Not that I’m suggesting that this was intentional or that he did right to wait, but there are a few upsides. Trump and the Republicans were fully prepared and frothing to take on that blubbering old man from that last debate, but now they’re actually going to make a case for Trump over a (hopefully) real contender. And many Democrat voters went from feeling defeated and apathetic, potentially enough to not even bother voting, to being charged with a second chance and a (again, hopefully) more exciting candidate to support. If Biden had declared his intention not to run again before the primaries, the Republicans would have had much longer to prepare and pick apart someone who wasn’t such an easy target, and Dems would have been infighting over the nuances of a dozen candidates and pissed off at each other. And, if Harris is the presumptive nomination, for better or worse, the knee jerk reaction from the Right will probably be to play up the racist and sexist angles, which should drive moderates away from the right, not away from Harris.
It’s all conjecture, but I only see this as a net positive compared to where we were yesterday.
More importantly imo: it put Biden and the Dems in the news and overshadowed the attempted assassination. Which kept its new cycle short and put the dems back on top. Trump hates being out of the news, and was right that the media wants him back because they loved the numbers he provided. The DNC should make a circus out of this to keep it in the news and with constant breaking news events. It’s stupid, and I hate it, but it would help them win.
I mean, 5d chess if true.
but that would be a dangerous, stupid game - and we know they would never do that, right? right?
agreed, never should have tried for the second bite.
however… dems now have an opportunity to own the news cycle from here until the election. if they do even a halfway decent job, we start trending from “narrow loss” -> “political landslide”.
I don’t think all the messaging in the world can fix the reality that Biden hasn’t improved material conditions of the people who voted for him in 2020, or even gone to the mat fighting for them.
The only things he’s really gone around congress or the SCOTUS for is to deny more asylum seekers and give more weapons to Israel and Ukraine.
He absolutely has. We’re getting public transit built out. Caps on overdraft fees. Capped the price of insulin. Invalidated most non-compete clauses. Oh, and he didn’t encourage his supporters to attack the Capitol Building and hang Mike Pence.
Oh, and he didn’t get a bunch of Americans killed by Covid because he cared more about the stock market than people.
I’d also like to see Ukraine not fall to Russia.
That’s just what I can name of the top of my head. He was a better president than Obama.
the current reality is not the future reality - thats their sell, basically obama “hope-ishness”. personally, I think it can work to keep trump out of office. this is a generational moment and the dems have it on their side.
so, with luck, we get to reject trump and, depending on the turnout, watch where progressives settle around.the seat of power.
between the dems and republicans, they have whittled down progressive representation, but its still there.
