Bill Arnold: “What is motivating you?”
Saving the Republic.
Eyeroller
@MattM:
All the data and history suggest that dumping an incumbent, especially after a divisive primary, is much, much worse than staying the course and addressing problems would be.
Yarrow
@oldgold: It’s a blog comment section, not an elected representative yelling at a reporter. Those are not the same thing.
Alison Rose
@oldgold: Oh for God’s sake. You’re in this thread doing the exact thing we’re trying to get the news media to stop doing, and not offering any realistic visions of how your amorphous ideas would work in the real world. You’re also not offering any explanation as to how we would do any better in the general with someone other than Biden. You’re JAQing off about something inane, and now you have the audacity to compare me to some batshit bigoted hateful old crone because I pointed out the offensiveness and emptiness of your mewling?
Yarrow
@oldgold: If you want to “Save the Republic” dumping Biden is not the way to do it. Democrats will lose if that happens.
SpaceUnit
I knew how old Biden was when I voted for him the first time and didn’t need a calculator to figure how old he’d be in 2024. This is a bullshit narrative, especially since trump is the same age.
Also, I hobnob exclusively with Democrats these days and other than a couple commenters on this blog I don’t know anyone who is wringing their hands over Biden’s age. They just wish all the media hacks would shut up about it already. And anyone who is whining about it to other Dems is being a tool.
Doc Sardonic
@teezyskeezy: Since Another Scott showed the cross tab data and sampling error margins for the poll, statistically Sienna College left room for a 200 car freight train of bullshit. By the way, I am a little rusty on my statistics but it can be proven statistically that you only work 1 day a year, so you can’t fucking have that day off.
Martin
@trollhattan: This is the ‘trust the system’ answer.
Like, I have zero concern for this poll – at this point in 2015, Ben Carson was headed for an easy path to the Presidency. I mean, come on people.
However, the system sometimes produces shitty outcomes no matter who you shove in the front end of it, because it’s not the candidate that matters but the system. And Democrats have a nasty habit of defending the system, even when the system is obviously, profoundly failing people. And when that’s you, and when the consequence are high enough, they’ll back whoever is promising to smash the system. We can warn them all day long that the system they want to replace that with is worse, but we’re also not addressing the problem that they are still being failed, and if you are dying under the current system, it’s a perfectly rational decision to take your chances with a different system.
It’s not that Democrats aren’t critical of the system, it’s that they are unwilling to take the bold moves, and the associated risk, to offer something else. I think one reason Dems are doing a little better is they got off of their spineless states rights defense of abortion status quo under Roe and realized they HAD to lean into nationwide rights, and that’s paying off.
Democrats really need to do that on economics. Biden can tout the federal reserve metrics all day long, but when your landlord just jacked up your rent 15% because some algorithm said that that it was Pareto optimal, it doesn’t fucking matter if unemployment is 3.9% or GDP growth is 4.8% or even that you got a 10% raise, because in reality you’re 5% poorer.
The things that are good are good for me, because the system is designed for me – an investor, a property owner, maybe a landlord, an employer, etc. You can be as compassionate to the people getting fucked all you want. But if you’re not going to actually do something about, or talk about some neoliberal bullshit that in theory could trickle down to them if that algorithm doesn’t intercept those benefits first, then why not roll the dice. The system is what’s killing you and the first job is to break the system. What replaces it is a problem for another day. That’s a lot of what Trump promises – he promises to break the system that’s hurting you. That’s really appealing.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: Are you suggesting a quiet intervention of people Biden trusts to get him to not run in 2024?
That would be totally insane.
There is a HUGE benefit from being the incumbent. And Biden is doing a fabulous job – though I am not happy that he is not standing more firmly against Israel, but it’s a really tricky situation and he’s STILL being much more vocal against the bombing than any recent president ever would have been.
Elizabelle
@SpaceUnit: Thank you.
Warblewarble
Can you please commit your war crimes more discretely and stop making us uncomfortable is not great diplomacy.
oldgold
@Alison Rose: Yes, I do. Because in this thread and others, in my opinion, you are very intolerant of people expressing views you disagree with.
Kay
I’ll be on the Blue Ohio election night call tomorrow – those involved in the reproductive rights amendment election Tuesday will know what I mean :)
I won’t be on until 8:30 or so.
