She’ll be 35 by swearing in and that’s the actual requirement. Progressives will never be given the spot by the party though, they need to win it convincingly in a primary.

Remember the 2020 convention where none of the “hot” voices in the party were given speaking spots and the key note was like a dozen different politicians all giving part of a speech, guaranteeing that none of them would have an Obama moment?

And then how throughout Biden’s term the two competitors in his administration (Harris and Buttigieg) we basically only brought out for damage control and no-win policies Biden didn’t want to be tarnished with? Harris has always been a weak candidate, but being given the task of fixing voting rights and the southern border was just sabotaging the presumed heir apparent.

They’re not even just trying to keep the party moderate, they don’t want to even let any other moderates build a stature. Everything has been in service of our elderly leader. Who cares what happens after him, the consultants will have already cashed out and rotated back to business, and the party leadership was also all old as fuck.

Note that many of those elections were easier to guess than just flipping a coin, so you don’t really need to cover every potential combination to cover like 95% of the likely outcomes.

Ah, sweet sweet karma. Unfortunately modern medicine for an Important Person with lots of money will limit its reach, but I hope she has a really unpleasant reaction to the antivirals.

This is notably the woman who, in response to a protest of West Bank land sales that was understaffed by the police said the answer is not to boost police presence at contentious protests, but just to do what she wanted to do already, have more police patrols.

And it’s not just a single debate, it’s a thing people will recognize from their own elderly relatives’ declines. They’ll be sharp as a tack at some times and in some situations and in others they’ll be confused and incoherent. There’s no reason to believe this is a one-off incident that won’t reoccur publicly during the next 4 months. We’ve already been seeing some questionable senior moments that have been brushed aside as being out of context or just some simple mistake unrelated to age. Who really believes those narratives after seeing the debate?

Not to mention him dropping out would be acknowledging their personal failure and likely eliminate some of their jobs. Anita Dunn is one of the people directly responsible for this, but if she can gaslight us all she can continue her revolving door “consulting” (a job status selected so she wouldn’t have to release financial information).

This is the best news I’ve heard since the debate.

Before my adblocker quashed it, I got a Biden-Harris ad. Probably not the best channel for governing politicians to be advertising on.

I think most Democrats are worried about him being elected more than will he be able to be president for four years. Like he probably won’t, but there’s lots of structure and support to prevent a failing Biden from a catastrophic presidency. There’s basically none to prevent him from tanking his reelection campaign.

If he gets elected I’m not worried. He can die or be puppeted by his staff and things will be roughly as ok as they are now. I’m worried he won’t get elected.

There are a lot of non-democracies with elections.

Mostly true. The DNC is the organization that makes the rules and can change them at any time. That would be a pretty bad move though unless the party really felt united in needing to do a hostile expulsion. Realistically Biden needs to be on board for a change to work, so being able to play Calvinball with primary voting rules isn’t really an out.

You also don’t really need to think for a speech. You’ve got a friendly audience who won’t challenge you and you know exactly what the next topic is, so you can focus on inflection and timing and emotion. It’s good to see him have some life in the speech, but it’s not really much of a counter to his terrible debate performance.

And incidentally, that’s probably why Trump’s performance sounded better. He also didn’t really need to think about substance because he was just speaking to whatever topic he felt like and making things up without concern for truthfulness or challenge.

Not that it helps, but she’s currently more popular than Biden.

I think all the “Biden should step aside” calls are due to concerns about Step 1.

Actually Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend was acquitted for firing at them as self-defense. In very specific situations and with suitably embarrassing incidents for the police you might be able to avoid having the entire weight of the justice system come down on you. Assuming you survive the encounter in the first place.

Yeah, like what are the stats on 13 year olds actually shooting cops vs. just having toy guns? Like at some point you gotta realize it’s probably not actually a threat and proceed more cautiously.

He’s old, it was his bedtime and instead we asked him to go to a debate.

Holy crap how can you say things like this and think it’s supporting him? The presidency isn’t something that just pauses for bedtime and campaigning involves a lot of being “on” over and over again, sometimes at night.

She was my favorite in 2020 and I’d personally love Warren to be picked. She’s got the stature, ability to draw volunteers and donations, and could put together the campaign infrastructure quickly. I just think Biden stepping aside puts a bad highlight on age that despite her being obviously more vital makes her a poor choice. Plus there’s no possible way the moderate establishment that runs Biden’s Democratic party would ever voluntarily choose her.

I’m at the point where anyone who’s younger and not a RINO is a valid choice. I found Buttigieg and Harris to both be uninspiring political chameleons without any core beliefs in 2020, but if that’s what it takes, so be it. My dream, but only minutely realistic pick for an under 70 replacement? Katie Porter.

The “respect” is letting her decide and then dropping the issue. After she refused she should have received more pressure, first in private and then, if necessary, in public. She should have been disrespected for the good of the nation.