Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate • Hacker News Board

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#251

Post by zbirkenbuel » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:12 PM UTC

ianburrell wrote: post #211

shepherdjerred wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I presume that his attitudes and staff selection carried the day, and maybe could have done so for another term. But his mental capacity was clearly declining, and he is in fact expected to handle some things personally. Biden's presidency makes me wonder if we really need a head of state these days. Is it really necessary to have such a single powerful figure in the executive branch? The biggest exception (IMO) wo…

The problem isn't the head of state but the head of government. The solution to that is reduce the powers of the President. I have been having thought that the office of President should be split. With separate head of state and head of government that runs the executive branch. Another option would be to have triumvirate with command in chief that commands the military. Maybe the President has power to dismiss the o…

I've said that the US needs an elected king. The guy you want to have a beer with, to throw out ceremonial first pitches, even to welcome other heads of state is the king. The person who runs the government and balances congress is the president and should be super boring. I'm imagining George W Bush as idea King material while Gore would have been ideal President material.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#252

Post by basementcat » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:12 PM UTC

navjack27 wrote: post #120

readthenotes1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't just his age, it's his decrepitude, both physical and mental. I know people in their 90s who are able to speak clearly at any hour of the day...

Speaking clearly has nothing to do with mental fortitude. Tons of things can affect the fluency of speech. We really need to move past the days where we judge people's intelligence and competence based on how well the connections of their brain are able to influence the movement of the vocal cords and the tongue the lips and the jaw.

If one disqualifies people based on speech impediments, is it much of a stretch to disqualify people for their skin color or religion?

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#253

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:13 PM UTC

coffeecloud wrote: post #66

egberts1 wrote: post #34

[flagged]

Political parties aren’t democratic institutions. They are essentially private organizations who can operate however they want. It’s only been the last 50 years or so that either party has used primaries as anything more than a straw poll

But, currently, Republican primaries are largely democratic and Democratic primaries are at best a marketing period in which their membership makes no binding decisions. Compromise with the tea party forced Republican primaries to democratize, which eventually ended with the party being forced to accept Trump as a candidate against every wish of party insiders. Democrats have "superdelegates," and a ton of other ways to fix the primary, and have gone to court to establish legally that they have no obligation to run it fairly or honestly.

The same sort of democratization happened to British Labour under Ed Miliband, which culminated with the election of Corbyn as leader. In order to fix the problem, they had to purge and expel anyone from party membership that had any sort of firm value system.

Democrats don't have that option in the US, because in the US, people aren't members of parties; they're people who have registered to vote in that party's primary, or people known to have supported that party in the past. US corporate parties have employees, not members. Getting a portion of the public to participate in their primary is the closest thing they have to rallying the membership, and the way that both parties have written election law makes it difficult for them to change anything, or to prevent anyone from voting in them.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#254

Post by asdf1145 » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:13 PM UTC

why were no political posts allowed when trump assassination attempt a week ago and this is now in front page?

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#255

Post by shadowgovt » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:13 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #208

tim333 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked James Carville's idea of picking maybe eight contenders and having town hall type events to choose the most popular. Game show element to take publicity from Trump and also kind of democratic rather than anointing a connected insider, which of course Trump would then go on about endlessly.

democratic is the famous intended design, over promotion of insiders, right? seems like a great idea from Carville.

Not really, no. At least not in the US.

The tension in the US system is between founders who believed in the virtue of the commoner and founders who feared mobocracy. At various levels of the system, the system is designed to be elitist. And the parties are fundamentally private institutions and can be as populist or elitist as they want (worth noting: in practice, the GOP constitution is more populist than the Democrat constitution, which is one of the reasons they nominated Trump; there weren't backstops in the GOP like superdelegates to push him off the ticket).

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#256

Post by veryeffective » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:14 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #32

One of the most effective presidents since Johnson or Truman. But he did campaign on a single term. Let’s hope the Dem’s circular firing squad puts down its guns so they can quickly concentrate on winning the election with someone … probably Harris is the simplest answer.

[flagged]

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#257

Post by stephenlindauer » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:14 PM UTC

HaZeust wrote: post #90

I am, admittedly, very glad that Biden stuck to his word in 2020 that he will be a single-term incumbent president for the last 4 years... I just wish the DNC kept their word on bolstering a more compelling candidate within that timeframe as well. They had 3 1/2 years to bolster the reputation of Kamala, and largely sidelined her after using her as a play for minority vote. Now they're (likely) running her in a remai…

I wouldn’t say Biden stuck to his word. He fully intended to run, until people (rightfully) objected. I’m glad he ultimately backed down and stepped down. But this whole process would have been easier to nominate a real candidate if he would have stuck to his word from the beginning. He still deserves the blame for that, even if his most recent actions were correct.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#258

Post by goatlover » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:14 PM UTC

BadHumans wrote: post #115

tobias3 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history as a prosecutor might be a significant advantage in a general election. The anti-police senitment has waned and she can position herself right at the center w.r.t. rule of law.

Anti-police sentiment has not waned among minorities and that is a demographic she would need to capture to win.

Minorities wanted police reform. They weren't for abolishing the police.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#259

Post by educasean » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:14 PM UTC

navjack27 wrote: post #120

readthenotes1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't just his age, it's his decrepitude, both physical and mental. I know people in their 90s who are able to speak clearly at any hour of the day...

Speaking clearly has nothing to do with mental fortitude. Tons of things can affect the fluency of speech. We really need to move past the days where we judge people's intelligence and competence based on how well the connections of their brain are able to influence the movement of the vocal cords and the tongue the lips and the jaw.

The truth we cannot change is that people simply want to follow charismatic leaders. We can sit and lament on how stupid that is, but we aren't magically fixing that anytime soon.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#260

Post by epakai » Sun, Jul 21, 2024, 9:14 PM UTC

kryogen1c wrote: post #221

burtonator wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He got us out of Afghanistan too... this was a huge win and was very risky. Doesn't get enough credit for this one. Agreed on NATO + Ukraine too but I wish they would allow us to strike Russia directly even with NATO equipment.

> He got us out of Afghanistan too... this was a huge win and was very risky. Doesn't get enough credit for this one. Thats because Trump agreed to get us out of afghaniston. Biden oversaw the absolutely disastrous execution, abandoning untold millions of military equipment in the hands of the taliban.

Trump's plan involved getting out even quicker. How was it going to be less disastrous?

It is always the same story, Dems bad, I would have done it right. He had a 'credible deterrent', and would have completely ended the Ukraine war (that had been going on since 2014). Just like he claims now he will end the war, and bring back all the Americans imprisoned abroad if re-elected. It's one thing to say that sort of stuff and present a plan for doing so. Trump says it, and then pivots to even more bullshit.

Do you really think a different president, with effectively the same military leadership, was going to execute the pull-out in a broadly different way on a shorter deadline, and call it a success?