One House Democrat said he spoke for others in the wake of the president’s stunningly feeble debate performance on Thursday: “The movement to convince Biden to not run is real.”
The House member, an outspoken defender of the president, said that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should consider “a combined effort” to nudge President Joe Biden out of the race.
Crestfallen by the president’s weak voice, pallid appearance and meandering answers, numerous Democratic officials said Biden’s bet on an early debate to rebut unceasing questions about his age had not only backfired but done damage that may prove irreversible. The president had, in the first 30 minutes of the debate, fully affirmed doubts about his fitness.
A second House Democrat said “reflection is needed” from Biden about the way ahead and indicated the private text threads among lawmakers were even more dire, with some saying outright that the president needed to drop out of the race.
I always figured the role of president was more of a figure head.
I get the buck stops with them, they can do their veto and special powers thing, and I’m sure there are other “ultimately this is your decision” type things.
But it’s the administration you are voting on.
I’m sure it feels amazing to have “that one guy” steering your country. But, I’m sure they mostly do what their advisors tell them to
I want a president who has a vision and some form of understanding, but who knows what he doesn’t know and knows how to get that information. I want someone who I know has the best team guiding them and has sound judgment.
I can’t fucking believe this is an impossible ask. :(
Also being young enough that they’ll actually have to live with any fuckups they create would be a nice bonus. Our current options don’t have any skin in the game.
Did you open a case for that
I mean, that’s partly true. From my keeping up with politics, some of the candidates actions are their own but about 80% of the job is what you described. Your party recommends actions to you and congress sets you up for most of your actions. Vetoing things is only common when the opposition holds congress.
I’ll highlight though that lately the presidents have seized more and more power and continue to do so. It started with Bush basically declaring war without congress and lately it’s been Biden doing things like canceling student loans and blocking the border up. Which I get that’s all power they’ve always had, but they’ve been reluctant to use it improperly because it’s so abusable. Now those robes are off and so trump will come into office and immediately write laws by himself basically
The US has been on a governance crisis for some time now. It is slow and gradual, but they already had a coup attempt. It is the sort of things that is surreal and only possible to see when you look at it from a multi decades POV. Like Asimov’s foundation, it will take centuries and lots of things can happen in the mean time, but you can already see the empire imploding, rotting from within. Rome took almost 3 centuries to fall, and it was more like an erosion rather than crumble. I can see something similar.