6mo ago

Disney heiress, wealthy Democratic donors say they won't finance the party until Joe Biden drops out

www.cnbc.com Disney heiress, wealthy Democratic donors say they won't finance the party until Joe Biden drops out

President Joe Biden faces a rebellion from wealthy Democratic donors after his debate performance against Donald Trump.

Abigail Disney, the granddaughter to Roy O. Disney, who cofounded The Walt Disney Company, told CNBC on Thursday that she plans to withhold donations to the party she has funded for years until Biden drops out. The president has said he has no plans to withdraw from the race, despite calls for him to do so.

“I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket. This is realism, not disrespect. Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high,” Abigail Disney said in a lengthy statement to CNBC. “If Biden does not step down the Democrats will lose. Of that I am absolutely certain. The consequences for the loss will be genuinely dire.”

116 comments

And this is the reason why the democratic party does not respond to the interests of the working class. The words of a super rich person have more influence than thousands or millions of people saying the same thing in surveys. This time those voices are aligned, but if next time they are not, the voice of the super rich will be the one they hear instead of yours.
- With all these calls for him to drop out, there would need to be a viable replacement that could ensure a win with a four month campaign. I’m concerned that it’s just as risky to change the horse this close to the race.
  
  Al Franken
  https://www.thedailybeast.com/no-joke-why-al-franken-should-replace-joe-biden
  
  There is no dropping out, and there's no replacement. All political donations have been to the Biden campaign, it is illegal to transfer those funds to a new candidate. The only person who could run for president in his place is Kamala, since she is the other person on the ticket.
  It's extremely clear no one talking has any clue how any of this shit works.
  
  I don't think there is.
  I think a person who should be in the running for president needs to have some name-recognition but also be non-polarizing which unfortunately is hard to find in combination. There are some names floating around like moving the candidacy to Kamala Harris, but... I feel like a lot of people don't like her. Which shouldn't matter but I think a lot of people base their voting on "would I enjoy sitting down at a dinner table with this person and could I speak candidly" and don't look into the actual political standpoints of that person, so likeability more than anything.
  I'm not American, but I still feel a slightly vested interest in the outcomes of the elections because the outcome of the US election will shape global politics and even more than that in the next coming years, especially if Trump and his fascist cronies take control. But my point being is that I don't know every single name in American politics, but I would say your average American voter probably knows as much as me, and the names that people know about are usually the polarizing ones that wouldn't have a chance of winning. The Democrats are sorely lacking a strong candidate with a name that can rival Joe Biden in name-recognition without being polarizing.
  Joe Biden is too old, but he has good people around him so I could see him doing 4 more years while doing MORE to find a good replacement for him would be the best thing for the US.
- They don’t hear you now. Just because you’re asking for the same thing doesn’t mean your opinion matters.
- the working class cannot afford democracy
- The words of a super rich person have more influence than thousands or millions of people saying the same thing in surveys.
  Has there ever been a time, place, or political system where this was not always the case?
  
  Political parties that pay more attention to their voters than to the rich? Yes, many. Parties that fulfill that and are electorally successful? None or almost
  
  Waiting for the communists to jump in confidently incorrect.
- Lmao, you say that as if the DNC have listened to their demands.
- How many votes those Plutos got?

If you haven't seen Abigail Disney's documentary about Disney, you really need to...
The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales - Official Trailer - https://youtu.be/9XnX5LNjeAg
Abigail Disney looks at America's dysfunctional and unequal economy and asks why the American Dream has worked for the wealthy, yet is a nightmare for people born with less. Using her family’s story, Disney explores how this systemic injustice took hold and imagines a way toward a more equitable future.
- Don’t they pay their park employees shit? Maybe she should “explore” that as part of this great philanthropic work.
  
  The Disney family no longer owns or controls Disney Megacorp, AFAIK. It's an independent company run in the usual way now.
  
