Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate | Hacker News Reader

Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

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Putting politics aside …

Why don’t they have an age limit on the president (or any elected office)?

E.g., you must be younger than the average life expectancy (currently men: 73yo / female: 79) - while in office.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

Politicians who refuse to retire is a huge, bipartisan problem in the US affecting both genders. Putting an age limit on the president or members of congress would probably have to be done via a constitutional amendment, because the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that states cannot add eligibility requirements that are not in the constitution. One reform that would help in Congress would be to modify the seniority system. Right now, members of Congress gain seniority as long as they keep being re-elected, so you end up with a situation where all the most powerful committees are headed by ancient legislators teetering at death's door. Since those committee chairs are very powerful, they get lots of campaign donations which help keep them in office until God calls them home. I think modulo arithmetic should be used to calculate seniority. A member of the House should have their seniority set to their time in office modulo 10 - after five terms they are reset to seniority zero. For senators, maybe modulo 18 could be used.

Airline pilots have a legally mandated retirement age of 65. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as flying a plane.

It's considered to be up to the voters to pick the best candidate.

Like a lot of things never codified into law or the constitution — 250 years ago it seemed obvious that the voters wouldn’t do things that seem utterly insane, and that surely nobody who’s very openly, shamelessly corrupt would be elected and still maintain that support even when exposed. So here we are.

So the Framers figured nobody on the cusp of senility would run, and if he did, he wouldn’t get the votes. Because both would be ridiculous.

Especially considering that the only democracy they envisioned was the House, since everybody else was to be picked by nondemocratic means (essentially then, by an aristocracy, who would surely be wise enough to make a good decision).

I'm all for it. But when the average senator is over 60 and rising, and the majority voter base themselves are generally 60+, it'll be a hard law to pass from both fronts.

And as others mentioned, this is a bipartisan stance, so it's not a matter of political leanings. Old people represent most of our voter-base and thus most of our represenatives.

Like IQ tests will not measure mental sanity and lucidity,

age does not measure mental proficiency.

> Why don’t they have an age limit on the president (or any elected office)?

Because age is no indication of fitness for any kind of activity or role. It sure would be nice, if persons with high responsibilities would periodically undergo a fitness test. I'd think the founding fathers saw the election process as such fitness test and the electoral college as the judge of fitness of the presidential candidate.

Because the Founders didn't think of it, and though it would obviously be a good idea now, it's no longer possible to get enough consensus on literally anything to amend the constitution.

This mess has shown that you don't need an age limit for the presidency? He was going to lose the election exactly because of his perceived cognitive decline related to his age.

The DNC is at fault for selected him as the candidate.

I've made that argument. Someone that agrees with it is Jimmy Carter.

My opinion is if the voters are happy to send a geriatric congressman to Washington to sleep through meetings that's fine. But he shouldn't be chairing committees and other offices.

That said Reagan was suffering the beginnings of dementia during the last year or two of his presidency and the world didn't end.

The same reason we don't have a race or sex limit on the Presidency. We should only have competency limits regardless of any other factors. My grandfather died at 101. He was extremely sharp until he was 98 and on no medication. I'd vote for that 95 year-old over either of our current choices without hesitation.

There's a constitutional requirement that the candidate must be at least 35[1], which seems arbitrary to me. That was decided in 1787. I wonder what age they would have picked as a maximum age back then. I say that because (at least these days) it seems almost impossible to change, and people live a lot longer. Like we might be stuck with "Any age between 35 and 57" because people died young in 1787 relative to now.

[1] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-a-presidential-...

>E.g., you must be younger than the average life expectancy (currently men: 73yo / female: 79) - while in office.

That'd be a good way to force the government into caring about improving health and extending life expectancy.

FTR: This IS politics. This sort of conversation about public policy is what politics should be.

I always recommend folks read George Washington's farewell address and it's discussion of political parties.

There is an argument that in a well functioning democracy voters should be able to decide who is qualified to lead them. It shouldn't matter if the person is 20 or 80 if they are able to fulfill their obligations and win the support of voters. With a well informed population and an electoral system that fairly represents voter preferences there should be no need for arbitrary rules.

Bear in mind that your life expectancy is higher as you get older. E.g. the life expectancy for a 72 yr old is not 73, its higher. But I agree with the general point about an age cap.

Because old people vote.

