It did affect Nixon, Ford, and Carter during the 1970’s.
The only thing maybe Biden could have done differently is maintaining better control over immigration earlier on.
I remember that issue also stuck in the minds of the public too.

i don't believe in "caravans' either

Up until 2024, when Biden unilaterally closed the border after congress refused to pass the bipartisan border bill, they were at an all-time high:



It definitely was an issue and one the Biden administration took too long to address. Had they in 2022, when Democrats held the House and Senate, it might not have been as big of an issue.

Not only were arrests up (likely a result of more illegal crossings into the US since that means more people attempting to cross into the country illegally), the change in undocumented people in the country rivaled that of the 2000s and was the starkest of the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations:



https://cmsny.org/us-undocumented-population-increased-in-july-2023-warren-090624/

however, the total population of undocumented could have gone up while actual crossings went down. "Living here" is a cumulative number.

I am not sure what you're arguing.

Border crossings:



Undocumented population:



In both instances, they were up under Biden - not down.

That's a fact. It reasons that there was a significant spike in border crossings the last few years. Whether it makes up a majority of those who are undocumented overall isn't relevant and sounds like deflection to be honest.

the number who attempt to cross. If a million people attempt to cross illegally but 80% are apprehended, isn't that better than if 600000 attempt to cross illegally but only 20% are apprehended? Your chart doesn't include the information we need to assess this.

Biden did many good things during his presidency, but he failed to act at the border until the last few months he was president. This was a huge mistake. There were lots of people, dems and repubs alike, who were frustrated by that. Border states were greatly impacted, obviously, and then when Abbott began bussing migrants to blue democratic cities in democratic states, and overwhelming support systems and taxpayer resources, many other groups (lower income citizens, for example, who wanted to know why they weren't getting resources) were very frustrated to see migrants put up in hotel rooms, or migrants getting all these things when homeless US citizens or veterans were out on the street.

And yes, I fully understand that most of these people are hypocrites who would have turned their backs on a homeless vet in an instant and just wanted a reason to be angry, but the optics were not good. Marginalized groups had reason to be frustrated so much taxpayer resources were being spent while their communities were being ignored and they were directing it at Abbott (who no one likes, including me), but truly, the problem should not have been solely for the border states to deal with either. Immigration is a national issue, not a Texas issue, not a Delaware issue. If the US could not handle that inflow of migrants per year (which we clearly couldn't) then harsher measures should have been taken to shut down the border, which Biden failed to do until it was clear it would likely cause us the White House in summer 2024, which it ultimately did.

Because it was a win for Biden and Democrats. And also ask yourself, Trump did nothing, except separate families, about the border during his 1st term.

It got to the point that it did because Biden's reelection chances were teetering due to immigration. His team knew the border was being amplified and they couldn't dismiss the issue anymore, despite not spending much time on it during the first two years he was president and had both chambers to work with.

Of course if Biden was able to get a deal through, the optics would have been better than no deal - and Trump knew that.

But it still doesn't change the fact he had three years - two with a Democratic trifecta - to do something about the border and didn't.

Hell, the border bill Biden was willing to sign was right-wing. If this had been proposed during the Trump administration, Democrats likely would have opposed it because it was the most restrictive, anti-immigration border bill that, at the time, was close to passing.

It had zero for a pathway to citizenship (beyond some Afghan refugees). It didn't open up more funding for asylum seekers, though it did make it quicker by creating a more restrictive acceptance criteria. So, it would have meant even fewer asylum seekers would have been allowed into the country.

It was a right-wing bill that Biden desperately backed because he realized the border was becoming a crisis issue and couldn't be ignored anymore.

The vast majority were released into the country after making an asylum claim.

Asylum hearings were scheduled for years into the future and the majority of the claims are ultimately denied. Those who are denied after receiving due process are then expected to self deport after already living here for a few years.

Much as I love President Biden and respect his wisdom, he always seemed naive when assessing the opposition party. Democrats have to fight fire with fire and become experts at messaging. We are woefully behind in that arena. We have all the right policies, but we've never been able to market them effectively for this day and age. Of course, it doesn't help that we don't have our own media monopoly.

