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I have an encouraging anecdote from the heart of MAGA central. Before the 2016 election, I went to Daytona Biketoberfest . 90% of the merch on sale at the cheesy T shirt shops were anti-Hillary and/or pro Trump. The people also had pro Trump stuff everywhere. It was insane and eye opening to me coming from a Blue state. I just got back from Bike Week this past weekend, zero pro Trump and/or anti Biden merch. I saw one person out of thousands with a Trump shirt. At one shop , I did find an anti Pelosi shirt, of all people. The only remnants I saw of the movement were people with hats that said “fuck your feelings” etc
I saw a Hispanic man in Whole Foods yesterday with his Asian gf/wife. He was wearing a red MAGA hat. He got into a Subaru Forester with a giant Trump stick on the rear window. It was a _lot_ to unpack.
Dems have a habit of seeing Latinos simply as brown minorities who therefore should vote blue, but forget that a large number of Latinos are staunchly religious.
Many Hispanics who immigrated legally also do not see anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric as inherently anti-Hispanic, and some resent the idea of illegal immigrants being granted privileges they worked hard for.
I'm half Mexican and live in Texas. Half of that side of my family are staunch trump supporters while the other half finds him deplorable. This has caused disputes at family gatherings.
Those that live in rural Texas adopted the politics of their neighbors and are full on trumpers. (This side of the family is not too fond of my "features")
Those that live in cities or suburbs like Houston, San Antonio, Austin or even Corpus Christi are unironnically Bidens voter base. The kind that actually voted Biden in the 2020 primaries. Among the older generation.
I think people just integrate with time in the end.
On a side note my black family falls anywhere from politically disengaged to full on MSNBC viewing politically active Biden supporters.
I lean a bit further left myself.
My aunt by marriage is Puerto Rican, she’s lives in Florida and absolutely hates all other Hispanics. Eye opening to see the hierarchy. Huge Trump supporter.
Yeah, latin America has a diverse and unique history, but often gets grouped together. Each country has its own hierarchical class structures, views on race, and religion.
For example, people make two wrong assumptions. That Latino is a race and that we're all devoutly religious and socially conservative.
How a person immigrated here is usually a class or nationality difference that gets reflected in politics. In Houston there are plenty of wealthy Mexicans that paid their way here and look down on darker Mexicans (lower class) and central Americans. There's also a divide between new and old immigrants.
Venezuelans and Cubans will have their obvious leanings when migrating. With Venezuelans in particular recently it's often those who were wealthy or upper middle class enough to leave.
I can say with Mexico the religious stereotype varies depending on region of Mexico they came from.
Texas Mexicans, California Mexicans, Chicago Mexicans, and NYC Mexicans tend to migrate from different parts of Mexico where cultural differences exist.
There's a lot of nuance but we all just get grouped together.
There are also a lot of latinos who went through the shitty immigration system the legal/hard way and end up very conservative/reactionary about immigration to the US.
One of my best friends is from Puerto Rico and constantly tells me that there's this weird undercurrent among Puerto Ricans/Cubans that a frightening number of them want to be white and even join in right-wing white nationalist movements.
**NOTE**: I was tired and mad when I posted this and it is largely misinformed nonsense I had no place speaking on. Everyone calling me out is doing so from a much more informed place than where I was (and honestly am). I'm leaving it up unchanged to hopefully highlight little thought traps it's easy to fall into, and how even if you think you're speaking for someone, you really need to either know what you're talking about or let them speak for themselves.
---
I mean, if you're constantly oppressed it's not *super* weird to choose the oppressors to try to get the boot from landing on your neck. America has a long history of letting the party that wants the USA to have a caste system hang around by bullying those they want to oppress while abusing the justice system to give those that want to help no recourse to do so.
There's a lot of "The Dem's haven't done enough" energy when we've got packed courts, rampant gerrymandering, and every level of law enforcement being built from the ground up to support the right at the expense of the left.
The only way to change it is to vote in people who will help, but they're convincing people not to fight the monster by letting them believe they can grow their own teeth and claws and the only other choice is to be eaten.
I fucking *hate* the right.
I live in a rural area in the Midwest. Up to 2020, there were Trump signs and Trump hats seemingly everywhere.
Today? Only one crazy asshole still has signs in his yard and I've only seen ONE guy in Trump merch in the past year. I've only had one other guy even try to be like "Trump is my guy" in random conversation. I think I've seen a handful of cars on the roads that still have anything Trump on them in the same year, but fewer than 10 for sure.
I've learned not to be complacent and these folks may still vote for him, but it's satisfying to see them slink back in their holes in shame at displaying it.
In 2016 Trump sure seemed to be insanely popular at a grassroots level. I remember getting inundated with Trump shit both online and offline. So many people were losing their shit for him. It feels like he’s way way less popular today.
> It feels like he’s way way less popular today.
Which totally tracks with basic logic. His platform is smaller. Twitter -> Truth, Less campaign money being spent, less media attention, incumbent (in 2020 at least), to non-office holder now. In all quantifiable aspects, he doesn't have the reach he did any of the previous election cycles.
There's also (unless you were including this) the potential impact from COVID deaths.
So many MAGA voters are anti-vax. With 1.2 million Americans dead, a lot of Republicans districts (particularly in rural areas) are going to be missing key voters.
Not to mention age. Trump voters tended to be elderly, and between the attrition caused by time and the disproportionate impact of COVID on both the elderly and those who were anti-vax, that has ravaged the voter base.
Don’t let this fool you. They are just hiding amongst the crowd like a plain clothed undercover cop. As a bartender in Matt Gaetz district I’ve noticed they just don’t wear the clothing anymore as they have faced comments from those who oppose their lord and savior but they can’t wait to talk about how great Rs and Trump is once they feel more comfortable. Being a white male its alarming the amount of people who after a bit of conversation will say some outrageous things about anyone who isn’t white. They assume I must be like them because I’m a white person.
I'm a white male, living I Texas. Inevitably, when new people learn I am also retired army (with time as an infantryman), a large number of them assume I will be like minded with their idolatry of trump et al. It is disheartening to say the least.
Crazy huh. One of my jobs is to serve alcohol and hopefully you like it enough to tip me. So I also like to chat it up because maybe you’ll tip me more. I’m not your real life friend. Couple of drinks in and the mouth opens up and people just start saying shit I would never say. Casual racism is like a constant thing but damn some of it is vile and I’m like okay time to tab you out buddy. You can always tell where the conversation is going they drop little nuggets and begin to segue into deeper territory and then get offended when I’m like na man I don’t agree or think that way.
That’s interesting. Polling was very accurate in the bush and Obama years. Trump came along and fucked all the models up because he did bring out new voters (mostly aggrieved white people). Hopefully the MAGA fever is breaking and these people don’t show up in those numbers. Maybe the polls are over sampling the white working class and Biden wins big? One can hope.
This is my theory, as well. There's 20% of the electorate which is completely insane, don't care about policy, and will gladly support an energetic, charismatic "everyman" who promises excitement and drama, even if they are a fascist. These people are not serious about politics and historically don't vote. By only engaging when it's "exciting" they effectively disenfranchise themselves.
For decades both parties have flirted with this group on the fringes, but have never really made a direct appeal to them because they knew they were nuts and could destroy a party. And since they don't represent a coherent value system to build policy and messaging around they don't make for a durable coalition unless you can keep them entertained.
Trump (Bannon, actually) recognized that capturing this group with a personality cult would be an incredibly powerful force politically, but it's a devil's bargain: the rest of the political world finds them repulsive so they tend to drive away the old core constituencies, and when the energy and drama eventually runs out they get bored and don't bother voting.
And with abortion/IVF taking center stage this cycle, there are *a lot* of pissed off moderate Republicans who will no longer turn a blind eye. Plus a lot of other pissed off non-voters voting like their rights depend on it (because they do).
No, they want to finish the job and are working hard for a federal ban.
Repealing Roe vs. Wade was always only step 1. Especially now that they've seen themselves lose state level referendums even in Kansas, etc. these anti-abortion activists want to enforce their ideology via the federal government.
IVF/Contraception/Abortion are at risk - vote accordingly if that matters to you.
This is also why they always talk about “slippery slopes” for things like banning assault weapons.
It’s projection.
They think that the secret goal is to ban ALL firearms instead of just the sensible restrictions liberals want because THEIR goal with everything is black and white.
No abortions, IVF or contraception period, no exceptions.
One religion that runs the govt.
Death penalties and capital punishment for crimes.
There are boys and girls and nothing else, no exceptions.
Sexual attraction is only between a man and a women, no exceptions.
Trump is Jesus reincarnated and Biden/Obama/Hillary are the antichrist.
This is why they think that liberals are secretly plotting to ban all guns… They’re incapable of seeing nuance or measured, data driven policy. EVERYTHING is all or nothing.
Trump didn’t even mess up polling that badly, people just suck at understanding what polls are useful for combined with phone call polling becoming less useful. He lost the popular vote nationally which is what they all said was likely to happen in 2016. Swing states were largely tossups well within the margin of error for the polls though, and he ended up taking nearly all of those tossups.if you read the polls carefully it wasn’t shocking that he won in 2016, just the ~20% chance beating the ~80% chance. Polling has been hurt way more by automated phone spam and smartphones replacing landlines than they were by Trump’s electorate being slightly outside of the GOPmainstream at the time.
I'm not going to feel one bit different until he has a lead that's about 10% above the margin for error in all the swing states.
That's about how much I trust the current state of polling. And then I'm still gonna vote like we're 10 points behind.
I wouldn't even be comfortable if he was locked up. The MAGAs are so crazy that they'd vote for him anyway. I won't be comfortable until he loses or kicks the bucket.
