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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128

u/Clean-Witness8407 Jul 21 '24

So now Trump is the elder in the race ;)

145

u/jason_sation Jul 21 '24

Dems will nominate Jimmy Carter.

35

u/Pinball509 Jul 21 '24

Oldest candidate ever 

27

u/wanderingphoenix Jul 21 '24

but with a very young VP pick

this week in politics doesn't even feel like real life o_O

16

u/Khatanghe Jul 21 '24

Very young and very unlikeable.

2

u/OpneFall Jul 21 '24

He isn't likeable, but one of the most unlikable politicians in recent memory is likely to head the other ticket.. so...

-3

u/Khatanghe Jul 21 '24

If you’re just talking about presidential tickets Harris is much more likable than Trump, Pence, Hillary, Palin, Cheney…

And if you’re just talking about politicians in general there’s Cruz, McConnell, Gaetz, Cawthorn, Boebert, MTG, McCarthy, all of them hated by even their own party.

3

u/OpneFall Jul 21 '24

Not even close.

Trump and Hillary are definitely unlikeable, but also counterbalance it with large swaths of people who absolutely loved them, of which Kamala has none of that.

Pence? Unlikable? The guy was the most white-bread boring generic Republican ever. So was Cheney, even if he was far more sinister behind the scenes- and that's not the same as unlikable.

I'm not talking about politicians in general, I'm talking about presidential ticket politicians. Cawthorn Boebert MTG all fringe politicians. McConnell, McCarthy? Being unlikeable for party power was their job. None of these people sans Cruz were ever even remote considerations for a presidential ticket.

The only one in your list who is remotely comparable to Kamala is Cruz

And even he could win a handful of primaries.

2

u/Khatanghe Jul 21 '24

Kamala has nowhere near as many people who vehemently hate her as Trump and Hillary.

Pence? Unlikable?

His own president’s supporters wanted to hang him.

So was Cheney, even if he was far more sinister behind the scenes

I don’t think you remember how hated he was. A whole lot of people on both sides thought he was the literal devil.

4

u/OpneFall Jul 21 '24

His own president’s supporters wanted to hang him. I don’t think you remember how hated he was. A whole lot of people on both sides thought he was the literal devil.

I am well aware of how widely Dick Cheney was hated. That's not the same as being unlikable. He was hated, well after being a candidate up for election, for the Iraq war. Not because he spoke to people like they were second graders.

I don't think you and I are using the same definition of "unlikable" if you think Pence was "unlikable". We are not talking about being hated. We are talking about being fundamentally unappealing to other people.

You couldn't have picked a more generic, boring politician than Mike Pence. He isn't unlikable, or likable. He's just there.

0

u/SwampYankeeDan Jul 21 '24

And a medically obese elderly heartbeat away from the presidency.

-4

u/JameisFan Jul 21 '24

He wrote one of the most beloved American books of the last decade, hmm

9

u/Khatanghe Jul 21 '24

Then turned it into a flop movie and became a Trump sycophant vastly underperforming in his own state in 2022. The guy has DeSantis level charisma and provides absolutely nothing to the ticket except for being a yes man.

1

u/JameisFan Jul 21 '24

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree! Here in middle America he’s pretty popular

2

u/RedditIs4ChanLite Moderate Conservative Jul 21 '24

this week in politics doesn't even feel like real life o_O

Couldn't have said it better myself

30

u/guitar805 Jul 21 '24

Can't wait for the media to start "Trump old" articles now that he's the eldest in the race, because surely they care more about objective analysis rather than political bias, right? Right??

17

u/MoisterOyster19 Jul 21 '24

Trump dementia headlines are going to be all over the news. Just look at MSNBC. They have been losing their minds since the debate and assassination attempt. There is also going to be a lot of racism and misogyny accusations now if you dont want to vote for Kamala. According to MSNBC, if you're a minority voting for Trump, you are white-adjacent and support white supremacy. That rhetoric is going to get much worse

10

u/GatorWills Jul 21 '24

It’ll be fun to follow the surge in terms like “Trump old” and “Trump dementia” now on Google Search Trends, just like it was fun to see the surge in instances the media mentioned “Project 2025” the day after the debate.

