Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

Biden speaking extemporaneously on police abolition... that'll be sumthin, eh?

the only thing worse than watching these two cadavers spout gibberish at each other for two hours will be the pundits who will inevitably analyze it like Lincoln-Douglas afterwards.

It brings Aimless great happiness to tell someone in the "Joe Biden sucks" thread to not vent about Joe Biden sucking. We can hope that he would find someone else in the "Joe Biden sucks" thread to scold for the way in which they type about Joe Biden sucking, in order to maintain that happiness.

This is the one and only Joe Biden thread. What makes you think it's the "Joe Biden sucks" thread? The Citibank reference in the thread title?

I posted the full story in the politics thread, but this tidbit is innaresting:

Biden's voters have renewed their enthusiasm since the last CNN poll on that question in April. While just 50% were extremely or very enthusiastic then, 69% say the same now. Overall, 53% of Democrats now call themselves "extremely" enthusiastic about voting, erasing a gap with Republicans which had grown as large as 13 points in March.

Those behind Biden, though, are largely expressing opposition to Trump (60%) over support for Biden (37%). That result is not uniform, though. Biden's black supporters are more likely than his white backers to say their vote is a nod of support (52% among black Biden voters vs. 33% among whites), and the older voters behind him are likewise more apt to say they are for Biden (51% among Biden voters age 65 or older) than against the president (47%). Among Biden supporters under age 50, about two-thirds say their support is to express opposition to Trump.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/politics/cnn-poll-trump-biden-chaotic-week/index.html

That sounds about right to me.

you read this, i assume:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/joe-biden-stutter-profile/602401/

I haven't, no. I was more interested in finding something that dated earlier--and I did. I will read it, though.

Any Biden thread will become a "Biden sucks" thread.

This is the thread where I say "I just gave Joe Biden's campaign some money"

xp -- as someone who actually was treated for speech impediments growing up (not stuttering, though) they're not something I "overcame" but something that I more or less have to consciously think about every time I speak. (actually had that conversation recently: "so you have to, like, consciously monitor the way your voice sounds?" "pretty much all the time, yes." "are you doing it right now?" "...yes?" like it was some kind of ongoing deception.)

so, going by the profiles linked here, the same thing seems likely to be going on, with the same explanations. I can't believe I'm defending biden here but this kind of thing, like so much, really reveals what people actually think and how they judge people, and just don't say out loud unless the Bad Person does it

they're not something I "overcame" but something that I more or less have to consciously think about every time I speak

Really, wasn't trying to be insensitive. All I meant was that I had no memory at all of him stuttering during his eight years as VP.

Thirty years ago, brought on by the enormous anxiety of being back in school at teacher's college, I went through a few months where I was misspeaking almost every time I spoke. Very strange, and it definitely feeds on itself. Eventually it just went away.

this wasn't in reference to you, necessarily, but the implication that he's faking it or making it up to seem more sympathetic

what speech impediment is it that accounts for this, which I know we've all heard/read a hunmdred times but jfc

“Oh and by the way, I’d sit on the stand and it’d get hot, and I got a lot, I got hairy legs, that turned, that turned, um, blond in the sun. And the kids used to come up and reach in the pool and rub my leg down, so it was straight, then watch the hair come back up again. They’d look at it. So I learned about roaches, I learned about kids jumping on my lap. And I’ve loved kids jumping on my lap.”

that kind of stutter where you lie about getting arrested in Soweto

This is the one and only Joe Biden thread. What makes you think it's the "Joe Biden sucks" thread? The Citibank reference in the thread title?

― jaymc, Tuesday, June 9, 2020 12:17 AM (three hours ago)

the "Joe Biden rules" thread is over here

this one is also available: The greatest public service Biden ever performed was treating Ryan like a cum rag

The Citibank reference in the thread title? -well, sure, but also the tone and content of the entire initial discussion, and of every revive in the fourteen years since.

he's *obviously* suffering from mental decline that has nothing to do with his stutter, not sure why ppl here are so hellbent on denying this. Who cares? He's not the first candidate for president we're catching on the downturn.

― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Monday, June 8, 2020 10:00 PM (yesterday)

Nobody cares in terms of having to make a choice in a shittily rigged two-party system; that's foregone. In terms of wishing that a mentally-declining, incompetent, racist, stooge for business with anger control issues would be replaced as president with somebody who does not exhibit any of those tendencies, it's something to post frustratedly about, ahead of people having to frustratedly vote for him.

Also, the last two or three "on the downturn" presidents might have given some reason for caution, idk

there's a difference between "he says really stupid shit" and "he says really stupid shit and also is faking a speech impediment," is all

xp I should have been clearer, I mean who cares abt going to the wall in defense of Joe Biden's mental competence

I definitely think it matters

are ppl saying he's "faking" it? I think the point is that his campaign is disingenuously pinning his protrated brain farts on his speech impediment

^^^

That's what I meant, yes.

Check.

Yeeeeeep

his campaign is disingenuously pinning his protracted brain farts on his speech impediment

this is my cue to say: "...which makes them smart". ofc, this doesn't make Joe Biden any smarter, just his senior campaign advisors who found this reassuring way to deflect real concerns into doubts that are difficult to resolve. if the first casualty of any battle is the battle plan, the first casualty of any war is the truth.

oh yeah making it seem ableist to question his fitness was an A+ move

I should have been clearer, I mean who cares abt going to the wall in defense of Joe Biden's mental competence

For all the po-faced Voting Is About Duty Honor Courage bullshit, liberals are having to psych themselves up about Joe. Any negativity is Russian interference, akshually he’s the most progressive candidate ever, women lie all the time, etc.

Same as it ever was.

Any negativity is Russian interference, akshually he’s the most progressive candidate ever, women lie all the time, etc.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z)

I'd say if you believed anyone not on the campaign says this crap, you're the addled one.

I had no idea so many ILX libs were hired by Biden. Congrats everyone!

Soros stopped sending checks, bro. fella's gotta eat.

speaking of Biden saying stupid shit, I keep forgetting to unsubscribe from the auto-emails I get because of some donation at some point that was not to Biden, and every single subject line exudes pure crap email from a dude: "can I call you?" "full transparency:", etc.

"ol' joe's opening the kimono"

Joe Biden “does not believe that police should be defunded,” a spokesman for his campaign said Monday. The statement comes as “defund the police” has emerged as a rallying cry following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. https://t.co/2ZlOW9YXDZ

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 8, 2020

shockah

Gotta have bullets to shoot black men in the leg.

of course he's not going to come out and support that because it sounds to the entire country like "getting rid of all police" which is not going to have broad support. Say 'demilitarize" and "redirect funding to education and social programs" and maybe more people will understand. But I'm of the opinion that 'defund the police' is a messaging fail.

if Biden is elected he will have to be fought tooth and nail on this issue. like any ancient clubhouse pol, he makes the Minneapolis mayor look like a lefty.

https://www.afscme.org/about/governance/conventions/resolutions-amendments/1996/resolutions/40-law-enforcement-officers-bill-of-rights

Mitch McConnell and Sleepy Joe working across the aisle!

I'm of the opinion that 'defund the police' is a messaging fail.

For the broad, poorly-informed public, I'd have to agree with this. "Defund" hasn't the bite of "abolish the police" for those who are vitally concerned, while it sounds no different than "abolish" to those who pay little attention and have a hard time with nuances.

McConnell and Sleepy Joe working across the aisle!

It's Conventional Wisdom that Senators have a harder time running for president than governors, because they have a voting record that's easy to attack. Biden in particular has decades of votes he can be attacked with and there are plenty of real doozies in there.

However, Trump now has not just a record that he has to run on, but he has succeeded so well in filling up the political & news space with nothing but 24-7 Trump for the past 4+ years that this election will 100% be a referendum on Trump and his record. Biden could be a cardboard cutout and November would still be all about voting for or against Trump.

