• @iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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      510 months ago

      Let’s see, just to name a few: openly against civil gun ownership, openly against expensive private healthcare, openly against zionism and Israel’s occupation of Gaza. This pisses off a lot of very powerful people, so probably not gonna happen

    • @lennybird@lemmy.world
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      410 months ago

      Yep. But let’s explore this further under the hood.

      • Nobody of the progressive caucus can break ranks lest that be used against the party as a wedge-drive issue by operatives later, whether Biden stays in or not.

      • Bernie was essentially promised a high level committee position if he traded falling in line with Biden. This his returning of the favor.

      • Calls for Biden to step down will be completely ineffective from the progressive coalition anyway. Biden is a centrist and doesn’t hold much respect for them. The people who matter are the likes of Clyburn and Pelosi.

    • @shiroininja@lemmy.world
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      2910 months ago

      I have an unpopular opinion. Swapping candidates a couple months from election will look really disorganized and even weaker than keeping him. Especially to swing voters. And it’ll be rushed. I doubt the replacement will be well known, so you expect me to get to know, learn who they are and develop a platform in a couple months? I think they’d lose too.

      It’s too late. The spineless centrists controlling the party waffled too long and I bet they cost the election again. Just like in 2016. I’m really disappointed in the Democratic Party and how it’s condensed it’s power more towards the top and quite frankly, am tired of their muted response to things like project 2025 until months before the election. It’s been around since. Before trump was elected, but without a catchy name. I passed around the leaked documents on it in 2017.

      I’m just reminded of ‘Baby I’m an Anarchist’ by Against me! Lately. I’m not an Anarchist, but I feel the lyrics about the my fellow spineless liberals

      • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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        110 months ago

        I think that’s why they’re floating it now. They’re getting people primed to accept someone as the replacement that they already recognize. (My money is on Kamala Harris.)

      • @iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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        010 months ago

        Other countries have their entire election cycles in a few months. It’s a joke to think it’s too late for Biden to drop out.

      • @dhork@lemmy.world
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        1110 months ago

        Swapping candidates would look really, really bad… unless he comes up and says “I had a talk with my doctor, he says I’ve developed a chronic condition that I didn’t know about past year. I can’t do it anymore, but here, vote for my VP, who you all already voted for once anyway, and would take over anyway if this thing kills me”.

        He can leave out that the chronic condition is just notgonnawinatall, and his doctor is also his pollster.

    • @Thteven@lemmy.world
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      1810 months ago

      He understands the two party system we’re left with. If we don’t back the democratic candidate we will be fucked by the 30% of the population that wants Cheeto Messiah in the white house.

  • @maniii@lemmy.world
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    2810 months ago

    Drumpf is a living survivor martyr. Nothing is now gonna hold anything back. Every thing is now going to hit the fan.

  • @Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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    2310 months ago

    A thought I haven’t seen offered much, but could give Biden an ego-soothing role instead of being put out to political pasture - a Harris:Biden ticket.

    She gets to be the energetic go-getter at the front (that the Maga hate-oil salesmen are shrieking about atm) while Biden can play the ‘elder statesman’ role of advice and experience to Kamala instead of running himself. You defuse a lot of the competency/decline arguments against Biden, and gird against one of Harris’s biggest threats - her lack of international experience.

    Kamala is not a political unknown, but Biden is losing/equal right now to Trump with the DNC money & publicity machine working for him the last eight years. I’d argue Harris has a better shot if those efforts are swung her way. I don’t like Harris, but needn’t convince me to vote team blue - it’s the ~9% undecided we need to convince.

    • @akakunai@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      I mean, this isn’t an awful idea…

      The real world logistics probably make this more complicated than implied, but I don’t mind the intent.

      • @abracaDavid@lemmy.today
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        610 months ago

        It’s not a good idea because Kamala is pretty unpopular.

        She comes off as out of touch and condescending, just like another certain candidate that lost to Trump in 2016.

        • @akakunai@lemmy.ca
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          10 months ago

          I agree, she’s not the candidate I’d want leading the dems—far from it. But people are used to voting between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich as their president. Biden is something different, more agreeable than some other candidates the Dems have run. But people are seriously concerned about voting for a man who’s mental acuity is declining rapidly towards senility and very possibly will not live through 2028.

