Over a dozen paragraphs and no name brought up to replace Biden if he leaves. (Kamala? Kamala is team Biden)

Glad to see that the prioritization is to attack Biden before you even have a replacement lined up. Good job media, you’re whipping the dumbasses into a frenzy and taking unnecessary risks.

Lets just say Biden is out. Start listing names. Serious contenders. If Kamala (effectively on Biden’s team anyway) is your best shot, then it doesn’t matter if she’s VP or Top of the Ticket, if the plan is for Biden to resign after November anyway.

I stand that Kamala’s best chance is to hold the ship steady as is, and then ask Biden to resign in December or January.

There’s a lot of racists out there. I feel like if she’s at the top of the ticket, she’s gonna get dragged down. Biden truly is serving as an effective shield for her. Either way, Kamala is the implicit vote if anything wrong happens to Biden (which I admit is increasingly likely given his age).

It makes no sense for Kamala to rush to the top of the ticket given her position.

Dude, your insult is so fucking old that there’s literally movies making fun of your insult.

It don’t work very well when you spam the insult for 8 fucking years. Yes, liberals think everyone they disagree with are fascists. You’re not making news here. Your overuse of the phrase is not helping.

Seriously, protip. I’m trying to help you here. I don’t care if you ignore me, because eventually you’ll get it. I’ve just got to push you so you are at least introduced to this concept of overuse of a phrase.

For fucks sake man, I’m here to try to help you beat Trump

You’re lucky I’m not easily discouraged. But your attitude about this is quite wrong.

Everyone else in this topic: you see the problem with your rhetoric or strategy yet? Let’s point out what does and doesn’t work here.

So you’re going to kill this discussion with me just because you don’t like my opinion? Cool. Lets see how that plays out this year. Its a fucking election year, get used to hearing people’s opinions you don’t like.

People will vote one way or the other on this issue. With any luck the Democrats put a good moderate on board who can keep my vote (as well as the Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia voters). Biden vs Trump already was looking sketchy before you progressives literally destroyed your best chance at beating Trump.

And suddenly, you’re blaming me for your own mistake… because I have the audacity to try to talk with you and share my opinion.

I’m sorry, that I’m not sorry.

In any case, Trump needs to be defeated, so I’m going to stay loud about my message. Yall progressives can’t Occupy Wall Street into Republican wins again this year. This is too important for me to stay silent. You fucking dumbasses are destroying your own election chances as we speak, and its best if I pointed out this before its too late. (And yall have done it before, and you’re doing it again).

If you really are going to switch candidates this late in the game, then for the love of god please put someone I can vote for (and other voters like me). That’s all I’m asking. Don’t lose the anti-Trump Republican vote over this self-defeating move you all seem intent upon inflicting upon yourselves. Please be at least a little bit politically expedient about the situation?

FYI: “Hey Fascist” is so passe it was in the Barbie last year. Its a bad argument now. Come up with a new one. You’ve been calling Republicans Fascists for 8 years now, the phrase has lost its effect. You’ll need to try harder if you actually want to convince people or surprise us.

Did everyone forget Biden’s 2020 performance?

When Biden is being forced and trained like this, he’s awful. It wasn’t until the 2nd or 3rd debate where all the debate-prep finally decided 'Let Biden go out there without prep and just be more honest with himself / honest personal style" that Biden did well.

I should have known that “Weeks of debate prep at Camp David” was a bad idea.

Ideally not.

Hopefully you can offer me a good enough candidate where I don’t feel like supporting the fascist. But if you go too far left, there’s a point where fascism doesn’t look as bad. No joke.

But the further left you go, the more points you lose out on me. I’m relatively religious (not the most compared to my family, but moreso than you guys I’m sure). I’m Republican, conservative. Etc. etc. There’s threats to me and my way of life that the far left seriously have, and nothing yall say here are changing my opinion on that (or removing said threats from me).

I would have preferred if the Republicans fielded Niki Haley, but apparently that was too hard for them too. So now I’m seeing who the Democrats want to field. Ideally someone I can vote for, because trust me, I don’t want to vote for Trump.

I promise you, there’s a ton of other people like me in the center who are thinking the same thing. The name-of-the-game is figuring out a candidate to keep enough of us voting Democrat this fall (not necessarily me, but hopefully enough to gain and counteract the loss of my vote).

I’m here to discuss my opinion with all of you openly, because I know that Lemmy leans so far left that yall are fucking nuts and need my opinion to tie you back down to where reality is. Believe it or not, I’m here to help, and that’s why we’re having this discussion right now at all.

