[HN Gopher] Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate
___________________________________________________________________
Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate
Author : jsheard
Score : 583 points
Date : 2024-07-21 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| skilled wrote:
| It's for the best. The man is not in his best form and he has
| repeatedly shown that he isn't. He attempted to rectify the
| situation since the debate but even those attempts fell short.
|
| Let's see who is going to take the mantle now.
|
| /edit: he is endorsing Kamala,
|
| https://nitter.poast.org/JoeBiden/status/1815087772216303933
| trentnix wrote:
| _| The man is not in his best form and he has repeatedly shown
| that he isn't._
|
| If that's true, it is imperative he step down from the office
| entirely.
| black_knight wrote:
| He writes that he wants to focus on completing the term.
| antonvs wrote:
| That doesn't follow at all.
|
| There's a process for removing him if enough people in
| congress believed that it was an issue, but there's no reason
| to do so at this point in the presidency. Even the
| Republicans aren't likely to try that.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| It does follow. The reason is if the president is
| cognitively incapable of leading the country. There's a
| good argument that Biden isn't competent enough to drive a
| car or work at home Depot. He makes gaffes every time he
| speaks and is rude and demeaning to people around him
| according to reports. It's pretty likely that he is
| effectively not the president right now, that his trusted
| senior advisers are actually running the country.
|
| I'm not saying all of this is certain or that Biden should
| be removed, but it is certainly plausible, if not likely.
| angoragoats wrote:
| > He makes gaffes every time he speaks and is rude and
| demeaning to people around him according to reports.
|
| If this is the criteria for "people who shouldn't be
| president" then perhaps both parties should offer
| different candidates.
| tzs wrote:
| It does not follow.
|
| As we age we do have a decline in mental and physical
| function, but it is generally not uniform. From the
| reports I've heard his speaking ability is down, but his
| analytical abilities are still fine.
| trentnix wrote:
| _| there's no reason to do so at this point in the
| presidency_
|
| The man is still the Commander-in-Chief. Anyone of limited
| mental faculties (which clearly describes President Biden),
| irrespective of their politics, should not be in the chair
| if they are not of sound mind. Consequently, I believe the
| responsible act would be for President Biden to resign the
| Presidency and allow his Vice President to take the mantle.
|
| _| Even the Republicans aren't likely to try that._
|
| I actually don't think it's in the Republicans best
| interest to do so. Tactically, the Democrats would be wise
| to let Kamala Harris sit in the Oval Office and make her
| the nominee. It would legitimize her as both a nominee and
| a candidate. Given that isn't happening, the cynic in me
| believes that suggests the Democrats don't want her as
| their candidate.
|
| Regardless, the political machinations are irrelevant. It
| is irresponsible for Joe Biden to continue as President
| given he is obviously unfit to continue as the nominee.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| The thing is, there needs to be a Vice President to
| declare the winner of a Presidential election, as we all
| learned on Jan 6, 2021.
|
| If Biden resigns and Harris becomes President, a new VP
| would need to be confirmed by the Senate, and the (GOP
| controlled) House.
|
| What if the House refuses to take up the vote, similar to
| how McConnell refused to bring up Merrick Garland's
| Supreme Court confirmation? In theory that kicks the
| election to the states, and each state counts as one
| vote, winner takes all.
|
| I don't think that's a gamble the Democrats are willing
| to take, being that a majority of states (not a majority
| of the population) are GOP controlled.
| votepaunchy wrote:
| The President pro tempore of the United States Senate
| (currently Patty Murray, D-WA) acts in place of the VP.
|
| "The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a
| President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice
| President, or when he shall exercise the Office of
| President of the United States." Article 1, Section 3
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| A submarine launched nuclear missile takes about six
| minutes to hit its target. Presidents probably shouldn't
| even be permitted to drink alcohol during their time in
| office as responding to nuclear attacks is one of the major
| duties of office, even if one we hope they never have to
| perform.
| HaZeust wrote:
| There is an entire nuclear football[0] to ensure that's
| not an absolute power of the Presidency, what are you on
| about?
|
| 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I think you interpreted the parent as saying the
| president might be drunk & order an unprompted nuclear
| attack.
|
| The parent was really saying that the president might
| need to respond to a nuclear attack at any time,
| therefore they should always be sober and ready to
| respond. Essentially, the president is oncall 24/7 for
| reacting to nuclear threats.
|
| There are some protections though where the presidents
| orders can be disobeyed, which are mentioned in that
| Wikipedia article you linked.
|
| Related:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hering#Discharge
|
| > "What if [the president's] mind is deranged,
| disordered, even damagingly intoxicated? ... Can he
| launch despite displaying symptoms of imbalance? Is there
| anything to stop him?" Rosenbaum says that the answer is
| that launch would indeed be possible: to this day, the
| nuclear fail-safe protocols for executing commands are
| entirely concerned with the president's identity, not his
| sanity. The president alone authorizes a nuclear launch
| and the two-man rule does not apply to him.
| avar wrote:
| Even if they didn't mean that, drunk or not, the US
| president has the sole authority, both legal and
| practical, to launch a nuclear strike.
|
| Respectfully, you might want to read something more
| current on the subject. The excellent book Command and
| Control [1] is a good place to start.
|
| The "protections" you appear to be alluding to presumably
| mean the "NCA"'s role in this. That's a term that has no
| official meaning since 2002 (and before that the
| president also had the sole authority to order nuclear
| strikes).
|
| 1.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)
| g-b-r wrote:
| Not in his best form doesn't mean unfit for president. But
| yeah, it might be better if he steps down, especially if the
| candidate will be Kamala Harris
| yongjik wrote:
| He's still competent enough to _be_ president. He just doesn
| 't have the chops to skewer a lunatic in a live TV debate,
| which is unfortunately very important, because if he can't,
| the lunatic might be the next president.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Think for a moment about what you are saying.
|
| He is not able to hold his own in a debate. Yet you believe
| he's strong enough to lead the nation and decide when to go
| to war or not?
|
| Being president should take a high degree of intelligence,
| integrity, and awareness. At all times.
|
| If Biden's age has been causing mental issues, fine.
| That'll happen to everybody. But if it's bad enough to stop
| him from running, it should be bad enough to keep him out
| of office.
| navjack27 wrote:
| > Being president should take a high degree of
| intelligence, integrity, and awareness. At all times.
|
| You're basically saying a superhuman is the only thing
| that should be president. There doesn't exist a person
| that can navigate politics while having a high degree of
| intelligence, integrity, and awareness at all times.
| DANmode wrote:
| I find this to be one of the most troubling comments in
| the thread.
|
| If it's true, then we genuinely have destroyed most
| societal incentive structure that makes being governed
| _worthwhile_.
| tim333 wrote:
| He's deteriorating. He's probably ok to do the job now
| but the thought of him doing it in four years time is
| scary.
| yongjik wrote:
| > He is not able to hold his own in a debate. Yet you
| believe he's strong enough to lead the nation and decide
| when to go to war or not?
|
| Because when he has to decide when to go to war or not,
| he's surrounded by a group of trusted advisors.
|
| Damn, where are all the HN regulars who chant "How the
| fuck is a one hour pressure-cooker leetcode session
| relevant to someone's capability as a software engineer?
| We're measuring the wrong thing!" ...
|
| * Also, are we just ignoring the context that Biden is
| stepping down _because_ otherwise Trump might get
| elected? I know this forum is not a place to call for
| Trump 's resignation, but I can practically taste the
| double standard today ...
| Gud wrote:
| And he also has to be able to make a decision at a
| moments notice. When the alarm bells are flashing red in
| the nuclear bunker, do you want a half senile man
| deciding to press the button or not?
| goatlover wrote:
| I wonder strategically if it would help Kamala Harris if
| he did step down so she could be acting president heading
| into the election?
| ScottBurson wrote:
| Probably not. She needs to spend her time campaigning.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| I thought that congress declared when to go to war.
| DANmode wrote:
| Yes, it's those pesky 10 year "military operations" that
| keep sneaking by we're really talking about, though.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Would you hire him for _any_ role in your company in his
| current state?
| xenospn wrote:
| I'd hire Biden as an advisor. Or a board member. I
| wouldn't trust Trump with taking out the trash.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Isn't Biden pretty good at getting out of the way and
| letting experts make the decisions? That seems like a
| pretty valuable trait in a leader assuming the advisors
| are high quality and that you're not in a time of crisis
| and need a strong leader (e.g. war).
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| This may piss off a bunch of people here on this site who
| are in the C-suite but...
|
| I'd only hire Biden for the CEO role actually. Guys a
| great executive that has a hard time leaving. Classic
| CEO.
| jaapbadlands wrote:
| Yes, his decision making is sound, and comes with a huge
| weight of experience and understanding of how the world
| works. His ability to communicate effectively has
| diminished, but not his ability to assess facts and make
| effective determinations.
| klyrs wrote:
| Oh _hell_ yeah he 'd be ridiculously overqualified as a
| lobbyist.
| glenndebacker wrote:
| Would you hire Trump for any role in your company?
| sib wrote:
| He is clearly not competent enough to be president. He is,
| arguably, barely competent enough to be a ventriloquist's
| dummy at this point, which is effectively what he is. We
| just don't know who the ventriloquist is.
|
| Does anyone believe that he should have his finger on "the
| button" controlling thousands of nuclear weapons? If you
| were in charge of a boomer or a Minuteman III silos and you
| got a launch order purportedly from Biden, would you
| execute that order? If so, really? If not, what deterrent
| is currently in place?
|
| If that's the situation, then he's not the president and
| should either step down or be replaced via mechanisms of
| the 25th Amendment.
| cheese4242 wrote:
| > He just doesn't have the chops to skewer a lunatic in a
| live TV debate
|
| Sorry, but this borders on gaslighting.
|
| It's not that he "didn't have the chops" to win the debate,
| it's that during the debate he clearly demonstrated that
| his mind is gone.
| slater wrote:
| Don't forget, Saint Ronald I. was (allegedly) basically a
| potato in the latter year(s) of his presidency. So there's
| precedence, with such a situation.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Wilson had a stroke in 1919 that left him incapacitated.
| His wife and doctor ran the country.
|
| Nixon has a drunk.
|
| Roosevelt was in declining health before beign reelected in
| 1944. He knew he might have to resign early.
| sparrish wrote:
| And just because all those things happened doesn't mean
| they should have, morally or ethically.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Seems totally reasonable: I am confident in my ability to do
| this job now, but I'm less sure I'll be able to do it three
| or four years from now, so I will be seeing out this contract
| and won't sign a new one with you. A perfectly normal thing
| most working people do in their 60s.
| ein0p wrote:
| I'm not at all confident in his ability to do his job even
| now. In fact I wasn't confident of that back when he "ran"
| either (quoted because he didn't really run, and his
| rallies were not large enough to fill a high school gym).
| Dude can't read the teleprompter, falls over when climbing
| stairs, and forgets where he is half the time.
| energy123 wrote:
| He's unsuited to be President for another four years. That
| doesn't mean he needs to step down right now. It just means
| he shouldn't run for re-election.
| avalys wrote:
| It's completely possible that he's fit for office now but
| realizing that he won't be able to convince voters that he
| will remain fit for the next 4 years.
| j-krieger wrote:
| My god. I really didn't think he would actually do it.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Meh, it was a downward spiral after the debate. No way he was
| going to last long.
|
| Even Manifold politics had him at 20% two weeks ago. And 10%
| for the past week.
| tombert wrote:
| There was never any risk of me voting for Trump, but when I
| watched the debate it became abundantly clear that Biden could
| not win an election. He came off as an extremely frail old man
| and I had my doubts that he would survive the entire _debate_ ,
| let alone another four years in office.
|
| I'm a pretty left-leaning person and I find Trump to be an
| overwhelmingly unappealing idiot in general, but even I had to
| admit that Trump "won" the debate. He was still the moronic
| walking Markov Chain that he always is, but he at least looked
| _alive_.
| Murky3515 wrote:
| Is it really so hard to say "Trump won the debate" without
| needing to qualify several times how much you hate Trump?
| tombert wrote:
| It's hard for me to say it because it's not like Trump was
| actually "coherent", he just didn't seem like he was on
| death's door.
|
| Also, wouldn't me saying I hate him a lot but still
| acknowledge he won lend more legitimacy to it? Like it's
| actively working against my biases and I still acknowledge
| he won.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Love Joe, but 2 minutes into the debate it was clear he
| couldn't win an election. He was behind, and he needed to
| come out strong, and somehow he made it worse. Whether or not
| Kamala can remains to be seen, but at least there's still
| _potential_ there.
| proc0 wrote:
| I don't think he did. The timing is too convenient after two
| weeks of him reassuring people he would win over and over.
| mattnewton wrote:
| There is no message his campaign could give other than "Biden
| is running" and have Biden still run - any other message
| would damage him.
|
| Saying you are considering dropping out would be immediately
| pounced on, and effectively mean you'd have to drop out. So I
| don't think there is any signal in the messaging there except
| that he was probably still seriously considering running.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| I assumed getting COVID was fake and would be his ~reason~
| excuse.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Or perhaps he became seriously ill and this helped convince
| him
| moralestapia wrote:
| (No intend for this to be a controversial statement)
|
| I only want to express my opinion that he (and the Democratic
| party) took a while to make this decision, to their detriment.
|
| Interesting to see who their new candidate is going to be.
| caminante wrote:
| The gamble paid off in 2020. His steering committee (including
| the DNC) was vested in him continuing until he imploded at the
| debate.
| nailer wrote:
| The rules allow the DNC to have an open convention. They just
| haven't had one for more than half a century. the interesting
| thing is apparently if they do that its available to all
| candidates. So it's possible that somebody that is well liked
| by the public, but not by the DNC becomes the leader ie Bernie
| sanders.
|
| The tough thing though is that money donated to Biden doesn't
| transfer to other candidates.
|
| The daily wire did an Extensive breakdown of each scenario a
| few days ago:
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/5vmeGPmDP0nopAlOwDZIV6
|
| This particular scenario is covered at 0:30
| echelon wrote:
| > money donated to Biden doesn't transfer to other
| candidates.
|
| That's wild and should be fixed.
| caminante wrote:
| Kamala can access the funds now.
|
| The challenge is transferring to someone not named Kamala.
| [0] You need some campaign finance oversight with accounts,
| etc., and refunding and transferring to a "new" candidate
| would take time and jeopardize tying up ~$100 million in
| funds.
|
| [0] https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/nation-world/biden-
| harris-...
| ngetchell wrote:
| That is because nobody donates to the party anymore. They
| donate to the candidate.
|
| The idea that the DNC has any power to steer the party is a
| joke. That is a mental model that is at least 20 years
| dead.
| caminante wrote:
| Add to your comment, I believe that Kamala _can_ access the
| campaign funds, which favors her.
| senkora wrote:
| Apple Podcasts link:
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-shapiro-
| show/i...
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| To their detriment? I'm not sure. They just had the Republican
| convention. At that convention, they took a lot of shots at
| Biden. Now the Democrats say "Wrong target, suckers!"
|
| They take over the news cycle from the Republican convention,
| _and_ they neutralize a huge amount of the talking points from
| the convention. That could be pretty brilliant.
|
| (I mean, it would have been better for Biden to clearly not be
| running _last_ year at this time, and let the primary process
| do its thing. But dropping out right now might be pretty decent
| timing.)
| ofcourseyoudo wrote:
| This is actually huge. The Dems now get several cycles of
| genuine organic interest... Kamala as nominee, then "who will
| she pick as VP" and the convention will get a lot of natural
| attention, all getting earned screentime (while pundits and
| pollsters have a field day of pageviews and engagement).
|
| The media class now has months of things to talk about wrt
| the Dems. The less screentime Trump gets the better, and his
| convention is already over and spent zero time attacking the
| actual candidate.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Nate Silver was already a Cassandra months ago about this issue
| and was proven right, better than the entire Democrat
| establishment. The internet is quite the dichotomy. There are
| easily available sources to the common man that are more right
| than the most powerful people in the world (Ivy League SAT
| removal fiasco, Alperovitch on Russian invasion, etc.). But,
| most people don't listen to them and instead regurgitate
| brainrot.
| bluenose69 wrote:
| A view from Canada: thanks, Mr Biden. You honour your record and
| your nation.
| strangelove026 wrote:
| Dannnnnng. I think it's definitely for the best (probably never
| should've come to this, reminds me of RBG). And that said I
| really, really liked his presidency, but, he is undeniably really
| old.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| The problem isn't just his age, it's his decrepitude, both
| physical and mental. I know people in their 90s who are able to
| speak clearly at any hour of the day...
| nkrisc wrote:
| He's far more physically fit than the Republican candidate.
| He can ride a bike. The Republican candidate also struggles
| to speak coherently.
|
| At least now we'll likely not have both major party
| candidates be too old for office.
| koolba wrote:
| > He's far more physically fit than the Republican
| candidate. He can ride a bike. The Republican candidate
| also struggles to speak coherently.
|
| Biden literally cannot walk down two steps unassisted.
|
| Meanwhile Trump appears to be bullet proof.
|
| You can disagree on plenty of policy, but no fair minded
| person could possibly think he's mentally or physically
| more fit than Trump.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Meanwhile Trump appears to be bullet proof.
|
| That's a weird way to say "Even his own party is shooting
| at him."
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this comment?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Shooter was republican?
| mcphage wrote:
| Someone in Trump's own party attempted to assassinate him
| last week, and failed. For most people, having someone in
| your own party try to kill you would be a huge negative,
| but the person I was responding to attempted to spin it
| as a positive.
| koolba wrote:
| The "who" that pulled the trigger is much less relevant
| than the reaction of Trump right after it happened.
| Rising up, the flag waving behind him, with a fist in the
| air yelling " _Fight!_ ". Followed by a crowd cheering,
| "USA! USA!".
|
| That was incredibly iconic and that picture will be in
| the historic books, and IMHO, alongside a biography of
| him as our 47th POTUS.
| mcphage wrote:
| > that picture will be in the historic books
|
| Yep, next to all of the other failed assassinations.
| topato wrote:
| You seriously think Trump is more physically fit? I'd
| give you mentally, but avoiding having your head blown
| off because you gesture so wildly it's hard to get a
| clear shot does NOT make the man physically fit. He looks
| like a trash bag full of gelatin when he wears his golf
| clothes, and golf was Trump's only/best example of a
| (barely) "physical" challenge he thought he'd beat Biden
| at.... Sad.
| koolba wrote:
| > You seriously think Trump is more physically fit?
|
| Absolutely he's more physically fit. I don't think Biden
| would have survived being tackled by the Secret Service
| agents. That alone would have broken all kinds of bones.
|
| And as far as stamina goes, Trump regularly gives hour
| plus standing speeches. Do you really think Biden could
| stand in the hot sun for an hour?
|
| Here's Biden unable to descend two (2!) stairs by
| himself: https://nypost.com/2024/06/28/us-news/jill-
| biden-helps-joe-o...
|
| You're seriously going to tell me _that_ guy is more
| physically fit than Trump?
| trealira wrote:
| I think he's experiencing a rapid decline in his health,
| possibly due to COVID. He had been recorded riding his
| bike this June [0].
|
| This is anecdotal, but it reminds me of my grandfather
| before he died. He had always been able to run on a
| treadmill and lift weights; then, he got cancer, and his
| health deteriorated to the point that he began to need a
| walker to get around, until he became bedridden and died.
|
| [0]: https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/other/joe-biden-goes-
| for-bike...
