Here's how to watch Biden's news conference Thursday as he tries to quiet doubts after the debate https://t.co/TLMf4JVR0B
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 11, 2024
… When is the news conference?
Biden is scheduled to take questions from the White House press corps at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.Where is Biden speaking?
Biden will be speaking from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, a short distance from the White House, where many events of the ongoing NATO summit are being held.What channel is carrying it?
The White House streams much of its live content. Given the attention on this event, television networks could also break away from programming to carry Biden’s remarks live once he starts speaking.The Associated Press will offer a livestream at apnews.com.
Who will be watching?
Probably a lot of people.CNN reported that 51 million people watched the Atlanta debate, which was in primetime, while more than 8 million people tuned in to watch Biden’s ABC interview live. If networks break into their daily coverage or cable channels carry it live, that will guarantee a significant number of eyes on Biden…
Biden returns to the campaign trail with a trip to Michigan Friday. He will also do an interview with NBC on Monday.
Michigan:
Whitmer: We have a choice between Donald Trump for four years, which would be destruction of our economy, of our individual rights of our ability to grow manufacturing, which is all happened under Joe Biden. And Joe Biden. Until Joe Biden says otherwise he is our candidate pic.twitter.com/IVHxBhUcgi
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 11, 2024
MONDAY: President Joe Biden to sit down with @LesterHoltNBC in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
Watch the interview in its entirety on NBC and NBC News NOW on Monday, July 15 at 9 p.m. ET. pic.twitter.com/T0HIi7RDxS
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) July 10, 2024
What an amazing moment. The President of the AFL-CIO union gave President Biden a STRONG endorsement yesterday “You support working families, you've always had our back. We have your back.” Love this. Biden stands with hard working Americans! pic.twitter.com/NfjrW3dolv
— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) July 11, 2024
With all the fabricated stories coming out of CNN, MSNBC and The New York Times today, how many people know the AFL-CIO just reaffirmed their endorsement of Biden for president? https://t.co/t3yPL7abwy
— Ragnarok Lobster ?? (@eclecticbrotha) July 11, 2024
I think I owe Rikyrah a hat tip for this one…
So you’re just gonna steal democracy from us? We voted and we chose President Biden as our nominee. pic.twitter.com/GmQqpBVzip
— 2RawTooReal (@2RawTooReal) July 11, 2024
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
I love Kenny. Thanks for highlighting him, AL
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Good morning to you.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning! Gearing up for another day of battle. And the allies are all over it at the bird place. Where I’ll mostly be.
Right under that Whitmer tweet, first response:
CK14@palazzo214. 10h
Presidential candidate job qualifications by party.
Dems: outstanding character, intelligent and patriotic.
GOP: outstanding indictments, debt payments and court orders for subpoenas and legal filings
matt
When trying to make this point about Biden winning the primary I had pushback from a few people on liberal website (Eschaton comments) that since they didn’t get the competitive primary they wanted they don’t care that Biden was the duly chosen winner of the primary election. I really don’t understand how people who are nominally Democrats have this kind of shitty attitude about our elections
I guess the whole ‘Genocide Joe’ butthurt thing about US Israel policy really has a lot of people wavering in their commitment to free elections and welcoming interference by the media, which is disheartening.
No One of Consequence
SERENITY NOW!!!
8)
Morning all. Be kind to yourselves today.
Peace,
-NOoC
satby
@rikyrah: I retweet every one, not that he needs my help.
MazeDancer
Wonder if the press has thought of new ways to imitate George Stephanopoulos asking over and over “Why haven’t you dropped out, old man?”.
Or if they’re just going to go with the classics.
Though, nothing is weirder than Morning Joe saying on live American television that the Biden team thinks Barack Obama is quietly coordinating the media attack.
satby
@No One of Consequence: back at you too! 💙
satby
@MazeDancer: You watch so I don’t have to? Ugh, sometimes I wonder how they can even keep a straight face; they know they’re bullshitting the public.
Bupalos
@matt: It’s not cut and dried either way. It’s basically elite choice and intra-party strategizing that created the functionally choiceless primary, and everyone knows that. It’s a little off to use this “subverting democracy”language.
Fair Economist
Yes, the NYT definitely wants to steal democracy from us. Awful as trying to cancel the Democratic primary is, that’s still just a side show to attempt to put a dictator in power.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
matt
@Bupalos: yeah, I guess the idea of an incumbent president continuing to a second term is some kind of galaxy brained intellectual stretch for a lot of people. For me it’s a part of background information that’s so old as to be no longer controversial or strange, but I guess if you’re mad at it that wouldn’t be operative for ya.
Fair Economist
The primary would have been competitive had there been any interest in replacing Biden. Dean Phillips would have been fine if he weren’t trying to replace the best president of my life.
Butch
An interview with Lester Holt? I’m sorry but I’ll be otherwise engaged; the sock drawer is a mess and needs my attention.
geg6
Jesus Christ, when will this shit stop? I voted for Biden in the primary and that’s who I want as nominee. Period.
Starfish
@matt: Clinton seemed picked by the top of the party. Biden felt that way too. A lot of people thought he was going to run for one term only, and they were dismayed to see him running again AND with no one challenging him. There is all this talk of “Well, no one thought they could beat him,” but it very much feels like “you get the candidate we say you get.”
It is too late to be hashing all that out now, but the Democrats need to be running better primaries than they are.
Caveatimperator
@Fair Economist:
I still believe most of the rhetoric about a lack of competitive primary this year is barely disguised conspiracy theorizing about rigged primaries in 2020 and 2016.
Even though the primaries were absolutely fair.
Starfish
@geg6: I voted for Biden in the Democratic primary because some of the other candidates were weirdos, and other candidates were people I had never heard of.
geg6
@Bupalos:
Bullshit. There were three candidates listed on my primary ballot. No one else chose to run but those three people. I voted for Joe. The FTFNYT and the FTFWP and George Clooney and a bunch of assholes want to override my vote and decide for themselves what is “best” for me. If that isn’t anti-democratic, I don’t know what is.
Caveatimperator
@Starfish:
But Clinton wasn’t just hand picked. Otherwise she would have won in 2008. Obama was absolutely not the quote-unquote “establishment” candidate then and he still managed to win.
Clinton won more votes and more states in 2016. Go ahead and argue that she was the worse candidate, but the primary was a real election.
Josie
“Sweet Jesus….I see you!” Love this man and this message.
Bupalos
@MazeDancer: I think it’s nuts to think anyone is “coordinating” much of anything here, but the idea that there’s a subterranean war here with Biden and Obama on different sides seems probable.
Obama went with Clinton in 16 probably sticking to a deal. It would be odd if that didn’t have an afterlife. Obama’s silence has been deafening.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: Pie the Tony Hardings of the Democratic Party (h/t Odie Dee Hughmanatee) and you will know peace. You cannot make them see what they don’t want too see.
matt
@Starfish: Yeah, I don’t really understand or care about your bullshit that seems to come from a complete ignorance about the US itself, its elections and systems, and how they work
But I do find it interesting as a phenomenon I guess.
Caveatimperator
@geg6:
It’s not as though there haven’t been serious challenges to incumbents before. Ted Kennedy in 1980. Lyndon Johnson chose not to run in 1968.
Some of this fear about Biden’s health is very crackpot. Some are arguing that he suddenly declined in the last few months. But others are arguing that he’s been in bad health for years and there’s been a purposeful coverup.
geg6
@Starfish:
So that makes it okay to cancel my vote? Fuck off with that bullshit.
Caveatimperator
@Bupalos:
What silence?
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/obama-support-biden-debate-00165839
BR
I can’t imagine Obama running some covert op here rather than simply that he knows drama is bad and is making sure nothing he says gets leaked to the press. I can’t even believe people are discussing it.
Bupalos
@geg6: they aren’t choosing for you. They are withdrawing their support for Biden to be the nominee. Biden can do with that what he wants.
you can’t have it both ways. This is the same way the primary ballot got shaped. No, it’s not particularly democratic.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: The total disrespect for the nomination process and the voters is what irks me the most. Just because their favorite didn’t win in 2020 and 2016, now they blame the process itself. Not that different from the Orange One and his minions.
Old Hindi saying, when you don’t know how to dance you complain that the ground is tilted.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@No One of Consequence: Come sit by me!
@satby: You almost make me wish the bird place hadn’t banned me.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
I am anti-pieing. I want to know who the assholes are and what garbage they are spewing. I rarely reply to them though. But I’ve reached my limit for those who seem to think my vote doesn’t matter.
schrodingers_cat
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Make a new account.
Starfish
@geg6: I had several more candidates on my ballot than you did. These were the candidates:
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: Oh you can always toggle the pie to read their blatherings. Which I do at times.
The Thin Black Duke
@geg6: Agreed.
I’m done arguing with people who have already made up their minds. It’s exhausting and counter-productive.
This is old news now, so people need to either do the work or shut up.
Old Man Shadow
Four years of Trump?