Put simply: it would require a constitutional amendment, and those are hard to come by. The Constitution only sets a minimum age for offices — no maximum ages.

the glib answer is that every election is a decision on that politician’s age or term limit, which is almost certainly the position SCOTUS would take here.

in reality, the advantages of the incumbent in an era of safe districts, where the real election is a primary with poor turnout composed mostly of older voters, are almost insurmountable.

and we are currently witnessing what happens when someone hits an age limit the national electorate is unwilling to accept.

Because in a catastrophic situation, like traversing the chain of succession during a crisis, can play against the survival of the country.

Because it's ultimately a distrust of people. You do not trust people to realize that the candidate is old ? Where would you draw the line on limits? Age, IQ, gender, weight, height ? Of course, we should find the balance between all these limits and "intellect of the crowd".

> Why don’t they have an age limit on the president

In fact there is an age limit for an American president. They should be >= 35 y.o. We need to augment it with an upper limit. My choice would be <= 75 y.o.

If there's to be an age limit, I think it should be tied to the average retirement age plus 7 years. This accounts for changes in life expectancy while also allowing representation for retirees.

Because you get to vote, so explain why it needs to be a rule

People who make the rules are the people in power, not citizens. People win power will always have the bias to do themselves a favor.

Because that's politics (that you can't put aside)

Life expectancy is also an irrelevant measurement for this

Why would they? If people want an old president, then they shall get one. That’s just democracy.

Age shouldn’t be a limitation. Mental competency should be regardless of age.

Maybe then there should also be an age limit for voters.

I see little reason to believe "democracy" is in any way designed to be optimal (for citizens anyways), and lots to believe it is not (and it would seem intentionally not).

Because it's in the constitution.

They do. At least 35.

Because it doesn't solve a real problem. If you try to articulate why it is that a particular old person is president and then dig in a little bit, it quickly becomes apparent that the real problem is something else. For example, in this case, the problem isn't the Biden is old. The problem is probably somewhere in how the Democrat party of the US is picking candidates.

> Putting politics aside …

I admire your optimism in saying that then putting a political question to the room.

> Why don’t they have an age limit on the president (or any elected office)?

In a democracy we let the pleb decide if they want a 81 year old as president (or a 18 year old). It works as intended. Putting age limits on fixed-term elected officials would go against the spirit of free elections.

    > you must be younger than
    > the average life expectancy
    > (currently 73yo) - while in
    > office.

As an aside, it's a common error to think that overall life expectancy is relevant to this sort of thing, it's not. That number includes those who die in infancy, etc.

If you wanted to limit it by "life expectancy" you'd want to limit it by the statistical expected remaining years of life at the candidate's current age.

For example, while the overall life expectancy in the US is around 73, for an individual at age 50 it's around 80[1].

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62591/

Edit: Even if you pick the "right" life expectancy it's still pretty weird. You want the candidate to "only" have a hypothetical 50% chance of dying due to old age before their last day in office?

Then imagine something like COVID-19 happens again. Now a candidate on the cusp of being ineligible is suddenly ineligible because the latest life expectancy statistics shifted?

There's a reason political systems tend to prefer boring and predictable arbitrary limits.

There is a lower limit but not an upper limit. Who knows how old we can be in the future, there are coherent smart people over 80 today. But hey, it’s a democracy and if you want to change it you can try…!

Putting politics aside? Ironic that the link you gave is a .gov site. So that would turn "life expectancy" into something political, and lobbyist would all over it.

This is wild. It seems super late in the game but okay. I'm super interested to see what will become of his chips act etc. The push he has tried to do to remove dependencies on TSMC is very forward thinking. Hopefully the next candidate takes up the momentum.

Edit : Typo in TSMC

> It seems super late in the game but okay.

Why does the US in specific have such drawn-out campaigns? Earlier this week, I saw a pundit commenting that 4 months before the election is too short notice to pick a new candidate. But there's countries in Europe that announce elections, pick candidates, do the campaigns, go to the pools, do the counts, and have the electees take office, all in less than 4 months (see e.g. Great Britain recently).

It’s weird to me that even after his debate performance people are still ascribing things to him directly. Clearly he’s just been stamping his name on the DNC agenda, though I definitely think the chips act is good in theory. We’ll see how it plays out in practice.

> late in the game

Most other countries have much shorter election periods. I for one would love if ours was shorter. Our politicians spend more time campaigning and raising money than they do governing

He tried a to push a lot of things in the positive direction. Democrats usually do. In addition to the chips act, there's infrastructure - saw a HN comment linking to database of where the infrastructure money went; insulin cost, public transportation, electric vehicles, climate in general, student loans. He tweeted imposing 25% tax on billionaires, which ultimately became his undoing.

