.@PeterAlexander: "You referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. Right now Donald Trump is using that to mock your age and your memory. How do you combat that criticism from tonight?
President Biden: "Listen to him." pic.twitter.com/hJPpXbvDFi
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 12, 2024
Biden going on offense, attacking Trump over NATO, the border, touting inflation cooling, and progress on Israel-Hamas. Doesn’t sound like he’s backing down
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) July 11, 2024
Biden: Made a gaffe about Putin.
Trump: Told Putin he could do what he wants.
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) July 11, 2024
Gaffes are embarrassing. Trump's repeated suck-ups to Putin weren't gaffes, they were what he really thinks.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) July 11, 2024
Biden’s news conference timed out at 59 minutes. Bottom line: He’s not backing down.
— Steve Holland (@steveholland1) July 12, 2024
By the way: Yes, I know the difference.
One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon. pic.twitter.com/65kYp6m90Z
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 12, 2024
Important to remember that if Harris takes over for Biden and she drops under a 3 point deficit half the same crew will be explaining how if you really believe in democracy and transparency there's no reason not to change nominees twice in three weeks.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 11, 2024
I owe somebody a hat tip for this…
Opinion: Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams says Biden is still best bet against Trump https://t.co/lhXDiuK3EN
— Cheri Jacobus (@CheriJacobus) July 11, 2024
Voters have been treated to a post-debate drama that has almost exclusively focused on performance versus principle. Good people stumble. Liars lie. In the face of the latter, we have become myopically fascinated because, for some, soothing anxiety seems easier than confronting the slow-motion death of democracy.
Let’s be clear: The wishful benefits of a contested convention or a late-stage exit are vastly outweighed by the potential harm. President Joe Biden has the integrity, moral character and record needed to beat Donald Trump in November. Our path to victory lies in standing by Biden and understanding the high stakes of this election.
The anti-Biden doom loop feels loud right now, but it is largely a phenomenon among those who obsessively follow the news or want to make the news. Most of the voters Biden has won and needs to win again already know his foibles — and they aren’t turning in droves to say, “I’m now voting for the bombastic fascistic liar.”…
Our aggressive focus must be on engaging voters who don’t think about politics every day. The ones who haven’t made up their mind about whether they’re going to vote rather than for whom they’d cast that ballot. If that voter gets dedicated, direct attention over the next four months in key states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Biden can secure a decisive victory…
During this first term, the Biden-Harris administration has planted the seeds needed to restore America’s manufacturing jobs, protect our climate, modernize our country’s infrastructure and expand health care access to millions. However, as with any planting, the harvest isn’t immediate. A reelected Biden will tend this progress, and we will reap the benefits. Trump has sworn to raze the ground and salt the Earth. It’s that simple.
If we introduce a new, untested candidate at this stage, Democrats will risk destroying what they seek to save. A last-minute replacement with no established campaign infrastructure, resources or significant national record is certain to fragment our efforts and weaken our message.
Democrats must not fall victim to overcomplicating our political strategy to satisfy the fever dreams of a silver bullet to success. Instead, we should focus on what we do best: building a strong, unified campaign from the grassroots to the grass tops — not the other way around. As Democrats, our strength lies in our ability to stay focused on the people who need help, avoiding unnecessary gambits that could jeopardize our mission.
Joe Biden’s leadership over the last three and a half years has provided stability and progress, and it is crucial that we continue to support him. Ignore the allure of the doom loop, and rather than indulge in useless worry, we must do the critical work of getting Biden reelected president. He is our best guarantee for a more just and equitable future for these United States of America.
Remember, everybody — Sharing is caring!
It’s time to stop the Joe Biden doom loop.
President @JoeBiden has the integrity, moral character and record needed to beat Donald Trump in November.
Read my piece for @ajc: https://t.co/4SovkS06Um pic.twitter.com/if0pg4vI32
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) July 10, 2024
![On The Road - lashonharangue - Along the Zambezi River [2 of 2] 8](https://balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1-Copy-of-DSC049732-80x80.jpg)
hotshoe
I just happened to open this page while the rotating tag was showing “We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. Break out the sticks.”
And use ’em on any Dem politician who still thinks that dissing Joe Biden is the way to make a name for themself.