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| The former White House staff & people in the
| administration had incredibly brutal things to say
| against Trump. Clips assembled recently by the Daily
| Show,
| https://youtu.be/ZsioMx6M3UI?si=tpMeD0O_5wUfWm-k#t=16m16s
| :
|
| "Unfit for office" (Esper) "The greatest threat to
| democracy that we've ever seen." (Cobb) "he failed at
| being the president when we needed him to be the
| president" (mulvaney) "doesn't like to read, doesnt read
| briefing reports." (Tillerson) "absense of leadership,
| really anti-leadership" (McMaster) "wannabe dictator"
| (Kelly) "he shouldn't be near the oval office" (Barr) "a
| person who admires autocrats & murderous dictators. A
| person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic
| institutions, the Constitution, and rule of law" (Kelly)
| "God help us [if we's reelected]." (Kelly)
|
| And simply, "he's an effing moron" (Tillerson).
|
| Biden has always been a little weird with his vocal
| stutter, but he makes good points. He knows what's going
| on. He can talk to issues and hold a point. Trump's logic
| as he gets up on the podium & drunk uncle rambles is
| terrifying, both mean and vindictive when coherent but
| often just totally space case weirdo verbal diaherria.
| He's never been sharp. He's never been interested in the
| world, has always lived in his own head & it's only
| gotten worse & less & less intelligible. He's an effing
| moron and a mean nasty one at that. Biden is aging yes
| but he's a put together intelligent engaged listening
| person who reads his damned briefings & is engaged &
| interested & has ongoingly shown ability to go on talk
| shows & rallys & be strong, to talk intelligently to
| issues, to handle deep conversations well, & make sharp
| cases.
|
| You don't see anything like this insult against character
| & intelligence against Biden. I think Biden is sharp, but
| even if you disagree, at least he started with a full
| deck of cards and some decency & respect for democracy.
| The other guy?
|
| I think Bob Woodward really sums it up: _" the president
| has the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader."_
| jjj123 wrote:
| I don't really care if my president can ride a bike, I care
| if he can think and speak cogently. Biden cannot.
|
| I'm not comparing him to Trump btw. Just explaining why I'm
| perfectly happy that the dems are replacing Biden with
| someone else.
| navjack27 wrote:
| What a person thinks and what a person externally
| expresses can be two entirely separate things. I'm pretty
| sure Biden can think entirely well enough to be
| president.
| nkrisc wrote:
| But you claimed he's physically decrepit, so I assumed
| you did care.
| michtzik wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41026871
|
| That comment was posted by 'readthenotes1.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Both of them are in the age bracket where the annual
| probability of death is so high, that the chance of dying
| within the next four years is over 50%:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/probability-of-dying-
| by-a...
|
| Can't really deliver on your campaign promises if you're
| more likely than not to be dead before the end of your
| term.
| navjack27 wrote:
| Speaking clearly has nothing to do with mental fortitude.
| Tons of things can affect the fluency of speech. We really
| need to move past the days where we judge people's
| intelligence and competence based on how well the connections
| of their brain are able to influence the movement of the
| vocal cords and the tongue the lips and the jaw.
| exitb wrote:
| It sounds nice and correct, but what if it's literally part
| of the job?
| tim333 wrote:
| Biden has more problems than just speaking unclearly. The
| thoughts get muddled at times too.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| So what, at least he doesn't go completely off-prompt
| with _utterly random unrelated bullshit_ every minute
| like your average Trump speech.
|
| The doublespeak from the Republican side regarding
| Biden's capabilities has been, frankly, astonishing.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| You've got to be kidding, I must as a non-partisan say.
| The observations entertain the republican world, but
| they're there nonetheless for everyone, or this wouldn't
| have been forced by the democrats.
| ithkuil wrote:
| I agree.
|
| That said, it's infuriating when you have an opponent
| that can literally say whatever he wants however
| unintelligible it may be and his cult-like followers will
| just find the meaning kn what he said. The double
| standard is astonishing.
|
| But yeah obviously there certainly are better candidates
| than Biden to run for president. Why he or she hasn't
| been found in 2020 eludes me.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > That said, it's infuriating when you have an opponent
| that can literally say whatever he wants however
| unintelligible it may be and his cult-like followers will
| just find the meaning kn what he said.
|
| Yeah, just three days ago, praising Hannibal Lecter, or
| remember "covfefe" from a few years back? Or the QAnon
| bunch where some people managed to assemble millions of
| people [1] by essentially doing "tea leaves predictions"
| on Trump speeches?
|
| There is no equivalent to that level of derangedness on
| the Democrat side, not even close.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/qanon-groups-
| have-mil...
| Izkata wrote:
| Is this satire? A typo on twitter and something that
| wasn't Trump?
|
| Meanwhile, early this month, Biden called himself the
| first black woman to serve with a black president, as
| well as referred to "vice president Trump" when
| apparently talking about Harris.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > A typo on twitter and something that wasn't Trump?
|
| That one was a response to "and his cult-like followers
| will just find the meaning kn what he said", because that
| is precisely what QAnon was/is: a bunch of people poring
| over Trump speeches and every tiny utterance of anyone in
| his circle to find "hidden meanings" like alleged raids
| on "pedos".
|
| > Meanwhile, early this month, Biden called himself the
| first black woman to serve with a black president, as
| well as referred to "vice president Trump" when
| apparently talking about Harris.
|
| He misspeaks and needs to correct himself. Yes. That's
| completely undeniable.
|
| But hell, listen to a Trump speech and to a Biden speech.
| Trump is just a plain stream-of-consciousness braindump
| all the time, Biden at least generally manages to stick
| to the prompt.
|
| Unfortunately, Trump has what I call the "entertainer
| instinct": he knows exactly and most especially
| _instinctively_ how to entertain masses, how to make
| pictures and quotes. The best example is him getting shot
| - 99.999% of people would have fled, he raises his fist
| and yells "fight".
|
| And in a political climate where it's not facts but pure
| and utter showmanship that wins an election, that's a
| problem.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| I watched that clip where he mentioned Lector. He made
| what was obviously a joke about how he'd like to invite
| him to dinner as part of a rant about criminals coming
| over the border. It was completely out of left field, but
| I'm not sure how that could have been interpreted as
| praise.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > Why he or she hasn't been found in 2020 eludes me
|
| Well we had the 2020 primaries. Bernie and Warren were
| too left to win a general election. Pete Buttigieg won
| Iowa, got 2nd in New Hampshire, but only cancelled the
| campaign after South Carolina, once it dawned that the
| South has too much of a quiet problem of Buttigieg being
| gay and preferring Biden simply because he was Obama VP.
| Without those sad facts, we could've had Buttigieg
| winning 2020 and 2024.
| goatlover wrote:
| Yes, but enough prominent Democrats and donors didn't
| want to support someone with Biden's faltering condition.
| Thus the pressure for him to step down. It doesn't matter
| what the Republicans are willing to support. Democrats
| are trying to win an election and put someone competent
| in power.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Marginally better than trump isn't going to cut it. We
| need a good president.
| DANmode wrote:
| The fact that this needs to be _said_ is indicative of
| the current day.
| vkou wrote:
| It's not that he's incompetent (I certainly consider him
| dramatically more competent to do literally anything (or
| when the situation calls for it, nothing) than his
| opponent), it's that he's perceived by some voters to be
| incompetent, and that may cost the election, and I'd
| really rather not be dragged along into that universe
| because his vanity doesn't let him move over.
| keybored wrote:
| A stream of consciousness rant is not a sign of mental
| decline as long as the sentences are coherent.
| lamontcg wrote:
| It is a requirement for the job of being a national
| politician.
|
| You have to be able to win elections at that level, and
| there's no participation trophies for feel-good runs by
| someone with a handicap, you just lose.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| That is what parent is challenging. You can of course
| disagree. I think it's an interesting point. How much
| damage do we do to ourselves by societally selecting
| charismatic people who speak eloquently as leaders
| (importantly: over other qualities)?
|
| Unclear, but certainly not 0.
| andsoitis wrote:
| One has to be practical. Some handicaps are seen by the
| majority as a negative for the job. You can't tell them
| they are wrong for making it a requirement (after all,
| they hire the candidate).
| FredPret wrote:
| We evolved a natural tendency to like charismatic and
| funny people, because (I'm speculating) you need a high
| minimum level of broad cognitive competence to pull that
| off.
|
| Things like empathy, quick thinking, emotional
| intelligence, a fresh perspective, broad knowledge of the
| world, a large vocabulary, and the self-confidence to go
| with your judgement calls are all involved in telling a
| single good joke to a crowd.
|
| These are all fantastic things to see in a leader.
| maxerickson wrote:
| On an evolutionary scale, it's probably a little simpler
| than correlation with cognitive competence.
|
| A group united towards a stupid purpose can be more
| effective than individuals acting towards more reasonable
| purposes. If this is true, you can select for both
| following (susceptibility) and leading (charisma).
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I feel like the only characteristic needed to be a
| popular speaker is self-confidence. Have you seen most of
| the word salad coming out of Trump's mouth?
| smolder wrote:
| Winning elections is only a part of why the US President
| must be an effective communicator. Even with the greatest
| staff supporting them, poor communication will hamper
| their ability to do the job, especially in a crisis
| situation.
| malux85 wrote:
| I agree that mental fortitude is not necessarily correlated
| with fine grained muscle control, but speaking clearly is a
| pretty freaking basic requirement for A PRESIDENT
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Biden wasn't running for chief scientist somewhere, he was
| running for President of the United States, and a huge part
| (probably the primary part) of that job is being able to
| communicate effectively. If "your brain isn't able to
| adequately influence the movement of the vocal cords and
| the tongue the lips and the jaw" then you shouldn't be
| applying for a job where verbal communication is paramount.
| codr7 wrote:
| Come on people, what are you chasing here?
|
| His vocal cords are fine, it's just that the words don't
| make much sense, which is a pretty big problem in that
| position.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Introducing Zelensky as Mr Putin isn't a sign of
| incompetence?
| oezi wrote:
| No, it is a sign that both terms occupy close
| relationships in the brain. I consistently fumble the
| name of my elder sister with the name of my eldest
| daughter and I know many people who have similar mixups.
| keybored wrote:
| Are you nitpicking that specific complaint? Or saying
| that Biden seems relatively okay?
|
| Even the Democratic Party has given up on the far-fetched
| excuses. It's time to surrender to the evidence. That
| example is just one out of dozens.
| arp242 wrote:
| I've been mixing up names for as long as I can remember.
| I'm not even 40. Of all the things to judge him on this
| rates pretty low on my list, especially since Biden has a
| bit of a history of "gaffes" like this.
|
| That said, it's pretty obvious a lot of energy and fire
| that Biden previously had is no longer present. Or at
| least very inconsistently present.
| pennybanks wrote:
| the thing is. i dont remember a single fumbling of words
| by biden until he appeared back into the public recently.
| like he was great at speaking and decently quick witted.
|
| the extreme change is worrisome. i mean is this him now?
| will it keep deteriorating? why would anyone think it
| wont. how much of a medical concern will be 1 year later.
| 2 3? this is what people are concerned with
| arp242 wrote:
| Nah, he was known for this kind of thing. e.g. from 2013,
| "Best of the vice president's 'Bidenisms'"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLcIMdHQvz8
|
| 2010, "Joe Biden, the vice-president who keeps putting
| his foot in it":
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/28/joe-biden-
| vice...
|
| Those were just the top two results in Google for "biden
| vice president gaffe", limiting the date to before 2016.
|
| I mean, it's probably gotten worse, although I can't
| really judge that. But it's certainly not a new thing.
| I'm not saying he's not too old and tired, I'm just
| saying that merely the mixing up of a name alone really
| isn't a sign of incompetence.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Competency is not a requirement for being a politician.
| Winning the most votes is. And being elocuent and
| aggressive helps much more than being coherent
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I was using "speak clearly" as a shibboleth for general
| mental and physical ability.
|
| There is clearly something wrong with him that was not in
| evidence in 2020. Whether it's Parkinson's, senility,
| 12-day-old jet lag, I don't know. But it's clear that it's
| hard for him to carry on a conversation, and that is
| basically the job of a politician.
| toast0 wrote:
| His recent debate performance was poor. But he's had
| trouble speaking for a long time. Go back and watch older
| debates or speeches and see. It's all classic speech
| impedement stuff; he's clearly had lots of training and
| experience, but sometimes he can't use the words he wants
| and switches to different words.
|
| I'm honestly not sure what we're looking for in a debate,
| but most presidential debates since I've been a voter are
| contests to see who can look like they're listening the
| best while getting back to a rehearsed talking point the
| fastest. [1] When you combine that with trouble with
| words, and maybe some over training, it doesn't look
| good.
|
| Does it mean he has trouble carrying on a conversation in
| a real setting? I don't know, it's a totally different
| setting with different expectations. We don't really get
| a window into that.
|
| [1] Well except that MTV town hall. Pretty sure Bill had
| no talking points appropriate there.
| xeromal wrote:
| I've watched several old debates and he's a killer
| debator even with his slip ups. He was anything but that
| in this recent one.
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| Biden apparently had a speech impediment (basically
| stutter), for much of his early life, and had to train
| extremely hard to overcome it. So in general I've always
| brushed aside criticism of his speaking as it's evident
| to me that he's generally very articulate and well spoken
| if you overlook the occassional word salad.
|
| Over the last few months I've generally defending his
| gaffs to friends even though I don't like Biden as a
| politician, because I think that kind of discourse is
| counterproductive politically and stigmatising socially,
| which I still feel.
|
| However, I have to say, the recent downward spike in his
| ability to string a sentence together becomes concerning
| to me, not so much because I think it primary reflects
| any cognitive decline per se, but it seems to me like a
| sign that the pressure of the presidency and the campaign
| are affecting him in _some_ way that is causing his
| speech impediment to surface at its worst and most
| frequent yet. So I would still push back on a lot of what
| you are saying, but yes, at this point, something is
| clearly off there to a concerning degree.
| poes-law wrote:
| This comment triggers Poe's Law for me. Given this comment
| by itself, I would have guessed this was satire.
| Unfortunately, from a fuller picture, I guess this is
| actually fundamentalism.
| basementcat wrote:
| If one disqualifies people based on speech impediments, is
| it much of a stretch to disqualify people for their skin
| color or religion?
| dahfizz wrote:
| Yes. That's a huge stretch.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Yes. Not all discrimination is the same.
|
| Being ugly is a disqualifying trait for getting a job as
| a supermodel.
|
| Being unfit is a disqualifying trait for being an Olympic
| athlete.
|
| Being unable to stay awake and say coherent sentences is
| a disqualifying trait for being the president of the most
| powerful nation on earth.
|
| Being black or latino is a disqualifying trait for
| playing a Roman emperor in a movie -- which is why Netlix
| will surely try, because they're unable to comprehend
| what the problem even is, and why their "equality" is
| groan-inducing.
|
| PS: If I was a US citizen, I would vote for AOC not
| because of her sex or race but because neither of those
| influence my decision. Do they influence yours?
| basementcat wrote:
| Can you explain why being black or Latinx would
| disqualify one from playing a Roman emperor in a movie?
| adolph wrote:
| > Being black or latino is a disqualifying trait for
| playing a Roman emperor in a movie
|
| Given a person playing a Roman Emperor is acting in a
| role not laboring as a ruler, consider that:
|
| _The emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius --
| among Rome 's best and wisest rulers -- and the poet
| Seneca all were of Spanish origin._
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
| srv/national/horizon/june9...
|
| _The Four African Emperors were Septimius Severus,
| Clodius Albinus, Marcus Macrinus and Aemilianus._
|
| https://peek-01.livejournal.com/62062.html
| educasean wrote:
| The truth we cannot change is that people simply want to
| follow charismatic leaders. We can sit and lament on how
| stupid that is, but we aren't magically fixing that anytime
| soon.
| endofreach wrote:
| Sounds good to me. Will you inform the other world leaders
| with nuclear weapons?
| avalys wrote:
| Yes, we shouldn't confuse verbal fluency with intelligence,
| or the lack of one with the lack of the other. Perhaps you
| should go back in time to 2000 and step up to defend George
| W. Bush.
|
| However, when someone was previously verbally fluent and
| then the whole world can see that that person's fluency has
| deteriorated, it's completely reasonable to believe that
| deterioration of other mental functions is happening as
| well, as seems to be the case with Biden.
| TylerE wrote:
| Exactly. A stutter doesn't cause you to confuse names.
| ithkuil wrote:
| And it's such a double standard. Trump never pretended to
| speak clearly and now people can in good faith point out
| that trump has not shown signs of regression because there
| was nothing he was curating about his persona in the first
| place and thus nothing to regress.
|
| Whatever Trump says can be construed as some sort of 4d
| chess hidden message because of a cult of personality that
| has developed around him. He can hint that asylum seekers
| escaped from mental asylums but his base will not suspect
| that he may be the one confusing the two words and instead
| they will just cheer at the grotesque image because that's
| the kind of politically incorrect thing they want somebody
| to say (regardless of whether Trump did that on purpose or
| not).
|
| I have the feeling that whatever Trump will say and will do
| will never ever be scrutinized by his side in a way that
| even remotely resembles the scrutiny to switch Biden has to
| be subjected to.
|
| And that double standard speaks a lot on the troubled times
| we're living through.
| whycome wrote:
| Nations first mute text-only President?
|
| The current generation reaching voting age would much
| rather send a text than call so.....
| vanattab wrote:
| Sooner then you think. President GPT is coming
| xeromal wrote:
| If you play a video of Biden in 2004 or 2008 debates,
| you'll notice something has changed.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Speaking clearly has everything to do with mental fortitude
| for the most important communication job in the US.
| mk89 wrote:
| I say this as someone that agrees that Biden should have
| stepped down earlier (for the 2nd election I mean).
|
| But please, people, do not compare the average person in
| their 80's to what this man has to do daily.
|
| Just alone entering a war room and giving an order to bomb a
| place, or watching the raw videos of war (which we luckily
| don't get access to) is something you don't come back from.
| This is not an average person, and he was doing OK after all.
|
| However, he objectively got older. That's it. No coming back
| from that either...
| pennybanks wrote:
| many people that age have been in actual wars. not saying
| which is more intense or which causes more stress on your
| body it definitely matters context of what you went
| through. although id say most vets that went through
| vietnam or korea probably been through a lot.
|
| at least i know my korean gpa has. man is crippled and
| vocal cords basically non existent due to his job there.
| but man is so sharp and smart mentally its actually
| shocking.
|
| but bidens has had serious brain surgeries. that alone
| should have disqualified him from even running imo
| regardless of how his term went
| amenhotep wrote:
| The point is not that Biden has been through an
| extraordinarily stressful experience at one point in his
| life but that Biden has been going through an
| extraordinarily stressful experience _for the past four
| years while already being very old_. With the greatest
| respect to your grandfather, I think it would take a
| similar toll on him.
| laluneodyssee wrote:
| > decrepitude
|
| What a word, TIL
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _The problem isn 't just his age, it's his decrepitude,
| both physical and mental._
|
| "When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of
| mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it's
| ... well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants
| in a fight club,[1] he'd be out of the race already; Trump
| does it, and the country (as well as many in the media)
| shrugs. "
|
| * Tom Nichols, https://archive.ph/XcMbP / https://www.theatla
| ntic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/07/the-...
|
| > _"Did anyone ever hear of Dana White?" Trump asked during
| his speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Road to
| Majority" conference in Washington. "... I said, 'Dana, I
| have an idea. Why don't you set up a migrant league of
| fighters and have your regular league of fighters, and then
| you have the champion of your league -- these are the
| greatest fighters in the world -- fight the champion of the
| migrants.' I think the migrant guy might win; that's how
| tough they are. He didn't like that idea too much."_
|
| * https://archive.ph/cQ4KA /
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/22/trump-
| chr...
|
| And it's not like Trump is _that_ much younger than Biden.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| Fucking Hell. I need to stop thinking these things are
| exaggerations or hyperbole. In the past few days, I thought
| "MASS DEPORTATIONS NOW" and (now) "immigrant fight club"
| were the stuff of political cartoonists juicing the
| zeitgeist.
