I sympathize with lifelong Republicans who hate Democrats and therefore remain unsure of whether to vote for Donald Trump. After all, I've long wondered how bad a Democrat would have to be to make me vote for a Republican. The problem is that I've never been able to come up with a plausible Democrat as bad as Trump.
But now we have a Democrat who isn't a horrible person but—just as bad—seems mentally unfit for the presidency. I'll still vote for him because the alternative is Trump, but what would I do if his opponent were a normie Republican like, say, Mitt Romney?
Just as I think decent Republicans should refuse to vote for Trump, I'd like to think I'd defect to Romney. But would I? I'm not quite being put to the test thanks to the unique horror of the Republican candidate, but it's getting too close for comfort.
Why do I get the impression that some of our commenters want Biden to be mentally incompetent .;-)
Sorry Bro, not picking up what you're laying down.
No one wants Biden to be incompetent.Thats silly.
They want to beat Trump.
You don’t send an 81-year old quarterback out on the field to win the Super Bowl.
Uh-huh.
Congratulations, Scent. This is one of your more cogent responses.
We should remember that the choice is not between two people, it a choice between two administrations. The key role a president performs is who they hire to run agencies and who they appoint to the courts. Biden's appointments have been intelligent, lucid professionals. Trump's first cabinet was eclectic to say the least, but in hindsight they will look like the brain trust compared to what another Trump administration would look like. A Biden who is lucid for just two hours a day is still going to demonstrate better judgment, make better more compassionate decisions and have the country in a better place than Trump, even if he were at the height of his powers (which, thank God, he is not) 24/7. Biden is "unfit" to be president only if you have an overheated view of what the presidency is all about. Presidents with too much energy (see Bush, George W.) often cause more problems than they solve. Give me wisdom, not "vigor."
Exactly. The president is the ultimate decision maker, but most decisions are made by the people he appoints and by the people they hire. It’s not like Biden writes bills, votes for them, serves in the military, flies jets, designs rockets for NASA, …
FDR was perhaps our greatest president, yet he was in a wheelchair the whole time.
And he gave Eastern and Central Europe away to Stalin at Yalta when he was dying.
Tens of millions suffered for decades.
You don't say.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here. Yes, it would be wonderful if the Republicans had nominated a sane candidate, such as Romney.
Joe is fit enough.
I do not live in a swing state and thus, will leave the President line open.
- I could never vote for Trump.
- I refuse to vote for Biden this time: I do not want be part of a message back to the Democratic party that its okay to run, a mentally impaired, Presidential candidate.
Cool, so you're a fascist. Good to know.
Also, this implies that you are, yourself, not a democrat. That means you are part of the problem, as not joining a political party means you prefer to sit back, let your fellow citizens do the hard work of forming a coalition and picking a standard-bearer, and then complaining about it.
Murc - it is interesting how you throw around the fascist label.
1. As I said above, I live in California: my presidential vote is only symbolic
2."... prefer to sit back" I am not sitting back. Rather, I am making an active decision. It is not okay to have no Democratic debates, not really run a Democratic primary, and leave me with the choice of an impaired Biden or horrible Trump.
Murc are you okay with how the Democratic party selected Biden? If you are not, how will YOU communicate your unhappiness ?
The voters selected Biden, not the Democratic Party. How do YOU think it works?
debbie wasserman schultz is in the room with middleoftheroaddem right now.
Rofl. Who raised the money and paid for the advertising that led the voters to vote for Biden? Who encouraged alternatives to not run against Biden?
There were no debates and not much of a primary _because there were no candidates with sufficient support to merit either_. You can blame Biden for his decision-making process, but there was nothing stopping a candidate with enough support from making their case. It didn't happen.
Marc is a troll. Just ignore him.
He's just one of those good Germans.
Cool. So you're a moron. Good to know.
I hear what you're saying, and given that you live in CA it really doesn't matter.
But for Dems in general, there are probably better ways of "teaching the party lesson" that don't involve cutting off your own nose. A bunch of Bernie voters decided to "teach the party a lesson" back in 2016 and refused to vote for Hillary, and now we have an insane Supreme Court for a generation as a result.
Oh yeah on that last. The people who are moaning about the extreme right tilt now are the same people who blew us off in 2016 when people like me told them that Supreme Court picks are terribly important. Well more important than their protest non-vote at any rate.
They didn't see it that way, of course, and they to this day consider themselves more politically savvy to the likes of you or I.
"This time"
Dude, you are fooling no one.
Precisely. Here in California, since our vote for president is meaningless, we don't have to vote strategically. Me? I'm voting the Green Party slate.
This post-dehate poll might surprise many of you, but it makes sense for those who know how many women, & especially Black women ( & likely others who share mixed heritage, as our vice president does) welcomed the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris. Never underestimate the strength of Black women voters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/02/biden-replacement-debate-harris-cnn-poll/
That's an interesting report. Thanks for the link!
