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?
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I believe he specifically said it during one of the debates. I really wish he would have followed through with it.
He has implied the only reason he’s running for a second term is because he doesn’t want Trump to be president again.
We can never know, but if Trump weren’t running, he might not be either.
Just because he has convinced himself that he is the only one that can beat Trump doesn’t make it true.
In fact I would argue that him running again is somewhat selfish.
He has certainly had a good term, I am guilty of ignoring that, but he is old. Why have we let ourselves get into the position we are in.
An unpopular president typically does better than a popular candidate. That’s just how encumbancy works.
Screw stats and precedent? Would you feel the same way if your favorite candidate ran and Trump crushed them by historic margins?
Because we’re a party of compromise, and the other side is a party fo extremism. Our compromise involved someone with a lot of bullet points in his favor for our older voters while still appealing to enough of our younger voters.
Not entirely sure I follow but I guess that, that attitude is from my pessimism that an 81 year old can win the presidency. You are right that incumbents have a major advantage and it does seem silly to throw that away.
I also don’t have any idea who I would want to be running in his stead. As I have said elsewhere I am far left and like the Squads politics, but I am under no illusion that they could win a nationwide race. Even though the planet is burning.
Serious question: who do you think would be more likely to defeat Trump in November?
Like…there may very well be someone that you personally like more, but from a political strategy perspective, who’s out there that you think has better odds at defeating Trump?
Harris? Bernie?
I’m not arguing the implications of any position, but strictly making observations, I feel that, love him or hate him, Biden is the one person with the best odds to beat Trump in a nationwide general election, and I feel that this will still be true in November.
Totally agree, and I don’t have an answer. I am a filthy liberal so who I would want as president probably isn’t who the nation wants.
Bernie is good but he has age issues as well.
Kamala is probably the only reasonable choice. She was vice president so she has the experience and she is an ok orator to my knowledge.
I haven’t really paid much attention though to be honest. I want someone with AOC’s politics leading the Democrats but that is never going to happen for lots of reasons.
Kamala would rally the right so hard if she was the candidate. Heck when Biden ran in 2020, him picking her as a running mate caused the right to freak out enough already. They started these huge conspiracies saying day one Biden would step down and hand the presidency to her. Which even amongst some of my peers, I heard. It’s scary how conspiracy theories can spread.
Matter of fact, I wonder if reminding them of this point would have them be more skeptical for the next scheme…
Kamala was a tough-on-crime prosecutor. She might even be able to rally some of the right to vote for her.
Not sure that’s saying something good about her, though.
The right hates her. I can’t understand why the right would hate a confident african american woman, enough to make up conspiracy theories about her.
In 2020, I’d have said Warren. She was able to bring in almost every demographic, if she didn’t lose progressive votes to the infighting with Bernie.
In 2024, nobody has a better shot than Biden.
Isn’t this an admission on your part that you believe moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with progressives and leftists?
What a warped view of the situation.
No.
First of all, it’s not “an admission” it’s an observation.
Second, it’s not about what I believe, it’s an observation.
Third, I’m not going to speculate on what a bloc of MI l millions of voters would “rather” do in your framework.
Biden was the nominee in 2020 not because he was the candidate anyone liked best, but because he was the candidate that everyone disliked least. In 2024 he’s still that candidate.
Further, and more to your point, the entire notion of “moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with progressives and leftists” is a wild misrepresentation if voting weight at best, and a total disconnect with the reality of the situation in all likelihood.
More accurately: if the left flank of the American left cannot get onboard with a candidate that the majority of the rest of the American left supports…not even when the alternative is a fascist…then it’s that left flank of the party who bears responsibility for being uncompromising, and letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I’d love to see a progressive president, but for that to happen, they need the votes. And it’s wildly unreasonable to expect the majority of the Democratic party back someone who won’t be able to carry moderates in swing states just because the progressives won’t back them unless they do.
Like it or not, leftists and progressives are a far more politically expendable bloc than swing state suburban moderates.
My that’s a massive wall of backpedaling.
There was zero backpedal, only breaking things down into bite sized pieces for you.
Maybe enough of them would to shift the election towards Trump. Even if it’s 60/40, losing 40% of the moderates could be a be death sentence for the Democratic candidate. Look at how many people “voted to send a message” in previous years. It’s sad but it might be true.
Then it’s the moderates who are the problem. Not leftists or progressives.
The moderate Democrats are probably the single largest voting bloc in the country. They don’t get to be “the problem” in a Democracy. They’re the base.
I agree with you on this at least. Given the choices between racism or any Democratic leader, we should unite behind the Democrat.
