2024 Presidential Election thread

[1984Echoes]

3 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If Harris became the leading candidate, other candidates would be able to jump in and she'd be a lot easier to beat than an incumbent President...

That will be a LOT easier after Biden's 8 years than it is right now, today.

It's just a reality.

I can live with 8 years of Biden. He is quietly effective. He's doing all the right things (even if it isn't perfect and there are grumblings.)

I understand the desire for fresh blood/ fresh ideas/ fresh face...

But the drop from Biden to Trump, versus another Dem candidate to Biden, is so precipitous that personally (ME, MYSELF and I) won't even CONTEMPLATE (yes.. I needed to use all-caps there in both instances... as in: it's not just that I won't even contemplate another Dem candidate... but rather, I won't even CONTEMPLATE...) any other Dem Candidate.

Just my 2 cents.

[Tiger337]

2 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Are you sure other candidates would jump in if Biden dropped out?

Do you think Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, JB Pritzker, etc. are going to want to burn political capital fighting out a bloody primary with an incumbent VP who would likely be endorsed by Biden and would have the support of the most important demographic in the party? And in all likelihood lose?

It's not the party, it's the voters and it's the incentives for alternative candidates.

You don't have to like it, I'm just engaging in reality here.

Everything you are saying is what's wrong with the party and why Trump was able to become President.  I don't like that reality.  We need something different.  

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If Harris became the leading candidate, other candidates would be able to jump in and she'd be a lot easier to beat than an incumbent President.  I refuse to believe that it just has to be the way it is.  That is is the whole problem with the Democrat bureaucracy in a nutshell.  Being a President is a really important job.  At least find one that people like! That's a good place to start.    

Yeah - I think Newsome would be strong contender. Maybe he has weaknesses to be exposed but I think he could take Harris out of the nomination.

It's hard to evaluate the party division issue because party ID is so much stronger than used to be. Certainly in '68 when LBJ dropped out the divisions in the Dem party gave Nixon a huge leg up. But the difference between then and now is that in this world not many voters are going to change parties no matter who either party nominates. All that matters in recent elections is each side getting their people to the polls, and I think a Newsome would attract as many or turn off as few as Harris.

[oblong]

8 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I don't have a particular proclivity toward Harris, but it gets really frustrating to see people act like there's absolutely no cost to going around her status as incumbent VP in this current situation we find ourselves in. 

Frankly, it's delusional

It's a catch 22 for sure.  She was a great pick for VP.  The only way out of this without Biden is if she can convince people she didn't want to run without it being a "They made me say this, it's not how I feel".  That's a hard sell because if you say you don't want to run for President this year then you shouldn't be VP right now.

AA's will definitely see it as a slight if she were not the nominee if Biden dropped out.  She was good enough to court for demographics and all that but when **** got real then let's bring out the great white hope?   They will stay home.

 

[Tiger337]

x

Edited February 9 by Tiger337

[1984Echoes]

44 minutes ago, GoBlue23 said:

Trump stole documents, lied about having them, coerced other to lie about having them, returned some and then lied some more, eventually having to be raided to get the rest of them back.   Biden reported the documents, allowed his properties to be searched and cooperated with the investigation at every step.

As for your claim that it is proven that Biden shared classified information with the writer of his books, go ahead and explain to me why it is that a review of those books showed that there was no classified information contained within?  

Trying to equate the Trump and Biden situations is absolutely crazy and Hur basically says the same in his report. 

The whataboutism gets ridiculous sometimes.

I get it, Dems also need to be held accountable.

But looking at a molehill, and a mountain, and asking "aren't these the same" is, well, actually, a bit comical.

[1984Echoes]

40 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

LOL, I don't know what Biden was going to do with the documents, but come on, you know Trump was going to make or had already made money off them.  That's his whole life.  

Biden's documents supposedly had clearance to be in his book, at least on a reference basis. Which is why he had them in the first place. Whether they included an incorrect document or not, was in Hur's report.

Trump's intentions were otherwise.

Also, the degree of cooperation was, ummm, vastly different.

NOT the same between these two instances.

Period.

[mtutiger]

Just now, 1984Echoes said:

That will be a LOT easier after Biden's 8 years than it is right now, today.

Exactly. People act like this is the party calling the shots, but the incentive structures for the candidates that pundits dream about do not align with or without Biden running this cycle.

It's not like you can force Whitmer or Shapiro or whoever to get into an open primary, they would have to want to do it and see a realistic path. And consider things like fundraising as well, I might add. Because, believe it or not, money matters a lot when you run for office. It's not "plug and play"

 

[oblong]

Just now, 1984Echoes said:

The whataboutism gets ridiculous sometimes.