| roughly wrote:
| This is the other problem with this election cycle: Trump
| is saying truly deranged things, but they're so far
| outside of what people think would be reasonable for a
| person to say that he's not getting the kind of blowback
| for them he should be because nobody believes he's
| actually saying them.
|
| (A contributing factor is that he actually Has been
| misrepresented a few times by the media - the "bloodbath"
| comment was very clearly about the auto industry in
| context, so the right feels rightly aggrieved and the
| left & media lose credibility.)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Trump hasn't changed, Biden is getting worse and worse.
| People have experience with dementia in their families.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| How many 90 year olds do you know who have jobs that are
| 24/7? Unlike his predecessor, Biden has taken the job
| seriously.
| caminante wrote:
| Shouldn't he resign and let Kamala step in?
| black_knight wrote:
| He can do president duties, while the candidate they choose go
| around collecting votes.
| caminante wrote:
| That's the thing.
|
| If he's unfit to serve 6 months from now, then how is he fit
| to serve now?
|
| He didn't endorse Kamala in his letter. We'll see what comes
| out of the spin cycle this week.
|
| e: looks like Biden endorsed Kamala according to other
| publications
| dwaltrip wrote:
| One could argue the chaos and uncertainty from upending his
| currently functional administration is not worth the
| upsides, while allowing for a natural transition via the
| standard election and end of term process is worth it.
| g-b-r wrote:
| He's just probably unfit to serve four more years, and for
| sure was too unlikely to beat Trump
| voxl wrote:
| See you don't understand, he IS fit to serve, but he
| doesn't believe he'll win the election.
| layer8 wrote:
| The important consideration is that he's unfit to serve for
| four and a half more years, and also that he's unfit to win
| the election. In contrast, he's probably not considerably
| more unfit for the next six months than for the past six.
| energy123 wrote:
| He's unfit to serve another 4 year term. That doesn't mean
| he's unfit to serve the rest of his current term.
| colechristensen wrote:
| He's mildly unfit to serve now but there's reasonable doubt
| he'll be at all fit in a few years. That would be what the
| more rational people should be thinking. It's not about day
| one it's about year two, etc.
| ajkjk wrote:
| ...should he? maybe you meant to make some argument that he
| should do that?
| echelon wrote:
| Ordinarily, yes. But she doesn't poll well with a lot of key
| demographics due to her tough on crime stance as a DA. Making
| her president would mean she'd be the presumptive nominee, and
| I think the party has more optimal choices lined up.
|
| This election will come down to four battleground states. Those
| are the only states and battles that matter.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| It wasn't really her tough on crime stance that was the
| problem. Gabbard nailed it:
|
| https://youtu.be/VxaRt-LlpEk?feature=shared
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| I hate to say it yet I don't think she's polling well because
| even in 2024 I don't think America is ready to allow a woman
| of colour be POTUS.
| LetsGoApp wrote:
| Polls indicate Harris is holding her own, and it's clear that
| voters seeking an alternative to Trump have already found it
| in the Biden-Harris ticket. By selecting Harris as his
| running mate, Biden has given them a viable choice. Now, it's
| essential for Biden to see this through and commit to the
| path he's chosen. Ultimately, he should resign at a time of
| Harris' choosing, ensuring a seamless transition and
| maintaining the momentum they've built together.
| gumby wrote:
| Then the senate would refuse to approve a VP replacement.
| Remember that leading up to counting the electoral votes loose-
| lipped GOP senators were saying that Pence (the VP) wouldn't be
| counting the days electoral votes? How do you think that would
| proceed?
| maxerickson wrote:
| The problem is that the Republican controlled house would
| have to confirm the appointed VP. The senate might take a
| minute, but it would likely get it done.
| LetsGoApp wrote:
| The VP's confirmation would be beneficial, solidifying their
| position for re-election. However, if the confirmation fails,
| it could reflect negatively on those responsible,
| particularly if the candidate wins the general election, as
| it would highlight their inability to secure a key
| appointment. Regardless, the process would attract extensive
| media attention, offering free publicity, which is a win.
| LetsGoApp wrote:
| Yes, it would be beneficial for Biden to step down, as this
| would make Kamala Harris the presumptive nominee and
| simultaneously break the glass ceiling of a female US
| President. This would also demonstrate her presidential
| capabilities to the general public, who may not fully
| comprehend the responsibilities of the office. Furthermore, if
| Congress were unable to confirm a VP, it would reflect poorly
| on them and dominate news cycles, shifting the focus away from
| Republicans. As President, Harris would be able to address the
| nation with authority, rather than just as a VP campaigning for
| the top office. Additionally, it's been apparent for some time
| that Biden has been facing mental and physical health
| challenges; it's surprising that this isn't more widely
| acknowledged. Note: As an independent observer, I'm offering
| this perspective as a political strategist or from the
| perspective of Americans seeking to overcome the historical
| gender bias in US presidential politics.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Nah. Let her earn it
| LetsGoApp wrote:
| Harris already earned it by being elected, so it's not
| about letting her earn it. The choice is Biden's alone to
| make, and it's obvious that it would politically amplify
| his endorsement and significantly reduce the likelihood of
| further drama within the Democratic Party so close to the
| election. Moreover, it would likely mitigate any legal
| challenges related to Biden's transition to Harris.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Let her earn it
| LetsGoApp wrote:
| I appreciate your concise response, but I was hoping for
| a more in-depth analysis. Could you elaborate on your
| thoughts?
| npmanor wrote:
| This is the first time in a while there'll be an brokered (open)
| convention; especially so if Biden does not announce support for
| another candidate.
| collinmanderson wrote:
| He endorsed Kamala
| deafpolygon wrote:
| It was probably the right decision on Biden's part.
|
| My main right now is who are they going to position in opposition
| to Trump? This is too little, too late. Four months until the
| Election... and I don't feel like the Democrat party has a strong
| candidacy showing at this point.
| bilekas wrote:
| This is wild. It seems super late in the game but okay. I'm super
| interested to see what will become of his chips act etc. The push
| he has tried to do to remove dependencies on TSMC is very forward
| thinking. Hopefully the next candidate takes up the momentum.
|
| Edit : Typo in TSMC
| nightowl_games wrote:
| What's TMC
| daseiner1 wrote:
| Obviously a typo for TSMC
| madspindel wrote:
| Probably TSMC
|
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
| majewsky wrote:
| > It seems super late in the game but okay.
|
| Why does the US in specific have such drawn-out campaigns?
| Earlier this week, I saw a pundit commenting that 4 months
| before the election is too short notice to pick a new
| candidate. But there's countries in Europe that announce
| elections, pick candidates, do the campaigns, go to the pools,
| do the counts, and have the electees take office, all in less
| than 4 months (see e.g. Great Britain recently).
| sparky_z wrote:
| Because elections here aren't "announced". They're on a fixed
| 4-year schedule. Everyone knows they're coming, and if they
| start just a little sooner than the other guy this time, that
| may give them an advantage. Over time, it creeps earlier and
| earlier. Like retail stores putting out Christmas stuff in
| mid-october.
|
| Obviously, in great Britain's recent election, nobody knew
| there was going to be an election until it was announced, so
| there was no way to jump the gun.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I think the way we do ballot access also contributes to it.
| We give candidates backed by established political
| organizations preferential treatment (vs separating out
| qualifying for the ballot and support from the
| organization).
| wongarsu wrote:
| Tbh, I never understood why "support from the party"
| plays into it at all. If we truly want separation of
| powers shouldn't we encourage the leader of the executive
| to have no ties to any of the factions of the
| legislative. Instead it seems to be the opposite
| maxerickson wrote:
| The practical explanation is easy, people that seek power
| engage and work to change the rules to that end.
| arp242 wrote:
| Plenty of countries have elections on a fixed cycle and an
| election date known years in advance, and they don't have
| these extremely long drawn-out campaigns. Also, in most
| countries candidates also don't spend a fucktillion dollars
| on campaigning - another thing that has gotten rather out
| of hand in the US.
|
| And the mid-terms make it even worse. De-facto the US runs
| on a two-year election cycle. I suspect this is part of the
| reason why things are so screwed in the first place.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Most countries put legal limits on either campaign
| spending or campaign duration, or both. That prevents
| campaign lengths from spiraling out of control and forces
| campaigns to be a lot more focused (hopefully focused on
| substance).
|
| The US is one of the earlier modern democracies and as a
| consequence there are lots of little implementation
| flaws. And any change is seen as blasphemy against the
| will of the founding fathers. Many other democracies
| either had more hindsight available when they wrote their
| constitution, or were more open to change
| ipaddr wrote:
| Also gives the people in power control and the ability to
| block out new messages. No sure it's fair or democratic.
|
| Some countries give tax payer money based on how you did
| previously which greatly benefits the status quo
| wongarsu wrote:
| > Also gives the people in power control and the ability
| to block out new messages. No sure it's fair or
| democratic.
|
| With limited campaigns you usually run with people who
| are already known and have a long track record that's
| decently well known. The equivalent of running a Hillary
| Clinton or a Bernie Sanders. There shouldn't be much new
| stuff to drag up except their specific policies.
|
| > Some countries give tax payer money based on how you
| did previously which greatly benefits the status quo
|
| On the other hand if the state doesn't give parties money
| then the parties are just going to do whatever brings
| them the biggest donations, leading to a country run by
| the rich and the corporations. And you can't hand out
| money regardless of past performance since anyone can
| form a party at any time.
|
| There is no winning solution here, but giving tax money
| to parties can be the smaller evil
| kmeisthax wrote:
| This isn't an implementation flaw, this is (arguably) by
| design. You can't regulate campaign spending or duration
| without regulating political speech, which is a huge no-
| no under the 1st Amendment.
|
| I don't actually agree with that argument, of course.
| SCOTUS has been perfectly willing to go along with "time
| and manner" regulations on political speech in the past
| and I don't see why "nobody can spend more than $X or
| campaign longer than Y days" is forbidden when "nobody
| can protest the G7 summit" is. The US's free speech
| extremism has, in practice, turned into a delegated right
| to censorship. And under current SCOTUS interpretations
| of the Constitution, the government is equally powerless
| to stop both speech and private censorship.
|
| The true answer, of course, is that Trump and the donor
| class have coopted SCOTUS into an instrument of
| centralized power. SCOTUS is the scorpion[0] that stung
| the Progressive frog. They make this shit up as they go -
| free speech for me, censorship for thee. Fortunately,
| SCOTUS's legitimacy is in the toilet, and that power base
| can be broken; but it requires Congress and the President
| act to defang SCOTUS in a way that does not merely shift
| power. It needs to be distributed again.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
| dbspin wrote:
| From your lips to God's ears. As a non-American very much
| staring at tea leaves, I do worry stuffing the supreme
| court, or removing some of its power is the kind of act
| that could provoke a complete breakdown in the political
| system. Republican refusal to participate in the
| legislature, outright political violence that sort of
| thing. It's essential to save the democratic process at
| this point - but perhaps it's naive to think that ship
| hasn't sailed. Kind of astonishing to see recent supreme
| court decisions like Chevron and presumptive immunity,
| happening with only nominal opposition - rather than say
| riots in the streets. Seems there's little mandate for
| radical change, and a democratic victory may simply delay
| the inevitable.
| occz wrote:
| As a counterpoint, Sweden has elections on a fixed schedule
| as well, and electioneering is still essentially contained
| to a month before the election proper.
| bigthymer wrote:
| > electioneering is still essentially contained to a
| month before the election proper.
|
| Correct me if I'm wrong but the one-month limit is by
| law. Candidates are not allowed to campaign for longer
| than that. Just a little context I wanted to add for
| those that are unfamiliar.
| Erikun wrote:
| You are wrong, there is no such law in Sweden. But the
| person you're replying to isn't really correct either.
| Electioneering ramps up slowly over the calendar year but
| since the election always is on the second Sunday in
| September there is a lull in July during vacations and
| then way more activity in August.
| glenndebacker wrote:
| The fixed schedule is the case for most EU countries, in
| Belgium every 4 year we go out and vote.
|
| The only possible way to vote earlier is when a government
| falls and they write out new elections but that is
| extremely rare.
| kgwgk wrote:
| > The fixed schedule is the case for most EU countries,
| in Belgium every 4 year we go out and vote.
|
| I think you mean 5, not 4.
|
| > The only possible way to vote earlier is when a
| government falls and they write out new elections but
| that is extremely rare.
|
| It's not rare in many other EU countries - and even when
| there are no "snap" elections the there may be some
| flexibility about the timeline of the "standard" ones.
| I'm not sure that "fixed schedule is the case for most EU
| countries" is a good description, compared to the US
| where the exact date is known.
| michaelt wrote:
| The UK has a number of policies and traditions that reduce
| this tendency, in addition to snap elections.
|
| Obviously in a sense politicians are always campaigning, in
| the sense that they're always looking to deliver on their
| election promises, raise their personal profile, announce
| popular policies, kiss babies and so on. But that's a
| constant background effort, rather than an election-
| specific effort.
|
| Perhaps the most important factor is the campaign spending
| limit; a campaign might have PS50,000 to spend in a
| constituency with 70,000 voters and when the money runs
| out, they can't legally spend any more. So any money you
| spend early is money you can't spend later.
|
| Also a great deal of campaigning involves the candidate
| physically being in their constituency, not in Westminster.
| So to start campaigning early would involve a burdensome
| amount of travel, and much less free time to spend with
| family.
|
| During the short campaign period, parliament is dissolved
| and public servants enter 'Purdah' [1] where no important
| policies can be announced. Candidates can spend all their
| time in their constituencies campaigning - but the
| government is basically in stasis.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdah_(pre-
| election_period)
| rsynnott wrote:
| For practical purposes, in parliamentary democracies, the
| approximate date of the election is almost always known.
| Occasionally, they'll go notably early, as with the recent
| UK one (they could have gone up to December) but it's not
| really the norm (or certainly the out-of-the-blue nature of
| wasn't), and it was still only five months.
| ofcourseyoudo wrote:
| Also the UK is tiny by comparison in terms of a national-
| level capmaign.
| recursivecaveat wrote:
| The way primaries are explicitly drawn out across every state
| is a big factor. The earlier a given state runs its primary,
| the more influence that state has by setting the momentum.
| reissbaker wrote:
| It's because America has three elections for President:
|
| 1. Republican primaries
|
| 2. Democratic primaries
|
| 3. General election
|
| The drawn-out part is the primaries, part of which are
| parties trying to get their candidates in the news for a
| while. Once the parties officially pick a candidate -- July
| this year for the Republicans, August for Democrats -- the
| election proceeds on a pretty quick timetable.
|
| The UK doesn't do primary elections to the same extent, nor
| do most parliamentary democracies. So they're faster, since
| there's just a general election.
|
| The concern about Kamala's "short" time to make a case for
| electing her to the presidency is that she didn't get to make
| use of the ~year+ news cycles of the primaries, and will only
| have the general election to convince voters. (There's also a
| specter of it being "undemocratic" since party nominees are
| typically elected by the party's voters, rather than chosen
| by officials, but since she was Biden's VP in 2020, and he
| won the election, IMO this is overblown: the entire point of
| a VP is to take over if the president is unable to function,
| which is what happened in this case. Her claim to democratic
| election is that voters chose the Biden/Harris ticket in a
| general election, which is pretty reasonable.)
| ufo wrote:
| Great Britain has a parliamentary system. In the US, the
| presidential election is drawn out but the campaigns for
| congress only heat up in the last months.
| ajb wrote:
| The UK always has a Leader of the Opposition ready to make
| the case that they could be the next Prime Minister.
|
| Technically we only vote for the representative in our local
| constituency, but who is going to end up PM is a big factor.
| We know what the options are before the election is
| announced: the current PM and the Leader of the Opposition
| (although in theory the leader of one of the smaller parties
| is also possible). Therefore no need for a primary process.
| verdverm wrote:
| > late in the game
|
| Most other countries have much shorter election periods. I for
| one would love if ours was shorter. Our politicians spend more
| time campaigning and raising money than they do governing
| Sajarin wrote:
| > It's a miracle, folks. Donald told the truth for once. It's the
| most important election of our lifetimes. And I will win it.
|
| Curiously, his tweet from just 18 hours ago seemed like he was
| still in the race. I wonder what changed.
| daseiner1 wrote:
| The timing of Joe Manchin declining to endorse this morning
| certainly correlates.
| camel_Snake wrote:
| I think the Sheldon Brown announcing he should step down was
| far, far more impactful. Joe Manchin isn't nationally
| relevant nor a Democrat anymore.
| coffeecloud wrote:
| I think it was pretty widely understood that he was going to
| have to be adamantly in the race until the exact moment he
| wasn't in the race. The second he showed any public wavering it
| would have been over.
| karencarits wrote:
| I can understand that perspective too, but a problem with
| that approach is that he might seem arrogant and out-of-touch
| - and I would have difficulties trusting a party who is so
| clear in their communication for so long, and then abruptly
| change direction completely
| 12_throw_away wrote:
| good thing he's not running for anything then
| arp242 wrote:
| This is how it works everywhere. Do you go to your boss and
| say "well, I'm thinking of quitting and taking a different
| job, but I'm not sure yet and I'm still deciding. I'll let
| you know when I've decided!"
| pas wrote:
| People with good job security and good position in the
| labor market can do this. Lot of people already do shop
| around and try to get a raise, etc.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| But are they letting their boss know that they are doing
| it?
| ngetchell wrote:
| I believe the leaked polling of Harris vs Trump around July
| 4th was the pinhole that sunk his chances to hold on.
| kccoder wrote:
| You behave as though you're in the race right up to the moment
| you are not.
| wilg wrote:
| It's bizarre people don't get this. What's he supposed to do,
| tweet "thinking about not running" and flip everybody out?
| geraldwhen wrote:
| President Biden does not control his tweets. Even if he
| wanted to tweet that, his handlers would not let him.
|
| The stepping down announcement was probably a layoff notice
| to his staff. I bet many are/were shocked.
| justinclift wrote:
| That would be such an Elon Musk thing to do. No fucks
| given. ;)
| wongarsu wrote:
| Does he write his own tweets? He's no Elon Musk or Donald
| Trump, I would assume some staffer is tasked with writing those
| tweets. And they obviously wouldn't tell the staffer to do
| anything different until the decision to drop out was final.
| avar wrote:
| They hadn't told the people running his Twitter account yet?
|
| There was already an incident [1] where his press secretary
| tweeted about running for president on her own account, so she
| or her people are presumably in charge of it.
|
| 1. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
| politic...
| kgwgk wrote:
| They found out on Twitter:
| https://x.com/politico/status/1815098672113402138
| avar wrote:
| How is that related to this?
|
| Even if Biden had personally authored and posted every one
| his tweets, that would have nothing to do with whether
| _aides_ were kept in the loop about major campaign
| announcements.
|
| This thread is discussing an alleged inconsistency (or
| quick reversal) in his Twitter messaging.
| proc0 wrote:
| Exactly, people are overlooking how much he did not want to
| quit.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| Friday: "The business is doing great! We are expanding on all
| fronts!"
|
| Monday: layoffs
| ipaddr wrote:
| Threat that they will use article 25 to get him removed as
| president if he didn't playball
| colechristensen wrote:
| I was waiting for the House to censure him for not stepping
| aside. It was pretty clear that the flood of leadership
| democrats and donors insisting he step aside was building.
| echelon wrote:
| Dang, this shouldn't be flagged. This is hugely important and
| relevant.
| romanhn wrote:
| 100%. Biden becoming president was one of the biggest HN
| threads,very odd to see this thread killed.
| Timshel wrote:
| How the fuck does this end-up flagged ... There is over 90
| upvotes does this not count ?
|
| Where is the mythical vouch feature I could never find ? A yes
| I believe it's not yet dead, so you can't vouch ?
| ufo wrote:
| Several factors affect it... high number of upvotes and
| comments in a short amount of time, users flagging it because
| of politics, etc. Hopefully it gets manually unflagged.
| tim333 wrote:
| I've been wondering how the vouch thing works? I've been on
| HN like forever but not noticed it.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's for flagged comments. If you click the timestamp link,
| it takes you to a view of just the comment where you can
| 'vouch', which is a statement you think it is unfairly or
| inappropriately flagged.
| tim333 wrote:
| Ah ok thanks. So comments but not stories I guess.
| romanhn wrote:
| Stories too - all the other flagged dupes at the time
| showed the vouch option while this one didn't. I suspect
| this thread got auto-moderated as spam and therefore
| vouch wasn't available since it could be used to
| circumvent the moderation. Whereas the user-flagged
| stories were all vouchable.
| layer8 wrote:
| No, it's also for submissions that have been flagged
| enough that they are dead. But you have to have showdead
| turned on to see those submissions.
| https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-
| undocumented/blob/m...
