Fifty-nine percent of Americans think Biden and Trump too old for another term
e; I wrote a better headline than the ABC editors decided to and excerpted a bit more
According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel, 86% of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president. That figure includes 59% of Americans who think both he and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, are too old and 27% who think only Biden is too old.
Sixty-two percent of Americans think Trump, who is 77, is too old to serve as president. There is a large difference in how partisans view their respective nominees -- 73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve but only 35% of Republicans think Trump is too old to serve. Ninety-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to serve, and 71% say the same about Trump.
Concerns about both candidates' ages have increased since September when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 74% of Americans thought Biden -- the oldest commander in chief in U.S. history -- was too old to serve another term as president, and 49% said the same about Trump.
Part that drew my eye,
The poll also comes days after the Senate failed to advance a bipartisan foreign aid bill with major new border provisions.
Americans find there is blame to go around on Congress' failure to pass legislation intended to decrease the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border -- with about the same number blaming the Republicans in Congress (53%), the Democrats (51%) and Biden (49%). Fewer, 39%, blame Trump.
More Americans trust that Trump would do a better job of handling immigration and the situation at the border than Biden -- 44%-26% -- according to the poll.
So that bipartisan border bill stunt was terrible policy, and it doesn't seem to have done anything for the Democratic party politically
Can we please stop trying to compromise with fascists now?
We have a minimum age to become president, 35, so if that doesn't qualify as "age discrimination" then a maximum age limit shouldn't either.
65 should be the max, you get 30 years to try for the presidency then you're forced to retire.
And honestly that should be the maximum age for any elected official, not just the president.
In America age discrimination is only illegal once you're 40 years old...
If you're 39 and 11 months, you can be denied a senior position for being too young, even if you have 20 years experience
Because old people write our laws, and they don't see a problem with telling a middle aged adult that they're too young.
If only one out of two groups have protection, it's not equaly opportunity, it's legislated discrimination.
It's insane because republicans constantly complain about valid equal opportunity, but never mention the one that's actually discriminatory.
It's especially insane when we have to pretend like an 81 year old magically is immune to scientifically proven medical facts
It is age discrimination but it's legal because it's built-in to the Constitution. Not joking, the "founders" decided that there was a such thing as too young but not too old.
I think the founders made a lot of decisions based on the assumption that voters would vote in their own interests. This would preclude, for example, voting for insurrectionists, criminals, or corrupt power brokers.
People back then had an average lifespan of 39-56. A 70 year-old in 1780 would be exceptional.
Not really. The lifespan includes GIGANTIC numbers of babies dying at birth--that brings down the average in a big way. Poor people also had it harder. If you were a rich person? 80 wasn't a big deal.
Those lifespan ranges account for the infant mortality and are based of someone who lived past 15. 39 for men and 56 for women.
Doubt. In 1890*, if you made it to 20, it was a 50/50 chance of making it to 65 and about a 1 in 3 chance of making it to 75. 1 in 3 is hardly exceptional. Just slightly better than average. You need to go to 85 to the top 10% and mid-90s to get top 1%, which is what I'd start to think of as exceptional. Most of the difference between 1780 and 1890 was liking decrease in mortality in the 0-25 yo range, so I wouldn't expect there to be much difference for 1780 data starting with 20yos.
*https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life1890-1910.pdf using the table on page 127
Why 65? It seems like many people nowadays are totally coherent at that age. I don't even think of 65 as old as this point. I can't think of any other occupation that's forced to retire then.
Research shows that the majority of people have some level of cognitive impairment by 70. Just because you may not notice it in some people doesn't mean it's not there.
If nothing else, a maximum age would give younger generations a better chance to have some power. We've been ruled by boomers for far too long.
Because you want a person for president who's seasoned through and through, but not so damned season he won't try something new.
Retirement age. They can go do their speaking engagements, book deals, and paint Scottish terriers until they die but they should not hold public office and make decisions that matter to future generations.
I think it's because by the end of the second term they'd be 72-73.
Anything with eyes would say they are old. Yes, a 2-party system is broken in the modern world. Still Biden/ Harris as president is better then Putin's cuddle buddy.
I would love to have a 2-party system. But we have closer to a constellation of one party systems. Red States and Blue States, with a smattering of battlegrounds.
Between Winner-Take-All districts and the Electoral College, there's very little incentive to participate in an election in a municipality or state that's overwhelmingly one team or the other. And even when you do participate, you're limited to... what? People blowing up your phone and email with donation requests? A few months of block walking for a local candidate who you get to meet maybe twice and who barely knows your name? Running around bothering your friends a week before voting day not to sleep through this one? Getting drunk at a campaign event on election night, only to be dropped like a bad habit in the morning?
The parties themselves aren't really political entities. They're more like boosters for professional athletics teams or celebrity tours that you're expected to cheer for but never really interact with. They don't do anything outside of an election season. They don't provide any kind of constituent service or artery to the leadership themselves.
This consumerist politics is genuinely very different from the kind of organizing and activism that takes place throughout the rest of the democratic world. If it feels like Biden and Trump are just kinda being foisted on us by a cartel of party insiders, there's a good reason for it.
