This stupid topic again
But sure
Ugh, id probably vote for kamala for being younger. But shes got a very low approval rating and has a lot of the same baggage Biden has, over the gaza situation and the border.
I just thought of a pretty optimistic angle though, if Biden drops out and a new candidate runs, its their first term. With someone younger winning gives them a better chance at using whats supposed to be a huge incumbency advantage for 8 more years of dems controlling the whitehouse at least.
doyee
Literally no one wanted Kamala in the primaries. Everyone knows she got picked as a token diversity VP and not because she was actually popular or anything.
She has a higher chance of losing than Biden. If we’re gonna axe the incubent, then you better open up some serious candidates, otherwise this will be a repeat of 2016 and no one will vote.
I think that’s fair though? If you bring in a new candidate for president, it’s only fair that they get to bring in their own team. I don’t mind Kamala, the ticket should be whoever makes the strongest pair and would want to work together
I’d prefer Buttigieg simply because he is such an effective communicator. Other than that I’d prefer someone much more leftist than him.
I’ll admit it, I don’t want her, either (not that someone like me has any influence). But she’d be a better option than Joe.
Especially if she picks the right VP. And please, for fucks sake, I hope they do a good job picking a VP. Don’t rule out cishet white males, as a for instance, FFS. The Democrats love to play stupid identity political games and constantly do these self-owns. Although if AOC has a clone they could choose as a VP, that would be fantastic. But that’s not because they tick some arbitrary set of diversity checkboxes…it’s about policies.
As damning as it is to the US, the best bet for winning is a good-looking, smooth-talking white guy who will look presidential when compared with Trump.
Gavin Newsom you say?
You know, I’m not picky. My primary requirement is must be able to win.
Under conventional rules he has the best fighting chance.
Jon Stewart. He adamantly opposes the suggestion he run, which is exactly what we need. He’s got decades of experience in global politics, he’s likeable, got name recognition. And to your suggestion he’s a smooth talking attractive white man
Being a comedian/activist is different than running a country, John Stewart has power outside the government and would be broken inside.
Have you noticed a worrying shake to his movements ever since he started back with the daily show?
A little bit of Palsy would help him fit right in with the octogenarian candidates
Dunno about him, but I did. I hope he’s okay, he’s a national treasure.
He’s got decades of experience in global politics
It’s hilarious that people genuinely believe this.
He made the right call on a whole bunch of foreign policy issues that the Very Experienced Professionals were assuring us they had a handle on. Just because he doesn’t have the relevant real skills, doesn’t mean the establishment candidates have any of it, either.
He made the right call on a whole bunch of foreign policy issues
You’re confusing setting actual foreign policy with heckling from the sidelines. Stewart wasn’t overseeing any US Departments or writing big policy whitepapers adopted by either of the parties. He was spitting jokes from a news desk in a 30 minute segment four days a week.
Just because he doesn’t have the relevant real skills, doesn’t mean the establishment candidates have any of it, either.
Whatever you might say about Biden’s policies (re: bellicose, economically ruinous, genocidal), he definitely has the skills to implement them. That’s a big part of the problem. If he was properly incompetent, a bunch of these nightmare programs wouldn’t be put into effect.
the best bet for winning is a good-looking, smooth-talking white guy
Oh no, they’re trying to run Beto O’Rourke again, aren’t they? Dude’s going to come out on a skateboard playing the guitar and lose by double digits.
It would be very in character for the democratic party to disarm the population right before the Republicans force through their fascist plans.
I’m voting for the administration that will keep democracy alive in our country.
And it’s 🔵🔵🔵
I will too, but my concern is that Harris won’t be able to excite the voting base.
My vote is secured - it’s whoever has a D next to their name… I’m worried that not enough democrats will turn out if we choose poorly.
Your concerns are valid, but the supreme court is being actively used for lawfare & some Washington backroom deal for the doner class outside of the norm for anyone else besides the republican party has double ungood chances for the switched candidate to succeed.
There is so much about donald’s project 2025 that isn’t known by average people. There will be no election for the democrats come 2028, only for MAGA if they get their way.
I’m worried black voters will not turn out in the needed numbers if they interpret skipping Kamala as the presumptive nominee to be a betrayal. I’m very concerned about a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario.
Biden has done a good job as President. I don’t love him as the nominee, but I’m afraid the chaos of him stepping down is going to create a no win scenario. Some folks think he is the no win scenario. If it’s truly impossible for us to put forward a candidate who can win, that’s not a problem we can pin on the other side - we did that to ourselves. And at the worst possible time for it.