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Not sure, but I think you can only vouch things that are
| dead, not just flagged.
|
| With a comment, I think that if it's flagged (more than some
| number of times), then it's dead. (It's also dead if the user
| is shadowbanned, or if it's downvoted to -4.) If you think
| that's wrong, you can (and should!) vouch for it.
|
| With a post, it can be flagged but not dead. Such threads can
| be replied to. Or a thread can be dead, in which case it
| cannot be replied to, but it can be vouched.
|
| That's my understanding, but I could be wrong.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I don't personally think it's relevant... but more importantly
| the comments are pretty much a dumpster fire. I don't begrudge
| people their positive opinions of Biden (even if I do
| disagree), but even fairly tepid pushback on that idea is being
| flagged into oblivion. That's completely one sided, and not
| worth much as a discussion.
| BadHumans wrote:
| I actually think this loses Democrats the election. I don't know
| who the nominee is going to be but if it's Kamala I think they
| REALLY lose the election. People may be lukewarm on Biden but
| they despise Kamala for her shady history as a prosecutor.
| g-b-r wrote:
| It sure seems like there are better chances with him gone; but
| yeah, he might have already given Trump the presidency by
| waiting so long (and for running for this election in the first
| place)
| mock-possum wrote:
| As an anti-trump voter (aka a circumstantial democrat) - that's
| what I'm worried about too. It feels like we've left it til too
| late without the democrats putting up anyone that people are
| excited about - while we know how the other side feels about
| trump.
| raziel2701 wrote:
| My question, and I know no one knows the answer, is are we
| afraid of a ghost? The ghost being a person who was all in on
| Biden, that now goes: "fuck that, I'm not voting for Harris"
|
| Are there large numbers of people like this? Nobody knows,
| but the media certainly does a good job of pushing that
| narrative. Informing you is not their job, getting you scared
| and angered is.
|
| I'm gonna vote for the non-fascist one. I wish Biden had
| stepped down much sooner, but it doesn't change the reality
| that I am scared of the violence that might arise if the
| right wins. Our country is in a state of corruption, the
| supreme court needs to be radically reigned-in and I only see
| one path before November to have a chance at addressing all
| these issues, and it's voting Democrats as much as we can.
| treis wrote:
| The election isn't decided by large numbers of voters. It's
| decided at the margins largely based on the 1-2% making a
| decision to go vote or not.
| fullshark wrote:
| The most recent poll this Saturday had Trump up 7 points in
| Michigan. It's basically impossible for Biden to win in that
| scenario.
|
| I think they were well on their way to losing and so they hit
| the panic button with good reason, if anything this will now
| introduce some uncertainty which improves their chances.
| newzisforsukas wrote:
| Look at 2020, 2016, the overton window rapidly shifts.
| Anymore it seems that relying on polls four months out isn't
| ultimately meaningful.
| tobias3 wrote:
| The history as a prosecutor might be a significant advantage in
| a general election. The anti-police senitment has waned and she
| can position herself right at the center w.r.t. rule of law.
| BadHumans wrote:
| Anti-police sentiment has not waned among minorities and that
| is a demographic she would need to capture to win.
| nxm wrote:
| Most Black folks want safety in their neighborhoods,
| period, and that is not possible without police and hence
| most support it. You don't hear "Defund the Police" anymore
| because we know how well it worked out.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| What city defunded their police?
| asphyxiac wrote:
| In Seattle, many police quit or transferred on grounds
| that they refuse to serve a populace that sought to
| defund them. Net-net was that police force size and
| responsiveness dropped.
|
| After this, our Black mayor ran on a campaign of funding
| the police and won.
| goatlover wrote:
| Minorities wanted police reform. They weren't for
| abolishing the police.
| energy123 wrote:
| Prosecutor vs convicted rapist and convicted felon could run
| well. It's not 2020 anymore, the wave of anti-cop hysteria has
| well and truly ended.
| gumby wrote:
| One of the most effective presidents since Johnson or Truman. But
| he did campaign on a single term.
|
| Let's hope the Dem's circular firing squad puts down its guns so
| they can quickly concentrate on winning the election with someone
| ... probably Harris is the simplest answer.
| tim333 wrote:
| I liked James Carville's idea of picking maybe eight contenders
| and having town hall type events to choose the most popular.
| Game show element to take publicity from Trump and also kind of
| democratic rather than anointing a connected insider, which of
| course Trump would then go on about endlessly.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| democratic is the famous intended design, over promotion of
| insiders, right? seems like a great idea from Carville.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Not really, no. At least not in the US.
|
| The tension in the US system is between founders who
| believed in the virtue of the commoner and founders who
| feared mobocracy. At various levels of the system, the
| system is designed to be elitist. And the parties are
| fundamentally private institutions and can be as populist
| or elitist as they want (worth noting: in practice, the GOP
| constitution is more populist than the Democrat
| constitution, which is one of the reasons they nominated
| Trump; there weren't backstops in the GOP like
| superdelegates to push him off the ticket).
| keybored wrote:
| The fear of "mob rule" seems to only be about losing
| power in practice.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > backstops [...] like superdelegates
|
| The Electoral College is often cited as serving a similar
| purpose... I think recent events show despite paying the
| consistent premium it extracts in elitist gatekeeping, it
| singularly failed to provide the promised protection
| against unethical demagogues.
| mattnewton wrote:
| 1) contested convention after the incumbent steps down
|
| 2) republican candidate considered a crook
|
| 3) it's in Chicago
|
| Whatever they do, don't do what the DNC did in 1968 again,
| lets try to at least make new mistakes this time I guess?
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| What mistakes did the DNC make in 1968?
|
| Chicago Mayor Daley and his police force made the mistakes
| with the protestors, much of the media coverage of the
| police riots falsely made it look like it was happening
| right outside the convention site.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Well, anointing the VP Humphrey as the new candidate, in
| a process that alienated a lot of the dem's base was a
| big mistake in retrospect.
|
| I won't pretend to know the history well enough to know
| if there was any workable approach then, but the
| convention process in 1968 definitely didn't work to
| produce a candidate Dems were excited about at the end of
| it, the turnout was low and Humphrey lost in a landslide.
|
| Also, I think some of it was happening right outside the
| convention site - Dan Rather was famously manhandled on
| national television by security guards while trying to
| interview someone leaving the convention.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I keep imaging being in a Sorkin-esque West Wing timeline
| ScottBurson wrote:
| Not a bad idea, but it remains to be seen how many people are
| up for starting a run at this late date.
|
| Also, I just read that Harris has money pouring in. The
| donors may effectively decide this before anyone else can get
| traction.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| how do you measure who is effective?
| babypuncher wrote:
| It's a very tough thing to objectively measure, but one
| metric we can point to is his ability to push a surprising
| amount of bipartisan legislation through an incredibly
| divided congress in just 4 years.
| arp242 wrote:
| What would you say are some of his greatest achievements?
|
| Question out of curiosity, not a challenge. I don't follow
| US politics that closely.
| alephnerd wrote:
| IRA (re-industrialized a significant portion of Red
| states in Power Systems, Battery, and Solar PV
| manufacturing), CHIPS (bringing back mass semiconductor
| fabrication with 5 mega fabs and re-introducing packaging
| and OSAT in the US), Infra Bill/IIJA, and Child Tax
| Credit during COVID.
|
| There's a reason the GOP aren't touching most of the
| provisions in the first 3 Acts (especially with Vance as
| Veep). [0][1]
|
| Vance is backed by Horowitz and Andreessen, and both
| heavily benefited from the IRA and CHIPS various
| provisions (but got hit by the capital gains tax changes
| that Biden proposed a couple months ago [2]).
|
| The biggest issue was the Biden admin's inability to
| promote the impact of all of these. Biden hasn't been
| campaigning across America as much as his predecessors.
|
| [0] - https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-
| industrial-p...
|
| [1] - https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-us-
| trade-pol...
|
| [2] - https://a16z.com/the-little-tech-agenda/
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| some have a delay until the benefits are evident, too,
| and a delay longer than roughly a half an election cycle
| makes them perhaps semi invisible?
| alephnerd wrote:
| You can still campaign during a groundbreaking.
|
| The issue was Biden was over-managed because of his
| reputation of "Bidenisms" for which he has been mocked
| about for decades [0][1]
|
| This meant he kept campaigning to a minimum and was
| extremely managed.
|
| It kept gaffes to a minimum but also severely decreased
| his media time.
|
| [0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-
| unspools-a...
|
| [1] -
| https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/joe-
| biden-bi...
| monetus wrote:
| Not properly taking advantage of the super bowl I think
| spooked people paying attention.
| js2 wrote:
| Ford is building a battery plant in Stanton TN based on
| grants from the IRA and Biden administration, creating
| thousands of jobs in a county that has been in economic
| decline for 30 years. But none of the folks working those
| jobs have any idea where those jobs came from. They just
| credit Ford:
|
| > MADLAND: Yeah, I talked to a lot of workers on the
| site, and this is this very large facility in rural
| Tennessee, a couple hours outside of Memphis. It's going
| to be a big electric vehicle battery and manufacturing
| construction in an area that had for 20, 30 years, really
| tried to spur investment, and nothing had happened. [...]
| So these big steps forward in their lives that you can
| see from these projects, which are good union jobs,
| constructing the big facility. Then when I also spoke to
| them and said, well, how or why do you think this project
| came to be? This project received many billions of
| dollars in loans from the federal government as part of
| these investments we're talking about. It also received
| significant state funding. And the workers to unanimously
| said, Well, I credit Ford, which is the big Ford Motor
| Company as a joint investment there. And then I would
| probe and push and they'd say, Well, I also credit my
| union for helping make this happen. I had to keep asking
| and asking before ever mention any elected officials that
| had anything to do with it. But their sentiment was,
| well, if any, elected official had anything to do with
| it. So I would like that and support them, but I have no
| idea about this.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-ford-ev-battery-
| plan...
|
| https://apnews.com/article/ford-electric-vehicles-
| battery-te...
|
| https://www.npr.org/transcripts/g-s1-9460
| riku_iki wrote:
| Its easy to create spending bills with 1.7T annual budget
| deficit, harder to understand if there will be positive
| ROI from these spendings.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I can safely speak for myself - the fund I was employed
| at had began rebalancing away from Cybersecurity and
| Biotech and funding Hardware, Energy Tech, and Defense
| Tech around 22-23 due to provisions in IRA and CHIPS.
|
| Plenty of peer funds did the same thing.
|
| Even if Trump wins in November, most of the provisions in
| the acts I mentioned will be retained, especially given
| that a Thiel and A16Z acolyte is Veep and an early MS
| alum is cabinet track.
| riku_iki wrote:
| rebelancing funds don't guarantee future successful and
| competitive products
| alephnerd wrote:
| Before 2022 we weren't even entertaining the option of
| funding an early stage startup in the Hardware, Energy,
| or Defense space.
|
| This is a MASSIVE change in the VC/PE industry which has
| concentrated on various flavors of SaaS for the past
| decade+.
|
| An entire ecosystem of research grants, commercialization
| grants, and private sector deal flow has now restarted in
| the sectors above that hasn't been seen in the past
| decade.
| riku_iki wrote:
| I absolutely sure if there is few T of free money there
| will be "MASSIVE ecosystem of research grants,
| commercialization grants, and private sector deal flow".
|
| But I believe in market economy, and to me it looks like
| VC/PE didn't invest into hardware much because didn't
| believe in positive ROI in current condition.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > VC/PE didn't invest into hardware much because didn't
| believe in positive ROI in current condition
|
| Not exactly.
|
| It was because of the upfront cost and lack of deal flow.
|
| Before the various IRA and CHIPS provisions passed, you
| might get $200k at most from grants to commercialize
| research in the Energy or Hardware space. The rest would
| be fronted from the private sector so you're looking at
| an additional $800k-1M of private money at the pre-
| seed/seed stage. On top of that, deal flow was weak, so
| it's harder to fund later series or get good exits during
| an M&A event.
|
| This is a very high upfront cost so obviously SaaS made
| sense due to much higher margins.
|
| After IRA and CHIPS, you could expect to see an
| additional $300-500k in grants, which means my upfront
| cost in funding is lower.
|
| Furthermore, the government is providing tax credits and
| grants to private sector players to minimize the amount
| of upfront money they need to spend (say) building a
| Battery Recycling plant or a Chip Packaging factory.
|
| This means there is now much more money sloshing in these
| segments as a significant portion of my upfront risk has
| been subsidized by the US government. That money can now
| be deployed in either funding research projects
| commercializing into startups, re-investing in existing
| players to help their own M&A strategy, and funding
| additional research in the spaces above.
| ajross wrote:
| > Its easy to create spending bills with 1.7T annual
| budget deficit
|
| Budget deficits have been smaller under Biden though.
| riku_iki wrote:
| he didn't deal with covid economy shut down.
|
| But I don't buy the point that current president is good
| because he is not as bad as previous in spending.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Compare Democrat presidents and Republican presidents in
| general. We routinely see less deficit spending and more
| economic growth under Democrats than under Republicans.
|
| Seeing as Trump is a Republican, and that his spending
| and economy were on brand for the Republican party, I see
| no reason to assume covid was the sole cause. (Is it your
| opinion is that Trump is a RINO who runs the country like
| a Democrat, and covid disguised that?)
|
| Given that the US economy has recovered from covid
| dramatically better than the economies of all other major
| nations, I am not inclined to assume that the US economy
| is currently in poor hands. On the contrary, it sure
| seems to be in the best hands that exist anywhere in the
| world.
| briankelly wrote:
| Inflation Reduction Act is one of the big ones.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Just off the top of my head: CHIPS, American Rescue Plan,
| IIJA, Inflation Reduction Act. Those were all just the
| 117th Congress.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Is that Biden or effective cooperation in the Senate &
| House of Reps, including across-the-aisle deals? I always
| wondered about the degree to which WH coordination played
| into this.
| woodruffw wrote:
| You can cut it any number of ways: the CHIPS act has
| existed in some form or another since 2019, but it only
| gained legislative momentum when Biden threw the weight
| of the executive branch behind it. The IRA was probably
| going to happen in _some_ form, but the concrete scope
| and priorities listed in it come directly from Biden 's
| legislative agenda[1].
|
| TL;DR: 100% credit? Of course not. But has Biden's
| administration been more effective at advancing its
| policies through the legislative than the previous
| administration? IMO yes.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Removed troops from Afghanistan (though Trump gets half
| credit for that one too, it was his timetable and his
| plan that Biden executed -- poorly -- though that's
| likely due to soft revolt on the part of the military
| leaders)
|
| Surviving four years without starting a new boots on
| ground war (also Trump gets credit for that)
|
| Calling out china on its bs (also Trump gets credit for
| that)
|
| In practical terms the big differentiating factor between
| Biden and Trump terms is that trump is soft-pro-putin and
| Biden is anti-putin. And trump freed some black prisoners
| who probably shouldn't be in jail anymore
|
| Moving forward, Biden is likely to be pro-taiwan and
| trump has been making anti-taiwan rhetoric
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I'm impressed at what column you put Afghanistan.
| verdverm wrote:
| Calling out the Russian invasion before it happened and
| bringing allies together in the days after.
|
| Slava Ukraine
| analogwzrd wrote:
| I obviously haven't read all the bills that were passed
| (ha!), but my impression is that many of the bills are just
| spending money - which is always popular with both parties.
| I don't get the sense that there was a lot of policy reform
| going on.
|
| And an issue with just spending money is that we have to
| wait a year or two to figure out if the spent money was
| effective (unlikely?).
| dehrmann wrote:
| > many of the bills are just spending money
|
| And continuing the trade war. Then people act surprised
| when inflation is high. Recently, I think Jay Powell has
| even called out congress and the president for continuing
| to spend.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Spending money is a key "lever" in legislative action.
| You can't legislate something without allocating money
| for its implementation and enforcement.
|
| In terms of core policy reform beneath all of the money
| spending: the current administration seems to place much
| greater emphasis on capital projects (repairing and
| building new infrastructure, including energy
| infrastructure) than the previous one did.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| There was also the comprehensive, bipartisan immigration
| reform bill that Trump tanked because it would make other
| people look good.
| hnthrowaway6543 wrote:
| Trump has not been in office since January 2021; how
| could he have tanked that bill?
|
| Using Trump as an excuse for not passing any bills on
| immigration, LGBT rights, abortion, etc when he didn't
| hold any political position for 4 years is the very
| definition of ineffective leadership.
| Sabinus wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/politics/gop-senators-
| angry-t...
|
| "Senior Senate Republicans are furious that Donald Trump
| may have killed an emerging bipartisan deal over the
| southern border, depriving them of a key legislative
| achievement on a pressing national priority and offering
| a preview of what's to come with Trump as their likely
| presidential nominee.
|
| In recent weeks, Trump has been lobbying Republicans both
| in private conversations and in public statements on
| social media to oppose the border compromise being
| delicately hashed out in the Senate, according to GOP
| sources familiar with the conversations - in part because
| he wants to campaign on the issue this November and
| doesn't want President Joe Biden to score a victory in an
| area where he is politically vulnerable."
| hnthrowaway6543 wrote:
| Assuming that CNN article quoting anonymous sources is
| true, you're basically just making the argument that
| Trump is an incredibly effective leader capable of
| controlling his party's agenda even when he's not in
| charge of it, while Biden is such an inept leader that he
| can't even get things done when he has the highest
| ranking political position in the Western world.
| kelipso wrote:
| Trump was the last GOP President and clear winner of the
| last primary, so of course he is the leader of the party
| and in charge of it.
| snake42 wrote:
| Your replies are moving the goalposts.
|
| That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| The Inflation Reduction Act is the most important piece
| of climate legislation since the 1970s
| analogwzrd wrote:
| Of course every bill is going to allocate money. But
| there's a difference between allocating money accompanied
| by a policy reform and passing a bill with the sole
| purpose of flooding an industry/market with government
| money.
|
| The IRA is trying to address climate change, yes. But
| there's the problem of relying on government to have any
| idea of where to inject money to make the most
| difference, trusting the government to not just inject
| money wherever it benefits the most politically
| connected, and avoiding massive fraud (see the SBA loans
| during COVID). Not to mention the insane irony of
| something called the "Inflation Reduction Act" being a
| massive spending bill.
|
| Point being: Number of bills passed and billions of
| dollars spent will be terrible metrics for how effective
| a politician is because of all those nuances.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, deciding how to spend money is one of the core
| functions of a government.
|
| > And an issue with just spending money is that we have
| to wait a year or two to figure out if the spent money
| was effective
|
| That's an issue with practically all legislation.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Let's hope the Dem's circular firing squad puts down its guns
| so they can quickly concentrate on winning the election with
| someone ... probably Harris is the simplest answer.
|
| On the contrary, the processes that anointed Hillary in 2016
| and Biden round 2 in 2024 were exactly the kind of "well, it's
| this person's turn now" decisions that were bad, anti-
| democratic (lower-case d) choices previously. I'm not looking
| for a "circular firing squad" but neither do I think some sort
| of automatic anointment of Harris is what people want either.
| notjoemama wrote:
| Part of it is a numbers game. She would get an incumbent bump
| over other potential candidates. There is hope, and I believe
| some data showing, she could energize the POC base. This is
| especially important now because polling was suggesting Trump
| was growing that area. Fundamentally though, name recognition
| ends up being meaningful in elections. I'm not advocating one
| way or another, just sharing why it seems to be an obvious
| choice for the party. If it helps, who I prefer isn't being
| considered, probably because it's not "their turn".
| ipaddr wrote:
| Doesn't she lose bluecolar npoc without Joe?