NotMax
Can we now move on to issues instead of innuendo?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I just realized what the past couple of weeks of media frenzy felt like:
The run-up to the invasion of Iraq. We were already knee-deep in Afghanistan trying to dig out Al-Qaeda, but the constant whipping up by the Bush administration, the more and more frantic stories in the media, gave me this sense of increasing dread that yes, we were actually going to invade Iraq on a flimsy pretext. I didn’t believe it at first, I didn’t think they’d be that crazy, but it just kept on going and amplifying.
Thankfully the difference here is that the election can’t be triggered at the opportune moment to take advantage of the media frenzy, and that there’s some real push-back in progress. But I swear to the FSM, even the BBC News web site was participating, headlining Biden’s fumblemouth gaffes over the substance of the press conference.
And the Times, the goddamned New York Times. You wondered why Biden wasn’t giving you frakwits the time of day? Exhibit A right there.
TBone
@NotMax: hear, hear!
Also, AOC got lost in the shuffle yesterday. But not on my watch!
Floor speech repost:
https://x.com/RepAOC/status/1811251753435754564
The Supremacists’ feet will be held to the fire!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/aoc-gonna-impeach-justices-thomas
Wonkette goes over The Articles. Great explainer.
slightly_peeved
Lawyers, Guns and Remote Neurology has abandoned the Motte and climbed to the Bailey of: “Well, he’s mentally competent but there’s no way he’s going to make up the gap against Trump.”
Because of the long history of Presidential Races where the margin didn’t move at all in the last 4 months. Or where 3rd party candidates stayed steady at 15% of the vote despite sexual assault and dog-eating allegations.
Dropping your candidate purely because of some bad polling 4 months before election would be considered a risky move even in the parliamentary systems where the party room can and does change leader. Both the UK and Australia have added restrictions on doing so because it started to be viewed as the solution to negative polling and it made things worse (thank you Josh Marshall for pointing out the obvious there).
NotMax
Before the day slips away (here), repeating from downstairs.
Today in peak stupid.
TBone
David Plouffe:
Media Matters:
…
https://digbysblog.net/2024/07/11/there-is-no-distance/
We can’t give a fraction of an inch of wiggle room.
Aussie Sheila
Stacey Abrams has it. She is right about who needs to be mobilised and I’m damned sure she knows more about how to organise the dispirited and apathetic than any number of twitter randos.
Biden isn’t and shouldn’t, be going anywhere, except to be endorsed at the Convention, and then on to win with his excellent VP Harris.
The last fortnight has been an unbelievable spectacle. I look forward to the elite Press covering the Republican Convention next week.
How they do so will tell you everything you need to know about the last two weeks.
TBone
The choice is crystal clear:
Democracy or autocracy.
Biden creates policies that help all Americans.
Dotard creates policies that make money for himself.
Chris T.
I like the $81-to-Biden thing. Did one of those.
Splitting Image
Just a reminder, we’re approaching the point in the election where Michael Dukakis held a 17% lead in the polls during the 1988 campaign (July 21-22, immediately after the convention).
Biden polling a point or two ahead or behind Trump, or a point or two better or worse than other potential Democratic candidates, is irrelevant. It will be a tight race and the results will depend entirely on turnout.
The way to goose turnout is to talk about Trump and about the Republican platform. Non-stop. All the way to November. Dobbs, which Trump enabled. And Project 2025, which Trump supports.
Furthermore, I think the New York Times must be destroyed.
sempronia
One of my colleagues (stalwart liberal, bit of a drama queen) is extremely worried that Biden is too old, should drop out, etc. I told her that you vote for the team, not just for the candidate, and reminded her that one guy is old and the other is a fascist. She left our conversation looking much happier. Hopefully that’s one person talked off the ledge.
TBone
Today’s HCR:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-11-2024
Aussie Sheila
@Splitting Image:
Re your idea about the NYT. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Seriously. If there’s one good thing that has come out of this completely undisciplined schemozzle, it’s that the NYT ‘nice well meaning liberal’ mask has been now completely ripped off. Butter emails apparently wasn’t enough.
The rag is returning to its hallowed traditions. Which is ‘there’s nothing wrong with dictators if there are tax cuts and trains running on time to follow’.
NotMax
@TBone
Chad Mitchell Trio, The John Birch Society.
;)
Chris T.