Gov. Whitman is optimistic. I think if he burrows himself in there, he’s only leaving feet first on a gurney, and the Republican Supreme College of Cardinals will say it’s cool.
delphinium
“Biden is scheduled to take questions from the White House press corps at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.”
Ugh, what an odious bunch. Would love it if Senator Fetterman stood behind Biden during it; ready to jump over the podium and take one of those mofos down whenever a stupid question gets asked.
Starfish
@matt: Look, I am not sure why the commenters here have decided to radicalize themselves into “the party cannot be criticized,” but Obama’s election was the last one that felt like “Hey, this hasn’t been pre-ordained by some people who are out of touch.”
I did not say that I am not voting for Biden. I did not say that I really want a fantasy candidate to personally bring ice cream cones to my door. I said that I want the party to do better than it is doing.
Old Man Shadow
@geg6: We must destroy Democracy to save Democracy… like we saved all those villages with bombs…
kindness
@Starfish: Who are these ‘lot of people’ who proclaim Biden was only running for one term? I’m reasonably politically alert and I heard none of that. So why are you repeating Republican memes?
geg6
@Bupalos:
You seem to have a misunderstanding of what the democratic process is. I do not. We had a primary that any Dem that wanted to could choose to participate in, we voted and we chose Joe. Since I have actually studied politics, I think I have a better understanding of how it works than you obviously do.
Starfish
@The Thin Black Duke: These threads are ONLY arguments because people decide to declare people who are taking a slightly different position than they are as THE ENEMY. The behavior going on since the debate has been pretty exhausting, honestly.
schrodingers_cat
@The Thin Black Duke: I learned this early in my days on Indian political Twitter. BJP trolls will argue with you pointlessly with the same stock answers. The goal was to exhaust you and silence you.
Letting them stew in their own juices was the best.
Funny how all the Middle East foreign policy experts are now experts on geriartric medicine.
The Thin Black Duke
@Starfish: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask people not to amplify right-wing talking points. The boots on the ground are telling a different story, I don’t care how dreamy Dr. Ross is.
matt
@Starfish: Let me guess – Obama was your last first choice who won.
You know, just because I believe your criticism is dumb and comes from ignorance about how the USA works doesn’t mean I want to silence all criticism. You’re being a baby
And honestly, I don’t at all believe you that if you had gotten your dream candidate in the primary (who would have been crushed by the incumbent president), that you would be less of an entitled shit about not getting what you wanted.
moonbat
All the Morning Joe conspiracy theories sounds like another cheap effort to split the Democratic caucus. I can’t turn on facebook without an Obama ad begging me to donate to Joe’s campaign but sure, he’s trying to kneecap his own former VP and the man he calls brother.
Pull the other one.
TaMara
@rikyrah: He is my new spirit tweeter. I already follow him, but if I didn’t that alone would get him a follow.
Hildebrand
@Bupalos: I wonder if this stuff is floating to the surface because some of the most visible old Obama team are in the ‘dump Joe’ camp – the Obama bros, Axelrod (then again these folks haven’t exactly been pro-Biden throughout his term).
I always thought Obama and Biden got along, but I’m clearly no insider.
Bupalos
@Caveatimperator: the one between 6/27 and 7/14 when this whole thing has spun up.
I don’t know, no one knows. It’s definitely not ridiculous to think Obama prefers Biden go like his erstwhile advisors.
geg6
@moonbat:
Seriously. It’s ludicrous.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
Co-sign every word, including Jesus Christ and Period.
UncleEbeneezer
@Starfish: Hillary was popular enough with Dem voters to give Obama a real run for his money in 2008. By 2016 she was much better known than Bernie and had a stellar resume (Sec State) on the domestic and international stage. Of course she was going to be the presumptive favorite in 2016. That’s just simple math, not some DNC conspiracy bullshit. She earned that status, despite a thirty year smear campaign from FoxNews/Rush Limbaugh/Republicans.
What we are seeing right now is the predictable result of too many people on our side, pushing and buying into this DNC/Party Leaders Conspiracy bullshit. Assholes whining about Gore, Hillary, Biden being “forced upon us” need to STFU forever. It’s dumb. It was always dumb!
That conspiracy-minded bullshit needs to die in a fire and the people who’ve been spouting it for 24 years (and particularly from 2016-now) need to be held accountable for creating this mess.
Starfish
@kindness: Here is an article from the time. Biden didn’t say either way because he didn’t want to immediately become a lame duck at the beginning of his first term, but a lot of people did want him to say “Cool, I saved all you dummies” and them peace out after he was done. Only Balloon Juice is excited about re-hashing this Trump v Biden election in the year 2024.
Belafon
And they can return to said programming if Biden is answering questions in a competent manner because where’s the story in that?
Scamp Dog
@Bupalos: Except I keep seeing video ads of Obama asking me to donate to the Biden campaign, several times a day.
Now, for some internet O-bros it may be a different story, but I really doubt Obama himself is going to shiv Biden.
Belafon
@Starfish: Yeah, I wish Trump would drop out.
UncleEbeneezer
I know it doesn’t sound tasty but I encourage everyone to try some Starfish Pie this morning. I’m about to bake some now and I’d love if y’all would join me for a meal.
Layer8Problem
https://balloon-juice.com/2024/07/11/thursday-morning-open-thread-ridingwithbiden/#comment-9254949@starfish Um, who has? I mean screwed with the process.
BR
All I look forward to is that our long national nightmare is finally over, and then we can start a new nightmare.
sixthdoctor
I’m glad I won’t be watching the press conference live because even if Biden performed the sobriety test from The Man With Two Brains it wouldn’t be enough for them.
Layer8Problem
Dang, I need to talk with WaterGirl about Androids, Firefox, and feckin’ WordPress.
Caveatimperator
@UncleEbeneezer:
I have come to conclude that a ton of people on the progressive flank of the Democrats have a really poor understanding of the distinction between positions that are morally or economically better and positions that are politically popular.
Like it or not, they are a minority position in the party. They are welcome to argue that their views are better. And they’re right at least some of the time.
Clinton and Biden winning primaries is not a conspiracy and never was. It’s because they appeal to a larger percentage of primary voters, who are softer liberals and not so progressive.
The Thin Black Duke
@SiubhanDuinne: I think this is a battle between the remnants of the old school Blue Dogs still in the party and the new breed of Democrats. If Biden wins in spite of the ratfucking of the James Carvilles, Jon Stewarts and the fucking NYT, they become dinosaurs.
Soprano2
So a heads up, I see that the On Point radio show is going to cover Project 2025 this morning on their broadcast. I stream it at 9 a.m. Central Time when I listen to it, but I’m sure it’ll be on their Web site for listening later or in their podcast queue.
Belafon
@Starfish: Or he didn’t say it because he wasn’t thinking it and you keep wishing it were otherwise. Have you ever actually tried that thought?
TaMara
@The Thin Black Duke: This. And the folks who are screaming, “stop making us the enemy”, don’t seem to understand this and feel any pushback from those of us who support Biden and don’t live in fantasy land, as a personal attack on them. Not naming any names, but boy-howdy…
I rarely have time to read deep into the comments…but the last two days have been eye-opening. 👀
Starfish
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, the Republican Party had run a 30 year campaign against her. We had had two people from the Bush family as President. A lot of people were not excited about the presidency just being tossed about these two families, and yet the families had connections in the party and with donors so we got what we got.
At the point where there are candidates on the ballot, the people involved have to be building name recognition in all the states, have to navigate the process of getting all the ballots, etc. That takes a lot of organization and money.
And I know people are going to say “Oh, so you are a Berniestan,” but I am not. I just feel like there are people under the age of 70 who could make worthy candidates, and yet people are still listening to James Carville.
delphinium
@The Thin Black Duke: This is basically my thought as well, given who are the most vocal critics out there.
Belafon
@Starfish: One of the reasons I try not to make statements like this is because they might apply to me.
Bupalos
@geg6: MA in political theory UToronto … and that really has nothing to do with an opinion on the degree of democracy inherent in the party maneuvering involved in shaping a primary ballot and convincing candidates not to run. Or the party maneuvering involved in trying to convince a candidate to withdraw. That degree doesn’t matter, the point is they are the same kind of mechanism and you can’t call it out one place and not the other.
schrodingers_cat
@Caveatimperator: Truth they are not as popular as they think they are.
Slightly_peeved
@Starfish:
He was the candidate in 2020 because the base voted him in. People who think the 2020 primary was orchestrated by the DNC are saying more about themselves then the process.
TBone
Still gonna focus on the locus, and Tiedrich is with it today too. Love this guy.
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/lonely-dipshit-donald-trump-slept
🤩
Eolirin
@Starfish: The fuck you talking about.
Biden was picked by black voters. The top of the party had very little to do with it. It was a contentious primary and support didn’t coalesce until pretty late. Biden had serious donor and campaign issues because of it.
Clinton had a bruising primary against Sanders, and the voters rejected Sanders.
In neither case was there a lack of competition. And in neither case was that competition pushed out of the race through underhanded means. They lost.