I get it, Dems also need to be held accountable.

But looking at a molehill, and a mountain, and asking "aren't these the same" is, well, actually, a bit comical.

Mike Pence was in a similar situation.

I bet W and Obama and Bill and Cheney and Gore have some classified docs in their stuff that they don't know about.  A scrap piece of paper with a phone number on it could be classified.  It's how you act after it's discovered you have them that matter.  The nature of their jobs required them to have classified documents to review and study and their jobs were pretty much 24 hours a day and they would work from wherever they happened to be.  They didn't drive into the office on public transit for a 9-5 office shift.

By the way, does anybody actually work 9-5? 

 

[1984Echoes]

4 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Exactly. People act like this is the party calling the shots, but the incentive structures for the candidates that pundits dream about do not align with or without Biden running this cycle.

It's not like you can force Whitmer or Shapiro or whoever to get into an open primary, they would have to want to do it and see a realistic path. And consider things like fundraising as well, I might add. Because, believe it or not, money matters a lot when you run for office. It's not "plug and play"

 

MTU wins.

On logic. And reality.

Get back to us in 2028 for the next Dem candidate for President.

That one will be wide open, not this one.

I'll add in Buttigieg's hat to the ring as well.

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

That one will be wide open, not this one

LOL -if Biden wins, it's a good chance (~20%) Harris would be running as the incumbent......

..just sayin' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited February 9 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

9 minutes ago, oblong said:

It's a catch 22 for sure.  She was a great pick for VP.  The only way out of this without Biden is if she can convince people she didn't want to run without it being a "They made me say this, it's not how I feel".  That's a hard sell because if you say you don't want to run for President this year then you shouldn't be VP right now.

AA's will definitely see it as a slight if she were not the nominee if Biden dropped out.  She was good enough to court for demographics and all that but when **** got real then let's bring out the great white hope?   They will stay home.

 

Yup. I take no joy in delivering this dose of reality to folks, I'm just not going to bury my head in the sand and pretend that there's absolutely zero cost to some world where installing the favorite candidates of the pundit class is absolutely bloodless.

[ewsieg]

47 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

LOL, I don't know what Biden was going to do with the documents, but come on, you know Trump was going to make or had already made money off them.  That's his whole life.  

We also know Trump likes to boast of things 'he has'.  We also know there have been tons of folks that cooperated with officials and gave their accounts, many of which have been shared here, which indicate he knew he had them and boasted of them to others, in one account showing a map to people but telling them not to get too close because they shouldn't see the details of it.  As of now, there are zero reports indicating he sold them.  I agree with you, he probably would have if the price is right, but again, zero reports he sold them.

Meanwhile, the report on Biden is that he knowingly kept them and knowingly shared information from them to the Ghostwriter in an attempt to make money from the sale of a book.  Rather it made it to the final copy of the book or not, has no bearing on the situation. 

This report indicates Biden did something that you can only accuse of Trump doing because 'it sounds like something he'd do'.

[Tiger337]

If what we have is the reality and it just can't be changed, then it's a terrible system and it's explains why not enough people vote.  I have spent most of my whole life voting for third party candidates because I never like any of the choices.  The only reason I care now is because Trump is so terrible and has to be defeated.  I think maybe the MAGAs are right about wanting to tear it down.  The only problem is they are supporting the worst possible human to do it.  

[mtutiger]

1 minute ago, Tiger337 said:

If what we have is the reality and it just can't be changed, then it's a terrible system and it's explains why not enough people vote.  

Agreed, unironically. 

Edited February 9 by mtutiger

[1984Echoes]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

LOL -if Biden wins, it's a good chance (~20%) Harris would be running as the incumbent......

..just sayin' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sure, of course.

But the challengers will be SIGNIFICANTLY higher than this year, 2024.

Amiright?

And not because of race. But because this year it's an incumbent President, versus "only" an incumbent VP. If Harris goes all the way in 2028, her challengers in 2032 as an incumbent will look a lot like this year's: next to nothing, or nobodies.

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

If what we have is the reality and it just can't be changed, then it's a terrible system and it's explains why not enough people vote.  I have spent most of my whole life voting for third party candidates because I never like any of the choices.  The only reason I care now is because Trump is so terrible and has to be defeated.  I think maybe the MAGAs are right about wanting to tear it down.  The only problem is they are supporting the worst possible human to do it.  