Alison Rose
@oldgold: That depends on the views. I have zero problem with people expressing opinions I don’t share, so long as those opinions are expressed thoughtfully and with substance. You are doing neither here. If you want to expand on what you’ve said and go beyond just “oh no he is old we’re doomed”, then go right ahead. You’ll notice I’m not the only one disagreeing with you. But sure, continue to act like I’m the one being ridiculous.
RaflW
@oldgold: I just sprained my eyes, they rolled so hard.
You wanna save the republic? As was said up thread: donate, volunteer, door knock, write postcards, do basically anything to get out the vote. Maybe focus on a swing race in your area (state legislature? US House seat? Something not presidential — it ALL matters).
But your tone of “Biden topping the ticket is a crisis needing an intervention” is utter, ridiculous freakout-ing. Action is the antidote.
Tinare
@Suzanne: That and groceries. I can honestly say I am wayyy better off than I was four years ago, but I’m mortified that I – old, fat, out of shape woman – can easily carry a $100 worth of groceries into the house in one trip. Food prices are still very high and that is a pinch folks are truly feeling.
oldgold
Allison and Rafl: When you use quotation marks, it is usually a good idea not to invent the words you place within the quotation marks.
suzanne
@Tinare: I don’t know how anyone making under $50K even survives at this point. Rent in my hiiiiighly mediocre neighborhood is like $1500 a month. Holy shit.
Alison Rose
@oldgold: This isn’t a newspaper, dude, it’s a freaking blog comment thread.
Tinare
@suzanne: There are way worse neighborhoods than ours. :) And that’s at least a house, you get a studio in the east end for that. It is crazy how much rents have gone up in the past few years.
Uncle Cosmo
@Matt McIrvin:
No no no no no.
President Sanity Clause.
YY_Sima Qian
Outside of Ukraine, I have not been impressed by the Biden team’s foreign policy, which is firmly in the conventional wisdom of US primacy/liberal hegemony under the euphemism of “liberal internationalism”. (Trump & the people empowered are outside of that conventional wisdom, well into the territory of unbridled & unvarnished nationalism & militarist imperialism, but w/o the obligation of empire maintenance.)
On the domestic side, the Biden team has done a lot of great things, including the long overdue decisive shift away from Neoliberal economic philosophy, & the long over due industrial policy. Unfortunately, having to lean on geopolitical rivalry to help move the domestic agenda forward, because geopolitical rivalry (specifically w/ the PRC) is the only thing resembling bi-partisan consensus on DC, solidifies & sharpens geopolitical rivalry as the dominant organizing principle for U.S. foreign & domestic policies, which ultimately is terrain that favors the reactionaries, the nativists & the authoritarians.
I am also not thrilled by Biden’s age, or that Dems could not come up w/ an younger & fresher face.
Having said all that, for Biden to withdraw & precipitate a bruising primary is political malpractice. & I would crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden over any R opponent. Come election time, always vote for the option that is less bad & does less harm (& Biden is much more than that), however unsatisfactory it may be. That is the mature & practical exercise of political agency & power.
Of course, Dems cannot bank on just being the “less bad” option if it is to continue attracting support from the “Zillenials”. That is human nature.
YY_Sima Qian
I would definitely recommend reading the recent Huffington Post article on dissension & angst in the State Department ranks wrt to the war in Gaza. There is a very clear generational divide there, too.
Brit in Chicago
@Geminid: As I recall it, Hurricane Katrina and the administration’s response to it (with W’s “Heck of a job, Brownie”) were decisive in turning the voters against W. I’m sorry it happened, but I really with it had happened a year earlier. (Then we might with luck have had Kerry 2004-2012 and Obama 2012-2020: someone calm, rational, and competent in charge during Covid—among many other great advantages.)
MomSense
Never underestimate how stupid/crazy the American electorate is. If the crazy is 27% and the stupid is at least 50%, depending on how the Venn diagram overlaps – we get the current situation. As I’ve been saying for years now. We won the popular vote by almost 3 million and lost the electoral college vote by about 70,000 votes in 2016. In 2020 we won the popular vote by 8 million and won the electoral college vote by only 45,000. Democrats have a significant geographic disadvantage. Add to this our fucked up media, Russian disinformation, and the tragic Israel/Palestine war and this is going to be an incredibly difficult election.
It doesn’t help one bit to complain about polls or compare the polling now to 2008 or 2012. This is an absolutely critical election to win and we are not in a great position. The only bright data points are the special elections, especially related to abortion rights.