A vote for Biden is a vote for Harris!
biden should name obama as his VP
Sure. Spit in the eye of over 50% of the population and the very base of the Democratic Party. That should work out well.
so running a popular ex-president and black man is a spit in the eye but the old white guy at the top of the ticket isn't an issue
doesn't seem plausible to me
For what purpose? He can't become President again so if something were happen to Biden, the presidency would automatically go to the Speaker of the House, which therefore makes it an insanely risky proposition.
A lot of these conversations are people saying things that, upon the slightest millisecond of actual thought, are either impossible, implausible, or stupid.
the 22nd amendment says he can't be elected to the office; apparently succession isn't a disqualifier
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
Sounds Putinish. In theory, a person could be president forever by having another candidate run for election each time and then immediately resign and the Vice President simply fill in the slot. And the 12th Amendment provides enough leeway for the Supreme Court to knock it down anyway (and also enough leeway for them to permit it for candidates they like).
i agree with the putin-ish comment, but he'd still have to be on the winning ticket every time
which fits with the republican "people should be able to vote for who they want" (even if he's a criminal)
and upon assuming the presidency, obama should make use of the new 'official acts' immunity and arrest every republican on the supreme court before they get a chance to rule against him
i'm just joking of course, but it's an interesting mental exercise
and just for the entertainment value i'd love to see how the republicans would respond if some dem pundit put it out there for discussion
but i guarantee you that trump's lawyers have gamed out this 'prez4ever' scheme, even if they couldn't actually pull it off
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/
I see no indication that Biden is "mentally incompetent." Sure, he had a bad hour out of 90 minutes on the debate stage, up against a bellowing lying con man. So what? He's had a very good 3.5 years before that, and snapped back later that evening and ever since.
Folks who want Biden to bow out, or even more extremely, abdicate the Presidency of the United States of America(!!) because of that one bad hour tend to be people who never wanted him to run in 2016, either, much less 2020.
Tough luck. He's there, he's on the ballot, and if Biden is not elected, we WILL get the Convicted Felon, who incredibly, everybody seems totally happy with. It's our choice.
“Folks who want Biden to bow out, or even more extremely, abdicate the Presidency of the United States of America(!!) because of that one bad hour tend to be people who never wanted him to run in 2016, either, much less 2020.”
Excellent point. The voices now shouting from the rooftops for Biden’s head (with zero acknowledgement of his successful presidency) are almost certainly the same voices who scoffed at him in 2020, raged at him after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and had their red-wave hopes dashed in 2022.
The louder the frenzied and hysterical Biden hatred gets (Kevin says Romney was a “normie” HA HA HA HA HA!), the more I donate to Biden’s campaign …
after the debate I don't want him to drive me somewhere, let alone steer a nation. I can't unsee that.
@UglyMoe:
thank you for the update;
I'm absolutely convinced that you are not a Russian Bot!
Absolutely. Remember how he got hammered by the press and punditry and 'well-place sources' for getting out of Afghanistan? These are the _exact_ same people.
Romney, while not trying to be a vindictive dictator, would still nominate two or three Alitos and Thomases if given the chance.
Hmmm. if it's a choice between a malicious pervert in cognitive decline and a decent human being in cognitive decline I don't see any problem deciding. Even if what you say is true that Biden is in cognitive decline (and I'm not so sure about that because he handled himself quite well in speech the day after the debate), the people he'll bring into office with him will be much better than anything the Orange Shitgibbon's handlers offer up. BTW, check this out...
https://x.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1808222392764059689
> it's a choice between a malicious pervert in cognitive decline ...
this
Doesn't matter anyway. The Supreme Court voted for him and, as in 2000, that's the only vote that matters.
Put differently, Kevin is asking whether someone who keeps asking others to vote for the lesser evil (e.g. people upset over Gaza) shouldn't be willing to do likewise sometimes. The answer is yes.
In this case I'd say that means counting on Harris to take over within a year or at most two and voting against Trump for that reason. In fact I'd almost say Biden's decline makes him more palatable, not because his hubristic foreign policy is acceptable but because he won't be there for long. In 2020 he won because of tactical voting and if he makes it now, which I don't believe, it'll be for the same reason. If the Dems maintain him, Harris has to be all over the place. But I still hope for a better candidate, say Whitmer or Klobuchar, untested perhaps at that level but certainly capable of wiping the floor with Trump in any debate.
If it was a Romney - Biden race Romney would be winning and therefore I could vote for a 3rd party or write in candidate that I really prefer. If it was close and I was in a swing state I would vote for Biden and hope there is no crisis.
I don't think democrats are as willing to support an unfit candidate as the GOP.
I would ring doorbells for Ted Cruz if he were the only alternative to Trump.
I feel like this post is really applies to me. I’m a republican and have never voted for a dem other than a couple local elections. There is no way I will vote for Trump this election. I had been planning on voting for Biden. But now, I may just leave it blank. I’m in FL so it’s not like my vote rally matters. It just on principle.
I only recently started reading and making comments. I look forward to seeing your viewpoint on other topics if you make comments often. I really never interact or discuss politics with republicans.
This doesn't make sense. The US Constitution covers this case. You're not voting for Biden, you're voting for Biden/Harris. If Biden loses the capacity to serve, Harris takes over. So I'd still vote for Biden/Harris over Romney/Ryan.