OK, so, first of all, you gotta stop with the historical parallels, man. There just aren’t any. No one this old ever ran before. Carter wasn’t sundowning during Kennedy’s challenge. If there had been a real primary, then everything that happened during the Trump debate happens a little earlier; Biden shows a severe level of cognitive decline, the entire country goes, “Holy shit, this guy’s trying to sign up for another 4 years?” and we get a new candidate. We know it’s what would have happened in the primary because it’s what did happen in the general.
Second, you’re right, they never would have let Bernie win. My point wasn’t that Bernie would win, but that Biden only won his first primary because they coordinated around him to beat Bernie. They might have been able to win the general if there had been a primary challenger that could at least fake a progressive agenda like Obama did, but we’ll never know.
OK, so, first of all, you gotta stop with the historical parallels, man.
Hence why I also pointed out approval rating, and how Carter had a lower one then Biden and they still let him go again, and how Trump’s was dogshit and he still got the nod too. Unless you’re going to also say candidate approval rating somehow also “doesn’t count”, in which case we may as well stop wasting each others time because we’re clearly never going to see eye to eye on this.
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what point you’re even trying to make anymore. Your original point seemed to be, “Yes, we did have a real primary,” and when I pointed out that no one considers what happened in 2024 a legitimate primary your point became, “Well, they would have given it to him anyway, like they did for Carter.” That would seem to invalidate your original point, but it doesn’t really matter, because as I said twice, Carter wasn’t hiding severe cognitive decline from his primary opponent. Now you want to talk about approval ratings while again hiding from that fact.
So, one more time; explain to me how Biden gets through the scrutiny of a primary campaign, with real challengers, without everyone seeing his cognitive decline? Why wouldn’t the thing that forced him off the ticket at the 11th hour force him off the ticket during a primary? Explain it to me or don’t reply.