Harris had more billionaire donors than Trump and she out-raised him almost by $700 million. Of course there was plenty of dark money floating around and Musk dropped a ton of money into Pennsylvania, but don’t act as if Biden and Harris were working class darlings. Calling out price gouging is all good and well, and realistically, there’s only so much the president can do legally to combat inflation, but he did have the bully pulpit and a little bit of lip service to price gouging was not enough obviously. He could’ve been out there daily essentially doxing these companies and their ceos putting the fear of God in them.

Populism is a dirty word to the establishment, but both Trump and Bernie are populists. In fact, the first part of their message is essentially the same: America is going to shit, the Economy is terrible, and you’re getting fucked. The difference, of course, is that Trump points the finger at immigrants and others as the reason why this happening, while Bernie points the finger at the Oligarchs. The true power of populism is the threat of using the majority against the minority. It’s why it can lead to violence and mob rule.

People want someone to pay for the pain they are feeling, Trump is doing that, although of course it’s completely misguided and fucked up. The Democrats are not willing to do that. At some point, they’re going to need a Teddy Roosevelt like figure who comes along and essentially says to them, “hey listen I know it’s crazy, but if we don’t do something about the wealth inequality and the ruling class, we’re all gonna get our heads chopped off.”

No one alive is probably fit to do the job, it’s an impossible task. Those who may come close, would probably never actually want it. And of those who remain who do want it ( which already might make them not worthy for the position) are probably not electable due to the forces of capitalism preventing such a candidate from getting elected.

So what is left is simply a pragmatic choice of the lesser evil. Many people are acutely aware of this and have gotten over it. I suggest until you manage to enact some sort of drastic systemic change you get it over it as well.

Agreed. If you are not incompetent, you will remember the stuff that you use often. You will know exactly where to look to refresh your memory for things you use infrequently, and when you do need to look something up, you will understand the solution and why it’s correct. Being good at looking things up, is like half the job.

Trump has historically underperformed in poles and because of the electoral college advantage that Republicans have, Biden probably needs to be at least up four or five points on him, which is what he was last election and it came down to 20,000 votes across several battle ground states.

yes, Trump lied during the debate. Trump is the worst candidate in the history of the United States and him being elected president would be a catastrophe for democracy. Which is exactly why many people in the Democratic Party including - if reports are to be believed - apparently Barack Obama, are trying to have Biden pushed out right now. That Biden is now taking a cavalier attitude that “he’s going to give it his best shot, and if he loses, well he tried his hardest and that’s what counts”…when his own campaign has been framing this threat from Trump as being detrimental to democracy, is the height of hubris.

There are numerous reports that they’ve been shielding him and his mental capacity for a long time now trying to drag him across the finish line. The cat is out of the bag, and it’s a pretty big gamble to assume more things are not going to happen between now and the election. Is that a bigger gamble than switching candidates? I don’t know but I think it is.

I’m sure some people want him to step down because they think he is senile and can’t do the job, but I would bet that most of us want him to step down because he’s not going to win. I’d vote for a literal dead body before I vote for Trump. I honestly don’t care who it is. All I care is it needs to be someone who will beat him. Biden was already trailing Trump and many polls and after that debate and the obvious mental state that he’s in, it’s not gonna get any better. Furthermore, no arguments about Trump’s mental state or anything about him matter. Trump is a monolith. He is what he is. He has the support he has and nothing will change that short of him dropping dead. So either Biden can beat him or he can’t and most of us think he can’t.

Biden asked for that debate because he was behind in the polls and his unfavorable rating is abysmal. No president has ever been reelected with the approval rating Biden currently has. He shouldn’t even be polling even with Trump. He needs to be polling way ahead of him to have any chance of winning because of the way the electoral college works and favors red candidates.

Him stepping down still probably won’t matter and Trump will probably win but at this point, I think a lot of people realize Biden has no chance, so even though a replacement candidate this late in the game is dubious proposition. It’s probably better than what we have right now? What he’s doing is trying to run out the clock to prevent the possibility of somebody being able to replace him, purely because of his ego.

The real problem is that across the globe there is like 50 different implementations of it. Some places have a fucking half hour, or some goofy shit. Really fun handling time zones with that sprinkled on top.