xhieron

No matter our politics, hopefully we can all agree with JB about not wanting to get shot by reactionary Christofascist radicals. I assume Black and Gass's politics are pretty well aligned with each other, and Gass didn't say anything a lot of people aren't also feeling. But you can't say that shit on stage in front of thousands of amped up fans. --not because it's wrong to say or because it's not politically correct or even because it's controversial. You can't say that shit because some of the people in the audience are unhinged and have already been radicalized by the Right.

Take a stand for the First Amendment, and take a stand against censorship, sure--but while you're standing, be prepared to duck.

I don't blame any public figure for not wanting to expose themselves to an outsized risk of violence. That risk is largely Trump's fault, but notice how I'm blaming him from somewhere other than an elevated, well lit platform in front of a room full of strangers on drugs.

Good for them. At least somebody did.

We all called it. Didn't matter. Time to move to the next box.

Except there's no such thing as a hollow blue suit! Any alternative to Biden has to be a real live human being, probably with real live political aspirations of their own. That means they're going to want to win. Anybody who stands any chance of being anywhere remotely close to competitive also stands a chance of outright winning under better circumstances in four years.

You're asking an ambitious politician to take a real, serious risk of political suicide just to save face, and the reality is that no matter who your replacement is, polling better than Biden isn't a win condition. Winning the election in November is the only good outcome. All other outcomes are bad not only for the nation but also personally for whoever replaces Biden.

Sure, you can run a would-never-win-or-even-run-anyway candidate, but like I said: that's essentially conceding the election, and Biden can do that on his own.

Uh... okay, bro. You know that Donald Trump is also running in this election, right? Biden could be running single digits, and it still wouldn't change the calculus: If a Biden alternative can't beat Trump, they're not going to put an albatross around the neck of their political career just to lose in November.

Newsom was on MSNBC singing Joe's praises, just like he would have done regardless, because Newsom wants to be president, but Newsom also polls worse than Biden. That's not hypothetical. Those polls already exist, and a drop in Biden's numbers isn't automatically a boost for Newsom. If Newsom thinks losing in 24 hurts his viability in 28, he wouldn't do it. And who could blame him? It's five months to the election.

The point is: It's possible that all of the options are bad. Biden was in the mid-forties before the debate and the thirties after. He went from near toss-up to probably losing if the election were yesterday/today. Newsom might out-poll Biden today, but that's not the contest.

The contest is with Trump. It's not good enough to poll better than Biden. You have to actually carry all of Biden's states and then some. If I'm Newsom and deciding whether to try to cobble together a five-month campaign and limp to November to save the DNC from itself and protect Amtrak Joe's legacy when I'm starting 15 points in the hole or run my own campaign against the likes of a Haley or DeSantis also-ran once Trump is term-barred, dead, or both in four years, I'm not taking a risk at the convention unless someone makes me very, very confident that I could win.

And there's the rub. Newsom wants to be president, and he'd love to be president in six months, but he's not going to take over a campaign that's already lost. If the party thinks Trump wins no matter what--not an unreasonable conclusion--why on earth would they burn their best shot of a rebound in 28?

Ratings and clicks--same thing they wanted with the debate.

This probably doesn't work, and it's probably not as good idea as anyone hopes (genuinely or not). It might happen anyway, but no matter what, we're coasting toward a second Trump presidency, just like all the Russian agitprops here wanted all along.

If Biden is polling down 10 points or worse at the convention, they could drag someone else onto the stage, but my suspicion is that no one else outperforms him on short notice, even after his abysmal performance in the debate.

A few reasons:

1. Newsom probably doesn't want it. If he calculates Trump wins either way (not unreasonable), he's not going to want that loss on his record since he's already gunning for 28. He would be the best chance at getting an up-and-comer who already has good name recognition and looks and sounds good.
2. Harris. If Harris wants it, she has a lot of leverage to make it hard or outright impossible for the party to push anyone else out in front of her. She's a poor candidate for a lot of reasons, but she's also the most attached to Biden. That's both good and bad for her. If they want to run anyone else, they have to have her playing ball too. Ask yourself, if you were Kamala Harris, would you give up your only conceivable chance at the Oval in favor of another non-Biden candidate? Remember, in any scenario the odds are good Trump wins anyway.
3. The truth may be that the party would rather just let Trump win. That sounds unthinkable, but this isn't a secret cabal of idealists we're talking about: it's a bunch of self-interested rich people who want to put themselves in power. Getting them to do anything for the public good is difficult under the best circumstances. They could easily decide--rightly--that Biden is still their best shot at beating Trump. That was the call in 2020, and it paid off. Don't forget that many of these same names being batted around now were active in the party four years ago. Newsom loses to Trump, and he's largely seen as the best alternative. If you're running the party and looking at those odds, you should run Biden if you actually want the best chance at winning. You might decide it's just a lost cause and start planning for a four year long nightmare.

Jesus is real. I love you. Those who hate you speak for neither Him nor for me.

The Gospel of Christ is love, and woe to those who knowing it use His name to cause suffering and death.

I'm sorry that people hurt you. That's not what Jesus taught, and that's not what He lived and died for.

Say more about this? Why is it a worse profession? Anywhere I can get a layperson-friendly deep dive on this (that doesn't require a graduate degree in mathematics)? I'm fascinated by the nuance between niche academic disciplines and the "politics" of academia.

Yes--although the ticket prices for her school have always been reasonable, so it's not as big a perk as it would be in some places. The free meals, however, have reliably been incredible and well worth the headache of chaperoning.

We've been very fortunate to have never had any "incidents"--most of the kids appeae willing to save their drinking and debauchery for after prom--but it's always a real worry that the next morning we'll read about one of her kids drunk driving his car into a tree.