SHOULD Biden run for a 2nd term? (1 Viewer)

[SteveSBrickNJ]

Biden has lost support from many people who voted for him in the past.
He is getting up there in age.
Here are a couple of sites I'd like to share...
*

Octogenarian Biden begins new year facing age-old question on 2024 race

In the coming months, Biden faces a simple question: will he seek a second term at the end of which he would be 86?

www.theguardian.com

*

Biden 2024? Most Democrats say no thank you: AP-NORC poll

A majority of Democrats now think one term is plenty for President Joe Biden, despite his insistence that he plans to seek reelection in 2024. While Biden has trumpeted his legislative victories and ability to govern, the poll suggests relatively few U.S. adults give him high marks on either...

news.yahoo.com

*
WHAT DO ANY OF YOU THINK?
IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEST SERVED BY HAVING PRESIDENT BIDEN RUN FOR ANOTHER TERM OR WOULD A DIFFERENT CANDIDATE BE BETTER?

 

[MT15]

I made a bad decision and took a right on the wrong street, when I should have taken a left.

Biden made a bad decision and impacted countless families and individuals.

There are levels to this Uri.

Pretending that it was only Biden is a bit dishonest, as is pretending that Kamala is responsible for the way the legal system is set up. Everyone makes bad decisions and it’s easy to dunk on people for those bad decisions when you have the benefit of hindsight. What I tend to look at more is what were the intentions of the people at the time? In Biden’s case (and Harris’ case), they had good intentions. As already mentioned it was the opinion of a majority of people during that time. In Trump’s case his bad decisions were made with malicious intent. He wasn’t trying to be a good president, he was trying to wring every last dollar and get every last bit of power for himself that he could. He’s reckless and you cannot say that about Biden. So pretending that both sides are equally bad is about as dishonest as it gets and simply marks you as a Trump apologist. Which is fine, but don’t pretend otherwise. In RFK, Jrs case his bad decisions are meant to deliberately hurt children so he can chase clout. He knows it, he just thinks his wants and needs are more important than the good of the population. That should sound familiar to you.

This is going to be the 2016 version of Tio Bernie and his Bernie Bros all over again, I’m here for it.

I sincerely doubt that very much. RFK, Jr is not a serious person, and nobody who thinks seriously will ever support his candidacy.

 

[DaveXA]

I never vouched for Trump, or what he did, I only said that during his time in office many said that he was trying his best (similar to what folks are saying about Biden).

Except they aren't the same. But you go ahead and keep throwing out the false equivalencies.

 

[UriUT]

Those are some hell of “bad decisions” to look past on Biden and Harris.

How do you compartmentalize their actions? Are you by chance Caucasian?

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that that crime bill is detrimental to the black community. At the same time, you don’t even have to be black or Caucasian to defend the reasoning behind that bill. You bringing up race is quite questionable. Clyburn defends his decision as I think Biden has. That doesn’t mean that they will make that choice with what they now know.

Heck, by your rationale, churchchill’s gallipoli mistake precludes him from ever making good choices and lead again. No one is beyond mistakes, but good leaders learn from it.

 

[CoolBrees]

If his name was Robert F. Schmidt, no one would know who he is.

Unless he runs as an independent, he is completely irrelevant, as he won't win a single delegate in the Dem primaries.

And he is completely unremarkable. He has lived off his name and done nothing of any consequence himself.

And I can't remember any Kennedy infighting in public. Let alone the whole family disavowing one of them.

And lastly, I find it a bit ironic when those who work within the financial world have the audacity to talk about anybody else's mistakes. Those dudes are a bunch of chumps that don't know anything and cause global calamity every 30 years or so. And then get bailed out.

The financial world- the banking industry in particular - has caused more harm to minority communities than any other practically.

Hell te fact that the crooks at Wells Fargo have jobs and the company is still able to exist after it stole billions from their customers is all you gotta know. They just paid a fine.

And they never apologize for shirt. Just wait for their next fork up and bail out cycle

 

[LA - L.A.]

I just love how the Democrats hate RFK because he (JFK Jr) isn’t as crazy as that Pride Month celebration held on the White House lawn...