What's TMC

Not going to happen, but I wonder how a mixed party ticket would do. Kamala (or whoever) + Mitt Romney as VP ?

Has it ever been done?

Would it work to attract the center/swing vote, or more likely to be a negative?

> Not going to happen, but I wonder how a mixed party ticket would do. Kamala (or whoever) + Mitt Romney as VP ?

I think it would be very hard to convince the liberal-progressive base (i.e. the core of the party) of the DNC to go for this.

> Has it ever been done?

Before the 12th Amendment was passed, the VP came from the opposing party[1]. This didn't work particularly well in practice, which is why nobody remembers the 12th Amendment :-)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Amendment_to_the_Unite...

This is an interesting thought experiment. What would the US be like with a completely impossible ticket? Would we flourish under a Lenny Bruce-Knuckles the Echidna ticket? What if Misty and Brock were the respective RNC and DNC chairs? These are the sorts of questions the status quo politicians don’t want us to be asking

That's a pretty interesting thought.

I read something a few years ago that said moderates/non-affiliated make up the majority of voters with only a smaller percentage on left and right tied to the parties (somewhere maybe in 15% to 20% range on each side, can't remember exactly).

So it seems like a good mix of moderate could possibly win, especially when the other candidate is so polarizing.

The only example I could think of that sort of fits that bill: "National Union Party was a wartime coalition of Republicans, War Democrats, and border state Unconditional Unionists that supported the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil War. It held the 1864 National Union Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president and Andrew Johnson for vice president in the 1864 United States presidential election." (wikipedia) Great success as an electoral pairing, not so much afterwards with Johnson's reconstruction policies resulting in all former Republicans leaving the National Union Party and an impeachment.

It used to be (like, early 1800s) that the VP wasn't elected directly; whoever lost the election became VP. Jefferson and Adams were political adversaries, but when Adams won the election in 1796, Jefferson became VP

> Has it ever been done?

Yes Lincoln’s re-election was a unity ticket that included Lincoln (Republican) and Johnson (pro-war Democrat)

I had a similar thought. It would be bold to pluck a republican of the old order as a gesture to the many republicans who now feel like men without a party.

Romney would be an interesting choice. I remember this[0] article in the globe where a columnist who dragged him during his presidential run apologized after seeing how bad things could be.

Like you say though, hard to imagine any party conjuring the courage to do something like that even if they thought it was wise.

[0] https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/20/sorry-mitt-romn...

I have a "radical" idea: why not actually let the constituency of this party make the choice.

No. The staunch Republicans will still vote for Trump and the only way to beat that is for there to be an incredibly cohesive force among a population that isn't very cohesive in the first place. The Republicans actually have it easy, they align and bond on lots of things. The center and left align on very few things and fight amongst themselves.

A mixed ticket isn't going to align them better.

In principle, if you got everyone to agree to it (and this would be a big if), this would probably be an interesting enough ticket that it might just win. Maybe.

In practice, Romney is 77 years old and is ready to retire - and think how often age has come up as a factor in the presidential race recently. Romney isn't running for reelection, but if he had wanted his senate seat for another 6 years, I am quite certain it would have been his. So ultimately, I don't think Romney would go for it, simply because he wants to spend more time with his (large) family.

> Has it ever been done?

McCain/Lieberman almost happened in 2008.

Moderate Republicans who won't just vote for Trump are a dying breed. I don't think they are worth courting over just convincing young people and women to turn out to vote, purely on demographics. I could be ideologically blinded by this though.

There was a group trying to do this literally for this election, but they couldn't get anyone to actually join the ticket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Labels#2024_presidential_ti...

You'd have to get Romney on board with it. You'd be electing a Democrat administration with a Republican VP. It's not split, it's just a blue ticket with a red VP.

If you want to bolster the ticket, get someone that people already like. Hell, get Obama or Sanders to come back as the VP.

It would be more politically palatable to pick a Senator Joe Manchin or Governor Andy Beshear. In other words, a Democrat so moderate that they can win in the reddest of states

I'd prefer John Kasich over Romney, but a cross-party ticket is one of the few scenarios I can see actually getting me to the polls this time around.

It happens in EU countries, where it's not unusual for a right-leaning President to elect a left-leaning Prime Minister. Worth noting that a Prime Minister in the EU often has more power than the VP in the US.

