r/politics • u/Murky-Site7468 • 6d 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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u/MrEHam 6d ago edited 6d ago

Yeah I agree. Here’s what I hope they’re considering:

  1. ⁠Run a bunch of ads that show Biden speaking clearly and forcefully to get that into everyone’s consciousness.

  2. ⁠Prep him for the next debate with a few key points to consistently hammer Trump on. Don’t worry about any stats or names that can trip up anyone regardless of age. Hardly anyone answers the questions perfectly anyways. He needs ZINGERS. And he needs to practice them daily until the next debate.

  3. Get Kamala some carefully crafted good exposure. Sticking up for Biden. Reassure people that she will step up if necessary.

Here’s what I hope everyone else is considering.

  1. ⁠Trump is a felon and he’s about to be sentenced.

  2. ⁠He tried to overthrow democracy and is unapologetic.

  3. ⁠Climate change is a serious threat that the republicans will accelerate if they win.

  4. ⁠The Supreme Court will be even more one-sided and we can say goodbye to abortions, birth control, gun control, and any protections for minority groups.

  5. ⁠I really hope we don’t have another pandemic because Trump screwed up the last one and everyone paid for it.

  6. ⁠Biden has four years of decades-high great results and had a great State of the Union address. He has an amazing team around him. That’s what matters. Get over a bad night where he stumbled on a dozen words.

Everyone should watch his fiery and well-spoken speech from today. It will make you feel a lot better about last night.

https://youtu.be/s5CVZHAjrW8?si=IDSZz7kgFHaTy_iq

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u/Mr_peanut_butterrr 6d ago

I hope he steps aside, that’s what we as a party need to be calling for.

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u/MrEHam 6d ago

Watch the speech from today. He’s clearly sharp and it was just a bad night.

Everyone loses their train of thought sometimes.

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u/Mr_peanut_butterrr 6d ago

“Speech”. Exactly. “Everyone loses their train of thought”. Read the transcripts of those answers. It wasn’t once or twice.

Y’all delusional in your tribalism and we’re veering towards disaster because of it. He lost the soft 5% last night for good. Somebody needs to speak truth. Contested convention should be what we’re universally calling for.

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u/Parahelix 6d ago

Dems don't have anyone else that could start a campaign at this point, except possibly Harris, and that would just cause a whole different set of problems.

You'd have a massive amount of scrutiny, which could screw up any new campaign, but which isn't really an issue for Biden since he's been scrutinized to hell and back already.

As I've said before, Biden could die a month after his inauguration and I wouldn't worry too much, because he will appoint competent people and things will continue to function just fine.

Trump is a criminal, who appoints the worst people (often also criminals), and then ends up telling us that they're the worst people as he fires them via tweet. He also lies about what he's going to do, and has the absolute dumbest policy ideas imaginable.

Why anyone would vote for that over even a comatose Biden, I can't fathom.

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u/Mr_peanut_butterrr 6d ago

They don’t? It’s June, not October. Convention hasn’t happened, plenty of time for a horse race. Is it ideal? Obviously it isn’t, but staying course ends in defeat.

The political reality is we’re deeply entrenched. 40-45% of the electorate won’t vote for either regardless of what they do. Personally, I’d crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump. However, we need to target that last 5-10% that remains soft. Their biggest complaint is “he’s too old, weak, etc”. Last night laid bare all their worst fears and they won’t soon forget. It was a disaster, and any talking head who tells you otherwise is being at best desingenous, and at worst purposefully deceitful.

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u/honkoku 6d ago

They don’t? It’s June, not October. Convention hasn’t happened, plenty of time for a horse race. Is it ideal? Obviously it isn’t, but staying course ends in defeat.

The main problem is that right now, there is no obvious single person that can step up and replace Biden. If Biden were to decide to step aside, we would be back to the progressive vs. moderate fight again with 12 different candidates trying to elbow their way in. That's not a good position to be in 5 months before the election and even less time before the convention.

If Kamala Harris were widely respected and thought of as a future president she could take over, but (perhaps due to sexism and racism) she isn't viewed that way, meaning there's no clear successor.

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u/Mr_peanut_butterrr 6d ago

The obvious choice is literally anybody else. Whitmer, Newsom, Warnock, etc. let them fight it out, but Biden is toast with the sliver of the electorate he needs to win this election and doing nothing is political malpractice.

Not a good position to be in? Give me a break. You act like we’re in a good position now. Trump about to open up a 5-10% lead in the polls, our candidate is incoherent, good god we have to try something.

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u/honkoku 6d ago

You are overestimating the effect Biden's bad performance will have on the election, and underestimating the chaos it would cause to try to replace him now.

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u/taco_guy_for_hire 6d ago

Yeah, unfortunately it is clear that Biden is too old for the job. I like Biden but it was sad seeing him up there. He cannot do the job, and his administration cannot do the job of a president without a president. And this is 2024…what does he look like 2-3 years from now? Another presidency could possible kill him. The man needs to retire, and if the DNC can’t rally behind another candidate, then it’ll be their own fault when they loose in November…because that’s exactly where we are going with Biden. I’m sorry, it sucks, but it’s true. It’s not all right to just have a president up there who can’t speak in a straight line for more than 10 seconds at a time. I can’t believe I’m not seeing more comments like this.

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u/MrEHam 6d ago

This was one of the earliest debates ever. There’s still almost five months and Trump is about to be sentenced for his felony.

The speech from today shows that he’s still sharp. I’m not that worried tbh. Especially after seeing the speech.

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u/Mr_peanut_butterrr 6d ago

Have fun in your delusion, wish I could be as ignorant of political realities.

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u/MrEHam 6d ago

Watch the speech.

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u/Mr_peanut_butterrr 6d ago

I did. It’s a speech, that’s my point. You keep saying that and it’s self-defeating.

Until Biden has a long, unscripted public appearance where there’s unknown variables and he’s coherent, I will remain apocalyptic. He lost the soft 5-10% who’s biggest concern was laid bare for all to see.

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u/MrEHam 6d ago

Lose it to Trump? Not that easy. He’s a felon, responsible for Jan 6, bungled covid, already lost to Biden, found liable for sexual assault, etc.

But oh no, Biden lost his train of thought last night!

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u/Mr_peanut_butterrr 6d ago

News flash: I do not disagree! I’m as far from a Trump supporter as possible. I’m also pragmatic, and understand our current political realities. He alienated the very people he needs to win, I’m not those people, and your lying to yourself if you don’t see that. This election is going to come down to 50K votes across 5ish states. Biden losing is most certainly a possibility.

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u/taco_guy_for_hire 6d ago

Being able to read from a teleprompter is not enough.

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