YY_Sima Qian
@Brit in Chicago: Obama could only have followed the disastrous 8 yrs of Bush. An R would very likely have followed 8 years of Kerry.
Ds being caretakers for the ship of state so that Rs can then take over & use it to wreck the country & the world, unwilling & unable to constrain Rs’ ability to do so, is one of the more pernicious long term political dynamics in the U.S.
schrodingers_cat
@oldgold: Whose perception? Trump is out of shape and decrepit looking. Biden is fit and in charge. Your anecdata and vibes are not enough to convince me that we need another nominee.
wjca
But that is, I suspect, a matter of looking at still photos. Get video of them moving, and especially of them talking. Then watch perceptions take a dramatic shift. And that’s before the actual content of what they are saying comes into play.
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay:
@R-Jud:
Me, too! What are you divining over there on Blighty’s shores that we’re missing here? Where oh where is this Singing Palomino? (Mr Ed was a talking palomino, but I don’t think I ever heard him sing.)
Miss Bianca
@syphonblue: That’s where I’m at, too. I mean, come the fuck on – the election is a year away, Trump’s trials have literally only just begun, and the RED WAVE RED WAVE shit and the “oh, Dobbs doesn’t matter, those silly lil wimmenz aren’t going to vote based on losing their rights” blah blah blah and the fact that polls have consistently been inaccurate this far ahead – and I just get pissed off that I’m supposed to be getting all hot and bothered about this poll.
Manyakitty
@Miss Bianca: OMG yes all this. Nope. Just NOPE.
Manyakitty
Duplicate
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: The thing about foreign policy is that a lot of this stuff is no-win. The morality of Israel-Palestine is one thing, but politically every possible choice Democrats could make is wrong, because it’s an intra-left wedge. If it’s a major salient issue, every choice alienates some part of the voter coalition and it hurts us, period.
(Not so for the Republicans: they can just say “bomb the Muslims” and that’s fine with nearly all of them. These days even most of their antisemites are pro-Israel because they want to ship the Jews off to there.)
Which is why it was kind of brilliant, in an evil way, for Putin to support Hamas. The more people are dying on all sides in Israel/Palestine, the more chance he has to conquer Ukraine, because division in the US gets it off his back.
Martin
I think the problem is that sort of *is* what foreign policy is. By definition, foreign policy is the maximization of national power. The mechanics of that vary substantially by the nation and role of the nation in the geopolitical space, but the goal is always the same.
I think what you (and I think an increasing number of people, including myself) are looking for is a kind of supra-foreign policy – one where a nation gives up potential power for a broader goal. And the US is a nation that *can* do that given our military superiority is not at risk. We can do what Obama once spoke to, that we can afford to be generous to other parties – even those that are hostile to us – if it helps achieve broader stability. Mind you, he didn’t feel he had many opportunities to do that, but I think he aspired to it. I think Joe does as well. But most Americans do not. In fact, I think just the opposite – Americans are increasingly selfish on that front.
I’m in agreement regarding Biden’s age. I would much preferred that a MUCH younger person have been elected in 2020, but we have the outcome we have and we can’t pretend that we don’t. The path forward is with Biden, and we can revisit the question in 2028.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: If whichever path has a political price that might strain the D coalition, then why not do take the course that makes you sleep better at night & better serve the US’ (& arguably the world’s) long term interests? I don’t think one can argue that has been the course Obama & Biden have taken on Israel/Palestine.
Obama tried hard to push the 2SS forward, but he was unwilling to leverage US financial/technological/diplomatic support to dissuade Israel from actions that make sustainable peace impossible (not to mention illegal under international law). For example, the Obama Administration could have conditioned co-development of the Iron Dome on Israel halting settlement activity outside of East Jerusalem, since Palestinian rocket fire is at least partially a response to continued settlement, settler violence & slow motion ethnic cleansing.
The Biden Administration pivoted to normalization between Israel & Sunni Arab states, building on Trump Administration’s Abraham Accords that largely consigned the Palestinian issue (& the 5.35M Palestinians in the WB & Gaza) to “out of sight, out of mind”. That has proven to be delusional.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: I think a lot of the problem is that we have a substantial generational divide. Older Americans that are supportive of Israel often are because they are responding to the foundational question of whether the Jewish people should have a nation to govern, because that was the question when they first formed an opinion. And yeah, I support that as well (with limits).
