r/politics 4d ago

'Chill The F**k Out': John Fetterman Urges Democrats To Stick With Joe Biden | The Pennsylvania senator reminded panicked Democrats on Friday that he too had a bad debate once, yet he went on to win his Senate seat.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-debate-john-fetterman_n_667ea850e4b0415858d6a2f1
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537

u/Dp04 4d ago

Fetterman was recovering from a stroke…. I don’t think comparing Biden’s performance to a recovering stroke victims is a very powerful positive message.

190

u/cornflakegrl Canada 4d ago

Yes, and you can continue to improve from stroke related symptoms, age does not get better.

50

u/IngsocInnerParty Illinois 4d ago

The country can also survive if one senator is incapacitated. The stakes aren’t as serious.

6

u/me0w_z3d0ng 4d ago

Presidency would transfer to Kamala. It's not that big a deal if he were to pass in office. Lots of presidents died during their term.

6

u/Mr_OrangeJuce 4d ago

Yeah but nobody likes her

5

u/EmptyAirEmptyHead 4d ago

I'd take her over Trump ever single day and twice on a leap day.

7

u/kaimason1 Arizona 4d ago

Let's reframe the issue: Kamala has always polled way worse in a one-on-one against Trump than Biden does. She never surpassed single-digit support during the 2020 primary, and her approval rating is currently ~14 points underwater (~37-38% approve to ~51-52% disapprove).

Meanwhile, Trump was already polling neck-and-neck with Biden before last night. The public isn't remotely enthusiastic about Biden's inevitable replacement and we desperately need someone on the ticket who is more electable than Biden against Trump, not less.

2

u/FairPudding40 4d ago

Oh, wait, the US just... dies if the president is incapacitated? Wow. I did not know that.

Guess I'd better vote for Trump!

1

u/IngsocInnerParty Illinois 4d ago

Don't be facetious. Obviously the country can go on (and has gone on) if the president is incapacitated, but you can't act like the stakes are the same as if it were a senator.

14

u/Stormfin210 4d ago

Exactly, it’s not really a fair comparison. There was genuine uncertainty about the speed and depth of Fetterman’s recovery, but everyone believed he was on some kind of positive trajectory. Biden doesn’t have a disease, he’s not recovering from anything, he’s just old. He has a terminal case of mortality.

2

u/vandemonianish 4d ago

Right?! Why is the false equivalency not front and centre. Disingenuous AF.

17

u/GoodUserNameToday 4d ago

No but a cough drop and a glass of water helps you get better after a cold and dry mouth 

46

u/Slapbox I voted 4d ago

A cold never makes someone ramble off and end a sentence nonsensically.

I'll vote for anyone over Trump, but Joe Biden is on the path to certain defeat and the only way to change course is to change candidate.

3

u/seasiren_666 4d ago

i've already commented this elsewhere but infections affect the elderly different. i'm not saying Joe was suffering from cold-induced delirium but it's not at all far fetched to say that. I worked in a nursing home and even the most sane of old people would go crazy when they'd get certain infections.

is Joe probably just getting old, maybe. I don't really keep up with him so i can't say. but these dudes are super old and illnesses will affect them differently than they affect us. especially if he is already declining — sickness would only make it worse.

14

u/ladyphase 4d ago

It really is wild—my dad is 73 and hallucinates when he has a UTI.

6

u/seasiren_666 4d ago

it can be so scary for all parties involved. I walked in on many, otherwise, sane residents talking to themselves because of UTIs and other infections. it still scares me some of the things they would say and see.

3

u/Kaprak Florida 4d ago

This actually specifically happened to Chuck Grassley some years ago IIRC.

He had a UTI and it made him seem like he was going nuts. No he's just older than dirt and sick.

27

u/Holycity 4d ago

Sounds like he shouldn't be president to be honest then.

4

u/seasiren_666 4d ago

I agree. elderly should not be running our country. they're susceptible to delirium.

4

u/ilovecfb Tennessee 4d ago

This makes it worse, you see that right

If a cold can put him down like that, what’s the flu gonna do. This guy wants to be president til 86 guys. 86 years old

3

u/seasiren_666 4d ago

per literally all of my other responses. I know. it wasn't supposed to make it better, it is just the truth. both Trump and Biden are too old to be in office. a UTI would take either of them out. Trump isn't immune to anything i'm saying here. i hate them both.

1

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

1

u/seasiren_666 4d ago

illness could affect both Biden and Trump that way.

1

u/Hyndis 4d ago

A cold never makes someone ramble off and end a sentence nonsensically.

Sometimes cold medication can, but I'm just an average ordinary person who buys the OTC cold medicine at Safeway, and if I'm feeling sick like that I want the nighttime stuff to help me sleep better.

I'm sure the president has actual doctors and top notch healthcare that us average people don't have. Surely they would have known not to use the nighttime (extra drowsy) cold medicine.

-3

u/emh1389 4d ago

If DNC still chooses Biden, would you vote for him? Cuz I’d rather have 4 more years of the same shit than the chaos of another Trump presidency. Or are you the vote for neither and let it all fall apart?

5

u/Slapbox I voted 4d ago

Did you read my comment or just kneejerk?

