I’m voting for Joe Biden. There is absolutely nothing anyone can say or write that would change my mind. The campaign needs to focus on what he’s done the last four years not how he sounded in the debate. Did he come off as frail? Yes. But if you listen to the substance of what he was saying, he came off as an intelligent, compassionate man.
Do I wish Joe Biden at the state of the union showed up? Yes. But it is what it is and we need to keep reminding folks of what TFG is and what he represents. If the women, minorities and gays in this country think it can’t get worse, think again. Project 2025 is fascists wet dream. We need to quote from it. Ask every single republican about it. Do they support it? Nail them to the wall with it.
Wake up. TFG has a solid 40% support. Do we want a lying, treasonous, 2x impeached, top secret stealing, emoluments violating, adjudicated rapist and convicted felon in the oval?
Do we want more right wing, lying partisan hacks on the Supreme Court?
Do we want Dobbs to become federal law?
Rally the troops. Knock on doors, write postcards, register voters. Fight on.
I agree with Waldman (and you), but will point out how I go a bit further: "Engaged only from 10am to 4pm is not a disqualifier for President. He is not going to be woken up in the middle of the night and need to come up with a brilliant decision to meet some emergency. The Presidency is not as arduous as Waldman supposes. Lincoln grew old in office while he was still in his fifties. But he dealt with a moral dilemma that none of us could face: waging war which he hated, but absolutely necessary to save the "last best hope" [letter to Congress 1862]. Biden will face no such moral dilemma. ,What he needs to do is guide and inspire his team to get, or try to get, policies that are good for the people. If he can manage the energy to give one good speech as needed, he will do enough. So rar he has done that about as well as any President. better than some. Unfortunately there is the percepttion thing. Many, maybe most, want a "leader" who inspires them with his "strength" as if we were a tribe of great apes, or medieval kings who led armies in battle. There is even some chance that foreign leaders would respond to him the same way: think of America as "weak." I doubt foreign leaders are that unsophisticated, but note I am describing why it is some people follow Trump so blindly: to a large extent we still are a tribe of great apes. And we have to learn how to deal with that. I don't think running away from the battle (drop out of the race) would show strength. If necessary it is better for him to "die in the saddle bravely fighting the enemy. ["he" here means Biden.] I'll vote for Biden whatever happens, and if he does die or become incapacitated, I will follow whoever picks up his flag and carries on the fight. Hope there is someone out there preparing "in case."
What I see is But His Age as the new But Her Emails. It creates hysteria and lots of clicks.
(The email situation was a misjudgement on Clinton's part. Not owning up, up front, that he was coming down with a cold was a bigger miscalculation on Biden's part. Is he old - yes. Is Trump old - yes. To me they cancel each other out.)
What I see is an even more deranged Trump who has repeatedly lost his train of thought, rambled, lied even more than in the past and said extremely bizarre/very scary things. Multiple who have worked with Trump in the past say he has gotten much worse. I also see a mainstream “liberal” media that refuses to cover those facts.
They don't cancel each other out: Trump - who was never smart - is showing serious signs of dementia. He's also cruel, narcissistic, fascist, immoral, dangerous. Biden is none of those things. Biden will preserve democracy, Trump will (and has already) destroyed democracy. That's far from cancelling each other out.
No named source. Axios is about cheap clickbait. Is the source someone who is with Biden 24/7 like Nauta guarding the diet Coke? What astonishes me is that, after 2016, after Trump's horrendous tenure as POTUS, an attempted coup - mainstream media is doing the same thing. Again.
15. No matter who the Democratic nominee is, everyone who cares about the future should spend the next four months making sure people understand what a monster Donald Trump is and what a horror it would be for America if he becomes president
The media has given scant coverage to the danger of Trump because Biden is OLD! Why do people have short memories of the chaos of his first term? Because the conversation is all about Joe’s age. Nor has there been much coverage of Project 2025 besides an article here or there, one in the Times, an Atlantic piece (some Substack people have been doing in depth dives but they aren’t legacy media). The media should be hammering home what a second Trump presidency would mean. But they won’t because again the “important” story is that Joe is OLD.