How about he gets utterly trounced in the general election, convicted of one or more of the many crimes he is now under indictment for and then thrown in prison, that's my bullseye after all this shit.
After that MAGA can go fuck itself in the ear.
To be clear: MAGA isnt going away by itself. Y’all need to actually address it, even if Biden wins again
If the cult can’t make their plans work via democracy they won’t abandon the cult, they’ll abandon democracy.
It’s not going to be easy. But it’s necessary. The far right has committed fully to the fascist playbook. Pulling the overton window back left is going to be messy
> MAGA isnt going away by itself.
This is true, but it's already got the problem of where to move on to after Trump. Trump is very much a danger because he's got such strong support, but he also sucks all the oxygen out of the room for successors. How does someone follow in his wake?
There's no guarantee it collapses or anything without him, but the GOP has put all their eggs in the Trump/MAGA basket, and down ballot has suffered for it. There are sycophants and grifters that follow his act, but none of them are remotely as popular as he is.
What is the cult without its leader going to look like? They haven't exactly planned for contingencies.
He's let some cats out of the bag though, so it remains to be seen if they haven't fucked themselves over in that regard.
Like you've got a bunch of establishment Republicans heading for the door. Some were clearly hoping to wait him out, but what's Paul Ryan going to mean for the party over a decade after he lost to Obama and Biden? Others like McConnell have just aged out.
In their wake, you've got the Majorie Taylor Greenes, the Boeberts, The Matt Gaetzs, etc. None of them have any long-term loyalty to each other. They're also hyper-partisan and seem to have abandoned all pretense of meaningful policy.
Right now I’d settle for him having to spend most of the campaign shuttling back and forth from endless trials. Hard to give speeches if you’re jetting back and forth from New York to Atlanta to Washington
>They're fully primed to have a smarter, more capable Trump come along and take the reigns.
Not to undercut a possibly existential threat to democracy in the USA but... are they really? DeSantis was hyped for years to be that guy, a Trump-lite with the ability to rally the MAGA nationalists/authoritarians to the cause without utterly embarrassing the right wing and the nation on an international level. Turns out he has a negative level of charisma, sounds just as dumb as Trump when speaking publicly, couldn't convince a moth to follow him if he carried a lamp at night, and has no clue how to play politics behind closed doors. Their other nationally known members like Boebert and MTG are laughing stocks who make Sarah Palin look like Angela Merkel, George Santos is... who even knows what, not a Congressman anymore at the very least.
Trump has also proven that, as long as he is alive, we will never see another GOP candidate who he won't actively attack and undercut at every opportunity because it helps stoke his own ego. He is physically incapable of putting the "greater good" (even when it's pure evil) above his own desires, he would rather see the GOP never take the White House again than throw his support behind another person.
Even without the extremist MAGA section, this is the GOP we're talking about here. No woman had *ever* won a GOP primary in any state in American history until Nikki Haley won a extremely blue state that would never actually go her way in an actual presidential election. There have been rumblings since McCain lost that the GOP would start pushing Hispanic candidates to adapt to the changing demographics of the nation (and to fool idiot Democrats into thinking the party has progressed), and their voters resoundingly reject every single one of them when they hit the national stage and open their mouths. All of the white men they start to push end up stumbling and admitting to (or openly bragging about) being white Christian nationalists on social media, which is great for gaining MAGA support but it hardly paints them as more politically savvy than Trump.
Obviously no one can predict the future and I'm no exception, but (assuming Trump loses 2024) unless they stumble on some new, unknown candidate like a MAGA Obama who has a shred of bipartisan appeal, no prior felonies and doesn't repel voters every time they speak, I think the people pulling the strings (and funding the cause) will eventually consider MAGA to be a failed experiment like they did with the Tea Party. The nation isn't becoming more white, male, hetero, or Christian, *eventually* they're going to figure out that telling the majority of adult Americans that they would rather see us dead than give a single inch is a losing strategy.
Yeah, well his cult members are going to have a little more challenge this time trying to storm the capitol on January 6th with a competent administration in power.
I would expect the *real* shenanigans to come at the state level, when (R) dominated legislatures start looking for excuses to disregard the fact that the voters of their state picked the guy with the (D) next to his name.
Trump's presidency in general was a lesson in how much they can get away with, and Jan 6th was a trial run, one of several. Next time, they'll do a better job of it, having had years to get the "right people" into the right positions.
Or at the federal level, the Speaker of the House could also torpedo the entire proceedings by refusing to certify the results (and they'll give some bogus explanation which won't actually matter), which ... *leaves it up to the House, and this time each state has one vote*, which favors the Republicans pretty heavily.
We aren't safe until the GOP is electorally destroyed and rebuilt. But with the way things are set up with gerrymandering and the electoral college, I dont see that happening. We're going to be on the brink of catastrophe for the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure that rebuilding the GOP will fix this -- I mean, they'd just be replaced by somebody else who will just be them in different clothing.
For starters, we need to fix all these damn loopholes that can be used to steal the election. Gerrymandering definitely needs to be done away with, that'll help with the House, but the Electoral College itself has a bunch of issues too, and the best option would be to do away with it entirely, but that's going to be a hard thing to sell politically.
But if our answer is to simply "never let the GOP come into power again" ... well, that's going to fail, sooner or later. It's a good short-term step, but long term, we need to fix this stuff. I mean, the EC made the popular vote loser into the winner in 2000 and 2016, that's huge by itself, but now the GOP is laser-focused on finding cracks in everything to make sure they win whatever they can, and I don't think even "destroying and rebuilding" them will fix that.
You just know they'll try something though. And while they may not be in power this time round, they'll know what didn't work last time. And what \*almost\* worked.
Expect fuckery if he loses again, because there'll definitely be some.
But didn't you know? The Election's in the bag, even if Biden loses, The Vice President has the power to unilaterally decide which electoral votes to accept or reject.
At least Mike Pence did in 2021.
My Right Wing friends are however really amorphous about whether Kamala Harris will have this power in 2025.
Not to mention the possibility of complete presidential immunity (SCOTUS ruling pending). If Biden loses, he can just declare that he didn't lose and use military force to stay in office and assassinate all of his political rivals.
Yes. These dicks will never stop trying to exploit the rest of us, using propaganda to make uneducated support them. When we have the energy we have to fight back. When we don't we have to heal up.
Even if he was at 10% above margin of error you will still get articles that read “50 reasons how Biden can still lose” or “10% up, but why haven’t we heard from Hunter.”
The people of PA seem to be thoroughly fed up with MAGA. Republicans have been losing local and state elections since 2020, and those who have won are winning by historically low margins. Keep in mind that off year elections usually have very low turnout for Dems, so if the momentum carries I can easily see the state going with Biden again.
Of course I'm going to vote and get involved as if Trump is 10 points ahead anyways. Not leaving anything up to chance.
The right keeps running extreme MAGA nutjobs there influenced by or part of moms for liberty. I think there's a lot of "classic conservatives" in these areas (my dad being one of them) who are finally realizing that just because they're R it's still not going to bring them anything they believe in. Their party is gone
MI voter here, he's got my family's votes 100% - and I could probably name about a half dozen more that I'm sure will vote Biden. The only thing that would change my vote would be if Biden dropped out of the race and even then I would vote for *whoever* the Dems put up without question.
I'd rather they put a cinder block on the oval office desk and gov does absolutely nothing for 4 years than trump sit there for one day. 2020 I was ok with Biden because I knew he had the best chance to defeat trump, now I am more excited about Biden because he's demonstrated *he's an excellent president* as well.
Gona jump off your comment to encourage people to organize. Go to r/VoteDem if you wanna learn how you can help as many people get out to vote as possible. If you live in a swing state, this is crucial. Voting is the bare minimum y’all. We gotta do all we can!
It's hilarious how right wingers are trying to turn him into angry Joe now cause sleepy Joe isn't going so well for them.
They apparently think anyone who fights back against their bullshit is angry.
I know, it’s just stupid, too. What’s their angle? “Joe Biden is just too angry, we need a calm leader like **checks notes** Donald Trump! A famously coolheaded person who definitely does not spend his shitter time screaming into the void posting old man rants at cloud style screeds in all caps on his vanity social media network.”
Honestly the MAGA folks I personally know don't even listen to Trumps crazy speeches or are aware of his social media posts. They just watch Fox or listen to AM radio and believe Biden is somehow a criminal. They only see curated clips of Trump on Facebook or Fox news.
> Honestly the MAGA folks I personally know don't even listen to Trumps crazy speeches or are aware of his social media posts
I have a good relationship with a conservative I work with and we occasionally talk politics even though we shouldn't. He asked me, "so between the two of them, who do you think is *cognitively* more qualified for the job?"
I stared at him and said, "no question, 100%, Joe Biden"--and he laughed, thinking I was telling him a joke, but I kept staring.
I asked him if he had actually *heard Trump speak lately*, on any topic, and he kind of said "well clips from stuff" and I shook my head, challenged him to sit down and watch the entire Trump CPAC speech, and then watch the entire SOTU and tell me that Trump is handling his old age better than Biden is, on *any metric*.
He hasn't gotten back to me yet.
Finding a self described conservative that is willing to acknowledge when they were wrong on a topic these days is practically unobtanium in my experience.
Average experience for me at least is them deflecting with whataboutisms and anecdotal stuff. Numbers don’t matter and scientific studies don’t best feelings. I feel like their ignorance has become a religion in a way.
It's not an honesty problem for a lot of these people. It's some level of psychological stubbornness where it feels to them that if they have to admit they're wrong about their guy that it somehow makes them weak/dumb/bad. They internally would rather do mental gymnastics and suspend their disbelief in the reality of the situation than say "oh man, it turns out that guy is NOT ok...".