This isn’t about just picking the most progressive candidate you can think of. Biden was the perfect choice for me and yall are now thinking of getting rid of him. Okay, so are you fine losing my vote? Or alternatively, do you think you can give me someone who is at least moderate enough (like Biden) to handle my concerns about the world? (IE: Ukraine and Taiwan in particular).

Alternatively, you can consider me to just be a nutcase and ignore me. But I don’t think that’s beneficial to you as a group either. Mostly because I know who the real nutcases are (ie: full on MAGA Trump supporters over there). I’m the one who have switched from Republican vote from 2008 / 2012 over to Democrat vote with the rise of Trump in 2016+, so I think I am actually an ideal case study for this discussion. That’s all.

If we nominate Bernie it’s not to win you over. It would win over leftists who otherwise wouldn’t vote Democrat.

Dude: Kamala is seen as too far left that she’s probably going to lose to Trump on a head-to-head matchup and you’re talking Bernie still.

That’s cool and all, but GDP is related to… You guessed it. Inflation.

I recognize that Republicans overemphasized GDP but it’s a chief metric for a reason. If our top line GDP drops it will absolutely be a problem.

If you want to bring up easy inflation gremlins into your argument, be my guest. But inflation is already a weak point for Democrats and I expect y’all to get hammered on it even harder moving forward.

Medicare For All is not free healthcare, as in on the government’s dime, it is entirely paid for by taxes.

Yeah, no shit sherlock. Socialist / Communist countries like Cuba also pay for Health Care.

That doesn’t change the fact that several important examples (Soviet Union, Cuba, and now most recently, Venezuela) have collapsed… or are currently collapsing under that load and those costs.

We know plenty of examples of countries who have done that. My question is why the fuck do you want to bring it to the USA?

By having free healthcare for all you actually save money if basically no other change is made.

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-02/57637-Single-Payer-Systems.pdf

In this analysis, we found that economic output would be between 0.3 percent lower and 1.8 percent higher than the benchmark economy 10 years after the single-payer system was implemented, without incorporating the effects of financing the system. Under a single-payer system, workers would choose to work fewer hours, on average, despite higher wages because the reduction in health insurance premiums and OOP expenses would generate a positive wealth effect that allowed households to spend their time on activities other than paid work and maintain the same standard of living. If the system was financed with an income or payroll tax, gross domestic product (GDP) would be between approximately 1.0 percent and 10 percent lower by 2030, depending on the specification of the single-payer system and the details of the financing policy.

Sounds like we pay by having a loss of GDP measured between 1% to 10%. That’s rather substantial.

CBO is the non-partisan accountants of the US Senate/House. They are our best estimate on the true costs of various programs.

Except the racists did vote for Biden in 2020, despite Harris being the VP.

Arizona ain’t exactly a happy-go-lucky civil rights state. Do you really have assurances that Arizona goes to Kamala if she’s on the top of the ticket?

Yeah, and Medicare / Social Security are already going bankrupt by 2040.

A gross expansion of those programs will make them go bankrupt even faster. You need to explain how to raise money for a “Medicare for All” program… and not just “Well fuck Taiwan / Phillipines / Far East / Ukraine / everyone else in the world”.

We’re going to have our hands full just keeping the programs available over the next few decades, and you want to expand them?

The fuck do I hear Bernie saying “Medicare for All” ?

That’s literally free Healthcare as his top-of-the-line discussion point for the last decade.

All of this could easily be paid by taxing the wealthy and reducing military spending. Would that be a problem for you?

Where does Ukraine and Taiwan fit in that reduced military spending?

Ah right, Bernie is also isolationist. He probably doesn’t give a shit. And even if we don’t support Israel (I know how the left feels about that), we the USA need to continue to patrol the Red Sea vs not just the Houthis, but also Somali Pirates and other threats.

Military spending is going up, by any realistic discussion. Ukraine is only heating up, and Taiwan is likely getting hotter and hotter as China literally cuts off Filipino fingers and uses them to bully others in the Far East. If yall think peace will happen by reducing US Military spending at this juncture, you’re losing my vote.

Bonus points: I’m also Filipino. So consider myself, and my family, very interested in hearing what the Democrats actually have to say about far-east stability / Taiwan / China’s increasingly aggressive actions.

Military spending is going up, and not because anyone wants war. But because its necessary to keep the peace. USA has no control over China or Russia, we only have control over our own spending. And we must keep our spending up with them as they get more aggressive.