And we should always work to maintain/increase that level of decency.
Dems problem is ownership of the 'media'. RW interests have been buying control of the broadcast infrastructure for decades. From all the AM radio stations to the largest digital platforms out there. A tipping point was the Telecommunications Act that allowed ownership concentration. Regulation is kryptonite to them. "Biden old" should have been "putin's puppet steals and sells nation's secrets.".

The “my honorable friend across the aisle” era is as dead as a door nail. A few more cycles of that abject weakness and we’ll all be in gulags.

It's shameful, but we keep electing white men...some good, mostly on the Dem column, but some real bozos from right side of the aisle...TSF twice for God's sake.

Hillary and VP Harris were vastly superior to their maga opponents.

DJT stated he wanted to put in tariffs from day one. Companies that do importing tried to get ahead of some of it by importing before DJT took office. Because prices were envisioned to go up, companies that could did put prices up.

So when DJT put a post on his alleged social media site "Biden Inflation Up!" (Or words to that effect) it really was Trumpflation.

are low information voters with limited education. I keep meeting otherwise honest decent people who are Trumpers who preface their arguments with "I'm not really political..."

They make their decisions on some RW claim without enough information to question it or back it up. They think it's finde to not be political. They aren't really interested in politics. Some have trouble making sense of it all.

They don't WANT to fall for a con. They aren't doing due diligence but they don't know that.
We have to find a way to reach them before all we have is propaganda.

I've found many who aren't driven by hate and who are just falling for the lies and don't know what's in their own best self interest.

that the driving force behind their votes isn't hate of anyone who isn't exactly like them.

They didn't fall for a con, they voted for what they really want....people who they think are inferior to die. They aren't "decent" people, but they don't want to be perceived as ugly, racist people, so they lie to you, to the community, and most of all to themselves.

...why people generally will laugh at Emails, like "You're a winner!" "We can wipe all debts out of existence"
"Your package is ready, please add your address!"....and other stupid cons but, (as you say)..they eat up the Republican
candy like a 7 year old.

These people are racists, sexists, and xenophobes. Is THIS what we want? NO.

They either have to learn the hard way or die out.

There are literally millions upon millions of people who didn't bother to vote and a few million who voted third-party. Those are the people we should reach, not the racists, sexists, and xenophobes who are MAGA and basically of the same type as white nationalists or the KKK.

i would add to that the low information voters who made up their minds last minute, who voted for both Reagan and Obama and chose Trump this time because they swallowed some RW lie.

I'm not suggesting we'll reach the racist MAGA base. I'm not as confident that people who are still not voting or voting 3rd party (a known throw away vote) are going to step up. It's the people who got tricked and won't know they got tricked if we don't reach them. And who will be mad as hell when they know they got tricked.

They should be finding it out now and not when their checks stop coming or an inflation/depression hits right when free media gets hard to find. The earlier we form the resistance the better chance it has.

But most people are low information voters and that includes the educated as well as the uneducated.

We live in a world that makes us so busy trying to put food on the table and a roof over ones' head. And raise children. . . .To simply survive. . . .
that we live on sound bytes when it comes to the politics and who is running for office. What they say their platform is vs. what it actually is. Misinformation is exponentially being pushed out to everyone. We now have a country in crisis.

I am making my efforts to help push news out on Facebook and hopefully there are people reading it.

We must push really hard to spread the real news out on social media. On repeat! We must beat the drum loud. We must inundate every space possible with reality.

And, we must keep on providing ways for people to fight back against the coup and robbery that is going on today.

There is a list of things going around that people can do, such as, calling your Senators and Representatives--regardless of their party affiliation.

That list should be put out in the universe every single day.

WE did all that we could, fighting the hurricane of bullshit over the last four decades that resulted in this.

Joe was a solid POTUS, but it would not have mattered what he did or could have done differently, they would want to believe he was horrible and reverse engineered that thought into reality.

But, the simple, sad reality, is that 1/3 of this country has chose to blow up the greatest democracy this world has ever new to feed their relentless rage and hatred, and another 1/3 was willing to watch it unfold.

For 30 pieces of silver they aren’t even getting.

