Now time for some reality.
Keeping with the meme of the day….the debate….I would like to talk about the Democrats.
I gave my analysis earlier about this disastrous debate….disastrous in the case of Joe Biden….his performance was slip shot at best and now the Dems are scrambling to explain his poor showing….from he has a cold to whatever else the spin doctors come up with to explain his lack of clarity.
But in case you missed anything…..
President Biden’s campaign hoped the first presidential debate would push him ahead of Donald Trump in the polls. Instead, some Democrats are calling for him to step aside after a hoarse, faltering performance. His performance “left the field largely clear for Trump, despite the former president displaying his usual tendencies toward hyperbole and belligerence,” writes Niall Stanage at the Hill. He writes that for once, “virtually no one outside of the most hardcore partisans” disagreed about who won and lost the debate. David Graham at the Atlantic calls the debate a “disaster” for Biden that was “at times almost physically uncomfortable to watch.”
- Biden’s “biggest weakness exposed.” Hopes that Biden would alleviate concerns about his age “died within minutes,” according to Shane Goldmacher and Jonathan Swan at the New York Times. With his voice raspy, Biden “grasped to recall some specifics, and labored to articulate the statistics he could remember,” they write. “In one early answer, he confused trillionaires with billionaires. Sometimes, he lost his train of thought entirely.”
- Biden “lost in the first 15 minutes.” Biden “lost this debate within the first 15 minutes—probably the highest-viewed portion of the debate,” according to Elena Schneider at Politico. “Biden landed some strong rebuttals to Trump, particularly on Trump’s role during the Jan. 6 insurrection. But voters might’ve missed it if they turned off the debate after the first 30 minutes.”
- A “low-water mark.” Biden, who “seemed to embody the right-wing caricature of the president as an old man who has lost the plot,” lost the debate, but Trump digressed into “bouts of verbal diarrhea” and showed “flashes of menace,” writes Tim Dickson at Rolling Stone. “This debate was a disgrace,” he writes. “It will stand as a low-water mark in American electoral politics. Despite profound differences on policy, neither man seemed capable of clearly outlining their intentions for the country’s future.”
- A failed gambit. Molly Ball at the Wall Street Journal describes the earliest presidential debate in history as “Biden’s attempt to shake up a race that has appeared stalemated for months.” His campaign “believed Trump was benefiting from being somewhat out of the spotlight and that voters whose view of Trump was unduly colored by nostalgia would recoil when confronted anew with his abrasive persona,” Ball writes. “In the end, Biden may have succeeded in jolting the race out of its long stagnation, drawing a sharper contrast with his rival—just not in the way he wished.”
- Mutual dislike was evident. The debate was “more personal than policy-focused,” and the candidates’ “mutual dislike shot through a night filled with invective and name-calling,” Goldmacher and Swan write at the Times. “Instead of a steady drumbeat about the stakes, the debate devolved to the point where the two men had a prolonged discussion about golf handicaps.”
- False claims from Trump. Trump delivered his “usual stream of false and misleading claims,” Aaron Blake writes at the Washington Post, including his “false claim to having capped insulin costs before Biden did; blue states executing babies after birth; there being no terrorist attacks on his watch; Biden’s wanting to quadruple people’s taxes; and Biden’s having indicted him.”
- Memorable lines. “We finally beat Medicare,” Biden said in a bungled description of healthcare initiatives. Later, talking about Trump’s hush-money trial he told him: “You have the morals of an alley cat.” The Guardian reports that in a “historical first for a presidential debate,” Trump replied: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.”
- Other winners and losers. Stanage at the Hill has alternative Democratic candidates alongside Trump in the winners’ column, as well as CNN, which “pulled off a coup in getting the debate in the first place.” Beyond Biden, another loser was the facts, Stanage writes, noting that the “amount of actual falsehoods uttered was striking,” and not all of them came from Trump. After Biden claimed that he had been endorsed by the Border Patrol Union, the union pushed back with a post on X.
Even this early there are some that are shaking their heads and thinking that maybe it is time for the old geezer to go…
Biden needs to step aside—for the sake of his own dignity, for the good of his party, for the future of the country.
President Joe Biden needs to end his campaign. The first presidential debate, held on Thursday night, was a disaster. It was clear from the outset that Biden looked old, sounded old, and yes, is in fact very, very old.
