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this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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People who follow polling have been saying this since December.
Liberals on Lemmy like to live in a self-deluded bubble where their blind support for Biden means he stands a chance in November. The fact is he basically can't win with his stance on Gaza. He's not exactly doing great in other regards, but he literally can't win if he doesn't about face.
If he can't win with the policy position, and he won't change the policy position, your only option as a voter is to take your vote elsewhere. Democrats lose the election if they stick with Biden.
Its not too late. We haven't had a convention. Everything can still change. Larger mountains have been moved. If enough likely-Democratic voters show they won't vote for Biden with this position, we can move him, but you have to voice your position now while there is still time for him to pivot.
Likewise, going into the convention, if Biden was smart and cared about the future of our democracy, he could assign his delegates to another candidate. This would allow Biden to bear the burden of the Israeli genocide as being enabled through his foreign policy, allowing the rest of the Democrats to pivot to a policy position that actually sets them up to win in November.
Here is an article from January that explains it:
It wouldn't be that different if he suddenly croaked (which is a real possibility for an octogenarian.). Effectively the delegates would go to the convention unpledged, and the decision gets made at the convention.
Smartest move politically would be for Biden to step down now and designate a successor. Its what he should have done instead of running again, but by continuing to run a non-viable candidate, Democrats are giving blue ocean for Trump to win.
Its not gonna happen. Its going to be Hillary Pt 2, and within a month we'll be hiding minorities in our basements from the democracy officers. They're gonna run Biden.
Idk. They've been trotting out Kamala plenty. I'll take her over Biden any-day. Whenever I need a quick pick me up, I just head over to the Social Security Administration website, who provides actuarial tables that include the probability of death within the next year at various ages. According to the 2019 actuarial life table from the SSA, the probability of dying within the next year for someone who is exactly 80 years old is approximately:
We're about halfway through the year. So maybe a 3.5% chance he just croaks and Kamala becomes the defacto nominee?
Would she garner enough votes to beat Trump? I highly doubt that. I don't really care for Biden either. Doesn't matter what you're doing for student loans if you're also supporting a genocide. But no one is going to be our white Knight. I'm calling it now, the only good ending here in reality is voting in Biden and then changing to ranked choice voting. If Trump is supposedly beating Biden by a landslide, then everyone else is already in the dirt. Because Democrats are actually countless types of Leftists and centrists and the right has 2 types; villains and fucking idiots.
Maybe. I'm not sure she's been distant enough from Biden to be able to ditch the baggage he's accumulated with his stance on Israel, but I do think she would be performing better.
I think whoever gets the nomination and isn't dead yet in November gets the "any blue will do crowd". These make up the core of liberals, centrists, and brand name right-wing democrats. That's probably around 85-90% of the votes the Democratic nominee will need to win.
The cohort they are missing right now are the leftist/ activist/ anti-war section of the party, which is small, but significant. These are your "uncommitted" votes (20% in MI, just saw 10% in MD). The issue with losing this cohort is that they are the 'multiplier' cohort. They volunteer on campaigns, donate, organize, etc.
The biggest issue Democrats are facing right now is engagement.
Check out the results from Maryland (taking it because its the most recent primary).
Maryland is a good test bed because in both elections, both Trump and Biden were the defacto nominee (as before).
In 2020, 1,050,773 voters came out to vote in the Democratic primary (this was after Biden was the defacto nominee, June 1).
In 2024, this is what we're looking at:
Joe Biden 524,968 87.3
Uncommitted 58,016 9.6
Marianne Williamson 11,245 1.9
Dean Phillips 7,302 1.2
So a total of about 601531 votes so far with 90% of votes counted. So round it out to probably about 650k Democrats voting in MD's primary.
In 2020, Trump got 295,787 votes with 340k total votes being cast. In 2024 Donald Trump as gotten 208,754 votes with a total of about 280k expected to be cast.
Trump got 84.5 of 2020's primary votes, and looks like he'll get about 70% of 2024's primary votes. For Republicans, they've seen about a 18% drop in voter engagement in this primary from 2024.
In 2020, Biden got 880k or about 88% of the total votes cast for Democrats. In 2024 it looks like he'll be getting 87% of the votes again. "Uncommitted" has taken the place of Bernie Sanders this election cycle, with about 9% of the vote. However, Democrats are seeing a 40% drop in voter engagement this election cycle, dropping from about a million people voting in a forgone conclusion in 2020, to about 600k people voting in a forgone conclusion in 2024.
And that right there is the rub. If you push out the activist left of the party, who is out there signing up people to vote? Who is phone banking? Who is rallying their community to participate?