@sempronia: Ultimately this “too old” stuff is useless. The fact is, anyone over about 30 years old is “too old” (for many things, not just the ridiculously demanding job of Being President) and yet anyone under 35 is “too young” (by the constitution). Human bodies wear out, and even one with no Manufacturer Defects is out of warranty by age 35. So that ends up being irrelevant anyway. Madison et al didn’t put in an upper age limit, and that’s because they wanted someone Old And Wise. They put in a lower age limit—said warranty expiration—because they wanted someone who had experienced Life Pain and developed empathy.
Trump never developed empathy. He should be automatically disqualified. Biden developed a ton; if anything, he’s overqualified.
NotMax
@Chris T..
Trivia:
When Biden was first elected to the Senate he was below the minimum age. He turned 30 between the election and being sworn in.
sixthdoctor
B-b-but the narrative! The narrative!
And this is with two solid weeks of the worst press imaginable. Let’s see what happens when people remember that Trump is an insane evil moron.
TBone
@NotMax: 😁
Nukular Biskits
Although I understand that, as a campaign, you should use every opportunity to reach voters, I’m all for Biden/Harris boycotting certain media outlets.
FTFNYT, et al.
NotMax
@sixthdoctor
Whereas Felonious Stunk does not have the mental capacity to serve as a doorstop.
//
TBone
Dotard is claiming to Viktor Orbs that he’ll “solve” the war in Ukraine and violating the Logan Act that prohibits private citizens from conducting shadow foreign policy. Someone here mentioned sending in an extraction team to his espionage fulfillment center in Florida to extradite him. I fully concur.
WereBear
@TBone: Every Quisling is so certain of inevitable victory.
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
Ref Boebert: Why am I not surprised ? [Too bad I can’t embed the GIF of Disney’s Aladdin’s Iago here]
NotMax
@TBone
“Logan Act? That only applies to Wolverine.”
//
Princess
My Tonya Harding Dem friends: we need to defeat Trump to save democracy!
Those same friends: The only way to do it is to get big donors, Obama and Pelosi to ignore the primary, push Biden out, toss Harris, then promote my favourite candidate in a rushed insider convention election.
I guess we have to kill democracy to save it. I deleted my fb app. I can’t take it any more. I actually told a couple of people I won’t vote if Biden is pushed out by big money. I probably still will but I wanted to jolt them a bit.
Anne Laurie
If everyone’s allowed one conspiracy theory (providing they don’t become a public nuisance discussing it)… I will never stop believing (yes, I said it at the time) that the 1988 election was the GOP’s first quiet incursion into electronic vote-diddling. ‘Everybody’, after the fact, ‘remembers’ that Dukakis was a bad failed campaigner, while Bush was manly & looked presidential. But some of the swing-state results looked hinky to me, regardless. My tech-professional friends insisted that the kind of thimblerigging I suspected was ‘too complicated’… and besides ‘This is America, we wouldn’t do stuff like that!’…
If I’d needed convincing, Karl Rove’s stunned, shouty meltdown concerning the results of President Obama‘s victory would’ve clinched the issue. By the time Obama was campaigning, we’d all gotten a lot less naive about what GOP operatives were willing to do, and I’m sure Obama’s tech people quietly blocked a whole lot of GOP enemy action, some of it funded by rich donors and some by foreign enemies…
TBone
@WereBear: yessiree they are! Vatniks and idiots cannot be allowed to make our
rulersrules.TBone
@Anne Laurie: I remember the black box voting org.
Rove’s meltdown was… suspicious.
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
The Nixon campaign in 1960 didn’t dispute the votes in the Chicago area so as not to have revealed their own finagling in downstate Illinois.
brantl
@NotMax: so what explains the absolute vacuum between Boobert’s ears?
TBone
Marc Elias on MSNBC recently (yesterday or the day before) expressed his chagrin that all of the recent media narrative driving a huge wedge is distracting us from the really important task of defeating the efforts at voter suppression and other voting fuckery of the rethuglicans.
WereBear
@Anne Laurie: I’m with you there.
WereBear
@NotMax: And before that, the box from a remote Texas border county that saved LBJ.
Marleedog
This 100 thousand times.
The “I’m rubber and your glue.” strategem.
“Everything you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.”
Hammer Trump mercilessly and just as important, hammer the press and ask them why they do not call out Trump as very obviously unfit for office.
brantl
@TBone:Black Box Voting very weirdly shifted their focus after a couple of years…. I think someone threatened them off.
sixthdoctor
I know the CW is that Trump is going to get a polling bump from the RNC, but isn’t it going to be four straight days of racist horseshit? I think it’s just as likely people will react like Rod and Todd Flanders watching Itchy and Scratchy.