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Maybe she should pick Joe as her running mate then. That
| would be hilarious.
| klyrs wrote:
| > ...but neither do I think some sort of automatic anointment
| of Harris is what people want either.
|
| Regardless of what people want (and FWIW I agree that Hilary
| getting rammed down our throats was highly anti-democratic)
| at this stage of the game, Harris is the only person who can
| benefit from Biden's warchest. Barring somebody like Dwayne
| Johnson deciding to enter politics and stealing the show,
| Harris is the solitary candidate who is poised to hit the
| ground running with an adequate campaign _today_. And with so
| little time before the election, I think the only choice
| Democrats have today is to hold their noses and vote.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| There is less than 3.5 months, I'm not sure what people
| want. It is a very short time to run a new candidate.
|
| Unless they had some tricky campaign finance exception, it
| had to be Harris.
| ajross wrote:
| > the processes that anointed [...] Biden round 2 in 2024
|
| You think it's notably corrupt that... an incumbent president
| gets to run for re-election? You might argue this was a bad
| idea. You could argue it's counter to the way the campaign
| was presented in 2020. But it's hardly surprising; it's
| literally the way we've done things for hundreds of years!
| jkestner wrote:
| That's literally what her elected job is.
| adharmad wrote:
| Only if the sitting President resigns or is incapacitated.
| If there is a new election, then it is best if she earns
| her candidacy.
| wilg wrote:
| > But he did campaign on a single term.
|
| He did not really do this.
| woodruffw wrote:
| A single term was a prominent part of the discussion around
| his electability[1]. I'm not sure whether he campaigned on it
| _per se_ , but it was certainly something that I (and other
| people I know) factored into my vote in 2020.
|
| [1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-
| term-0...
| alex_young wrote:
| "Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,"
| Biden said. "There's an entire generation of leaders you saw
| stand behind me. They are the future of this country."
|
| https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/09/politics/joe-biden-
| bridge...
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Please stop spreading the cancer which is AMP.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/09/politics/joe-biden-
| bridge...
| trhway wrote:
| Biden was a stop-gap measure as Democrats didn't risk to
| put any new emerging leader against Trump. I think it was a
| big mistake - basically "coronation" of Biden back then
| replaced the normal, though painful, democratic process of
| producing a new Democrats leader. And as a result, it seems
| to me that Biden like a huge tree in the forest only
| exacerbated the issue by not letting new leadership to grow
| in the last 4 years. Of course he didn't do it
| intentionally, he (and his entourage) just naturally sucked
| up all the air and nothing grew in his shadow. Now, with
| the "anointment" of Harris, Democrats are repeating that
| mistake for the 3rd time - ie. Hillary, Biden, Harris -
| while on the other side we have a "Viking" leader who
| bloody slaughtered and ate all the competitors who were in
| the jar.
|
| (To clarify my political position, i'm pro-Democrat and
| think Biden wasn't a bad president, though i think he
| completely dropped the ball on the foreign policy - while
| Ukraine and Israel are more prominent, they cause multipage
| flamewars, so instead i'd point to Houthis where i think
| majority can agree with me that what Houtis do in Red Sea
| is just plain war crimes (intentional attacks on civilian
| shipping) and that should have been immediately nipped in
| the bud by the overwhelming US and allies' force in the
| region - if anything, protection of civilian shipping is
| one of the most legitimate major uses of the Navy, and i'd
| say it is a direct duty of the president to put it to such
| a use when the need arises)
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| > basically "coronation" of Biden back then replaced the
| normal, though painful, democratic process of producing a
| new Democrats leader
|
| There was a whole primary with like 12 other candidates
| and Biden won though. Bernie, Warren, Andrew Yang all had
| their shot, some did pretty well, but ultimately the
| democratic base voted for Biden
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > There was a whole primary with like 12 other candidates
| and Biden won though.
|
| Does no one remember what actually happened?
|
| All the other candidates except Warren dropped out around
| Iowa, suddenly and for no reason. Leaving Biden as the
| obvious selection, and Warren there to siphon off Bernie
| support to make sure he wouldn't be a problem.
|
| The base voted for Biden after they had no choice.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If there are people who don't remember these facts
| clearly, you are among them. Nobody dropped out "around
| Iowa" except Kremlin stooge Yang and literal Republican
| Bloomberg. No legitimate candidate dropped out until
| South Carolina, where Biden trounced the whole field.
|
| They quit because they got their faces ripped off in a
| fair fight, not because of some backroom party
| shenanigans.
| sitkack wrote:
| All the democrats fell on their swords so they weren't
| "splitting the vote", because Bernie was way way more
| popular than any of them.
| kelipso wrote:
| There was also an intense pro-Biden anti-Bernie media
| campaign before the South Carolina primary. Fun times.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Completely wrong, everyone dropped out after Biden
| cemented an insurmountable lead on Super Tuesday
| pdonis wrote:
| _> protection of civilian shipping is one of the most
| legitimate major uses of the Navy_
|
| As I understand it this was the position of the US
| Founders as well (and it is also mine).
| scoofy wrote:
| His campaign HEAVILY implied this, but no, he never said it.
|
| It's definitely one of those thing that make people like me,
| who want good faith honesty in politics angry, because "he
| didn't actually say it" politics is why gotcha politics
| exists.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I never could find a direct quote of Biden himself saying he
| would be a single term president, but his campaign team said
| it regularly in public interviews.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Debatable. He also was president to Russia invading Ukraine
| leading to a Europe wide conflict. Hamas invading Israel. Yemen
| disrupting shipping lanes. Iran securing a nuclear missle. And
| North Korea exporting arms and soldiers to European front. You
| saw Chinese EV makers take over most the western sales market.
|
| So to call it effective is to only look domestically. His
| international performance was not great.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > He also was president to Russia invading Ukraine leading to
| a Europe wide conflict. Hamas invading Israel.
|
| I put some of the blame on Biden because the botched
| Afghanistan withdrawal sent the message that the US doesn't
| want to get involved with regional conflicts, emboldening
| Russia, Hamas, and Iran.
| karaterobot wrote:
| It's not obvious how he could have prevented Russia from
| invading Ukraine, or stopped Hamas from invading Israel. Not
| everything comes back to the U.S.
|
| The biggest EV manufacturers in the U.S. are Tesla and Ford,
| as far as I can tell. No Chinese manufacturer I'm aware of
| has made significant inroads.
| ipaddr wrote:
| If he didn't give Iran billions they wouldn't have the
| money to fund the attack.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Could have easily pulled back from offering Ukraine NATO
| expansion possibilities.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| That's what Ukraine wants though.
| Calavar wrote:
| If you believe the Kremlin narrative around their
| motivations for the war, and I think there are a LOT of
| reasons to be skeptical of that narrative, but even if
| you believe it, the 2022 invasion plans were likely
| already well underway in 2020. These things are planned
| years in advance (Bush was already working on an Iraq
| invasion plan pre 9/11, for example) and once things are
| in motion the stakeholders are not easily turned around.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Ah, appeasement? Yeah, that famously always works.
| vanattab wrote:
| Chinese's EV's can't break into the us market. Biden put
| 100% special tairf on Chinese ev.
| Calavar wrote:
| And Trump has said that he intends to cancel that tariff
| [1]. Honestly, the narrative that Biden enabled Chinese
| EV encroachment is very bizarre. It reflects almost the
| exact opposite of the actions the candidates have
| actually taken.
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-19/trump-
| wel...
| harimau777 wrote:
| But it was Trump who pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and
| attempted to extort Ukraine instead of deterring Russia.
| gota wrote:
| The slow ongoing death of Pax Americana is hardly his fault,
| and reviving it was likely in the cards for him - or anyone
| in his place
| lilsoso wrote:
| Not according to Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz [1], Chamath
| Palihapitiya & David Sacks [2], possibly Zuckerberg [3], and
| others. And of course Elon, Thiel. Many such cases.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNclEgQZQ
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blqIZGXWUpU
|
| [3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XgWFwVRGcf4
| nirav72 wrote:
| SEC and other watchdog agencies will most likely be gutted to
| give rise to Crypto.
| woodruffw wrote:
| These videos would fit very nicely into an undergraduate
| course segment on motivated reasoning. As viewers, it's
| incumbent upon us to determine whether the Musks and the
| Thiels of the world have our best interests in mind and, if
| not, whether their support for any particular candidate might
| reflect that.
| justinhj wrote:
| As Trump said in his recent speech in Michigan "We have to
| make life good for our smart people." These are executives
| and investors who have created trillions in value with
| their technology based products and services. Their
| interests align with mine.
| woodruffw wrote:
| You're entitled to believe that. But you might want to
| consider whether this is (1) uniformly true for HN's
| readership demographic, and (2) uniformly true for the
| American electorate.
| wetmore wrote:
| Condemnation from a lot of those names is a strong positive
| signal imo.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Ah, yes, just the people I ask for a sensible objective view
| on the world.
|
| Like "well, this collection of the weirdest Silicon Valley
| people available took some time out of their busy schedule of
| hawking bitcoin or metaverses or magic robots or whatever to
| give a Very Important Opinion" is _not_ the world's strongest
| argument.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > One of the most effective presidents since Johnson or Truman.
|
| In what way? I don't live in the US, so what did I miss? I
| don't remember Biden doing anything of note (good or bad).
|
| > But he did campaign on a single term.
|
| Biden said that he was running for only a single term, and
| during this entire second election campaign nobody called him
| out on that, not even outspoken Trump?
| canadiantim wrote:
| What makes you say he was one of the most effective presidents?
| From the outside looking in, feels like the opposite?
| jzb wrote:
| Simplest may not be best here. Is Harris the person who is most
| likely to get people to the polls and vote Dem? Is she someone
| who can convert independent/undecided voters? etc. IMO those
| are not easy "yes, absolutely" answers. Does the Democratic
| party have anyone in the wings who is more likely to win than
| Harris?
|
| Maybe? Gretchen Whitmer might be a strong candidate, off the
| top of my head. But I'm struggling to think of a nationally
| known candidate with super-strong positives that would be a
| viable alternative. (That's also true for the GOP IMO if
| somehow Trump was out.)
| egypturnash wrote:
| The polling before this announcement was showing Harris with
| better numbers vs. Trump than Biden had, at least.
| caseyohara wrote:
| I believe Harris would still have access to the $240M
| Biden/Harris campaign fund too.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I honestly didn't have much faith in that polling. The
| media was scrambling after the debate to propose a
| different narrative and many in the party that were turning
| on Biden were promoting Harris.
|
| The polling seemed too convenient. I don't have a link
| handy, but the best poll process I saw after the debate did
| show Harris doing better than Biden, but she was still
| worse off than a few of the other Democratic potentials.
| dimal wrote:
| > probably Harris is the simplest answer
|
| And probably the wrong answer. I don't see her winning over
| swing voters. Gretchen Whitmer seems like the best option to
| me. I'd enjoy watching her debate Trump.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Way to go, in circumventing all the Democrats' vote during
| primary; now in the hands of of few DNS bigwigs, this choosing of
| what the people didn't vote for.
| coffeecloud wrote:
| Political parties aren't democratic institutions. They are
| essentially private organizations who can operate however they
| want. It's only been the last 50 years or so that either party
| has used primaries as anything more than a straw poll
| hnarn wrote:
| One of the problems with the US being a two party state is
| exactly this, people conflate political parties with the
| institutions themselves, which is not great.
| Maxatar wrote:
| The DNC and RNC are legally bound to follow rules established
| both by state law and by Congress/legislation. Yes they are
| private institutions but they can not set arbitrary rules.
| pessimizer wrote:
| When it comes to their primaries, the only obligation that
| they have to is to follow their own rules, and the only
| people that are allowed to hold them to that obligation are
| they themselves, and maybe their vendors.
|
| They aren't even obligated to donors who donated under the
| assumption that there's some promise or legal requirement
| that their primaries be fair. That case was dismissed, and
| resulted in the quote from DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva:
|
| _" You know, again, if you had a charity where somebody
| said, Hey, I'm gonna take this money and use it for a
| specific purpose, X, and they pocketed it and stole the
| money, of course that's different. But here, where you have
| a party that's saying, We're gonna, you know, choose our
| standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules
| of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could
| have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look,
| we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke
| cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way
| it was done. But they could have. And that would have also
| been their right, and it would drag the Court well into
| party politics, internal party politics to answer those
| questions."_
| toast0 wrote:
| The rules set by state law and Congress for candidate
| selection offer a pretty wide berth in terms of methodology
| for selecting which candidates appear on the ballot.
| There's no (federal) Constitutional mandate for primaries;
| procedures for how a state selects its presidential
| electors are up to the legislators of each state.
| pessimizer wrote:
| But, currently, Republican primaries are largely democratic
| and Democratic primaries are at best a marketing period in
| which their membership makes no binding decisions. Compromise
| with the tea party forced Republican primaries to
| democratize, which eventually ended with the party being
| forced to accept Trump as a candidate against every wish of
| party insiders. Democrats have "superdelegates," and a ton of
| other ways to fix the primary, and have gone to court to
| establish legally that they have no obligation to run it
| fairly or honestly.
|
| The same sort of democratization happened to British Labour
| under Ed Miliband, which culminated with the election of
| Corbyn as leader. In order to fix the problem, they had to
| purge and expel anyone from party membership that had any
| sort of firm value system.
|
| Democrats don't have that option in the US, because in the
| US, people aren't members of parties; they're people who have
| registered to vote in that party's primary, or people known
| to have supported that party in the past. US corporate
| parties have employees, not members. Getting a portion of the
| public to participate in their primary is the closest thing
| they have to rallying the membership, and the way that both
| parties have written election law makes it difficult for them
| to change anything, or to prevent anyone from voting in them.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| Well the one that calls itself Democratic party should, you'd
| expect, at-least make an attempt to be.
| keybored wrote:
| The Duopoly: You can pick Pepsi or Coke
|
| You: I want water
|
| The Duopoly: That's impossible and un-American
| kristjansson wrote:
| Not to be too conspiratorial, but these gripes about the
| primaries seem too uniform and unipolar to be entirely
| genuine.
| 0xdde wrote:
| He ran virtually unopposed in those primaries and many people
| sat them out, so I don't think anyone takes those victories as
| a strong signal. It's become clear through recent polls that he
| lost the support of many of his party's voters.
| archagon wrote:
| At the end of the day, it was Biden's decision to step down.
| energy123 wrote:
| The large majority of voters wanted him to step down after the
| debate according to every poll. This is not a decision that
| goes against the spirit of democracy. To the contrary,
| sacrificing personal power for the good of the country and the
| preservation of the ideal that the institution matters rather
| than the figurehead. It's something we've almost forgotten is
| possible in the modern age of personality cults and wannabe
| strongmen.
| eric_cc wrote:
| > according to every poll
|
| Polls are now substitutes for voting booths?
| avalys wrote:
| Primary elections are private matters, "nominee of the
| Democratic Party" is not a political office.
| proc0 wrote:
| Right, so you don't get to pick your leader.
| avalys wrote:
| You pick your leader in the presidential election.
|
| Being a nominee of a major party is not a requirement to
| get on the presidential ballot.
| Gud wrote:
| This is democracy in name only. There are much better
| alternatives in existence. Don't defend the current
| system, build a new one that is more resilient and
| fairer.
| proc0 wrote:
| The problem is that primaries are giving people the
| illusion of a choice. This country hasn't been a
| democracy or a republic for many decades yet it's
| constantly held up as something we are protecting. People
| decide who the president is as much as an employee of
| Google or Meta decide who their CEO is.
| jsutton wrote:
| Do British citizens get to vote on who each parliament
| party puts forward as their leader?
| harimau777 wrote:
| People's opinions changed after the primary. This doesn't
| have anything to do with voting booths one way or the
| other.
| verdverm wrote:
| Primaries are a relatively new aspect in American democracy
| (became the norm around 60 years ago). Before that, the parties
| largely decided on the candidates
| taurath wrote:
| > in circumventing all the Democrats' vote during primary
|
| It wasn't really a primary, there was no actual opposition. I
| don't think anyone is somehow offended that they voted in a
| primary for a person who stepped down due to age as if their
| choice was taken to them.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| The primary was a coronation, not a contest.
|
| The word your looking for here is 'legitimacy.' It's what
| political power is made of.
|
| Biden lost it, by staying hidden through the primaries and then
| showing himself to be obviously unfit once he finally showed up
| for a debate.
| wesgarrison wrote:
| The majority of DNC delegates are normal people and local
| elected officials, elected by local districts and state
| delegations.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Oof. This guy has been the biggest positive surprise of the US
| presidents in my lifetime. Expectations were low, but he actually
| turned out to be a good president (from a European perspective).
| No new wars, no more talk about shifting defense focus to Asia,
| generally nothing unreasonable. Good support for Ukraine, no
| doubts about NATO - rather the opposite. Basically, the rich
| uncle on the other side of the pond has been a good one.
|
| I presume that his attitudes and staff selection carried the day,
| and maybe could have done so for another term. But his mental
| capacity was clearly declining, and he is in fact expected to
| handle some things personally.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > No new wars
|
| Are you kidding? on Biden's watch Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas
| attacked Israel leading to war in Gaza.
| kccoder wrote:
| Biden started those wars? American troops are on the ground
| in those conflicts?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Trump would (has promised to do so on live television) just
| give Ukraine to Russia. Biden/USA/allies have stood down
| Russia, which has been seriously damaged both by battlefield
| losses, by not achieving their strategic goals and instead
| entering a second Afghanistan, and by the rapid conversion of
| the EU economy to no longer need Russian energy.
| oezi wrote:
| I think you are spot on (and a bit puzzled why you got
| downvoted). The energy transition in Germany away from
| Russian gas was a economic achievement I didn't think
| possible. It costs Europe dearly but has accelerated
| renewable transition remarkedly.
| luuurker wrote:
| Russia started its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, not 2022.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| "On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
| reducesuffering wrote:
| From your source:
|
| "in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which
| started in 2014."
|
| Russo-Ukrainian War: "The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War
| began in February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revolution of
| Dignity, Russia occupied and annexed Crimea"
| Hikikomori wrote:
| What would trump have done other than not helping Ukraine at
| all and allowing israel to kill even more civilians?