I was under the impression that even in other countries, activism is generally separate from the political parties and it's more like activist groups putting pressure on candidates and organizing for them if they are more favorable, and sometimes getting something in return.
I've seen exceptions, but I gather they are rare (and we can already see some change as the party is under pressure to become more "normal" and "competitive").
You can see activist political movements operating in real time, in Pakistan and India right now. The Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf has been openly contesting the soft coup imposed by the state security services against former Prime Minister Imran Khan. And the India National Congress has been a big part of the outright mass mobilization of northern Indian farmers shutting down highways and blockading exports over the current President's plan to privatize the agricultural sector.
And a president isn't just the presidency, it also sets tons of agency heads and tons of judicial appointments including potential Supreme Court nominations. It's a major mistake to think of a presidential vote as a vote for one person, it's for tons of incredibly important positions that the president decides.
Even if that's true, wouldn't a younger person be better equipped to appoint and oversee those positions?
It is true, that's not up to debate, it's just how the government works. Yes a younger person would be better but the point is that the effects reach much further than the single candidate.
Is it though? If it weren't up for debate then saying the people who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries were selfish and foolish wouldn't be controversial. If a younger person would be better equipped to be president then there's no excuse to vote in the primaries for someone who shouldn't be driving, nevermind leading a country.
Maybe you were referring to a different part of my comment when you said "even if that's true". I'm referring to where I said that the president gets to appoint tons of other positions, that's objectively true.
I agree that there are better candidates than Biden and that they would have better appointments. My point is just that the stakes are really really high, much higher than just the difference between the presidential candidates, it's multiplied by the tons of positions they have control over. I just want people to think about those super high stakes when it comes to their motivation to get out and vote.
Yes, but that conversation gets too close to having a conversation about the people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. And we can't have a conversation about that because the rational conclusion would be: it was selfish and foolish to vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries.
You don't have to pick any of the 2.
Go away RFK jr., no one is buying you as a candidate. Fucking lurking around here!
cornel west is running too
and jill stein
A multi party system needs to start at local levels and build upward. People that actually know what they are doing. Not crazy people with Republican views except for one extreme left thing.
calling Cornel West crazy is really showing your colors. implying he or Stein are almost identical to Republicans is just incorrect.
Jill Stein is a candidate but the green party usually doesn't have a platform besides weed and environment. I'm sure she has done some interviews explaining her stance but her platform leavesuch to desire.
Corrnel West was the name I heard a lot but never really looked at due to his odds. However, is platform aligns with my views around 96%. NATO and Ukraine would be something I wish he re-evaluated. If Trump wasn't on the ballot I would vote for Cornell.
Trump can't have a second term and should be behind bars. A multi party system needs to start at the local level and build its way up. If not, then we will always have the same system.
Well, too bad. Those are the only two viable options, so most likely it's going to be one or the other. The time to do something about it has long passed. All we can do is hope Trump is jailed or either of them die.
There was NEVER anything any of us could do. The moment Biden announced he would run for reelection, everyone who mattered fell in line.
As it should be. Anything else would have been giving the GOP a golden ticket for their golden turd
Nonsense. I think it would be hard to find anyone under 50 that wouldn't wipe the floor with trumps broken corpse. The only person Trump has a chance again is an octogenarian with no persona.
No, it should not be.
There was once a time when politicians would use election time to debate the president anyway, allowing up and coming politicians to get their views and voice out there while also letting the current president show their strength, conviction, and skill even within their own party. Time that's used for inter-Party debates is time where that party's points are being broadcast to all, as well.
But now that we're all so scared Trump's gonna win were tossing that in the garbage because "any question to Biden at all means we get a fascist!", which is only gonna bite the US in the ass when Dems eventually have nobody that's well known ready to take the seat
Biden absolutely should have been challenged in the primaries by competent Dems that will be the next generation
This was an anomaly that happened during the post-war era for a couple decades and ended when Newt Gingrich came along. Before that, the politician that could afford the most booze got elected.
You're wanting ambivalent debate during a war.
The Right has weaponized propaganda. They are extremely effective had taking any perceived weakness in their opponent, and blowing it out of proportion that even non-Right leading voters believe their new talking point is a real problem.
The landscape of politics has changed. Until we can get back to normal philosophical difference between adults, we can not let the Dems implode in inner fighting, as they are known to do.
I wholly reject your argument. There is a time and place for your idealistic model. This is not it. This country is hanging on by a thread, and the GOP is actively trying to cut it.
Edit - you downvoters are acting like we didn't just get Trump in 2016 largely because of infighting in the Left that disenfranchised voters. And we'll be paying the consequences for a generation because of it.
To many idealists here that can't see the forest for the trees.
I neither up nor downvoted you, but really have no idea what you're trying to say.
I was refuting that open debate against the incumbent president would be good for the Dems. That the DNC funding alternate candidates would be a net positive. My argument is that it could only result in division, and would greatly improve the GOP's position.
Well at this point, it certainly would. We're too far into the process. But for next time, this needs to be done differently.
Agree when there's no incumbent, and there's no MAGA nazi front runner. And if the Dems run clean campaigns without dragging their fellow Dems through the mud.
For the time being, the stakes are too high to give the GOP any ammo, at all.