(Attributed to Beau of the Fifth Column)

And DEI gone. They wanted plastic straws.

None of these things made their life better. None of the economic policies will help them.

that THEY are the biggest beneficiaries of DEI.

They cut their own throats (metaphorically) joyfully as they worshipped the orange asshole.

and "they" include the political reporters at cnn et al

the kool ade has done its work.

"they're eating the dogs!"

Right after the debate...

He said on more than one occasion in 2020 that he would likely be a transitional president. meaning ONE term.
If he'd done that we could have had a real primary & if Harris won that she wouldve had a full term campaign. She had her back against the wall from day ONE; only having a few months to campaign.

It's not like she did a bad job campaigning.


And Trump was a fucking mess.

She clearly won the debate.


What hurt her is being a black woman. That wasn't going to change.

Last edited Fri Feb 14, 2025, 10:26 AM - Edit history (1)

As the Democratic nominee after coming out on top as the battle tested new leader of the Democratic Party -- with a full season of campaigning for the general election.

Joe Biden deserves our thanks for saving our democracy in 2020 and for all the great accomplishments of his presidency.

But we are now experiencing the consequences of his decision to run for a 2nd term, at the end of which he would be 86 years old. Being president and winning the general election in 2024 required the vigor and fierce rhetorical skills which he apparently lacked. His debate against Trump was a disaster, leaving Democrats stunned and fearful of losing to the Orange Fascist. Many of our wisest leaders including Pelosi realized he had to be replaced.

But it was too little, too late. My admiration for Kamala Harris grew during her campaign, but she was handicapped by the shortness of it and by how she came to be the nominee.

Of course, none of us has the capacity to see an alternate history of how things would have turned out had our beloved Joe not sought a 2nd term.

But there is no escaping the reality of where we find ourselves now.

Musk was still going to help F47 and he knew exactly what to do make that happen.

Musk was certainly a factor in the disinformation rampant in social media, but all other things being equal we can't know who would have been the Dem nominee and how that may have changed the dynamic of the campaign.

IMO the SCOTUS immunity ruling was an enormous factor outside the Democratic Party. Jack Smith had to reformulate his prosecutorial case, and that delay may have been the difference between Trump in the White House or prison.

In any event, I think the Democrats were badly handicapped by not having an open primary.

Pelosi took impeachment off the table for GW Bush, asshole. (who stole the election in 2000). I have not liked her since.

Say what you will about her (I was also furious she announced war criminal Bush would not be impeached) Pelosi has proven to be a very savvy political operator. It was likely wise politically to focus on what could be accomplished with the Democratic House majority than become embroiled in an impeachment attempt doomed to failure in the Senate.

Independent of what Dem leadership strategized regarding Biden's 2024 campaign after the debate, I personally thought he would lose to Trump from that pont on. But as I stated before, we can never know with certainty what would have happened if he wasn't replaced or hadn't run for a 2nd term.

We have enough difficulties right now charting a path forward. Our Constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.

Peace,
Martin

I saw it. I saw the certainty that she tried to convey.

I think its a huge mistake to just go to the simple "America wont elect a black woman" excuse. We used to say that about a black man too. Polls in the 90s showed early on that Colin Powell could've been elected. I believe if the GOP hadn't screwed themselves that Condi Rice could've been elected.

I admired Powell before his WMD speech at the UN, and I grew to despise Rice for contributing to the systematic campaign of deceit for invading Iraq.

In the wake of 9-11 GW Bush manipulated the anger, grief, fear, and patriotism of the American People and LIED pursuant to a disastrous war of choice in Iraq propelled by greed for oil and neocon ambition for American empire.

It was the most egregious betrayal of public trust by a president in our nation's history.

Now we're faced with something even worse.

And when whenever the "not Hillary" and "not Biden" minority of voters watched as their preferred candidate lost again, they would simply resort to the same old conspiracy theories to explain away the fact that the majority of Democrats do not support the candidate(s) they are putting forward and the people that pouted about Biden being too old and running again and then pouted about Kamala losing and we should have had a """real""" primary would just find something else to pout about.