Geminid
Next year’s Nato summit will be staged in the Netherlands, and it looks like the 2026 meeting will be in Turkiye. At least that’s what was announced yesterday. This will disappoint the many people who think Turkiye should be kicked out of the alliance, not hosting its summit. I’m more like, Istanbul or Ankara?
p.a.
Well goddamnit given what he’s accomplished let’s bottle this supposed ‘disability’ and inject it into every Dem pol. Along with a fucking backbone implant.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yet another excellent reason to vote for him! I’d be happy never again to see or hear a word from Carville or Stewart.
Caveatimperator
@Slightly_peeved:
One of my least favorite sentiments in politics is the belief that only voters who believe a certain way have any agency, and everyone else is just brainwashed.
“The DNC rigged the primary”, when you think about it, is a variant of this belief.
Eunicecycle
@sixthdoctor: the constantly moving goal posts irritates the shit out of me! First Biden has to do a rally to show he’s okay, which he did immediately after the debate! Well that wasn’t good enough because he used a teleprompter. It has to be UNSCRIPTED remarks. So he does that at another event, but it was only 90 seconds, so that’s not good enough. So he sits down for an unscripted interview where the interviewer asks him 10 different times isn’t he just too old? Maybe some of the answers weren’t the best, because he already answered the same damn question over and over! It’s just exhausting and yet no one is talking about Trump’s crazy rally remarks, his many appearances in the Epstein files, or his felony convictions. I am sick of all of it. Rant over.
RinaX
One thing that has been good this week is disproving the lie that Black voters are moving toward Trump. I don’t know anyone in my circle who isn’t heated about this week, including my very not politically engaged family members. Even they’ve noticed the relentless BS from the media about Biden.
schrodingers_cat
Biden Campaign is holding a series workshops on how to engage with online communities. Tonight is the first session.
Here is a link if you are interested.
Eolirin
I really hope that when Biden is giving his press conference today that he makes it clear that anyone asking him a question about his age instead of something related to the NATO summit will have their press credentials, and the press credentials for their organizations, permanently revoked or that’s all they’re going to be asking him.
The Thin Black Duke
@Eunicecycle: Yep.
Bottom line, no matter what we do, it will never never NEVER be good enough, so we might as well do what the fuck we want, because they’re unreliable narrators anyway.
Redshift
Colbert had a segment last night with footage of various congressional Dems being chased by reporters and replying “no comment” or more clever non-answers to questions about Biden. It was played for laughs, but I took it as positive, evidence they’ve finally figured out there’s no answer they can give that’s safe from being “interpreted.”
tam1MI
I have been following the discussions about Biden vs Trump over on a hobby forum I frequent. It has been heartening to see how much our arguments for keeping Biden and the points we have been making are reaching outside of Top 10,000 blogs and resonating. Keep up the good work, everyone! The message is getting through!
geg6
@Bupalos:
What you don’t get is that I and all the other Dem voters ARE the party. So the maneuvering is through the voters, not the party elites conspiring against us. Jesus. Get a fucking grip.
Omnes Omnibus
This documentary seems to be incorrect. Cute and graceful? I don’t think so.
kindness
It would be nice if Barak and Hillary did a quick spot saying:
I love Joe Biden. He’s the most successful President in my lifetime. I trust Joe Biden and his team. His team is awesome. And the beauty of that is that should something terrible happen to Joe Biden during his next term, his team will still be there carrying on the work for all of us and I support them wholly.
Probably could polish that up better but that’s the first draft.
Chris
@Starfish:
Ah yes, the one Politico article with four conveniently anonymous sources that was somehow spun into an entire genre of “Biden isn’t going to run again.”
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
Same.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Eunicecycle: I’ll be interested to see what happens at today’s press conference. I’m afraid they will ask the same question over and over because they know what answer they want and won’t stop until they get it. Obviously, that question is not going to be about NATO or student debt relief.
Soprano2
@MazeDancer: Which makes absolutely NO sense.
The Thin Black Duke
@RinaX: The MSM doesn’t talk to black people unless they’re athletes, movie stars or rappers who use their platform to mumble, “I’m just here to cash my paycheck and entertain white people.”
oldgold
Today’s news conference, unless it is a catastrophic event, is not going to change many, if any, minds.
Confirmation bias will cause individuals “Riden with Biden” to see strength and those urging him to stepdown will see weakness. The mushy middle {me} will remain mushy.
Over the last 24 hours, my sense of this as an observer, is that this is slowly, but with some modest acceleration, slipping away from Biden
UncleEbeneezer
@TaMara: They want the right to stir-shit without anyone being allowed to push-back on it. They are like petulant toddlers who go around picking fights and then claim they are the victims when someone punches them back or heaven-forbid, points out “hey this kid keeps starting fights” to the rest of the playground.
They get very angry when we highlight the fact that they are the same a-holes that went around pulling this shit in 2020, 2016…2000. They talk a big game about politics not being bean-bags and you gotta be willing to fight and play hardball, until the moment you point out that they seem more committed to dividing our coalition than anything else. It’s one of the reasons I will never consider them “loyal Dems” no matter how many times they (hold their nose and) vote for Dem candidates.
Mike R
@Eunicecycle: good rant a+
Soprano2
This is one of those things where people made up something they wanted to hear. As far as I’ve seen, Biden never said he was just running for one term. He said something about being a bridge to the next generation, and I think a lot of people took that as meaning he would only run for one term, but obviously that’s not what he said. These people who were so dismayed should have stood up their prefered candidate in the primary. As I’ve said several times, the time to have this discussion was two years ago, not five months before the election and two months before actual voting starts in some states.
Chief Oshkosh
@Starfish:
Then your feel-o-meter is off. Biden came out of retirement,, much to the then-chagrin of those party elders you seem to be invoking, had serious primary contenders his first round, and he kicked their asses (NB: I was a Warren fan).
Or do you mean THIS time around? You know, the one where Biden was a staggeringly successful incumbent and party leader and therefore didn’t have the same level of competition because he was (and is) so fucking good at his job? Is that the primary you’re talking about?
Just another summer soldier.
Slightly_peeved
@Caveatimperator:
The assumption that Biden’s support is an inch deep and that every Biden supporter will happily vote for another candidate seems to be another variant. When you look at who voted for Biden, and how many people who want Biden to resign don’t want Harris running… it isn’t a good look.
Soprano2
@Caveatimperator: Someone on here yesterday said that the 2020 primary was basically rigged by the Democratic PTB, even though we had over 10 valid candidates running! That’s some powerful conspiracy brain thinking.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: I’ll be at work but it would be awesome if someone could attend and share highlights/summary with a Front-Pager (probably AL or WG)
Geminid
@oldgold: I think you should watch the press conference and the response before you pronounce on its impact.
geg6
@UncleEbeneezer:
Exactly.
Belafon
@kindness: What if they did a spot that said “Get it together. This election is about the future of America, and the future of your children and grandchildren. Are you going to let a tyrant win because of 20 minutes in a debate or are you going to reject the attempt to to turn us into an authoritarian hellscape?”
Layer8Problem
My sense of this as an observer over a period of weeks is that we’re being played and that the same people previously disappointed by Biden are disappointed even more, to go with the media framing and the totally unscripted New Trolls.
The Thin Black Duke
@UncleEbeneezer: I think they underestimate how much regular folks appreciate a compelling “David vs Goliath” story, and POC, women pissed off about Dobbs, and everyone else living in the margins of White America just gave Biden a damned big rock to put in his slingshot.
kindness
@Starfish: That article you link to is a think piece by a single Slate writer. And it’s the writer saying Joe should only run for one term, no one from Joe’s camp did so. But I figure you already knew that and decided to just spread your offal. Dude…..
@Belafon: Polishing the piece greatly accepted.
M31
lol in the comments to that first tweet is the following gem:
“If Taylor Swift comes out for RFK Jr. tomorrow, it’s a done deal.”
lol I mean, there’s delusion, and then there’s delusion.
Mike E
@moonbat: heh, Morning Joe is sort of like Bill Kristol and Lincoln Project: they have stretches of rational rhetoric but when push comes to shove their repub/con roots bulge out.
Soprano2
There were over 10 legitimate candidates in the primaries in 2020. Why do you think that was “pre-ordained”?
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Heh. Nicely done.
Scout211
FYI, perusing the political news this morning, there are numerous articles now that are amplifying a right wing attack on the media for willingly “covering up Biden’s cognitive decline.” The Trump MAGA crew (like Stephen Miller) have declared it a “conspiracy” and are blaming the media.
We blame the media, they blame the media. Is this really the fight we want?
So we may want to think about moving on from the focus on how the media reports on Biden and (like this great front page post by AL) focus more on how horrible Trump and his next reign of terror would be.
Just a thought. YMMV.
ETA for clarity.
BR
Apparently the one story in the NYT that they seem to have forgotten Biden exists for: the story that inflation is now under control.