There will always be enough excuses to silence progressives.
That's not true. Sure, you can't criticize presidents in their first year, since their just finding their footing. And obviously, you can't criticize them in their second year, because the midterms are coming up, and you need to be positive to get Democrats elected. But after the midterms, progressives are free to criticize the president as a much as the want...for about two weeks. A month tops. After that, we're getting into reelection season, and criticism will only help the GOP.
Best government ever created by man, right there
Nothing in the Constitution bars Trump from holding the Office of the President while in a super max prison.
Absolutely nothing.
Maybe, but good luck doing it from there.
I think congress would have to make a ruling on that and I doubt they would say that he could be president in prison.
Congress has no say here unless they decide to try an impeachment and then the Senate would have to remove. Otherwise, there's nothing to stop this from happening. You'd genuinely have secret service people in the prison and intelligence officers doing daily briefings and the VP would be the one to be present for events, meetings, etc.
The democratic primary has hardly started, its literally exactly the time to do something.
That's not how that works. Even if we somehow managed to bypass filing deadlines up get this theoretical candidate on the ballot (that have likely already been printed, and in many cases mailed out), they don't really have time to get their message out and persuade voters. You don't just start running for president 3 weeks from super Tuesday.
The only way Biden isn't the democratic nominee is if he steps down or is really incapable. And then it's pretty much guaranteed to be Harris. I don't think most people want that.
If democrats wanted a different candidate, they needed to start like 6 months ago minimum.
Democrats do want a different candidate, and have been very vocal about it for 4 years.
The DNC does not.
The DNC didn't make this decision. Biden did. Doesn't matter what the Jamie Harrison thinks, Biden's the president and no one wants to challenge their party's incumbent.
Yes that’s right. Biden, despite promising to be a 1 term transitional president, has reneged on that promise because his ego says that good presidents get 2 terms, and he thinks he’s so good he might as well be FDR 2.0
Well, the primary challengers disagree, I disagree as a Dem voter, and many others do as well. We have eyes, we see the writing on the wall, and it’s obvious Biden is going to lose, even to a disastrous opponent like Trump.
Biden doesn’t care what we think. He doesn’t care about the democratic spirit of a healthy primary. And so, he will lose this election, and risk what little democracy we have left in the process. Maybe not a big deal for a literal fossil with one foot in the grave like him, but for the rest of us, it’s very concerning to say the least.
Biden didn't shut down the primary either. He's running in it. They could have just canceled it.
There's no democratic solution to this problem. Either we say just let voters choose (a primary, but no one of consequence wants to challenge so we don't really have a real choice) or Biden unilaterally decides to step down (not "the democratic spirit" but probably the right choice). No one has shut down democracy, it's just a shitty system where the individual choices of a powerful person means no one who could be a successor thinks it's an optimal choice to challenge him.
This is categorically false. Biden is not running in the primary - he didn’t even go through the basic steps to get on the ballot in New Hampshire. The DNC absolutely refused to put together any kind of debate to draw in contenders. Further, he’s working behind the scenes with the state DNC commissions to either remove primary challengers from the ballot (South Carolina), or not hold primary elections at all (Florida).
I agree, he should drop out of the race, because poll after poll shows Biden losing to Trump badly in 6 out of the 7 key battleground states, while “any generic Dem” maintains a lead. The people have already spoken - we don’t want Trump, but we want Biden even less. Now why in the hell would you force run a candidate under those conditions?!
The democratic process demands that voters get to choose their representatives, and Biden isn’t allowing that to happen. Instead he’s working behind the scenes to threaten both the current primary challengers, as well as those “of consequence”, with burying their political careers if they dare to challenge him.
Ok, so you're just clueless about politics. Thanks for letting us know.
I know about the foolish SC play. I’m saying if he were participating in a primary in good faith, he would have gotten himself on the ballot.
Eh I'm good with Biden. Nobody else has shown themselves to be relevant enough for me to know their positions.
Because they're not being given the time to debate and be seen by the public like in elections past.
Because the DNC doesn't want someone else.
Neither Marianne Williamson nor Dean Philips would be presidential material if only more people could hear them speak. Williamson had plenty of time during the last primary to be seen and Philips is just an even more conservative Biden that has the sole virtue of not being on death's door.
Thank you. I've said this multiple times and people keep griping about it anyway.
It's pretty clear the vast majority of people just don't understand how this shit works. Don't get me wrong, it's a bad system. I just don't see how demanding people take actions so late in the process that it will benefit the GOP is productive.
I honestly don't see what action can be taken at this point. We have to either wait for Trump to get convicted or for one of the two of them to die or become to incapacitated to run. Neither of them will step down unless they have no choice.
I do think it’s important to note that Biden likely wouldn’t be running if it weren’t for Trump still (somehow) being a viable candidate. I think he’d agree that he’s too old for this shit, but if it’s going to be either him or Trump, I pick Biden with zero hesitation.
I don't know. People with the tenacity to get to the presidency cling to power like it was keeping them from dying. I honestly don't know if he would have dropped out of running for a second term.
You don't have a normal-sized ego and run for president unless you're Jimmy Carter.