          Plus, I haven’t read too far into it but I’ve heard that only Kamala would be able to use the Biden/Harris campaign war-chest. It’s sad as hell that that is so important, but it is nonetheless.

  • WatDabney
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    1510 months ago

    I’m with him 100% on the first bit - at this point, the single most important thing the Dems have to do is stop bickering.

    As for the rest, at this point I don’t even much care. I can see arguments both for and against in both directions - either choice is going to involve some risk but either choice can be made to succeed.

    So the important thing, and really the ONLY important thing, is to pick one and run with it. Stop with the dilly-dallying and the second-guessing and the bitching and moaning and hand-wringing and make a choice and stick with it, so we can focus ALL of our attention on pounding those fucking fascist traitors’ dicks into the dirt.

      • @pivot_root@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        The US might be a capitalist, colonialist country sprinkled with panderings of faux-socialism and heading towards fascism, but I would hardly call that an improvement over another capitalist-in-all-but-name, fascist, colonialist country with eroded communist foundations.

        Whatever atrocities you believe the US is committing in terms of subjugating and exploiting poorer countries and its own working class, China is doing the same thing but only with a bit more subtlety.

        • queermunist she/her
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          -510 months ago

          When was the last time China invaded an oil-rich country, overthrew their government, and killed a million people?

          If you want to dream up Chinese imperialism whenever China builds roads in another country, you still have to grapple with the fact that they don’t build those roads on the graves of martyrs that died trying to defend their homeland.

          • @pivot_root@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Considering China is allied with Russia and buys nearly half of their crude oil exports, they haven’t needed to invade other countries for oil. I’ll give you that, but at the same time, they’re also indirectly assisting and allied with a country that is happily trying to extinguish the entirety of Ukraine.

            Roads and ports. With abusive conditions that all but make it impossible for the poorer countries to satisfy their terms, ultimately leading to China being free to claim the infrastructure they built on foreign soil as their own. They might not be as obvious about it as the United States, but they are still a captialist, colonialist country antithetical to communist goals.

            Every global superpower does their fair share of this shit. The countries we should actually be looking up to are the socialist/communist ones that rapidly accelerated their growth and citizens’ quality of life before being destabilized by an existing global superpower (usually, the United States).

            • queermunist she/her
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              -410 months ago

              they’re also indirectly assisting and allied with a country that is happily trying to extinguish the entirety of Ukraine.

              Hyperbole does not help your case.

              A war to extinguish a nation looks more like what Israel is doing in Gaza. Compare the number of children, medical staff, UN aid workers, and other noncombatants that have been murdered. Compare the total eradication of all homes, businesses, universities, hospitals, religious institutions, historic sites. Russia, by contrast, is waging a war of conquest and assimilation.

              All China is doing is trading with them, and not even trading weapons or munitions! It’s just normal commerce. Let’s compare again with Israel and how the US is providing it unlimited bombs and heavy equipment and fucking jets it needs to do its genocide.

              When you compare the two the stark contrast makes your hyperbolic claims into a joke.

              With abusive conditions that all but make it impossible for the poorer countries to satisfy their terms,

              They forgive the loans they give to those poorer countries when they can’t repay and are always willing to refinance.

              Compare that to the IMF which sells off public assets to private interests and imposes austerity measures onto the people, letting the US infiltrate the government and set up counter-terror operations and win exclusive trade deals to superexploit the people.

              Again, compare and contrast. The US isn’t merely worse, it has different objectives. One is imperialist, one is internationalist.

              Every global superpower does their fair share of this shit. The countries we should actually be looking up to are the socialist/communist ones that rapidly accelerated their growth and citizens’ quality of life before being destabilized by an existing global superpower (namely, the United States).

              This is why China is the way it is. China has to ally itself with Russia and it has to wield state capitalism, or else it would end up the same as every other socialist experiment the US destroyed. If China cut off every country that US says is evil then it will lose all its allies, and then the US will just turn around and declare that the world needs to stop doing business with China.