Here’s a good thought experiment: https://www.thebigquestions.com/2024/07/21/the-next-democrat...

The purpose of the VP is life insurance. They must be like you but more so.

I had thought of Adam Kingsinger or Liz Cheney, but Romney is also an interesting option.

None are likely, maybe Liz Cheney the most though (imagine if her father campaigned for her).

Did you read the New York Times today? [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/opinion/biden-west-wing-a...

> Has it ever been done?

McCain considered Lieberman

Was thinking that too and it might be a brilliant way to get the folks on the right that don't want to vote Trump but also not necessarily a dem. Also it could be a great marketing tactic to be like 'we're bringing unity back' or something to that.

And theoretically no reason it couldn't happen other than both parties definitely not being on board with it.

I’d be into that

Romney appeals to the sort of people who own multiple houses. Most Trump supporters are working class concerned about the price of groceries, who would probably be better served by a left-wing pro-labor politician but won't vote for one because they abhor the progressive social policies that get bundled with that in America. So they vote for the guy who plays lip service to their problems while talking smack about progressive social stuff.

Romney is politically obsolete. He serves no further purpose in American politics.

The VP used to be the runner up [1].

E.g. the current administration would be Biden and Trump.

I couldn’t imagine that working today, as divided as the parties have become (especially in the last 20 years).

[1] https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/s...

As much as it pains me to suggest a Cheney, Liz Cheney would be another strong contender.

I think establishment unity against Trump would work very well.

This was a forgone conclusion since the debate but there needed to be prolonged drama to save face

Also timing the media cycle with the Republican convention just finishing up. No time for much of a convention bounce

Also needed to have Trump announce a VP pick first. Because otherwise Trump would have picked a black man without question (Tim Scott probably although maybe Ben Carson)

I think the prolonged drama made it far far worse for Biden's legacy

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.

I laughed out loud when I read this, but maybe if you reword it "effective presidencies" you could be right.

I imagine those around him were doing all the presidenting, and perhaps they're more effective without a functioning president to get in their way.

Some might then point out things like the border were signs of ineffectiveness, but actually, if you reasonably assume it was intentional, then they were exceptionally effective.

> But he did campaign on a single term.

He did not really do this.

how do you measure who is effective?

Simplest may not be best here. Is Harris the person who is most likely to get people to the polls and vote Dem? Is she someone who can convert independent/undecided voters? etc. IMO those are not easy "yes, absolutely" answers. Does the Democratic party have anyone in the wings who is more likely to win than Harris?

Maybe? Gretchen Whitmer might be a strong candidate, off the top of my head. But I'm struggling to think of a nationally known candidate with super-strong positives that would be a viable alternative. (That's also true for the GOP IMO if somehow Trump was out.)

Not according to Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz [1], Chamath Palihapitiya & David Sacks [2], possibly Zuckerberg [3], and others. And of course Elon, Thiel. Many such cases.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNclEgQZQ

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blqIZGXWUpU

[3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XgWFwVRGcf4

> 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.

On the contrary, the processes that anointed Hillary in 2016 and Biden round 2 in 2024 were exactly the kind of "well, it's this person's turn now" decisions that were bad, anti-democratic (lower-case d) choices previously. I'm not looking for a "circular firing squad" but neither do I think some sort of automatic anointment of Harris is what people want either.

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.

  > One of the most effective presidents since Johnson or Truman.

In what way? I don't live in the US, so what did I miss? I don't remember Biden doing anything of note (good or bad).

> But he did campaign on a single term.

Biden said that he was running for only a single term, and during this entire second election campaign nobody called him out on that, not even outspoken Trump?

> probably Harris is the simplest answer

And probably the wrong answer. I don’t see her winning over swing voters. Gretchen Whitmer seems like the best option to me. I’d enjoy watching her debate Trump.

What did Biden do to make America or the life of Americans better (or possibly worse for some)?

Seems like America has been going backwards for a long time.

By not stepping down as president, he is totally RBG-ing Harris.

Maybe a resignation will be announced later for maximum impact and tie into some thing ready for Harris to announce presidentially, like some camp david peacing or another 3 states ratifying the ERA.

Dannnnnng. I think it's definitely for the best (probably never should've come to this, reminds me of RBG). And that said I really, really liked his presidency, but, he is undeniably really old.

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...

My god. I really didn‘t think he would actually do it.