I honestly do think these are exceptional circumstances. I don’t think Biden wants to keep dealing with all this shit. It’s got to be incredibly stressful - largely because he actually gives a shit and cares about the future of the country and the world overall. If the other candidate weren’t a complete and total psychopath, I think there are better than even odds that he’d have conceded the primary before it started.
Democrats 2024: Well, too bad.
Yeah it sucks, but I'd vote for a ham sandwich over Trump.
Is
TruckTrump actually able to run for president?Edit: typo.
No, but he'll be allowed to anyways
I just find it really weird that you can be under such heavy legal proceedings and still be eligible to hold office, like in general. If a teacher is suspected of being inappropriate with students, they're pulled. If a president is inappropriate with democracy, they can run a second term?
Last time I expressed my incredulousness over this, I was told "innocent until proven guilty", but again, with the above example; if a teacher is suspected of being inappropriate towards student, they are pulled and put on leave for the investigation.
It seems to me that Trump shouldn't be allowed to be the president incumbent until all the legal stuff he's through clears.
Also, innocent until proven guilty is how the government treats the accused (well, theoretically, lots of poor people get to rot in jail because they don't have bail money). If you saw someone punch a baby you don't need to wait for a court decision to kick them off your softball team.
Like on one hand I get that, but on the other, that feels like a really relaxed attitude to an attempted coup. Like if there are any doubts whatsoever that someone tried to undermine the democratic systems, perhaps they shouldn't be eligible to hold the position of president until the doubts are cleared.
Just feels like a sensible precaution to me. Does it suck for the person if they're innocent? Absolutely, but not as much as being imprisoned for decades on a crime they didn't do. The vast majority of people miss out on being the president, so it really isn't that big of a deal.
This is one of the really interesting takeaways. People are looking at Biden's gaffes--and he has always made verbals gaffes throughout his career as a politician--and saying that it's a sign that he's too old. Meanwhile, Trump, who trails Biden by a mere four years of age, is viewed as energetic and mentally sharp by Republicans. So essentially, Dems are pretty realistic in their assessment of both candidate's ages, while Republicans are only realistic about Biden.
Also - forcing the Senate to vote against their own compromise bill, a bill they'd worked on for months, was a fantastic bit of hilarity. They know that they're not going to be able to get a better bill under Trump--because the majority in the Senate would still shoot down their worst tendencies--but they couldn't risk bucking Trump. So they undid all their own work. ::chef kiss::
I would bet my entire life savings that if you asked exactly the same Republicans exactly the same question about Trump in 4 years, their response would be exactly the same. Their assessment is not whether an 81 year old is too old to serve, it's that an 81 year old Democrat is too old to serve.
You can tell because they made the argument 4 years ago that Biden was too old to serve at 77.
I would not take that bet at any odds
You've basically just touched on how conservatives operate. It's never actually about any sort of philosophy, it has always been about control and projecting insecurities on the world.
That is cause the other 65% think Trump is too crazy to serve
Haha, a man can dream ...
There are a fair number of Republicans that still think that Trump is a bridge too far. My parents, for instance; they've been reliable Republicans since, shit, Nixon?, and since 2016 they've been largely voting Democratic. Especially because all the people running as Republicans in their state are bitshit crazy MAGA-cultists. But if they could vote for a Jeb Bush, or a Mittens Romney, they would absolutely do it. I'm pretty sure that they'd vote for Nikki Haley, even though she's probably more conservative than Trump, because she's better at hiding how much pandering she does to the extreme right wing, and has some tact and decorum. (And, to be fair, Haley is consistently conservative, for the most part. Trump et al. are not; they're far-right populists, not necessarily conservative in all or even most of their actions.)
I literally don't care if they Weekend at Bernies Biden, I will vote for him happily if the alternative is Trump.
Biden could drop out and they could nominate a literal piece of driftwood covered in seagull shit, and I would vote for the driftwood if it were between that and Trump.
Yup. Gladly and without a doubt or second thought.
Also.
Pretty much
But he's too old!
But her emails!
COMEON!
Anything goes just so they can win and sit back like Thanos after infinity war, smiling at the sun rise.
Sadly in this cycle even the declared independent and third party candidates are beyond mediocre so far as well. Stupidest election of my lifetime (and I was born when LBJ was Pres).
It doesn't matter.
Even if the third party candidate was literally the best candidate possible in the eyes of every American - they still wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell at getting elected under a first past the post system.
We must enact and enforce a ranked choice voting system nationally, otherwise it will always come back to red vs blue, and a third party vote is electoral masturbation.
Yes, ranked choice voting is an absolute must to happen first, if we want to see any meaningful change to the better in our electoral system.
That's some perspective considering you lived through both Nixon and Reagan.
But it doesn't matter because those are the choices
🦅 F R E E D O M 🇺🇸
It really does matter. The implication is that the system is obviously broken because no one likes either choice.
It doesn't matter until it's fixed.
It doesn't matter that something is broken until it's fixed?
If you vote for an independent and that leads to someone like Trump winning, you are an idiot.
Settle down mate. I'm not suggesting anyone vote for an independent. Merely to acknowledge that this system is broken.
Everyone has.