But that’s not really in question right now. Hamas or Iran can call for the destruction of Israel, but that’s not gonna happen. Israel got there. They did the work, they built an economy, they have substantial defensive power, they aren’t going away. So the question for younger voters bumps more into my limits, than into the fundamental question, because for them the right for Israel to exist is a dumb question – of course, and nothing really threatens that. So they are more invested in HOW Israel exists, which are tied up in similar questions to how the US exists.
Israel is a tough case – how to you reconcile the goal of a nation that Jews have control over with democratic rule that might result in Jews falling into the minority (the risk of the 1-state solution). Now you need the more challenging task of maintaining majoritarian culture that sees the protection of the Jewish people as paramount, even if the majority of them aren’t Jewish – something that, frankly, has remained largely elusive on this planet. (There are parallels here in the US for Christians who desire a similar arrangement where the US is a defacto protective state for Christians, always being led by Christians, and the current state of play in the US means that is not assured for the first time ever). But while ‘do Jews deserve the right of self determination in their own state’ is not the current question, ‘do Palestinians deserve the right of self determination in their own state’ is the current question, and they’re fundamentally giving the same answer that their parents did that ‘yes, they do’, but where the agent preventing that from happening is the benefactor of the former question.
So the real problem for Biden and Democrats is how you navigate this generational split when it’s almost impossible to express a broad worldview because 2 sentence into it one side or the other is going to accuse you of wanting to deny the existence of Israel or the existence of Palestinians, because too many voters see those as mutually exclusive. I don’t think young people see them even remotely as mutually exclusive, but leadership can’t even get to expressing agreement with that.
Miss Bianca
@Martin: You know what – I *WOULDN’T* have preferred a “younger face” as a candidate in 2020. The older I get, the more I think youth is vastly overrated as an asset in leadership. Hell, even when I was *young* I thought youth was vastly overrated – Jesus, when I think of myself in my 20s and 30s, I don’t see someone who should have been trusted in any sort of serious position of leadership.
Fuck “younger”. Old Joe Biden is a way better leader now than he would have been twenty years ago – or thirty, or forty, or fifty years ago.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Foreign policy is downstream from worldview & grand strategy. US national security strategies from GHWB through to Biden all have US primacy & liberal hegemony at their cores, w/ different emphasis on militarism/soft power, unilateralism/multilateralism, respect for alliances/partnerships, etc. If primacy & hegemony is the overriding objective of US grand strategy, then heightened geopolitical rivalry is inevitable when other powers start to catch up, & history has shown that heightened geopolitical rivalry is rarely conducive to social justice, economic fairness & liberal democracy.
Only now, there is much greater dissonance between US’ & the West’s preferred state of international affairs & their ability to shape outcomes, as the US’ & the West’s relative dominance declines & the world moves toward greater multipolarity.
As you say, the US is still well positioned to try to reform the international order, so that a “Pax” need not be imposed by the overwhelmingly dominance hegemon. There will be plenty of takers for such a new kind of order in both the Global North & the Global South, indeed a return to the idealism of the immediate post-WW II (or to a lesser extent even post-Cold War) period. However, no hegemon can willingly constrain itself, far too many interests vested in the status quo of hegemony. Sadly, that too is part of the human condition.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: I’m pretty sure going all-out anti-Israel would lose us more. It’s old Democrats who would be alienated by that, and they’re far more reliable voters.
I kind of liked the sort of cautious distancing that seemed to be going on under the Obama administration. But it also got Netanyahu going all-out to support Trump, so I doubt liberals benefited from it at all politically.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: Conditioning US financial/technological/diplomatic support to Israeli behavior in the WB & Gaza, as well as the ME, is not anti-Israel. That is falling into the mental trap created by Likud & the Rs. Administrations from Eisenhower to Reagan have all at times strong armed Israel, publicly
The [correct] argument has been made that it would be self-defeating for Arab/Muslim Americans to abandon Biden, as it would raise the probability of of Rs taking power. Why does that argument not apply to older Dems who might abandon Ds over the single issue of conditional support for Israel?
Martin
I think there are two reasons:
Israel to my eye has a bit of a victimhood problem. I mean, I get it, antisemitism is fucking everywhere, but that’s not the same thing as a meaningful threat to national sovereignty. I mean, you’re a nuclear power – you have means to defend yourself, and Hamas is not a meaningful threat to national sovereignty, yet they act as though it is.