The one thing out there sort of on the horizon is ranked choice non-party primaries. It's a system that CA is the test case for. If that caught on it  would change the dynamic a lot. But the biggest thing we could do in the US to change things is publicly fund elections. In both these cases it's not even the basic constitution that is failing*, is the accessories that have accumulated around it that we have no good reason to be so attached to.

*I reject that we can blame the founders or any text actually in the Constitution for the asinine view of 5 SCOTUS appointments that money=speech.

Edited February 9 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

1 minute ago, 1984Echoes said:

Sure, of course.

But the challengers will be SIGNIFICANTLY higher than this year, 2024.

Amiright?

And not because of race. But because this year it's an incumbent President, versus "only" an incumbent VP. If Harris goes all the way in 2028, her challengers in 2032 as an incumbent will look a lot like this year's: next to nothing, or nobodies.

She would have inherited the office, ala Ford, so I suspect that unless she did very well and / or had high approval ratings, she'd probably draw some legit competition.

[mtutiger]

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

The one thing out there sort of on the horizon is ranked choice non-party primaries. It's a system that CA is the test case for. If that caught on it  would change the dynamic a lot. But the biggest thing we could do in the US to change things is publicly fund elections. In both these cases it's not even the basic constitution that is failing, is the accessories that have accumulated around it that we have no good reason to be so attached to.

The Electoral College is a real issue as well, not just for the usual complaints, but its one of the biggest things that forces a two-party system upon us.

The French system, with a Presidential Election and a runoff two weeks after if no candidates reach 50%, would solve at least some problems with our system IMO

[gehringer_2]

Just now, mtutiger said:

The Electoral College is a real issue as well, not just for the usual complaints, but its one of the biggest things that forces a two-party system upon us.

The French system, with a Presidential Election and a runoff two weeks after if no candidates reach 50%, would solve at least some problems with our system IMO

I'd argue it's not even the EC per se, but the population imbalance of the states - which creates an impact in the Senate at least as serious as the presidential elections. But even that is something that can be mitigated within the current Constitution. Admit DC as a state and increase the HOR to 500 and you'd mitigate something like half the current EC imbalance.

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

The Electoral College is a real issue as well, not just for the usual complaints, but its one of the biggest things that forces a two-party system upon us.

The French system, with a Presidential Election and a runoff two weeks after if no candidates reach 50%, would solve at least some problems with our system IMO

The thing that most depresses me however is that no system can work with a populace that has lost the collective common sense to self-govern. In the ME we see this in populations where religious loyalties make democratic governance impossible. And in the US we are beginning to see a population descend into a level of plain ignorance - inability to process facts and reality - that if it leads as far as Trump's re-election, will pretty much prove that the US is no longer a fit population for democracy. So if Trump II ends up being the end of democracy as we have known it, it will just be the inevitable having come to pass.

[Tiger337]

20 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

The Electoral College is a real issue as well, not just for the usual complaints, but its one of the biggest things that forces a two-party system upon us.

The French system, with a Presidential Election and a runoff two weeks after if no candidates reach 50%, would solve at least some problems with our system IMO

That's an idea.  Americans love playoffs and brackets, so let's add some more rounds!

[ewsieg]

41 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I think maybe the MAGAs are right about wanting to tear it down.  

I don't think they are right, but I do understand them.

Frank Turner is coming into town and it led me to listening to his new stuff and some of his old stuff last night.  In one song he has a line something like 'you can't fix anything if all you have is a hammer'.   Tearing down is easy, and even sometimes fun....rebuilding though.....

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

I don't think they are right, but I do understand them.

 

I was being dramatic.  I'd lke to see it torn down, but not all at once.  

[smr-nj]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

The thing that most depresses me however is that no system can work with a populace that has lost the collective common sense to self-govern. In the ME we see this in populations where religious loyalties make democratic governance impossible. And in the US we are beginning to see a population descend into a level of plain ignorance - inability to process facts and reality - that if it leads as far as Trump's re-election, will pretty much prove that the US is no longer a fit population for democracy. So if Trump II ends up being the end of democracy as we have known it, it will just be the inevitable having come to pass.

Jeez.  That’s a bitter pill to digest, albeit a fair assessment of the current state of affairs.  
It saddens and depresses me, also, but I don’t feel like I want to throw up my hands and say “oh, well, it was a good run”.

If not for myself, I think I need to keep fighting back for the generations behind me.  I don’t want them to live in the kind of society that MAGA mindsets will doom them to. 
 

We have to - Keep fighting.  We cannot go gently into that dark night.  Not if you love your family and you know better than to accept this as normal.