And it can't be fixed unless we discuss how it happened. So when do we discuss all those people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries? What are we going to do about them?
Here? In super liberal Reddit?
It's bizarre I agree. On the one hand people scream about how dangerous Trump is and the importance of voting blue no matter who. But they generally will not entertain any conversation about how to fix the situation.
I will say I get less down votes here than on Reddit but overall people just don't want to talk about it.
If we can't have a conversation about why we're in this position we will continue to be in this position.
amen
I'll vote for someone other than Biden when there's someone else to vote for.
Which won't happen unless we call out the people who voted for him in the 2020 primaries. They made a selfish and foolish decision.
It actually won't happen until there's real grassroots support and people working locally to get people elected. Lots of people just come out once every 4 years and wonder why nothing is changing.
Why are you avoiding a conversation about the people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries?
Because I'm interested in NOW and next year not choices that were made 4 years ago. Why are you obsessed with it? Every post you make in this thread is "what about the 2020 primaries!?"
You play the card you're dealt and you keep moving forward and pushing for what you want. It's something the "left" (what passes for it) could learn from the right.
Fine. When is the appropriate time to have this conversation?
4 years ago.
People told me we could push Biden to the left and that he had the best chance of defeating Trump.
Also they told me that wasn't the right time either. Were they wrong?
Well he did win. And honestly pretty much no matter what he does in office, his most admiral feat was to stop the insanity we had the previous 4 years
I know he won in the 2020 general. I helped. I won't be helping again. I will vote 3rd party.
This is the point I wish everyone would remember when they're discussing this issue. It's not the age, but the 'wear and tear' that matters.
Some people age more gracefully than others, and we truly do want to have our elders wisdom, especially during trying times.
Having said all that, my personal opinion on all of this is that Biden seems to have cognitively/physically worn down past the level required for the decision-making/stresses of the office of the Presidency.
If he wants to have a third party doctor give him a cognizant test, and he passes it, and he publicly notifies all of us voters of that, then I would be up for voting for him again.
But judging based on the very little I'm allowed to see, as a voter, based on how few public news conferences that he does, and having seen him faltering in some of those, it truly does seem like it's time for him to move on.
Also IMO, Trump is a semen stain on the soul of America, and he quite literally is a test to see if America is America, or not. If we reaffirm our leader as someone who, as a 'wolf in sheeps clothing', is a very immoral and unethical grifter, then we are lost. All of us.
Not that it's going to happen, but both parties should be putting someone else up as their candidates for the presidency of the United States of America in 2024.
If JFK and Reagan could do it with all their health problems I think Biden will be fine. It's not ideal, but the staffers of the White House and Pentagon can hold things together for a while if needbe, and I will take that over a Republican administration any day.
It's a fact that the chance of an incumbent has a higher chance of winning a reelection. So, I understand why we are going with Biden. Even Biden said he was only going to run once. But this isn't just some random election. This will likely determine if America is going to exist past 2024
I don't think Biden ever said that he would run only once. The news was that a few anonymous sources who were supposedly close to the Biden campaign said that he would not run for re-election and his campaign then denied that.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474059-biden-campaign-denies-one-term-report/
According to the same source he will be a 1 term president. Maybe they just covering their bases?
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/474027-biden-indicates-he-will-only-serve-one-term-as-president-report/
Yeah. The link I posted is a followup to that story, in which the Biden campaign says those rumors are false.
You have to read more than the headline (but even the headline has a hint that this is not Biden speaking directly). The article says "Four people who regularly speak with the 77-year-old Biden told Politico that it is unlikely he would run for reelection in 2024" It's just rumors at best. More likely it's propaganda to get people to not worry about his age.
Ya likely. Who knows except for him I guess. Well, at least we got Harris if he passes away. Can't be said with Trump right now.
Except for the fact that it's generally military physicians who treat the President, he gets a cognitive test every year as part of his physical. Trump got one every year too, and was as proud as a toddler with a gold star sticker when he "passed" it. The white house releases the results of the President's annual exam and, presuming you do not distrust the doctor, it is what it is.
Nobody is going to be administering some mental agility test on the President any more than they'll be asking him to complete and pass the ACFT (Army Combat Fitness Test).
(IMO he should have stepped aside last year and let Kamala Harris take over as President to give her a chance to make her own case for re-election, making way for the next generation to lead.)
Kamala Harris probably has less chances than Hilary unfortunately. Remember whoever the Dems choose have to beat Trump. And the election cycle is sort of repeating what happened in 2016.
Nobody thought Trump had any chances. At the start of this election cycle DeSantis was beating Trump in polls. People thought Trump was done for. Then what happens? Trump is constantly on the news, just like in 2016. Then he dominates the GOP primary, just like in 2016.
The only candidate that has any chance to beat Trump is another populist candidate. Someone like Bernie but more aggressive and controversial.
Biden only won because he was the VP for Obama who was a popular president (relative to modern presidents). He was a great public speaker and was the last real "presidential" president we've had. A coherent and articulate speaker.
Kamala Harris simply would not inherit any meaningful public opinion from Biden. It would be the opposite - she would have to start from a worse position.
Biden is less popular than Trump. Both current popularity and if we go back to Trump'a popularity at the same time during his presidency. If the election was held today, Trump would win with a strong margin - according to the polls.