I’m an Anti-Trump Republican. I’m quite interested in seeing what yall’s plan is to fight Trump this fall, and frankly, I’m not impressed with what I’m seeing in this topic yet.

Hopefully you all figure something out by next week. And if not next week, the week after that. But your time is short, and time is ticking.

I’m likely voting for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is. But none of this internal Democrats’s chaos is my responsibility or my problem. I’m just here to point out that you have a large degree of my support from being anti-Trump, but I can’t go so far left as Bernie (or some other progressives you got).

That’s really all I’m here to point out.

In any case, figure out a name. Otherwise Democrats will lose. And figure out a name before you get rid of Biden/Kamala. You’re throwing away a decent candidate with a decent anti-Trump record for literally nobody right now.

We can just leave you all behind, and give voters a candidate they like. A progressive candidate.

Okay. Name the candidate.

Except we both know you don’t have a name, and that’s why you’re going through this exercise of avoiding uncomfortable truths.

Go get that name, start pushing that name consistently, start saying [Insert Specific Name Here] is a better choice than Biden and MAYBE you have a chance.

But for now, you’re just giving Republicans in general a field day and a ton of joy by attacking Biden.

I listed two options I think would work for me:

1. Biden

2. Kamala (using Biden as a shield)

Of course, #1 and #2 are basically identical. So the easiest thing for the Democrats to do is just lean into #2.

In any case, I think this discussion is still useful to have. Whoever you pick needs to win Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia like Biden did vs Trump. Do you know of any candidate who can perform similarly to Biden in these states?

You’re just a Republican here to tell us no matter what Biden is the only option besides trump?

I’m a Republican here wondering if yall actually have a plan, or if this is another one of those “Occupy Wall Street” situations where a bunch of Republicans get voted in a few months after yall’s temper tantrum. (Occupy Wall Street was 2011. And we all know how 2012, 2014, and 2016 went immediately afterwards).

For better or worse, you know you need me and my perspective on this matter. Lest you lose Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona and let Trump take the victory.

If yall Occupy Wall Street / kill your own political chances again this year because you got freaked out that Biden was acting as old as any 80+ year old would… okay, you deserve the loss that’s coming to you. But before you make an irreversible mistake, lets talk through this. I want Trump to lose as much as you do.

Note: I’m not necessarily against you changing candidates this late in the game. But I want to know what your overall plans are, and why you actually think that improves your political chances.

Lets put it this way.

Do you know how Elon Musk tricks his dumbass followers that they’re all going to Mars? And its so ridiculous that no one actually seriously talks about the overall plan?

That’s Bernie Sanders. No one seriously debates him because its so far out. Seeing a couple of followers get strung up in Bernie’s moonshots is whatever, its going to happen. But nothing will come from it, and Bernie knows that. (Much like how Elon knows all the bullshit he spews is nothing either).

I get that its a popular way to get a niche following. But when we’re talking about a real Presidential candidate, hopes and dreams aren’t quite good enough. You’ll need to talk about things that are ya know, at least close to political reality.

Or if Elon Musk is a bad example, consider how the Abortion debate played out. Back 10 years ago, it wasn’t really a real discussion point. Today, it is, and now its suddenly a problem for Republicans because the implementation details of Abortion bans are really fucking stupid.

Same thing with Bernie. By the time Bernie is in office, its too late to realize that it was all bullshittery and the numbers simply don’t line up.

Sounds like the party should have let an open and fair primary happen…

Its yall’s problem. I’m a Republican. I barely know the Democratic ticket.

But who did best in the Primaries anyway? Do you think they can seriously unify the party and make a strong anti-Trump candidate?

He’s literally running as a socialist.

Free housing, free health care, free everything. It sounds good until you look at Venezuela.

When we point out… oh… I dunno… how Venezuela collapses because of government takeover as private entities or their other socialist policies (which directly have similarities to Bernie’s discussion points), yall just ignore us.

We’re seriously having issues coming up with a budget where Social Security does fine over the next 20 years, and Bernie over here is reaching to the far, far, far extreme and going “Not only Free Social Security, but Free Housing and Health Care on top of it”. Okaaaaaaayyyyyyy. Lets talk about the taxes needed to get that funded.

Hell, can we even start with the taxes we need to keep Social Security going?

And you can see the problem right after that. Bernie is fully unrealistic. Its the benefit of being on the flank, Bernie can promise the world because he doesn’t actually have to worry about the details of his proposals.