I make no excuses. We’ve seen what Trump presidencies look like; the last was bumbling and did massive damage to civil rights, the next won’t be. Project 2025 ensures that.

Biden’s biggest crime has been supporting Israel. His presidency was categorically and measurably better for the US than Trump’s. Aside from Palestine, he wasn’t a bad president. Now, if Trump wasn’t saying that Israel isn’t going far enough; if Trump were supporting Palestine, then there’d be something to talk about. But he isn’t, and he did terrible things to our country while in charge, and should never be allowed near the White House again.

Did they watch the same debate that I did?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But I also want a president who’s not just going to take amphetamines so he can perform well past his bed time.

I’m not saying either of these guys is my first choice. I’m just saying that it was late, Biden had a cold, and he was probably taking Nyquil or something - he would want to be up there sneezing and blowing his nose. If you compare his performance in the debate to his speech in N Carolina, he certainly wasn’t at his peak. Good knows how much cocaine Trump had snorted before the debate.

She was born in October; shit, you’re right. She’ll be barely legal in time for the election, and certainly eligible by the time she’d take office. So she won’t be too young to vote for by the time of the general election.

Wow.

The problem is that upvotes serve two conflicting proposes. Upvoting raises visibility, so one use is to say, “this is a post people should see.” In that case, you may not necessarily agree with the content of the post, but rather believe it’s worthy of debate. A good example of this is c/unpopularopinion, where the community rules specifically state to upvote if you agree it’s an unpopular opinion, not whether you agree with the opinion.

The other, conflicting, use is to signal approval or disapproval.

You can’t do both at the same time. It’s a flaw in design Reddit had, which they fixed but monetized. Lemmy did not learn from Reddit’s mistake and instead repeated it.

Two conflicting uses for the same action is terrible UX design.

Yah, absolutely. I’m frankly a little surprised Trump is still alive.

We know who Biden’s running mate is going to be, unless there’s a surprise upset. Trump’s is still up in the air and the weasels are currently fighting for it.

Someone pointed out, the debate was scheduled for 9pm, with two men over 70. I’m in my 50’s, and I’m no good after 8pm. This should have been held in the morning.

The debate was poorly arranged, and once again Biden’s incompetent staff contributed by letting it happen.

The top YouTube comment hit the nail on the head, though: the problem is that 49 million people didn’t watch the Carolina rally.

Thank you! So, in that situation, instead of 3 consecutive terms, we could see 4.

Assuming she’s successful, becomes far more popular, and there are no major crises that work against her.

The most reliable way to get re-elected is to be president when a war starts. Like how Bush Jr engineered 9/11 so he could ensure re-election(*). But it tensions escalated with Russia and we got involved, that’d do it.

(*) Yeah, no. I don’t really believe that. It’s just a joke.

2 years and 1 day

OK. This is a specific reference to something about our laws of succession about which I’m embarrassingly ignorant. Can you save me a web search and elaborate?

For sure. But there will be a lot of indirect debate on social media, because Trump can’t keep his burger-hole shut, and Klobuchar’s free to murder him (metaphorically) on public platforms. Even if he only posts to TruthSocial, everything he says gets parroted on X and Facebook, and that’s still where the most eyeballs are.

And old school public media picks this stuff up and repeats it - that’s mostly what they’ve been reduced to -but it still reaches a lot of eyes and ears.

And: Trump refusing another debate, she could just hammer on his cowardice, over and over. That’d be a win.

Klobuchar is tough. If nothing else, I’d love to see that fight. Only slightly less than I’d love to see an AOC v Trump fight; that’d be like watching a skinny junkie enter the MMA ring against Holly Holm. It’d be hilarious. But AOC is too young, and Trump will be either dead or in a home by the time she’s old enough to run. I just hope Bernie is still active enough by then to support her. I don’t know that she could get elected - she’s too polarizing - but it would be a marvelous spectacle.

Anyway, I prefer Yang’s politics, and I’d be thrilled to see Buttigieg in the White House, but I stand by Klobuchar as the best bet.