And I think if you’re afraid that Israel is so rattled by these events (which are terrible, don’t get me wrong, but also which you cannot respond emotionally to, as the US did after 9/11) that they’re going to pop off on the neighbors, even when they’re in the process of colonizing the neighbors, that it is in your and everyone else’s benefit to be available to step in with an Iron Dome as a better outcome than an Israeli nuke being let off – even if that means looking as though you are tolerant of that behavior.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin:
If Israel is that irrational & nihilist, then the US should really reevaluate whether unconditional support is wise. No other US ally or partner is shielded in this way. Every US ally & partner has gotten “tough love” at one point or another. Once up on a time, Israel did too.
That is the same kind of thinking that had US hesitate in sending Ukraine F-16s & ATACMS for fear that Putin would pop off tactical nukes.
Jackie
@oldgold:
Maybe Biden should dye his hair orange and use orange bronzer. And gain +/- 75lbs.
@Old School:
Martin
@Miss Bianca: Generally speaking, I find it VERY rare to find older people to have even a basic grasp of where anxiety of younger generations comes from. My dad is a borderline communist, and I have to scream at him to punch through the ‘I’ve been around the block enough times to know what I’m talking about’.
I am a very strong believer that cultural views are more than strong enough to blind even well intentioned people to the realities around them. From a young person looking upward, Biden’s generation as well as mine (Gen X) got buffaloed on everything from climate change, to institutional racism, to about 8 different foundational economic fuckups from rent seeking to trickle down to my god, selling the same asset multiple times. Everything from the forever wars to the financial crisis to the current state of climate, the failure to invest in national infrastructure, healthcare, and so on all happened on our watch. We bought into the various lies because we liked what was being said, and were afraid to push back. And we are pushing ALL of those burdens on future generations to fix rather than fixing them now.
And cultural views change over time, and we are all a product of all the ones we passed through. But the people who *aren’t* a product of them are the ones who weren’t alive when they happened. We have at best made incremental progress, but no foundational progress, because we cannot imagine something different. They can. And yeah, I expect you won’t like it. The world is the way it is because it is the way you do like it.
Climate change is an actual by god existential threat. Not in the ‘wipe humanity from the earth’ sense, but in the sense that the accumulated costs may accrue faster than we can pay them. It is possible for society to devolve, and it’s situations like climate change that bring it about. And the cost of solving this only goes up. You either pay for it now, or you risk not being able to pay for it later. And nobody wants to pay for it now, especially the older generations. Even the most liberal people I speak to of my generation or older argue that they’ve earned the nice car, they’ve earned traveling after retirement. And fuck that – you and I didn’t earn shit, because you and I never paid for the damage we caused. It doesn’t matter if we didn’t know better, we still caused it. And now, when we can afford to pay for it, we say ‘sorry, it’s golden years time’.
Biden fucked up the climate investment. Sure, it was a lot of dollars, but it was a lot of dollars going to the wrong places, because Biden cannot imagine a different path. He cannot imagine the kind of changes to the economy, to consumerism, to how we live that are necessary. The money that was committed was more than was needed and ¾ of it went not to the things that would matter, but to the things that his generation is culturally attached to. That’s not just my opinion, btw. So, 5 years, 10 years from now when we realize that investment didn’t work, and we need to make new investments, will the public support be there for several trillion more? Will we also pass that cost onto our kids rather than us paying it?
Young people aren’t asking us to solve their problems. They’re asking us to get the fuck out of the way so they can, because holy shit do we love to talk about self determination, but we’re gonna nanny the shit out of young people. I’m 55 and retired and I STILL get that treatment from boomers. I don’t think old people realize just how goddamn patronizing they sound – which really comes out of your comment.
I’m not arguing that young leaders shouldn’t benefit from older advisors – absolutely they should. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Shouldn’t future policy by shaped by the people that are most going to be affected by that policy, rather than the people that are least going to be affected?
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Damn good rant!
I think Obama really did have the instincts & personal inclinations that aligned very well w/ the younger Gen Xers through to the “Zellenials”. His multicultural upbringing in Hawaii & Indonesia, as well as social circles at Columbia, plus being African American, really afforded him experiences & perspectives that are still unique at the top echelon of political power in the US. However his temperament & philosophy was that of the steady technocratic reformer, & he did not seem to feel he could challenge the hardened orthodoxy in economic or foreign policy, except around the edges. In 2008, steady technocratic reformed seemed sufficient. Not any more.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: I don’t think they are either irrational or nihilist. But they are not immune from conflating the broad levels of antisemitism around the world from reasonable pushback against their policies because they are openly colonizing their neighbors. We don’t push back because they are Jewish, or because we hate Israel, we push back because the modern western order doesn’t tolerate colonialism.