And this is what I think is your guiding issue on who you prefer as president. Your feelings about non-traditional gender and sexuality are well known and I think you just showed in this one sentence what your single voting issue is.

The totality of what you have said recently on this site highly suggests you want Trump or DeSantis or JFK Jr., because you want a president that's going to continue to wage cultural warfare on the grounds of race, religion, gender and sexuality.

You're not looking for a good policy maker. You're not looking for increased equity, just the opposite in my opinion, and you're not looking for stronger national security or increased global stability.

The singular thing you want is someone who will own and blow up all them damn liberals, especially those LGBTQIA+ ones.

Deny away!

 

[el caliente]

Don’t waste your time defending Biden to me, save that energy for the team party echo chamber.

And this is what I think is your guiding issue on who you prefer as president. Your feelings about non-traditional gender and sexuality are well known and I think you just showed in this one sentence what your single voting issue is.

The totality of what you have said recently on this site highly suggests you want Trump or DeSantis or JFK Jr., because you want a president that's going to continue to wage cultural warfare on the grounds of race, religion, gender and sexuality.

You're not looking for a good policy maker. You're not looking for increased equity, just the opposite in my opinion, and you're not looking for stronger national security or increased global stability.

The singular thing you want is someone who will own and blow up all them damn liberals, especially those LGBTQIA+ ones.

Deny away!

I don’t want to just blow up the current Democratic Party, I want to see the current Republican Party blown up too. Given the climate in DC over the last ~7+ years, only a team party player is down with this disease.

I don’t know what you are getting at with the LGBTQ talk, but I’ll pray for you ( all your projecting can’t be healthy).

 

[CoolBrees]

@el caliente -

I'm sorry seven years?

Your bio says you are 41 so you should remember President Obama's term right? No division there from your side? That is 8 more years.

What about swiftboating? Your side paid desperate veterans to lie about Kerry's military career. Party over country? Yeah I think so.

Or how about the ridiculous moral majority? Or the PTL? Contract with America? Focus on the Family? The Rush Limbaugh to Hannity to Tucker hate lineage?

the right has been involved in divisive politics since we were founded as a country. They fought the end of slavery segregation, gender equality, and same sex marriage. Used god as their reasoning instead of real arguments.

7 years? Hardly.

The right has been using divisive politics since their inception. It is your primary platform. Own it at least.

 

[RebSaint]

Here's what befuddles me: why are so many on the right wishing to "blow up" things? The two party system is flawed and yes, neither party has addressed a lot of systemic problems in any substantive way.

But I have no idea what "blowing up" anything politically will solve any real problems. What is more confusing is why so many alleged "conservatives" have become so hostile to the Constitution, rule of law, decency, precedent, and tradition vis a vis American politics.

The American right wing right now resembles the anarchists Nixon et. al. decried in the 60s and 70s.

The American right is sprinting away from "traditional" conservatism to a form of authoritarianism that is focused more on halting, or taking away rights from historically-oppressed people at all costs, including women, racial minorities, and of course, LGBQT+

And the "both sides" are equally horrid argument is absolute crap. This claim may have been true 20 yrs ago, but with the likes of Trump, DeSantis, etc. running the party, cruelty, lack of empathy, disregard for law and the Constitution is the currency of the realm and part of their political identity.

The main feature of their platform is literally collection of culture war issues that don't at all help the working or middle class.

 

[MT15]

I’m going with several contributing factors:

1. The “they see the writing on the wall” theory. They can see that America soon won’t be majority white and Christian, I mean they sort of knew it was coming, but now they can see the day in the near future. They don’t like it. They want to stop it, but they can not. They feel persecuted in anticipation of being treated as badly as they have treated other minorities. So they rail against minorities and try to take away any safeguards that ensure equal treatment.

2. Second thing is that the economic policies of the past 40 years or so (trickle down) have overall hurt the middle class (wages stagnant or declining) and created a whole new bumper crop of billionaires. They have all this money (power) and they want to flex it. They see how oligarchies work out in other countries, and even though they damn near have that here, they want it all. A whole lot of rural America, on the other hand, was left behind when manufacturing went away, and they have a ton of resentment about it. So they are ripe for number 3.