There was never any risk of me voting for Trump, but when I watched the debate it became abundantly clear that Biden could not win an election. He came off as an extremely frail old man and I had my doubts that he would survive the entire debate, let alone another four years in office.

I'm a pretty left-leaning person and I find Trump to be an overwhelmingly unappealing idiot in general, but even I had to admit that Trump "won" the debate. He was still the moronic walking Markov Chain that he always is, but he at least looked alive.

Meh, it was a downward spiral after the debate. No way he was going to last long.

Even Manifold politics had him at 20% two weeks ago. And 10% for the past week.

Did he actually do it himself or did someone do it for him?

I don't think he did. The timing is too convenient after two weeks of him reassuring people he would win over and over.

I assumed getting COVID was fake and would be his ~reason~ excuse.

Thank you Joe, you are a true patriot and your legacy will be as a great President.

In his final 6 months, set up a plan for a Constitutional amendment that puts an upper age limit of 75 at the start of a term of office for Members of Congress, Senators, POTUS, VPOTUS, Executive appointments requiring Senate consent, Judges, with compulsory retirement at 75 for lifetime appointments.

I don't think a magic number is the right solution here.

Clearly there is a preferred age group amongst the electorate, so the open market solved this problem

Some say and I agree that he should have gone all the way in, and resigned

The President has no role to play in the Constitutional amendment process.

Biden could use his time to promote one, but there is absolutely no way it can be done in six months. A Constitutional amendment is an enormous hurdle to overcome -- three-quarters of the state legislatures.

i understand the significance of this news for majority of the users here, but unsure if it fits the guidelines of what should be discussed here.

> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

I think there are exceptions allowed for major events (if only the keep all of the discussion in one place, preventing it from bleeding into the rest of the site).

> It’s a miracle, folks. Donald told the truth for once. It’s the most important election of our lifetimes. And I will win it.

Curiously, his tweet from just 18 hours ago seemed like he was still in the race. I wonder what changed.

I think it was pretty widely understood that he was going to have to be adamantly in the race until the exact moment he wasn’t in the race. The second he showed any public wavering it would have been over.

You behave as though you’re in the race right up to the moment you are not.

They hadn't told the people running his Twitter account yet?

There was already an incident [1] where his press secretary tweeted about running for president on her own account, so she or her people are presumably in charge of it.

1. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Friday: "The business is doing great! We are expanding on all fronts!"

Monday: layoffs

Exactly, people are overlooking how much he did not want to quit.

Threat that they will use article 25 to get him removed as president if he didn't playball

The timing of Joe Manchin declining to endorse this morning certainly correlates.

Does he write his own tweets? He's no Elon Musk or Donald Trump, I would assume some staffer is tasked with writing those tweets. And they obviously wouldn't tell the staffer to do anything different until the decision to drop out was final.

Oof. This guy has been the biggest positive surprise of the US presidents in my lifetime. Expectations were low, but he actually turned out to be a good president (from a European perspective). No new wars, no more talk about shifting defense focus to Asia, generally nothing unreasonable. Good support for Ukraine, no doubts about NATO - rather the opposite. Basically, the rich uncle on the other side of the pond has been a good one.

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.

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.

Unfortunately his domestic achievements have been somewhat mediocre.

His signature achievements essentially were one time cash payments to people.

I really do think his major failure was not pushing for a lasting achievement like implementing federal parental leave. He had the chance, but opted for a 1 year extension of child tax credits.

And of course the US has an illegal immigration problem. European right on the rise from 1/10th the number of illegal immigrants the US gets.

> 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) would be in times of crisis, where a strong executive is necessary.

>No new wars

>Good support for Ukraine

You're looking through a particular narrow lens.

This is a very partial view. A good number of people, including American democrats were disgusted by his unwavering support to the current genocide in Gaza. Many believe he could have stopped it with a phone call and explicitly refused. I know many who swore they would not vote for him, regardless of the circumstances.

Biden's wise choice exemplifies true leadership, and ultimately, it's a testament to the enduring influence of Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's revered elder statesman, who remains a powerful force to this day.

We live in unprecedented times.

The last time we had a sitting president not seek reelection like this was LBJ and he announced his intentions in March, 1968 [1]. We don't have the communications media we have now. This had a massive impact. The Democrats were largely unprepared, in part because RFK was assassinated in June.

This ushered in Nixon who expanded the war in Vietnam, started the illegal bombing of Cambodia that killed hundreds of thousands [2], started the War on Drugs [3], reshaped the Supreme Court and ultimately created a crisis leading to his resignation in 1974.

