If only there were some sort of process we could have engaged in to select a candidate people actually want to vote for.
in 2016, SCOTUS said we can’t have that, either, after we picked the wrong candidate.
But in 2020 the process picked Biden and again in 2024.
edit: never mind, don’t know what I was thinking
You have to have voters and candidates engaged in that process. Biden by all accounts won the primary by a landslide.
That is a pretty generous use of the word ‘won’.
RFK JR and Marianne Williamson ran against him and it was basically no contest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
That’s specifically why he’s saying “won”… there was no competition.
What if I told you… it was designed this way.
I’m going to point out my initial statement, candidates and voters have to engage in the primary process if it is to be effective in ousting an incumbent.
Then why did he win through write-ins where he wasn’t even on the ballot?
I didn’t realize that RFK Jr. and Williamson were the best alternatives that Dems had to offer. That they were given equal funding and air time. That they got a fair chance to square off against the president directly over ideas. Carry on then.
There was no primary.
Joe Biden would have won the primary. I don’t really think it would have even been close.
They never had a debate even though there were a couple candidates running. Biden has been mentally troubled for the last 9 months or so. It was party hubris that led to this crisis.
Oh, SNAP! That’s a brilliant idea! I want to do that. Let’s do that! Why haven’t we ever done that?!?!
–It just seems so democratic
The US doesn’t like democracies
Is this supposed to be some sort of revelation? She didn’t get anywhere in the 2020 primary. No one has any genuine enthusiasm for her. It makes no sense that she was VP in the first place.
Biden didn’t get anywhere in the 2008 primary either.
Blame James Carville for Biden.
Bernie was gonna take it in 2020 so Carville convinced Clyburn to endorse Biden in South Carolina, flat out stating that he did not care if there was electoral interest past the current election.
Sure it does. The Vice President is an almost useless job.
The VP has two tasks under the constitution: Emcee the senate, and be the President’s understudy. It’s a position that only has power if there’s a tie in the senate, the VP gets to cast a tie breaking vote. It’s not uncommon to stick a candidate who has some momentum but the party doesn’t like there to get them out of the way. Look up Teddy Roosevelt’s career to see how foolproof that plan is.
She didn’t have any momentum though in 2020. Her campaign was basically dead after Tulsi Gabbard shut her down at the Democratic debates in 2019, she was pretty much done after that until Biden picked her up on the ticket.
If Biden steps away, Harris is the only realistic chance. Various groups would be offended if the VP – who is also a woman, and is also a black woman – was bypassed. Further, there is an easy flow of money from Biden to Harris without having to muck with shuffling funds through different PAKs. Lastly, Harris avoids tomfoolery about how delegates must vote if republicans try to go to court about it.
I fear you are correct that Harris is not a favored candidate when placed against other Democrats, but that doesn’t matter as much as swing voters in a few states. Sadly, the current polling I’ve seen suggests those critical voters don’t like her. That said, I think she has the chance to come out with a new message for a path forward. Maybe they’d vote for that? I don’t know. She’d need to be positive, strong and also to absolutely ridicule Trump.
Side note: I’ve seen a couple articles suggesting the most progressive dems want Biden to stay while the more moderates want him out because they think it will help in Congress. Samples:
I want AOC on the ticket.
We need her in the legislature. Presidents fuck off after 4-8 years, we can’t spend one of our progressives so early
She’s too young unfortunately.
Edit: she turns 35 in October so she’s just barely old enough. She’s 34 right now though so I don’t think I deserved that downvote.
She turns 35 this year before the election. She’s eligible.
She is old enough legally.
She’s not grown up enough. But she will be one day.
Found the 10 year old
Found the 5 year old.
Trolling aside… we could use a young president who gives a shit about the future of this country and the planet.
I agree. However her resume is rather short on management positions at the moment, so I’d say she’s unqualified. But, I think she can get there. She does need to keep her face in the media though, I haven’t really seen her much lately.
Case in point
Pot, kettle.
Girl, you’ll be a woman… soon.
As much as I’d like her, AOC has the same problem as Hillary. She draws more opposition than support. She would motivate the Republican base against her far more than the Democratic base for her.
The same Hilary Clinton that won the popular election in 2016?