3. Russia and China have been happy to help destabilize the US, and they found the GOP a willing partner due to the changing demographics mentioned above. An entire subset of the GOP would rather end democracy than see their political power diminish.

Who knows if any of this is correct or not? Just musing on a lazy Sunday.

 

[RebSaint]

I’m going with several contributing factors:

1. The “they see the writing on the wall” theory. They can see that America soon won’t be majority white and Christian, I mean they sort of knew it was coming, but now they can see the day in the near future. They don’t like it. They want to stop it, but they can not. They feel persecuted in anticipation of being treated as badly as they have treated other minorities. So they rail against minorities and try to take away any safeguards that ensure equal treatment.

2. Second thing is that the economic policies of the past 40 years or so (trickle down) have overall hurt the middle class (wages stagnant or declining) and created a whole new bumper crop of billionaires. They have all this money (power) and they want to flex it. They see how oligarchies work out in other countries, and even though they damn near have that here, they want it all. A whole lot of rural America, on the other hand, was left behind when manufacturing went away, and they have a ton of resentment about it. So they are ripe for number 3.

3. Russia and China have been happy to help destabilize the US, and they found the GOP a willing partner due to the changing demographics mentioned above. An entire subset of the GOP would rather end democracy than see their political power diminish.

Who knows if any of this is correct or not? Just musing on a lazy Sunday.

I think this assessment is pretty spot on, but I would only add that emphasizing the culture wars has been a strategy to divide working people based on other things like race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.

Put another way, the culture wars have an economic objective most people are oblivious of.

 

[LA - L.A.]

I think this assessment is pretty spot on, but I would only add that emphasizing the culture wars has been a strategy to divide working people based on other things like race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc.

Put another way, the culture wars have an economic objective most people are oblivious of.

I agree, especially with the last sentence. Part of the way that robber barons destroy unions is to destroy unity within diverse work forces.

The overwhelming majority of billionaires are addicted to hoarding wealth and influence. Like all addicts, they will ferociously and irrationally protect their stash and their fix against any perceived threats. The thing that scares them the most and what they feel most threatened by is a united workforce.

Just this past week a CEO anonymously let it be know that the AMPTP wants to drag out the WGA and SAG/AFTRA strikes until October to make workers lose their houses and apartments. Let that sink in. They want to financially break people to the point of losing their homes, because they don't want to share an additional few percents of their profits (not revenue, profits) with the workers who earn them that profit. The CEO said they also want to bust the WGA completely.

Universal/Comcast pruned city owned trees down to the trunks to remove shade for picketing strikers right before intense heat and UV levels. They've also put up construction barriers in places where there is no construction to force picketers into the streets.

Unlike the phrase that is currently being parroted, these are very serious people with seriously bad intentions. What's happening now is just the tip of a very destructive spear. The longer it takes us to stop this fascist assault, the more damage that will be done and the harder it will be for us to defeat and to recover from.

 

[LA - L.A.]

I don’t want to just blow up the current Democratic Party, I want to see the current Republican Party blown up too. Given the climate in DC over the last ~7+ years, only a team party player is down with this disease.

You would be believable if you complained equally about the Republican and Democratic parties, but you do not, so you are not believable.

I don’t know what you are getting at with the LGBTQ talk...

The more you deny and deflect with petty, childish nonsense, the more it makes it clear that your primary, if not only, voting issue is to elect someone who will continue to wage cultural warfare against "damned liberals" on the grounds of race, religion, gender and sexuality.

Look at how you just tried to "own me." "Owning" those you see as "libs" is your raison d'être. You see those who share that raison d'être with you as having a certain je ne sais quoi.

The fact you fixated solely on my mention of LGBQTIA+ proves that you do have an huge issue with people who are that way.

You're transparent, as well as not believable.

I'm transparent too. I'm intentionally transparent. I'm not trying to play any rhetorical games, hide any rhetorical agendas, or "own" anyone. I do speak my mind, as I'm very much WYSIWYG.

