Biden introduces Zelenskiy as ‘President Putin’ at Nato summit

roboto@feddit.org to World News@lemmy.world – 468 points –
Biden introduces Zelenskiy as ‘President Putin’ at Nato summit
theguardian.com

Did he do it for the memes?

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I remember when Biden was picked as Obama's VP, and everyone laughed because he's known to make gaffes like this.

Obviously, there's a lot of scrutiny on him, but let's not pretend it's all because he's too old. It's just Biden being Biden, and while he's probably too old for the job, that's what happens when you don't impose upper age limits...

It's not just "biden being biden" by a longshot. He is 81 and significantly worse.

We are rightly worried he's going to lose against trump.

As if Trump doesn't make those kinds of verbal blunders.

His voting base doesn’t care if they’re led by an unfit leader.

Be better than them.

The choices are

  • Be "better" and help Trump win, or
  • Help Trump lose

Seems like an easy choice to me.

Even as a vegetable, Biden's administration wouldn't let the country fall into a kleptocracy. And that's enough for me.

Letting the country fall into a kleptocracy is exactly what Biden and his democratic party handlers are doing with their insistence of "nothing would fundamentally change" by pushing through the weakest presidential candidates and placing the status quo over actual progress.

It is not nearly so binary. This issue is complex and intertwining - think rocket science where to get more thrust you need more fuel, but adding more fuel adds more weight, so you need even more thrust... that's mere child's play compared to politics.

For one thing, replacing Biden now may help Trump win, but it may also help Trump lose, whereas in contrast NOT replacing Biden now may help Trump lose, or it could help Trump win.

And somehow, we're all back to everything Everything, EVERYthing being all about Trump, all the time.:-( Democracy has had cracks in it forever, especially when mixed with capitalism, and he exposes all of those.

replacing Biden now may help Trump win, but it may also help Trump lose, whereas in contrast NOT replacing Biden now may help Trump lose, or it could help Trump win.

Either that quote doesn't really mean anything, or maybe I'm missing the nuance to it.

Both action or inaction may either increase or lessen the likelihood of either outcome. Hence why politics is more complex than rocket science - think quantum entanglement.

Turning the thermostat up will either cool the house or warm it. Turning the thermostat down will either warm the house or cool it.

Touching the thermostat will either cool the house or warm it. Leaving the thermostat alone (aka, not touching it) may also allow the house to become warmer or cooler than it is now (you know, bc weather).

Fyi this is asynchronous communication - you are allowed to spend more time thinking before speaking, if you don't understand something.

The voters can't replace Biden, and as I've mentioned in another comment, they're not making these decisions blindly. They've likely come to the conclusion that replacing Biden would cost more votes than it'd gain. Right or wrong, they're not going in blindly.

All the voters can do is vote. And realistically, on election day, a vote not made for Biden is a vote in Trump's favour.

If you're okay with that, that's your decision. But I believe Trump has said that if it were up to him, the genocide would've been "completed" by now.

The voters couldn't even practically choose anyone other than Biden in that sham of a primary. People were warning about Biden since long before the primary and yet democratic party leadership decided they knew better than the voters and forced him through. Now you're blaming their fuck up on voters.

You don't know for a fact that it is a fuck up.

You (should) know for a fact that, if you consider Trump getting elected to be a fuck up, that not voting for Biden would be a fuck up because it'd be helping Trump win.

We can see the fuck up in motion right now as the democratic party runs around with their hair on fire. What should be a slam dunk election is in doubt (and wasn't even clear before the debate) because the candidate is that weak, just like how Trump should have been easy to win against in 2016 but they forced through Hillary and we've been living through this nightmare ever since.

The general election isn't for another four months. That is the time to STFU and vote. Although who are we kidding, >90% of people live somewhere where their votes barely matter if at all - maybe, maybe helping Trump voters see that Biden's re-election is "real", but otherwise every city will vote Dem and every rural area will vote Repub and there's like 10 counties that will determine the course of the entire world for the foreseeable future. Btw I'm not worried about either me or you, but I am worried about the independents in those 10 counties.

Our news media is out for blood, like sharks in the water. Right or wrong, or left or whatever, they don't care, they smell PROFIT to be made by ruthlessly making fun of every tiny thing that Biden will do from now on. We ignore this at our peril - I'm not saying that I take evil glee from this horrid fact, merely that this inconvenient truth should be accounted for. We can bow before facts, or we can be crushed by them in turn - but either way, we will have to reconcile with them. The choice is whether we do so before, and use them to turn the situation to our advantage as best we can, or whether we wake up some day later wishing that we had done so previously. Exactly like 2016 with Hillary, or like that other time with RBG, but this time there will be no second chances, bc this at least looks to be our last election. Maybe second to last, possibly with yet another interspersal of another Dem, but there are no guarantees for such - Trump has already declared his intentions to become a dictator, and SCOTUS has already made it legal for him to do so.