The average black person cares way less about having a black president than the typical white Lemmy user assumes they do. Only the most off-the-rails liberals support allowing race to be a factor in hiring decisions. Hell - even far-left California outlawed affirmative action.
If you’re picking a president based on race, you are implicitly racist and therefore part of the problem.
Every black voter I’ve talked to (pretty limited, but enough) is asking “what did Biden do for us?” and that’s a valid question. Especially after the George Floyd priests, barely anything happened for the black community. And they’re already living under the oppression of what amounts to Project 2025.
She is spot on. Harris doesn’t make a better top of ticket.
Democrats to Harris:
Good. Kamala isn’t a great VP and is not especially popular.
Ugh. I agree that Kamala sucks, but I think it’d be a mistake to try to go with anyone else at this point. She has a pulse, a functional brain, lots of political experience, a long life ahead of her, and yeah, she’s made some terrible decisions and gaffs in her career, just like Joe Biden.
I don’t like that she was a cop, but Joe Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary committee for like 100 years, and got us Clarence Thomas, so…nobody has the moral high ground here.
We just need to win, and frankly I think if we try to go with someone new and untested, we’ll lose. We’ve been in a “lesser of two evils” situation for some time now.
Yep, I really do not like Harris, but in this context she’s the most realistic option and she’s slightly better than Biden on basically everything. Otherwise it becomes a battle against right-wing establishment democrats, and we have no more time for that really. Getting Biden out is hard enough.
If the party leadership goes with Kamala, we’d damned well better have a real primary in 2028.
Consider working towards passing electoral reform in your state so you can vote for something that is not evil, secure in the knowledge that your vote would still count for the lesser evil.
There’s weeks left to go 'til the convention, plenty of time to run an actual primary if the DNC wanted to.
Ideally, yeah, but think about the logistics of pulling something like that off. And would it be a full primary redo? Like fresh ballots sent out to all dems? Or do you mean a mini primary just with the existing delegates? Because we already voted in the Democratic primary election…
I’m just really trying to be pragmatic about this, I can’t imagine a scenario where we pull this off and come out stronger. I would love to be wrong.
If there is an actual primary, it will not be with actual voters, but amongst the named delegates (99% of whom are pledged to Biden and are obligated to vote for him of he is still in the race) and the superdelegates.
If we used Ranked choice voting, then we could simply switch to the next in line. That is, if the democrats would grace us with a primary.
Please sir, but a scrap of representative democracy.
Probly just the superdelegates choosing in secret, like they threaten too if they don’t like the public vote. If their going to only be Democratic when it’s convenient, they might as well as course correct. I am for replacing Biden, but if they are even talking about it now they best get a move on. Apathy is gaining ground every second they are not at the wheel.
Probly just the superdelegates choosing in secret, like they threaten too if they don’t like the public vote.
Feeling free yet?
Saying a month is “plenty” of time to plan and run any kind of election on a national level is so ridiculously out-of-touch I read it back like five times thinking maybe it was sarcastic. Off the top of my head there’s booking polling places, securing & training staff, voting machines, ballots that need to make their way through the entire supply chain starting all the way back at pre-production. Mail in ballots alone usually go out like a month ahead of time to compensate for issues with the mail.
At this point in time, there’s a higher probability of Superman flying around the world backwards to rewind time and correct the gunman’s aim to actually hit Trump at that rally than there is of the Democrats being able to successfully pull off a second primary in a month. And that’s not even to touch the “coming out stronger” piece of it, which again, no chance in hell that happens with the kind of chaos a second primary would cause.
People live in their fantasies, where national primary elections are just a cut and paste affair that takes two days to set up.
You know, they could be. But I agree right now they aren’t.
Personally, I don’t think it matters in this case. It’s not like we had a robust primary from the Dems this time around.
The idea that elections take years is an artifact of our broken news cycle. England can call for snap elections and install a new government just 25 days later, and that’s England.
England is also a much, much smaller country in terms of both size and population.
They have less GPD per capita too, but still manage it.
Um OK but surely they already have policy, processes, and infrastructure in place to successfully execute it within that time frame. There’s a big difference between being already set up for it and the Dems randomly deciding that they’re going to run another primary next week.
That sounds like the party’s problem.
They should spend some of Biden’s PAC money on it.