If you wrote this tone-deaf post or at least posted it after the horrendous immunity decision from the SC, then YOU are what is wrong with Democrats. Elevating one night over one of the most successful presidencies of the modern era. Ignoring Biden's brilliant performance the day after the debate. Giving power to the fascist, demented Repub nominee. You probably would gleefully celebrate the 24 hours of chaos over the withdrawal from Afghanistan and ignore the following days that saw the largest, most successful withdrawal in American history. You are what costs Democrats elections. Have you no shame? Don't bother kicking me off your site - I will withdraw myself after a few days of conversation about this post. I will happily vote for Joe Biden, who has proven himself over decades, and most particularly over the last four years. He is there to veto the fascists. He is there (as he has been) to pull together NATO, defend Ukraine, lower prescription drugs, preserve ACA, women's reproductive rights, save us from Trump's tariffs that will skyrocket inflation, destroy our economy. And he won't do what the SC just gave Trump the right to do: kill his enemies, destroy American democracy.
The media debate and political class debate about whether Biden should remain the nominee or step aside often skirts the salient point at the center of the debate. To wit, what I repeatedly hear from pro-Biden commentators and pols is some version of "Joe Biden has been a fine or even historically-good President, and therefore gives us our best chance of defeating Trump." This is backward looking, and beside the point. We Democrats pretty universally agree about President Biden's accomplishments. The debate should not be about Democrats. We are almost universally going to vote for the Democratic nominee. Rather, the debate should be about undecided voters, and especially the so-called "double-haters" who want a choice other than Trump or Biden. Biden's consistent high-30s approval rating in credible polls demonstrates that his fateful debate performance did not create doubts about his candidacy, but confirmed them. All of this is to argue that the salient issue for the Democratic Party is Biden's age and cognitive abilities moving forward, not his past accomplishments. When polls are consistently showing +/- 75% of voters thinking that he is "too old to run for the presidency" or "is incapable of serving another term," this goes straight to electability. And that's where this debate should be had. Is Joe Biden now electable, especially given public perception of his age and cognitive abilities? As polling is increasingly showing, he very likely is not. In a closely related sense, the debate should also be about whether a responsible political party should nominate a man who is quite evidently in cognitive decline to be President for four more years? I have been a psychotherapist for over 30 years. Once cognitive decline starts - and with Mr. Biden it pretty clearly has - it can progress quite quickly over a period of a few or several years. Whether it is a diminishment of cognitive abilities, or some form of dementia, it progresses. And a responsible political party should not nominate a man for President of The United States who is in a state of cognitive decline, perhaps severe. To do so is to make us more like the Republican Party. They are willing to thrice nominate a man who is manifestly unfit (cognitively and morally) to serve as the President. Knowing what is now clear for all to see about Joe Biden, we should not do it even once. Joe Biden is a fine man, and a highly successful President. He should end his political career with dignity, and pass the torch to someone who has a legitimate chance to save our democracy from a man who would seek to end it.
You write with analytical clarity, humane purpose, and courage. Unlike most others who write, speak, or post including, now, 93% of MSNBC. That is why I read today's TCS. That, however, does not remove the unleashed monster and his unleashed army of monsters from the "gates" to the country. THAT IS THE 5-ALARM FIRE IN 2024.
I feel like the avoidance of mentioning the huge percentage of Democracy who voted undecided not necessarily to get a different candidate but to demand THIS candidate address their concerns about supplying weapons to Israel and denying aid to Palestine is not a good way to get a comprehensive answer for this issue.
I agree. The world is not ready to be governed by "morality." In any case we cannot impose our morality on a country that believes it is fighing for its survival. Biden has to deal with the world as it is. I think this is very different from our wars of choice in Vietnam Grenada, Panama, Bosnia,Iraq, Afghanistan... In any case the war against Trumpism is far more important at the moment than futile efforts to stop "genocide"..which we can't do, and which is the way the world has been for the last 6000 years.