How can you state with certainty that Harris would have won an open primary? I've been following presidential politics since 1968 and voting since 1976. There is always a degree of uncertainty, especially when an incumbent is not in the primary.

I would have voted for the candidate who I thought had the best chance to win the general election and to advance the Democratic agenda, but I didn't get the chance.

But I'm not "pouting" about it. I'm grieving for our country and all the people who will be hurt.

There are other factors that worked against her but we cant discuss them here.

Biden should have stuck to his one term plan. Would have given Harris years instead of months to campaign. -

90% jimmy

People assumed that's what he meant, but I don't know that he ever really thought that way himself.

Which would mean 1 president to another
what else could he have been referring to? Especially in the context of the statements he was making using the term

Transition from one generation to the next doesn't have to mean one term...if could be the transition was putting a lot of younger people in positions of leadership. Transition is a buzz work like "change" that people tend to like to hear and no one can agree on the what they mean. Just the sort that politicians love.

The outcome might have been the same, but Harris was harmed by not having enough time to run a full campaign, by not having a chance, through the primaries for the country to get to know her, and we lost voter buy in (we had low turn out this time) because no one got to choose Kamala Harris except Joe Biden. It is absolutely essential that voters feel engaged in the process and like they have a voice.

The outcome might have been the same. We will never know. No matter what, we need a full primary EVERY TIME. I had the utmost respect for the good things Biden did in his term, but I think it was a terrible mistake not stepping aside after the midterms.

Democrats won't ask a single question about results for fear of, well, something.

Meanwhile, even when they win, Republicans question why they didn't get 100% of the vote.

that racism, sexism and disinformation played a significant role in the election But this is nothing new. It's been the Republicon playbook since 1980 (albeit hyped to the max now through social media and targeted marketing). Will we ever learn how to combat it?

“Follow the money

it's why we're sinking in political quicksand.

and his idiot supporters didn't know and/or didn't care. They just want to screw people they don't like. Lots of performative cruelty with no benefits for Americans.

It's not that complicated. Many of us on the left know tariffs and mass deportations increase prices for consumers.

And how they’re pathetic excuses for human beings.

those are my sentiments as well. That is all.

That’s all. Bibi wanted him to lose yet he was too much of a gentleman (TRULY) to just cut Netanyahu off.

His approval ratings were in the toilet. He looked frail. In the only debate of the campaign he seemed confused and had difficulty keeping his thoughts straight and completing sentences. If he hadn't dropped out it would have been a bloodbath with Democrats losing significantly more down-ballot races.

The media covered it as though it was normal, just trump being trump. His ignorance , pettiness and racism is being displayed daily and they pretend he’s competent. Don’t blame Joe, blame the media who makes heroes out of jackasses.

And the media absolutely did focus on it. His cats and dogs comment got a ton of media attention and fact checking. The problem is that a lot of Americans either believed it or thought it was a meme line and didn't take it seriously.

The problem with Biden is that he looked way too old and incapable of handling the job, at least that's what the narrative was.

Trump looks and sounds unhinged but that's clearly not as much of an issue for voters as Biden looking lost and confused, maybe even sickly, on the debate stage.

Trump's debate was awful but a different kind of awful than Biden's.

Biden's was horrendous. Like, the performance was likely the worst in presidential debate history...as unfortunate as it was.

Kamala ran and she wasn’t crazy. Trump talking about Arnold Palmers junk that was insane.
America has a racism problem and he capitalized on that . Don’t blame it on Biden, blame it on the southern strategy , blame it on red states who take more than they give and blame it on the majority of white Americans who have not voted for a democrat since the 1960’s. I forgot one the lame stream media.

But we sure heard about it from the media and pundits, it was 24 seven Biden is too old and we will withhold funds until he drops out. Not one thing about lying Dementia Donny. I surprised they didn’t interview the Pelosi dog , but they gave everyone else face time to bash Biden. Perhaps if they had treated Joe the way they treated the Orange Felon we may have had a different outcome.

The voters obviously determined that Trump's craziness was less an issue for them than Biden's cognitive concerns.