TBone
@brantl: I’m not surprised. Angry, but once again unsurprised. Ugh!
Unity. Presenting a united front is so important – the multiple ways they’ve perfected and are perfecting to nullify our Dem votes requires nothing less.
RevRick
@Marleedog: Not just listen to Trump, but tie Projects 2025 and 47 relentlessly around his neck. If you have a social media account, make the connections. Let people know he’s a God-damned fascist, and his attempts to mealy-mouth what he and the whole GOP aspire to do are lies.
eclare
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
That’s a really good analogy. I remember being filled with dread the whole lead up to the war, and the night before we invaded, my dad and I just looked at each other with various takes on “what are we doing?” and “I just don’t know.”
I also felt totally helpless to stop the gathering storm. So, not this time. I signed up to write 200 postcards. I’m just waiting for them to be delivered.
Princess
@sixthdoctor: He will get a polling bump. They always do. Some of his more clueless supporters who are tuned out will get turned on by the hate.
And then our side will go berserk and freak out. Not looking forward to it.
TBone
@RevRick: 💙👍🎯
different-church-lady
@eclare: I remember how it was “So exciting!” Or, at least, that’s the impression you got from the news. Like they were about to get a ride in a Formula 1 car or something.
EarthWindFire
@Marleedog: But we all know the reason. Republicans get a pass. We all heard GWB regularly mix up names when he was in his 50s. We called it Tuesday and the WH Press Corpse ran the latest press release on how 9/11 happened on his watch because he kept us safe. Because shut up, that’s why.
This kind of garbage has been happening for decades. I am disgusted that too many democrats keep falling for it. Want the polls to get better? Push back just like you said.
different-church-lady
@brantl:
Battery installed backwards on the vaping pen?
WereBear
@different-church-lady: She represents her district?
different-church-lady
@sixthdoctor: So you swap out the candidate and you get… the same result.
I’m beginning to think the problem has more to do with too many horrible people wanting Trump rather than everyone not wanting Biden.
TBone
In case you missed a good dose of Rep. Jasmine Crockett sticking it to the fuckwits (video clip):
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1811083337517388204
Goes well with coffee!
Marleedog
@EarthWindFire:
We are a bunch of pansies.
But Rachel Bitecover is right: negative partisanship works.
This iteration of the GOP is fundamentally corrupt and more likely to lie, cheat, and bamboozle to achieve their goals.
But that does not mean, conversely, as many seem to think, that we cannot fight aggressively and relentlessly.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This feels like we are at the point in the Monika Lewnksy drama were the MSM was screaming that the Bosnia War was just a distraction while at the same time it started coming out how many reporters were fucking Republican politicians. (and we can be sure the MSM learned their lesson and put a stop to their reporters being led around by their dicks by politicians)
It also reminds me of bunch of mediocre middle manages coming up with reasons why they just can’t promote an employee.
prostratedragon
So sad:
TBone
@Marleedog: I may be a delicate flower, but I’m no pansy!
😆
WereBear
@different-church-lady: The power is not with the voters, and the corporate press is in on it.
So much so they pretend he doesn’t smell and act like a bratty toddler and his ideas are so brilliant!
No wonder world leaders, including President Obama, had that stunned expression on their face after meeting him. This has to be some cosmic joke! And we’ll wake up soon!
No wonder Trump never worked a rope line.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@prostratedragon: I hear you,
When my grandmother dementia finally sunk in she would lecture me on how our defense alliance fit in with trade policies. It was so sad.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@different-church-lady: or, it could be these pollsters are just phoning it in.
These polls are paid for by MSM organizations that are notorious for demanding their reporters make up shit just so they can run stories that fit The Narrative. Does everyone really think these same MSM organizations aren’t demanding the same from a vendor they are paying?
prostratedragon
@RevRick:
Some history on that point from Media Matters for America.
stinger
@Chris T.:
Same here! Thanks to Scott for the initial idea, I believe.
prostratedragon
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: With all the streaming, dvds, and movie channels available to me, I hardly need to extract entertainment value from watching these annelids try to squirm their way around what we all saw last night. Nevertheless I suspect we’ll be getting a lot of this.