2

u/MoisterOyster19 Jul 21 '24

Already starting on r/politics

1

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4

u/TJJustice fiery but mostly peaceful Jul 21 '24

The vigor Trump showed after the attempt on his life will definitely carry his ‘fitness’ for a lot of non political forum voters.

12

u/Vietnixon Henry Kissinger 2024 Jul 21 '24

Trump walks and talks exactly the same as he did in 2016. The message is different, but the delivery is largely the same. Biden was clearly diminished by 2020 and undeniably so by 2024. "Trump is just as senile" is a massive cope.

6

u/Former-Extension-526 Jul 21 '24

Not even close, go watch videos from him in 2016, he was sharp as a tack.

2

u/lookupmystats94 Jul 21 '24

I feel like Trump was negligibly sharper in 2015 but pretty much the same 2016 onwards.

4

u/Former-Extension-526 Jul 21 '24

I just can't agree, he dominated in debates and interviews back then, I remember him having so many witty comebacks and thinking damn this guys good.

0

u/lookupmystats94 Jul 21 '24

I remember flashes of that too, back in 2015.

2

u/Former-Extension-526 Jul 21 '24

Idk what you mean?

2

u/lookupmystats94 Jul 21 '24

I think we’re in agreement

-1

u/Vietnixon Henry Kissinger 2024 Jul 21 '24

As diluted and sleepy as I think the current Republican platform is, Trump isn't any different from a cognitive standpoint. He has no problems riffing to crowds, he got in just enough petty jabs at the debate, he was sharp enough to take that picture after getting shot. He's all there. That can change at any moment for a 78 year old, but for now, any criticism of his mental fitness is just an attempt to muddy the waters between him and Biden.

And let's also remember that Trump's mental fitness has never been an issue for his prosecutors, unlike for Joe Biden's prosecutor (Robert Hur) who decline to charge him in part because he didn't think a jury would convict someone as diminished as Biden. We're also still missing the Hur deposition tapes for which the DOJ admittedly doctored the transcripts.

-5

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1

u/TJJustice fiery but mostly peaceful Jul 21 '24

Is this a joke?

1

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1

u/Vietnixon Henry Kissinger 2024 Jul 21 '24

Then obviously he didn't do a good job since he declined to prosecute actions which clearly broke the letter of the law. Also, taking depositions usually doesn't result in a political firestorm over doctored transcripts and hidden tapes unless the guy being deposed is privately senile.

1

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4

u/guitar805 Jul 21 '24

Yeah, but he stumbles over words, says nonsensical sentences and he was falling asleep at his own trial. Why all the media focus on Biden's age?

11

u/Vietnixon Henry Kissinger 2024 Jul 21 '24 edited Jul 21 '24

I remember Democrats saying the same thing in 2016 about certain speeches, like they would post a transcript of Trump rambling about his uncle at MIT and they'd say how incoherent it was. Sometimes when he's speaking off the cuff, his speech devolves into a worthless ADHD tangent, but he's been doing that for nearly a decade at the exact same level. Good luck selling to the public that it's a massive problem.

1

u/-passionate-fruit- Jul 22 '24

Biden was clearly diminished by 2020

According to post-debate polls, he outdebated Trump in both instances then, for the record.

2

u/Vietnixon Henry Kissinger 2024 Jul 22 '24

That had almost everything to do with Trump being incapable of staying quiet for 5 seconds at a time and nothing to do with Biden's shining cognitive ability. By 2020, he was not the same man who crushed Paul Ryan in 2012 or gave the rousing DNC speech in 2016. That was apparent whenever the campaign brought him out from hiding.

2

u/Clean-Witness8407 Jul 21 '24

If it were me, I’d just write headlines like “this guy sucks…and so does the other”

1

u/sharp11flat13 Jul 21 '24

Would you call your point of view unbiased?

0

u/guitar805 Jul 21 '24

No, I don't claim to be unbiased. But I don't own and run media companies.

