Sure, I’d welcome Biden changing my mind on this.

I think it’s a little alarming that his last international travel was almost two weeks pre-debate and that left him tired enough to perform badly. And by badly, I mean the worst debate performance I’ve seen ever, and I’ve been watching since Bush/Kerry. I also don’t think it bodes well that he hasn’t yet done any big interviews or press conferences to show that it really was just a fluke, which seems like a fairly easy thing to do if he really is actually fine. I would feel much better about his odds of beating Trump if he could start reliably doing public speaking at a similar quality to what he displayed in 2020, which remains to be seen a whole week later.

The difference is that Biden has markedly declined from previous performances. He spent most of that night stumbling, mumbling, and struggling to speak clearly, none of which is his stutter, because a stutter is a very specific speech impediment. He was downright difficult to understand on average, and flat out unintelligible at worst. Even when he got riled up, like with the losers and suckers remark, it sounded like he was having trouble forming word sounds accurately, like he has dysarthria. Even in carefully curated campaign material, like asking for donations, he sounds out of breath and like he’s struggling to speak clearly.

I think the part where he finally beat medicare is the best example.

https://youtu.be/i3eYmc1AkMs?si=RJkeAb7gwN_TJOSG

I would gladly have Trump drop out. It won’t happen. Trump is running to save his own ass. For my part, I have grave doubts about Biden’s ability to win that have been building for a few months but came sharply into focus during the first minute of that debate.

I keep seeing this sentiment, and it boggles me. Last season’s winning horse just debuted this season with a huge limp, and the response from some people has been “it’s fine, stop panicking, we’ll win if we just keep betting on it.”

Oh? Have they fixed the game? Can I live out my urbanist day dreams in CS2 yet? How is the public transit infra in CS2?

He knows, but the thing is that the Democrats are about as afraid of fascism as you are gasoline in your car. They use the threat of fascism to help scare people to the polls and to donate money, which is partly why they never seem to be in a big hurry to squash it. Problem being, of course, that people eventually get fear fatigue and stop paying attention. Kinda like how in the wake of 9/11, the government would announce terror threat levels, and they were always orange or red, indicating super double plus serious danger, and eventually people stopped caring because life must go on. Well, people get fatigued of it and then the fascists win again, which provides another big, though temporary, shot of support to the democrats. Meanwhile, the democrats don’t have to make any real, serious campaign or policy commitments besides “don’t be fascist”. Everything else they do (and don’t get me wrong, they do some good stuff sometimes) is just running up the score. So, for the centrist democrats that run the DNC and Biden campaign, this feels like a pretty good Wednesday for fundraising, even though we all see it as the literal end of the Republic. They’ve been walking on the ice so long, they’re convinced that while it is thin, they couldn’t possibly fall through.

Oh man, I can’t wait to see Biden use his Forbidden Technique: Death God Summoning attack to seal them both away.

The dark Brandon stuff is 98% fluff, talk, and meme. Biden has already said that they’re going to take the high road on the presidential immunity matter. So, we’re going to high road all the way to fascism while waiting for Biden to do the meme.

That’s fair. I’m more addressing a narrative that emerged within 48hrs of the debate that the debate prep team irresponsibly overworked Biden

I think that it isn’t unrealistic for the Biden campaign to transition to the Kamala campaign, or Whitmer campaign, or Newsom campaign etc etc. and recycle much of extent infrastructure there. It just requires Biden to do what’s right for the country and hand over the keys.

From the article:

Biden did make several trips in the weeks leading up to the debate. On June 13, the president joined other leaders for the Group of Seven summit in Apulia, Italy. Two days later, he flew to Los Angeles for a celebrity-filled fundraiser alongside former President Barack Obama, where his campaign said he raised at least $28 million, per a report from Politico.

Reuters reported that Biden headed to Camp David on June 21 to begin debate prep six days before he took the stage. White House aides who traveled with the president told Reuters that Biden was “in a good mood” on his way to prepare.

So, let me get this straight. Two-ish weeks before the debate, he travelled to Europe to visit our allies for two days. Then he visits LA for a day. Then, a week before the debate, he goes to Camp David to prepare. And that’s the strenuous schedule that made him almost fall asleep on stage? And that’s supposed to make me feel better? I read another article where it went into a little more detail and said that they didn’t even start debate prep until 11 am each day at Camp David, and included scheduled time for an afternoon nap, so it’s not exactly like they were working him like a rented mule. This makes it seem so much worse, imo. The president has to do a lot more strenuous stuff than debates, and if he’s worthless for weeks after two days of travel, that doesn’t bode well for the coming campaign season.

