2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[Josquius]

I wonder what the modern version would look like.How does the geriatric millenial seek to fit in.

Biden is clearly old. His best tack is going "well duh" to that and empathising in a choice between two 80 year olds you should chose the competent one.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think paradoxically, whilst the "basement campaigner" worked in the specific political scenario of 2020, I think it is not going to work as a strategy in 2024--and the answer is to have Biden out there more.

But...Biden is a bad speaker, and frequently embarrasses himself when speaking!

Well, so does Trump.

At least part of why Trump's general lack of coherence and poor handle on facts and specifics when speaking doesn't do him more harm is Trump just lives in the media, he is out there so much a lot of it just becomes background noise.

When Biden has a very limited relationship with the public, I think it actually exacerbates his many faults.

There is no one else. Any thoughts of swapping Biden for another candidate are fanciful dreams. The Dems have to find out how to win with Biden, and IMO getting him out there more--even if he's angry, is good. In fact, regularizing "angry Biden" may be more or less a good thing.

In a best case scenario you have a well spoken, clearly coherent guy like Barack Obama at the top of your ticket. We don't have that option. So I think you let Biden play to, frankly, his instincts--Biden is infamously foul tempered and moody and that has been well known by the politico crowd for decades. The time has come for the public to sample more of that. Yes, he is going to regularly embarrass himself. There is no way to stop that, and I think we've reached the point where keeping him sequestered actually does more harm than good.

I also suspect the Biden camp has been loathe to go after Trump too hard on this for the same reason Trump "passed" on the (very specious) rape allegation that was made against Biden during the 2020 campaign--Trump is vulnerable on that line of discussion, so why even bring it up as a topic. The logic in Bidenworld was probably that "Biden is weak on the whole old and incoherent thing, so why front and center it." Well, it is front and center. There is no fixing that, what you can do is make the public more aware that Trump is at least as bad on that front, and IMO is actually worse with the sheer scale of incoherent comments he makes.

I also don't think it would be a bad idea for Biden to take one of the cognitive screening tests like the Montreal test the way Trump did when people accused him of having dementia. Assuming he actually passes it--if he actually failed a screening test like that then we're in a much more serious situation where I think you do have to discuss emergency options.

(For the record, I actually do think people catastrophize referring to the wrong names and dates a lot more than is reasonable, but this is politics--reasonability isn't that relevant. I think to some degree it is obvious Biden and Trump have experienced declines in acuity from their peaks--both men have lived in the public their whole lives, and you can compare to their public commentary in the 80s or 90s, but I actually think Trump has declined far more in the coherence and poise of his speech than Biden, partly because Biden started from a weak position on that to begin with.)

[OttoVonBismarck]

Another thing--Dems need to consider just giving the media a giant middle finger. I think there is still a false perception the media is "on their side." They aren't. The media are attention whores and catastrophizers, that is how they make their money. While the individual journalists, as a profession, are mostly liberals, that doesn't make them political allies.

The format of the "contentious press conference" is no longer useful politically--and it is not an innate part of democracy, democracy existed long before it was a norm, and it is not really a necessary thing. It just exposes Democrats to embarrassment.

Trump infamously did very few press conferences of that type, he preferred venues where he had a tight control on the press. Several other leading Republicans have largely eschewed press conferences to a stunning degree versus the previous norm (Ron DeSantis for example has done very few while Governor of Florida--and the few he has done, have not been to his benefit.)

There was one point in Trump's Presidency where he went almost a full year without a press conference.

Trump only really broke with this habit when covid hit, and he started doing his daily briefs--which have widely been seen as a huge political mistake, he almost certainly cost himself votes among the suburban middle class when he went full crazy person in those pressers (including the infamous "Ingest bleach" one.)

The reality is this venue has become one where press get to attack the President for attention, and when only one party is still subjecting themselves to it, I think the political benefit is questionable. Toss it. The press can make their attention grabbing stories without the Dems helping them.

[Tonitrus]

I think paradoxically, whilst the "basement campaigner" worked in the specific political scenario of 2020, I think it is not going to work as a strategy in 2024--and the answer is to have Biden out there more.

But...Biden is a bad speaker, and frequently embarrasses himself when speaking!

Well, so does Trump.

I think a significant difference though, is that Biden's bad speaking tends to make even his base cringe.  Trump's base eats everything up that he pukes out, or just waves it off for the sake of expediency.