And in the midst of all of this, with the stakes higher than they've ever been for our little democracy experiment... Biden, well, "has a cold". Okay then, so hype up on crack, cocaine, or whatever you need to do, just get it done, or move aside and let Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg or AOC or Gretchen Whitmer or whoever take the lead. This is not the time to be playing authoritian games with our literal democracy at stake. BuT hE's OuR lEaDeR? Then LEAD. He's old - it's not his fault, but the Democratic primary choosing him would be our fault.

I agree that they had some kind of strategy in place. It relied on deception. It failed. Now that the cat is out of the bag, and we all saw what has been happening with our very own eyes and heard it with our very own ears, the strategy of telling everyone "he's fine, you don't see it but behind closed doors everything is totally fine, I totally have a girlfriend, you don't know her bc she goes to another school, in fact she's in Canada, but we are totally happy together... t-t-totally, yeah!" - this approach (!?!), is backfiring.

People are tire of being lied to. They won't vote. Trump now has a greater likelihood of winning. That's... no bueno.:-( Maybe we should do something about it? Something other than simply saying "what are you going to do?", before it's too late and nothing is all that can be done, as it gets even later in the game. It might be time to update the strategy, to fit the new set of updated facts. Otherwise, we roll the dice and hope for the best - but now is our last chance to affect change, if we really do want to see Trump not win?

Not to mention Mega donors publicly stating that debate Biden is the Biden they got at donor events. The curtain has been well and truly pulled back.

Two thirds of democratic voters want him gone

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Personally I've been pleasantly surprised at how well he's done, and think the media has been terribly unfair to him. However, that was then, and this is now... and if those two issues combined work together to get Trump elected, that won't be good for the nation, or the world.

All the voters can do is vote.

And protest, and contact representatives, and organize, and join their local party... Again with the national party lines meant to make people disengage.

Yes, you're right. There is more they can do to influence things. But on election day, only the vote truly counts.

No. This is an either/or fallacy the DNC has been pushing for over a year to quell any dissent. Well the chickens have come home to roost. We can apply pressure to change the candidate. That's an option. We do not have to have either Trump or Biden and nothing else.

It's interesting to see all the pro-Trump accounts suddenly change their talking points to "Biden should step down." It makes you wonder...

Oh joy. That's a new one. Nobody has ever called me a pro Trump person for attempting to remind people that there are other options. Never before.

Just kidding. This is exactly how we got here. People like you bullying anyone that dares talk about Biden having electability issues. It was too effective and now we're in this dumb position that could have been avoided so easily.

The top comment in this thread is "yeah Biden might be a vegetable, but vote blue no matter who."

How exactly are lefties any better? Your leader is losing his mind, clearly not fit to lead the country, but you'll back him anyway.

Biden and the Dems are right wing?

Leftists don’t support them. “Centrists” do.

People aren't going to vote for Trump over Biden, they are just going to sit out. America doesn't have mandatory voting.

If those people are fine with Trump being president, then that's on them. Sitting out instead of voting against Trump is helping Trump win.

You can blame them if you want, but the original push is from Biden and the DNC's failures and support for genocide.

The point is, Biden is tanking, so swapping him is better. Defending Biden hurts DNC chances.

support for genocide

The same genocide that Trump supports, likely more than Biden?

If the genocide in Palestine was someone's single issue, they'd be pretty disappointed if Trump were making decisions about the Palestine...

People aren't voting for Trump, they just won't for Biden. America isn't a mandatory voter country, so actively contributing to genocide hurts the DNC's chances by disengaging voters, not by flipping them to Trump.

Not voting for Biden helps Trump win

Replacing Biden helps Trump lose.

That isn't guaranteed. And the voters don't really have any control over that.

True. They could replace Biden with Clinton.

The voters lack of control is the main reason we are in this mess. Only 14m people chose Biden in the primary.

I agree with you there.

I'm also (obviously) against the genocide.

I just think Trump would be worse in every way, including regarding the genocide (and other potential future genocides and/or wars).

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Yep, so the DNC should replace Biden and appeal more to their voters.

Maybe it'd appeal more to you. But they've likely done their research and figured that they'd lose more votes from swapping him out.

They could be right or wrong, but they're not making these decisions blindly.

Maybe it'd appeal more to you. But they've likely done their research and figured that they'd lose more votes from swapping him out.

Then this is their tactical choice to sacrifice voters that would vote for the DNC if he was swapped out, and the blame lies on the DNC, not the voters.

No, because the voters still have a choice to vote.

There's no guarantee that swapping candidates would get them more net votes.

There's a guarantee that Democrat or flip voters who abstain from voting for Biden are helping Trump win.

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Not voting for Trump helps Biden win then.

Yes, if voters who vote Republican or flip between Republican/Democrat decide not to vote for Trump, then that would help Biden win.