              Instead, China saw right through that, and with BRICs the dedollerization of the global economy is inevitable. The Communist Party of China has done more to destroy US imperialism than any communist party in every other country combined.

              Grow up.

          • @odium@programming.dev
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            10 months ago

            When was the last time the US tried to erase a people’s culture? And when was the last time China tried that? When was the second to last time China tried that? What about the third to last time?

            Both countries are imperialistic in different ways. One does most of its atrocities to the citizens of other countries and one does most of its atrocities to its own citizens. Neither should be looked up to.

            • queermunist she/her
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              -610 months ago

              When was the last time the US committed cultural genocide?

              When it caused one million deaths in Iraq through direct and indirect warfare for no reason. It currently has a direct hand in the genocide happening in Gaza right now.

              Or how about when ICE was caught sterilizing migrant women in detention centers? They were doing that as recently as 2020, and there’s a long history of forced sterilization in the US.

              Compare and contrast. Look at Gaza, look at Xinjiang province, try to spot the difference! Can you do it?

              Neither should be looked up to.

              There’s no other choice. You can’t just think up an idealistic imaginary third option. The US or China. Choose

              • @odium@programming.dev
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                10 months ago

                There’s no other choice. You can’t just think up an idealistic imaginary third option. The US or China. Choose

                There are other choices. There is no forced binary. There are around 200 countries currently in existence that you can look up to and many more past countries that no longer exist that you can look up to too. Or, like me, you can not look up to any country. The perfect system doesn’t have to be already invented and in practice. Karl Marx did not look up to any countries when creating his system.

                I believe that every country currently in existence has flaws and do not look up to any of them.

                Killing civilians in Iraq is evil. Killing civilians in Gaza is evil. Sterilizing people is evil. The USSR and US proxy wars were evil. Installing dictators in South America is evil. None of these, however, are an attempt to erase a culture. There is a thriving hispanic culture in the US and the US government isn’t erasing it. There are thriving sub cultures for every out-group in the US.

                Not that erasing a culture is more or less evil than these things. I do not engage in the ranking of atrocities. Atrocities are atrocities and I hate them all.

                Erasing the culture of the Uyghurs is also evil. Sterilizing Uyghurs is evil. Invading and erasing the culture of Tibet is evil. Erasing the culture of all of China with the cultural revolution is evil. One child policy is evil.

                Removing citizens’ rights to talk freely about the government and society and protest what they dislike about them is evil. Censorship is evil. I’m in the US and I said all that about the US being evil and am not going to face any consequences and my comment will not be taken down.

                Not recognizing same sex marriage is evil. Someone who claims to be queer ought to recognize that and not look up to countries which don’t recognize it.

                • @pivot_root@lemmy.world
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                  210 months ago

                  There are other choices. There is no forced binary. There are around 200 countries currently in existence that you can look up to and many more past countries that no longer exist that you can look up to too.

                  Thank you! Exactly! It’s not just the US or China/Russia/NK. There are a couple hundred options, many of which are happy to coexist and aren’t vying to become the one true empire of the planet.

  • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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    4010 months ago

    Or stop bickering and replace him ASAP.

    But really, I don’t think this is bickering. I think it’s an intentionally slow drip of news to get people more receptive to the idea of replacing him with Kamala, so that it’s not a bomb dropping all of a sudden, which would likely freak out a bunch of voters and cause them to lose votes. Boil the frog slowly and there’s less of a splash.

    • @CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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      610 months ago

      Well honestly it’s going to be a splash either way and the sooner they replace him, the better. Kamala is going to need more time to cook with and the sooner she can get out there, the sooner she can challenge Trump to a debate and flip this country around.

  • SatansMaggotyCumFart
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    -610 months ago

    It’s nice to see the majority of the democrats are reasonable people and will continue backing Biden.

    • @distantsounds@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      tbh, I don’t think reasonable people would think an 80yr old is the best fit to run a country. Edit: Especially after publicly shitting the bed on multiple occasions

            • @iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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              310 months ago

              No, it’s not too late. Biden is not even officially the democratic nominee yet, the convention hasn’t even happened yet. The rest of the world has an entire election cycle that lasts like two months. The election is still almost four months away.