I'm not talking about "governing the world by morality" I'm talking specifically about providing arms paid for with our tax dollars to a country that is using them to perpetuate crimes against humanity. That you are conflating one with the other as if it's just some impossible ask says more about your own priorities and morals than it does about mine.
no, it says something about our respective views of how the world works. i have no doubts about the immorality of Israel's overreaction, but I recognize I cannot impose my views of morality on a man fighting for his life. i also recognize that Biden has a much more complex problem to worry about...call it the balance of power in the mid-east as a place to start thinking about it. you know nothing about my priorities and morals and I don't claim to know anything about yours. mostly just trying to say that at the moment we need to worry more about Trump than our differing views about Palestine. I am sorry you based your morality on "tax dollars." To try to be more clear, I am saying we ought not to commit national suicide by withholding hour votes for Biden because we don't like his policy toward Israel. It's a matter of helping dad fight off the madman at the door instead of worrying about whether he washed his hands before dinner.
Are you saying this is your reason for turning the U.S. over to autocrats? Biden may not have responded as you would have liked, but he had a decent solution that has been rejected by Bibi and has worked tirelessly to find any decent solution and cease fire. Although the horrendous response to October 7 was and is way over the top of what was needed, October 7 did happen. Bibi ignored warnings. Women and children were killed, raped, tortured. And God knows that they are still being tortured. Your post - like so many - act as if October 7 never happened. Without that in the equation, how can we have a decent conversation about how to move forward? If you let Trump be elected, he's going to let Bibi bomb Gaza out of existence. He said so.
I’m voting for Joe Biden. There is absolutely nothing anyone can say or write that would change my mind. The campaign needs to focus on what he’s done the last four years not how he sounded in the debate. Did he come off as frail? Yes. But if you listen to the substance of what he was saying, he came off as an intelligent, compassionate man.
Do I wish Joe Biden at the state of the union showed up? Yes. But it is what it is and we need to keep reminding folks of what TFG is and what he represents. If the women, minorities and gays in this country think it can’t get worse, think again. Project 2025 is fascists wet dream. We need to quote from it. Ask every single republican about it. Do they support it? Nail them to the wall with it.
Wake up. TFG has a solid 40% support. Do we want a lying, treasonous, 2x impeached, top secret stealing, emoluments violating, adjudicated rapist and convicted felon in the oval?
Do we want more right wing, lying partisan hacks on the Supreme Court?
Do we want Dobbs to become federal law?
Rally the troops. Knock on doors, write postcards, register voters. Fight on.
I agree with Waldman (and you), but will point out how I go a bit further: "Engaged only from 10am to 4pm is not a disqualifier for President. He is not going to be woken up in the middle of the night and need to come up with a brilliant decision to meet some emergency. The Presidency is not as arduous as Waldman supposes. Lincoln grew old in office while he was still in his fifties. But he dealt with a moral dilemma that none of us could face: waging war which he hated, but absolutely necessary to save the "last best hope" [letter to Congress 1862]. Biden will face no such moral dilemma. ,What he needs to do is guide and inspire his team to get, or try to get, policies that are good for the people. If he can manage the energy to give one good speech as needed, he will do enough. So rar he has done that about as well as any President. better than some. Unfortunately there is the percepttion thing. Many, maybe most, want a "leader" who inspires them with his "strength" as if we were a tribe of great apes, or medieval kings who led armies in battle. There is even some chance that foreign leaders would respond to him the same way: think of America as "weak." I doubt foreign leaders are that unsophisticated, but note I am describing why it is some people follow Trump so blindly: to a large extent we still are a tribe of great apes. And we have to learn how to deal with that. I don't think running away from the battle (drop out of the race) would show strength. If necessary it is better for him to "die in the saddle bravely fighting the enemy. ["he" here means Biden.] I'll vote for Biden whatever happens, and if he does die or become incapacitated, I will follow whoever picks up his flag and carries on the fight. Hope there is someone out there preparing "in case."
What I see is But His Age as the new But Her Emails. It creates hysteria and lots of clicks.