Exactly.
In the states that actually matter, Hillary drew more Trump voters to the polls than Hillary voters. It doesn’t particularly matter that she won landslide victories in states where Democrats always win landslide victories.
In 2016, both parties tried to throw the election, and the Democrats succeeded.
The lesson (that should have been) learned is that a blue state Democrat can’t win if the red states are united. The solution is pretty straightforward: find a red state Democrat, and suddenly the former swing states that went red 20 years ago are now in play again.
Agreed. I would love for AOC to get the nomination, but I honestly don’t think she couldn’t this particular election. I think she’s been too polarized by the media and is considered a “radical pick”.
I would say that her problem is very different than Hillary’s. Hillary was not popular with Democrats and she was hated by Republicans. AOC is loved by some Democrats, liked by a bunch, and disliked by some while being absolutely reviled by Republicans. That would get AOC more support than Hillary got.
It’s the “absolutely reviled by Republicans” part that is the concern. It doesn’t matter how popular she is with Democrats. It matters how popular she is in the swing states, and whether she can be competitive in a red one.
Mark Kelly can win the swing states; AOC and Hillary cannot.
I’m not familiar with how popular she is or is not among unaffiliated voters. That matters more than how Republicans feel about her.
Many of the people you call “unaffiliated” most recently voted Republican, and refer to themselves as Republicans. When I speak of “Republican” voters, I mean the people who currently intend to vote for Trump, but would be willing to switch for the right candidate. You would probably call that group “unaffiliated”.
I am unaffiliated.
I’ve been screaming this at the top of my lungs to the people on lemmy this entire time. Now AOC is losing her shit warning everyone that if this happens, SCOTUS is going to be up to some dirty tricks and you won’t even be able to get a candidate on the ballots fully.
You guys happy with yourselves now? I hope palestine, your “ideal candidate”, and all the other garbage that doesn’t affect us in the slightest was worth losing the democracy over.
People being subjected to genocide is not garbage, what in the fuck
Palestinians being subjected to Genocide is not a subject that many Americans care about. The middle east has constantly been a hell-hole of people getting unjustly murdered. We’re numb to it now.
And do you think that’s going to get BETTER, or WORSE when Trump wins, because of your excessive whinging?
Bidens not losing because Democrats are infighting, the GOP are literally shooting at each other and just put up a vp that made his initial career off bad mouthing trump and his base, no one gives a shit about party cohesion. Biden is losing because he’s a bad unpopular candidate, he has the worst approval rating since Carter and is the oldest candidate ever to run. Stop blaming the mostly impotent left and start blaming the establishment that got us into this mess in the first place.
Seriously this. Whenever we get close to elections, people who care about any issues at all are blamed for having any criticism at all of the dems while the shortcomings of the party and the huge, avoidable, deeply embarrassing mistakes that powerful people within it make go completely uncommented on.
I think you can make this same point without trivializing peoples suffering. You are talking about human beings. It is not “excessive whinging” for people to be less numb than you are, even if you disagree with them about whether or not that makes Biden a bad candidate. Like those are real people.
I’m a misanthrope, I don’t give two shits about humanity. Half of them would see you dead without batting an eye. Only thing that makes us special is that we were the most violent ape. We’re STILL violent apes.
That is… irrelevant? Misanthropy doesn’t get you out of the basic obligation to be decent to other people, including people who live in faraway places. Your rhetoric here is gross and racist. I commented because I thought you might not realize that. My bad.
You may want to learn what racism is buddy. Because this ain’t it. Nationalism maybe? Sure. But going around calling everything racist because it involves people not of euro-ethnic origin, isn’t how racism works. I don’t think Palestinian people are inferior to anyone in any way - but I get it. You gotta play that victim card. It’s probably won you a lot of arguments at the playground.
So, my comment about misanthropy was more to let you know that you were using an appeal to emotion in your argument. An appeal to emotion isn’t a valid argument for something. Especially when the person you’re arguing with, doesn’t give much of a damn for people’s emotions.
This is basic Trolly Car problem level shit my man. Don’t pull the switch, someone dies that you know. Pull the switch, and 5 people die that you don’t know.