              • FaceDeer
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                410 months ago

                The US has an election cycle that runs much longer than most other places in the world.

                I’m seeing a lot of people downvoting comments that are making simple statements of fact about how the American election system works. It may not be the way people want it to work, but that’s what they’ve got. Downvoting such comments doesn’t change it.

      • FaceDeer
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        510 months ago

        These are reasonable people who at this point are faced with a choice between that 80 year old and Trump.

        The Democrats could have run someone else, should have run someone else, didn’t run someone else. So those are now the two options.

          • FaceDeer
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            10 months ago

            He already has enough delegates to win the convention, as is my understanding of the odd way the Democratic party makes this decision.

            • @distantsounds@lemmy.world
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              1010 months ago

              Biden can announce that he is not seeking re-election. Release the delegates and it can be decided at the convention, as it officially is done. The DNC refusing to allow proper primaries makes this much messing now, but it is the only viable path forward without trump. It’s the policies and platform that are important and anyone who would vote D knows that. The left doesn’t want a king, but someone who can champion their ideals.

  • @TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    9710 months ago

    I think most Dems, especially those who are highly politically engaged and closely follow election news, are going to vote blue no matter who. So, I think Bernie is preaching to the choir here. I think the Dems who are worried about Biden are worried he doesn’t have enough support among independents, and they feel independents are much less likely to just vote for the Democrat, no matter who it is.

    Now, could just any candidate replace Biden and automatically win back any of the independents he is believed to have lost? I don’t know. A lot of Dems seem to think that just about any other candidate would do better than Biden among independents right now, but I’m not so sure.

    • @Throw_away_migrator@lemmy.world
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      2210 months ago

      I think the other concern is voter turnout/enthusiasm. The last presidential election had extremely high turnout. Even if voters (in swing states) don’t switch candidates but opt to stay home instead that could translate into a significant electoral problem too.

      • @Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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        210 months ago

        You do have a point that turn out Is important, but a potential replacement candidate isn’t guaranteed to increase turn out, they could be worse. And they would only have 4 months to try to fix things, which isn’t a lot of time.

        • JustEnoughDucks
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          110 months ago

          Turnout is literally everything. It is literally more turnout = Democrat win literally every single election in america. Low turnout in 2016 still resulted in trump losing the popular vote. America’s voting system is messed up, but then so is UK’s parliamentary first past the post system and Belgium’s 6 governments.

    • I think you might be missing the point though.

      Those highly politically engaged Dem voters who will vote blue no matter who are bickering about whether Biden is the right choice, and the swing voters are paying attention.

      To an undecided voter, it doesn’t inspire much confident to see that Biden’s own supporters don’t think he can do the job.

      The bickering amongst those who will vote blue anyway is costing the votes from the undecideds that Biden so desperately needs.

      • @CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6410 months ago

        Hillary, much like Trump, is a symptom of what is wrong with the Democrats. “It was her turn” spat in the face of people who were excited about a progressive candidate and made the whole primary a sham.

        She was a terrible candidate. She was a bitter pill that many independents said “enough is enough” and voted third party or not voted at all.

        I am deeply concerned that as the Republicans move more toward fascism, the left are not going to have great candidates. We’re going to get established, wealthy-class friendly candidates who are willing to throw crumbs at the working class. They’ll bitch and moan about how they are losing voters, never looking at themselves, never realizing that we are literally voting to just survive.

        This election will be just like 2020. We aren’t voting for Biden. We’re voting against fascism.

        And I’m personally getting fucking tired of Democrats seeing that as a win.

        • lad
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          10 months ago

          I am deeply concerned that as the Republicans move more toward fascism, the left are not going to have great candidates

          Well, the Republicans Democrats will have an option of being “less fascist party” by then. I feel like the future is not too bright, somehow

          Edit: mixed the opposites somehow 🫠

      • @JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world
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        410 months ago

        Hillary “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman” Clinton. Yeah. Keep on satisfying those poor, misguided progressives.