Yeah, about those - I've been wondering who and how they're polling. Nobody I know under 50 even has a real landline, and most of them don't pick up calls on their cell unless it comes up as someone in their contacts. Same with SMS or any messaging. Web ads? Facebook ads (LOL)? It sure as hell isn't email, either. It's probably nearly impossible to get any realistic data in person since most people avoid in-person marketing even harder than online. The only people I know who do answer the telephone are old people - like over 55 or 60, and that's a pretty skewed demographic.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
there's a website that catalogues and compiles polls from various different sources. each poll asks something like 1500~ people. they do both telephone and online polling, depending on the polling organization. if you click on the poll, you can find out more about the organization and they often publish exact methods and data so you can look for yourself how they gathered the data
now, you're right that the sample size is going to be different than the population. however, there is a science and math to this stuff where you can use formulas in order to account for that. let me give a simple example
let's say you live in Townsville with a population of 60 people. 20 of those people are male and 40 are female. you want to find out whether everyone likes vanilla or chocolate ice cream, so you go to the bowling alley. at the bowling alley, there are 10 men and 10 women. so you survey everyone but you realize
the sample size demographics are different than the actual population demographics. in the population, females outnumber males 2 to 1 whereas in the sample population it's 1:1. so you need to weigh your votes accordingly
you can either do one of two things - you can count every vote from a woman twice. or you can count every vote for a men at a ratio of 50%. that way you are representing the population demographics more accurately
polling agencies do this but with a myriad of different demographic properties. age, sex, gender, income, ethnicity, etc, in order to try to get a more accurate number. you will never be able to exactly represent a population with a small sample size, but you can get pretty damn close within a margin of error.
tldr: polls are not perfect but they absolutely can help predict public sentiment because of some statistical axioms (Law of Large Numbers, Central Limit Theorem, Random Sampling)
I agree that there are statistical methods to everything, and they are quite powerful. My concern is that population sample is limited and, in many ways self-selecting, due to the ability of pollsters to access a representative cross section of the (population/voting population). I noted the impossibility of getting a representative sample using telephone polling. Online would be just as fraught - huge demographics literally don't participate in those communication methods, by choice. Granted, actual voting is similarly inaccurate, and can be wildly so, do to voluntary non-participation; but the cross product of phone/internet poll users and voters, I would suspect, is pretty far from 1.0.
The bothsiderist media is happy to let a fascist slide into office all while acting like they just have to harp on Biden's age.
Suppose Biden becomes unable to do the job. So what? There are plenty of capable people are him, and Harris will just assume the office. Big deal; not much changes.
But if tiny d gets into office...he's been promising to be the con movement's "vengeance" and promising to be a dictator (but only for a day, yeah right).
Depends on what you mean by the "media" because I'll agree there are a lot of shitheel columnists and hack journalists out there, but I think there are a lot of very good ones too who are trying hard to do a very difficult job in a difficult historical moment, and I think they wouldn't be doing their jobs properly if they didn't talk about Biden's age because it's an obvious potential issue.
That all said, I agree with your second paragraph and strongly agree with the third.
In that case the Democrats better put up somebody else besides Biden to vote for, so we don't go there.
https://lemmy.world/comment/7576723
Well, who do y'all think can beat trump, because that's who's running in 4 years regardless of this election's outcome.
Any Democratic candidate with a pulse, and tbh we could probably get voters to moderate their expectations on both of those points if we had to
60% of the country has grown to hate and fear Trump just as much as 40% of it adores him
I meant my question literally. If Biden wins 2024, Kamala 2028 feels like a bad decision. If it goes the other way, there's a non-zero chance the Dems are running against trump3, or a trump-like that beats him in the gop primaries, or both.
Whoever the Dems field in 2028 has to start making a name for themselves sooner rather than later, and I'm mostly disappointed the Dems aren't using the primaries as a way to show off that candidate.
After Obama's upset rise it seems like the old guard are more dedicated to ensuring no such breakout could occur again. I can't even recall who did the keynote address in 2020. AOC had to be invited in by Bernie to get some stage time. The only progressives I can remember were the actual primary candidates.
AOC is a fantastic communicator and Ayanna Pressley is probably the best orator in the party, but they're just continually on guard from their left flank so instead of trying to build a youth operation that shares the same big tent but might be a little leftier than themselves they just shut them out of everything.
The 60/40 split is just untrue. And it's untrue in a meaningful way. The favorability/unfavorability split is closer to 52/43 leaving 5% in afuzzy place. Without attuning to the needs and concerns of this 5%, a false sense of certainty can emerge leading to being surprised when things don't go the obvious way.
Subsequently, people lean in to the only thing left to do, cantankerous online debate with people who just don't get it.
These favorability polls don't mean as much as giving the people who matter a story to pull that lever for your candidate. And the people that matter are the undecided in swing states. Without meeting and talking to these people, we don't know what's important for them.
That same metric for Biden is ~55/40, but he's polling just barely ahead or even with Trump when the question is "who would you vote for" in pretty much all of the recent polls I've seen. I don't think favorability is going to translate well into votes this election because there's a decent number of voters out there who disapprove of Biden but are going to vote for him anyway, while all of Trump's supporters are cult members who are going to give him 10/10 and everyone else 0s anytime they get the chance to.