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Unfortunately his domestic achievements have been somewhat
| mediocre.
|
| His signature achievements essentially were one time cash
| payments to people.
|
| I really do think his major failure was not pushing for a
| lasting achievement like implementing federal parental leave.
| He had the chance, but opted for a 1 year extension of child
| tax credits.
|
| And of course the US has an illegal immigration problem.
| European right on the rise from 1/10th the number of illegal
| immigrants the US gets.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Arguably he saved the US from a major recession that all the
| experts were predicting post COVID. But avoiding a disaster
| is harder to campaign on.
| votepaunchy wrote:
| Difficult to have a recession when the federal deficit is
| 6.3% of GDP:
|
| https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727
| seaal wrote:
| Looking at those charts makes Biden's presidency look
| even more successful to me given everything he walked
| into.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The US economy is extremely robust right now and the
| European countries that took a balanced budget austerity
| approach are in shambles. Look at England. Just carnage
| over there.
|
| Deficit spending makes sense when the spending invests in
| the future. Every mortgage holder understands this
| implicitly. If these deficit levels concern you the
| obvious first place to start would be on the revenue
| side, by letting the Trump 2017 tax cuts expire.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| > His signature achievements essentially were one time cash
| payments to people.
|
| I was so excited for the infrastructure bill, but
| unfortunately it got way stripped down.
|
| You can tax me at any percent you'd like if you're using it
| (efficiently) for public transit.
| piva00 wrote:
| > And of course the US has an illegal immigration problem.
| European right on the rise from 1/10th the number of illegal
| immigrants the US gets.
|
| Those are also the backbone of a lot of agriculture in the
| US, either a president tackles it and food inflation rises or
| you keep the status quo and prices steady.
|
| There's no winning strategy, whomever tackles it will have it
| backfire someway, the US depends on exploiting cheap labour
| for its low margin industries.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| Trump's strategy of making lots of noise about building
| walls to stop illegal immigrants while not actually
| building or stopping them seems to be working reasonably
| well.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Genuine question: is the European right actually on the rise?
| It seems somewhat localized to France, where Macron just
| unexpectedly outmaneuvered both Le Pen's party and the left
| coalition that formed to counter Le Pen, securing himself a
| surprise victory in the snap election everyone thought would
| be a disaster for him. In the EU as a whole, Ursula von der
| Leyen just won another 5 years as the President of the
| European Commission, which seems like a continuation of the
| status quo in the EU rather than a turn toward the right.
|
| This is all from my naive perspective as an American.
|
| Edit: I'd appreciate a reply instead of a downvote. As I
| said, I'm asking a genuine question.
| jochem9 wrote:
| Biggest party in the Netherlands is radical right (PVV). In
| France they barely got a parliamentary majority against Le
| Pen, in a country that's not particularly good at
| coalitions, so doesn't look like it will last. Hungary has
| been on the authoritorian track for quite some time. Poland
| just managed to get off it, but we'll have to see if it
| will stick. Italy got a neo-fascist.
|
| Generally you see radical right gaining more votes in
| Europe, even if they don't outright win everywhere. You
| also see that other parties adopt ideas from the far right.
| This means that policy is changing in that direction and
| that the discourse is more around those topics. Meanwhile
| research shows that this doesn't actually make voters vote
| less for the radical right parties, so those other parties
| are not gaining anything from it.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I see, thanks for the info! Interesting that Poland
| managed to get off the authoritarian track as you said,
| when they're so geographically close to being embroiled
| in war again. I'd think that would lead people to lean
| toward that kind of "follow the strong leader to get us
| through war" thinking, but obviously I'm glad it doesn't.
| badpun wrote:
| The right-wing party in Poland (PiS) still won the latest
| election (as in - got the most votes), but didn't anyone
| willing to form the coalition with them that would secure
| enough votes to form government - other major parties
| campaigned on being explicitly anti-PiS. So, even though
| PiS won, they are the opposition now, and the wide anti-
| PiS coalition is in power.
| fakedang wrote:
| Also to add, PIS was mired in the passports for sale
| scandal, which was a significant reason for them losing
| the election. People didn't vote against anti-immigration
| and far-right behavior, they voted against PIS hypocrisy.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| The far-right parties are on the rise in most EU countries.
| But in most EU countries they have not managed to make it
| into government in enough numbers to be relevant, yet.
|
| But the rhetoric of the centrists/moderates has been
| shifting towards the right as well, on the topic of
| immigration, and especially with regards to certain ethnic
| groups.
| byroot wrote:
| > securing himself a surprise victory in the snap election
| everyone thought would be a disaster for him.
|
| This is totally incorrect. Macron's party arrived 3rd in
| number of seats when previously it had a relative majority.
| He lost over a hundred seats in parliament and many key
| roles. Additionally his coalition is weakened because his
| allies really didn't appreciate his move and are already
| openly questioning his leadership.
|
| He is in a way worse position now than he was before the
| snap election, and while you can say nobody won, no one can
| seriously question the fact that Macron lost hard.
|
| As for the rise of the far right, it's happening in more
| countries than just France: Germany, Netherland, Italy,
| etc.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > He is in a way worse position now than he was before
| the snap election, and while you can say nobody won, no
| one can seriously question the fact that Macron lost
| hard.
|
| Good point. I replied to another comment below, I'd been
| reading political commentary/analysis saying that _maybe_
| his goal was to defang Le Pen 's party by letting the
| French people see what they'd do with power before the
| election in 2027. But as far as I'm aware he never
| actually said that was his goal, it's just a guess, and
| from a hard numbers perspective he called a snap election
| and lost seats.
| occz wrote:
| It's on the rise, yeah. It's not just France.
|
| The UK may have just managed to get a majority, but that's
| a peculiarity of their electoral system. As a fraction of
| the votes, their far right gained a larger share than in
| previous years.
|
| Similar effects can be observed in plenty of countries,
| among those Sweden, Germany to some extent, Italy, Hungary
| has been way left for a long time, etc.
| youngtaff wrote:
| Comparing the most recent election in the UK and the one
| before it the vote for the right (Reform) increased by 2%
| points (14% overall) versus the vote share for UKIP in
| 2019
|
| The other right wing parties (Conservatives, DUP) got 25%
| between them
|
| Where as the more progressive parties got over 50% of the
| vote - Greens got 6%, LibDems 12%, Labour 34% plus SNP
| and Plaid Cymru
|
| To say the right did well in the UK election just isn't
| true
| chgs wrote:
| Depends if you consider Tory as "far right" now and not a
| decade ago.
|
| Farage got 12.6% in 2015 and 14.3% in 2024. That's not a
| massive increase. Tory vote meanwhile fell from 37% to
| 19%
|
| On the centre-left side, In 2015 Lib/Lab got 38%, by 2025
| that had increased to 46%
|
| On the left side the greens increased from 4% to 6.5%
| fakedang wrote:
| To be honest, the UK elections might be parliamentary,
| but they have a very Presidential character to them, just
| as is the case in India and Canada. People still vote for
| the PM face. This time, they didn't want to vote in
| Rishi. Put Boris Johnson on the ticket, and I'm certain
| the results would have been extremely different.
| chgs wrote:
| Not round here, massive support fur incumbant local mp
| even from those that vote another way at council
| elections
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| There's no "EU as a whole". Europe is made of vastly
| different countries with their own politics and the people
| care much more about the national politics compared to EU
| level politics (at least based on what I have seen).
|
| It doesn't help that the EU parliament (elected directly)
| does not have much power compared to the commission.
| thrance wrote:
| Here in France, the media isn't so prompt as to call last
| election's results a "victory" for Macron's party.
|
| Quite the contrary, his party now finds itself with
| (considerably) less parliament seats that it had, and when
| it could get a majority by appealing to the "moderate"
| right, he now has to compromise with the opposition. His
| party doesn't even hold a relative majority anymore.
|
| Sadly my country hasn't been the only European one where
| fascism is creeping up again. The far rights came out on
| top in the last European Parliament election in Belgium,
| Italy, Austria, Hungary and France. In the other countries,
| its scores are steadily, dreadfully, increasing with each
| passing election.
|
| Personally, I blame the increasing economic inequality and
| austerity politics lead in Europe since the 80s.
| fakedang wrote:
| My personal opinion as a non-European who has voted in
| the UK elections as a Commonwealth citizen: the far-right
| tends to win broad support in European Parliament
| elections mostly as a reactionary bulwark against the
| EU's Open Borders policy (and rightly so). People tend to
| vote somewhat rationally for national elections.
|
| Honestly, from my perspective, the rise of rampant
| immigration (and that too contributed by people of my
| community) is going to damage the entirety of Europe in
| the long run. Already I've seen firsthand the skewing of
| the demographic pyramid in the younger generation (0-18
| yrs), a lack of worthwhile job prospects for second
| generation immigrants, and the rising tide of anti-
| national behaviors from members of migrant communities.
| As Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed rightly said, the next
| generation of terrorists will not come from Saudi Arabia
| or the Middle East, but from Europe. The kind of venom
| that mosques here in Europe spew is much worse than the
| extremely highly-monitored mosque sermons in the Middle
| East, from Egypt to Oman.
|
| From my Muslim perspective, Europe will be a lost cause
| in a single generation, unless there is a MASSIVE
| cultural upheaval that stomps and quashes the current
| migratory trend. Austerity and inequality are just the
| sparks, but the bigger powder keg is the growing base of
| increasingly alienated migrants who have to face the
| austerity and inequality (see Leeds riots very recently).
| European society was never structured to take in so many
| incompatible migrants like American society is.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Ah, my mistake. The political commentary and analysis I'd
| been reading had been saying that, while Macron's party
| lost seats, his goal may have been to defang the far-
| right before they got any "real" power in 2027. I guess
| the commentary was implying that his goal may have been
| to let the French people see what the far-right would do
| with their political power, while not risking the
| presidency.
|
| It sounds a little bit like 4-D chess now that I type it
| out, I'm not sure I believe it myself.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| The inflation reduction act has been an immense boost to
| green energy. This is not very visible to the public. But
| it's been a big deal
| energy123 wrote:
| "His signature achievements essentially were one time cash
| payments to people."
|
| Look at the $300bn climate funding in the Inflation Reduction
| Act and the impact on bringing chip manufacturing onshore
| with the Chips Act. All this with a nearly divided congress.
|
| Easily the most effective US president of my lifetime.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| The IRA has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It passed because
| Joe _Manchin_ decided at the last minute that he hated what
| China is doing with trying to monopolize stuff like solar
| panels and batteries.
|
| There's a reason people jokingly refer to him as
| _President_ Manchin.
| crakhamster01 wrote:
| If Biden is blamed for failing to get certain bills
| passed, it seems fair that he should get _some_ credit
| for the ones that are, no?
| zer0zzz wrote:
| > Unfortunately his domestic achievements have been somewhat
| mediocre.
|
| The airlines would like all of your money next time they
| cancel your flight.
| oezi wrote:
| 1/10th the number of illegal immigrants? The US gets less
| illegal immigrants than Europe per capita. If you look at the
| charts from the last 10 years of the immigrants as percentage
| of population you recognize that the US is seeing slower
| growth while European countries see faster immigration. This
| is happening while the US has a high immigration rate of
| desirable skilled workers.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/migration?tab=chart&tim.
| ..
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Biden has passed more bipartizan legislation since LBJ.
|
| Whatever Russia is paying to post dumb shit like this, its
| not worth it.
| niyyou wrote:
| This is a very partial view. A good number of people, including
| American democrats were disgusted by his unwavering support to
| the current genocide in Gaza. Many believe he could have
| stopped it with a phone call and explicitly refused. I know
| many who swore they would not vote for him, regardless of the
| circumstances.
| stemlord wrote:
| You're saying you know democrats who would rather accept
| trump over biden?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > Many believe he could have stopped it with a phone call and
| explicitly refused.
|
| This seems to take all of the culpability, motive and free
| will away from Netanyahu. I'm not saying Biden _couldn 't_
| make that call, but why do we assume Bibi would have actually
| stopped if so?
| dmurray wrote:
| Depends what was in the phone call! If he said "I'm going
| to drone you and everyone in your cabinet and all of your
| family" that would probably have done it, coming from the
| one person on earth who can credibly make that threat.
|
| Biden's aides could probably come up with a more nuanced
| and more statesmanlike but equally effective threat than
| that, of course. Any US president would have great leverage
| to threaten an Israeli PM personally or politically, or
| threaten changes to US foreign policy that would work badly
| for Israel.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Any US president would have great leverage to threaten
| an Israeli PM personally or politically, or threaten
| changes to US foreign policy that would work badly for
| Israel.
|
| US Presidents aren't dictators and there is no way _any_
| policy change too bad for Israel wouldn't have led to
| serious financial issues for any party. AIPAC is damn
| well connected.
|
| In any case, I don't believe Netanyahu would have caved.
| No matter the threat - the crimes of Oct 7 were way too
| serious for _any_ Israeli PM to leave unanswered. It was
| the equivalent of 9 /11 - and just like the US back then,
| who completely flattened Afghanistan in retaliation,
| there is no way any other Israeli PM would have had any
| other _realpolitik_ option than to fight until Hamas is
| gone off the face of the planet.
| dmurray wrote:
| > there is no way _any_ policy change too bad for Israel
| wouldn't have led to serious financial issues for any
| party. AIPAC is damn well connected.
|
| Well, yeah, it might not have been good for Biden
| financially or for the US strategic military position in
| the region. That's exactly why he didn't make the call -
| it's not that he doesn't care about the slaughter of
| innocents, but he cares about other things more.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| To a lot of outsiders it honestly looks like to some extent
| Israel controls US foreign policy. It's not a good look.
| Why does the US have to tiptoe so much around this issue?
| Why does Israel have such leverage? What is this leverage?
|
| I always say, imagine if it was France instead of Israel.
| Then you see how crazy the situation is.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I can't imagine the US wouldn't support France given a
| comparable terrorist attack.
| dahfizz wrote:
| A strong West-allied military in the Middle East is
| extremely valuable.
|
| If France started a war of aggression, the US would also
| 100% stand with France, especially if it started with
| France being hit with a terrorist attack. I'm not sure
| what you are trying to say.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| From my layman's perspective, it's because a lot of
| people in the US just plain support Israel. I think
| that's because of religious connotations but again I
| don't really know. I've even seen an Israel flag being
| flown in the same yard as a Trump 2024 yard sign, here in
| my tiny northwest Iowa town.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| The jews in the US have more political and media
| influence than the muslims in the US, and there's a
| biblical prophecy to Israel existing that a lot of
| Americans in the South believe in.
| lamontcg wrote:
| > PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Former President Donald Trump declared
| Tuesday that Israel must "finish the problem" in its war
| against Hamas, his most definitive position on the conflict
| since the terror group killed 1,200 Israelis and took more
| than 200 hostages on Oct. 7.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-
| israel-g...
| ActorNightly wrote:
| This is just the vocal minority who hyped up Bernie online
| back in 2016 and 2020.
| nsguy wrote:
| The US public is not as supportive of Israel as it used to be
| but support is still broad. The opinions you're reflecting
| are a small minority. I would expect that democrats lost
| votes on their "both sides" approach here since more
| centrists would have move to the right then people on the
| left who at best can not vote in protest. Stronger support
| for Israel would have not only reduced Palestinian suffering
| in the war but would have also likely gained support for the
| democrats.
|
| For example, Israel was pressured to delay its offensive in
| the beginning of the war after the Oct 7th attack, which
| likely caused more casualties and prolonged the war and it
| was pressured in other ways that prolong the war. There was
| certainly nothing like "unwavering support", e.g. there was
| intense pressure to avoid an operation in Rafah, e.g. with
| the US administration saying the population could not be
| evacuated, but then Israel ignored that, and the population
| did evacuate.
|
| On the other hand, there is virtually no chance that the US
| could have forced Israel to stop the war because Israelis
| view this as an existential threat. No threats or measures
| the US would take would override that view. This is likely
| why Biden is not able to stop the war by making a phone call.
|
| I think it's important for people that want the war in Gaza
| to end and to see less casualties and suffering to understand
| this calculus. Israel's and Hamas'. What those people seem to
| be working towards in practice is a prolongation of the war,
| more suffering by everyone, and possibly the election of
| Trump in the US.
| C6JEsQeQa5fCjE wrote:
| > On the other hand, there is virtually no chance that the
| US could have forced Israel to stop the war because
| Israelis view this as an existential threat. No threats or
| measures the US would take would override that view. This
| is likely why Biden is not able to stop the war by making a
| phone call.
|
| No chance? That's a very unimaginative view. Here's one way
| to do it that would have caused Israel to immediately stop:
| "If you keep going against what we are publicly saying, we
| will no longer veto security council resolutions against
| you, and UNGA will move forward with sanctions once they
| realize we're not going to protect you anymore."
| LetsGoApp wrote:
| Biden's wise choice exemplifies true leadership, and
| ultimately, it's a testament to the enduring influence of
| Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's revered elder statesman,
| who remains a powerful force to this day.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| > I presume that his attitudes and staff selection carried the
| day, and maybe could have done so for another term. But his
| mental capacity was clearly declining, and he is in fact
| expected to handle some things personally.
|
| Biden's presidency makes me wonder if we really need a head of
| state these days. Is it really necessary to have such a single
| powerful figure in the executive branch?
|
| The biggest exception (IMO) would be in times of crisis, where
| a strong executive is necessary.
| techostritch wrote:
| I feel two ways in this, you probably need one voice for
| certain key tactical decisions, but the fact that everyone
| feels the presidency is this important in America supports
| the idea that the presidency has gotten way to powerful.
| Loosely speaking, the person who is president shouldn't
| matter as much as who is in congress.
| miki123211 wrote:
| This is how it works in most European democracies.
|
| The balance between the President, the Prime Minister and
| the Congress or Parliament is different in different
| countries. In most of Europe, the President is mostly a
| "figurehead". The President does the diplomatic stuff,
| wines and dines with foreign leaders, maybe has the ability
| to veto laws or pardon people, but it's the prime minister
| who actually runs the government and appoints the cabinet.
| occz wrote:
| There's also the constitutional monarchy-model we have
| here in Sweden, where the head of state is fully
| ornamental, with no power to speak of.
| mongol wrote:
| I think this varies varies between countries. Sweden
| indeed has an almost (formally) powerless monarch. I
| think the UK has a monarch with some real power but that
| does not put it to use? And how Denmark, Netherlands,
| Norway etc fare on this scale would be interesting to
| learn.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| > you probably need one voice for certain key tactical
| decisions
|
| I agree. Having a unified vision is the other key thing a
| president brings. Unfortunately though we barely see the
| fruits of a unified vision with how divided the two parties
| are today.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The problem isn't the head of state but the head of
| government. The solution to that is reduce the powers of the
| President.
|
| I have been having thought that the office of President
| should be split. With separate head of state and head of
| government that runs the executive branch. Another option
| would be to have triumvirate with command in chief that
| commands the military. Maybe the President has power to
| dismiss the others, or there is system than one person can't
| take over, like the CnC can never be executive.
|
| You could do that with current structure by giving all the
| executive power to the Vice President, and then President
| would be left with head of state role. They would run as
| slate, with the visible, charismatic President, and the
| unknown, competent VP. If the President dies, the VP loses
| all his power.
| zbirkenbuel wrote:
| I've said that the US needs an elected king. The guy you
| want to have a beer with, to throw out ceremonial first
| pitches, even to welcome other heads of state is the king.
| The person who runs the government and balances congress is
| the president and should be super boring. I'm imagining
| George W Bush as idea King material while Gore would have
| been ideal President material.
| ianburrell wrote:
| In parliamentary republics, the President is the
| powerless head of state, and the Prime Minister is head
| of government. There are lots of terms for head of
| government like Chancellor, Chief Executive, and First
| Minister. "King" has too much baggage of being inherited.
|
| Most limited Presidents have fixed terms, but I don't
| think there needs to be term limits for the figurehead. I
| was thinking that the head of state would attract those
| who want the spotlight.
| red_admiral wrote:
| > triumvirate
|
| The two historical examples that immediately come to mind
| (and explain the Latin term) both didn't end well.
|
| I agree with the rest of the points you make. I think in
| Europe, the CnC is always a military post and needs to have
| done officer training and risen through the ranks, whereas
| the head of government (whether nominal or actual) is
| strictly a civilian role.
|
| Whether European models would scale up to something the
| size of the USA is another question.
| mrkeen wrote:
| > Is it really necessary to have such a single powerful
| figure in the executive branch?
|
| As an ignorant outsider, my impression is that the president
| is only supposed to 'preside' over things. Delegate and
| appoint people. Sign bills as a ceremony.
|
| The real decision-making should be happening by the people's
| representatives in congress, while the Supreme court can
| guard against decisions which would violate the constitution.
|
| But then parties form, partisanship happens, and congress
| stops making meaningful changes. Blocking anything that the
| dems put forward apparently gets votes for senators. You
| don't even need filibusters to prevent votes; just the
| suggestion of one.
|
| So without a working congress, the President and the courts
| end up picking up the slack, and wield more power than they
| should.