(The email situation was a misjudgement on Clinton's part. Not owning up, up front, that he was coming down with a cold was a bigger miscalculation on Biden's part. Is he old - yes. Is Trump old - yes. To me they cancel each other out.)
And they did the same thing with Clinton when she had a cold. "Clinton health scares" "Video shows she is having seizures"
What I see is an even more deranged Trump who has repeatedly lost his train of thought, rambled, lied even more than in the past and said extremely bizarre/very scary things. Multiple who have worked with Trump in the past say he has gotten much worse. I also see a mainstream “liberal” media that refuses to cover those facts.
They don't cancel each other out: Trump - who was never smart - is showing serious signs of dementia. He's also cruel, narcissistic, fascist, immoral, dangerous. Biden is none of those things. Biden will preserve democracy, Trump will (and has already) destroyed democracy. That's far from cancelling each other out.
10. Dependably engaged only between 10 and 4?
SOTU was not between 10 and 4 - he was engaged.
Flying to Europe - twice - in a short time - he appeared engaged. (minus selective editing)
Fund raiser in LA - engaged.
I can't handle those sort of time zone changes and I'm guessing his circadian clock is still kind of messed up.
A cold? Personally, I know that I'm not all there, even when I get the pseudoephedrine in to dry stuff up.
I don't trust Axios on this.
No named source. Axios is about cheap clickbait. Is the source someone who is with Biden 24/7 like Nauta guarding the diet Coke? What astonishes me is that, after 2016, after Trump's horrendous tenure as POTUS, an attempted coup - mainstream media is doing the same thing. Again.
15. No matter who the Democratic nominee is, everyone who cares about the future should spend the next four months making sure people understand what a monster Donald Trump is and what a horror it would be for America if he becomes president
The media has given scant coverage to the danger of Trump because Biden is OLD! Why do people have short memories of the chaos of his first term? Because the conversation is all about Joe’s age. Nor has there been much coverage of Project 2025 besides an article here or there, one in the Times, an Atlantic piece (some Substack people have been doing in depth dives but they aren’t legacy media). The media should be hammering home what a second Trump presidency would mean. But they won’t because again the “important” story is that Joe is OLD.
If you wrote this tone-deaf post or at least posted it after the horrendous immunity decision from the SC, then YOU are what is wrong with Democrats. Elevating one night over one of the most successful presidencies of the modern era. Ignoring Biden's brilliant performance the day after the debate. Giving power to the fascist, demented Repub nominee. You probably would gleefully celebrate the 24 hours of chaos over the withdrawal from Afghanistan and ignore the following days that saw the largest, most successful withdrawal in American history. You are what costs Democrats elections. Have you no shame? Don't bother kicking me off your site - I will withdraw myself after a few days of conversation about this post. I will happily vote for Joe Biden, who has proven himself over decades, and most particularly over the last four years. He is there to veto the fascists. He is there (as he has been) to pull together NATO, defend Ukraine, lower prescription drugs, preserve ACA, women's reproductive rights, save us from Trump's tariffs that will skyrocket inflation, destroy our economy. And he won't do what the SC just gave Trump the right to do: kill his enemies, destroy American democracy.