If it was a different election and we had different candidates, sure, but polls have been remarkably consistent - voters do not like Joe Biden. The best argument to get them to vote for him anyway "the Republicans will destroy the country, look at their nominee," but it's a really strong argument. That's what won in 2020 and it's only going to become a stronger message every time Trump gets a headline for saying something dumb and hateful.
I worry that tactic will result in low voter turnout. And that's not good for Biden.
Polls consistently show that Biden does the best against trump compared to any other Democrat. Why so many people have deluded themselves into believing that Biden is the worst bet against trump will never cease to baffle me.
NYT poll from October showed "Generic Democratic candidate" doing 12 points better than Biden against Trump
I tried to see if that had changed since this one poll, but it seems like they haven't asked it since and I haven't been able to find something comparable in another poll
Cross tabs for that October poll - https://web.archive.org/web/20240214192807/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/07/us/elections/times-siena-battlegrounds-registered-voters.html
Same poll in December without the question - https://web.archive.org/web/20240214192741/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/19/us/elections/times-siena-poll-registered-voter-crosstabs.html
The issue is that "Generic Democratic candidate" doesn't exist. It doesn't have any of the baggage or weaknesses of any actual candidate, and can represent anything to anyone. It's kind of a pointless exercise. The funny thing is that Biden is kind of the generic democratic candidate.
Take a look here and search for any real democratic candidate (Newsom/Harris/Buttigieg/Whitmer/Etc) and you'll see that he consistently does better against Trump.
Literally the first non-Biden result on that page is Michelle Obama +3 while Biden is -2. The next non-Harris poll has Whitmer +4 vs. Biden -8.
Interesting. On the desktop version, it has a filter right at the top. I assume you are using mobile because I don't see it on my phone right now.
I just scrolled down reading results looking for not-Biden on the Democratic side.
Boy did I love this argument in 2016
I'm not making an argument, I'm quite plainly asking for names, because the reality is that now is the time for whoever that is to start building a base. 2016 taught us that pure fucking charisma is enough to win an election, and that's what the GOP is going to bank on from now until eternity since it worked for them once.
(And for anyone doubting Trump's charisma, remember that a Sibriex has 25 CHA https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vo=sibriex)
59% of Americans should have been paying attention a year ago when something could have been done about it. The choice is made now, so accept the reality and choose one (preferably the one who is not a convicted sex offender with 93 felony indictments).
What thing? The Democrats basically didn't have a primary. All the potential internal rivals to Biden bowed out.
The Republicans had a conga-line of sacrificial lambs. I even saw a few spicy Op-Eds suggesting that a true anti-Trump Democrat should be actively campaigning for Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley. But... Trump's a fucking hog. He's got every AM radio and Evangelical Church repping him. What were "59% of Americans" who'd been otherwise alienated from the political process supposed to do? Build an entirely new party from first principles and put... idfk... Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk on the top?
If the parties had been pushed hard enough for other options, they would have followed suit. The fact of the matter is that Trump and Biden beat everyone in the primaries. Biden won a primary where he wasn't even on the ballot. Nikki Haley lost a ballot to "none of the above. The majority got the candidates they want. We are the minority.
The parties were pushed. The problem is that the party leadership pushed back. And since they had all the money and the organized manpower and the influential media figures, they won.
Which is why Biden's cruising for a bruising in November. His team made an executive decision to square off against Trump a second time, because the Dem Party assumed "ancient white male fossil" = "safe bet". They had all the cards, so they got their way. And now they're stuck with the weak hand they've chosen to play.
Biden won an unofficial NH contest in which his well-funded and professional GOTV team managed a better write-in campaign than a couple of nobodies.
95% of the primary vote hasn't even happened and every other candidate besides Nikki Haley has suspended their campaigns.
Not hard enough or by enough people.
A couple of nobodies is all that stepped up which is why Biden has to stay on. No better option stepped up.
Because they lost every primary so far.
Saying we need better options is hindsight at this point. The time to push new candidates was more than a year ago, not once the primaries have already started.
Jesus is that the 59% you think are alienated?
I would vote for VP Kamala Harris to be POTUS before any of them others.
So Biden it is. The "Eisenhower Box" bends to No Hitler.
"I'm not a Hitler!" Screams the politician
"That's probably exactly what a Hitler would say!" - Americans treating politics like a game of Werewolf.
Where I'm at is that we vote for Biden, he survives 2 years and 1 day into his next term, then we get 10 years of President Harris.
Yikes. The only way Harris gets in office is if Biden leaves office early. There's no way she'd win an open contest. Now maybe the machinery of the party could weasel another two terms of unpopular leadership, and maybe the Republicans just keep becoming more crazy and unelectable, so it could actually happen, but it's in not exactly a scenario to look forward to.
Isn't this why you have the VP running mates? You vote for them just as much.
VPs are chosen for 'helping to win an election' reasons, not processional/competency reasons.
They're usually chosen to pull in very specific groups of voters/states to 'shore up' what the president can't pull in on his or her own.
