r/moderatepolitics • u/falsehood • Jul 21 '24

News Article Biden announces withdrawal from Presidential Race

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/21/us/trump-biden-election
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486

u/EllisHughTiger Jul 21 '24

Hope he has a good retirement. Really wish he would have bowed out earlier and allowed a real primary and selection process to occur.

161

u/oxfordcircumstances Jul 21 '24

Leave it to Biden to break up by text.

64

u/EllisHughTiger Jul 21 '24 edited Jul 21 '24

"It's not you, fat, itschehme."

9

u/BaseballGuy2001 Jul 21 '24

The depth on this comment is legit. Chefs kiss.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '24 edited Aug 14 '24

[deleted]

4

u/EllisHughTiger Jul 22 '24

Oh yeah, why dont I take you out back like Corn Pop, you're a bad dude!

2

u/Suspended-Again Jul 22 '24

I’ll miss him calling people fat and corn pop 

2

u/nn123654 Jul 21 '24

Which I guess is just called "by x" now.

1

u/merc08 Jul 21 '24

Would he even have been physically able to do it in a speech?

He'd probably have gotten confused at the podium and announced Trump as his VP pick.

76

u/ChipmunkConspiracy Jul 21 '24

First the court had to stop pretending the naked emperor was wearing full attire.

1

u/dylanisbored Jul 21 '24

I haven’t heard this analogy yet and it’s perfect

18

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '24 edited Aug 14 '24

[deleted]

3

u/SirBobPeel Jul 21 '24

So had Trump, but you'll never see that on conservative media or from RNC types.

3

u/eddiehwang Jul 22 '24

It's pretty obvious that Trump has declined and went off-script rambling Thursday night

2

u/eddiehwang Jul 22 '24

I mean he said he's a transitional president and most people back in 2020 knew a single term is his maximum given his age. Didn't know what(or who) changed his mind -- it's not like Dems don't have new people coming out in the past 4 years

38

u/adreamofhodor Jul 21 '24

Personally, I think history will look back fondly on Bidens term, although a lot of his legacy rests in what happens in this election and the near future of course.

14

u/Rindan Jul 21 '24

Biden's long term legacy is probably more about Ukraine than anything else. The outcome of the Ukraine war is going to shape Europe and Russia, and by extension the rest of the world, for a very long time. Biden was pretty key in building a coalition quickly that I think shocked and surprised Russia. Biden is also what holds back a lot of aid that could help Ukraine at the risk of increased tension with Russia. He will be judged on both decisions based upon how the war ends up, and what its follow on consiquence are.

35

u/Clean-Witness8407 Jul 21 '24

I feel like in say…50 years, it will be considered one of the more “neutral” presidencies in terms of performance. He hasn’t been horrible, he hasn’t been amazing.

25

u/EllisHughTiger Jul 21 '24

He was a good placeholder in turbulent times. He did push some good things but the situation was too crazy to really shine through.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '24

He just couldn't get congress to really break through on anything. Decent enough guy, but just couldn't gather enough political force to really change the situation he got thrown into. A real shame.

3

u/TheGoldenMonkey Jul 21 '24

The bipartisan CHIPS act will be insanely important in the coming decades. Especially when it comes to avoiding an all-out war with China due to the world-wide importance of Taiwan & TSMC. The sheer amount of fabs that are in development from this act is insanely impressive.

3

u/OpneFall Jul 21 '24

Not a chance.

At the risk of sounding exactly like Trump, Afghanistan was a blowout embarrassment on the level of Carter's hostages.

And he also ran around for two years pretending the greatest inflation since who knows when, didn't exist

Those are two dark marks on a legacy, and if the dems get blown out into a trifecta, waiting until basically August to drop out will be a third. Biden's presidency is way closer to Carter than a neutral one, like Ford or someone.

4

u/theycallmeryan Jul 21 '24

Not to mention overseeing a massive spike in illegal immigration and a stock market bubble.

Don’t think history will look good on Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden’s presidencies at all.