I choose to let the person die that I know, to save the 5 others. What you’re doing, is letting the 5 die because the person you know is close to you. That’s all. Despite my misanthropy, the benefit for humanity lay more with making sure we don’t lose America to a much larger problem.
I’d gladly turn a blind eye to Palestine temporarily to make sure we don’t lose Palestine, Ukraine, Taiwan, and America on the larger stage. And you better bet that I’ll be putting up a stink for the Palestinian people just as soon as Trump is NOT elected.
You lack foresight.
Just lead with this and people will better judge the opinions that follow.
The US’s treatment of Palestine affects the entire world, but it’s not fully Biden’s fault and Trump would help Russia take over Ukraine.
It doesn’t excuse Biden for not doing enough to help Palestine though but I don’t think it’s enough of a reason to not vote Biden either.
What democracy?
Hey, don’t blame the people trying to fix the mistake that was putting all their eggs in one 81-year old’s basket
Even Obama himself doesn’t think Biden can win this. No career lasts forever.
The USSC has total editorial control over the US constitution and zero accountability. If they had it on their mind to mess with the election they can do so regardless of what happens here.
Y’all overlooking that she’s saying it has to be Harris. All the campaign funds and endorsements don’t leave the campaign if Biden steps down and the baton is passed to the VP. Not true if we make this an open primary or even if we all agreed on someone else.
Fucking hell, of course it would be Pelosi who is floating the most risky option: an open primary. If Nancy is on board and AOC is not, you know it’s probably bad: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/19/pelosi-support-open-nomination-biden-drop-out-00169893
She added that, “I’m in these rooms, I see what they say… a lot of them are not just interested in removing the president, they are interested in removing the whole ticket."
Do it.
And replace them with who?
I don’t see an “Obama” waiting in the wings this time around…
What idiot Democratic politician would say right now that they want to be the next candidate? If Biden isn’t replaced, that’s a carreer ending move.
Who cares about economically right Obama? Think outside of the mind trap, geez.
How is that even remotely relevant to what that person said? They’re not talking about policies, they’re talking about popularity and ability to win an election.
We all want Sanders
Mark Kelly would be an excellent candidate. His twin brother, Scott, doesn’t have the political background for VP, but definitely belongs in the cabinet. Maybe Chief of Staff; maybe Sec Def.
Mark Kelly is the first proposed candidate that doesn’t make me immediately “meh”.
Do the optics of appointing your brother to a cabinet position really make sense though? I think there’s plenty of aversion to the concept of yet another American political dynasty
Wake me up when they make up their mind. I don’t care who it is.
I saw this quote earlier related to this;
“To not choose her is a slap in the face to Black women,” said Melanie Campbell, chairwoman of the Power of the Ballot Action Fund, an advocacy organization focused on Black voter engagement. “You are saying to Black women that what we represent is not good enough — not only to stay with the man we voted for, but the woman that most of us advocated for, to be the vice president. You take her down, then you lose the Black women’s vote.”
Hmm do we think this is a common thought among black women?
Yeah… I would put a lot more stock in that quote if Kamala Harris’ poll numbers among Black women weren’t relatively low for a Democrat. I’m sure some people will be upset, but if she is picked I know a lot of people will consider that a slap in the face in another way. Polls have shown for a long time that she’s unpopular in a way that has nothing to do with race or gender. It would be handing the election to Trump almost as certainly as running Biden.
This looks like it’s from the exact same playbook as, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t vote for women,” back when the DNC was forcing Hillary Clinton on us over Bernie.
BERNIE \ FAIN FOR THE DEMOCRATIC WORKERS PARTY
Fain / Bernie. I love Sanders; I was a delegate for him in 2016. We don’t need another octagenarian president. He would agree.
Who is Fain?
UAW President. He’s been doing great work.
That’s just idiotic. This has absolutely nothing to do with her being black or a woman. She’s just not well liked and that can happen regardless of her sex or skin color.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of others that I would prefer and that I think would stand a better chance of winning… but I’m not in a position to be picky at this time.
Already kinda shooting for the stars hoping for Joe to dip, why not aim for a particular one as well?
Because nobody particularly likes Kamala Harris.
That was implied by what I was saying, yes.