Surely that is not what the job is supposed to be though.
Its not, but it ends up that way.
this is certainly why you have primaries. not participating in the primaries is like saying "I don't care" when someone asks you what restaurant you want to go to then complaining about the menu selection when you get there.
"So, do you want dog food or do you want someone to shit in your mouth? No, the Mexican place closed. No, the Italian place closed. No, the Chinese place closed too. ... Dog food it is then!" - Democratic primary 2024
What is the population percentage of boomers, around 40%, per chance?
About ~20%
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/
20% of population got 100% of presidents. Fucking iron throne.
If 59% think that they are both too old and 62% think that Trump is too old (regardless of Biden), does that mean that 3% think that Trump is too old but Biden isn't too old, despite the objective fact that Biden is 4 years older than Trump?
Age is more than a number. Some people are very sharp at 80. Some are rapidly deteriorating at 60.
You have to convince the RNC/DNC but Boomers' last grasp at controlling the world won't let them give it up.
100% of this Canadian thinks so too
Well too late to do anything about it for this election
The 41% of Americans who don't think Biden and Trump are too old for this bullshit, are probably beyond elderly themselves.
assuming an even split between republicans who think they're both too old and democrats who think they're both too old, roughly 30% of the population voting would be enough to sway either party's nomination process should these people decide to.
If they all agreed on a single candidate, which is where it gets difficult
What does it matter? Since one of them will serve another term unless Republicans decide to vote for Nikki Haley?
68% of russians say they do not want to see president older than 70 years old. Putin is 71.
Blue, no matter who.
this is why 3rd parties don't exist. people pick colors instead of people
Most people who are blue no matter who would gladly vote for 3rd parties if they were at all feasible. Republicans don't care who they're voting for as long as they have an R. If third parties enter the mix, only the left gets hurt
VERY well put! Right on.
The libertarian party has consistently been the largest 3rd party and primarily draws in voters from the republican party... so I think you're overestimating the republican party's voter loyalty
I know a lot of Republican voters who say they are libertarians. But when it comes to presidential election time, their 3rd party guy didn't do nearly as well as the other two during the primaries, and there's a red vs blue option, I'm sure you could guess who they vote for.
Give me a 3rd party candidate that is worth my vote and I’ll gladly vote for him/her/them. But not during a time when we’re facing the complete and total destruction of democracy as we know it if we don’t show up and support the one person that has a chance at giving us another 4 years to fight.
This is NOT the time to play with 3rd party options.
I’d hear you — but the alternative is a fucking yikes my guy.
Things are getting a little wild down here in Florida with no signs of slowing down.
Well yeah, if we don't have something like ranked choice voting tf you think we should do? Let fascists win?
No it isn't. It's a natural extension of our election mechanics.
here's a good video: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=3eRKyXexwk4TDd6n
No, but also yes?
I'd vote for a progressive Republican. As if that's ever going to happen.
That's an oxymoron.
Don't tempt the fates. You will get this, but everything else will be worse.
Trust me. Don't temp the fates.
I mean, blue no matter who doesn't really mean forever.
Where things stand, there is no scenario where Republicans will ever do a better job than Democrats. Voting progressive needs to happen during primaries.
And yet nobody is willing to call out the selfish pieces of shit who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. They are dragging all of us down with them.
Literally.
I mean, I've made telling moderate Dems how their crappy candidates are blowing elections for us at a time when we really can't afford to be empowering Republicans a personal crusade since at least 2016, but I'll admit I've had some pretty limited success with that effort
98% of poll takers won’t do a goddamn thing about it. Even though that’s all it takes to get someone else elected.
A useless poll. Both are on their tickets and will stay that way. Hey, I'd like to have a pony too ..
There can be hope that they get the message for 2028 at least...
Politicians are getting older because young people don't vote, while old people tend to be the most active voters. Young people need to be more politically active.
I'd be curious to look back in time and see if historical politicians retired or stayed until death.
If the latter, the sole reason we see it differently today is substantially increased lifespan.
I honestly don't know the answer to my curiosity.
Other countries, especially those in Europe, have way younger politicians on average than in the US, even though Europe has faster ageing population than Americans. It's just that American youths are apathetic. I'm sorry to say this but we young people whine but don't actually do anything. You don't like the candidates running from both parties? Mobilise and start a grassroots campaign to present viable alternatives who are not from either Democratic or Republican parties. It's not like there were no third party that were elected before in local elections. Majority of Americans actually identify as independent, but are silenced by the noisy partisan sides. People only lack political will.
Younger Americans were held back in their lives. Very few have the ability to run for office because older people never passed the torch. They had mentors from a young age and pulled up the ladder.
I don't know about that. I know millenials and Gen Z are screwed over from owning homes, but historically, American youths just don't vote. I got down voted in my first comment but I have statistics to back it up if anyone actually cares to Google voter turnout in American elections since the 1960s.
Even back then, youths don't vote in larger turnout than older folks. It is curious, consider that the youth population from 40-60 years who did not vote, now make up the most important voter demographic of elder and pensionable population. So, what gives? That's food for thought, and there is something telling about the American society if the youth population from back then don't vote in significant numbers, as they still don't now.