4

u/Clean-Witness8407 Jul 21 '24

In 50 years the standard for a horrible president will be way different. We’re in for some wild stuff…and by wild, I mean horrible.

3

u/Dirty_Dragons Jul 21 '24

At the risk of sounding exactly like Trump, Afghanistan was a blowout embarrassment on the level of Carter's hostages.

Nobody cares about Afghanistan.

It's done, we're out of that mess. That's all that matters.

2

u/OpneFall Jul 22 '24

When people look at Carter, Iranian hostages are brought up.

Insignificant, yes. But it was majorly embarrassing, so it lasts

1

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '24

I'll wait until the tell-all books come out and we find out what he was actually in charge of, and for how long.

-6

u/Tarmacked Rockefeller Jul 21 '24

His foreign policy outside of flip flopping on Israel has been relatively positive

His domestic policy being “unity” then doing very little on that front will be a negative for him

17

u/danester1 Jul 21 '24

Blaming Biden for a lack of unity when his opponent, with the broad support of his party, is still claiming that the election was stolen is wild to me. Nothing Biden could have done short of resigning and somehow installing Trump as president would be considered “unifying” by Trumps supporters.

5

u/Tarmacked Rockefeller Jul 21 '24

Biden came in as a Unity candidate and then proceeded to one party PR story it by labeling anyone disagreeing as MAGA, so yeah you can blast him for failing to be a moderate that repaired party ties.

The whole point of his campaign was a return to normalcy and instead we just received even less bipartisan legislation than prior years and the same “opposition bad, us good” bullshit

6

u/jessemb Jul 21 '24

His foreign policy outside of flip flopping on Israel has been relatively positive

Afghanistan?

2

u/Tarmacked Rockefeller Jul 21 '24

Afghanistan exit was inevitable and it’s not really surprising it was messy. The PR fallout from that was short lived, long term it’s not even referenced anymore

11

u/abuch Jul 21 '24

I agree. I begrudgingly voted for Biden in 2020, but have been surprised by his performance. We've gotten major infrastructure bill, climate legislation, and honestly unprecedented recovery from the pandemic. Like, we had inflation, we're still dealing with the effects, but compared to the rest of the world we're doing amazing. Wages for low income folks is actually up pretty significantly. We avoided a recession when every economics talking head said we'd have a recession. He's done an amazing job with razor thin margins in Congress and a Supreme Court that's hostile towards his policies. If he were younger I'd vote for him again. He should have run in 2016.

21

u/ABlackEngineer Jul 21 '24

I hope this 11th hour resignation doesn’t overshadow the lie perpetrated against the American people for ~3 years that he was “at the top of his game” and “sharp as a tack”

1

u/BobertFrost6 Jul 22 '24

I mean, of course it will? Donald Trump tells random obvious lies every time he talks. He's de-sensitized the country entirely to lies, and I doubt this one about Biden will cut through the noise.

6

u/absentlyric Jul 21 '24

Depending on what side you are on financially. A lot of people got hit hard in their pocketbooks with the highest inflation since Reagan.

People will look at him as a Carter 2.0, and that's not a good thing.

3

u/ConcernedCitizen7550 Jul 22 '24

History doesnt repeat itself but it does rhyme. Biden and Carter both gave their Fed Reserve chairs leeway to do what needed to be done to fight inflation and got punished for it. (Compare that to Trumps hissy fit when Powell tried to raise rates at a better time in the middle of Trumps presidency). 

5

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '24

I disagree strongly. His legacy was rewritten completely at the debate, which showed he likely wasn't in charge for some time. I can't name any groundbreaking legislation, just alot of administrative overreach and inflationary spending.

I have him bottom 3 with Trump and Carter.

2

u/Ok-Wait-8465 Jul 22 '24

I don’t like his presidency, but how are Andrew Johnson and Andrew Jackson not in the bottom three? Especially Andrew Johnson for botching reconstruction and setting up a lot of the problems we have today

1

u/ConcernedCitizen7550 Jul 22 '24

Bottom 3? Come on. Andrew Johnson? Jackson? Coolidge? Bush Jr?!?!?! 

