I’ll be honest, I’m a bit surprised by all the speculation about Biden dropping out. Everyone could see he was this bad, and presumably the people in Politicsball Media were more aware of it than the general public. But now they call for dropping out? Because it can’t be hidden from the general public anymore?
(Or it’s all just cynical plays for clicks by the media outlets and this will all blow over in a few weeks)
He was fine at state of union, he looked clearly acutely sick yesterday. Which if your 45 and lost your voice nobody cares but for him it amplifies age by 1000x. This may have been avoidable but also is genuinely unlucky too
I think this is like the time that Biden said that Laguardia is a third-world airport. Everybody knew that it sucked, but him saying it out loud from a position of authority helped crystalize public opinion, and eventually led to a complete rebuild of the airport.
It’s just this time he went on TV and said “I’m too old to work as a greeter at Walmart.”
i wouldnt call an 82 year old who has one of the most demanding jobs in the world getting sick unlucky, more like very expected
People in the politics media are way too close to things imo to be effective judges or prognosticators for what a particular candidate should do. On top of that, they have no incentive to write about what they actually think should happen. They like the horse race, it drives engagement.
Yeah I’ve been hanging my hat on that and genuinely believed that the “Biden cannot tie his own shoes” stuff was overblown. I still have not watched a second of the debate but it sure sounds like it’s worse than I thought it was (intentional willful ignorance on my part, I acknowledge), or at least it was last night.
It might just be that spending five decades as a politician has gotten Joe so comfortable reading from notes or a teleprompter that prepared speeches mask his true state. He was just slow last night. Soft spoken, rambling, forgetting words and losing whole trains of thought.
Didn’t watch it, haven’t read this yet, but everything I have heard this morning is bad for Biden.
Oh boy, you’re in for a treat!
I genuinely think he just had a cold, think my comment within 30sec of them coming on stage was the mic volumes were off but turned out he just couldn’t generate enough volume in his voice which isn’t typical for him, Rs given him hard time for yelling too much in past or at state union
If the media was really in the can for Biden they’d be covering it by saying he did “fine” or “as expected” and no one would care because only sickos actually watched it. The fact that they’re going with “Trump didn’t win but Biden lost and some people think he should drop out” is going to break through to people that wouldn’t have cared otherwise imo
This is the biggest danger in US politics because both the media and Bidens supporters are not in a cult they honestly evaluate him. On the other side there is nothing Trump can do to harm his support among his voters or media.
This asymmetry is a huge roadblock to progressive advancement.
I’d quibble a bit with the idea that Biden supporters honestly evaluate him–I think they’ve got some pretty rosy glasses too–but agree with the general point that right-ish media is much more Trump Cult-y than “left” (but actually centrist) media is Biden Cult-y
Where CNN and MSNBC are saying “Biden did terribly and Trump lied a lot”, Fox is just saying “Biden did terribly”
That’s the feeling I am getting. The general consensus towards non viewers is Biden lost badly.
Chatted with a guy while waiting at a bank today who wanted to practice English. I told him I support Biden and that the debate was a disaster and he said it was just that Biden had a cold. Brother-in-law (who speaks very little English) said same thing at dinner.
Maybe Chinese State Media is in the tank for Biden or something idk.
Obviously Biden’s age issues go well beyond having a sore throat but if he recovers and can sound like he did for the SOTU out in public soon I think it’s still far from over. There are an awful lot of reliable voters who primarily communicate with other old people and Trump isn’t winning back women voters.
I don’t really have a problem with this, primaries are a pretty shitty system for picking nominees and are a relatively recent phenomenon. they aren’t an inherent part of a functional democracy.
Yeah, they’re just doing it for ad revenue. Jusus man, get a fucking minimal grip on reality and try not to think in conspiracies.
Wait what conspiracy am I thinking in? My default position has basically always been that the media sucks and is full of shit and is just driven by clicks and $. Despite thinking that, I still have some surprise that this is what turned them on Biden and not all of his stumbles over the past few months years, because he seemed like the same person last night that he’s been depicted as in all of the viral clips that are allegedly doctored by right wingers or whatever.
my only issue with that is sure, we’ll all forget what was said. i don’t think people are gonna forget the optics.
If Biden doesn’t have another public appearance like this and the rest of the campaign he looks more like the guy from SOTU it will blow over, but it just seems unlikely. I have no confidence that we’re going not going to see this version of Biden again because it’s not like he got caught off guard, the debate had planning and preparation, even rules that favored him.
Trump did exactly what he was expected to do so there’s no reason Biden should not have been on his game unless there’s something we don’t know about that justifiably thew him off.