  Criticizing Disney's pay and worker rights is literally Abigail Disney's claim to fame.
- Maybe lower the prices at her theme parks, then?
  
  She doesn't have any role in running the parks. I don't think anyone in the Disney family does anymore. They're just a megacorp. Abigail Disney criticizes the Disney Corp all the time. Mostly about worker conditions, pay, and obscene CEO pay rather than ticket prices.
  
  I don't think she's the Disney in charge.
  
  The last Disney to actually be in charge of the company was her father.

Democratic party keeps screwing itself.
If they didn't go against the main support of their party and chose a super unpopular Hillary over Bernie Sanders in 2016 then Bernie would have been wrapping up his second term as president and we would have some young blood flowing into the party. They would also have a completely different looking supreme court. They had something special going on in 2016 and they disenfranchised alot of young voting people that election.
Instead its a slow death March, and they don't even seem to be fighting it...
- Bernie lost in the same way the Republican party shafted the primary against Teddy Roosevelt. If you have the apparatus you are the kingmaker.
  Bernie didnt play their game, Hillary had control of the game. From easy primary questions to 'voting' groups falling inline with Clinton by the democratic party.
  Undemocratic primaries are a systemic failure of the American voting system.
- Ah yes, the unpopular Hilary who won both the primary against Bernie Sanders and the popular vote against Donald Trump, but was hated by conservatives and Reddit.
  People really fall for this narrative hook line and fucking sinker every single fucking time, huh?
  Just keep repeating it, and it becomes even better than reality
  We keep biting the hand that feeds. Biden administration gives us four years of progressive policy and we can't wait to hate it.
  Humanity is so fucking unbearably stupid.
  Y'all truly make it very hard to not just despair.
  ANYWAY, to anyone that wants the world to be incrementally better instead of plummetingly worse, go fucking vote. Not a protest vote, a real grown-up vote.
  
  Hillary won the primary by orchestrating the other candidates to drop out and unite behind her, when it showed Bernie was starting to win. Exercising her dynasty power (since we are talking about heirs) to pressure the delegates into a swift pro establishment decision.
  Clinton is a far right war hawk by other countries standard and still a war hawk by US standards.
  Also it is not something new to the US system, that the popular vote is not the all deciding factor, so blaming it on the voting system, especially after 8 years of Dem presidency and before that 8 years of Hillary god damn husband being president in the 90s is laughable.
  Biden administration gives us four years of progressive policy and we can’t wait to hate it.
  Record deportations, building Trumps wall, funding genocide in Gaza... Meanwhile not enacting any change to protect the US political system from Trump, after January 6 and just glossing over it as some singular event never to happen again, instead of understanding it as a clear sign of deep systematic issues that need urgent addressing.
  You and i have very different understandings of what is progressive.

I sense a replay of 2016.

why the fuck would I listen to a heiress
- And why the fuck are they allowed to be funding our representatives. "Do what we want with the wealth we didn't earn or the bribes stop."

Must be nice not to have any stakes in all this
- If you live on planet earth unfortunately you do have stakes in it. The US is still powerful enough to influence the life of everyone around the world.

All the wealthy Plutocrats have seen this was a great opportunity to steal the nomination from the people.
Well steal it more anyway.
- Nomination from the people? We never had a choice in the first place.
  
  Primaries work, but nobody votes in them. We got Clinton because she won the primaries in 2016, we got Biden because he won the primaries in 2020.

That's one way to get these rich fucks out of politics....

Too late. Guy could literally peel over next week and they'd be screwed. He should have never agreed to or have been allowed to run a second term and IF he does get elected for a second term I guarantee you he doesn't survive it. not from some nafarious plot or what have you but simply due to...well..look at him.
But I got no dog in this fight. I'm in Canada. and although my elderly parents live in the US and I do worry about them with this election there's nothing I can do. It's like watching an oncoming ship wreck and you're just screaming at the passangers (US citizens) to get off the boat, get on the life boats, save themselves while you stand on land not being able to do anything but watch. I imagine the rest of the world feels the same way.
I mean i'm worried for you guys, like truly worried.