Democrats could probably suffer a protest vote from the left. But they can't suffer without what the left brings to the table, which is other people to vote.
It keeps coming back to the same thing.
Biden isn't running against Trump. He's running against himself. If Biden can't get out of his own way in regards to policy, he can't do this thing.
In regard to Kamala; I think if Biden can carry the sin of the foreign policy disaster that supporting Israel has been, I think she gets over the top. It really comes down to if she can distance herself sufficiently in regards to this specific issue and I'm not sure she can.
I agree with the analysis of Biden being an unwinnable candidate, but I really think the stain that he's put on the Democratic party is too deep now to convince the critical portion you identify as needing to come back in time. You'd have to see a near-unified front of popular DNC figures (read: Obama), respected social democrats (Bernie, Warren), party leaders, mainstream media sources (primarily MSNBC and CNN) and most of congress providing rebukes of positions and stances they've been vehemently screaming about for 7 months at this rate while directly throwing Biden under the bus in an attempt to pin all of this on Biden. Also many of these people have provided direct condemnations of the people they need to build their ground game. They're trying to build their ground game through hiring- I don't think this will work.
I see neither the party will (at the DNC level- they seem happily delusional that this will either all blow over or people will fall in line; they don't understand this is a turnout battle), it's main messaging apparatus (MSNBC, CNN), nor its elected representatives really even being willing to go along with the replacement plan. The only hope I think democrats have is Biden dying (which you've also identified). I additionally think he's about poisoned electoral politics as the primary societal vehicle of change to a large contingent of millennials and an even larger portion of Gen Z.
100% on both points. Its why I'm now effectively arguing for a yet identified 3rd party candidate. I think Jon Stewart could win. And to your second point, spending on elections has become utterly detached from outcomes. If everything is advertising, then nothing is advertising. You can't buy elections with ad-dollars any more. Grass roots organizing works because you create evangelists by empowering them to do your work for you. Bernies approach started in 2015 is still paying dividends. The approach has staying power. I think even if Biden goes ass over tea kettle, if the next nominee doesn't pivot, they also will not win.
Now to oppose this point.. It looks like Trump might end up being a convicted felon and possibly in jail? I mean this truly is a race to the bottom in terms of voter disenfranchisement. I don't know what this does to his chances. I don't know if Romney throws his hat in the race at that point. Maybe DeSantis hops back in? Hell Trump could suffer a massive heart attack any moment with the stress he's under. What happens then?
There are still a lot of unknowns this far out. But its clear to me that Democrats have destroyed the Democratic party for decades to come. If we can survive this cycle, its time to build that third party out of millennials and GenZ
The thing that doesn't make sense is protesting Biden's support for Israel by voting for Trump, given that he and the Republicans would be even more enthusiastic for Israel's actions. But even people not voting leaves the Democrats with a problem, since Republicans will vote no matter what.
You are just conflating two things with that.
They sure do. But its not the voters job to fix that. And brow-beating people into 'any blue will do', when that very approach to strategic voting is demonstrated to not be working (see Joe Bidens poll numbers; any of the detailed polling on formerly/ likely Biden voters) is antithetical towards your goals, if defeating Trump is your goal. So you have to make a decision if stopping Trump or electing Biden is your goal. Its been evident since December it seems you'll have to choose between the two.
Joe Biden isn't a viable candidate at this point. He hasn't been since December; its just that liberals are only coming around to realizing it now. The reason he hasn't moved on Gaza is that he didn't think he needed to. Any blue will do was, as you parroted, is the mantra democrats and liberals have been trained to speak. The problem is that's not going to do this election cycle, and by continuing with that rhetorical strategy, its actually making the situation worse. Every day that goes by, the situation gets worse and worse for Biden.
Like, you are in a race to get to town. You have the choice between a non-working car (Biden) and a bicycle. The bike is slower, and you may be less likely to win on it (but you might have a chance if you can beat some lights and take some short cuts). The car isn't running any more. It was running, but its driver drove it into the ditch by refusing to make a turn while there was still time.
Its not themselves democrats have to convince in this election, its everyone else that keeps getting ignored by the democratic party. But once again, they're convinced that people are just 'obligated' to voting for them, but that has been demonstrated to be a failed electoral strategy (Clinton, 2016). Americans have shown that as voters they will not just toe the line. And brow-beating/ shaming has the opposite effect. The democrats in particular take an incessantly pejorative approach to their rhetoric. In the US, today, you have to go get voters. They aren't going to just 'come' to you. Which means you need to change your position if you want to do get elected. If Biden can't or won't do that, he's a broken down car. You're better off hopping on your bike and getting peddling.
This exactly. Dems are trying to lose