Gvg
A certain percentage of the population always finds it easy to forget danger. It’s mostly white with money, but not entirely. This country has not been threatened by real war danger for a long long time for instance. I always thought the freak out over 911 was unforgivably over the top. It was bad, but we should not have lost our marbles and values so easily. Now, 1 4 year term of sanity, and a small % of our voters are flirting with acting like it’s a normal election and they can indulge in purity voting and demand Mr. Dreamy, instead of what the most other voters agree on to block fascism.
Reporters have been trying to speculate a contested convention into existence every election since I remember. Probably since 1968, but that is a little before I was aware. They are like gamer addicts on this scenario, and never ever give up on this. I have even heard a few Republican contested scenarios some years. Pretty sure that is why Trump made it impossible in 2020 by the rules. I am sure foreign spies and rich people find it easy to encourage.
I think the voters are a bit more aware though after Nader and Stein and end even Bernie.
This is another area the supremacy court was screwing up, before Roe. They allowed shadow money in political giving. They took the caps off that used to exist. They allowed secret contributions. They said that wasn’t what it was, but the practical effects were that we can’t stop a lot of money coming from unknown sources IMO. Democrats have to take it of be handicapped. Now we also have organizations that are funded by this. How do we put the genie back in the bottle? We’ll start by sunlight. Require all reporting, including backwards. Then, it will be easier to start making laws to disallow, or enforce what already was illegal. People will support I think stopping foreign contributions.
Princess
@prostratedragon: It’s terrible. Glad people are finally acknowledging it. My own mother, since she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, has developed a nuanced understanding of Ukraine Russian relations going all the way back to the founding of Kievan Rus. She’s being invited to policy summits. I don’t know what to do.
lowtechcyclist
I think my basic pitch to normies is that Trump’s policies boil down to sticking it to everyone he doesn’t like. That’s what the man’s really about, and that’s simple and straightforward enough that anyone can grasp it. Then it just comes down to whether that’s the sort of America they want, where that’s what Presidents do with their power.
TBone
Great news in Philly! We’re not falling down the rabbit hole:
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/philadelphia-district-attorney-election-crimes-20240712.html
stinger
Not only did I donate to Biden’s campaign this morning (in the fab amount of $81; a brilliant idea that I wish was mine), I also chipped in a little more toward the Four Directions–Wisconsin goal.
We can attack this on many levels. Go, postcard writers!
TBone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I almost missed the snark. More coffee needed!
Tony Jay
It’s the usual tired old bollox the corporate media always uses to keep a Narrative rolling.
Party A would benefit from Party B being damaged.
Party A accuses Party B of something.
Party B must do Thing C to convince Party A they are wrong
Party A is the sole judge of whether Party B has actually done Thing C
Party B can never quite manage to do Thing C to Party A’s satisfaction.
Continue until Party B is sufficiently damaged.
Works for everything if the corporate media is willing to enforce Narrative Solidarity on this issue and throw a blanket over any alternative viewpoints.
The only way to win is not to play. Party B tells Party A to stick Thing C where the sun don’t shine and talks about more important things.
TBone
@TBone: and furthermore
3Sice
They are not trolls, they are minders, and they are here to manufacture consent.
TBone
@3Sice: well said
lowtechcyclist
@Gvg:
I can’t say I blame them. Even though intellectually I know how serious the threat is, my gut totally doesn’t believe that anything’s going to happen that’s going to seriously threaten our way of life. A change of Administration has always changed policy around the edges, but the effects on most of us are rarely that great. Even with a bunch of red states having taken advantage of Dobbs to criminalize abortion, I’m a guy in a nice safe blue state and my wife is well past menopause. It’s still kinda happening somewhere else. My gut expects things to keep on being kinda like they’ve always been.
Let me be clear: I’m talking about my gut here. My mind knows better. My mind knows that this shit that’s happened in the wake of Dobbs is real, my mind can see what the Supremacist Court did in the last few days of its term, and even my gut knows exactly what Trump and those fuckers who would staff a new Trump Administration really want. My gut just can’t grasp that they could make it happen. My mind knows that it can’t happen here until it does, and then it would happen all at once, especially now that the Supremacist Court has handed the next President carte blanche to do pretty much whatever he wants.