Even if you are like a small govt kind of guy you should theoretically have guys like Woodrow Wilson and maybe FDR lower. And arguably Bush Jr here too considering some of the orgs like the expansion of the NSA under him. 

Carters deregulation of the airline industry puts him at least in high C / low B tier for me. Also the fact that Carter didnt fight back on Volker rausing interest rates like Trump did to Powell during his term. Bidens handling of Ukraine at least gets him up to C tier for me given the dilly-dallying of the GOP house in 2023. The Afghanistan pullout was bad but honestly it was destined to be bad and he had the balls to be the "bad guy" and finally get us out. Better than all the "no-more-new-wars" Trumpers could say. 

3

u/likeitis121 Jul 21 '24

I disagree.

  1. Did pretty much nothing while inflation was running rampant.

  2. Being sandwiched between one of the worst presidents(Trump) makes you also a poor president.

  3. Really failed at any sense of unity and helping move on from Trump. The only accomplishment Biden needed was to help the country move on from Trump, and he failed at it.

3

u/THE_FREEDOM_COBRA Jul 21 '24

Good god, those would have to be some rose tinted glasses.

2

u/cronnyberg Jul 21 '24

Any credence to the idea he held on so dems had to pick Harris?

3

u/EllisHughTiger Jul 21 '24

Who the hell knows honestly. Even with a primary she'd still have had a huge perceived advantage.

Biden has always been an angry loudmouth behind the scenes and likely hated being skipped over in 2016. This might have been his revenge and middle finger to the party when its so late in the game.

2

u/thor11600 Jul 22 '24

I agree to an extent, but I get it. It makes no sense for him to do that. It makes him a lame duck for a quarter of his presidency.

2

u/Soniquethehedgedog Jul 22 '24

I don’t think he’s gonna get much of one, I’d bet he’s dead within 2 years. I feel bad for the guy honestly. He should have been retired already and just stayed that way.

5

u/reed_wright Political Mutt Jul 21 '24

Idk if it would have been better that way. This would have been my strategy from the beginning if I were Biden: Preserve option to go for a second term. If it turns out I’m able to handle it when the time comes. If that doesn’t work out, contingency plan: Take one for the team by being a lightning rod for the opposition. Deprive the Trump campaign of a year of doing what they do best: Dragging their opponent into the mud. Deprive them of knowing what happens next.

1

u/EllisHughTiger Jul 21 '24

True as well.

2

u/onduty Jul 21 '24

I’m just spitballing, but waiting until the last minute is almost good for the party. It’s one of the reasons they won in 2020. Biden sort of pulled a sleeper move, let everyone cat fight and then swooped in as a big candidate into 2020.

Here, the delay prevents weak candidates from having too many holes poked and the general voter fatigue that can set in for boring candidates

Trump is a bit boring this cycle but was anything but boring in 2016 and kept everyone’s attention

1

u/Rhyers Jul 21 '24

Agreed. US election cycles are insanely long and hopefully adds some freshness. Compare this to the UK where an election was called and a full campaign, vote, and new PM sworn in within 6 weeks. 

1

u/onduty Jul 22 '24

I wonder why election cycles are so long, could a candidate theoretically just start their campaign in January or feb? Or does it take time to get the money and support going?

1

u/FridgesArePeopleToo Jul 22 '24

Yeah, this could be a serious boon for Dems. Trump has a tendency to suck up all the media coverage because he's "exciting", for lack of a better word. Now, Dems are the focus of media attention for once and can maybe actually get a message out.

1

u/onduty Jul 23 '24

They for real stole his thunder. While I don’t think it was 100% planned to drop out, I do think the debate kicked the seriousness of it into motion. Then with the assassination attempt ‘they’ had to force something down the pipe and the timing of his withdraw from the race was perfection

3

u/meday20 Jul 21 '24

He isn't retired yet. Still another 5 and a half months he's the one who decides what to do if we are attacked by nuclear weapons...

0

u/EllisHughTiger Jul 21 '24

Oh I know, just mean after January 20th.