[Josquius]

.

I think paradoxically, whilst the "basement campaigner" worked in the specific political scenario of 2020, I think it is not going to work as a strategy in 2024--and the answer is to have Biden out there more.

But...Biden is a bad speaker, and frequently embarrasses himself when speaking!

Well, so does Trump.

I think a significant difference though, is that Biden's bad speaking tends to make even his base cringe.  Trump's base eats everything up that he pukes out, or just waves it off for the sake of expediency.

Yes. That is a problem.
Trump may be more senile and crazy than Biden but...

Bidens whole selling point is that he's a safe and competent guy who is president because he will do a good job of following common sense and improving the country.

Trump on the other hand has the whole selling point that he is an agent of chaos who will smash the system. Even from normal republican eyes, the best government is one that doesn't do anything, so that's good too.

Being a bit kooky and past it is a much bigger deal for Biden than for trump.

[garbon]

.

I think paradoxically, whilst the "basement campaigner" worked in the specific political scenario of 2020, I think it is not going to work as a strategy in 2024--and the answer is to have Biden out there more.

But...Biden is a bad speaker, and frequently embarrasses himself when speaking!

Well, so does Trump.

I think a significant difference though, is that Biden's bad speaking tends to make even his base cringe.  Trump's base eats everything up that he pukes out, or just waves it off for the sake of expediency.

Yes. That is a problem.
Trump may be more senile and crazy than Biden but...

Bidens whole selling point is that he's a safe and competent guy who is president because he will do a good job of following common sense and improving the country.

Trump on the other hand has the whole selling point that he is an agent of chaos who will smash the system. Even from normal republican eyes, the best government is one that doesn't do anything, so that's good too.

Being a bit kooky and past it is a much bigger deal for Biden than for trump.

Is all I can really say about this garbage.

[Tamas]

  Why? What other explanation can you give for all the countless shit Trump gets away with in the eyes of his followers? It's because even his cult has zero expectations except for him destroying the system they see as harming them.

[garbon]

Why? What other explanation can you give for all the countless shit Trump gets away with in the eyes of his followers? It's because even his cult has zero expectations except for him destroying the system they see as harming them.

Perhaps I misread it in my haste but I took it to mean that people can reasonably see Biden as risky vs Trump as it significantly detracts from idea Biden is safe pair of hands. Even if one views Biden as mentally degraded, the people around him leave him infinitely more of a safe choice than loose cannon Trump.

[Tamas]

Why? What other explanation can you give for all the countless shit Trump gets away with in the eyes of his followers? It's because even his cult has zero expectations except for him destroying the system they see as harming them.

Perhaps I misread it in my haste but I took it to mean that people can reasonably see Biden as risky vs Trump as it significantly detracts from idea Biden is safe pair of hands. Even if one views Biden as mentally degraded, the people around him leave him infinitely more of a safe choice than loose cannon Trump.

I believe what he meant was that nobody, least of all his fans, expect Trump to be a safe pair of hands. So any news saying Trump is not a safe pair of hands is nothing new. Precisely because of this the main selling point of Biden is that he is sane and at least somewhat capable. Any news that refutes the latter is thus bad for Biden (and the same is not true for Trump per the above).

[garbon]

But it shouldn't really refute it for any reasonable person. Trump is still so much more of a risk.

[DGuller]

But it shouldn't really refute it for any reasonable person. Trump is still so much more of a risk.

Unreasonable people still vote.  Not all unreasonable people vote Trump, some people's lack of reason is centered on them being "independent thinkers" for the sole sake of thinking of themselves as independent thinkers.  These unreasonable voters count just as much as the others.  Elections should be strategized around what people will do, not around what they should do.

[garbon]

Meanwhile, Trump argues it would be okay to have members of nato not paying their share be attacked by Russia.

[Zoupa]

Yep.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/trump-rally-nato/677426/?gift=otEsSHbRYKNfFYMngVFweHeWX-epE-LoWLEpl4ZMp0Q

[Tamas]

It is depressing that nearly half of the US population is willing to as a minimum tolerate this person by inaction, and a massive number of them actually want him as their leader.

[Josquius]

From what I've seen in the past they explain this kind of comment to themself as something like "Yeah but it works. It gets them to spend more. He wouldn't actually let Russia conquer Europe obviously. He's just saying it as its part of making genius business deals to threaten to walk away".

They really do live in an alternate reality where Russians don't read the news.