SIMA nuts

Since we were on the topic of Deez nuts

Use more periods, it’s free and the cops can’t stop you.

I have been voting, reliably, including in primaries and midterms, since Obama I. Somehow, mysteriously, we’ve arrived at this place where our last best hope of staving off full tilt Christian fascism for the next four years is probably too senile to be a night clerk at a gas station, which would tick me off a lot less if the democrats had been a little bit responsible and groomed Kamala as a successor or been a little more honest than letting people find out in the first presidential debate. I don’t want these assholes to win, pal. I’ll be fine, but lots of people won’t, and I’m not about that. For my part, I’m not comfortable sleepwalking into Christian Fascism because it offends mainstream Democrat sensibilities.

I’ve been voting reliably, including in midterms, since Obama I, so I don’t feel too bad about talking shit. Straight up, Biden surprised me positively quite a few times during his presidency. I’m a HUGE fan of what he and Pete have done to help revive rail infrastructure in the US. The genocide weighs, very, very heavily for me, such that I’d eagerly vote for a realistic alternative, but I recognize that Trump will make that situation far, far worse. All that said, my chief concern at this point is can Biden keep Trump out, and I have grave doubts about that.

AOC would be old enough by the inauguration IIRC, and I don’t personally think Newsom has too much baggage. What, specifically, does Newsom have as baggage besides the high crime of being governor of CA? As for Gore… Yeah, I feel like his concession was the first time this fascist bullshit was heavily rewarded at the federal level, but in his defense, I don’t think anyone understood the gravity of the situation at the time, USPol still had an air of respectability. Sure, I’d go for Stewart, as long as he could answer effectively about his SIMA policies.

And then took it back two days after the election. I wonder what James Comey makes of himself in hindsight.

She stood for the corporatist democrats. Hillary is, in my mind, the very avatar of the corporatist democrats. I will never forget Bernie going to attent picket lines while Hillary was attending $10,000/seat dinners. I ended up holding my nose and voting for her in the end, because a shitty Democrat on their worst day is still better than Trump. Anyway, I voted for her, so all this high minded “she was right” rhetoric just pisses me off even worse, tbh.

Banging the drum of “why is the DNC throwing its full weight behind a garbage candidate and then shaming people for not being excited?” Or, more succinctly, “why, in the face of fascism, is the DNC sending us its worst candidates?” Hillary was wildly unpopular, everybody knew it, including the HRC campaign, which is why they worked with media organizations to promote Trump, because they figured they had their best chances against him. Biden didn’t exactly get anyone excited, especially when he showed up to the first primary debate looking half dead. Now we’ve got Biden again, who seems to put off the vibe that he’d struggle just with activities of daily living, much less running the country, and that’s the best the democrats can do to save us from straight up unironic fascism?! Are you fucking kidding me?

How about Newsom? He’s no flaming radical, and while he does have baggage from California, he’s a competent and well-spoken politician who’s used to an executive office. AOC? I’d go for fighting fascism with a (at least for USPol) “flaming radical”. I’ll fucking take Al Gore at this point. I’ll fucking take Vermin Supreme, and he’s more progressive than Obama was on gay rights. More seriously, I know there was somebody that I read up on, liked, and voted for in the CA primary, but I don’t recall their name and I don’t think they’d be a good fit because they’d be a real nobody. I honestly think Newsom, AOC, or a (politically) resurrected Al Gore would be among the better candidates, if only for name recognition.

No, you. I’ve been beating this drum since 2016 and “I get it, but now now” has always been the answer, and it was the answer in Obama II when we wanted codified gay marriage rights and more. If you’ve always just missed the boat, one starts to wonder if the boat was ever in the port to start with. And I think we both know the answer to that.

No amount of dithering about the conditions of things just now is going to change the fact that the candidate fucking sucks and, realistically, has not great chances of beating the bastard that wants to start having military tribunals for his political opponents. Biden has been looking and sounding pretty rough for the last six ish months, at least, and that debate performance was just the most pitiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been watching the debates since Bush/Kerry, including Biden’s previous performances, and I’ve never seen a candidate perform so badly. On average, Biden was barely intelligible, and at worst he rebooted on stage and beat medicare. And that was not his stutter, we have previous debate performances to reference that can show that well enough. He would get sent home from helping people pay for their car wash, he is not up to the fucking job and everyone knows it. The last ten years have been pretty fucking stupid, but this is taking it to a new level.