The media debate and political class debate about whether Biden should remain the nominee or step aside often skirts the salient point at the center of the debate. To wit, what I repeatedly hear from pro-Biden commentators and pols is some version of "Joe Biden has been a fine or even historically-good President, and therefore gives us our best chance of defeating Trump." This is backward looking, and beside the point. We Democrats pretty universally agree about President Biden's accomplishments. The debate should not be about Democrats. We are almost universally going to vote for the Democratic nominee. Rather, the debate should be about undecided voters, and especially the so-called "double-haters" who want a choice other than Trump or Biden. Biden's consistent high-30s approval rating in credible polls demonstrates that his fateful debate performance did not create doubts about his candidacy, but confirmed them. All of this is to argue that the salient issue for the Democratic Party is Biden's age and cognitive abilities moving forward, not his past accomplishments. When polls are consistently showing +/- 75% of voters thinking that he is "too old to run for the presidency" or "is incapable of serving another term," this goes straight to electability. And that's where this debate should be had. Is Joe Biden now electable, especially given public perception of his age and cognitive abilities? As polling is increasingly showing, he very likely is not. In a closely related sense, the debate should also be about whether a responsible political party should nominate a man who is quite evidently in cognitive decline to be President for four more years? I have been a psychotherapist for over 30 years. Once cognitive decline starts - and with Mr. Biden it pretty clearly has - it can progress quite quickly over a period of a few or several years. Whether it is a diminishment of cognitive abilities, or some form of dementia, it progresses. And a responsible political party should not nominate a man for President of The United States who is in a state of cognitive decline, perhaps severe. To do so is to make us more like the Republican Party. They are willing to thrice nominate a man who is manifestly unfit (cognitively and morally) to serve as the President. Knowing what is now clear for all to see about Joe Biden, we should not do it even once. Joe Biden is a fine man, and a highly successful President. He should end his political career with dignity, and pass the torch to someone who has a legitimate chance to save our democracy from a man who would seek to end it.
So we have no choice but to expect nothing better from the "good guys" ? That's really convenient.
You write with analytical clarity, humane purpose, and courage. Unlike most others who write, speak, or post including, now, 93% of MSNBC. That is why I read today's TCS. That, however, does not remove the unleashed monster and his unleashed army of monsters from the "gates" to the country. THAT IS THE 5-ALARM FIRE IN 2024.
I feel like the avoidance of mentioning the huge percentage of Democracy who voted undecided not necessarily to get a different candidate but to demand THIS candidate address their concerns about supplying weapons to Israel and denying aid to Palestine is not a good way to get a comprehensive answer for this issue.
I agree. The world is not ready to be governed by "morality." In any case we cannot impose our morality on a country that believes it is fighing for its survival. Biden has to deal with the world as it is. I think this is very different from our wars of choice in Vietnam Grenada, Panama, Bosnia,Iraq, Afghanistan... In any case the war against Trumpism is far more important at the moment than futile efforts to stop "genocide"..which we can't do, and which is the way the world has been for the last 6000 years.
I'm not talking about "governing the world by morality" I'm talking specifically about providing arms paid for with our tax dollars to a country that is using them to perpetuate crimes against humanity. That you are conflating one with the other as if it's just some impossible ask says more about your own priorities and morals than it does about mine.
no, it says something about our respective views of how the world works. i have no doubts about the immorality of Israel's overreaction, but I recognize I cannot impose my views of morality on a man fighting for his life. i also recognize that Biden has a much more complex problem to worry about...call it the balance of power in the mid-east as a place to start thinking about it. you know nothing about my priorities and morals and I don't claim to know anything about yours. mostly just trying to say that at the moment we need to worry more about Trump than our differing views about Palestine. I am sorry you based your morality on "tax dollars." To try to be more clear, I am saying we ought not to commit national suicide by withholding hour votes for Biden because we don't like his policy toward Israel. It's a matter of helping dad fight off the madman at the door instead of worrying about whether he washed his hands before dinner.
In terms of the election people like me who have those concerns know that electing a Republican will be far worse.
theodora, you said it better than i did.
Especially THIS Republican.
Do you really think I don't know that as well?! Amazing. The laziness of this kind of thinking astounds me.
Are you saying this is your reason for turning the U.S. over to autocrats? Biden may not have responded as you would have liked, but he had a decent solution that has been rejected by Bibi and has worked tirelessly to find any decent solution and cease fire. Although the horrendous response to October 7 was and is way over the top of what was needed, October 7 did happen. Bibi ignored warnings. Women and children were killed, raped, tortured. And God knows that they are still being tortured. Your post - like so many - act as if October 7 never happened. Without that in the equation, how can we have a decent conversation about how to move forward? If you let Trump be elected, he's going to let Bibi bomb Gaza out of existence. He said so.
I'm not voting for Trump you asshat.