M31
Twitter has become such a cesspool, and not just the Nazi content. As far as I can tell, after every political post, there is a deluge of ads for T-shirts with various slogans.
Seems like bots have figured out they can pump this shit into every political comment, and maybe get some suckers to order T-shirts, which I assume are just dropshipped from China on demand, so no overhead for the spambots.
NotMax
Dollars to doughnuts at least one numbskull will ask:
“Why are you afraid to play a round of golf with Trump?”
UncleEbeneezer
@The Thin Black Duke: They are also happy to throw a microphone in front of any of the rare, black Trump-voters they stumble across.
Eyeroller
@Hildebrand: I would be shocked if Obama were personally involved in this ratfucking and I doubt it very much. I would not be the least bit surprised if his “crew” were behind it. There seems to be ample evidence emerging that they always hated Biden for some reason. They (Axelrod and the Oboys) were among the first out of the gate with “more in sorrow than in anger” long editorials and podcasts about how Biden Must Go. They have lots of media contacts. They could well have been among the most prominent of those “Democrats” texting the CNN panel the night of the debate. They have the ear of big donors, especially those like Clooney.
Fuck, why do we need Russians when we have our own bunch of traitors. I can’t imagine a motive but it seems clear that somebody is orchestrating this. The Obama crew are all rich white men so may be thinking only about how this is their big chance to shiv their hated rival.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: That was great.
Also love the AFL-CIO clip.
The Thin Black Duke
@UncleEbeneezer: As the great Gil Scott-Heron said, “It follows a scheme, if you dig what I mean.”
Omnes Omnibus
(emphasis added) Yes, your status as a disinterested observer is legendary.
Soprano2
@TaMara: I find it pretty sad, actually, to see people who usually agree about most things attacking each other over this. I try hard not to make it personal or attack people in that way, but it’s been hard to keep to that the past few days. I wish we could all agree to disagree and get on with the real job, which is beating TCFG. I know people are terrified; I’m a white woman in a red state with plenty of money, so I’ll be relatively safe no matter what happens. I can’t imagine the terror of people of color, non-Christians, and LBGTQ+ people if TCFG wins and becomes president again.
p.a.
Electorally, I don’t see any better option than Joe. I don’t see any upside to discussing any option besides Biden. If the ‘change in midstream’ Dems have access to good polls with disastrous numbers, they should fucking come out with them publicly: we’re not Republicans; the Democratic Party is a democratic party.
As for governing, his health is unimportant. The team has proven to be fantastic. How much credit to Joe as a long-time Washington pol? IDK. There’s been quite a history of US presidents being not tip-top: from Lincoln’s depression (melancholia at the time) attacks during an actual Civil War, Wilson’s (*spits*) team running things after his stroke, Ronzo’s (*spits*) team doing just as much damage while he was Alzheimered-out as the affable dope could have done if he were functional. And Kamala will be a fine replacement if it comes to that after Biden gets reelected.
The Thin Black Duke
@Eyeroller: And an added bonus is their white privilege will enable them to survive (for a while, anyway) the disastrous consequences of their treachery.
zhena gogolia
@geg6: I don’t pie either.
geg6
@Soprano2:
He has an MA in poli sci from a Canadian university, so he is an expert in American politics, don’t you know. Whereas those of us who have studied poli sci here in the USA are ignorant of the scheming and perfidy of the Democratic party. We all just dupes apparently.
Mike E
@matt: seconded
Geminid
@Eyeroller: Axelrod and the O-bros suffer from Sour Grapes Syndrome. They used to be insiders, and now they are on the outside looking in.
schrodingers_cat
@UncleEbeneezer: Its at 8pm tonight. That website is not working properly, they must be getting a lot of traffic.
narya
@The Thin Black Duke: I decided about five years ago that one of the ways I could be an ally was to STFU and listen to black voters, especially black women. Through this whole mess, those are the voters whose voices I’ve been searching out
ETA: I say this not to pat myself on the back but to highlight the excellence of what I’ve heard; I get a perspective that is much more relevant than the white-bro blather.
BR
Regardless of what camp you’re in, I think we can all recognize that the media is doing to Biden what they did to Clinton in 2016. The election is being framed as a referendum on Biden whose faults are amplified a millionfold compared to the alternative.
Belafon
@Eyeroller: One out of every three youtube ads that reach me from Biden, and another one out of three is Obama supporting Biden. So, yeah, it’s not Obama that’s an issue.
No One of Consequence
@sixthdoctor:
Man, those European Drunk Driving tests are hard…
Love this comment, cuz I remember vividly that scene.
-NOoC
Shalimar
There are hours of video each week of Biden speaking contemporaneously and making far more sense than Trump ever does. Why are media still focused on the one hour a few weeks ago where he was a little slow answering questions correctly?
M31
If Taylor Swift comes out for Mayor McCheese tomorrow, it’s a done deal.
Belafon
For the rest of the campaign, I think the pie filter should be shifted to a Project2025 filter, and have it randomly show things we should really be angry about.
Mike E
@zhena gogolia: okay but please, for the love of Dog, quit engaging with bupalos the vampire troll and oldtroll I MEAN oldgold
schrodingers_cat
@M31: A curated feed is less of a cesspool than BJ comments over the last 3 days. You follow people you like and block the people who are annoying.
Redshift
My sense of this as an observer is that the nonsense has peaked and the feeding frenzy won’t survive the Republican convention and then the Olympics sucking up all the news oxygen. Democrats are (reasonably) anxious for multiple reasons, but I’ve seen zero evidence any of this translates into people not voting. (And voting or not is what matters, there’s even less evidence anyone is changing who they’re voting for.)
BR
@Shalimar:
There’s a saying that news is something that doesn’t happen often.
Dog bites man, Trump spews nonsense — not news, because it happens all the time.
Man bites dog, Democrat is a bit incoherent — news, because it doesn’t happen all the time.
Same for why people will always think crime is going up because when crime is rare it’s in the news and when it’s common everyone knows it’s common.
Captain C
@Geminid:
Which one has more cats to pet?
M31
so at tonight’s press conference, Biden will be flanked by Fetterman, Major, Commander, Gritty, and CornPop Jr. just in case there are any dumbass questions,
SURVEY SAYS, “MALARKY” — get him, Commander. Next question?
Eyeroller
@Belafon: It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Obama would do this publicly while working against Biden behind the scenes; I am just extremely doubtful he would do that. His former employees, OTOH, I don’t trust at all. I think Geminid’s mention of sour grapes is part of it, but it seems to be much deeper than that and very personal.
BR
@M31:
I do like this new vibe of Fetterman as Biden’s anger translator.
geg6
@M31:
Now, that I would watch! LOL!
different-church-lady
Can I just remind some of the knuckleheads on this thread that the man won a primary where he wasn’t even listed on the ballot?
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Is he paid for the nonsense he spews here or is it a labor of love? The most prolific BJP IT trolls are paid.
BR
@Eyeroller:
I bet Biden and the Obama aides butted heads more than once during Obama’s two terms, and all involved have pretty sizeable egos so they could be nursing bruises from that.
M31
@schrodingers_cat:
oh yeah, my actual twitter feed is totally fine, it’s just if I scroll down any post by an official account like BidenHarrisHQ or whatever the nazis and the tshirt hawkers appear, though in those official accounts there is also lots of fed-up Dem pushback, which is good to see, but I just hang out with my nerd buddies and never hit the “For You” feed, that’s toxic
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: I think that with the O’bros, at least, there is an element of being self-consciously cooler than Biden. Biden is earnest and wears his heart on his sleeve. I am sure that they made jokes about him behind his back when he was VP.
schrodingers_cat
Bros of the media think that no one likes Biden and his primary voters will vote for anyone with a D after their name. The last time we saw this phenonmena was in 2020. We were all supposed to bend the knee for you know who.
Jackie
@delphinium:
Per MSNBC, it’s being pushed back to 6:30 ET due to “NATO something or other.”
Press conferences rarely begin on time, at any rate.
different-church-lady
@Scout211: Well, it’s definitely true we have to do more than blame the media. We have to work the media. (The ‘we’ being collective, because there’s nothing huge any of us on this site can do about that.)
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: Agreed, and I would add to that a healthy dollop of Privileged White Male Syndrome, which means they know better than everyone else. It’s a toxic mix.
geg6
@Eyeroller:
They never liked or supported him like they should have. I would guess this dates back to the Obama years. Axelrod has been a total asshole for years now and I never was a fan of the O Bros. Listened to them once and was not impressed or even entertained. I’m so pissed that I’m going to have to watch one of them compete on my favorite guilty pleasure show this fall. I hope he’s the first one voted off the island.