🙁 🤝

Lemmy really, really needs emoji responses that don’t require and entirely new comment.

Agreed, and agreed.

Why not Klobuchar? She’s got some national recognition from the 2019/20 cycle, politics are acceptable to moderates, progressive (enough), and she’d eat Trump for lunch in debates and on social media. Plus, she’s from the Midwest, and might pick up some folks for regional loyalty, and could play against the “slick New Yorker” which might still work.

The bases are going to vote party lines. I think undecideds and wavering moderates are the pick-up points, and I think Klobuchar could do that.

I like Yang’s politics, but he’s got a popularity problem, and Buttigieg - Trump would just harp on his sexual orientation, and I’m not confident enough that America’s ready yet to vote for a gay president. Hell, we can’t even get a woman into office.

IMO Klobuchar’s the safest bet against Trump.

Why?

Once again, we agree.

Why always with the old white men, when we have prominent politicians like Yang, Buttigieg, Klobuchar? And as for Bernie, if you want a firebrand who’s going to alienate moderates, why not AOC? Well, she’s too young to run, but she’s not the only truly liberal option. Warren is old enough, progressive enough, and a woman. But, no, Bernie Bros gotta Bro.

I’m sorry if I’m repeating some other response; often my Lemmy client can’t load sub comments, and I see you already have 6.

I think we’re voting for Kamala. She’s not running because she can’t win, not against Trump, and probably not against anyone else. She’s even more unpopular than Biden, and the Right would have a field day if she were the front runner.

But, frankly, side by side, Trump looks more healthy and robust than Biden, and it’s saying something. If Biden is elected, Kamala will be president before the end of his term.

I don’t know if that’s terrible; I don’t particularly care for her, but she’s better than Trump, and is on the right side of most of the issues I care about. Also, if she did a decent job and had some luck, she’d be able to run again for a second term, and we could get an unusual streak of three liberal(ish) terms.

As for Biden, a president’s staff does most of the real work of any president; I think of a president more like the captain of a large ship: they take a lot of input from the crew, and make decisions. They don’t gather the information or touch the controls; as long as they have a competent team, I suspect nearly anyone could functionally be president. As long as he’s mentally capable of processing the information he’s given and making rational decisions, he can do his job. I’m just no longer convinced he’s going to be capable of that for a full term, and the way he’s looking, I wouldn’t be surprised if he physically failed in the next 4 years.

So: President Harris. I just hope they’re putting effort into making sure she can step into the shoes quickly. If Biden can even win this election.

Biden, though. Dude’s looking like Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China.

Anybody following this able to give a balanced summary? I find The Hill to tend right-leaning and don’t much trust their analysis.

The Hill seems to be placing the defeat of Bowman on his stance against the genocide in Palestine, which is becoming a sort of dog-whistle saying, “stand against the invasion of Palestine, and this is what happens to you.” It may in this case be true; I can believe it, but I don’t trust The Hill to not be constructing a narrative.

I think we’re of like mind on this. It’s possible to realize something is broken without knowing how to fix it.

I’m not sure why Boeing is in space, except for the “me too” factor when they noticed the successes SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin were having. I wasn’t aware they had a military division - what do they make? I mean, outside of repurposed commercial cargo jets. I don’t think spinning off a division that’s simply modifying an existing design for a specific market makes much sense; most of the work is in the original design and manufacture, right?

Yeah. There are lots of areas I think government control is better than private sector, but they’re mostly infrastructure/monopoly areas. Power, internet, roads, etc. Normally I wouldn’t put Boeing in this category, but you may be right. Thinking about NASA, and what we achieved as a country, maybe there are some endeavors that are simply so expensive and important (as in, safety) that they shouldn’t be private.

I don’t know if breaking things up would help, though. Boeing re-uses liners for both cargo and passengers; and there are other companies making smaller planes for other sectors: military, private jets, etc. It’s just those big airliners where the cost of operating is so enormous, and the cost of entry so high, and the market so constrained, that I really can’t see any room for more competition. Do you?

Mm hmm… Hmmm hmmm… Wait

And the military is just sitting on its hands.

what? What should the military be doing?