But I understand completely why the possibility of rapid, massive change is hard for people to grasp in a nation that’s never seen anything like what’s potentially coming.
eclare
@Princess:
Hahaha…I love this meme!
zhena gogolia
@sempronia: I have been talking so many people down. The good news is they do want to hear it and they do react well
WereBear
Project 2025 wasn’t just saying the quiet parts out loud.
It’s being so proud of their plan to steal the entire country that they created a whole website and downloadable PDF. They talked it up on right wing podcasts.
And now they say it will be bloodless if we don’t resist. Who needs the swastika to tell you who they are?
Chris Johnson
@3Sice: This is why I’m hell on doomers: directly or indirectly they are doing a job for fascists, establishing a made-up justification for a coup. If you give them credibility it’s about the same as going ‘well, in fairness, what if the Jan 6 people did actually need to kill Pence?’
It’s possible to calculate out ‘what narratives do the best motte and bailey for supporting popular acceptance of a right wing coup’ (or more importantly, to hell with the right wingers, the real purpose is supporting Russian imperialism) and we constantly see these narratives. To the point that they catch on, we’re helping to support what some clever boots in the Kremlin thought would assist their war on the rest of the world.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
Yep. This whole imbroglio is totally self-constructed. I wish more Democrats had a spine and would fire on the enemy rather than Biden. Every single goddamn Democrat polls about the same vs TCFG. There is no logistical way to replace Biden at this point, and you’d piss off a large part of the base if you tried, so gird your loins, and (to quote Taylor Swift) let’s fucking go!
WereBear
I think everyone would like to scramble back to simple childhood or even carefree high school days, if they had them. I don’t, but then I never had a sense of adult responsibility being a burden. It meant I could make my own decisions, and they would be better ones than what was thrust upon me.
But people who can’t, or won’t, grow up are desperate, angry, and never satisfied. Because there’s never enough power-mad assertion over others to fill that screaming need.
It’s why the cruelty never stops.
WereBear
@eclare: But I think we have the same NPR kind of bubble in the suburbs, where white liberals often reveal they aren’t as woke as the right wing claims.
Not nearly.
And look at the “old white guy” advantage that is still baked in. THAT, I believe.
Ramalama
@prostratedragon: Ha! Thanks – am now following Shadow of the Nerdtree
Jeffg166
@WereBear: Our resistance is what keeps them up at night. They know they are an unpopular point of view.
SFAW
@TBone:
I was waiting for her to talk about Eskimo poetry.
JML
@eclare: damn right. Let’s effing go!
Soprano2
@WereBear: My interpretation of many of the expressions on Biden’s face during the debate while TCFG was talking is that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The press seemed to believe those were vacant looks, but they were looks of disbelief.
zhena gogolia
So if it’s disqualifying if you mix up a name, how about that time Trump went on for five minutes about how Nikki Haley didn’t call in the troops on Jan. 6? And he wasn’t just mixing up a name — he knew he was talking about Haley.
Or how many times did he say he defeated Obama?
SFAW
@TBone:
For some reason, “delicate” is not the first word that springs to mind regarding you. Not sure why that is.
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: SAME HERE!
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
It’s not disqualifying because “everyone knows Trump [insert any one of many bullshit excuses] and besides, what about Hunter’s laptop?”
Chris T.
@Soprano2:
That’s what I got out of them as well. It indicates to me that Biden’s prep team didn’t prep him properly: someone should have played this particular role (Gish gallop of absurd lies, that is) in a mock pre-debate setup.
BellyCat
Tight counter-narrative.
WereBear
@zhena gogolia: Always
Use
Double
Standards
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
Squirm? The New York Times //fraktur ? Hah!
Their paper edition headline:
SFAW
@Soprano2:
Didn’t watch the show, so don’t know. But yesterday, I was musing on how the MSM et al. piled on Admiral Stockdale “who am I? Why am I here?” attempted bon mot during the 1992 VP debate. It was pretty obvious that he was asking a rhetorical question, meant to set the stage for him telling America about himself, but the MSM pretended it was because he was confused. So the inability of the MSM to exercise critical thinking has a long history.
eclare
@Soprano2:
I agree. I commented a few days ago, after that recent rally at the golf club, I had to pick my jaw up off of the floor after watching some clips. I was stunned speechless. My brain could not process what it was hearing. And that was my reaction on a comfy couch!
SFAW
@Chris T.:
Since all this shit started, I’ve been saying they should all be fired. What fucking good are they if they don’t prepare him for obvious, likely scenarios?