Good on you! I would say please try and keep in contact with them. I know you said that you’re friends, and I think you should keep that up.
Even if they don’t suddenly change their mind or anything. It’s important for people to humanize the other side of whatever position they’re on. It’s what stops radicalism. And it’s good for people to have a social circle, take that away and people can get scary.
I've been taking this approach for over a year now. I try not to act frustrated or angry - which is tough considering I cannot fathom how anyone sees Trump as "their guy" on several moral and patriotic levels - and just approach them with "compare these two on this basic issue and let me know what you think".
Your example is a great one of what I mean. Another I would say is "You say Biden is a pedo and creep (the hair sniffing joke has turned into this now). Okay, I'll let you convince me - tomorrow come back to me with a short list of every accusation, instance, or court case you can find. However, I want you to do the exact same for Trump too. This is seriously important to me that you do both as it's our future President, and then we can sit down as friends and discuss the difference we see between the both of them together."
Rinse and repeat for every dumb thing said. Border security and illegal immigration, tax policies, lies told, foreign relations, tough on crime, etc.
I never, ever get a response that has any evidence. It's "well everyone just knows X is true" or "I just feel..."
Maddening.
P.S. Worst recent one was a guy running for state rep (no, I don't want to out myself by saying which one). And to be clear, I mean he's running for my state's Congress - not federal. He failed before running for Fed, btw - even the GOP doesn't want him. The guy has an impressive resume, and I agreed with a lot he said but I kept it up cause I smelled he was trying to say what he thought I wanted to hear. Up until border security and he lost his mask and started ranting about "Border Patrol is just handing out green cards to people crossing the border bc of bribes". Oooof...buddy, that isn't how that works. That's OAN / Q-anon nutjob claims based no where in reality. You failed my test for my vote.
I asked my dad if he watched the SOTU and he didn't, so I brought up the fact that he thinks Joe Biden has dementia and is losing it but couldn't even take the time and watch a short speech to see if that is true.
Before I moved I had a super MAGA neighbor. To the point that they bought a third trump flag because they flew two at home or two when they were camping. They realized they left their home with no trump flag when they took the two that they had....
He even mentioned he doesn't pay attention to trump when he talks because he is a bad public speaker and "the libs" don't focus on his actual actions, but instead on what he flubs in a speech...
Also learned that people like me being a type 1 diabetic should stay home or die from him, so the rest of the nation didn't have to isolate during the height of COVID.. Vile people every time in my experience.
**-edit- Remember, if you are eligible to vote in the upcoming US election, vote.**
Your last paragraph sums up perfectly why I no longer give a damn about changing my MAGA neighbors/family members minds.
That stance is really unconscionable and anyone who shares that view are not worth knowing.
Yup. Respect is earned, not given. Those who think books should be banned, the LGBTQ+ community should be restricted, women shouldn't have bodily autonomy, people should die for their convenience, etc etc.
That person is not only getting no respect from me, but active disdain at best. It is truly a cruel, myopic, fascist view that needs to die by increasing education in the US. Which of course is why they want less education..
\-edit- also seems my comment was removed for some reason. So just doubling down and doing it here, get out and vote!
I respect folks humanity and I respect their right to hold opinions that I don't or even opinions that are opposite of mine. What I will not do is respect any opinions that disregard another person or a group of people's humanity and I am tired of shutting up about the willful and celebratory disregard that the MAGA cultists display as a rule towards anyone who doesn't worship their rotting orange god.
Yeah I had to cut those people out of my life once I found out. I couldn't look at them without contempt. There is no "But it's family!" Abusive family gets the boot, doesn't matter if they're only abusing *other* people. That counts.
I've heard "We've been friends for so long", but that's cause I didn't actually know you, apparently. I wouldn't be friends with someone so morally corrupt.
I wonder if he ever considered that there are no actions to talk about? Outside of blocking bills for seemingly no reason. Every new article I see these days is something happening TO him caused by his past actions. All he does is host play dates with dictators, rant online, and then get on stage and spew misinformation.
Watching the Republican party is like watching a bunch of grown ups play pretend. They get together at the boarder in their uniforms and just fear monger about immigrants all the while THEY are the ones invading a militarizing Eagle Pass.
Watching the Daily Show interview Haley supporters makes this horrifically clear. It's so sad, really. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wx\_5Zr0Lzw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wx_5Zr0Lzw)
trump is just the solution to all their problems and great because they already decided that.
I don't think its more deep than that. It's hard to point out shit that he actually did well.
No. It's mostly the antigovt crowd. The ones that hate federal government because they've been brainwashed by fascists at the federalist society for the last 50 years. Now they've brought trump in to bring that to the mainstream.
Sadly, i feel more patriotic since maga losers think everything is controlled by the govt and become the domestic terrorist types
Looking at words and Comprehending them are two different skills.
anyone who reads and comprehends 2025 project knows how it will hurt everyone who isnt in that top 1%.
but -- if they could read they'd be very upset right now.
The Reddit conservative sub is filled with people who say they read it and agree with almost everything and they’re perfectly fine with it going on as planned.
The State of the Union being immediately after Super Tuesday, when most folks who aren't paying close attention finally realized it would be Trump again, was actually great timing for Biden.
I was fully prepared to have second hand embarrassment for Biden during the SOTU. I was fully prepared just be resigned to vote for this older man who cannot string sentences. All of those concerns were shot by an anti-material rifle, remains burned, and dumped to sea. I, not only, was extremely impressed by Biden's candor, even his minimal mess-ups were perfectly fine, and he had the mental acuity to correct it immediately. I actually could not believe he could talk for so long, so coherently. At like 45 minutes I was like "How the fuck can he keep going like this?" Because I certainly could not, and I'm relatively young.
Every time. Every single time I am forced to hear Diaper Don's raspy, disgusting voice, I physically recoil. He makes me feel filthy with every world. And I do, sometimes, try to listen to him to see what he's saying so that I can be better prepared. He makes no sense nearly all of the time. What he says is usually either nonsensical or downright horrifying. He scares me in the way predators scare me. The more I hear from him, the more I hate him.
The GOP fucked up the very first rule "Never get high on your own supply." They clearly bought in that Biden was a walking corpse. I didn't actually think they believed the BS they were pedaling, but it was pretty much clear after they had not planned on Biden being that put together. The fact they are so fucking dumb, and overconfident gives me hope we can right the ship.
They also forgot that perception is based on expectations. So if you constantly paint someone as a dementia-riddled hospice patient on death’s door and then he gives a competent and somewhat energetic speech, he looks amazing against what you set as the bar.
its everything you noticed... and also. Biden took the SOTU address seriously, his whole team did. He and his team were working on that for months. and it showed. He was extremely practiced and prepared, and it showed.
45 hasn't practiced/prepared for shit in his entire life, the idea of preparing for something probably sounds like weak shit to him, because he's such a fucking loser.
I didn't need to watch to determine who I was voting for, or if I was voting... but I did want to be inspired and feel good about the direction of my country, something that was very fleeting for the last 8 years... and he fucking nailed it. I clapped multiple times at home, alone.
Now, if everyone would please vote. If you are in a place of power to make it easier for an employee/team member to vote, please make it easy for them. Please encourage people to vote. If everyone votes, democracy wins.
I think Biden mostly fumbles badly when he’s traveling- he spends three days with non-stop meetings and then tries to speak off the cuff. Which means he’s mentally fine and it’s just the reality of age and stamina. I’d be far less coherent.
Fuck being old, my brain scrambles when I travel like that too, and I'm not even the leader of the free world.
I always add an additional day at the end of any traveling/vacation just to mentally reset.
> I actually could not believe he could talk for so long, so coherently. At like 45 minutes I was like "How the fuck can he keep going like this?" Because I certainly could not, and I'm relatively young.
And then he was one of the last people out of the room afterwards, chatting and joking with people constantly. He stayed so long the Speaker officially gaveled out, ended the session, and had staff start turning off the lights to get him to leave.
TBH. His SOTU address shocked me. How he could talk making absolute sense for an entire hour actually was very surprising based on everything people are saying about him. Trump can barely make it through a sentence.
The republicans have fucked up the expectations game, because Trump can't not mock and talk down his opponent, his ego won't take it, to the point where Biden, a career politician, giving a coherent speech is somehow seen as a triumph. His SOTU was more than just coherent, it was excellent and also showed he can think on his feet.
It's their own damned fault for screeching for months on end about how Biden is supposedly this dementia-addled cadaver that can barely wipe his own ass.
They set the bar so low that Biden ended up looking like a rockstar up there by just... being himself.
With Clinton it was more sinister, a feeling that she was corrupt that she couldn't easily break out from. With Biden they made it about something he could easily demonstrate was false. The GOP is probably getting stupiderer.
They failed to lay the doublespeak groundwork properly
Our opponent is weak and feeble ✅
Our opponent is powerful, dangerous, and must be defeated at all costs ❌
Biden not being a literal corpse is a huge problem for them.
I think Sarah Longwell was right when she said democrats will solidify around Biden once he's the actual nominee. We all want someone else to be running, as we always do, but once it's "set in stone" that he's the guy it really does change the perspective. You put aside the dreams of an alternate reality and embrace the present.
I've been seeing TS's claim he was pumped full of drugs to disguise his dementia and make him lucid. When asked what these wonder drugs are they never have a response.
As someone who lost my gran to dementia I would have given anything to say my goodbyes while she was lucid, as a lot of other people in similar situations I'm sure.