-1

u/emh1389 4d ago

It’s your defeatism is sabotaging all the good works Biden has already done. And you and others are carelessly spreading it. Biden has been old and will be old but he has been pretty fucking decent. You can call it a low bar but he has substantially increased our standing with our allies post 45. If people vote Biden regardless of his crap debate and focused on the good he’s done already and what he continues to do then he’ll win. That is the point that needs to be driven home: biden and his administration has done good work. Is it the greatest of all time, fuck no, but no one else forgave student loans. Fuck, Trump would reinstate them if he could because he’s all about reversing dem legislation and he has an ex to grind against Biden. Biden has done a lot with a slime majority. More so than Obama who was a lame duck president.

What Joe Biden and his administration has done:

Year One

Highlights from Year One

•Reversed Trump's Muslim ban

•Historic Stimulus Bill passed

•Reduction of poverty levels by 45% along with reduction of child poverty levels by 61% by the first 6 months

•5 Rounds of cancellation of student loan debt totaling almost $10 billion

•Passed largest infrastructure bill in history

•The unemployment rate dropped from 6.2% when Biden took office to 3.9%, the biggest single year drop in American history.

Year Two

Highlights from Year Two

•The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (banks agree that re are no longer in a recession)

•3 Additional rounds of student loan debt cancellation (8 rounds so far), totaling up $35 billion for 20-40 million Americans

•First major gun legislation in 30 years

•CHIPS Act to protect American supply of semi-conductor chips

•$62 billion worth of health care subsidies under the ACA (Obamacare), capping insulin at $35

•Allows Medicare to negotiate 100 drugs over the next decade, and requires drug companies to rebate price increases higher than inflation

•Unemployment at 50 year low

Year Three

Highlights from Year Three

•Got republicans to publicly take Social Security and Medicare cuts off the table by tricking them during the State of the Union

•6 More rounds of student loan debt cancellation (14 rounds so far), totaling up to $127 billion

•As of October 2023, 34 straight months of job growth, longest stretch of unemployment below 4% since the 1960s

•Child poverty rates fall from 12.6% to 5.8% due to Biden's Expanded Child Tax Credits, 2.9 million kids escape poverty

•World's best post-pandemic recovery, doubles all nations except Japan

•Created 14 million jobs since he took office - More than any president in history did in four years (and its only been 3 years)

•Black unemployment rate lower under Biden than any other administration (4.7%) - Compared to black unemployment under Trump was 2nd worst number in history, reaching over 16%

•Diversity in justice: Majority of Biden’s appointed judges are women, racial or ethnic minorities – a first for any president

•Rail companies grant paid sick days after administration pressure in win for unions. Most people will only remember that he forced rail workers to go back to work in December 2022, even now that will be the top answer if you google "Biden Railworker Deal". But most people do not know that the Biden administration continued to pressure the rail corporations and work with the unions so that in June 2023, the corporations capitulated and gave the rail workers what they wanted. Biden knows how to work politics and knows that the real work isn't done with the cameras on you for a soundbite, but in the background where people can debate without a fickle public watching every move.

Year Four (so far)

Highlights from Year Four

•Another round of student loan cancellation, $1.2 billion this time, 15 rounds so far, totaling more than $128 billion

•Growth shatters expectations: GDP expands 3.1% - a year beginning with heavy odds of a recession

•Post-pandemic recover still leading the world by far

•Plan to modernize American ports

•Rescinds Trump-era "Denial of Care" rule that allowed health care workers to deny medical care to patients because of their personal religious or moral belief

•Violent crime drop significantly since 2020

•$5.8 billion to clean up nation’s drinking water and upgrade infrastructure

1

u/Slapbox I voted 3d ago

It’s your defeatism is sabotaging all the good works Biden has already done.

No.

Nothing he's done gives anyone confidence in what he will do, and I'm not the person who needs convincing. You will not convince his skeptics to support him unless you convince them Trump is a danger, and undecided voters are too oblivious to be convinced of that. Biden will lead us all to our ends if he insists on staying in the race. It's been clear for a year and now it's glaring.

17

u/Few-Peanut8169 4d ago

Oh my god I didn’t know that some people actually believed them when they said that???? That’s crazy for real

8

u/Rodsoldier 4d ago

It was the cough making him stutter every 5 words too btw lmao.

It would be every 10 words but he simply skipped half of the words on any given phrase.

0

u/ReddittorMan 4d ago

You’d be surprised how gullible people can be.

3

u/PolicyWonka 4d ago

That’s BS. Biden’s voice isn’t something temporary from illness. It’s been like that for months now. Maybe the coughing is from a cold, but he really struggles to project his voice.

2

u/bytethesquirrel New Hampshire 4d ago

https://youtu.be/HYghfyxtZnc?t=601

That doesn't sound like struggling to me.

2

u/thereddituser2 California 4d ago

This nonsense again. You are just blue maga. We constantly criticize and call them cult members, while you ignore how horrible his age is and find some bullshit excuses like cold. You are also in a cult.

1

u/Gliese2 4d ago

That was full on NyQuil

1

u/SpaceTimeinFlux 4d ago

But dementia gets worse faster.

Trump absolutely has dementia.

Biden is just old.