But if you're arguing the media ignored Trump's performance vs Harris, well that's just not true. The 'they're eating the dogs...' or whatever was all the media talked about for a good solid week post-debate. It's what anyone talked about. Voters either bought the lie or they didn't care. But there were multiple attempts to fact-check the claim in pretty much every mainstream media outlet not named FOX News.

Trump lost his train of thought during the run up to the election, Madison square Garden was a Nazi rally. Bezos and the others refused to recommend a candidate and sat front row at his inauguration. The tv stations paid financial tribute. This was a coup and it was not Biden’s fault, the American people fell for a con man again and we will all pay a heavy price.

Nobody cares about the incoherent things the felon says. President Biden had low approval ratings, but people had their anger misplaced.

will benefit from trump and musk. Let the other trump voters suffer big time.

By a group of Democratic Party leaders. Obama/Clinton/Pelosi/Schumer.
When that happened, after the debate, there wasn’t enough pushback. Everyone just allowed it to happen. We had no primary to prepare a candidate for battle. The media narrative was set.

There’s no reason to be surprised at what happened next. I really hope the Democratic Party learned a lesson. I’m not optimistic.

And so did many voters who felt the same.. I considered the old leaders traitors after all Biden accomplished on his own and the massive help he gave others over the years. They lost my expect.. I voted but I heard from many others who refused to because of what the so called leaders did.

inflation, immigration and DEI in that order. We may disagree with that but that is the way the MAGA
people saw it from what I heard them say.

And DEI is a euphemism for the N word which they cannot say.

The fact that someone could lose an election because they're a woman of color shows how far we still have to go in this country.

More than once. The campaign had to know this question was coming and were still unprepared with a reasonable answer. She could have answered in a way that wouldn't have thrown Biden under the bus and wasn't able to do so.

Who would have thought a softball question on "The View" would have been so damaging.

Only once since 1836 has a sitting VP been elected

When she was currently in office. Harris couldn’t answer any question on change from what or turning the page from Trump 4 years prior. The entire thing was just short of a disaster and we have to field better candidates. That has to start with admitting our weaknesses, not blaming what others saw and finding the fix. The fix is stronger candidates being developed over the next 4 years.

“We think we are doing a good job, but there is always room for improvement”

And then discuss areas of performance improvement on top of the accomplishments already achieved

That’s what I do at my yearly position review for work

there are many Dems out there and fence sitters that just could not bring themselves to vote for a woman, much less a black woman.

I personally feel that Hillary, beyond any doubt, was THE MOST QUALIFIED Presidential Candidate in the last century...by far......

Take a minute, and imagine, just how different things would have been these past nine years, had she been elected..................

during President Biden's press conferences it was quite obvious. They were rude, belligerent, jackasses, who constantly interrupted in the middle of answering a question, and treated him with the most disrespect I haven't seen since their treatment of Hillary. Contrast that with the way they conduct themselves at trump press conferences.

They are a disgrace, and in general there is an visibly antagonistic way they treat Democratic interviews verses republican interviews.

One of the most disgusting displays of this was when matt lauer was interviewing trump and Hillary. For trump he not only asked softball questions, but let trump ramble on without challenge. In contrast, lauer wouldn't even let Hillary finish answering a question, with constant interrupting and a visible antagonism toward her.

For President Biden that rudeness and disrespect by the press corps was obvious also.

This country is quickly becoming a country run by billionaires, criminals, and incompetents, and it deserves trump and his thugs, and the disaster that will eventually come from it.

If this was the first time it might be understandable, but this is the second time, and there is no excuse for the stupidity of the American public.

Unfortunately, those who believe in Democracy and ethics in government will be swept along with the garbage when the whole thing implodes, unless something alters the course where we are headed.

It was that Trump hates who they hate. That, and they're stupid and believe whatever Fox Noise tells them.

The title of your post is not consistent with the text. Dems were concerned about Biden’s electability, not his positions.

But if it is the policies and positions we speak of, let’s be honest. His debate performance was abysmal. IMO Trump’s wasn’t much better, but Biden had the chance to clearly, succinctly, forcefully and definitively stake out Democratic positions on multiple issues. He did not do that.

Questioning his re-election bid was entirely reasonable. I didn’t support it at the time, but I don’t think he could have run the campaign Harris did.

the GOP suppressed 5 million voters off the voting rolls.