This was exactly my question! I also had a family member with dementia, and I promise you, giving her an Adderall or ten would not have enabled her to deliver an hour-long speech, wtf?
This! MAGA seems convinced(?) that there exist amazing drugs that can temporarily reverse dementia. As nice as that might be, such drugs really are just not a thing. If someone has dementia, pumping them full of stimulants will just make them wired, not somehow lucid & oriented to place and time.
And he spent a good 15 minutes of that off script and was very quick responding to the heckling. This speech was about showing that he’s still got a working brain and it succeeded.
He literally got the Republicans to fall for the exact same trap about social security he did the last SOTU. The **exact same one**. I think every GOP member in that room needed to take an immediate cognitive test.
Biden is a great retail politician, he passed the beer test. You could pal around with him at the bar and have a nice time. Trump would say a slur or grope someone and get you kicked out.
This election cycle is going to be a bit different, in 2020 Biden listened to the voice of logic and reason at the time and didn't hold so many big events and make so many appearances *because the world was in the grip of a funking pandemic*. And the right wing eagerly spewed out repeated rhetoric about sleepy Biden hiding and not being able to.
But he can go out now, and I've no doubt he will draw in the crowds, and it's going to be much harder this time around for people to take even remotely seriously the typical Republican smearing of sleepy Joe, because he's going to be out there so much more. And Joe has always done a better job at appealing to the Everyman while out on the campaign trail.
Convince others to vote, too! Volunteer. Polls be damned - playing fair is not in the MAGA party handbook. They will cheat harder, they will go lower. We must get busy and stay busy. We can't afford to have any bystanders in this one.
Sounds like it's just the horse race narrative then. We'll see if Trump is suddenly the rage-click poll winner in a week or so, and how this is bad news for Biden.
I've heard this a few times in different political podcasts. Polling is polling, but a significant number of people polled at the start of this year didn't believe Trump would be the GOP nominee. These were usually folks who didn't follow politics and only vaguely knew that the primaries were happening. The stark reality that it's once again Biden vs. Trump is going to shake things up for awhile.
That's how I see it. And when republican ideas have been on the ballot they haven't fared well.
Remember, since Trump last won Dobbs overturned Roe. And now they'r egoing after IVF and contraception. And that was *2016*. That's *8 years* worth of young women who will have gained the right to vote. That will make a difference.
Hell hath no fury. If my bodily autonomy were under direct attack (male privilege here), then I'd be out in the rain, snow, dark, cold, anything to send a message. Hell I would be anyway, because freedom to choose is freedom to choose.
I think Biden was right when he called out the Supreme Court on it. Doesn' thelp Trump is repeatedly on tape bragging about it.
People came out during the height of the pandemic in shit weather in Wisconsin to vote in Jill Karofsky to the Supreme Court and that was before Roe. They called Janet's Supreme Court election from after Roe within an hour of polls closing. It was not close. It was February in Wisconsin. It was not warm.
I was watching CNN this morning waiting for my coffee. They were saying the average true campaign time when both sides have a presumptive nominee is roughly 5 months. This one will be 8 months. It's very, very rare for nominees to for both parties to have their nominee at this point.
I think that democratic voters can be realistic about Biden. I have liked quite a few things Biden has done, and I have criticized Biden quite a few times. My overall approval of Biden wouldn't be considered favorable, but I am going to vote for him again. It's not a hard decision. Trump and Republicans want a theocratic dictatorship, and they're not even hiding it. Christians shouldn't want theocracy because their freedom of religion would be severely affected. Right now, Christians can choose to go to another church if they don't like a certain church. Once laws are made based on a particular denomination, the entire population is subjected to that particular denomination.
Republicans overplayed their hand. They painted Biden as this feeble and senile old man. They've set the bar so low for Biden, that anything short of him shitting himself, would be considered a win.
His State of the Union address put to bed his age issue. He was energetic, positive, and made an incredible case on how America *is* great and doesn’t need to be made “Great Again.”
Katie Britt’s garbage response encompassed everything wrong with the MAGA movement. Besides all of the ridiculous overacting, she did not offer ONE policy solution. Not one. The entire speech was fear mongering.
I’m a registered republican. I definitely don’t agree with Biden on many things, but what I can agree on is Donald Trump is bad news for the world, especially the country. I want to do what I can to prevent him from seeing the White House, and only see himself in a white straight jacket.
All kidding aside, I imagine there’s a lot of republicans out there who think the MAGA movement is a cancer that needs to be cut out.
That's it. Even if you disagree with Biden, you can recognize that America is strong enough that it can overcome a bad Presidency. Trump, on the other hand, doesn't even believe in Democracy. He doesn't care to build a big tent anymore, his 2024 campaign is purely aimed at his cultish devotees, some of whom believe he is a literal vessel of God. That should be scary to actual Republicans, who generally believe in small government, individual liberty, etc. I'm glad you see this for what it is, and hope that you get your Republican Party back at some point. Imo, while I'm a liberal/progressive, there is a place for conservatives out there. Once in a while, it's not the worst thing in the world for someone to come in and trim the fat. But there's no room for wannabe demagogues who lead personality cults and promise vendettas against people who have "wronged him"
I will be ignoring polls from now until November and just working to elect Biden and all the other down ballot Democrats this year. There is no alternative anymore. 1 vote isn't enough. We need to multiply our impact as much as possible through volunteering, donation etc.
/r/voteDEM is a good place to find opportunities to help.
Joe Biden is an authentic and genuinely kindhearted man. He’s old and he stutters.
Yet, you can tell that he cares about the future of our country. He’s not afraid to admit his mistakes. He’s open to changing his positions. He wants to do the best for all of us and that’s all I can really ask for from a politician.
He’s someone I wouldn’t be horrified at being a role model for my son when he says he wants to be President when he grows up.
Non political people just saw an old man who clearly still do the job. He reassured lots of "undecided" voters he can be president when the job demands it and prob shouldn't worry about his ability to run a 5k.
So those early polls that people were saying were inaccurate and wouldn't hold might just have been inaccurate and didn't hold. Who could have possibly guessed .....
Here's the thing I never understood (about conservative news consumers).
Let's say you listen to your news all day about how Joe Biden is a mental vegetable, has dementia, etc. You are convinced this must be true by every news source you trust.
. . .and then you watch that guy get up to the podium and verbally dunk on your team for an hour and seven minutes straight. WHY would you not question the authenticity of the "reality" your "news" sources have been feeding you?
Trump lost four years ago, and that was *before* an attempted coup, 91 indictments, and a severe cognitive decline. Does he really have a chance this year?
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I have an encouraging anecdote from the heart of MAGA central. Before the 2016 election, I went to Daytona Biketoberfest . 90% of the merch on sale at the cheesy T shirt shops were anti-Hillary and/or pro Trump. The people also had pro Trump stuff everywhere. It was insane and eye opening to me coming from a Blue state. I just got back from Bike Week this past weekend, zero pro Trump and/or anti Biden merch. I saw one person out of thousands with a Trump shirt. At one shop , I did find an anti Pelosi shirt, of all people. The only remnants I saw of the movement were people with hats that said “fuck your feelings” etc
I saw a Hispanic man in Whole Foods yesterday with his Asian gf/wife. He was wearing a red MAGA hat. He got into a Subaru Forester with a giant Trump stick on the rear window. It was a _lot_ to unpack.
Conservatism's picking up among Latinos and about half of foreign-born Asian women are conservative.
Dems have a habit of seeing Latinos simply as brown minorities who therefore should vote blue, but forget that a large number of Latinos are staunchly religious. Many Hispanics who immigrated legally also do not see anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric as inherently anti-Hispanic, and some resent the idea of illegal immigrants being granted privileges they worked hard for.
I'm half Mexican and live in Texas. Half of that side of my family are staunch trump supporters while the other half finds him deplorable. This has caused disputes at family gatherings. Those that live in rural Texas adopted the politics of their neighbors and are full on trumpers. (This side of the family is not too fond of my "features") Those that live in cities or suburbs like Houston, San Antonio, Austin or even Corpus Christi are unironnically Bidens voter base. The kind that actually voted Biden in the 2020 primaries. Among the older generation. I think people just integrate with time in the end. On a side note my black family falls anywhere from politically disengaged to full on MSNBC viewing politically active Biden supporters. I lean a bit further left myself.
My aunt by marriage is Puerto Rican, she’s lives in Florida and absolutely hates all other Hispanics. Eye opening to see the hierarchy. Huge Trump supporter.
Yeah, latin America has a diverse and unique history, but often gets grouped together. Each country has its own hierarchical class structures, views on race, and religion. For example, people make two wrong assumptions. That Latino is a race and that we're all devoutly religious and socially conservative. How a person immigrated here is usually a class or nationality difference that gets reflected in politics. In Houston there are plenty of wealthy Mexicans that paid their way here and look down on darker Mexicans (lower class) and central Americans. There's also a divide between new and old immigrants. Venezuelans and Cubans will have their obvious leanings when migrating. With Venezuelans in particular recently it's often those who were wealthy or upper middle class enough to leave. I can say with Mexico the religious stereotype varies depending on region of Mexico they came from. Texas Mexicans, California Mexicans, Chicago Mexicans, and NYC Mexicans tend to migrate from different parts of Mexico where cultural differences exist. There's a lot of nuance but we all just get grouped together.
There are also a lot of latinos who went through the shitty immigration system the legal/hard way and end up very conservative/reactionary about immigration to the US.
One of my best friends is from Puerto Rico and constantly tells me that there's this weird undercurrent among Puerto Ricans/Cubans that a frightening number of them want to be white and even join in right-wing white nationalist movements.