 

[DaveXA]

I’m going with several contributing factors:

1. The “they see the writing on the wall” theory. They can see that America soon won’t be majority white and Christian, I mean they sort of knew it was coming, but now they can see the day in the near future. They don’t like it. They want to stop it, but they can not. They feel persecuted in anticipation of being treated as badly as they have treated other minorities. So they rail against minorities and try to take away any safeguards that ensure equal treatment.

2. Second thing is that the economic policies of the past 40 years or so (trickle down) have overall hurt the middle class (wages stagnant or declining) and created a whole new bumper crop of billionaires. They have all this money (power) and they want to flex it. They see how oligarchies work out in other countries, and even though they damn near have that here, they want it all. A whole lot of rural America, on the other hand, was left behind when manufacturing went away, and they have a ton of resentment about it. So they are ripe for number 3.

3. Russia and China have been happy to help destabilize the US, and they found the GOP a willing partner due to the changing demographics mentioned above. An entire subset of the GOP would rather end democracy than see their political power diminish.

Who knows if any of this is correct or not? Just musing on a lazy Sunday.

3. I don't doubt there's some of that, but the lion's share goes to the other issues. Jmo.

 

[MT15]

3. I don't doubt there's some of that, but the lion's share goes to the other issues. Jmo.

Yeah, I hear you but I don’t think you can separate any of them, they kinda all work together. There is an entire wing of the GOP in bed with Russia and it started years and years ago, before Trump. General Flynn is a prime example. Russia basically infiltrated the NRA, and corrupted them with easy cash. They have funneled money into GOP races (and maybe a few on the left like Jill Stein and RFK, Jr.). They have found much greater success with the GOP, though. It is what it is.

 

[UriUT]

Pretending that it was only Biden is a bit dishonest, as is pretending that Kamala is responsible for the way the legal system is set up. Everyone makes bad decisions and it’s easy to dunk on people for those bad decisions when you have the benefit of hindsight. What I tend to look at more is what were the intentions of the people at the time? In Biden’s case (and Harris’ case), they had good intentions. As already mentioned it was the opinion of a majority of people during that time. In Trump’s case his bad decisions were made with malicious intent. He wasn’t trying to be a good president, he was trying to wring every last dollar and get every last bit of power for himself that he could. He’s reckless and you cannot say that about Biden. So pretending that both sides are equally bad is about as dishonest as it gets and simply marks you as a Trump apologist. Which is fine, but don’t pretend otherwise. In RFK, Jrs case his bad decisions are meant to deliberately hurt children so he can chase clout. He knows it, he just thinks his wants and needs are more important than the good of the population. That should sound familiar to you.

I sincerely doubt that very much. RFK, Jr is not a serious person, and nobody who thinks seriously will ever support his candidacy.

I agree that intent should be considered when judging policy, but the approach to a decision matters.

Let's pretend that RFK jr has good intentions; that he's opposing vaccines to save children. The problem is that it's not based on any science or evidence. We have over 50+ years of evidence that vaccines are safe and doesn't cause autism. Therefore his decision to oppose vaccines is just arbitrary...an absolute abuse of power.

On the other hand, the crime bill had a clear objective. It was to remove drugs that Biden, cyburn, etc viewed as an endemic plaguing the black community. That decision is reasonable and based on evidence. It's similar to a doctor prescribing penicillin based antibiotics to a person without any history of allergies to it. Unexpectedly, that patient develops a severe reaction; an unforseen consequence. We cannot blame that doctor because the decision to prescribe penicillin is a reasonable one.

Even with good intent, we cannot willy nilly apply policy without evidence or science....IMHO.

 

[Optimus Prime]

interesting read
============

President Biden is 80 years old and is running for a second term, more or less unopposed, in the Democratic primary. So I gathered a group of our left-leaning columnists for a conversation over email and asked: How do you feel about that?

Has Biden failed to be a “bridge” to a new generation of leaders, as he pledged to be in 2020? Should he have declared himself “one (term) and done,” like a college basketball star? Should the party have held a competitive primary instead of clearing the field, as is traditional for an incumbent president? Is the fascination with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s not-gonna-happen campaign a sign of nervousness about Biden 2024 in some portion of the Democratic primary electorate? And will you change your mind about any of these things if someone other than Donald Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee?