Bupalos
@geg6: you are engaging in a different argument. Without addressing the question of how democratic it is for bigwigs to :
pressure candidates not to declare for a primary or support them entering a primary
or
pressure them to withdraw from a campaign or support them remaining
These are the same things and represent the same kind of “disenfranchisement” or “stealing of democracy” or whatever 2016 Berniestans on the one hand or you on the other want to shout. I disagree with both, and they’re the same position. No one disenfranchised you or “throws away your vote” by carping at Biden to retire or threatening not to donate to him or writing an op-Ed. You voted. You gave him those delegates. That’s what you were voting for. He can do what he wants. Others can say and do what they want and are even allowed to ask him to step aside and that has nothing to do with your vote. Your line here is equivalent to “you’re depriving me of my first amendment rights here by disagreeing.”
BlueDWarrior
@schrodingers_cat: which is what I said last night. This feels like the 2016 and 2020 primaries with how they are the kingmakers and everyone else will inevitably fall in line no questions asked.
It’s the arrogance that galls me.
Mike E
@Redshift: it’s how our social media habits have us doomlooping on the daily even though most of us are old enough with ample experience on how election cycles work to know that two weeks is a mere jerk of the chain…this psyop is pretty desperate and as you point out upcoming events will choke off the oxygen thats feeding people’s hair-on-fire reactions to such obvious manipulation. Everybody, seriously, calm the fuck down.
geg6
@Bupalos:
And your evidence of this happening?
MinuteMan
That would be Obama’s way though maybe I’ve missed the evidence against it: his forceful, public support for his former VP?
schrodingers_cat
@BlueDWarrior: Its coming from the same quarters in the comment section here as well.
Chris
@Eolirin:
Yeah, the idea that Biden and Clinton are somehow the choice of the party elites has always been more than slightly ridiculous, and based more in motivated reasoning from people who didn’t want them than anything else. Hillary Clinton was Official Washington’s favorite punching back all through the nineties and 2000s, and people were swooning over a possible Obama candidacy from the moment he gave that convention speech in 2004. “Party elites” preferred her to Sanders in 2016, but that had at least as much to do with Sanders’ electoral chances and failure to play well with others as it did Clinton. As for Biden, nobody took him seriously until 2020.
Shalimar
@oldgold: My sense is that the New York Times and other outlets who keep trying to accelerate this are losing more and more subscribers by the day.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: That is my question as well.
different-church-lady
@Chris: It also had something to with the fact that Sanders’ candidacy was the political equivalent of a hostile corporate takeover attempt.
Bupalos
@geg6: I have an undergrad degree in polisci and history in the States. And trying to pull credentials on the internet is straight trash yo.
you aren’t being disenfranchised or having your vote stolen by people disagreeing and asking Biden to step aside. No one needs a degree in anything to understand that.
Soprano2
@Scout211: It stuns me that they aren’t covering how incoherent TCFG is now when he talks at his rallies. If they’re truly concerned about the president being sharp cognitively, perhaps they should examine the other candidate who’s running for that also. I think this is how we know that’s not their true concern.
BR
I see the thread has turned into griping about Sanders. Whatever we might say about him and especially his fans, he’s been rock solid for Biden throughout this whole storm. It’s not what I would have expected, but he has repeatedly shouted down the press who have challenged him about Biden.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Like the R party’s takeover by mouth breathers of the Tea party which became the T party of 2016.
I smell borscht and caviar.
BR
@Soprano2:
I think it’s what I wrote above: it’s not “news” by the definition of “something that rarely happens”.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: ”Eh, he’s always been like that.”
schrodingers_cat
@BR: Agreed BS, EW have behaved far better than the other losing presidential candidates like Ryan and Benet in the past two weeks. Their followers on the other hand..
different-church-lady
@BR: Bernie learned from 2016. His fan club didn’t.
Redshift
@schrodingers_cat:
Exactly. Stay on the”following” tab and stay away from the algorithmic “for you” and it’s generally fine. I’m only on there for science and Ukraine accounts that haven’t migrated elsewhere, and it’s quite manageable.
Geminid
@Captain C: Istanbul has more cats, but Ankara’s cats are floofier. Ankara used to be called Angora and was known for its long-haired cats and goats. Now it’s a modern city with over 4 million residents.
UncleEbeneezer
@M31: Twitter has always had a huge problem with tons of Nazis, trolls, and bots. Elon Musk taking it over, the war in Gaza, the election season/debate. At each step there’s been noticeably more. Now it’s to the point where it’s really hard to find any new accounts to follow that seem real. It’s damn near impossible to find reliable voices on any contentious issue that don’t have some sketchy stuff just below the surface if you look at the posts/history.
Soprano2
@BR: I saw that, and figure it’ll be buried on page A30 and at the bottom of the Web page. The top of the WaPo page is all about how Democrats want Biden to drop out, then the next story down is about inflation “easing”. The top story about Biden needing to drop out that says the majority of Democrats want him to drop out but also says the polling of the race shows them even! I wonder, do any of the people polled understand all of the difficulties that would come with Biden dropping out? I doubt it.
rikyrah
@UncleEbeneezer:
I was the only person in my Black family who actually believed in Obama in 2007, and he was our State’s Senator. Black people have to be shown that Obama could get White votes . That’s why he had to go all in for the Iowa Caucus.
Black people are not ‘aspirational’ with their votes. They are brutally pragmatic. But, after Obama won, they could finally mix aspirational with pragmatism.
In 2016, all had been healed with Hillary. Her stint as Secretary of State smoothed over whatever bad feelings had been left from the 2008 Primary. Black people never considered the Orange Menace a joke.
In 2020, Black Primary Voter had one goal and one goal only:
DEFEAT DONALD TRUMP
Having PhD’s in White folk, they believed that the only person who could beat him was another Old White Man. They had nothing against Kamala Harris., but 2020 was not a time to be ‘aspirational’. It was a time to be logical. And whatever instrument could be used to achieve the goal of no more Trump was it.
The Bernie Bros are mad that Black folks stopped him in 2016 and 2020. They are still bitter about it.
Redshift
@schrodingers_cat: The Bennett thing reminded me of the old quote (can’t remember from who) about how the Senate is full of people who really believe they could be president.
Eyeroller
@BR: Bernie was quick to support Biden. Props.
I really need to get back to work, but I just saw that reporters attending the NATO summit shouted questions at Biden about George Ratfucking Clooney for a solid minute and Biden just laughed in their faces.
Even better, polls are moving up for Biden, even after two weeks of the worst assault many political pros have ever seen.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: YES! There is a major “Biden is cringe” energy with them and their cool-kid, progressive cohorts.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: I am not black but they are the closest voting demographic I am in alignment with. They are pragmatic and non-ideological
The white privilege on display on the pages of NYT and WashPost and other MSM outlets is blinding. Its like the white privilege has gone supernova, that it is even obvious to someone like me who is not black and was not born here
eclare
@geg6:
Preach!
Redshift
@UncleEbeneezer: That’s fair. If I didn’t already follow a bunch of accounts, it would be much harder to get started than it used to be.
Raoul Paste
@M31: The addition of Gritty and CornPop Jr. to the lineup gave me a smile. Well done.
rikyrah
@geg6:
Tell it
The Thin Black Duke
@geg6: Why are you arguing with Colin?
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
Love it! Agree with the rest of what you said, too.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: My wife just cancelled our WP subscription because of that ridiculous headline. I told her to make sure she tells them why.
Eolirin
@p.a.: There has been exactly zero reporting on any functional issues related to Biden’s age. Not a single story about him getting confused in a cabinet meeting, or being unable to make a timely decision or saying things that staff had to ignore because it was crazy or disconnected from reality.
None.
So his health isn’t even in question. Just his “vitality” whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.
Meanwhile we have tons of such stories about Trump being functionally incapable of doing the very basics of Presidenting from his first term.
Again, everything about this is fucking stupid.
RevRick
@Starfish: That’s not how it works. There isn’t some hidden conspiracy to maneuver a desired outcome. Candidates self nominate. So they calculate the opportunities, the costs, and chances. On the basis of those calculations they make a run/don’t run decision.
There wasn’t much of a primary to meet your satisfaction, because every serious potential candidate made the decision that it just wasn’t worth it to run against President Biden. They all calculated that it would be a fool’s errand.
Chris
@Soprano2:
I’ve been checking the websites just to see what the top articles are, and is it me, or has the Washington Post been, if anything, even worse than the New York Times? I feel like there’ve been more times I’ve gone in and seen something other than “Biden’s Old” as the front page story on the NYT than on the WaPo. Not that either of them is exactly distinguishing themselves.
geg6
@BR:
Totally agree. Bernie has been stellar through all of this garbage.
Geminid
@Belafon: I would like to see the pie filter feature an image of General Pie. That would be William Bracket Allen (1818-1899), who migrated to the newly-created Arizona Territory in search of gold.
Allen was a washout as a prospector, but he found success in Tuscon turning dried apples, flour and lard into delicious pies and selling them for a dollar each. Allen went on to open general stores and a dairy, and served several terms in the territorial legislature and two terms Tuscon Mayor, but people kept calling him “Pie Allen.”
Then in 1877, Allen was appointed Adjutant General of the territorial militia, and Arizonans promoted him to “General Pie.”
different-church-lady
@Chris: I suspect the new masthead at the WaPo has something to do with it.
