1y ago

How Popular Does Biden Need to Be to Beat Trump? Not Very.

nymag.com How Popular Does Biden Need to Be to Beat Trump? Not Very.

Presiding over an unhappy nation makes reelection hard for any president. But running against Trump makes it easier for Biden.

Given the current state of partisan polarization, it’s unlikely Biden can get majority job approval next year even with the most fortunate set of circumstances. But the good news for him is that he probably doesn’t have to. Job-approval ratings are crucial indicators in a normal presidential reelection cycle that is basically a referendum on the incumbent’s record. Assuming Trump is the Republican nominee, 2024 will not be a normal reelection cycle for three reasons.

183 comments

Don't take it for granted. Hilary lost because of this. Get out and vote.
- Hillary lost because she couldn't read the writing on the wall and told everyone she deserved to win because it was her time. She was the worst person on the planet to go against Trump. The GOP spent 30 years demonizing her and she played right into their hands. Biden should have been the candidate then but that is hindsight.
  
  And even with all of her mistakes and her total lack of charisma, she still only lost because of an archaic system that lets the winner of the popular vote lose.
  
  Biden had just lost his son and didn't want the job. He later said he regretted that decision.
  
  She was the worst person on the planet to go against Trump.
  She absolutely was. And with the pied piper strategy, she basically said who she thought the worst candidate was in the opposition's field, then lost to him.
  
  biden would have easily won, being the outgoing vp of a well-liked (by most) two-term president. him not running in 2016 is, i think, ultimately what enabled the hateful, incoherent, diaper-wearing buffoon to even have a chance--which was only enhanced by the dnc playing favorites and essentially handing the nomination to clinton.
  i get the 'why' he didn't run; but man, it sure fucked-up this country (and beyond).
  
  That year was probably when we would've gotten "peak" or near-peak Biden, but that was around the time when his other son Beau Biden had died, which I thought was the reason he sat out the Primaries, which might've made them a bit more interesting, but would've had the same effect of shutting Sanders out. The way I remembered it, Biden essentially saved the 2012 Obama campaign against Romney, as Obama had been having a shitty campaign and debate performance up until Biden went up against Paul Ryan and dominated. After that debate, things seemed to turn around and I thought he was a shoe-in for 2016.
- If your state has mail-in voting, just use that. I like to vote while not wearing pants.
- Moderates are really really motivated to only be just slightly better than Republicans.
  They want to be as corporation/billionaire friendly as possible, so they get as many donations as possible.
  It's why Hillary spent money, time, and effort boosting trump and Ben Carson in 2016. There wasn't much difference between her and Jeb Bush, so she didn't think she had a chance at beating him.
  The obvious risk was Hillary was/is a horrible candidate and might not have even been able to win against them, which she wasn't.
  It's like if the pitcher in a MLB game bet for his team to win, but by less than the spread. He still wants to win, but he keeps throwing softballs over the plate if he starts to win too much.
  But that's just a game, this is literally playing with people's lives.
  
  But that’s just a game, this is literally playing with people’s lives.
  Welcome to US politics.
  
  really motivated to only be just slightly better
  I could be wrong, but I think this impression comes because they are skewing more towards the mean or average, whereas on social media we are quite far left. So to us, they appear similar to republicans, because we as online users on Lemmy are quite far left. However, in reality Dems are quite left of Repubs.. just not left enough from our point of view because they appeal to the mean American. Am I making sense? I don't think I did a good job of explaining myself.
- From what I've heard and seen, a lot of younger voters are disillusioned by the Democrats' stance on genocide. I've heard the comment many are repeating that they are single issue voters when the issue is genocide.
  
  From what I've heard and seen, there's a massive astroturfing effort to discredit Biden over the actions of an allied nation. It's as if a massive propaganda machine is at work that completely ignores the fact that Republicans would have an even worse stance than Biden on this issue.
  
  While implying that Trump, a literal white nationalist authoritarian fascist, somehow doesn't support the genocide of brown people
  
  The issue with that is that Republicans hold an even worse position on genocide in multiple ways and would have been gunning for not only Israel killing all Palestinians, but ejecting all Muslims from the US as well. Which they will also totally do if they win the election.

