Don’t despair. Once Biden wins in November, we can get voting rights acts passed that will help support younger people voting at higher rates and make sure their votes count.
That’s how we get better uptake of younger candidates.
That, and we really need to get the money out of politics and shorten the election cycle to maybe 6 months prior to election day.
The last time a national democrat held onto their incumbent seat because they were sure Trump would lose, we got Amy Coney Barrett and lost Roe v Wade.
Both options (Biden staying or someone else stepping in) suck, and it’s hard to figure out which has a better chance of not resulting in President For Life Trump.
Changing candidates now is a sure loss. What makes you think Biden staying would be one? T**** could be reporting to prison or at least wearing a tracking anklet and confined to T**** Tower within two weeks!
It’s really not that difficult.
The circular firing squad can be called off, thanks!
Yeah, the Democrats lack a high-profile candidate ready to step into the position, and I would call that a strategic blunder by the party leadership.
Still, we are in an era of negative partisanship, and putting forward a relatively unknown candidate may have some benefits. PA’s gov Shapiro, for example, doesn’t have years of conservative demonization to overcome.
Even Newsom, who is known in California and among the more politically engaged population, is not a household name. Hillary had 20 years of conspiracy theories to fight against, and Biden had decades on the national stage to dig through for dirt. Compared to that, Newsom’s slate is clean.
Holy shit, these candidates are BAD. Joe should have retired 10 years ago, and Trump should have been laughed back up the escalator in 2015.
Given that, dear sweet Jesus I hope Biden wins.
I agree with this for the most part. What scares me is that people in general become narrowly focused. Any president is only as good as the people they surround themselves with and we know very much who those people are in the Trump camp. Even worse, we know that on the first day of a Trump presidency, they are going to make it their purpose to march through Project 2025. Which is fucking terrifying.
Then there’s the topic of the next SCOTUS nominees. And there will be easily 2 for whomever the next president is. Fucking hell - Trump would nominate two more radicals on the court.
Imagine how bad it is now for individual freedoms under the current court, it could get far worse.
That said - I’ll be blunt and say from early on, I was hoping that Biden would have pulled a semi-LBJ circa 1968 and stepped aside long ago. That didn’t happen. I’ll be voting for him, but I’m quite worried that just this one evening could have pushed Trump far into the lead.
Oh c’mon, I agree it would have been better if Obama had been able to appoint RBG’s replacement but that’s just not the same thing at all.
First, Ginsberg wasn’t a “national Democrat.” She was a Supreme Court Justice with a nominally nonpartisan position. The whole rationale for lifetime appointments is meant to insulate judges from making decisions based on political considerations. From a professional standpoint she wasn’t supposed to care who won the next election.
Second, it’s not at all clear that the Senate would have done their job and allowed Obama to appoint her replacement even if she had stepped down. They certainly didn’t when Scalia died.
It seems like Biden could smooth this over by coming out with a statement explaining what was wrong last night. Did he have a bad cold? Did someone slip something his pre prep drink (e.g. cold medicine) that shut his brain down? It’s sad he didn’t at least allude to being off his game last night.
Even Obama , a great communicator, had his “ shellacking” moment after the mid terms.
The worse thing is the acting like the debate was all okay by the Biden admin.
Harris seemed to acknowledge that it didn’t go great.
But I really liked one of the zingers she gave in another interview last night:
Burn!
I mean, look at 68… and Johnson annouced he wasn’t gonna run earlier in the year. That got us Nixon… which, he was not terrible from a domestic policy POV, at least in his first term? Another Trump presidency WILL kill democracy.
But hey… we’ve been told that history doesn’t matter, so… let’s ignore it and just replace biden with someone NO ONE fucking knows, and that’ll be fine.
… everything will work out fine
and if it doesn’t, it’s our own fault for not loving this wonderful system hard enough 
To clarify this - we did get Nixon, but it’s my belief that’s because of RFK being murdered in LA.
That said - it’s too late to try and swoop in a different candidate. If he was going to step aside, it should have been well back.
I’m not giving up on Biden, but right now my enthusiasm is for Gretchen Whitmer in 2028. She seems to be doing a swell job as a progressive governor of a swing state, and unless I’ve managed to miss something, doesn’t seem to have any negatives.
Have you ever read Judith Stein’s book, Pivotal Decade? It’s an economic history of the 70s… She makes the argument that probably would not have happened? She gives numbers prior to this assassination to back that up (which I don’t have off the top of my head, but he was polling below Humphrey, but above McCarthy, if I’m remembering correctly - this is among democrats, I think?). It’s not something we can know for sure either way (and as a historian, I’d always caution against being sure about any alternate timelines, because of that). It’s certainly possible, but we can’t know for sure.
I recommend the book (I’m only a couple of chapters in, but so far, it’s interesting, if pretty wonky).
Right. And people keep suggesting people who do not have the same national reach/name recognition as the current president… that will most certainly end in another Trump presidency.
Biden was an absolute embarrassment last night, but everyone in a panic over it is acting like the debates were going to change a bunch of minds. They were largely useless even if Biden had been on his game. His opponent remains a fascist lying piece of shit. The number of undecided voters isn’t zero but if they haven’t made up their minds by now they’re certainly open to fascism and if they end up voting for Trump it seems absurd to lay the blame on Biden performing badly in one debate, as though Trump being Trump since 2016 was somehow not enough for any person with a brain to form an opinion about him.
I’ve not read that, no. But thanks for the recommendation.
A couple years ago, I read the below book and loved it. Now, that’s not why I feel that RFK would have won, I just happened to enjoy it a lot. Even though I was only two at the time of his murder, I consider him to be a truly amazing person for his time and place.
I’ve not read that, thanks! Adding it to my already long list!
Sure… Sadly, even back then, it wasn’t enough to ensure victory… 
But yeah, the Stein book is good and worth the time, if you’re interested in how we got here. Well-sourced and she seems to be challenging some of our preconceived notions based on party affiliation.
I don’t know how much the debate really changed things last night (Trump voters are still Trump voters, Biden voters still Biden voters, undecideds are… seriously not paying attention to anything anyways.) But I’m starting to seriously steel myself for a Trump win. I don’t think I’d survive what will come after if he wins, but I don’t want the election outcome itself to do me in.
A benevolent Khanate of Lake Michigan governors sounds pretty good.
It doesn’t have to change much for an election that’s decided on the margins. It only takes a few tenths of a percent change in the swing states to change the outcome.
And that doesn’t necessarily mean changing supporters from one candidate to the other, either. That could just mean a handful more voters making an effort to reach the polls in November.