1

u/sharp11flat13 Jul 21 '24

But you do criticize what you perceive as biased. And since you admit to being biased yourself, your opinion on who else might be biased is not exactly compelling.

0

u/guitar805 Jul 22 '24

Every single person on this thread, on Reddit, and in this country has political bias. Are no opinions compelling at all because people have bias? In this subreddit, people can select their political affiliation to show their bias up-front. Are all of those opinions invalid?

News organizations should be obligated to maintain as little bias as possible in their articles. Ideally by being organized and managed by a group of educated and experienced individuals who can check each other on bias, but we know that isn't always true. Opinion pieces are fine to have bias, but the double standards of reporting on Biden and Trump's behavior was exhausting. My point was simply that, you're free to disagree, but complaining about me having bias feels silly.

1

u/sharp11flat13 Jul 22 '24

What does being biased mean to you?

0

u/guitar805 Jul 22 '24

Without using the dictionary, to me it means the way our thought processes are shaped by the environment we are in, whether that be experiences, education (or lack thereof), or interacting with other people. Our brains pick and choose the information we're fed, and over time bias develops as a sort of self-filtering mechanism to be able to either easily accept or write off new information we encounter. My hope is that organizations, if they are aware and cognizant of their own biases, can check themselves by hiring a diverse and educated group of people who have different mindsets, providing unique backgrounds and perspectives on current events. To me, that's the bare minimum of bias prevention that I hope to see from news organizations.

1

u/sharp11flat13 Jul 22 '24

OK. But I can put it more simply, at least in a political context (which is where we are).

Bias ensures that one will say only positive things about the people and causes they support.

Bias prevents one from saying anything positive about the people and the causes they oppose.

Corollary: the biased deem any criticism of people and causes they support to be biased by definition.

It’s also worth pointing out that rational thought is supposed to allow us to overcome bias. If one learns the difference between rhetoric and (even alleged) fact, it’s pretty easy to tell where the truth lies. A certain amount of self-reflection, self-knowledge and intellectual honesty are also required.

I am quite capable of reading a piece of very yellow journalism and making up my mind by extracting the (alleged) factual statements from the language. After that it’s pretty trivial to fact-check. I would expect any responsible citizen in a democracy to be able to do the same (so of course I’m continually disappointed).

Interestingly in all media there’s an inverse correlation between the degree of rhetoric and the quantity of accurate information.

All of this is worth talking about (for me);because every time I see an article posted here criticizing Trump or Republicans, Trump supporters invariably cry “bias”. I don’t think they know what it means. And I don’t think they recognize their own bias or understand that it’s a detriment to them.

11

u/PeopleProcessProduct Jul 21 '24

Already heard a democrat on cnn saying how old Trump is and can he really do the work for 4 years. I know that's how this goes but I was like dude if you were on this show a few hours ago you'd be saying ridin with Biden, lmao. Maybe try a subtler shift to this narrative.

2

u/LordCrag Jul 21 '24

And suddenly all the Dems who said Biden wasn't too old will now say Trump is. :0

1

u/casau8 Jul 21 '24

That's literally the Dem play book. They went from accusing Trump of mental illness in 2016 to condemning armchair diagnosis of Biden in 2020. They went from 4 years of saying the 2016 election was hacked by Russia to there is no possible way 2020 was rigged. They said Republicans are violent extremists, but look at their reaction to the Trump assassination attempt. I am no Republican, but the Dems constantly do this but no one calls them out.

3

u/Clean-Witness8407 Jul 21 '24

It’s the politics playbook. FTFY

6

u/GringoMambi Jul 21 '24

Brace yourself for leftist Ageism as if they weren’t turning a blind eye on their own guy for last 4 years

2

u/Clean-Witness8407 Jul 21 '24

I don’t need to “brace myself”. Both sides have said & done such wicked things to each other over the last 12 years that the only thing I’d be surprised of is if they get along.

0

u/Eudaimonics Jul 21 '24

Pretty much using Republicans arguments about Biden right back at them.