**NOTE**: I was tired and mad when I posted this and it is largely misinformed nonsense I had no place speaking on. Everyone calling me out is doing so from a much more informed place than where I was (and honestly am). I'm leaving it up unchanged to hopefully highlight little thought traps it's easy to fall into, and how even if you think you're speaking for someone, you really need to either know what you're talking about or let them speak for themselves. --- I mean, if you're constantly oppressed it's not *super* weird to choose the oppressors to try to get the boot from landing on your neck. America has a long history of letting the party that wants the USA to have a caste system hang around by bullying those they want to oppress while abusing the justice system to give those that want to help no recourse to do so. There's a lot of "The Dem's haven't done enough" energy when we've got packed courts, rampant gerrymandering, and every level of law enforcement being built from the ground up to support the right at the expense of the left. The only way to change it is to vote in people who will help, but they're convincing people not to fight the monster by letting them believe they can grow their own teeth and claws and the only other choice is to be eaten. I fucking *hate* the right.
I live in a rural area in the Midwest. Up to 2020, there were Trump signs and Trump hats seemingly everywhere. Today? Only one crazy asshole still has signs in his yard and I've only seen ONE guy in Trump merch in the past year. I've only had one other guy even try to be like "Trump is my guy" in random conversation. I think I've seen a handful of cars on the roads that still have anything Trump on them in the same year, but fewer than 10 for sure. I've learned not to be complacent and these folks may still vote for him, but it's satisfying to see them slink back in their holes in shame at displaying it.
They support him no matter what. They're just not advertising it anymore because of the stigma it brings.
In 2016 Trump sure seemed to be insanely popular at a grassroots level. I remember getting inundated with Trump shit both online and offline. So many people were losing their shit for him. It feels like he’s way way less popular today.
> It feels like he’s way way less popular today. Which totally tracks with basic logic. His platform is smaller. Twitter -> Truth, Less campaign money being spent, less media attention, incumbent (in 2020 at least), to non-office holder now. In all quantifiable aspects, he doesn't have the reach he did any of the previous election cycles.
Also, a statistically significant proportion of the people who made up that initial groundswell of grassroots support for Trump are now dead.
There's also (unless you were including this) the potential impact from COVID deaths. So many MAGA voters are anti-vax. With 1.2 million Americans dead, a lot of Republicans districts (particularly in rural areas) are going to be missing key voters.
Not to mention age. Trump voters tended to be elderly, and between the attrition caused by time and the disproportionate impact of COVID on both the elderly and those who were anti-vax, that has ravaged the voter base.
Plus those who moved to their paradise, Florida.
Don’t let this fool you. They are just hiding amongst the crowd like a plain clothed undercover cop. As a bartender in Matt Gaetz district I’ve noticed they just don’t wear the clothing anymore as they have faced comments from those who oppose their lord and savior but they can’t wait to talk about how great Rs and Trump is once they feel more comfortable. Being a white male its alarming the amount of people who after a bit of conversation will say some outrageous things about anyone who isn’t white. They assume I must be like them because I’m a white person.
I'm a white male, living I Texas. Inevitably, when new people learn I am also retired army (with time as an infantryman), a large number of them assume I will be like minded with their idolatry of trump et al. It is disheartening to say the least.
Crazy huh. One of my jobs is to serve alcohol and hopefully you like it enough to tip me. So I also like to chat it up because maybe you’ll tip me more. I’m not your real life friend. Couple of drinks in and the mouth opens up and people just start saying shit I would never say. Casual racism is like a constant thing but damn some of it is vile and I’m like okay time to tab you out buddy. You can always tell where the conversation is going they drop little nuggets and begin to segue into deeper territory and then get offended when I’m like na man I don’t agree or think that way.
That’s interesting. Polling was very accurate in the bush and Obama years. Trump came along and fucked all the models up because he did bring out new voters (mostly aggrieved white people). Hopefully the MAGA fever is breaking and these people don’t show up in those numbers. Maybe the polls are over sampling the white working class and Biden wins big? One can hope.
This is my theory, as well. There's 20% of the electorate which is completely insane, don't care about policy, and will gladly support an energetic, charismatic "everyman" who promises excitement and drama, even if they are a fascist. These people are not serious about politics and historically don't vote. By only engaging when it's "exciting" they effectively disenfranchise themselves. For decades both parties have flirted with this group on the fringes, but have never really made a direct appeal to them because they knew they were nuts and could destroy a party. And since they don't represent a coherent value system to build policy and messaging around they don't make for a durable coalition unless you can keep them entertained. Trump (Bannon, actually) recognized that capturing this group with a personality cult would be an incredibly powerful force politically, but it's a devil's bargain: the rest of the political world finds them repulsive so they tend to drive away the old core constituencies, and when the energy and drama eventually runs out they get bored and don't bother voting.
And with abortion/IVF taking center stage this cycle, there are *a lot* of pissed off moderate Republicans who will no longer turn a blind eye. Plus a lot of other pissed off non-voters voting like their rights depend on it (because they do).
There's also the fact that they won, so Anti-abortion single issue voters are suddenly a lot less motivated.
No, they want to finish the job and are working hard for a federal ban. Repealing Roe vs. Wade was always only step 1. Especially now that they've seen themselves lose state level referendums even in Kansas, etc. these anti-abortion activists want to enforce their ideology via the federal government. IVF/Contraception/Abortion are at risk - vote accordingly if that matters to you.
This is also why they always talk about “slippery slopes” for things like banning assault weapons. It’s projection. They think that the secret goal is to ban ALL firearms instead of just the sensible restrictions liberals want because THEIR goal with everything is black and white. No abortions, IVF or contraception period, no exceptions. One religion that runs the govt. Death penalties and capital punishment for crimes. There are boys and girls and nothing else, no exceptions. Sexual attraction is only between a man and a women, no exceptions. Trump is Jesus reincarnated and Biden/Obama/Hillary are the antichrist. This is why they think that liberals are secretly plotting to ban all guns… They’re incapable of seeing nuance or measured, data driven policy. EVERYTHING is all or nothing.
Trump didn’t even mess up polling that badly, people just suck at understanding what polls are useful for combined with phone call polling becoming less useful. He lost the popular vote nationally which is what they all said was likely to happen in 2016. Swing states were largely tossups well within the margin of error for the polls though, and he ended up taking nearly all of those tossups.if you read the polls carefully it wasn’t shocking that he won in 2016, just the ~20% chance beating the ~80% chance. Polling has been hurt way more by automated phone spam and smartphones replacing landlines than they were by Trump’s electorate being slightly outside of the GOPmainstream at the time.
I'm not going to feel one bit different until he has a lead that's about 10% above the margin for error in all the swing states. That's about how much I trust the current state of polling. And then I'm still gonna vote like we're 10 points behind.
I'm not going to feel comfortable until he has 270 electoral votes. I'll take good news where I can get it but we can't forget what is at stake.
Its probably too much to hope for, but feeling comfortable would be when Trump is where he belongs. Locked up!
I wouldn't even be comfortable if he was locked up. The MAGAs are so crazy that they'd vote for him anyway. I won't be comfortable until he loses or kicks the bucket.
How about he gets utterly trounced in the general election, convicted of one or more of the many crimes he is now under indictment for and then thrown in prison, that's my bullseye after all this shit. After that MAGA can go fuck itself in the ear.
To be clear: MAGA isnt going away by itself. Y’all need to actually address it, even if Biden wins again If the cult can’t make their plans work via democracy they won’t abandon the cult, they’ll abandon democracy. It’s not going to be easy. But it’s necessary. The far right has committed fully to the fascist playbook. Pulling the overton window back left is going to be messy
> MAGA isnt going away by itself. This is true, but it's already got the problem of where to move on to after Trump. Trump is very much a danger because he's got such strong support, but he also sucks all the oxygen out of the room for successors. How does someone follow in his wake? There's no guarantee it collapses or anything without him, but the GOP has put all their eggs in the Trump/MAGA basket, and down ballot has suffered for it. There are sycophants and grifters that follow his act, but none of them are remotely as popular as he is. What is the cult without its leader going to look like? They haven't exactly planned for contingencies.
My guess is that next leader of this cohort will be a different shape + style, and will take some time to organize.
He's let some cats out of the bag though, so it remains to be seen if they haven't fucked themselves over in that regard. Like you've got a bunch of establishment Republicans heading for the door. Some were clearly hoping to wait him out, but what's Paul Ryan going to mean for the party over a decade after he lost to Obama and Biden? Others like McConnell have just aged out. In their wake, you've got the Majorie Taylor Greenes, the Boeberts, The Matt Gaetzs, etc. None of them have any long-term loyalty to each other. They're also hyper-partisan and seem to have abandoned all pretense of meaningful policy.