WereBear
I saw the press conference. Case closed.
Geminid
@TBone: Yeah, Rove knew something. Or he thought he did.
guachi
@SFAW: They should be fired. That no campaign shake up has occurred is the biggest reason I think Biden should drop out.
We’re electing a team? Well, your team sucks. The only reason we had this unprecedented pre-convention debate is because Biden asked for it. And here we are now with Ds in revolt and Biden supporters threatening retribution and death upon those who think Biden should leave.
Only 13% think Biden isn’t too old. That’s not the Crazification Factor. It’s 1/2 the Crazification Factor.
WereBear
I suspect, like greyhounds, they eliminate contenders who are too smart to chase the rabbit.
SFAW
@guachi:
Thanks for sharing.
ETA: For what it’s worth — not that you care — but firing the prep team is the campaign manager’s job, not Biden’s. There are reasons candidates don’t run their own campaigns, and firing prep teams is part of that.In other words, not something the candidate should be tasked with.
BellyCat
@SFAW: Truth. Biden’s comm/prep group is the primary entity of concern here. The “Shrinking Trump” podcast guys (psychologists) beat this drum pretty hard as well.
Suzanne
Sam this comment on Xhitter (don’t know how to link to a tweet):
Yep.
I will also remember how many Dems treated the left flank like they were a bunch of crazy traitorous hippies when it’s always been the right flank that slides in the shiv at the most inopportune times.
sdhays
@TBone: “espionage fulfillment center in Florida”
Nice!
ETA: I’m stealing this one.
Geminid
@Suzanne: On the other hand, the concern trolls and sealions we see coming here are not “conservadems.”
SFAW
@TBone:
As sdhays noted, “espionage fulfillment center” is a great phrase, and should be repeated often. [And thanks, sdhays, I completely missed it the first time I read the comment.]
slightly_peeved
@sixthdoctor:
As I just pointed out on LGM, why has no-one complaining about Biden’s poll numbers factored in the 3rd party spoiler candidate? The answer of course being that it doesn’t fit their narrative.
guachi
@SFAW: Someone needs to do something because Biden failed miserably and blamed it on a cold. No cold in existence prevents you from saying “Project 2025” in the most important night of your career.
But now here we are with calls for Biden to drop out and Biden supporters threatening death and retribution on those who think Biden should withdraw. .
There are about 50 missteps Biden made along the way for us to be where we are.
sdhays
@SFAW: I’m really, really tired of this topic, but “how to prepare for a debate” seems to be something that every sitting President has to relearn for some reason. Probably because it’s such a weird performance unrelated to just about anything else they do, and unless they’re Trump (who simply isn’t mentally capable of preparing for anything anyway), they’re busy.
BlueGuitarist
@eclare:
Yay for you & postcarding!
Huzzah!
SFAW
@guachi:
You keep writing that. WTF are you talking about?
stacib
@zhena gogolia: My concern is not so much the media as that most of the folks here are probably the “go-to” friend when they are confused about something political. The number of folks who are actively working to depress the vote (whether they acknowledge that or not) is the hammer that won’t quit pounding nails.
On 2010, when the Democrats lost the House, I truly believe it’s because they RAN AWAY FROM THE POLICY THEY HAD JUST VOTED FOR. None of them defended the ACA, and left Obama out there hanging alone. This thing with Biden feels really similar to that.
SFAW
@sdhays:
And they don’t have the built-in advantage he has, i.e., that his years of outrageous behavior have led the MSM to (in effect) shrug their figurative shoulders when TCFFG continues spouting lies and pro-fascist statements.
eclare
@stacib:
Yep. Great analogy.
Anne Laurie
There’s two kinds of greyhounds get put down after their first trial at the racetrack: The ones too dumb to chase the mechanical rabbit, and the ones too smart to chase the mechanical rabbit.
I originally heard that phrase from my first-grade teacher, not long after our year together started… but I didn’t fully appreciate Sister John Edward’s wisdom for many, many years!
Geminid
@SFAW: This is like a soccer player who gets brushed by another and falls to the pitch in agony. They call it “flopping.”
Anne Laurie
@SFAW: Y’know, if we don’t keep feeding the troll, they just might go the f*ck away in search of greener pastures.
I’m not a pie person, because of my front-page status, but I’m told using Cleek’s pie filter can be *very* good for one’s blood pressure!