Honestly, this sounds like an attempt to excuse the people who voted for him in the primaries but the reality is there is no good excuse. There were much better options. Voting for Biden in the primaries was selfish and foolish. If we aren’t clear about that the people making selfish and foolish decisions in the primaries will continue to make selfish and foolish decisions.
For curiosity sake, what’s selfish about voting for Biden?
Give me an example of a reason to vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries that wasn’t selfish or foolish.
I understand there are arguments to be made about it being foolish. I don’t agree but I could understand the arguments.
My question is how is it selfish? There are infinite reasons why it’s not selfish. For example, maybe you like moderates. Maybe you didn’t want trump to win and you thought he was the best candidate. Maybe you like that he likes ice cream. Maybe you closed your eyes and picked randomly. None of these are selfish reasons. I struggle to think of a selfish reason to vote Biden, unless you are Biden voting for yourself.
They ignored the voices and pleas of progressive and leftist voices who have been suffering under establishment Democrat leadership. Rather than find a compromise candidate they chose the epitome of establishment Democrat expecting that those voices would show up to vote for him anyway.
That’s selfish in my view.
Would you agree for the same logic for Republicans.
By voting a progressive leader, we would be ignoring the voices and pleas of those who have been suffering under the established Democrat leadership? Is this selfish?
What about of the roles were reversed? What if we had a progressive leader for the last 4 years and the moderates wanted Biden now. Would we be ignoring the voices and pleas of the moderates to keep our current progressive in? Is this also selfish?
You and I already came to the understanding that you are you applying your judgement consistently. I’m fine with your judgements against me so long as you apply them to moderates.
At this point, I think any vote toward Trump’s main opposition is the correct vote. Anything else is, to use your word, foolish if you don’t want fascism.
Meaning voting third party (or not voting) because your candidate isn’t progressive/moderate/anything enough, is as good as voting for Trump.
You say “better options” but a clear majority of Democrats thought Biden was the better option. And all the other candidates that anyone took seriously are in the same age range as them. Nobody younger knocked on the door with a platform really worth backing. Buttigieg had no Federal chops whatsoever, Harris was a freaking prosecutor.
Or if you’re just talking “better in general”, then you’re talking about the Progressives war. Bernie still hasn’t realized he’ll never win a Primary, and the way his campaign sabotaged and undercut Warren’s with necessary voting demographics was a killshot. Grassroot movements to call her a secret Republican. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Didn’t Warren’s campaign just shoot itself in the foot, trying to play political games rather than focusing on things like policies? I never saw anyone call her a secret Republican. Just someone who picked incompetent people who run her campaign.
I mean…no. Her campaign was arguably the polar opposite of that to her detriment. She said she wanted to do something. Then she wrote up a detailed plan for it and published it, letting the other candidates find something in the details they didn’t like and tear it apart.
She’s a policy wonk who is a law professor first and a politician second.
There were a lot of “grassroots” youtube videos that came out and took lines of hers out of context. They would softball questions like “Warren is just as good as Bernie because they vote the same a lot, right? WRONG! Warren is a capitalist pretending to be progressive to steal your vote”. And those grassroot video efforts started to trace back to Sanders campaign leadership. Nobody ever quite confirmed if Bernie directly knew his campaign was doing it, but the rule is usually that the campaign’s action sare the candidate’s responsibility.
She was doing fine when the focus was on policy. Then it turned to weird personal attacks and gotchas, and people stopped caring.
Were they right?
You’re asking for an opinion.
A majority of Democrats thought Biden was the better option and despite the complaints of terminally online leftists, it appears they still do.
Yes I’m asking what your opinion is.
I personally liked Bernie but he sounded like a broken record at times. In hindsight I have my doubts he’d have won in the general anyway. Biden was easily the strongest candidate, who do you think was better?
This is an admission you believe people would rather lose to fascists than compromise with leftists.
I won’t be voting for Biden in 2024. I will be voting 3rd party.
Anyone but Biden or Bloomberg was a better choice.
If you are voting third party, instead of for Biden. Aren’t you saying you’d rather lose to fascist then vote for Biden?
Because at the end of the day, it’s Biden vs Trump. A vote for Biden, is be a vote against Trump and vice versa.
Brother I don’t even think the vast majority of the electorate can define fascist much less decide they’d rather have that than compromise with leftists.
Clinging to ideological purity while you lose elections isn’t how you get a seat at the table. It’s how you lose.
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He did better than he promised at basically everything. I really wanted someone who would push the envelope to the Left, but he never promised that and a lot of Democratic voters didn’t want that anyway. He did recover us from COVID and dramatically improve the economy. He attempted some things that were more progressive than I expected of him, with various levels of success.
EDIT: he also compromised more with the Left than any president since Carter. Not much, but something
Sounds like you’re fine with the way things are working then.
I will not be voting for Joe Biden in 2024. I will be voting 3rd party.