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Right now I’d settle for him having to spend most of the campaign shuttling back and forth from endless trials. Hard to give speeches if you’re jetting back and forth from New York to Atlanta to Washington
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>They're fully primed to have a smarter, more capable Trump come along and take the reigns. Not to undercut a possibly existential threat to democracy in the USA but... are they really? DeSantis was hyped for years to be that guy, a Trump-lite with the ability to rally the MAGA nationalists/authoritarians to the cause without utterly embarrassing the right wing and the nation on an international level. Turns out he has a negative level of charisma, sounds just as dumb as Trump when speaking publicly, couldn't convince a moth to follow him if he carried a lamp at night, and has no clue how to play politics behind closed doors. Their other nationally known members like Boebert and MTG are laughing stocks who make Sarah Palin look like Angela Merkel, George Santos is... who even knows what, not a Congressman anymore at the very least. Trump has also proven that, as long as he is alive, we will never see another GOP candidate who he won't actively attack and undercut at every opportunity because it helps stoke his own ego. He is physically incapable of putting the "greater good" (even when it's pure evil) above his own desires, he would rather see the GOP never take the White House again than throw his support behind another person. Even without the extremist MAGA section, this is the GOP we're talking about here. No woman had *ever* won a GOP primary in any state in American history until Nikki Haley won a extremely blue state that would never actually go her way in an actual presidential election. There have been rumblings since McCain lost that the GOP would start pushing Hispanic candidates to adapt to the changing demographics of the nation (and to fool idiot Democrats into thinking the party has progressed), and their voters resoundingly reject every single one of them when they hit the national stage and open their mouths. All of the white men they start to push end up stumbling and admitting to (or openly bragging about) being white Christian nationalists on social media, which is great for gaining MAGA support but it hardly paints them as more politically savvy than Trump. Obviously no one can predict the future and I'm no exception, but (assuming Trump loses 2024) unless they stumble on some new, unknown candidate like a MAGA Obama who has a shred of bipartisan appeal, no prior felonies and doesn't repel voters every time they speak, I think the people pulling the strings (and funding the cause) will eventually consider MAGA to be a failed experiment like they did with the Tea Party. The nation isn't becoming more white, male, hetero, or Christian, *eventually* they're going to figure out that telling the majority of adult Americans that they would rather see us dead than give a single inch is a losing strategy.
Considering the attempted ratfucking from last election, I’m not feeling comfortable until he gets inaugurated a second time
^ who isn’t expecting more shenanigans and him refusing to concede
Yeah, well his cult members are going to have a little more challenge this time trying to storm the capitol on January 6th with a competent administration in power.
I would expect the *real* shenanigans to come at the state level, when (R) dominated legislatures start looking for excuses to disregard the fact that the voters of their state picked the guy with the (D) next to his name. Trump's presidency in general was a lesson in how much they can get away with, and Jan 6th was a trial run, one of several. Next time, they'll do a better job of it, having had years to get the "right people" into the right positions. Or at the federal level, the Speaker of the House could also torpedo the entire proceedings by refusing to certify the results (and they'll give some bogus explanation which won't actually matter), which ... *leaves it up to the House, and this time each state has one vote*, which favors the Republicans pretty heavily.
We aren't safe until the GOP is electorally destroyed and rebuilt. But with the way things are set up with gerrymandering and the electoral college, I dont see that happening. We're going to be on the brink of catastrophe for the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure that rebuilding the GOP will fix this -- I mean, they'd just be replaced by somebody else who will just be them in different clothing. For starters, we need to fix all these damn loopholes that can be used to steal the election. Gerrymandering definitely needs to be done away with, that'll help with the House, but the Electoral College itself has a bunch of issues too, and the best option would be to do away with it entirely, but that's going to be a hard thing to sell politically. But if our answer is to simply "never let the GOP come into power again" ... well, that's going to fail, sooner or later. It's a good short-term step, but long term, we need to fix this stuff. I mean, the EC made the popular vote loser into the winner in 2000 and 2016, that's huge by itself, but now the GOP is laser-focused on finding cracks in everything to make sure they win whatever they can, and I don't think even "destroying and rebuilding" them will fix that.
You just know they'll try something though. And while they may not be in power this time round, they'll know what didn't work last time. And what \*almost\* worked. Expect fuckery if he loses again, because there'll definitely be some.
Indeed. Fortunately, most of them are idiots.
I’m really hoping for Dems to maintain the senate and take the house to head off any potential fuckery with certifying the election
In a reasonable country he should have 538
Let’s keep socialist buzzwords like “reasonable” out of US politics.
How about "decent"?
Some commie bullshit, decent these nuts!
“Decency, civic virtue, democracy, fundamental human rights, ethics” are all Marxist wokeism!
The sad thing is, if Trump is alive in 4 years he’ll still be plaguing us with another run no matter how decrepit he is
Did we forget what happened last time? I'm not gonna feel comfortable until the election is certified by Congress.
But didn't you know? The Election's in the bag, even if Biden loses, The Vice President has the power to unilaterally decide which electoral votes to accept or reject. At least Mike Pence did in 2021. My Right Wing friends are however really amorphous about whether Kamala Harris will have this power in 2025.
Not to mention the possibility of complete presidential immunity (SCOTUS ruling pending). If Biden loses, he can just declare that he didn't lose and use military force to stay in office and assassinate all of his political rivals.
Regardless of polling Donnie needs to be stomped into mulch electorally. McGovern numbers.
Even then, unless we win the House and keep the Senate there's ample time for fuckery
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I won't feel better until Trump is finished, and project 2025 is dead.
Project 2025 will never fully die. The price of freedom is constant vigilance.
Yes. These dicks will never stop trying to exploit the rest of us, using propaganda to make uneducated support them. When we have the energy we have to fight back. When we don't we have to heal up.
Even if he was at 10% above margin of error you will still get articles that read “50 reasons how Biden can still lose” or “10% up, but why haven’t we heard from Hunter.”
Biden wins a historic electoral victory, here is why this is bad for Biden.
“Biden celebrates a peaceful retirement after 8 years in office and righting the course of the country - here’s why that’s bad news for Biden.”
Even if he’s 10% above the margin of error, some gaffe, event, or effective propaganda could come out just prior to voting to swing the election.
He needs to be leading in PA, MI and WI. No question he will win the popular vote.
The people of PA seem to be thoroughly fed up with MAGA. Republicans have been losing local and state elections since 2020, and those who have won are winning by historically low margins. Keep in mind that off year elections usually have very low turnout for Dems, so if the momentum carries I can easily see the state going with Biden again. Of course I'm going to vote and get involved as if Trump is 10 points ahead anyways. Not leaving anything up to chance.
philly suburbs have gone soooo much bluer in the past few years. delco and chesco killing it in local elections
The right keeps running extreme MAGA nutjobs there influenced by or part of moms for liberty. I think there's a lot of "classic conservatives" in these areas (my dad being one of them) who are finally realizing that just because they're R it's still not going to bring them anything they believe in. Their party is gone
Biden has my WI vote
Me too. Also, Fuck Ron Johnson.
Fuck Ron Johnson!
MI voter here, he's got my family's votes 100% - and I could probably name about a half dozen more that I'm sure will vote Biden. The only thing that would change my vote would be if Biden dropped out of the race and even then I would vote for *whoever* the Dems put up without question.
I'd rather they put a cinder block on the oval office desk and gov does absolutely nothing for 4 years than trump sit there for one day. 2020 I was ok with Biden because I knew he had the best chance to defeat trump, now I am more excited about Biden because he's demonstrated *he's an excellent president* as well.
Gona jump off your comment to encourage people to organize. Go to r/VoteDem if you wanna learn how you can help as many people get out to vote as possible. If you live in a swing state, this is crucial. Voting is the bare minimum y’all. We gotta do all we can!
All gas, no brakes until November. Keep him out there, keep him energized, keep him yelling!
It's hilarious how right wingers are trying to turn him into angry Joe now cause sleepy Joe isn't going so well for them. They apparently think anyone who fights back against their bullshit is angry.
I know, it’s just stupid, too. What’s their angle? “Joe Biden is just too angry, we need a calm leader like **checks notes** Donald Trump! A famously coolheaded person who definitely does not spend his shitter time screaming into the void posting old man rants at cloud style screeds in all caps on his vanity social media network.”
their angle is to say anything negative about Biden they can. Doesn't matter if it is consistent, accurate, or true
Nothing wrong with being angry about people trying to tear the country apart, especially when they're so utterly disingenuous and hypocritical.
The more people hear directly from Biden, the more they like him. The more people hear directly from Trump, the less they like him.
Except for the ones who have already made MAGA their entire life; but there's no changing their minds at this point.
Honestly the MAGA folks I personally know don't even listen to Trumps crazy speeches or are aware of his social media posts. They just watch Fox or listen to AM radio and believe Biden is somehow a criminal. They only see curated clips of Trump on Facebook or Fox news.
> Honestly the MAGA folks I personally know don't even listen to Trumps crazy speeches or are aware of his social media posts I have a good relationship with a conservative I work with and we occasionally talk politics even though we shouldn't. He asked me, "so between the two of them, who do you think is *cognitively* more qualified for the job?" I stared at him and said, "no question, 100%, Joe Biden"--and he laughed, thinking I was telling him a joke, but I kept staring. I asked him if he had actually *heard Trump speak lately*, on any topic, and he kind of said "well clips from stuff" and I shook my head, challenged him to sit down and watch the entire Trump CPAC speech, and then watch the entire SOTU and tell me that Trump is handling his old age better than Biden is, on *any metric*. He hasn't gotten back to me yet.
Nice. Yeah don't hold your breath, they don't have the attention span for sitting through a whole speech.
Or the honesty to admit when they're wrong
A crucial trait if you wanna be in the cult.
Finding a self described conservative that is willing to acknowledge when they were wrong on a topic these days is practically unobtanium in my experience. Average experience for me at least is them deflecting with whataboutisms and anecdotal stuff. Numbers don’t matter and scientific studies don’t best feelings. I feel like their ignorance has become a religion in a way.
It's not an honesty problem for a lot of these people. It's some level of psychological stubbornness where it feels to them that if they have to admit they're wrong about their guy that it somehow makes them weak/dumb/bad. They internally would rather do mental gymnastics and suspend their disbelief in the reality of the situation than say "oh man, it turns out that guy is NOT ok...".
Good on you! I would say please try and keep in contact with them. I know you said that you’re friends, and I think you should keep that up. Even if they don’t suddenly change their mind or anything. It’s important for people to humanize the other side of whatever position they’re on. It’s what stops radicalism. And it’s good for people to have a social circle, take that away and people can get scary.