This has been rumored for a while. Thursday night, it was confirmed.
Panic seemed to set in among Democrats within minutes of the candidates taking the stage—on social media, at shell-shocked “watch parties.” Full freak-out mode was achieved by the 20-minute mark.
(theatlantic.com)
A fine idea and some of us have been saying that since March….I personally have never thought Biden was the best person for the job….but that is just me.
But how can it be accomplished…Biden being removed that is…..
Panicked Democrats might be ready to shove President Joe Biden to the side. But they need him to take the first step.
Within minutes of Biden’s poor debate performance concluding on CNN, the network’s commentators were openly discussing the possibility of replacing Biden on the ticket.
For apoplectic Democrats, the good news is that there is a way to do it before November.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/can-democrats-replace-biden-00165684
But not to worry I do not see the Dems having the balls to rep[lace Biden. If he loses they have something to piss and moan about for four years and a stage for the next election.
Nowhere does that benefit the people just the party and after all that is what this system is all about in the long run.
I believe you are stuck with Biden and unless something changes you are stuck with another 4 years of Trump and his strong arm tactics.
Again I wish I could say who I will vote for at this time but I am still making that decision and standing at a crossroad (future post).
The most pathetic showing ever! I told them it was way too early for a debate and did they listen….Noooooooooooooo!
Better luck next time.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 
If Biden loses, there will not be another election to worry about. If Biden wins, we will all go down into inescapable miserable poverty.
Such a bright future…..chuq
Biden’s speaking live now 1:22 PM, North Carolina, and promising every single person a huge box of chocolate covered strawberries and a huge trunk of dollars. .
Sounds like Huey Long promises…..they are just that….promise4s that never materialize. chuq
True. No way such things are deliverable. True but would think people tired of hearing such absurdities.
The American voter loves being lied to….we should spend more time checking what it all really means before we vote….and that will not happen for the voter is lazy. chuq
Oh for gosh sakes, what the heck did people expect was going to happen when you get two old men who should have been retired two decades ago and sitting in the backyard spoiling their grandchildren, puttering in the shed tinkering with lawnmowers, yelling at kids to get off their lawns and making off color jokes to embarrass their families, and instead make them run for president? Did anyone really think this was going to go well?
Speaking from the point of view of a political strategist, the Dems didn’t just mess up, they totally and utterly f*cked up royally when they decided to run Joe for a 2nd term. Even worse, they’ve let the GOP propaganda machine run wild, doing little or nothing to push back. Instead of being out there attacking Trump just as viciously as his machine has been attacking Biden, they’ve been sitting there, tut-tutting in their herbal tea. They’ve been hiding in the corner, hoping that somehow everything is going to work out, when they should have told Biden the day he got elected that he couldn’t run for a 2nd term and they should have been positioning someone to take his place as soon as the last ballots were counted.
I’ve been seeing people calling for Biden to step aside and the Dems to run someone else. Sorry, folks, that ship has already sailed. There isn’t anyone else to run. I’m sorry, but there just isn’t. There isn’t anybody on the Democratic side who has the name recognition and prominence to replace Biden.
I think the conventional “wisdom” suggests that, in fact, what you suggest, there is no one to run for the Dems. Consider this. When you watched the debate we saw an aging gentleman with diminished capacity against the schoolyard bully. If that was a Biden 20 years younger standing up to Trump would be little or no problem. How many of us watched Trump blathering on aimlessly thinking “let me have at the guy”. The reason Trump appears so formidable is that he’s constantly compared to an aging Biden. Remove Biden and put nearly anyone in politics who knows politics… and Trump is history. Trump is NOT that formidable. Yes, he’s popular and loud. But I can suggest that the voting majority of the electorate right now is willing to cast their vote toward someone “not Trump” who at least can stand up to Trump. This isn’t complicated because the votes are there to defeat Trump.
I think you have a good point there. Biden, at least at this stage of his life, is ill equipped to deal with someone like Trump.
I do find it interesting that people think that Biden is too old, while ignoring the fact that Trump is only a couple of years younger. Essentially a comparison of their ages is silly.