|
| I naively wish that there was some way for congress to
| actually be a congress, and for each member to vote his/her
| conscience on every single matter.
| burtonator wrote:
| He got us out of Afghanistan too... this was a huge win and was
| very risky. Doesn't get enough credit for this one.
|
| Agreed on NATO + Ukraine too but I wish they would allow us to
| strike Russia directly even with NATO equipment.
| conradfr wrote:
| Not a huge win for women in Afghanistan though.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Enough ordnance lying around for them and their army and
| menfolk to have fought if they wanted to. At some point we
| have to say enough is enough. Thousands of American lives,
| trillions of American dollars, and 20 years ought to have
| been enough. If not, then it's just not a job that is
| reasonably accomplishable by a foreign state. I wish them
| all the best in building a free society for themselves over
| the next decades, but they'll have to do it without
| American boots on the ground.
|
| Maybe its China's turn to try to conquer the graveyard of
| empires.
| Larrikin wrote:
| The US was in Afghanistan for twenty years. Everything the
| US did there collapsed in a few months after twenty years.
| It seems like after the second Osama was killed everything
| done there was a waste of time and money for the US. It's a
| terrible situation, but it's a terrible situation whenever
| there is a country using religion to justify oppression and
| war. The people have to be willing to get rid of the
| oppressors.
| arp242 wrote:
| There were just 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan before
| they pulled out, and below 10,000 for years before that.
| There are more U.S. troops in countries like Germany,
| Italy, or Spain.
|
| In the end it was a very small commitment for the US,
| with huge gains not just for Afghan people but also for
| the US.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I'd argue that zero troops and zero dollars in
| Afghanistan should be the goal. Afghanistan knows that if
| they try to raise up another Osama what will happen, so I
| would argue that what happens there, even if it's
| terrible, doesn't actually affect things in the US
| anymore.
|
| We can invade a bunch of countries in South America,
| Africa, Asia, and Europe and possibly "improve" lives
| there, impose our will, while sucking money out of
| America ostensibly forever.
|
| Or we can sanction human rights abusers, offer proper
| asylum, and if there are any real on the ground changes
| from within the country then possibly support in a
| similar way to support in Ukraine.
| arp242 wrote:
| Once you invade a country you're committing to a certain
| responsibility to do right by it and the people living
| there. Either follow the Prime Directive or don't, but
| you can't just choose whimsically based on whatever is
| convenient in the moment. Blame the Bush admin if you
| really want to blame someone.
| Larrikin wrote:
| How does the prime directive apply when you are attacked
| directly.
|
| I do agree that Bush deserves the blame for turning what
| should should have been a hunt down and destroy Al Qaeda
| mission into a sprawling invasion of various countries in
| the middle east
| octodog wrote:
| This is a very disingenuous argument. American troops
| aren't fighting an insurgency in Germany, Italy or Spain!
| jajko wrote:
| US had to learn the age old lesson too it seems - you
| just can't conquer Afghanistan (well maybe apart form
| wiping almost its entire population but even russians
| didn't do that). And its not a place for democracy, its
| tribal to its core and nobody likes giving up power held
| over many generations. It doesn't matter much how
| superior you think your cause is or advanced equipment
| deployed.
| api wrote:
| They reverted months after we left, which means the only
| way to hold it off would have been to stay forever and make
| them the 51st state.
|
| Anyone who didn't want to live under authoritarian Islamist
| rule should have left during that 20 year period. I find it
| hard to believe the whole place reverting was a surprise.
| solidsnack9000 wrote:
| We were not in Afghanistan to fight for Afghan women.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| This is what happens when you start to believe in the
| pretense
| benoliver999 wrote:
| The Afghan withdrawal was started by Trump but yeah I guess
| Biden decided to follow through with it.
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > He got us out of Afghanistan too... this was a huge win and
| was very risky. Doesn't get enough credit for this one.
|
| Thats because Trump agreed to get us out of afghaniston.
| Biden oversaw the absolutely disastrous execution, abandoning
| untold millions of military equipment in the hands of the
| taliban.
| epakai wrote:
| Trump's plan involved getting out even quicker. How was it
| going to be less disastrous?
|
| It is always the same story, Dems bad, I would have done it
| right. He had a 'credible deterrent', and would have
| completely ended the Ukraine war (that had been going on
| since 2014). Just like he claims now he will end the war,
| and bring back all the Americans imprisoned abroad if re-
| elected. It's one thing to say that sort of stuff and
| present a plan for doing so. Trump says it, and then pivots
| to even more bullshit.
|
| Do you really think a different president, with effectively
| the same military leadership, was going to execute the
| pull-out in a broadly different way on a shorter deadline,
| and call it a success?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| So Trump set the schedule but it was Bidens fault they
| didn't have time to move out all equipment?
| zdragnar wrote:
| The schedule was based on conditions on the ground that
| weren't followed.
| cheese4242 wrote:
| > No new wars
|
| Who wants to tell him?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Is this unprecedented?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Lyndon B Johnson was the last to not seek reelection, though he
| stepped out in late March.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Odd how the nation has a knack for getting rid of GOATed
| presidents.
| janice1999 wrote:
| No. Johnson did not seek reelection after his first term.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/03/politics/lbj-biden-what-m...
| layer8 wrote:
| It's unpresidented.
| dsr_ wrote:
| This will be a much more relevant story on HN if it turns out
| that Elon Musk sent this rather than Biden.
|
| (At the time that I write this, the only place this news is
| sourced from is Twitter. Every news org is quoting Twitter and
| then adding their own gloss.)
| aspenmayer wrote:
| https://apnews.com/live/biden-trump-election-campaign-update...
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-drops-2024-presidentia...
| apexalpha wrote:
| From Europe, so not as much skin in the game as others here.
|
| But jeez the Democratic party needs to new leadership. And I
| don't mean Harris or whoever, but the party leadership itself.
|
| The gaslighting in the past year about Bidens age was insane to
| watch. Literally asking people to reject the evidence of your
| eyes and ears.
| SonOfKyuss wrote:
| > Literally asking people to reject the evidence of your eyes
| and ears
|
| I mean, it seems to be a winning strategy for the other party.
| kuschkufan wrote:
| Not a convincing argument, but a testament to low standards.
| Also, Whataboutism.
| SonOfKyuss wrote:
| There's no argument meant to be made. Just a statement of
| the (sad) fact that blatant gaslighting is pretty common
| and often very effective.
| timeon wrote:
| > but a testament to low standards
|
| Testament to two party system. But you can call it low
| standard as well.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| While not as much skin, we sadly have more skin in this game as
| I'd wish
|
| The election of the next President will have a large effect on
| the security of Europe with respect to both Russia and Israel
| 10xDev wrote:
| In what world is Israel relevant to the security of Europe?
| mattnewton wrote:
| The parties are not as strong as your typical European party -
| if you win the presidency, in a very real sense your people
| become the party. Biden's people picking a process that favored
| Biden is expected here. For better or for worse there is no
| smokey back room of elders with superdelegate powers driving
| the show, the closest is probably the donor class who aren't
| part of the formal party leadership but back horses in the
| party.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Hard to draw a line here in terms of guidelines:
|
| > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or
| celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new
| phenomenon.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| techostritch wrote:
| This feels like evidence of interesting new phenomenon, I get
| why 99% of politics topics should be removed, but if we post
| one when presidents get elected, it seems like something as
| impactful as president dropping out should count too.
| srid wrote:
| Trump assassination attempt -- equally interesting new
| phenomenon -- also got flagged.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| New Phenomenon? Meh.... I lived through 1968
| romanhn wrote:
| Here's what @dang posted on the giant thread of Biden winning
| presidency (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967). I
| suspect this thread has been auto-killed by some spam algo and
| there's a good chance dang will resurrect it at some point.
|
| "As many have pointed out, a dozen or so submissions on this
| topic were flagged by users. That's actually the immune system
| working as intended, but another component of the system is that
| moderators rescue the very most historic stories so HN can have a
| single big thread about them. We did that 4 years ago, also for
| Brexit, etc.
|
| Since this was the first submission on the topic, it seems
| fairest to be the one to restore. (It's still on our todo list to
| have some form of karma sharing for situations like this, to make
| it be less of a race and/or lottery.)"
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| you know, on autoimmune diseases the immune system is actually
| working as intended. It's just that the target is all wrong.
| HaZeust wrote:
| I am, admittedly, very glad that Biden stuck to his word in 2020
| that he will be a single-term incumbent president for the last 4
| years... I just wish the DNC kept their word on bolstering a more
| compelling candidate within that timeframe as well.
|
| They had 3 1/2 years to bolster the reputation of Kamala, and
| largely sidelined her after using her as a play for minority
| vote. Now they're (likely) running her in a remaining timespan of
| a little over 3 months left before election -- after no one has
| thought of her since the last election. This isn't good.
| breckenedge wrote:
| It's not good. It's great.
| HaZeust wrote:
| Alright, let's see if 3 months is enough time to bolster a
| new candidate. I hope, for our sake, you're right.
| sylens wrote:
| It will be an interesting case study but I think there is a
| chance that the short runway will allow her to maintain
| some semblance of high energy. Basically, if you thought
| American elections were too drawn out, here is your
| opportunity to be proven right.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Kamala looks unelectable. She had to quit the nomination race
| in 2020 even before primaries.
| ajross wrote:
| This is really misunderstanding how that works. The 2020
| field at that point was wide open, no one candidate was
| looking dominant. She absolutely "could" have stayed in with
| a real shot at winning, which was true for basically all of
| them. She got out because (1) staying in costs money and
| fundraising in a wide-open primary is extremely hard and (2)
| she judged[1] that she'd have a better path to the presidency
| by positioning herself as an obvious VP candidate via playing
| kingmaker with her political capital and identity markers.
| Which is exactly how it played out.
|
| [1] Correctly, with near-prescient precision!
| stephenlindauer wrote:
| I wouldn't say Biden stuck to his word. He fully intended to
| run, until people (rightfully) objected. I'm glad he ultimately
| backed down and stepped down. But this whole process would have
| been easier to nominate a real candidate if he would have stuck
| to his word from the beginning. He still deserves the blame for
| that, even if his most recent actions were correct.
| HaZeust wrote:
| You're right, I'm all for that share of blame. But world was
| still kept by technicality, and I'm going to give it credit.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I wouldn't frame "he was campaigning and only pulled out when
| it became clear everyone was against him" as "he stuck to his
| word that he will be a single term president". Sticking to his
| word would've been never campaigning to begin with.
| HaZeust wrote:
| No, you're completely right; I still have a bone to pick with
| Biden for waiting this long and doing almost no favors for
| his VP's image over the period of his term. But, he still
| fulfilled an old promise by technicality, and I'm not one to
| cut corners for giving credit.
| throwaway55479 wrote:
| Biden winning the race in 2020 [1] was the most commented post on
| HN.
|
| I found that yesterday while trying to figure out how popular the
| "crowdstrike" post was, and it is actually the second most
| commented one.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967
| SushiHippie wrote:
| For others that are interested here is a top list of most
| commented posts using clickhouse:
|
| https://play.clickhouse.com/play?user=play#U0VMRUNUIERJU1RJT...
| tzs wrote:
| The Democrats now need to emphasize that Trump, who is 78, is too
| old too. They can feature clips of Trump in 2020 saying that
| Biden at 78 was too old.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Is this the quote you're referring to (from 2019)?
|
| > Trump added, "I would never say anyone is too old, but I know
| they're all making me look very young, both in terms of age and
| I think in terms of energy. I think you people know that better
| than anybody."
|
| (I'm looking for it in old articles and having trouble finding
| what you're talking about.)
|
| I also found this from an AP article in 2020:
|
| > With Election Day less than four months away, Trump has spent
| more money on one television ad claiming that Biden lacks "the
| strength, the stamina and the mental fortitude to lead this
| country" than any other single ad this year.
| christianqchung wrote:
| "Donald Trump is going to win. And I'm OK with that." - Jared
| Golden, Democratic House Representative of Maine
|
| I really hoped it wouldn't be so, but anyone that's ever seen
| Kamala speak will find she is about as compelling as Joe Biden on
| a bad day. I believe this means China and Russia can prevail in
| the short term, unless he actually boosts Taiwan's defence
| meaningfully, which I doubt he will after the
| Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan aid holdup fiasco.
|
| It is what it is. I wish the nominee was Gretchen Whitmer with
| anyone but Kamala. I wish Biden had not run for reelection. I
| wish he hadn't endorsed Kamala. I wish the Democrats and Obama
| had backed Sanders or Biden in 2016 when they were fit to serve.
| I wish Trump moderated himself after the attempt on his life
| instead of business as usual a week later.
|
| I hope I'm wrong about everything observably bad about Trump's
| first term and his decline since, because with another trifecta
| of loyalists, he's probably getting much more done this time.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Its really simple though.
|
| Do you want a dictator with near unlimited legal immunity in
| charge of the country? Thats what the November vote is for.
| Everything else is secondary.
| adsharma wrote:
| Moderators unflagging this makes a lot of sense.
|
| I felt the threads about the assassination attempt a week ago
| deserved similar treatment for the historical relevance.
|
| Whatever is done here should be done with a consistent set of
| principles applied to both parties.
| ofcourseyoudo wrote:
| Thank you Joe, you are a true patriot and your legacy will be as
| a great President.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| does anyone know the psychology of sharing photos with Harris and
| Biden tilted like pi/8 radians counterclockwise?
|
| I see it repeatedly since this story broke, but not earlier.
|
| It likely relates to how outlets looking to promote a person
| (athlete, candidate, whatever) tend to show them from below, as
| if they're larger than normal, but that's just a guess.
| jmyeet wrote:
| We live in unprecedented times.
|
| The last time we had a sitting president not seek reelection like
| this was LBJ and he announced his intentions in March, 1968 [1].
| We don't have the communications media we have now. This had a
| massive impact. The Democrats were largely unprepared, in part
| because RFK was assassinated in June.
|
| This ushered in Nixon who expanded the war in Vietnam, started
| the illegal bombing of Cambodia that killed hundreds of thousands
| [2], started the War on Drugs [3], reshaped the Supreme Court and
| ultimately created a crisis leading to his resignation in 1974.
|
| Biden should've announced last year he wasn't seeking reelection,
| giving time for a real primary process. But we are where we are.
|
| Some will point to Biden's achievements, and there definitely are
| some major achievements, but elections are forward-looking. It's
| not just about how Biden is now. It's how we would've expetged
| him to be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 4 years from now.
| And those prospects weren't good.
|
| I do believe this was the right decision (albeit way too late).
| This is an opportunity to reset what otherwise was looking like a
| bleak race for so many of us.
|
| [1]: https://www.history.com/news/lbj-exit-1968-presidential-race
|
| [2]: https://www.history.com/news/nixon-war-powers-act-vietnam-
| wa...
|
| [3]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/war-on-drugs
| asdf1145 wrote:
| why were no political posts allowed when trump assassination
| attempt a week ago and this is now in front page?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Because HN is not a democracy. ;)
| slater wrote:
| There was a thread; they are allowed.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| unraveller wrote:
| The assassination attempt was suppressed until people had
| discussed it from all angles thoroughly elsewhere and gave up
| trying to discuss here. Definitely not allowed in the normal
| sense. But here it's nothing but an instant popup blue rally,
| for something was totally expected.
| 10xDev wrote:
| Don't worry Trump will make sure we will never forget about it
| anyway so it will find its way into conversation like it is
| now.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Endorses Kamala so probably no 'mini-primary' or other
| challengers which is a bit of a shame. Kamala was pretty
| uninspiring in the primary and hasn't seemed to get a lot done as
| vice president while trump has gathering momentum and, maybe more
| importantly, money. The 'king making' party apparatus that pushed
| Biden despite the health issues has a lot to answer for.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| The reality is that the campaign donations accumulated by the
| Biden/Harris ticket are only available to Harris. Anybody else
| is funding-challenged even more than Harris at this point. From
| the standpoint of campaign finance laws and the practical
| realities of fund-raising, it was Harris all along.
| pan69 wrote:
| The Biden/Harris campaign can not donate their donations?
| dbcurtis wrote:
| I must admit that I don't know all the nuance of campaign
| finance laws, but the donors gave their money to a
| particular campaign. It isn't completely clear to me under
| what circumstances those funds can be pledged to another
| candidate without getting the original donors' sign-off.
| But as I understand it, much of the Biden/Harris money is
| restricted to the campaign.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| You think Harris would abdicate?
| ipaddr wrote:
| To a superpack otherwise they are limited to individual
| limits. Super Packs pay more for ads during a campaign.
| toast0 wrote:
| I've been seeing things that say they could form a SuperPAC
| with the existing donations and we know SuperPACs have more
| or less no real limit on spending as long as it's not
| coordinated with a candidate.
|
| OTOH, candidates get a better ad rate than SuperPACs, so
| there's a lot of dollar effeciency lost if you have to go
| that way.
| thefaux wrote:
| Two points that people are making that I feel necessary to refute
| because they come across as being offered from a place of bad
| faith or ignorance:
|
| 1) the suggestion that Biden should resign from the presidency
| because he is standing down from running. Biden is not saying
| that he is incapable of running. He and his team just understand
| how to read polls and don't want their party to lose the election
| which seemed almost certain with him at the top of the ticket.
|
| 2) the suggestion that Biden stepping down is subverting the will
| of the primary voters. There was no real 2024 democratic primary
| just like there was no republican primary in 2020. There were no
| serious candidates and no debates. I am sure there are Biden
| supporters who are disappointed and angry that he has dropped out
| but it was his choice to make. If he had stayed in the race, I am
| sure he would have secured the nomination. This wasn't taken away
| from him. He voluntarily stood down. A candidate should not be
| obliged to remain in a race just because they won a primary.
| jarsin wrote:
| On point 1 I checked the polls and they look no different than
| Bidens. Recent articles say the same thing. So that can't be
| why they chose her.
|
| "A flurry of polls conducted in the wake of the June 27
| presidential debate showed Harris performing roughly the same
| as Biden against Trump (who has been leading the president by a
| slim margin for months), and more recent polls after the
| attempted assassination of Trump show similar trends."
| pessimizer wrote:
| > There was no real 2024 democratic primary
|
| This was also a subversion of the will of primary voters. It's
| not a defense. A huge portion of Democratic voters wanted the
| candidate replaced, and there were Democratic politicians that
| announced their intention to be the candidate that replaced
| him, and others undoubtedly who would have if there hadn't been
| so much pressure not to, yet a serious primary wasn't run.
|
| Democratic insiders decided that no one was going to run
| against Biden, Democratic insiders decided after the debate
| that Biden was not going to run. Democratic insiders will also
| be choosing who will run. The most democratic and likely option
| will be Harris (because that's her job) but she was also chosen
| by Democratic insiders in 2020, not by Democratic voters, who
| mostly hated her. If not Harris, then Democratic insiders will
| either choose an arbitrary process or simply directly choose
| another candidate.
| inyourtenement wrote:
| How did Democratic insiders prevent other candidates from
| running in the primaries?
| outside1234 wrote:
| President Kamala Harris has a great ring. Will be great to have
| someone that isn't old, a sex offender, or a felon (or all
| three).
| avar wrote:
| > someone that isn't old
|
| If she wins she'll be 60 years old and 3 months old the day she
| assumes office. That'll make her the 13th oldest president
| office (out of a total of 47)[1].
|
| That's "old" by any objective definition. The only thing that
| makes her seem young is that the two candidates who've been in
| the race so far are #1 and #2 on that list.
|
| She'll certainly be a young president _compared to the two
| oldest presidents to have ever held the office_.
|
| 1.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Nancy Pelosi and the Obamas have not endorsed Kamala
|
| Trading the open primary news on the prediction markets, there's
| a lot of liquidity finally!
| dbg31415 wrote:
| He did the right thing.
|
| DNC needs a policy where they won't endorse candidates who will
| be over 65 on the day they take office.
|
| Nobody in their 80s should be running for office. By then they
| had their chance to influence the next generation... or not.
| avitous wrote:
| Better yet, this needs to be the law of the land for all
| parties. Once someone reaches 60-65 or so, they need to step
| aside and serve at most in an advisory role. Let the younger
| crowd take the helm of leadership.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Not going to happen, but I wonder how a mixed party ticket would
| do. Kamala (or whoever) + Mitt Romney as VP ?
|
| Has it ever been done?
|
| Would it work to attract the center/swing vote, or more likely to
| be a negative?
| RaftPeople wrote:
| That's a pretty interesting thought.
|
| I read something a few years ago that said moderates/non-
| affiliated make up the majority of voters with only a smaller
| percentage on left and right tied to the parties (somewhere
| maybe in 15% to 20% range on each side, can't remember
| exactly).
|
| So it seems like a good mix of moderate could possibly win,
| especially when the other candidate is so polarizing.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Yeah partisans arent good at winning friends and influencing
| people in their pathetic partisan power struggles
|
| They've spent nearly a decade isolating themselves in an
| algorithm fueled mirror room, while disassociating from
| everyone that doesn't already agree with them 100%
|
| instead of any color coded "wave" occurring despite their
| recurring delusions, there's gridlock in the senate, no
| filibuster proof majority, they've lost affiliation and
| independents are the largest political affiliation in the
| country now with almost zero representation
| tbrake wrote:
| Though unaffiliated myself, I still have very clear opinions
| on policies. This leads to voting exclusively for one party
| anyway.
|
| It's just the label and tribalism I reject, not their stances
| or some desire for a mythical "middle path".
|
| I have no idea how common this is in the "unaffiliated base"
| but I'd be willing to wager it's fairly common.
| vundercind wrote:
| True-swing voters are a tiny minority.
|
| Most of the folks who say they're unaffiliated or moderates
| or open to voting for either party in fact vote exactly like
| a self-reported partisan. They just don't like the label.
|
| Lots of crappy reporting doesn't differentiate between self-
| reported swing/moderates and true swing.
|
| GOTV matters more. Do your people show up at the polls?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Maybe but we have also seen a swing in how politics works
| (gotten more extreme). During the last two decades I've
| gone from Republican to Democrat to independent (never-
| Trumper, Democrat by GOP moral forfeit). I wonder how my
| beliefs would have evolved if US politics didn't grow so
| extreme over time.
| jkestner wrote:
| That's the thing. When individual issues are polled without
| party labels, the Democratic Party's positions are largely
| popular. Just like these issues, if you were to put a
| Republican on the Democratic ticket, that candidate will
| lose support.
|
| We've seen repeatedly that Democrats going to the middle
| are met with supposedly moderate Republicans saying, "But
| not like that."