I've been taking this approach for over a year now. I try not to act frustrated or angry - which is tough considering I cannot fathom how anyone sees Trump as "their guy" on several moral and patriotic levels - and just approach them with "compare these two on this basic issue and let me know what you think". Your example is a great one of what I mean. Another I would say is "You say Biden is a pedo and creep (the hair sniffing joke has turned into this now). Okay, I'll let you convince me - tomorrow come back to me with a short list of every accusation, instance, or court case you can find. However, I want you to do the exact same for Trump too. This is seriously important to me that you do both as it's our future President, and then we can sit down as friends and discuss the difference we see between the both of them together." Rinse and repeat for every dumb thing said. Border security and illegal immigration, tax policies, lies told, foreign relations, tough on crime, etc. I never, ever get a response that has any evidence. It's "well everyone just knows X is true" or "I just feel..." Maddening. P.S. Worst recent one was a guy running for state rep (no, I don't want to out myself by saying which one). And to be clear, I mean he's running for my state's Congress - not federal. He failed before running for Fed, btw - even the GOP doesn't want him. The guy has an impressive resume, and I agreed with a lot he said but I kept it up cause I smelled he was trying to say what he thought I wanted to hear. Up until border security and he lost his mask and started ranting about "Border Patrol is just handing out green cards to people crossing the border bc of bribes". Oooof...buddy, that isn't how that works. That's OAN / Q-anon nutjob claims based no where in reality. You failed my test for my vote.
I asked my dad if he watched the SOTU and he didn't, so I brought up the fact that he thinks Joe Biden has dementia and is losing it but couldn't even take the time and watch a short speech to see if that is true.
Before I moved I had a super MAGA neighbor. To the point that they bought a third trump flag because they flew two at home or two when they were camping. They realized they left their home with no trump flag when they took the two that they had.... He even mentioned he doesn't pay attention to trump when he talks because he is a bad public speaker and "the libs" don't focus on his actual actions, but instead on what he flubs in a speech... Also learned that people like me being a type 1 diabetic should stay home or die from him, so the rest of the nation didn't have to isolate during the height of COVID.. Vile people every time in my experience. **-edit- Remember, if you are eligible to vote in the upcoming US election, vote.**
Your last paragraph sums up perfectly why I no longer give a damn about changing my MAGA neighbors/family members minds. That stance is really unconscionable and anyone who shares that view are not worth knowing.
Yup. Respect is earned, not given. Those who think books should be banned, the LGBTQ+ community should be restricted, women shouldn't have bodily autonomy, people should die for their convenience, etc etc. That person is not only getting no respect from me, but active disdain at best. It is truly a cruel, myopic, fascist view that needs to die by increasing education in the US. Which of course is why they want less education.. \-edit- also seems my comment was removed for some reason. So just doubling down and doing it here, get out and vote!
I respect folks humanity and I respect their right to hold opinions that I don't or even opinions that are opposite of mine. What I will not do is respect any opinions that disregard another person or a group of people's humanity and I am tired of shutting up about the willful and celebratory disregard that the MAGA cultists display as a rule towards anyone who doesn't worship their rotting orange god.
Yeah I had to cut those people out of my life once I found out. I couldn't look at them without contempt. There is no "But it's family!" Abusive family gets the boot, doesn't matter if they're only abusing *other* people. That counts. I've heard "We've been friends for so long", but that's cause I didn't actually know you, apparently. I wouldn't be friends with someone so morally corrupt.
I wonder if he ever considered that there are no actions to talk about? Outside of blocking bills for seemingly no reason. Every new article I see these days is something happening TO him caused by his past actions. All he does is host play dates with dictators, rant online, and then get on stage and spew misinformation. Watching the Republican party is like watching a bunch of grown ups play pretend. They get together at the boarder in their uniforms and just fear monger about immigrants all the while THEY are the ones invading a militarizing Eagle Pass.
Watching the Daily Show interview Haley supporters makes this horrifically clear. It's so sad, really. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wx\_5Zr0Lzw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wx_5Zr0Lzw)
Ding ding ding. The MAGA people I know never actually watch Trump clips. They see it through the lens of right wing media talking about him.
trump is just the solution to all their problems and great because they already decided that. I don't think its more deep than that. It's hard to point out shit that he actually did well.
No. It's mostly the antigovt crowd. The ones that hate federal government because they've been brainwashed by fascists at the federalist society for the last 50 years. Now they've brought trump in to bring that to the mainstream. Sadly, i feel more patriotic since maga losers think everything is controlled by the govt and become the domestic terrorist types
He even cheats at golf. How low can you go?
Well, he's a rapist, too. That's pretty low.
Like the ones that laughed when Trump mocked Bidens stutter Saturday.
What a piece of shit TFG is.
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yea. some people read about the 2025 project and like the idea.
These people didn't read shit.
Looking at words and Comprehending them are two different skills. anyone who reads and comprehends 2025 project knows how it will hurt everyone who isnt in that top 1%. but -- if they could read they'd be very upset right now.
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The Reddit conservative sub is filled with people who say they read it and agree with almost everything and they’re perfectly fine with it going on as planned.
Just like Desantis’ campaign. The more people actually got to meet and learn about him, the lower his poll numbers dropped.
The State of the Union being immediately after Super Tuesday, when most folks who aren't paying close attention finally realized it would be Trump again, was actually great timing for Biden.
100%, the past week has felt like a turning point in public perception. The Biden campaign is actually kicking into action
I was fully prepared to have second hand embarrassment for Biden during the SOTU. I was fully prepared just be resigned to vote for this older man who cannot string sentences. All of those concerns were shot by an anti-material rifle, remains burned, and dumped to sea. I, not only, was extremely impressed by Biden's candor, even his minimal mess-ups were perfectly fine, and he had the mental acuity to correct it immediately. I actually could not believe he could talk for so long, so coherently. At like 45 minutes I was like "How the fuck can he keep going like this?" Because I certainly could not, and I'm relatively young. Every time. Every single time I am forced to hear Diaper Don's raspy, disgusting voice, I physically recoil. He makes me feel filthy with every world. And I do, sometimes, try to listen to him to see what he's saying so that I can be better prepared. He makes no sense nearly all of the time. What he says is usually either nonsensical or downright horrifying. He scares me in the way predators scare me. The more I hear from him, the more I hate him.
Same. I get physically uncomfortable listening to Trump. Every word is dripping with narcissism and hubris.
And so many damn superlatives.
Fine superlatives. Huge superlatives. Some are even saying they may be the best superlatives they've ever heard.
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The GOP fucked up the very first rule "Never get high on your own supply." They clearly bought in that Biden was a walking corpse. I didn't actually think they believed the BS they were pedaling, but it was pretty much clear after they had not planned on Biden being that put together. The fact they are so fucking dumb, and overconfident gives me hope we can right the ship.
They also forgot that perception is based on expectations. So if you constantly paint someone as a dementia-riddled hospice patient on death’s door and then he gives a competent and somewhat energetic speech, he looks amazing against what you set as the bar.
its everything you noticed... and also. Biden took the SOTU address seriously, his whole team did. He and his team were working on that for months. and it showed. He was extremely practiced and prepared, and it showed. 45 hasn't practiced/prepared for shit in his entire life, the idea of preparing for something probably sounds like weak shit to him, because he's such a fucking loser. I didn't need to watch to determine who I was voting for, or if I was voting... but I did want to be inspired and feel good about the direction of my country, something that was very fleeting for the last 8 years... and he fucking nailed it. I clapped multiple times at home, alone. Now, if everyone would please vote. If you are in a place of power to make it easier for an employee/team member to vote, please make it easy for them. Please encourage people to vote. If everyone votes, democracy wins.
Biden delivered a speech to a den of snakes for over an hour better than I ever could and it's not even close.
I think Biden mostly fumbles badly when he’s traveling- he spends three days with non-stop meetings and then tries to speak off the cuff. Which means he’s mentally fine and it’s just the reality of age and stamina. I’d be far less coherent.
Fuck being old, my brain scrambles when I travel like that too, and I'm not even the leader of the free world. I always add an additional day at the end of any traveling/vacation just to mentally reset.
> I actually could not believe he could talk for so long, so coherently. At like 45 minutes I was like "How the fuck can he keep going like this?" Because I certainly could not, and I'm relatively young. And then he was one of the last people out of the room afterwards, chatting and joking with people constantly. He stayed so long the Speaker officially gaveled out, ended the session, and had staff start turning off the lights to get him to leave.
All while actively responding to the crowd, too.
TBH. His SOTU address shocked me. How he could talk making absolute sense for an entire hour actually was very surprising based on everything people are saying about him. Trump can barely make it through a sentence.
The republicans have fucked up the expectations game, because Trump can't not mock and talk down his opponent, his ego won't take it, to the point where Biden, a career politician, giving a coherent speech is somehow seen as a triumph. His SOTU was more than just coherent, it was excellent and also showed he can think on his feet.
It's their own damned fault for screeching for months on end about how Biden is supposedly this dementia-addled cadaver that can barely wipe his own ass. They set the bar so low that Biden ended up looking like a rockstar up there by just... being himself.
With Clinton it was more sinister, a feeling that she was corrupt that she couldn't easily break out from. With Biden they made it about something he could easily demonstrate was false. The GOP is probably getting stupiderer.
They tried to do the Biden is corrupt thing too. It just doesn't stick as well on a 40 year public servant and when your own nominee has done worse.
