Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[DGuller]

The authoritarianism on display doesn't even make sense. I might accept strict party discipline if it the party wasn't making moronic choices for no clear reason.

Authoritarianism from Democrats makes sense to me in some way. Democrats thinks that not being decisive is a weakness of theirs, so they feel tempted to act differently.  However, the problem with doing things out of character is that you don't have a lifetime experience of acting in such a way, so you get all the negatives with none of the positives out of that.

[crazy canuck]

There are different degrees of obviously bad decisions, and there are different degrees of mental decline.  At no point did I think it was a good idea for Biden to run again, but at the time I didn't think it was a criminally incompetent idea, just a stupid one.  However, if the extent of Biden's mental decline was as it is presented now, and that it was known to enough people in its full extent, then that cross the line from a bad to an unfathomably reckless idea.  You can't have a nuclear superpower be run by an unofficial regency council.

And it is now becoming clear that it was the latter.

You might find this interesting. An interview with Tapper.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000709243197

[Valmy]

There are different degrees of obviously bad decisions, and there are different degrees of mental decline.  At no point did I think it was a good idea for Biden to run again, but at the time I didn't think it was a criminally incompetent idea, just a stupid one.  However, if the extent of Biden's mental decline was as it is presented now, and that it was known to enough people in its full extent, then that cross the line from a bad to an unfathomably reckless idea.  You can't have a nuclear superpower be run by an unofficial regency council.

Yeah man, I don't know. But you see this all over the party. Obviously physically and mentally incapable leaders being kept in office. It seems crazy they would try it with the President just due to how the Presidential election works. He has to get out there and give speeches and travel the country and do debates. And he was starting from a really bad place. This isn't 1944 and Roosevelt is so obviously going to win you don't need him to do much so the country won't notice his bad health. There is no way they thought he would win in that state. Even if they had some irresponsible plan to manage him via a robust technocratic staff doing the work.

[Valmy]

Authoritarianism from Democrats makes sense to me in some way. Democrats thinks that not being decisive is a weakness of theirs, so they feel tempted to act differently.  However, the problem with doing things out of character is that you don't have a lifetime experience of acting in such a way, so you get all the negatives with none of the positives out of that.

Sure. Sometimes you have to be ruthless to win political power, especially in this crazy country where the stakes are high for everybody in the world. But be ruthless in ways that win, not lose.

I have yet to see these positives. If anything whenever the Democrats have stepped back and let the voters choose the candidates they want, like Obama in 2008 for example, they tend to do better.