But current Israel leadership will not accept that framing. They will always conflate that opposition to their colonist actions to antisemitism. Hell, AIPAC exists to formalize that action.
That’s neither irrational or nihilist, it’s just mistaken, and there are many political forces that benefit from that conflation, both here and abroad. And some of it due to the fact that Israel breaks the game theory dynamics that make nuclear deterrence work. That deterrence becomes stable when you have counterparties with comparable capability – even if it is as uneven as the US and North Korea. But Israel has no nuclear counterparty, which prevents stability from developing. I don’t wish, nor should others, for say, Iran to develop nukes, even if it would stabilize the situation, but barring that, some other mechanism needs to force that stability, and right now that force is the US, mostly by constantly stepping in and telling them they can take their hand off the button. That’s why we’re showing a ballistic missile sub and two carrier groups – so that Israel doesn’t feel like they need to show a nuke.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Israel actuating using a nuke, unless its very existence is threatened by a combined Arab-Iranian invasion, is irrational & nihilist. Such use would crater support from the West & make Israel a pariah. Israel cannot survive as a pariah.
One of the ministers in Bibi’s cabinet (not the much smaller War Cabinet) publicly mused a couple of days ago that dropping a nuke on Gaza is among the options to consider. He was rapidly suspended by Bibi, but then equally rapidly unsuspended due to pressure from Ben Gvir.
I could consider policies of Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Olmert,or even past Benyamin Netanyahu governments, as mistaken. The current government, I can’t be so charitable.
Yarrow
@Martin:
This is just dumb. We live in a democracy. When enough young people show up to vote and elect their fellow age cohort members then they can have the leadership positions and ability to make the laws. If the young people aren’t doing that then they aren’t serious about making the older people “get out of the way.”
Martin
@Yarrow: I’m gen X. It is numerically impossible for us to outvote boomers. That’s been literally my entire voting life.
Let’s try out a parallel version of your statement:
You want to own that version? Does it feel good when you read it out loud
I’ll be honest, I never expected a ‘tyranny of the majority, fuck yeah!’ argument here.
Yarrow
@Martin: There are way more millennials and GenZ combined to outvote any single older demographic group. I’m not going to bite where you edited my comment. You talked about young people now. I addressed that comment.
As for “tyranny of the majority,” that’s pretty much how voting works in our system. You win the majority of votes, you win the election. I guess that’s tyranny now.
Denali5
@Martin,
Thank you for your comments on the election. You are right – there is a systems that are failing. It is because of the tax structure; no one really wants to pay taxes and the rich love their tax cuts. Those in power want to keep it that way.
As for Israel and the Mideast, the wars and unrest have been ongoing for 60 years. It is too complicated for us to sort out.
Barry
Martin: “I’m gen X. It is numerically impossible for us to outvote boomers. That’s been literally my entire voting life.”
Would you like to discuss the actual situation, rather than a strawman?
Miss Bianca
@Martin: Jesus wept. I don’t see young people asking me to “get out of the way so they can fix the problems” – the ones I see are either bitching and mewling and spinning in circles and blaming everyone else for their problems as a way of *not* fixing them, *or* they are working on what they think is important and taking action without bothering to assign blame. I don’t see a lot of in-between, ymmv.
But talk about condescending. Every time you venture to talk about what Us Olds (and I’m not that much older than you, btw) should be doing – or not – you sound one step away from advocating that we all get shuffled off onto the (melting) ice floes. Maybe you’re picking up that attitude from the college students you’ve been around, but it’s not a great look.
StringOnAStick
@Miss Bianca: Thank you. I’m going to have to skip his posts from now on, his climate change doomerism pushed me right back into suicidal ideation and nightmares, when he skips all that can and is being accomplished by regenerative agriculture. The kind of social change he says must happen (or else!) would guarantee political losses and put The R’s in power at all levels, which will accelerate climate change since that’s The R policy. The only too cynical to care or vote people I know are his age group, and every college age friend is fired up and already working for political relevancy and change.