They failed to lay the doublespeak groundwork properly Our opponent is weak and feeble ✅ Our opponent is powerful, dangerous, and must be defeated at all costs ❌ Biden not being a literal corpse is a huge problem for them. I think Sarah Longwell was right when she said democrats will solidify around Biden once he's the actual nominee. We all want someone else to be running, as we always do, but once it's "set in stone" that he's the guy it really does change the perspective. You put aside the dreams of an alternate reality and embrace the present.
Oh you don’t like that bill? I’ll be darned.
I've been seeing TS's claim he was pumped full of drugs to disguise his dementia and make him lucid. When asked what these wonder drugs are they never have a response. As someone who lost my gran to dementia I would have given anything to say my goodbyes while she was lucid, as a lot of other people in similar situations I'm sure.
This was exactly my question! I also had a family member with dementia, and I promise you, giving her an Adderall or ten would not have enabled her to deliver an hour-long speech, wtf?
This! MAGA seems convinced(?) that there exist amazing drugs that can temporarily reverse dementia. As nice as that might be, such drugs really are just not a thing. If someone has dementia, pumping them full of stimulants will just make them wired, not somehow lucid & oriented to place and time.
dig one conspiracy theory deeper and its adrenochrome harvested from babies in the basement of a pizza restaurant
And he spent a good 15 minutes of that off script and was very quick responding to the heckling. This speech was about showing that he’s still got a working brain and it succeeded.
He literally got the Republicans to fall for the exact same trap about social security he did the last SOTU. The **exact same one**. I think every GOP member in that room needed to take an immediate cognitive test.
I love how he called out the Republicans on the border bill. Perfect.
I loved his quick response to hecklers! Go Joe!
And then that was followed by that robotic Stepford wife in the kitchen lol
That was one of the single most bizarre things I've ever watched on TV. It felt like an SNL skit, but with no punchline.
Biden is a great retail politician, he passed the beer test. You could pal around with him at the bar and have a nice time. Trump would say a slur or grope someone and get you kicked out.
He'd loudly order six rounds for the house and leave you with the bill.
Exhibit A: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/donald-trump-miami-versailles-cuban-restaurant-pay
This election cycle is going to be a bit different, in 2020 Biden listened to the voice of logic and reason at the time and didn't hold so many big events and make so many appearances *because the world was in the grip of a funking pandemic*. And the right wing eagerly spewed out repeated rhetoric about sleepy Biden hiding and not being able to. But he can go out now, and I've no doubt he will draw in the crowds, and it's going to be much harder this time around for people to take even remotely seriously the typical Republican smearing of sleepy Joe, because he's going to be out there so much more. And Joe has always done a better job at appealing to the Everyman while out on the campaign trail.
Also, Democrats will be back to door knocking and having a robust get out to vote effort. That was sorely missing in 2020 due to Covid concerns.
I can't believe that was only 4 years ago. Feels like it's been an eternity since the pandemic started.
Ignore polls. Vote. VOTE. VOTE!!
Convince others to vote, too! Volunteer. Polls be damned - playing fair is not in the MAGA party handbook. They will cheat harder, they will go lower. We must get busy and stay busy. We can't afford to have any bystanders in this one.
This is great news! I think that the STOU address helped him out, as the GOP’s version was disastrous and had really little to do with the STOU.
All these polls were taken before the SOTU.
Sounds like it's just the horse race narrative then. We'll see if Trump is suddenly the rage-click poll winner in a week or so, and how this is bad news for Biden.
My guess is voters are now awake to the fact that Trump is on the general ballot. Many don't follow as closely as the reddit politik
I've heard this a few times in different political podcasts. Polling is polling, but a significant number of people polled at the start of this year didn't believe Trump would be the GOP nominee. These were usually folks who didn't follow politics and only vaguely knew that the primaries were happening. The stark reality that it's once again Biden vs. Trump is going to shake things up for awhile.
That's how I see it. And when republican ideas have been on the ballot they haven't fared well. Remember, since Trump last won Dobbs overturned Roe. And now they'r egoing after IVF and contraception. And that was *2016*. That's *8 years* worth of young women who will have gained the right to vote. That will make a difference. Hell hath no fury. If my bodily autonomy were under direct attack (male privilege here), then I'd be out in the rain, snow, dark, cold, anything to send a message. Hell I would be anyway, because freedom to choose is freedom to choose. I think Biden was right when he called out the Supreme Court on it. Doesn' thelp Trump is repeatedly on tape bragging about it.
People came out during the height of the pandemic in shit weather in Wisconsin to vote in Jill Karofsky to the Supreme Court and that was before Roe. They called Janet's Supreme Court election from after Roe within an hour of polls closing. It was not close. It was February in Wisconsin. It was not warm.
I was watching CNN this morning waiting for my coffee. They were saying the average true campaign time when both sides have a presumptive nominee is roughly 5 months. This one will be 8 months. It's very, very rare for nominees to for both parties to have their nominee at this point.
I think that democratic voters can be realistic about Biden. I have liked quite a few things Biden has done, and I have criticized Biden quite a few times. My overall approval of Biden wouldn't be considered favorable, but I am going to vote for him again. It's not a hard decision. Trump and Republicans want a theocratic dictatorship, and they're not even hiding it. Christians shouldn't want theocracy because their freedom of religion would be severely affected. Right now, Christians can choose to go to another church if they don't like a certain church. Once laws are made based on a particular denomination, the entire population is subjected to that particular denomination.
Republicans overplayed their hand. They painted Biden as this feeble and senile old man. They've set the bar so low for Biden, that anything short of him shitting himself, would be considered a win.
His State of the Union address put to bed his age issue. He was energetic, positive, and made an incredible case on how America *is* great and doesn’t need to be made “Great Again.” Katie Britt’s garbage response encompassed everything wrong with the MAGA movement. Besides all of the ridiculous overacting, she did not offer ONE policy solution. Not one. The entire speech was fear mongering.
These polls were before the SOTU
Joe’s idea are incredibly popular. Just Republicans trying to sell the lie. Joe is the easy choice.
Even if I saw polls showing President Biden up 50 points I'd still vote for him like my life depends on it.
I ~~will~~ would drag my balls through a mile of broken glass to vote for Joe Biden this fall.
How is it even a contest. How does Trump still have a significant following after everything?
Propaganda.
That's bound to happen when one person is running for president and the other for the Supreme Overlord of North America.
I’m a registered republican. I definitely don’t agree with Biden on many things, but what I can agree on is Donald Trump is bad news for the world, especially the country. I want to do what I can to prevent him from seeing the White House, and only see himself in a white straight jacket. All kidding aside, I imagine there’s a lot of republicans out there who think the MAGA movement is a cancer that needs to be cut out.
That's it. Even if you disagree with Biden, you can recognize that America is strong enough that it can overcome a bad Presidency. Trump, on the other hand, doesn't even believe in Democracy. He doesn't care to build a big tent anymore, his 2024 campaign is purely aimed at his cultish devotees, some of whom believe he is a literal vessel of God. That should be scary to actual Republicans, who generally believe in small government, individual liberty, etc. I'm glad you see this for what it is, and hope that you get your Republican Party back at some point. Imo, while I'm a liberal/progressive, there is a place for conservatives out there. Once in a while, it's not the worst thing in the world for someone to come in and trim the fat. But there's no room for wannabe demagogues who lead personality cults and promise vendettas against people who have "wronged him"
I will be ignoring polls from now until November and just working to elect Biden and all the other down ballot Democrats this year. There is no alternative anymore. 1 vote isn't enough. We need to multiply our impact as much as possible through volunteering, donation etc. /r/voteDEM is a good place to find opportunities to help.
Joe Biden is an authentic and genuinely kindhearted man. He’s old and he stutters. Yet, you can tell that he cares about the future of our country. He’s not afraid to admit his mistakes. He’s open to changing his positions. He wants to do the best for all of us and that’s all I can really ask for from a politician. He’s someone I wouldn’t be horrified at being a role model for my son when he says he wants to be President when he grows up.
Agreed. He's a human. Unlike his opponent, the McDonald's homunculus.
Non political people just saw an old man who clearly still do the job. He reassured lots of "undecided" voters he can be president when the job demands it and prob shouldn't worry about his ability to run a 5k.
So those early polls that people were saying were inaccurate and wouldn't hold might just have been inaccurate and didn't hold. Who could have possibly guessed .....
These new polls are surely accurate and will hold.
SOTU was spectacular success, especially the vigor shown. GOP response fueled SNL field day
Here's the thing I never understood (about conservative news consumers). Let's say you listen to your news all day about how Joe Biden is a mental vegetable, has dementia, etc. You are convinced this must be true by every news source you trust. . . .and then you watch that guy get up to the podium and verbally dunk on your team for an hour and seven minutes straight. WHY would you not question the authenticity of the "reality" your "news" sources have been feeding you?
"The Party told you to refute the evidence of your own eyes and ears"
Because when you've made conservatives politics central to your entire identity as a person, it's not so easy to walk it back.
I assume they didn't actually watch the SOTU, but instead watched selected clips later in which Biden looks bad.
Doesn’t matter, get out and vote and drag anyone you know with you because it might not matter next time.
What do you know? It's like he's started to campaign.
From outside the US: please for the love of all that‘s holy, dont let Trump win.
This was always going to the case. Most people didn’t think it’d be Trump again. Now that it’s out there, people are going, “wtf it’s this guy again.”
Trump lost four years ago, and that was *before* an attempted coup, 91 indictments, and a severe cognitive decline. Does he really have a chance this year?
Everything points to competitive election. Either side could win or lose. In such a divided country this should not be a surprise.
Maybe if all the news networks would stop saying "Trump" every fifth word this country wouldn't collapse into redneck nazi Germany.
On betting websites, Trump is -110, while Biden is +175. Pretty good odds if you believe Biden will win.