Nut-And-Yahoo's bombing campaign was a deliberate knife in the back to Biden/Harris. His indiscriminate killing of unarmed men, women and children was used by the RW press to attack Biden 24/7. Pootin was behind this as well of course. If those people would have just showed up and voted, we would have won. Now they have the worst candidate possible. Maybe their strategy was to foment a breakup here in the US? Who knows but the strategy is so stupid and short-sighted. Harris was the only choice this past election. She's honest, a great human being. Too many racist dumbasses here in the US. About half the population.

the rapist that led to our defeat. That's how I see it. The majority of white rapist supporters have much to lose with his victory and they were so warned repeatedly, yet they filled in the rapist circle on their ballots. They should have known better, but they didn't. For some reason, many folks here rail against the slivers of minority groups who lagged in support for Biden/Harris when in fact few people call out the historic tendency of white Americans to err in favor of cruel, greedy, white powerful men whose interest is preserving power for cruel, greedy, white powerful men. Harris was the only choice this past election for them too. There are millions and millions more of those folks. For some reason, they never get the same amount of blame.

Obviously, I thought, referring to yt people. Not gonna change very many of these nasties so it would make sense to get through to the people on the sidelines and traditional Democratic voters to show up and pull the Blue, Blue, Blue Lever every election.

just standing onstage at a rally swaying to golden oldies over the loudspeaker

It would’ve made me want to vote for him that much more.

We can disagree on whether or not that was going to happen. But that’s exactly why he was dumped.

I was with my husband and we were stricken with fear for what had happened to our president. Then he spoke a few words that didn't come out right and then I think they went to break. He seemed so lost and fragile at that moment.

I can't speak for anyone else here but I was afraid. First, I thought we might lose him, then we just waited until he and his staff had made that decision for him to bow out and have Kamila take over. I cannot tell you how much hope I had for her. She clearly out-debated him. He started talking about Haitians eating the dogs and other family pets and she looked at him with alarm and then a smile of "what the hell are you talking about?"

Then, after she took over I was elated beyond belief. I truly believed she would win and be our first woman president. My husband was more subdued but also a dedicated Dem all his life. We are elderly and thought that at long last a dream had come true: a liberal woman in the White House as our first POTUS.

In many ways I am still in mourning for our party's loss.

The smarts and the enthusiasm. But just enough people looked at Trump and said they wanted more of that.
It's vomit inducing.

Anyone with a pulse should just step away,

He got blamed for inflation and egg prices, which the felon hasn’t fixed.

People were upset over Gaza and their solution is someone way worse.

Certainly racism and misogyny are somewhere on the list.

But there were bigger reasons, IMHO. We had foreign actors stirring up the shit about Gaza, and that includes Netanyahu at the top of that list. He is smart. He always takes his most aggressive, horrendous actions when it will most damage Democrats and/or do the least damage to Republicans. He has done this over and over. Biden bungled the issue and didn't appreciate how serious that was, but it was a very aggressive move by Netanyahu and by Putin's bots to convert that into votes against Biden or abstentions. Biden didn't have any great options, but he did nothing at all. IN politics, doing nothing is never the right decision. People can forgive a try that failed. People can't understand when they see people being slaughtered and a President making no visible effort to stop it.

We had massive voter disenfranchisement, as usual, but more than ever. And we have a virtual confession from Trump that Elon Musk took some actions to manipulate the "vote counting computers", yet you can't find an elected Democrat anywhere calling for real action on this. We have Democratic Governors in most of the states that would be the likely targets for Musk manipulating the "vote counting computers", but not one of them has even ordered a basic audit. WTF? Average people don't understand these things.

Average people don't understand why, when Biden had the opportunity to name a supermajority of the Postal Governors, we still have to live with DeJoy wrecking the USPS< canceling their electrification and crushing the sorting center capability. He has wrecked the operations at Indianapolis, Louisville and Jacsonville, with millions of packages just sitting in vast warehouses for week, even months. Why is this guy still there? It makes it hard to support Democrats when they refuse to use the power they have, and go with "Let the system work itself out. We have a strong system." People know differently.