RevRick
@Eolirin: Our nation could easily manage a President Biden reduced to drooling insensibility. It cannot survive a Trump fascist regime.
BlueDWarrior
@Soprano2: if I were an alien reading the news, I’d believe that the whole adult America was having a mass schizoid episode.
I was rewatching Morning Joe (the clarity of hearing someone as boomer-pilled as Joe talking works on me to sharpen my own thoughts), and they all seemed thoroughly confused. Like you could really hear them thinking out loud on how to square the circle.
Soprano2
@Eyeroller: I listen to Pod Save America all the time, and I have to say I was stunned by their sudden shiving of Biden. I wouldn’t say they were hugely excited about him running for re-election, but I also didn’t get the sense that they actively disliked him. They talked all the time about the good things he’s gotten done and how horrible TCFG is, and they had on guests who talked about the good things Biden’s done too. I am frankly shocked that they are still doing this, because they should know better. It does seem to point to some kind of personal unhappiness about him or dislike of him.
eclare
@Redshift:
My rep was in the montage! He was the one who was asked “are you on the same page?” And he replied, “not the same book.”
I called his office two days ago to tell him thst I hope he stands with Joe. I suspect he will, this is a majority minority CD.
different-church-lady
@BlueDWarrior: Are we sure aliens aren’t manipulating the news, a la “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”?
MazeDancer
Have been wondering how many subscribers the NY Times lost.
Answer is in this new Editorial Board headline:
If they start n on the Epstein Files, we know they’re in a panic
The Thin Black Duke
@different-church-lady: More like John Carpenter’s “They Live”.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: ”Craven” is the word of the month.
BlueDWarrior
@rikyrah: and just to piggy back on this sentiment, you can really tell who in mew media has contacts and ‘gets’ POC Democrats and who don’t. Most of the online podcasters who are doom-spiraling basically aren’t talking to many persons of color at all.
Seriously talk to a few Millennial AKAs, they’ll get you right.
eclare
@kindness:
I would include the Big Dog, too. He left office with something like 68% approval.
different-church-lady
@MazeDancer: I mean, it’s so sweet of them to remember there’s another candidate.
Mousebumples
I just rewatched the Parks and Rec episode where Leslie Knope (Poehler) meets Veep Biden. I figure Biden probably got a kick out of that.
https://youtu.be/rXNDKeVcwf4?si=Y7QP7kenkYUBDbIO
UncleEbeneezer
@Redshift: I tried to seek out new/alternative voices on I/P and Anti-Semitism than most of my extremist-Free-Palestine social circle. I’ve gotten more than enough of the protestors perspectives and wanted to get some reasonable perspectives from the other side. And DAMN is it hard to find people/groups that argue in good faith that don’t look suspiciously like fake/bot accounts or have some gross Islamophobia/borderline-MAGA sentiments once you drill down a bit. Same problem with the other side too. Scratch a FreePalestine account and it feels like 75% of the time, in about five minutes I’m reading some shit that is uncomfortably close to blatant Anti-Semitism/borderline-MAGA sentiments. So many bad actors. And I suspect a lot of that is pushed by Russia, China, Iran etc. It’s all a part of Bannon’s “flood the info landscape with shit” strategy. And it’s really made social media a complete mess.
Citizen Alan
@Starfish: In 2016, who other than Joe Biden, would have been a credible opponent to Hillary Clinton? Seriously, Biden was obama’s vice president and he chose not to run because of the recent death of his son. Hillary was the person who almost beat Obama in 2008, who served with success as his Secretary of State, who among democrats had been next after Joe in the line of presidential succession, and who had polled as the most Admired woman in the world for something like ten years in a row before Michelle Obama knocked her down to second. No one ran against her because no one thought they could beat her. O’malley was really running to be her vice president and didn’t do well enough to earn that. And Bernie started off as running just to put focus on progressive causes only to become The Darling of the proto-tankies.
different-church-lady
@BlueDWarrior:
Do they know any?
Other MJS
@rikyrah: Guys like Clooney have enough clout to (privately!) have the ears of prominent Dems. Going public means “I know better than you and I’m gonna try to take the wheel.” Eff him.
geg6
@The Thin Black Duke:
Never watched that show but maybe I’ll start based on that. LOL!
I’m off to my session of my professional organization’s virtual national conference. Just wanted to get my licks in while feeling feisty this nice, cool morning.
BlueDWarrior
@MazeDancer: a reporter said that was already in the oven before the debate. I think someone called in from marketing and said they were bleeding subs the last two weeks.
eclare
@Soprano2:
Right…and Clyburn kept his powder dry for the big surprise!
Good gawd, that was a huge, diverse group of excellent candidates.
JML
@geg6: there always a crew from an administration or campaign that act as the guardians of the flame after their time is done to keep polishing the resume, who care about trying to have the legacy seen in the best ways possible. They will keep working the refs until they die to position their guy as being the bestest boy, even if it means dirtying up whomever came afterwards, especially if the next one isn’t being properly reverential and/or deferential in their minds. It’s not unusual, especially because it keeps those people paid a lot of time and it enhances their own reps by association.
It’s going to happen with those presidencies where there was a tight inner circle or the Big Boss was especially loved and/or popular. We’ve seen this with JFK, Reagan, Clinton, Obama. It also happens when the campaign is perceived as being brilliant/revolutionary/exceptional in some way.
Doesn’t mean it’s ok the kind of BS that Axe and some of the Obama Bros are pedaling but it’s not much of a surprise. I wish the media was better at recognizing the motivations of the people they quote and how much nonsense flows when they go to the usual suspects. But the political media here is really really bad right now: insular, isolated, easily manipulated by sources, and consistently has pre-determined narratives.
Also, Biden should counter the “golf challenge” with a bike race, LOL.
different-church-lady
@BlueDWarrior: So you can get 165 articles about a Biden crackup packed and shipped overnight, but your one editorial about Trump takes months? Sure.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: They are here in this thread eating pie.
Eolirin
@RevRick: Even though that’s true, I still think we should be rejecting the framing that that’s what’s being talked about.
It isn’t. None of that kind of thing is being raised as an issue.
Literally all of the commentary here is about how he’s a little slower and comes across as frail and not about any kind of functional impairment. We jump from looks like an old person to insinuations about a potential effect on functional performance. But there’s never any evidence of one being provided. If we keep letting them get away with that sleight of hand it’s bad.
It’s the same as the Hillary is crooked smear. It becomes about vibes rather than anything specific or definable and you can’t reason with vibes that are disconnected from reality.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: It’s especially sad because despite them being way more enamored with Progressivism than I am (I would often roll my eyes at their worship of Bernie and The Squad) they seemed well aware of ratfucking attempts to divide our coalition, and even were great at warning people not to fall for them in 2020 and 2022.
I stopped listening a while ago but, just curious, how has Dan Pfeiffer been on all of this? He seems the most self-aware, stable and the one least likely to panic, of the bunch.
cain
@delphinium: Senator Fetterman as the intermediary anger translator would be good. Use his height for good effect.
Omnes Omnibus
@JML:
Brilliant.
Jeffro
@kindness: I would love to see a message like that, too!
Something straight from President Biden: “I get the concerns, but perhaps everyone needs a reminder: a president is a figurehead for a coalition of interests. A symbol of which values you want guiding our country for the next four years.
Here are my values…
Here are Donald trump’s values…
I am staying in this race, I’m staying in to win, and I will win. But it’s not just me: I have an EXCELLENT team with me, starting with Vice President Harris. That team is coming with me. Those values are coming with me.
The forces of darkness are gathering in this country. They’re openly talking about rounding up millions of American citizens. They’re openly planning to prevent women from accessing abortion care, IVF treatments, and even contraception.
They plan on putting even more extreme judges into the federal courts. They plan on making Donald trump IMMUNE – now, then, and forever – to the very laws that the rest of us follow and are guided by.
They MUST be stopped. And I will stop them…me, and my team, and our Democratic values.”
and so on
chemiclord
@matt: A lot of Dems get really pissy when democracy doesn’t go their chosen way. Any given election, about 10% of primary voters bail on the general election when their chosen candidate doesn’t win the primary.
Leto
@Mousebumples: I’m pretty sure that I saw when he was elected, some talk of trying to get them back together for an in universe update. Don’t quote me on that though! But I always liked that episode :)
Chris
@Eolirin:
And for all the people screaming “they’ve been covering it up;”
For fuck’s sake, LOOK at this media environment! LOOK at this political environment! If there were some cabinet meeting where Biden randomly started babbling about sharks and laser beams, mistook Kamala Harris for Madeleine Albright, and then passed out on the table, are you seriously claiming there’s even one chance in a million that that could have been covered up? Not a single gossipy aide, not a single cabinet member anxious to distance himself, not even a single sincerely concerned public servant, would’ve leaked it to the press? What fucking universe do you think Washington DC is in?
“Biden had a bad night” remains by far the Occam’s Razor.
eclare
@M31:
LOL!