These wealthy people don’t want Trump because they aren’t christofascists, but they don’t want Biden because he was starting to get into trust busting.

Is he making the greatest mistake of his career?

Biden dropping out right now would all but guarantee that Trump won the Presidency. Anyone calling for him to drop out knows this, and is doing it likely as someone who is horribly misguided, or intentionally to try and sway our elections by a foreign entity.
We're past the point of registrations across multiple states, the supreme court is controlled by the right, and there is absolutely no way to swap those names out and get the new names on the ballot without pushing it all up the ladder to -- you guessed it -- An illegitimate supreme court who has shown us they'll make shit up on the spot to get the result that their owners want.
So people calling for Biden to 'step down' - are either doing it because they're too stupid to realize the reality of things, or they are a foreign agent attempting to sow division and limit voters on the left. Follow those social chains up to who they originate from -- I guarantee they originate from people who are intentionally there to sow division in an attempt to sway our elections.
Here's a list of the dated deadlines to be placed on the ballot in various states: https://ballotpedia.org/Deadline_to_run_for_president,_2024
So understand first and foremost, anyone saying Biden needs to have someone replace him right now -- They know this.
- We’re past the point of registrations across multiple states
  LOL, no we're not. Biden hasn't even been nominated yet. The earliest deadline is Ohio, which is requiring the Democratic party to do a special virtual vote to get on, but that's still in the future.
  Your link is a list of filing deadlines for the primary.
  So maybe after being wrong and accusing everyone else of being foreign agents, check your own information sources that are trying to convince you of this.
- All of this is wrong, according to the DNC’s own rules and history of being able to handle such situations, and common sense.
  
  according to the DNC’s own rules
  Oh those matter now? They didn't matter when they were arguing in court that they could choose their nominee in a smoke filled back room.
- I mean I wouldn't call all people who want Biden to drop out as intentionally being for Trump. Alot of it is fear, panic, and maybe a bit of ignorance of historical trends. By alot of historical metrics, it does increase the chance for Trump winning, I'll admit that. But I wouldn't say that it's guaranteed.
- It's sow, as in sowing seeds, not sew, as in joining together with thread.
  
  Thx for the correction.
- What would happen if Biden died next week? Would all those processes you mention prevent his name from being changed ?
  
  Yeah. They actually would.
- and is doing it likely as someone who is horribly misguided
  This is Abigail Disney. She's rich but she's not the brightest crayon in the box politically. Her PhD is in philosophy and her dissertation was about the role of romanticized violence and war in American life. Her lists of philanthropy is what one would expect from a run of the mill rich person level activism. Tossing money at the high level stuff, never diving deeper to the root of the problem.
  I'm not dissing the lady, but she absolutely falls into the misguided on this aspect.
- Sincere question did you watch the debate in its entirety?
  
  I saw Trump lying his ass off and Biden flabbergasted at the sheer audacity of some of those lies.
- and is doing it likely as someone who is horribly misguided, or intentionally to try and sway our elections by a foreign entity
  And once again we come back to the liberal conspiracy theory of "We're the only adults in the room, and anyone who disagrees with us is co-opted by foreign powers". The worst part of it all is the shamelessness of pulling this bullshit when so much people knows you're talking out of your ass. Fuck off.
  
  So you're a horribly misguided rube of someone else. Got it.

You just have got to love progressives ability to be their own quest enemy.

"Oligarchy bad, until they agree with me"
- Not sure what article you're reading, but this one didn't seem to imply the reason for ceasing donations was being against oligarchy. So I'm not sure what point you're making?
  
  He's making a strawman
  
  So I’m not sure what point you’re making?
  That the influence of the ultra-wealthy on elections is derided by some until an ultra-wealthy donor is found who agrees with them.
- And just like that, you found an oligarch you don't like.

116 comments