But ultimately, this election was not lost in 2020. It was just another step along a slide of 50 years where Democrats don't take the threat to our system seriously, and somehow have convinced themselves that passively acquiescing to the Republicans at every opportunity makes Americans want to vote for Democrats. During this time, the percentage identifying as Democrats has gone from 50% to 25%.

That's why we lost. No strong leaders. No big ideas. All recent campaigns have come down to "We hate Trump, and we want abortions." There is practically no campaign time devoted to what we are FOR, other than abortions (News flash: nobody thinks abortions are inherently good. We just think it should be a personal decision.) And that lack of leadership and imagination left the path open for a personality like Biden to be elected and then claim a second candidacy.

Biden is who he has always been -- a competent, caring, thoughtful person who trusts 1000X too much in the resiliency of our system, and clearly is 15 years past his prime. That's why we lost. The seeds of this loss go back 30-40 years.

That is what it is. We can't change the past. The real problem we face now is that our current leaders (Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi etc) have no imagination, no bold ideas, nothing that can inspire people to rally around and fight for. It isn't their fault that they have the charisma of a loaf of bread. It is OUR fault for allowing them to be our leaders.

The first step is admitting we have a problem, and far too many are nowhere near that point yet.

nt

It zapped a lot of energy from younger voters. Biden's biggest weakness was not treating Bibi like a hostile actor. His initial support was solid but when it became clear Israel was going to just bulldoze Gaza and slaughter so many innocent Palestinians, Biden should have drawn a line in the sand and held firm.

Last edited Fri Feb 14, 2025, 04:02 PM - Edit history (1)

Netanyahu is always looking for opportunities to bomb the shit out of Gaza. And he is a smart politician. He was educated in the US and he knows how to pick his moments. Maybe none of us expected a genocide of this scale -- I mean nothing short of extinction for the people of Gaza, all in the name of hitting Hamas. But certainly it has been his pattern to periodically hit Gaza hard -- he calls it "mowing the grass." And in every case, he has picked a time and mode to benefit Republicans. NOBODY should have been surprised by that.

And then we have the high probability that Putin's online army amplified this to the max. As Thom Hartmann pointed out yesterday, there were all sorts of protests against Biden, ostensibly organically from the Muslim-American community during the campaign. But now that Trump and Netanyahu are talking about stealing their homeland and turning them all into corpses or refugees, not a single protest. WTF?

This suggests very strongly that the protests were ginned up by external forces. IOW, business as usual for Putin. Where are the Dems talking about this? If the politicians don't talk about it, the media probably won't.

What could Biden have done differently to get a better result? Obviously Trump, Putin and Netanyahu put him in a vice. Maybe there was nothing that would have given a different result. But dammit, you have to at least try, and he did absolutely nothing. The bare minimum steps are:

1) Stop all aid to Israel until they cleared out of Gaza.

2) Talk openly, frequently, and forcefully about how this was a deliberate move by Trump, Putin and Netanyahu to subvert our election. And explain the consequences of letting foreign actors manipulate our elections.

Biden did none of that. It isn't his way. He will go to his grave believing our system is strong enough to deal with all of this. Biden isn't alone. Most of the Dems from his generation and the next generation are inclined against any strong positions on anything, always going for "The American people want us to work together." But they really don't. They didn't when they elected Reagan, the Bushes and Trump.

I would argue the only time in modern history when there was a real expectation of the President governing in a bipartisan way was 1992, when Clinton won with only 43% of the vote because of Ross Perot. I am not against bipartisanship when there are more than 2 parties and the rules of the game force the parties to actually represent a constituency of PEOPLE, not the corporations that can make the best offers. These conditions simply do not exist in the US "democracy" and have not for at least 25 years, and arguably NEVER have existed. So we really must demand that at least the politicians WE vote for fight for our interests.

Gaza was a divisive wedge issue that left Biden and Harris with no good options. If Biden would've stopped aid to Israel already allocated by the Congress that would've been treat as scandal and He and Vice President Harris would've been presented as Pro Hamas to Jewish voters by Trump and the republicans and it would've cost us votes.

Better and more candid messaging is the only thing that might have had a snowballs chance in hell. Maybe explain the realities of U.S. politics and the circumstances of the times. Like it's never been U.S. policy to side with any Middle Eastern Country over Israel and we can't reverse U.S. foreign policy during an election year in a polarized political climate and then go on to explain how Trump would be a million times worst.

what I was going to say was exactly as you said, especially in the 2nd paragraph.

But let me just play that back, because this really is crucial to our survival as a Party and as something resembling a democracy.

I completely agree that Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump put Biden is a very difficult spot. It was a "choose you poison" scenario.

BUT ... this is how the world works today, and Biden is still stuck in that ancient world where Senators and presidents could say one thing in public, but they get behind closed doors and usually agree do do something that would work for the interests of America. Those days are long gone, at least 25 years gone, if not more.

Today, you have to play hardball, and some of that has to be done in the clear view of the voting public because we know Trump, Putin, Musk, Zuckerberg and the rest of that gang will hammer their messages relentlessly in public. It simply can no longer be a case where the President does the right thing behind closed doors and can expect the public to acknowledge that, somehow, his Presidency was successful. And that is especially true when Biden's choice was to allow Netanyahu to slaughter tens of thousands of men, women, and children whose only sin was being born and imprisoned on the same acreage where Hamas operates.

We have to SELL our positions. and we got absolutely none of that from Biden and very little from Harris. In her defense, she couldn't say much without appearing disloyal to Biden. She couldn't, for example, articulate a better policy vis-a-vis the situation in Gaza.

The lesson that could and should have been learned every day since Reagan, is that: a) we need bold ideas about things that we are FOR, and b) we have to sell them every damned day, not just once every 4 years.

(And to be clear, being against what Trump, Musk and their fellow fascists are doing is a necessary discussion, but cannot be a replacement for big, bold, aggressive ideas for how we will make American lives better and give America a competitive place on the world stage throughout the 21st century.)

(And also to be clear, this is not a criticism of Biden per se. EVERY Democrat from his generation would have failed the same way. None of them have EVER sold big, bold ideas -- or even small ones. We need to find, encourage, and support a completely different kind of leader who will actually ... LEAD.)

Great posts, welcome to DU.

You get it. You get a lot of things

As far as Putin, yep he sews discord, that’s his game. As far as leadership, Obama let us down with the Russian interference stuff in 2016, all they did was amp it up with the mis and dis information in 2024. And the Dem leadership was caught flat footed asleep on their feet, no lessons learned from 2016

There used to be a DU rule: don’t fight the last election ( this was due to the Bernie vs Clinton conflict) But we should learn the lessons here

Shit can complacency and the old guard

but I'm a big believer in President Biden and believe he would have finished strong. And, of course, there are all the questions about the integrity of the election.

All of this shit can be directly tied back to Fox, AM radio and megachurches.

Fox is an enemy of the state.

who ripped him up one side and down the other, who demanded a change at the last possible second are curiously silent now? Not a peep from any of them....but they did get their way and now they are getting a giant tax cut.

Plus, if things go bad here, they can move to any country in the world, so really, they won.

In the final analysis, they stuck with their guy,
we dumped ours.

.. knives to a gunfight.

We all seen how Biden handled his debate with Donald Trump and it did not go well for the president now I know it’s just one debate, but that was the primary reason why they asked him to move aside

It stands for 'Diversity'!

But only old, crusty White Men are to be taken seriously, and they are better not be too old, or stumble over their words on occasion!

Female, POC? Forget it!
No leadership roles for you, you are not 'serious' enough.

Get with the program America!
Look round at other countries, how many leaders are female, or not white, or not old?
And the track record for old white men as leaders?
Pretty dismal!
Bibi, Berlusconi, Putin, now Trump.

Anyhow, I don't think Biden was forced out, he simply felt he had done his bit.

Trump 'won' the debate against Harris, and 'won' the election, because he stirred up HATE!
He gave voters so many groups to hate, it wasn't funny.

And he promised to fix all that, within days of winning the election.

Most people know hate or unrealistic promises aren't a valid political platform, but I guess a lot of voters didn't, and thought it was OK.