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| The problem is that Democratic policies do not result in
| promised outcomes. For example, higher minimum wage
| sounds good on paper, but then you have a hard time
| finding a job or affording basic essentials. So people
| become allergic to people who seem to bring decay. I am
| not saying Republican policies are a picture of
| practicality.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| They are popular right up until the price tag gets added
| to the question.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Was thinking that too and it might be a brilliant way to get
| the folks on the right that don't want to vote Trump but also
| not necessarily a dem. Also it could be a great marketing
| tactic to be like 'we're bringing unity back' or something to
| that.
|
| And theoretically no reason it couldn't happen other than both
| parties definitely not being on board with it.
| Macha wrote:
| I think the problem is that both parties have moved, the
| democrats shifting left and the republicans shifting right
| (and to put the cards on the table, I think the republicans
| have shifted a lot more rightward than democrats have
| leftwards). This leaves people pretty unwilling to go for a
| split the difference approach. Like if you ask people in
| favour of a centrist position, they're probably picturing
| someone in the middle of Bill Clinton and George W Bush, and
| thinking " I could manage with that". But for a lot of the
| core democratic vote, they see a Romney as the result of
| drawing a line down the middle and they already decided he
| was too right wing for them. Or similar, the republicans are
| worried that splitting that line down the middle ends up at
| Hilary, who they already didn't like. So while a lot of
| people express support for compromise and consquently
| centrism, you'll get into a lot of infighting when you try to
| decide what the centrist position actually is..
| xapata wrote:
| Democrat leadership and large donors may have moved left,
| but the voters haven't. Which is why Biden was having
| trouble with some groups previously thought locked-in
| Democrat.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Not going to happen, but I wonder how a mixed party ticket
| would do. Kamala (or whoever) + Mitt Romney as VP ?
|
| I think it would be very hard to convince the liberal-
| progressive base (i.e. the core of the party) of the DNC to go
| for this.
|
| > Has it ever been done?
|
| Before the 12th Amendment was passed, the VP came from the
| opposing party[1]. This didn't work particularly well in
| practice, which is why nobody remembers the 12th Amendment :-)
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Amendment_to_the_Unite...
| rzz3 wrote:
| But there's no one else to vote for, they'd still vote for
| her with Romney as the VP. With that vs Trump as the other
| option, she'd still get the votes from the progressive base
| and potentially bring over a few more independent voters.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The US doesn't have mandatory voting; when people are
| thoroughly demotivated by their party's platform but are
| unwilling to vote for the other party, they stay home.
|
| (I'm not saying whether or not _I_ would. But I think this
| kind of brinkmanship is a very dangerous game to play,
| _especially_ in the context of a cross-party ticket.)
| _heimdall wrote:
| Assuming the Democrats go with Harris, I can say whole
| heartedly that I won't be voting this year. I view voting
| as a responsibility to pick a candidate I want to lead
| rather than a vote to block someone I don't want to lead.
| This time around I have seen no candidate I could feel
| even mildly comfortable with.
|
| I'm not happy about it, but given my view on why I should
| vote I don't feel comfortable voting for Trump, Harris,
| or Biden. Voting for one to spite another would require
| me first to change my mind on what a vote means _or_ cave
| on my principles.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| Don't you think Trump will dismantle our rights (see
| project 2025) and that it is our duty to vote to make
| sure he doesn't get into power and turn this country into
| an autocracy?
| rcxdude wrote:
| You should reevaluate what a vote means. In a country of
| millions of people, a vote is in absolutely no way a
| means for you to voice exactly what you want, or even for
| most people for you to voice an option you would actually
| _like_. In FPTP, a vote is for the most preferable option
| of the top two parties. Anything else is depriving
| yourself of your say. Other voting systems aren 't
| actually that much different, they just make the
| information more available (you don't need to guess how
| others are going to vote beforehand, which can matter
| even though it's usually fairly predictable) and give
| people a bit more of a warm fuzzy feeling because they
| can give a vote for their most preferred option, even if
| still the outcome is which of top two options is more
| preferred.
| jprete wrote:
| This isn't strictly true. Parties definitely care about
| motivating their base and arguably the stay-at-home vote
| has pushed the US away from visible centrism in
| Presidential candidates.
| rcxdude wrote:
| I would suggest that this kind of thing is contributing
| to the problem as opposed to solving it, even as someone
| who is not particularly near the center.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I can never understand Americans who say this sort of
| thing.
|
| The US does not have a reasonable voting system. It's not
| compulsory, it's not ranked choice, and you vote for
| persons not parties.
|
| You have a duopoly that's more or less set up so that a
| third choice will never be available.
|
| You aren't here to pick an ideal candidate. You are here
| to pick the one that aligns most with your view that can
| win. Otherwise you get someone you definitely don't want.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| That's fine but you don't get to complain about the
| outcome for the next four years.
| throwaway89336 wrote:
| In my view, a vote means more than a vote for a leader.
| It determines the direction of your country. Just look at
| how a single president has tipped the balance of the
| Supreme Court, where the judges will remain for decades,
| and that is only a part of a much larger political
| picture. The President will only stay for 4-8 years, but
| the choices they make can have impacts for generations.
|
| You need to play the long game and vote for the best
| interests of your country, even if that means voting for
| someone you don't like.
| hnthrowaway121 wrote:
| I'm curious: Why do you view voting this way? As opposed
| to simply taking responsibility for voting in a way you
| believe is the least bad outcome for you and your
| country?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Two counter points... - there are down-ballot races that
| might have people they want your vote. And they're likely
| more influential over your day to day than POTUS.
|
| - staying home strongly implies your ok with Trump
| winning and the GOP platform being implemented
| completely.
| roughly wrote:
| > I view voting as a responsibility to pick a candidate I
| want to lead rather than a vote to block someone I don't
| want to lead.
|
| You can view it however you want, it doesn't make it
| true. Perhaps it would help to consider that one of the
| two candidates will be leading after the election, and
| make your decision based off of which of the two outcomes
| you would prefer.
| dgoodell wrote:
| I used to see it more like that. But the reality is that
| one of those candidates is going to get elected whether
| you vote or not. So not voting is basically just letting
| other people decide for you. Which is rational if you
| genuinely believe that will make no difference.
| xhevahir wrote:
| There's always the option, taken by millions of Americans
| every election, of not voting for anyone.
|
| A unity ticket of two unpopular centrist candidates is not
| a recipe for success.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Not voting is a vote for "whatever". If you really don't
| see a difference between Trump and Harris (or Biden or
| any other), I'm really not sure what to say...
| magicink81 wrote:
| RFK Jr and Nicole Shanahan are running, and already on the
| ballot in 29 states. Though you won't see them interviewed
| on CNN or Fox News, many polls show them winning against
| Trump.
|
| One of the reasons that RFK Jr started his campaign last
| year was a poll by Zogby which "surveyed over 26,000 likely
| voters across all 50 states, indicated that Kennedy could
| potentially outperform both President Joe Biden and former
| President Donald Trump in head-to-head matchups." I believe
| the poll showed the majority of independent votes going to
| RFK Jr, and a significant portion of D and R votes going to
| him as well.
|
| Given recent events, perhaps Trump is now much more
| popular, but previously polls showed RFK Jr beating Trump.
|
| https://www.kennedy24.com/
| _heimdall wrote:
| Technically prior to that wasn't the VP always the runner up?
| Practically we had two parties thanks to Hamilton and
| Jefferson, but the rules weren't specific to that unless I
| missed something important there.
| haunter wrote:
| > liberal-progressive base (i.e. the core of the party)
|
| ?
|
| I thought the core of the party is establishment centrist
| gerontophiles. If there was a liberal-prog core then Bernie
| would have been a two term president already.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That was meant to be +1 SD on the "left" side of the party.
| If I did +1 SD on the "right" side of the party, it would
| be liberal-centrist.
|
| (The point is not that the DNC's progressive base is
| dominant, but that it's big enough to influence the party's
| direction. Compare this with the +2 SD left part of the
| party, which is currently being almost entirely ignored by
| the party's +0 and +1 leadership.)
| cheema33 wrote:
| > I think it would be very hard to convince the liberal-
| progressive base (i.e. the core of the party) of the DNC to
| go for this.
|
| I am quite liberal. I'd vote for this a million times before
| I'd consider Trump as a president.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Congratulations, that makes you a member of the largest DNC
| voting demographic! But the DNC doesn't win elections based
| on internal pluralities; if it did, we'd be living in a
| very different political landscape.
|
| (To be clear: in a sufficiently dire situation, I would
| also vote for a cross-party ticket. But I know a lot of
| people who wouldn't, and there's a basic sense that their
| lack of turnout matters much more than my tepid support.)
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| Sounds like they were going to get your vote either way so
| why would the democratic party go for this?
| slantaclaus wrote:
| It's not the base that would need to be convinced, it would
| be the DNC
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| It used to be (like, early 1800s) that the VP wasn't elected
| directly; whoever lost the election became VP. Jefferson and
| Adams were political adversaries, but when Adams won the
| election in 1796, Jefferson became VP
| 632brick wrote:
| The only example I could think of that sort of fits that bill:
| "National Union Party was a wartime coalition of Republicans,
| War Democrats, and border state Unconditional Unionists that
| supported the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil
| War. It held the 1864 National Union Convention that nominated
| Abraham Lincoln for president and Andrew Johnson for vice
| president in the 1864 United States presidential election."
| (wikipedia) Great success as an electoral pairing, not so much
| afterwards with Johnson's reconstruction policies resulting in
| all former Republicans leaving the National Union Party and an
| impeachment.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > Has it ever been done?
|
| McCain/Lieberman almost happened in 2008.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Arguably it was Gore/Lieberman that was the cross-party
| ticket, since Lieberman was just a Republican in a trench
| coat.
| cheema33 wrote:
| As a liberal, I thoroughly despised Lieberman. I had a much
| more favorable opinion of McCain.
|
| If my only two choices were McCain/Lieberman vs McCain/Palin,
| I would hold my nose and vote for the second.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Moderate Republicans who won't just vote for Trump are a dying
| breed. I don't think they are worth courting over just
| convincing young people and women to turn out to vote, purely
| on demographics. I could be ideologically blinded by this
| though.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| This is what The Lincoln Project and The Bulwark have been
| working on the last few years.
| temporarely wrote:
| I have a "radical" idea: why not actually let the constituency
| of this party make the choice.
| lann wrote:
| Or actually radical: switch from our terrible first-past-the-
| post voting system to - say - ranked choice (or one of many
| alternatives; they're almost all better than fptp) and then
| primaries won't be so important and parties won't have so
| much power over our kinda-democratic-but-actually-oligarchic
| political system.
| Aloisius wrote:
| California state primaries are top-2, not FPTP turning the
| general election into essentially a run-off. Parties still
| dominate. Same with my city elections which use RCV.
|
| I'm not sure why they would reduce party influence either.
| Features like being robust against spoilers would seem to
| most benefit major party candidates.
| t43562 wrote:
| This sometimes turns out very badly - in the UK it led to
| "faster than a lettuce goes bad" Liz Truss for example.
| Conservative party members are an odd bunch.
|
| Labour also picked Jeremy Corbyn an election back. Ultimately
| the rest of the country didn't want to vote for him.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It's barely been a few hours yet I've seen this idea making
| the rounds. Seems manufactured.
| jrflowers wrote:
| This is an interesting thought experiment. What would the US be
| like with a completely impossible ticket? Would we flourish
| under a Lenny Bruce-Knuckles the Echidna ticket? What if Misty
| and Brock were the respective RNC and DNC chairs? These are the
| sorts of questions the status quo politicians don't want us to
| be asking
| _heimdall wrote:
| I'd prefer John Kasich over Romney, but a cross-party ticket is
| one of the few scenarios I can see actually getting me to the
| polls this time around.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I know no one who is excited about Harris. Look at past polls
| when there were other candidates in the mix like Dean Phillips.
| The thing I find weirdest about this is the side stepping of
| the Democratic process. We will have a candidate chosen and
| forced on the party instead of primaries and debates. It's anti
| democratic and to me it feels far more real and worse than the
| claim that the Jan 6 riot was an actual insurrection.
|
| I don't think Harris leading the ticket would be fixed by
| Romney as VP. I could see Romney being a surprise presidential
| candidate in place of Harris maybe. But given how little people
| think of Harris I doubt the choice of a running mate matters.
|
| What is especially disappointing is that the issues with Biden
| were obvious from the start of the current administration. Yet
| every Democrat lied about it and gaslit the world about Biden's
| mental fitness. We had time for this to play out in a less ugly
| way and with input from voters.
| kid64 wrote:
| It would be extremely odd for anyone in your right-wing media
| bubble to be "excited" about Harris, how is this a relevant
| data point?
| dheera wrote:
| No. The staunch Republicans will still vote for Trump and the
| only way to beat that is for there to be an incredibly cohesive
| force among a population that isn't very cohesive in the first
| place. The Republicans actually have it easy, they align and
| bond on lots of things. The center and left align on very few
| things and fight amongst themselves.
|
| A mixed ticket isn't going to align them better.
| macintux wrote:
| I'm curious: what _do_ the Republicans align on, besides "Win
| at all cost" and "Liberals are bad"?
|
| Trump doesn't care about the budget, doesn't care about
| protecting our allies, doesn't care about abortion. I'd wager
| he doesn't care about immigration, either, except as a way to
| get votes.
| dheera wrote:
| > what do the Republicans align on
|
| Christianity, God Bless America, conservative immigration
| law, well-being of rural people and small towns, second
| amendment, Made in USA, white-normalized culture ...
|
| Democrats very rarely align. They fight between factions
| about whether BLM, LGBT, or Stop Asian Hate is more
| important, ffs. They can't even come together and fight for
| all of the above.
| macintux wrote:
| Christianity is a tough sell, given Trump.
|
| Other than promoting coal, what has Trump done for rural
| America's economy?
|
| And the IRA was a huge investment in "Made in USA",
| whereas Trump spent years promoting an infrastructure
| week that never materialized.
| cheema33 wrote:
| > The Republicans actually have it easy, they align and bond
| on lots of things.
|
| I have seen some videos of Trump voters who are claiming that
| JD Vance is a traitor to the white race for marrying a non-
| white. And their kids have non-white names.
|
| They are quite upset about this. Some of them are so
| disgusted by this that they might not vote at all. One can
| only hope.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| As much as it pains me to suggest a Cheney, Liz Cheney would be
| another strong contender.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What I don't understand is when Trump got shot why were all of
| the submissions flagged/dead called political but a week later
| this is allowed.
|
| Shame on your hackernews.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| So this isn't flagged but the assassination attempt on Trump is?
| antisthenes wrote:
| I think it's pretty obvious that the assassination attempt will
| not generate good discussion. Most online platforms are just a
| collection of spicy take memes about the event.
|
| In case of Biden stepping down, there's a lot more to discuss,
| ranging from his legacy as a statesman to the future of the
| election.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I think it's pretty obvious there's a leftist bias on this
| site.
|
| Good luck with the cackler :)
| ActorNightly wrote:
| There has been a massive wave of bot and probably real human
| activity to supress assasination talk on line. Wouldn't be
| surprised its because of this. Even in these comments from
| these farms trying to downplay Kamala and Biden, posting
| obviously false information.
| layer8 wrote:
| It was flagged but has been unflagged.
| tonymet wrote:
| Be skeptical. Why are announcements being delivered from the
| social media staff via twitter ? Where is the President ?
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Why are posting on HN? You should be escaping the feds. They're
| after you! Hurry and wrap your head in foil so they don't read
| your thoughts. And destroy the computer you're posting from so
| they don't trace your IP. You're welcome.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Still sick with Covid. I expect him to address the nation early
| next week, like he promised in his letter.
|
| It is unfortunate that this is on social media, mostly twitter
| though. I understand this is probably too close to campaigning
| for Biden to feel comfortable with posting it on
| whitehouse.gov, but I feel like the president should have a
| pulpit where someone contributing millions to the opposing
| party can't plaster their view right underneath it. Another
| problem with the centralized web - reading the president's
| letter with the promoted posts and ads on x right under feels
| tacky as hell here.
| uhtred wrote:
| Or do you only read twitter to stay informed?
|
| There's a signed letter from Biden announcing it, published on
| reputable news websites.
| silexia wrote:
| The party of let's save democracy, just had a successful soft
| coup against their popularly elected primary candidate. Now the
| party elite will choose your candidate for you.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| This was a forgone conclusion since the debate but there needed
| to be prolonged drama to save face
| adolph wrote:
| "It became necessary to destroy [democracy] to save it."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B%E1%BA%BFn_Tre
| mikemitchelldev wrote:
| Is Gavin Newsome more likely as the Dem candidate now that the
| wealthiest members of the tech community got their preferred
| Republican VP candidate?
| sgbeal wrote:
| It's odd that the US government's own whitehouse.gov does not
| have a post about this. i'd fully expect the administration's own
| site to be the first place this (mis?)information would be
| posted. (Note: i say (mis?) only because at least one US news
| outlet (USA Today) is currently claiming (as of about an hour
| ago, anyway) that this whole thing is fake news.)
| znpy wrote:
| I'm still dreaming of seeing Bernie Sanders as POTUS.
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