Ok, but independents who don't vote for either are not helping either.

Or are they helping both?

Actually, I've read that voter apathy tends to help Right-wing parties. If that's true and accurate, then independents who don't vote for either would be helping Trump.

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"Excuse excuse excuse, I feel bad voting for Biden so I won't"

Very inspiring. What other emotions do you have trouble dealing with?

Did I say I wasn't voting for Biden? It's like you want him to lose.

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It's impossible to dintinguish when Trump makes mistakes from when he's genuinely lieing or confidently incorrect.

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As John Stewart pointed out. Biden's "huh?' scale is spiking.

And its a million times better than the alternative we are risking.

True, but I feel like people have been talking past each other about this.

On the one hand, you have people saying Biden’s cabinet would do a better job than Trump, which is true. On the other hand, you have people saying Biden is going to lose to trump unless he somehow makes a dramatic turnaround in the next couple months, which is also true according to all available data.

The real question isn’t whether Biden is better than trump, it’s whether Biden would serve the country better by stepping down.

Exactly. Biden is a lost cause electorally, regardless of how good or bad he is, because he has tanked his approval with his own voterbase. Nobody is going to see Biden and then vote for Trump, they would just sit out or vote third party. Biden is just handing the win to Trump.

Nobody is going to see Biden and then vote for Trump,

I am not so certain of that. Granted the numbers would be low, but given how the Electoral College works, the entire election may hinge upon precisely that.

We've been down this road before, in both of the previous elections.

The number is non-zero, sure, but close to it. "Nobody" is just to drive the point, the DNC's best path to victory is to reengage their voterbase with popular policy and firmly standing against genocide. The "fall in line" narrative works for only so many people, and it may not be enough for the DNC to win, so the DNC should focus on voter outreach instead of fearmongering about Trump for a third election cycle in a row.

Every vote not for Biden is effectively half a vote for Trump.

Every vote not for Trump is effectively half a vote for Biden.

If you have voted republican your whole life, yes.

What if they've voted third party their whole life?

Then it's business as usual.

Got it, so then I don't get why you're upset at leftists for correctly dogging on Biden

Because it takes votes away from Biden, which makes a Trump presidency more likely.

We all know Biden is not perfect, spending time pointing it out is not very productive.

We just discussed how it doesn't, if they weren't planning on voting for Biden in the first place. If Biden wants more leftist votes, he can appeal to Leftists instead of Zionists and Neoliberals.

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Except that's not the real question, bc he's already said that God Himself could not cause Biden to step down (I'm being literal here). He's doubling, tripling, and whatever more down, digging his heels in and refusing to even consider that option, regardless of who asks.

At this point he is either removed by force - which won't happen - or it's already over.

And either way, the SCOTUS ruling holds firm.

I wish him luck, but I don't expect good things to come. Even if he wins, heck even if he like rigged the election at this point and gave himself a large majority of numbers in the process, the other side won't believe it and there's a goodly chance of an actual civil war, or something along those lines (bad riots or such). Or maybe I'm full of shit, but it bothers me so much that everything that I say sounds "fatalistic" to my own inner ear - except that word means closing your eyes to the truth and choosing to believe only the worst, whereas this is my attempt to be realistic with eyes wide open!? I am saying that it does not bode well that this seems a realistic possibility rather than hyperbolic exaggeration of words for like comedic effect:-(.

Once again, there's like ~11% of the country who is die-hard Trump red maga, another ~11% Biden blue maga, and the LARGE majority of us in the middle don't matter in the slightest as we get caught between these two extremes (Russian oligarchy encroachment vs. American oligarchy establishment, tbf the latter cares far more about the common folk, but is really bad at showing that).

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as Jon Stewart also pointed out, but that's not the issue here. the issue is expected performance. people expect want one of them to be a crazy loon. the other not so much. so when he acts like he's not all there people are concerned whether he can perform well enough at the election to defeat the fascist. the polls aren't optimistic.

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"Um... let me be clear. My former VP pick has always sucked. He's not old. He's simply got a head full of busted marbles and wasn't employable anywhere outside of the US Senate. That's why I endorsed him to run in 2020. You people disgust me. You deserve what you get."

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So I should be able to look at 2020 debate footage and compare it to 2024 debate footage without a problem right?

Right?!?

This isn't just gaffes. The man is getting to an age where this stuff get harder every year. There's a reason the military has a mandatory retirement age of 62, even if you have a desk job.

It's a concern because Putin, Xi, Khamenei, Kim... They're all well-spoken. They're all quick-witted.

What kind of message does that send would-be American allies in Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa, in South America?

I didn't realize WW3 was going to be decided by a rap battle.

"This battle is NOT going to be decided by facts!" Omg some of best YouTube videos of all time (for someone who has knowledge of the circumstances) :-P

That America is powerful enough to elect a mentally deficient geriatric to it's supreme office and still be something not to fuck with?

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