I don’t want voters to feel ashamed, I want them to feel empowered, and I want them to accept the responsibility that comes along with that power. If we are more thoughtful in our choices, and if we do our due diligence as voters, we give party organizations, like the DNC, less power over us.

None of this prevented democratic primary voters from voting for a younger candidate. The voters still had the opportunity and the agency to make a different choice.

Rigged how? Did the DNC falsify vote counts? Stuff ballot boxes?

I wasn’t given any input into it.

Sure you were, as was everyone else who was eligible to vote in the 2020 primary. That’s the “we” in this scenario. Anyone who could do simple math knew how old Biden would be in 2024, yet a majority of those who voted picked him anyway.

We made our bed, now we gotta sleep in it.

I think it’s a very good thing that the European member nations are taking greater accountability for NATO, since greater than 90% of the member nations are European.

It’s so nice to be leaving another historic, traumatic crisis and entering another depressing normal, where we get to live out our tedious, soul crushing lives while we await the next crisis.

Did take companies long to stop pretending like they care.

I think they care, I just think they care more about maximum profits. A lot of people believe that maximizing profits and meeting our climate goals are not incompatible goals. Personally, I’m skeptical, to say the least. Regardless of my skepticism, however, the world’s leaders, many of the world’s experts, and most people have decided we should proceed as though the two goals are not mutually exclusive. I guess only time will tell if they’re right or not.

Lots of people just don’t vote if they don’t like their options.

Do you think those voters like their options now?

See, this confuses me. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I mean there must be a reason Biden came out on top in the 2020 primaries, but all the time liberals tell me they would vote for a houseplant over Donald Trump. Literally any Democratic candidate would pass the test of not being Trump, so why couldn’t any candidate win?

Obama and John McCain, or Obama and Mitt Romney, I think were all considered pretty respectable by most Americans, especially compared to our current options.

It’s about responding to somewhat opposing public safety concerns. As someone else pointed out in this thread, when protestors are allowed to wear masks they are more likely to commit illegal acts, even violent ones. SARS-CoV-2 is no longer a novel virus. There is now significant immunity in the population and our COVID treatments are much improved, meaning the virus no longer constitutes a public health emergency.

Trying to demonize one option because you don’t think it’s perfect is just muddying the waters and subjecting us to decades of more of the shit sandwich we have now while we debate which alternative is flawless (hint: none of them are).

I really have been quite surprised over the past eight years or so by how opposed so many people are to any kind of change. I suppose it’s because the status quo is working well enough for them, and, I mean, good for them, but I hope they can recognize that not all of us are so lucky.

I really don’t think it would work at this point, but if I were to pick someone to replace Biden it wouldn’t be Gavin Newsom, it would be Andy Beshear. But that’s just it, this country is so divided we can’t find a consensus candidate.

Float a candidate under 60 and they win riotous support from Democrats and undecideds.

But who would that be? Do you remember the 2020 primaries? They started out with 29 candidates, the most since the modern primaries began back in 1972, and several of them were under 60, including Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, and Kamala Harris. Only Pete Buttigieg won any delegates (29 out of a possible 3,979). The Democrats have had many years to find a younger candidate who could unify the party. No such candidate has emerged, that I’m aware of, and so Biden, at 81 years old and showing signs of rapid cognitive decline, ran essentially unopposed in this year’s primaries.

The Constitution mandates a maximum of two terms for a President. If he wins, he can’t run again.

I know, I didn’t mean to imply that the Democrats would try to run Biden again, only that they might try to run a similarly “weak” candidate in 2028, believing that the American people will vote for the candidate simply because they are Democrat and not Republican. I think that would be a mistake.

Is it really feasible to replace Biden at this point? I didn’t watch the debate last night but from what I’ve heard it was not good for Biden. Nonetheless, I think Biden remains the Democrats’ best option. They’re just going to have to rely on the electorate recognizing that Biden is still the better of the two choices, as pathetic as that reality may be. However, even if that strategy is somehow successful, again, and Biden does manage to get reelected, the Democrats MUST nominate a better candidate in 2028. I don’t think the Democrats can continue with their strategy of just being better than terrible, indefinitely.

Most Americans plan to watch the Biden-Trump debate

Why?

Why did anyone watch this debate? Were you expecting to learn something new? Are you on the fence and hoping this would help you make up your mind? I mean, the Trump people are going to vote for Trump, and the Biden people are going to vote for Biden, regardless, so it seems like a complete waste of time.

I never claimed that any poll authoritatively proved “how everyone in the U.S. felt before Pearl Harbor.”