Or perhaps not voting at all. And as I said elsewhere, not voting at all is self-imposed voter suppression and vote suppression is Trump's best chance to win. In a referendum election like this one not voting can only be viewed as favorable to Trump.

"Defund" hasn't the bite of "abolish the police" for those who are vitally concerned, while it sounds no different than "abolish" to those who pay little attention and have a hard time with nuances.

For a thread so ripe with disingenuous claims of "denying voters agency"... this sure sounds like a mighty good, actual example of it. I think most adults with a functioning brain and a 3rd grade vocabulary can easily define and tell the difference between the words "defund" and "abolish" dude; they don't mean the same thing at all. The people that DO view any and all attempts at defunding and reform of the criminal justice system in this country as the same thing as a direct attack on the police don't do so because of some "lack of nuance"; they think that way because they are almost exclusively blue lives matter right wingers who are perfectly happy with the racist, corrupt status quo of US policing and don't want it to be changed or curtailed in any way. The same type of people who were never going to vote for the democratic nominee for president in the first place.

But you are right on one thing, "defunding" is a much less extreme, much more moderate and milquetoast proposal for attempting to tackle the enormous systemic problem of police brutality in this country than straight abolition of said police. And Biden, in a time where millions across the globe are protesting and fighting in favor of reforms more adamantly than maybe ever before, STILL can't develop the slightest bit of empathy for the countless men and women of color killed by that systemic injustice necessary to even consider that most anodyne of "solutions" to the problem. And in a year where unenthusiastic voter TURNOUT is Trump's best chance to win, a joint message of "Shoot em in the leg" and "I sympathize but don't actually support the idea of defunding, abolition, or concrete reform proposals of any kind outside of empty platitudes" on this issue is... far from the most appropriate or inspiring of platform to prospective voters.

I agree with Aimless, to the average citizen, who may or may not have a functioning brain but likely doesn’t spend hours every day consuming political news and argument, I would totally expect to hear “defund the police” and interpret that to mean “eliminate 100% of police budgets” even when that’s (often? shit I don’t even know for sure) not what’s being proposed, but rather just not continuing to give fund police departments at levels that embarrassingly dwarf all other city expenditures

social security / medicare for all, birth to the earth

The people that DO view any and all attempts at defunding and reform of the criminal justice system in this country as the same thing as a direct attack on the police don't do so because of some "lack of nuance"; they think that way because they are almost exclusively blue lives matter right wingers who are perfectly happy with the racist, corrupt status quo of US policing and don't want it to be changed or curtailed in any way.

I think the information that is reaching your consciousness is suffering from very lossy compression.

tremp3 phillips

there is/will be plenty of ppl who are like "abolish ICE? sure. abolish the police?? too scary!", I suspect

Maybe Biden can say 'demilitarize the police' indirectly by saying: 'What we need is to go back to the old community policing ... when you saw a cop on the corner and you asked him the way to the candy store. That kind of police officer, the fellow who salutes the old ladies and checks in on the barber - that's what we've got to get back to in our country'.

He already called for the police to shoot me this week.

I’ve never been happier that I don’t live in a “swing” state

Maybe Biden can say 'demilitarize the police' indirectly by saying: 'What we need is to go back to the old community policing ... when you saw a cop on the corner and you asked him the way to the candy store. That kind of police officer, the fellow who salutes the old ladies and checks in on the barber - that's what we've got to get back to in our country'.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, June 9, 2020 3:41 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

even better, let's demilitarize the police by giving them an extra $300 million!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/10/biden-root-out-systemic-racism-not-just-divisive-trump-talk-column/5327631002/

Enough to get every police officer a set of knuckledusters with Community on one and Policing on the other.

not that I expected much but that is remarkably, offensively feeble. It's like he skimmed the first chapter of Vitale's book and wrote down all the headings without reading the text

How do you work up the gall to even mention body cameras as a solution right now?

they need the extra money to learn to shoot people in the leg