I know that it’s popular to dismiss President Biden. I get it. He’s old. This is the first election featuring the 2 oldest candidates, ever. So what? The future of the WORLD is literally dependent on this election. To boot Biden from the ticket and try to bootstrap another candidate is madness. Booting this incumbent and hoping his VP will succeed is like firing the cook and hoping the dishwasher will give you Michelin-quality food. Stick with the old man, and figure out a way to enact his popular policies while also expanding the Supreme Court, enacting term limits and limiting “Christian” Nationalists.
That last line right there is the problem. Tell me, how can the party fix this mess if Biden, for whatever reason, simply refuses to drop out? Is there some mechanism or method by which the party can force him out, short of attempting to enact the 25th amendment and hoping Congress agrees?
You’re minimizing the personal freedom these individuals have to defy their party, giving the party an unrealistic amount of behind-the-scenes power. This is conspiratorial.
Bernie did not cooperate with the party, isn’t even officially a member. Still doing fine though. This party apparatus does not have the actual degree of control people like to think, it can only sway, lobby and pressure. People simply like to blame it at every opportunity, out of convenience mainly.
Threaten to invoke the 25th Amendment.
I should point out that they don’t really care if he loses. If he loses, oh well, Trump is great for the Party because they can use him to fund-raise and make electoral gains. He’ll probably fuck up as badly as he did in his first term and they’ll get a new majority.
Why wouldn’t they just run the genocidal mummy, let him lose, and then start over in 2028? The Public’s memory is short, after all.
Bernie has a personal political brand that’s strong enough to withstand the Party. He can afford to defy the Party. Bad comparison.
The Party gets the blame for when their coalition fucks up. Parties are accountable for their membership.
The 25th amendment requires both houses of congress to vote in favor of replacing the president with a 2/3rds majority. Republicans control the house, and are unlikely to comply. Additionally, unless he actually is legitimately unfit, it would be unethical for his cabinet and VP to make that assertion.
It’s a pipe dream. There isn’t actually an answer when we get into the nitty gritty legal details.
The reason to not allow Trump to win, incidentally, is proj 2025 and his new SC granted legal immunity. He already tried to overthrow one election, in case you don’t remember.
You’re living in conspiracy land to make yourself feel better about why progressives aren’t in charge more often. The real answer is we just don’t outnumber the moderates in most places.
You think Republicans would turn down the chance to remove Biden from office?
How, exactly, would the explain that to their constituents? 🤨
Yes, which is why they should be trying to replace Biden, because making him the nominee is guaranteeing a second Trump term. The fact that they won’t even try and most of the party is lining up behind him as the nominee shows me that they don’t actually believe there’s a real danger.
The literal purpose of political parties and their power to both influence elections and party membership isn’t a conspiracy, this is ludicrous, this is the function of political parties. It’s not just a fan club. They exist to set the agenda, platform, and manage the coalition. You’re basically denying that political parties perform a function.
In your world, what even is the purpose of political parties?
This isn’t even about progressive politics. This is about a genocidal mummy driving us off a cliff and guaranteeing a second Trump term.
Simple, they think Biden is a weak candidate, and they have the best chances of beating him. Several have made statements towards this effect.
So, any other ideas for how Biden can be removed beyond republicans voting for a stronger opponent?
Your conspiracy is this hanging on to some way to control events when no mechanism exists. You are exaggerating a true thing (the purpose of parties) into something untrue (control over events). Very simple.
But what do they tell their constituents, who think Biden stole the election and needs to be impeached?
They can literally just not nominate him at the convention. It’s that easy. They control who the nominee is.
They could hold a condensed primary by mailing out ballots to all 50 States and then use that to inform delegates at the convention, they make the rules and since this is an emergency situation they could make new rules.
They tell their constituents exactly what they’ve been saying, what I told you. Their constituents would forgive them, that’s not difficult to understand.
If you’re advocating for just making up new rules on the fly that toss out the will of the voters, that’s just authoritarianism. That’s not us.
Republican voters: well known for understanding politics 👍
“They go low we go high” is a losing strategy.
As for the “will of the voters”? Look at the polls! Voters don’t want Joe and the will of the voters will demonstrate it when Trump fucking wins, and if you really believe that’s the end of democracy then maybe that matters a little more than primary tradition.
EDIT Relevant article to our discussion just dropped on Jacobin, here’s what Democratic Rep. Adam Smith had to say:
Republicans will believe what Trump tells them to believe. You’re just fighting this to be stubborn, it makes no sense that republicans would weaken themselves just to be consistent. They are horribly inconsistent very often.
It doesn’t matter. If everyone in this country starts betraying their values just to save it, then the nation might not be worth saving anymore. Someone has to stand up for democratic principles. And polls are not that great these days, you remember they predicted Hilary’s victory? The voters voted, and they were primaries even if you didn’t have anyone you liked running.
That wouldn’t be enough to LITERALLY remove him, but it would be such a strong signal of disavowal from people who he himself appointed that he’d be effectively dead to the party already.
True. It would still be unethical unless he was actually medically unfit, though. Regardless of debate performance, he’s probably not actually senile yet, which they would know better than we would just from working with the guy regularly.