I guess the USA just can’t handle it. We must be pretty weak.
plenty of time to run an actual primary
Look at what a practical idea this is
As with other things e.g. Bernie Sanders as the nominee, there actually is a sensible option here, which is running a contested convention… it is highly notable to me that a lot of the people offering such constructive criticism on this topic are so studiously avoiding those sensible strategies when they are trying to “help”
I dunno, there are actually quite a few sensible and practical ideas in this thread, your thread, btw. Your post has elicited a good discussion, why throw shade on the people earnestly participating? If you actually want a contested convention, this thread is nothing compared to some of the wild shit that would go down in that scenario.
Because redoing the primary is an absurd idea
And I am, probably to an excessive and embittered degree, made cynical by the amount of open propaganda in and out of the media which is attempting to put out bad ideas on purpose to hurt the Democrats and help the fascists
And you’re not wrong. A contested convention would be a massive shit show which might doom the Democrats in the election irrevocably. But it might also produce a nominee with some kind of mandate, which would be nice. It would also be feasible to do, whereas holding another primary election would not.
But only Harris can keep the funds accumulated for Biden’s campaign, right? Wouldn’t make much sense to go for another candidate I think…
Given the source of most campaign financing in the USA, I’d actually prefer a candidate who refuses to touch PAC money.
“The only candidate I like is the one who has no chance of winning!”
Fucking leftists getting played like a fiddle by purity testing.
Yeah, “Purity testing” like asking for left candidates to actually be left and not just more center-right neoliberals.
You fuckers call everyone center-right. By your insane definition, the Democratic party is center right so you should stop demanding they put up a candidate that statistically no one in the country wants.
By your insane definition, the Democratic party is center right
That’s most of the world’s definition. America has a conservative party and a right-wing nutjob party.
If you don’t like facts, you’re going to hate it when I start pointing out policy differences between them and left-of-center parties. XD
I’m not confident how this stuff works, because it’s dumb as hell, but any PAC can do whatever they want, as long as they don’t directly coordinate with the campaign. The Biden-Harris PAC can just use their money to support whoever the Democrats choose I believe. It doesn’t have to be spent supporting either of them.
You’re right and I wish they would, but I have near zero faith in their willingnes, ability, and coordination.
I don’t think there time for an actual primary. I’d favor an open convention tbh.
I think someone like Newsom would be a better sell. Fact is, it’s a dangerous election and getting Republicans that don’t like trump very much to actually jump the fence a bit is going to be easier with a white man in his 50’s who isn’t too “extreme” of a leftist Democrat.
They could also choose someone from a swing state, too.
Who?
Gavin Newsom. California’s Governor.
Kamala and AOC would be a lit ticket. I still think we’re barreling towards another Reagan era victory by doing this. But that “medical emergency” + instant COVID was almost a sign from the universe.
In terms of quality I would prefer AOC/Kamala to Kamala/AOC, but neither combination is good for electability.
Aoc can’t run for president yet.
She’s 35 on October 13th. Fully qualified.
She’ll be old enough on election day and that’s all that matters.
Yes she can. Otherwise she couldn’t be VP.
VPs are usually picked to shore up an electoral weakness of the candidate in question. I don’t think adding a second brown woman to the ticket would make sense, much as I would personally love this.
You got a good point there. Its just, who else is palatable? Whitmer + AOC?
I think the VP for a woman or POC probably needs to be a boring white guy unfortunately. I think there’s still a lot of racism and sexism lurking beneath the surface in the US so you don’t want it to look like some kind of feminist or minority takeover.
The weakness this election cycle, for the dems, is the apathy of the base. In that context AOC would be a pretty solid choice.
Much as people on the left like to repeat this, I’m not sure it’s evident that this is the main weakness of the Democratic ticket. Even if true, you’d be solving one weakness by creating another.
But I’d be curious about polling on this, I could be wrong certainly. If Harris becomes the nominee, we might start to see some polling on VP picks.
The courts are bad now people think, wait till more seats are replaced.
People don’t understand what a big deal this is. Corrupting the trusted-by-tradition institutions like the courts is one way fascists can get the whole country in a chokehold.
Gunned down a bunch of BLM protestors? Eh, they were asking for it. Probation.
Climate change demonstration? 10 years
We’re already about 60% of the way there. It’s already happening that people are committing really major crimes and it’s okay if they’re on the right team.
VOTE
Harris has done so little I had to think for a second to remember what her name was. Other VP have really gotten coverage, like Pence or Gore. But Harris has really stayed mostly on the sidelines.
Well it’s risky either way. That said Kamala as vp was supposed to represent the “in case of emergency break glass” younger democrat - not too left, just neolib enough for the party, yet younger - that would step in if Biden’s age became an issue.
It’s now an issue and she didn’t play a role in reassuring the public, so…