M31
@Mousebumples: “He’s precious cargo!!!!”
hahahahaha
Uncle Cosmo
The only thing you are in any position to “observe” is the lining of your colon – and then only if you shoved a flashlight in there beside your head.
You, a certain poseur whose “masters” in “political theory” from a Can-Eh-Jen university doesn’t even qualify him for assembly-line work, and a gaggle of other imbeciles yammering on this blog might seriously consider whether your best chance to make the world a better place is to leave it ASAP. The rest of us can and will win this thing
withoutdespite you.Mousebumples
@Leto: I just watched this clip –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=covgLZQY9oQ&pp=ygUTQmlkZW4gcGFya3MgYW5kIHJlYw%3D%3D
It’s a much longer compilation of the various Biden references throughout the series. They have Joe and Jill with Leslie and Ben in “2025”… So might need to wait until Biden’s next term…
JML
@Jeffro: the fact that a president is in reality something of a figurehead may be true, but it’s not something you can state. People still think of the president as being actively involved in all decisions of government at all times, even though that’s both wrong and stupid. Strong presidencies in this era build good teams and delegate authority effectively to competent people who don’t overstep and can operate effectively with broad guidance rather than micromanagement. But the concept of the President personally directing every significant decision as it happens is a hard image to get away from (especially when you have the GOP out running around promoting the concept of the unitary executive, etc).
Positioning himself as a figurehead at the top of the pyramid would be perceived as weakness and a sign of unfitness by our deeply stupid media.
Mousebumples
@M31: I figured it might be a nice timeline cleanse for those of us ridin’ with Biden.
Eolirin
@Chris: Not to mention all the fundraisers, campaign events or meetings with foreign politicians. The cover-up would require thousands of people being in on it. It’s completely implausible.
Captain C
@Eyeroller: I think many people like it when a President stands up for himself (and better yet, his party); it’s a signal that he’ll stand up for them if crunch time comes. Biden standing up to elites (like the FTFNYT) is especially good, and he doesn’t have to worry as much about being tagged “shrill,” and not at all an “angry Black man.”
This is one of the things that cost Kerry the election, I think. A short sharp attack on the Swift Boat liars would have been much more helpful than trying to ignore them.
UncleEbeneezer
@eclare: I made a spreadsheet with all the candidates, listing their positions on every issue, for my Indivisible group, early on in the Primary*. After a couple months I gave up because really there was almost no meaningful difference between the majority of them. Bernie, Warren, Buttigieg, Harris, Klobuchar, Gillibrand etc. The differences were almost trivial, imo. All of them were a billion x better than Trump, and far more Progressive than I would’ve thought possible, as recently as 2008. We were all arguing about the tiniest of policy differences. It was so silly. Aside from Bennet, Bloomberg, Moulton and a couple others (who I still would’ve supported) I would’ve been thrilled with any of them.
* Biden was so far out of the conversation that I hesitated to even add him to the spreadsheet. Which undercuts any notion that the Party!!1! was always intent on forcing him down our throats.
cain
@Starfish: that’s not really what this faction thinks. If people are getting pie’d it is because they are creating anxiety.
What people are angry about is a clear pattern of the DC corps/NYT creating a media frenzy to boot a duly elected candidate. It was voted on – regardless of the manner of how they came to be. You’re focusing on the weakness of a primary that produced an old guy – the old guy did something different than the other people – he woo’d and got support from black women and they came out. He’s the primary person because his accomplishments for 4 years have been strong. There has been no cognitive issues that anybody can say here. Yes, he’s old – we knew that 4 years ago. Hes’ older, and slower – but he still punked the shit out of the GOP every SOTU. Why do we keep forgetting all this?
All of you are reacting to polls, and the media frenzy – but we’ve seen all this before. It’s a combination of the media knowing that they can bully us to do things. I’m objecting to as our others with the media doing election interference and then as usual Dems showing up and amplifying it further – egged on by their “private donors” – JFC. Private donors got higher priority than my vote? Go fuck yourselves.
eclare
@geg6:
Yeah…I saw them on Colbert, and one said he’d just come back from filming Survivor. I almost did a spit-take. Huh? And y’all are some kind of political geniuses, doing a reality show?
I dare any of them to come on mine, DWTS. That tv show can (and will) embarrass you on live tv.
M31
@Jeffro: YES
The president installs a team and gives direction, and holy shit there could not be more contrast between his team and what they’ve accomplished and Trump’s grifting bag of losers and criminals.
That would be a good ad/graphic actually.
1/2 of Trump’s team is made up of convicted felons, others resigned in disgrace, plenty of the others have refused to endorse Trump. LOL a few are in jail RIGHT NOW.
Captain C
@RevRick:
Also, they saw what happened with Teddy Kennedy in 1980 and with Pat “Better in the Original German” Buchanan in 1992 and decided they wanted no part of that with TCFG on the ballot.
In the normie world, stirring up shit is generally not preferred to Getting Shit Done.
Captain C
@MazeDancer: Subtitle: “Please resubscribe! We’re getting killed with the advertisers and MAGAts aren’t filling the gap!”
eclare
@Redshift:
Yes. I only follow about a dozen accounts. No issues.
cain
@The Thin Black Duke: Absolutely – because they are following the same abusive pattern set from the 90s. AOC is our future and they have so much better discipline than these people.
You have to create a hard shell because we live in a world of AI bots and fake influencers trying to dismantle democracy and split us apart. So far I see it working but I’m also seeing that it’s losing steam. Luckily, Biden’s strong messaging and telling people to fuck off – he’s not vaccillating about who he is and what his cognitive abilities are.
lowtechcyclist
@Bupalos:
Yeah, they’re just advocating that someone else disenfranchise us.
Like that one degree of separation makes it all OK.
Look, if Dem primary voters were really unhappy with Biden, they could have voted for Dean Phillips in great enough numbers to make a dent, just like 20-30% of GOP voters kept voting for Nikki Haley, even after she’d dropped out. But hardly anyone on the Dem side even wanted to register a protest vote.
I am interested to know how the DNC or the party elders and insiders pulled that off.
Jeffro
@JML: (obviously, we disagree here – talking to voters like they’re adults, and Joe reminding them that he’s not Green Lantern, is a great idea)
Chris
@Eolirin:
To be fair, I should probably acknowledge that covering up the true state of a president’s health is something that’s been done before.
But not in the modern day media environment. And not with a president to whom the media was as relentlessly hostile as they have been this one.
M31
Biden Sec. of Education: reducing student loan burden despite a hostile S. Court and Congress
Trump Sec. DeVos: priority 1: loosen Title IX rules to make it harder to go after rapists
Captain C
@JML:
“Well, my golf game isn’t so good these days, I don’t skip out every weekend to play like my cheating predecessor did. But how about a nice bike ride, 25 miles or so. I’m sure it’ll be no problem for a specimen like him.”
lowtechcyclist
@BR:
Maybe Bernie, unlike some of his loudest followers, realizes that Biden’s been implementing the sorts of policies he’s been advocating for as long as I can remember.
Soprano2
@BR: It should be news if their recently-professed concern about the cognitive fitness of the presidential candidates is an issue!
Elizabelle
I am riding with Biden.
And now a little doggie is riding with me to a grooming appointment. In air conditioned comfort.
going to email the White House, supporting Joe staying in the race. Going to write some emails to Jen Rubin and Paul Krugman explaining why I can no longer subscribe to their newspapers. Going to catch the NATO presser later, and hope to stay off the interwebs in the meantime.
eclare
@Jeffro:
Sounds good to me!
Elizabelle
@lowtechcyclist: Yes. And the junior senator from Vermont, Peter Welch, has disgraced himself.
cain
@MazeDancer:
But those headlines are only for us Dems – it won’t mean a damn thing to Trump supporters. The media literally subsists on our fears.
Wake me when they have 200 columns about Donald Trump and his problems.
UncleEbeneezer
@rikyrah: Absolutely. Also, as the Hillary documentary that focussed on the 2016 primary showed, Hillary also did a lot of real outreach to the Black Community. And it probably was the biggest thing that put her ahead of Bernie.
Rod from The Black Guy Who Tips podcast has said time and again that had Bernie put in more work to connect with the Dem Base (and not shown so many moments of racial cluelessness), he probably would’ve won that Primary. The difference in attentiveness, respect and willingness to listen to the Dem Base was so much bigger than the policy differences between Hillary and Bernie and the real deciding factor. It was also, imo, a huge (but not the only) reason they chose to go with Biden in 2020.
Soprano2
You can sum it up as “He looks old, my grandpa/grandma/mom/dad is old and I don’t think they could do this job”. This whole thing has highlighted how freaky our culture is about older people. Especially if you’re a woman, if you’re over the age of 60 for most people you don’t even exist anymore. I thought what Bernie Sanders said about how he can’t bound up the stairs to the door of Air Force One anymore, so what? was funny and on point. What does it matter if the president walks and talks slower than he used to? Is his brain just as sharp, is his life experience still relevant? We are a culture that worships youth, beauty and vitality, and discounts age, wisdom and experience. I keep wanting to ask what’s particularly magical about a young candidate? I think that’s all about surface appearances, they “look” more vital so they must be smarter and more vital. It speaks more to the shallowness of our culture than anything else.
cain
@Captain C:
When they go low and we go high is a mistake in this time and era. When they go low, we knee them in the face.