Fine wine, cheese and Joe Biden​

Dana Milbank: If hand-wringing translated into votes, Democrats would never lose an election. I find their fretting over Biden’s age tedious — and probably exaggerated by the disinformation from the right portraying him as drooling and senile. The wandering speeches, the gaffes and the other traits people now assign to his advanced age are the same traits I observed when covering him in the 1990s.

As a Gen Xer, sure, I would have preferred if Biden had offered himself as a one-term anti-Trump savior and cleared the way for a new generation. But a competitive primary would only have turned him into Carter ’80. It’s also just as likely that a decision not to run for reelection would have had the effect of anointing Kamala D. Harris, who by virtue of being a woman of color would make it easier for Trump to foment a 2016-style backlash of racism and misogyny..........

Jennifer Rubin: So Biden is 80. Live with it. He’s certainly sharp enough to have solidified and expanded NATO, snookered Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the debt ceiling negotiations and racked up as impressive a first-term domestic record as any incumbent in memory. If inflation is less than 3 percent and job growth is still strong on Election Day, Biden will have pulled off the near-impossible soft-landing (with Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell as his co-pilot)..........

Ruth Marcus: Riffing off of how Perry phrased it, I wish Biden did not have to run for a second term. He is too old. No, he is not the drooler of overheated GOP imaginings, but he has slowed down, obviously and measurably. And 80 is too old, period, for the demanding job of the presidency. Let the torch be passed, etc.

Except for this: Biden needs to run. He (and Democrats) are correct about that assessment. If he were to have announced that he was stepping aside, the internecine warfare that would have erupted over Harris, the heiress apparent, versus everyone else, would have torn the party apart, or risked doing so, and opened the door too wide to risk a Republican president being elected.

And not just Trump. He is the biggest, most existential risk, and the primary driver of my “Biden must run” mentality. I used to believe Trump was a singular threat, and that there would not be Trumpism without Trump. But that was wrong. The forces he has unleashed are powerful and dangerous, and exist even in his absence from the scene. From my point of view, the risk to the Supreme Court alone is enough to justify doing whatever it takes to maximize the chance of a Democrat being elected (which means: Biden, Biden, Biden)...........

Biden is the unity candidate​

Greg Sargent: Improbably, Biden has been the guy with enough appeal to the middle needed to both beat Trump and to pass (parts of) a historically progressive agenda (bringing Bernie Sanders into the tent) while recasting it to the electorate (including affluent suburbanites who supposedly lean right economically) as sensible moderation. Biden seems uniquely well-positioned to not just beat Trump again but also to cement a broad, center-left ideological consensus with paradigm-shifting durability...........

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/26/biden-2024-democratic-primaries-liberal-roundtable-harris-age/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

This guy is a bonafide idiot:

(7) Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and, within 120 days of the general Presidential election, the spouses of such candidates. As used in this paragraph, the term "major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates" means those individuals identified as such by the Secretary of Homeland Security after consultation with an advisory committee consisting of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and one additional member selected by the other members of the committee. The Committee shall not be subject to chapter 10 of title 5.

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:18%20section:3056%20edition:prelim)%20OR%20(granuleid:USC-prelim-title18-section3056)&f=treesort&num=0&edition=prelim

Campaign 2024 - Candidate Protection

The Secret Service does not determine who qualifies for protection, nor is the Secret Service empowered to independently initiate candidate protection. By law, major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, as identified by the Secretary of Homeland Security, are eligible for Secret...

www.secretservice.gov

 

[Optimus Prime]

This guy is a bonafide idiot:

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:18%20section:3056%20edition:prelim)%20OR%20(granuleid:USC-prelim-title18-section3056)&f=treesort&num=0&edition=prelim

Campaign 2024 - Candidate Protection

The Secret Service does not determine who qualifies for protection, nor is the Secret Service empowered to independently initiate candidate protection. By law, major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, as identified by the Secretary of Homeland Security, are eligible for Secret...

www.secretservice.gov

which I have no doubt he knows