There’s a natural desire to compartmentalize ourselves to make life organized. We might want to set age limits for certain jobs in order to reduce some impact on a diminished capacity yet we all will experience diminished capacity at different rates (if at all), primarily a result of genetics but also from lifestyle. That then poses the question as to how we rate diminished capacity.. and WHO determines that equally. That’s not to mention how much diminished capacity should be tolerated to perform a required job. It’s all subjective. Then there’s then human aspect. How do you convey to a Biden that in your head you might have it all together, but your communication skills, dexterity, speech, end up putting you out to pasture… do do what, watch TV all day.
Good call….there is no one but Harris and I do not trust her at all….DNC did what it always does….late to the game and now they will pay. chuq
My take on the debate… Biden definitely lost.. and Trump definitely did not win.
I posed this moral question to my significant other recently given she is VERY anti-Trump. I think there is a general perception that the tenseness of our political diversity is looming on the edge of exploding violence in some fashion, somewhere in the country, primarily as a result of a Trump election loss and the Right believing only in conspiracies. The talk of a civil war-ish kinda thing everyone has heard. Likely this might manifest itself in forms of urban unrest and even attacks on government buildings in general. We all know from history that the victims of these kinds of violent upheavals are everyday citizens in the wrong place at the wrong time. We already experience this with random mass shootings across the country. My calculation, if Trump loses people will die somewhere, because collateral damage is what political violence is all about.
Here’s the question…. knowing all that could happen, regardless of degree, even if the loss of life is only one American, would you vote for Trump to AVOID the deaths of fellow Americans… or is knowing people will die the collateral price for not voting for Trump and he loses the election?
Great question Doug…..for me I am at a crossroad for my vote and I cannot at this time answer that one…..my vote is important to me and the choices I have are staggering…..(I will write about this situation later) chuq
Seems we have a bit of a paradox. Do we use our vote for the patriotic appearance of keeping Trump out of the White House to save democracy… or do we vote for the most capable American to lead the next four years? For us it seems the answer is one in the same, but that doesn’t seem to make it any easier. Funny how in this election we value our vote.. but in a typical election that’s less contentious politically we oft consider skipping it for other reasons because we think our vote doesn’t matter.
Hence my ‘crossroad’ meme….My problem is that neither man , in my opinion, is good for the country….we have an idiot that will throw millions into poverty and another that will keep us on the brink of war for 4 more years….where to put my vote indeed. chuq
Far too late in the game to replace Biden. They need to pep him up, and he needs to keep his mind on the consequences of his blathering.
Best wishes, Pete.
Coke would do that….it is too late and like I said with Biden the Dems if they lose have 4 years of whining and a body of work to run against in 2028. chuq
A sad night – as one commentator said: it’s was truth versus lies and the lies won.” As for performance it was indeed a disaster…and all of your points about replacing Biden result in chaos and defeat – and the only good news is that we will have new, younger and fresher politicians in 2028 – whether they are any better is still to be proven. Great insight on your part as always.
Thanx John….the problem for Dems as I see it….they have very few younger Dems that come to mind that would be acceptable. chuq
Have I not been preaching and warning you all that Trump is going to be our next [President] in the presidential image of Orban or somebody and that it is a cut and dried reality and there is nothing on the face of the earth that is going to prevent it? Have I not been saying that for months, perhaps even for the last two or so years now? The entire political paradigm has been working under the counter and in the shadows to make it true and now it is exploding in your faces and you still do not believe or understand??
Yes you have…..to say that I do not understand is a bit over the top…..I look for answers not just wild predictions….but hey a stopped clock is right twice a day. chuq
It was such a shit/clown show. I don’t have any in depth analysis, but I read yours. The most embarrassing part for Biden was “forgetting” that 13 Marines died on his watch. My nephew is a Marine and if he was one of those, Biden wouldn’t have a tongue if I got past his protection.
It was all bluster.
I am pleased I could help with the debate….that is how I feel about Israel….I had a cousin on the USS Liberty in 1967….they can do no right in my book chuq
Exactly.
My condolences for your loss. For most critical thinkers, what happened on the USS Liberty was tragic, but for you it was tragic and personal. I won’t even bother to ask when the nonsense will end. War makes “money”.
Yep war is big business….invest your children…..as the saying goes. chuq
They won’t invest their children.
Not now but the draft thing is heating up chuq