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer:
I decided early on that I would vote for whoever SC, with its large Black population, voted for. I’m so glad that I did, truly a great president.
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
Maybe that’ll be Frankensteinbeck’s next book: “My Parents Don’t Know I’m A Monster from Outer Space Trying to Destroy the U.S.A.” ;-)
Elizabelle
Just got an email from John Fetterman, via the Biden Harris campaign. Entitled “we need to cut the bullsh*t. I sent in my $10.
Microdonations, people. They talk.
Soprano2
@Chris: I don’t know because I don’t look at the NY Times, but it’s possible because politics is the #1 thing in Washington, DC.
Chris
@cain:
Yeah, like I said yesterday: the fact that this only works on Democrats is what makes it infuriating. It’s not that they never try to influence Republicans, they try it all the time: try to convince them to make President DeSantis a thing, try to convince them that Trump is over after 2020 the next candidate will/should be a nice respectable establishment man, try to convince them to pick Jeb Bush in 2016. It just never goes anywhere because Republicans learned long ago not to let the op-ed page of the New York Times dictate how they do things. It only works when they do this kind of thing to Democrats, and it’s because Democratic voters and potential Democratic voters still have far too many people who think that if they’re saying the same thing as Tom Friedman, that’s a sign that they’re smart and informed, and not a sign that they should slap themselves hard and retrace their steps until they find the exact point where they went wrong.
UncleEbeneezer
@eclare: That’s the only smart approach. The more accounts you follow, the more of a shit-show it becomes. True for FB (and from what I hear, IG/TikTok) as well.
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
Why, has Wes got a new movie coming out? ;-)
Elizabelle
@eclare: Yes. Riding with Joe. Will not dump him to appease the cowardly and less foresighted. Or the malefactors. Which the press feeding frenzy is filled with and led by.
Captain C
@cain:
Agreed.
Elizabelle
@Chris: Their new publisher is a Rupert Murdoch alumni.
Captain C
@Captain C:
“Waaaaaaaah!! Those meanies kneed us in the face!”
“Now why would they do that?”
“I don’t know! I was being perfectly reasonable and trying to take out their knees.”
Elizabelle
@Captain C: Kick ‘em in the dicks, too.
Laugh at them.
Chris
@UncleEbeneezer:
I remember reading something on this blog about an interview with Bernie all the way back in early 2015 that amounted to a ClassNotRace dismissal of “identity politics” based concerns, which I pretty much exploded at. It didn’t bother me that much at the time; I assumed that Sanders, a guy from a very white state who was in a sustained national spotlight for the first time, was just tone-deaf from lack of experience but would get better as time went by. The fact that he refused to do that, not only throughout the campaign but pretty much all through the Trump years as well, is the single biggest reason I eventually became as pissed off at him.
It’s nice that he finally learned and grew up in time for the 2020 primaries and has been on the right page ever since, but would’ve been a lot nicer without the previous five years.
Soprano2
This 100%. They imply that if you walk or talk a little bit slower you must be heading into dementia, when nothing could be further from the truth. You can tell none of these people have actually dealt with a person with dementia up close on a daily basis. They think it would be easy to hide that the president has dementia, when it certainly wouldn’t! Plus, although these can be symptoms of dementia, they aren’t the only ones. The first way I knew something was wrong with my husband was that he had trouble finding places he had been going to for years. Then I saw some poor decision making, and I knew something was wrong.
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer:
I live in a southern red state, and I remember Bernie saying that since my state would not contribute any electoral college votes, my primary vote shouldn’t count.
That did not go over well, to say the least. I’m glad he learned and is supporting Joe.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: Dan has been the one who so far hasn’t engaged in this too much. I think he’s the smartest of the four, and the most politically savvy. Lovett, as you can imagine, has been off the rails!
lowtechcyclist
@JML:
Hell, accept the challenge, with the condition that they’ve got to walk the course – any use of golf carts or other form of transport other than one’s own two feet is a forfeit.
I bet the Orange Fart Cloud would give up halfway through the front nine.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
The only thing is Joe does have an issue with his feet (neuropathy?). I don’t know if that would bother him on a bike or not.
Ooh! I know! Challenge TCFG to a swimming contest!
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist:
Biden proposed just that during the debate after Trump challenged him. That whole exchange was weird AF. As a passionate non-golfer, I was nonplussed.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chris: One of my proudest online moments was when I wrote a comment about how Bernie could totally win if he would just put in more work to connect with the Dem Base (Black Voters) on Imani Gandy’s blog (former Front-Page poster here at BJ, who was sadly chased away by racists). She copy/pasted my comment and said “I don’t know who this commenter is but I could kiss them on the mouth for this!”
gvg
@Bupalos: You are insulting ordinary voters. Regular people who aren’t brand new to voting or American civics have mostly figured out that a pretty popular incumbent that is mostly satisfying voters in his party is not usually worth taking on. In Presidential politics where the other side is weaponizing any attacks, the democrats know to be careful not to make an attack that weakens the whole party when the margin is small.
We aren’t going for flakey 3rd choices nearly as much as we used to. Yes there is a lot of freaking out without a plan. I think that is because we need to win so bad and it is not a sure thing at all. Mr. Perfect doesn’t exist. That is why no one significant ran against Biden.
gvg
@Starfish: It is normal for the incumbent in both parties to have lightweight or nonexistent competition. Trump made it impossible. Biden never ever said he was only running for one term, and I don’t know why anyone thought he wouldn’t run. It would have been strategically unwise unless we had been lucky enough for everyone to fall in love with Kamela.
This is a perfectly normal election process.
Clinton did have challengers, they weren’t good enough in 2016, but remember one of them was in 2008.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: Yeah, I imagine Lovett and Tommy are completely insufferable. Both (and to a lesser extent Favreau) have always had a tone of resentment towards the Dem Party.
different-church-lady
@UncleEbeneezer: Bernie don’t put in work to connect with voters; voters put in work to connect with Bernie.
If that wasn’t how it is, he might be president right now.
different-church-lady
@cain:
That’s what I’m seeing a lot of right now.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist:
The fact that there weren’t even rumors of someone like Newsom or Whitmer considering a challenge was to me evidence that Dem insiders did not see Biden’s age a big enough negative when balanced against the advantages of incumbency to justify any serious attempt to primary him.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
Didn’t that guy end up not becoming the new publisher?
topclimber
@Captain C: Aye aye captain!
geg6
@eclare:
So will Survivor.
Bupalos
@Jeffro: Honestly what has “freaked me out” most so far here is that Biden has gone uncharacteristically “ME ME ME.” In the Stephanopolis interview it was egregious and he said weird stuff like “everything was my idea. no one else.”
It’s understandable because people are making accusations and demands that start with YOU YOU YOU. But it’s so clearly not the way to go. I think he’ll recalibrate at some point, maybe the Holt interview will be a reset.
topclimber
@Captain C: I was thinking take him up on the challenge but make him walk the course. No cart.
Trump would beat the crap out of Joe for 12 holes and then collapse.
Too bad Joe has still not fully recovered from a bike fall six(months) ago or we could go with either one.
Then there’s always swimming. I bet Joe still looks pretty good in his speedos, as Obama pointed out. And I suspect swimming is less taxing on his old bones.
Bupalos
@gvg: I’m really not on the train that this primary was somehow more flawed or out of the ordinary or that shadowy forces intervened to subvert democracy. I’m actually arguing the other side. That when the rank and file, or donors, or other pols decide they don’t want Biden to be the nominee and try to exert whatever influence they have to get him to withdraw, that isn’t any more “stealing our votes” than the folks making strategic decisions about challenging Biden themselves or the people supporting or withholding support from those people and trying to affect their strategic calculus. It’s the same thing. Neither is “stealing our votes” or “rigging” or any of that nonsense.
The largely choiceless primary developed as it developed, strategically, and that was not “stealing” or “rigging” or disenfranchising just because lots of folks didn’t like the choices or didn’t want Biden to run. People voted. Biden got the delegates.
And now it seems the slight majority or very large minority of Dem voters and probably a larger slice of the pols want Biden to withdraw. And it’s not “stealing” or “rigging” or “disenfranchising” for those folks to try and influence Biden to do so. If we got to where we’re changing rules at the convention, that would be a different story, but that’s not where we are and I doubt it’s where this goes.
gvg
@Bupalos: No, its just a small loud contingent mostly in the media who are spooking some normies. It is really not the majority. In fact the majority would rather not be paying any attention at all for another few months.
Chris T.
@kindness:
(Checks notes) Looks like Donald J Trump, John Barron, and David Dennison. Three is a lot, right?