I don't have to like Joe or his policies to know that voting for him is the better choice. It sucks to have vote for the lesser evil, but right now the gap between the lesser and greater evils is so large that it makes the decision simple.
Joe will be ~~a lame duck in 28'~~ ineligible to run in 28'which will hopefully give us a chance to force the issue on not wantting to vote for the lesser evil then. However right now the greater evil is the issue, if we want to have a system to reform in 28' the choice on who to vote for now isn't a choice at all.
- I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when my best choice is to vote for someone who I know will not adequately address the multitude of extremely time sensitive issues facing our planet and country.
  Like yeah, Trump will be worse, and the system is such that you literally have to vote blue if you want to mitigate the damage. But climate change isn't waiting for us to "fix the system", Americans dying of inadequate health care don't have time to wait, the rich aren't going to stop widening the wealth gap just because. And for all of this, my vote goes to an administration that will only employ soft tactics to stop genocide...
  But hey, at least it could be worse right...
- Lesser evil might have been a thing 20 years ago, calling Biden lesser evil is just ignorant.
  He's going up against a man that does not believe in democracy or the peaceful transition of power.
  It's like looking at broccoli and dog vomit and saying I'll eat broccoli it's the lesser of two evils.... 🤷‍♂️
  
  Pretty good metaphor since the only one who'd say that for real is a fucking child who's mad they don't get ice cream for dinner
- ?
  He can't run a third time, even if he's alive by then.
  
  I was under the impression that "Lame Duck" refers to a sitting president that can no longer run. I was incorrect. I ment to state that with Joe being unable to run, 28' is the better time push the lesser vs greater evil issue.

Are people this dumb? Would they really consider Trump for another presidency, let alone another insane Republican candidate?
- Imagine if the DNC gave democrats a worthy candidate. Then we wouldn't have to strongarm democrats to vote for democratic candidates.
  
  Who?
  The problem is sort of chicken and egg: if there were an obvious democratic alternative the party could agree on, Biden would be out. There is no such person, so we get stuck with what we have right now.
  Hard to fault the party for not wanting to bruise their most likely candidate in a tough primary, either.
  This sucks, but it's not the Democrats' fault: it's our first past the post voting system.
  
  Who would've been better?
  
  Imagine if people who pissed and moaned on this point actually turned out to vote in the primary process that selects the candidates.
- Sadly, yes. Even a lot of people who talked about how dangerous he was while they worked in his administration aren't willing to commit to voting for Biden over Trump if it comes down to them in the general election.
  
  Pence is going to vote for him despite that whole attempted murder thing. What I want to know is what Mother thinks about that.

If Trump is still the nominee, he will likely have been convicted in at least one of those 4 criminal cases, but still holds sway in the party to win anyway and will double-dog-dare Georgia to throw him in jail. In that case, I don't think enough people would willingly vote for a felon (even a Republican one) to give him a chance.
This leaves Biden a single thing he absolutely needs to win the election: a pulse. I think the only person keeping America from becoming a fascist dictatorship is not Biden, it's his cardiologist. That doctor needs to keep Biden's heart ticking until Jan 21 2025.
- I don’t think enough people would willingly vote for a felon
  It does lay the groundwork for a civil war. You know some redneck dumb fucks are going to try to break him out of jail, and then it's on. It's clear that Trump's base is voting Trump no matter what.
  
  His base sure, but his base aren't all of the people who've voted for him, and being a convicted felon is going to tank his numbers outside that base

I think the most important metric for Biden and the Democrats in the upcoming us election is a blood pulse.
- I would argue that some cognitive ability is required also, in order to perform at the debates. But Trump has already set the precedent that the front runner can ignore debates.
  So the only metrics Biden needs to meet are
  earn more EC votes than Trump
  Have a pulse when the EC votes are counted in Jan 2025
  Be able to repeat what some guy in a robe tells him to repeat on Jan 20 2025
  If he does all that, but keels over on Jan 21, his second term will still be a success.

Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy? If he hasn't keeled over with hamberders and buckets of KFC, he still has 91 felonies hanging over his head. He likely will be imprisoned, or disqualified by then.
- Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy?
  Because he's winning the primaries now by some distance, it's not illegal for him to run from prison and at least one state court has already decided that he did engage in an insurrection but that that doesn't disqualify him either.
  
  I thought they decided that he did but that didn't disqualify him.
- Well for starters a lot of his full trial dates are being set for after the primaries
  They're basically trying to take what comy did to Clinton and dial it to 11
  
  Speaking of which, the Russian emails, had presumably classified information. The rules over classified documents are to never comment about them, because any information released is another clue about what is contained in actual classified documents. This left Clinton in a limbo of not being able to defend herself, while being smeared. Comey, believed the emails, until they were fully investigated and well after the election. We didn't hear about the planted parts, one way or the other, because of those same security rules. I DO remember the US security council trying to limit damage after Trump was elected.
  The GOP has a choice of whom to run. I assume there will be a way that will be found, for them to switch candidates, if Trump is in prison, Even if it occurs in the window between his winning the primary, and election, they will find a way. It may even be to their advantage, as the new candidate receives Trumps blessing and gives Trump clemency.
- I wish I had your optimism.
- He shouldn't have been the nominee in 2016, either. It's not safe to assume anything at this point.
  
  The Russian playbook of getting dirt to smear an opponent did not work when the Biden hard drive was shown to be Russian sourced. Gulianni's provider is charged as being a foreign agent, as of a week or so ago.
- You really think Trump will serve any time? If it were anyone else I might agree. Can't wait to see how this plays out.
- Most of those won't go to trial until after the election, and the courts have shown zero desire to actually punish him in a meaningful way. I will be very surprised if he is not the candidate
  
  Yeah it would be surprising, it would also upend the entire democratic election strategy so not planning for that outcome is still a risk. Biden is a huge liability if anyone but trump comes out to rep the gop.
  
  Most of those won’t go to trial until after the election
  Literally every trial begins before the election.
- Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy?
  Why do you assume that he will suddenly begin seeing proportionate consequences for his actions in the next 12 months when it's never once happened in his life before this point?
  I agree with your disposition toward him and admire and envy your optimism...I just don't share it.
- I'm old and cynical, but my opinion is that Trump will never go to prison. That is a pipe dream.
- I'm hoping for Christie

I keep seeing messaging that essentially amounts to "Biden doesn't have to try, everything is great actually, and, besides, Trump is unelectable". Clearly the democrats learned nothing from 2016. This is too big to fuck up, don't phone it in.
- The secret here is the D's aren't actually trying to win this one.
  
  I want to disagree with you, but I just can't wrap my head around team Biden's messaging feeling this completely disconnected from the reality on the ground for a lot of Americans. And when you call out the disconnection, the answer isn't anything approaching empathy or understanding, it's "you're wrong lol". It just feels like they're not even trying.

Trump has all the weaknesses of an incumbent and few of the benefits. I knew some people who tried to play very agnostic about his record in 2016, but now as in 2020, the American people have a record to judge him on. And it's not very pretty. Biden is going to start laying into that record. And soon the negative polarization will build back up, after the GOP decides who exactly the are with their candidate chosen.

The issue of abortion has already decided the partisan general.

Bar is low but I'm not sure if he reaches it
- He’s already reached it. If he fails it won’t be a failure of his administration, it will be a failure of the electorate.
  
  He seemed to lose in the most recent poll I heard of

Time for everyone to bemoan the two party system but you dont dare suggest they stop supporting it

How pathetic is it that we are forced into a situation where both candidates suck ass. Let me vote harder for shit to get worse either way.🙄
- Yay, more "both sides" bullshit!
  
  Yup, Biden is absolutely the same as Trump. Nothing progressive has come out of his administration at all.
  
  Cool bro, my grocery bill is fucking outrageous the cost of living is going up with no raises for the regular guy. They do everything but actually help the middle class.
- Biden doesn't suck ass. That's meme-tier shit.
  
  I’ll agree when he doesn’t put out an economic plan that isn’t means tested garbage. Didn’t do shit about student loans either. So yea for the average middle class person they both suck ass.

183 comments