SFAW
@Geminid:
Fixed.
In semi-fairness to guachi: there’s a contingent of jackals who, if a commenter dares to entertain the idea that maybe Biden should transition (or whatever) to Harris (or anyone else, for that matter), they go into AttackAttackAttack mode. Gets a little old after the 400th time.
O. Felix Culpa
@SFAW: Don’t ask. Don’t engage. They’re busy nailing themselves to the cross. Self-pity and declarations of victimhood are the last resort of
scoundrelspeople who have lost the debate.ETA: Or what Geminid said at #112.
SFAW
@Anne Laurie:
Well, speaking only for myself, game recognize game.
ETA: I’ve never pied anyone. Don’t plan to, either. But there are times when I think I should. [I also expect I’ve been pied. So it goes.]
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: You’re right this time. AOC and Bernie have been great this time.
trnc
@SFAW:
I don’t know what the debate prep team did, but I don’t believe for a second that they role-played DT as a serious, policy minded candidate. Unless I see evidence to the contrary, my assumption is that they did indeed play him as a serial liar who wouldn’t shut up.
Even if they hadn’t, should Biden have been surprised at anything DT said?
Biden had a really good night last night, but we shouldn’t be grading him on a curve. The “flying the week before” the debate was a terrible excuse at the time because he had been at Camp David for a week and hadn’t flown for 2 weeks. It’s not getting better with age.
I think we have a really good chance to beat DT on the evil crap, but Kamala is just as capable of beating up on republicans and carrying out progressive policy as Joe is. The job is never “finished,” so that’s not a particularly good reason to keep a particular person in office.
It’s totally fucking unfair, but the media will clearly focus on Biden’s slowdown even as they grudgingly admit that he spoke at length about policy and the media have a lot of influence. Just telling them to fuck off doesn’t actually get us much.
I’ll vote for any democrat on the ballot, and any talk of getting rid of Joe without his consent would be a disaster, but I would fully be on board with him deciding to drop out so that Kamala would be the nominee. Would prefer him to resign so she can run as the incumbent. She’s ready.
Geminid
@SFAW: I see your point. And I think Mr. Guachi argues more in good faith than some of the others. But there are obvious and explicit attempts to further the “Blue MAGA” narrative that liberal Democrats suppress dissenters, and thus are no better than Trump’s cult.
Geminid
@trnc: I’m okay with Harris taking the top spot if it comes to that. But I think a Biden resignation is a trap.
trnc
@Splitting Image:
Just a bit of context here – DT overperformed his polls both times, even when he lost, and the democratic candidate has to win by around 3% or more in the popular vote to overcome the republican electoral vote advantage.
satby
From Twitter ( and she’s not the only one pointing this out):
𝑴𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆@Endthemisery1 Jul 9
He could prepare until the cows come home, but he was born with the stutter, which for everyone with one, always is worse under stress. We’ve known that about Biden for decades. His team wasn’t fired because it wasn’t their fault, the firehouse of lies techniques are designed to muddle a fluent speaker (per Ruth Ben-Ghiat). The moderators not even reacting to the obvious lies made it worse. And Biden just proved, again, he’s fine.
And edit: He also maintains, at his age, a schedule that would put many younger people out of commission for a day after living just one of his days. Finale: the debate performance is past, it need not get dragged up again. He’s shown EVERY DAY since then he’s fine, and we need to move on.
trnc
@Geminid:
I’m sure you’re not wrong, but we have a few weeks to decide if we think that trap is worse than the trap that they’ve already laid for Biden regarding his age.
opiejeanne
@TBone: Hey! Pansies are tough little things. Our first winter here we discovered them blooming under the snow. Blooming, not dying.
satby
And I’m done for now. Cows ruminate, people think. This cud has been chewed to liquid.
Geminid
@trnc: I am saying that the scenario that Biden resign as President is a trap.
As for Biden yielding the top spot to Harris but remaining President, I think people advocating and gaming this scenario out are trying to calculate the incalculable. They could be right but personally, I think they are taking the potential downside too lightly. And there is some “grass is greener on the other side” thinking going on.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid:
I think it includes and is more than “grass is greener” thinking, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m reposting what the Thin Black Duke wrote in AL’s morning thread today, at #96, because I think his perspective about the calls for Kamala to replace Joe is important and should be heeded: