495
Democrats worry their most loyal voters won’t turn out for Biden in 2024
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
495 points (95.1% liked)
politics
25208 readers
2935 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe... Maaaaaayyyyyyybeeeee the Democrats need to nominate someone who is actually worth getting excited about instead of just being not-Trump.
Because if voters are excited, they may start voting in primaries...
Every since Obama beat Clinton 15 years ago, party leaders seem more motivated to make sure their pick wins the primary than a Democrat winning the general.
"Moderates" seem ineffictive because they're not trying to just win, they're trying to win by as little as possible. Like a corrupt pro athlete who's not throwing the game, but trying to win by less than the spread.
They know the reason most people vote for moderates like Biden, is if they don't, someone like trump would win. It's just the party leaders would rather trade back and forth than let Dems like FDR win every election for decades.
Jesus I thought you were exaggerating and then I did the math
If you think that's bad:
Biden's first presidential primary was 35 years ago...
He was the expected front runner due mainly to his (at the time) exceptional public speaking but got caught plagiarizing speeches, lying about his grades in law school, and even people finding out he cheated while in law school by plagiarising papers.
But everyone forgot about all that because he spent 8 years standing next to Obama. And the only reason he got that job was to make old white people less uncomfortable voting for a Black guy.
That's a great way to put it. Both parties are funded by dark money interests, one drives us to the right and the other keeps us in place. This is described as the ratchet effect
and millions are claiming the democrats are radicals, little do they know that the country was more progressive on certain fronts 50 years ago. So they have to resort to blaming gays and trans, because everything else about the current staye of the country is kinda right-wingy to begin with.
Hell, Republicans 50 years ago were more progressive than the Dems are today.
Anyone "worth getting excited about" is going to challenge the status quo too much - even nominally - for the DNC to be okay with it. They are conservative in the descriptive sense. "No-one's standard of living will fundamentally change."
Sorry, the do-something machine is broke. Best we can do is partially fossilized C-Suite moderates.
Well, what if we put RFK Jr beside them, does that make them seem any better?
Well, now you're just being unreasonable.
Not being trump is enough for me. Sure, I’d love someone better. But I’d vote for a wooden brick if it meant america wouldn’t turn into a dictatorship.
This shit right here. Both times I was exited for a candidate he got thrown out because the party leaders didn't like him, first with Hillary, and then with Biden. I'm just going to continue to vote for not-trump because I know how bad it will be but I don't want any centrist democrat almost as much as I dont want trump.
Or maybe you need to understand that the down ticket races are more important than the presidency?
Change in the US starts at the bottom. Not the top.
Fuck the presidency. Just vote for the candidate that isn't going to burn the country down.
You want real change? Real progressivism? Vote progressives into local offices. Your young, progressive education board member today is your congressional rep tomorrow. Your congressional rep today is your presidential hopeful tomorrow.
Let the status quo dems toss whatever geriatric they want at the presidency and vote them in so we don't get another trump, or worse, a president desantis or something.
Presidents don't often push new laws anyway. You want to change the country? Help take the House and the Senate. As long as the president is the same party they're not going to veto progressive legislation.
I was about to write something like your comment.
Show up to every local election. Pay attention at the local level. Use your passion against the two party system to get third-party candidates elected to your state house.
Maybe… Maaaaaayyyyyyybeeeee the left voters need to actually show up to vote.
Now everyone is going to say they voted in a presidential election, possibly even a primary which makes them a rarity! Those aren't what we're talking about. The right has made it a point to vote on everything even as small as schoolboards so the only people voting in the tiny little races are the right wing rage crowd or the centrists who are being pulled to the right. Yes, the presidential vote matters, but frankly those lower down votes mean a lot more and if you watch how the Republican primaries are going, shows exactly how much power that batch that will show up has over a party.
This is some real "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" energy. If "just vote" actually worked, they'd change the system just enough so it doesn't. Assembling establishment voltron in 2020 during the primaries is just a tiny taste of the lengths that democrats will go to in order to prevent a progressive candidate from winning.
Thing is, it isn't "Just vote", it's being absolutely active every step of the way. Dunno what your territory is but my state we're having an absolute route of the ultra-right wing going for every local position with the Republicans national conference funding them, the Dems have considered the entire state a lost cause.
So kinda, yea, it is a pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and anyone else who you can pull up as well because we're sure as hell not getting help from the top, but it's either that or sit on our fucking hands and go "whelp". Remember, whether you like her or not, AOC primaried the supposed "2nd in command" Democrat. If you don't like the establishment, you root it out from the bottom.
I'm convinced he was picked because "it was his time"
I don’t think that was the main reason.
IMO, Biden was nominated because he was a fairly uncontroversial (by mainstream sensibilities anyway) white male candidate who also isn’t that attached to many positions that would threaten the powers that be.
Biden is a weather vane that swings in accordance to the winds. Which is all that was needed to beat a historically unpopular candidate like Trump. Thankfully, Trump is such a bad option that even Biden can be a palatable candidate.
Why this fossil didn’t bend the knee and allow another younger, more exciting candidate step up for 2024 is beyond me though. But I guess seeing the average age and mental capability of Congress, it shouldn’t be surprising. IMO, everyone over the age of 65 should be ineligible for elected office. They are at retirement age, and have no real, justifiable stake in the future. They should retire with the knowledge they won life and can live out the rest of their days in comfort and leave running the country to people who have skin in the game and the energy/mental faculties to actually play it.
Biden joining + everyone else dropping out was the last hope the establishment had to kneecap Bernie, and it fucking worked
Well they have argued in court on the public record that they owe their members no expectation of democracy.
People are structurally forced into voting for one of the two parties. It's got very little to do with their actual merits.
You’ve been lied to your entire life that we live in a democracy. When people tell you this isn’t a democracy this is the reason why.
Biden won because black women liked him and they actually go out and vote in the primaries, unlike the louts in this thread who are literally talking about how they won’t vote.
I think that goes with him being uncontroversial. Black people in America are fairly conservative, and politically they like to go for people who can win that aren't too radical. Biden was that candidate.
Probably because the geriatrics fucked two whole generations of politicians by not stepping down when they should have.
Gen X and millennials don't have enough horses in the race with the experience necessary to run for president because they got fucked by the boomers.
We're going to be in for an exciting ride over the next two decades as something like 40% of Congress retires or dies in office without anyone with experience available to replace them.
And this is on both sides.
He won because they weren't going to allow Bernie Sanders to win
Well...maybe it will be his time and we will get Harris. We can dream I guess.
Your dream is Harris?! Shit, no. No, no, no.
My hope is that Biden is staying in the race until the 11th hour to be the lightening rod and the dems have someone better to step in.
Of course, that would require some intestinal fortitude and a few brain cells and I don’t think the dem leadership has that.
Literally no one wants Harris. She's completely un-electable.
Hillary was also not-Trump. That worked out well.
It will only last a few more years, but in the near-ish future the problem will take care of itself. (They're both very old)
Henry Kissinger is still alive.
Spoiler alert: The problem doesn't end with some old people. Greed is eternal and has to be actively fought the entire time.