Biden should've announced last year he wasn't seeking reelection, giving time for a real primary process. But we are where we are.

Some will point to Biden's achievements, and there definitely are some major achievements, but elections are forward-looking. It's not just about how Biden is now. It's how we would've expetged him to be 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 4 years from now. And those prospects weren't good.

I do believe this was the right decision (albeit way too late). This is an opportunity to reset what otherwise was looking like a bleak race for so many of us.

[1]: https://www.history.com/news/lbj-exit-1968-presidential-race

[2]: https://www.history.com/news/nixon-war-powers-act-vietnam-wa...

[3]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/war-on-drugs

Appreciate the historical context. Thanks!

It’s for the best. The man is not in his best form and he has repeatedly shown that he isn’t. He attempted to rectify the situation since the debate but even those attempts fell short.

Let’s see who is going to take the mantle now.

/edit: he is endorsing Kamala,

https://nitter.poast.org/JoeBiden/status/1815087772216303933

Given the recent claims that the President was healthy and fit for office despite evidence to the contrary and now this admission, how can anyone trust the party?

Maybe he's just facing the reality of polling data and not concealing a health problem?

I don't think you understand how public relations work. You say everything is fine until it isn't

Sharp as a tack.

(No intend for this to be a controversial statement)

I only want to express my opinion that he (and the Democratic party) took a while to make this decision, to their detriment.

Interesting to see who their new candidate is going to be.

To their detriment? I'm not sure. They just had the Republican convention. At that convention, they took a lot of shots at Biden. Now the Democrats say "Wrong target, suckers!"

They take over the news cycle from the Republican convention, and they neutralize a huge amount of the talking points from the convention. That could be pretty brilliant.

(I mean, it would have been better for Biden to clearly not be running last year at this time, and let the primary process do its thing. But dropping out right now might be pretty decent timing.)

Nate Silver was already a Cassandra months ago about this issue and was proven right, better than the entire Democrat establishment. The internet is quite the dichotomy. There are easily available sources to the common man that are more right than the most powerful people in the world (Ivy League SAT removal fiasco, Alperovitch on Russian invasion, etc.). But, most people don't listen to them and instead regurgitate brainrot.

The gamble paid off in 2020. His steering committee (including the DNC) was vested in him continuing until he imploded at the debate.

The rules allow the DNC to have an open convention. They just haven’t had one for more than half a century. the interesting thing is apparently if they do that its available to all candidates. So it’s possible that somebody that is well liked by the public, but not by the DNC becomes the leader ie Bernie sanders.

The tough thing though is that money donated to Biden doesn’t transfer to other candidates.

The daily wire did an Extensive breakdown of each scenario a few days ago:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5vmeGPmDP0nopAlOwDZIV6

This particular scenario is covered at 0:30

Endorses Kamala so probably no 'mini-primary' or other challengers which is a bit of a shame. Kamala was pretty uninspiring in the primary and hasn't seemed to get a lot done as vice president while trump has gathering momentum and, maybe more importantly, money. The 'king making' party apparatus that pushed Biden despite the health issues has a lot to answer for.

Harris didn’t make it to _a_ primary. If her debate performance is anything like it was in 2020, her campaign is already over.

The reality is that the campaign donations accumulated by the Biden/Harris ticket are only available to Harris. Anybody else is funding-challenged even more than Harris at this point. From the standpoint of campaign finance laws and the practical realities of fund-raising, it was Harris all along.

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 remaining timespan of a little over 3 months left before election -- after no one has thought of her since the last election. This isn't good.

I wouldn't frame "he was campaigning and only pulled out when it became clear everyone was against him" as "he stuck to his word that he will be a single term president". Sticking to his word would've been never campaigning to begin with.

Kamala looks unelectable. She had to quit the nomination race in 2020 even before primaries.

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.

It’s not good. It’s great.

Shouldn't he resign and let Kamala step in?

Then the senate would refuse to approve a VP replacement. Remember that leading up to counting the electoral votes loose-lipped GOP senators were saying that Pence (the VP) wouldn’t be counting the days electoral votes? How do you think that would proceed?

He can do president duties, while the candidate they choose go around collecting votes.

Ordinarily, yes. But she doesn't poll well with a lot of key demographics due to her tough on crime stance as a DA. Making her president would mean she'd be the presumptive nominee, and I think the party has more optimal choices lined up.

This election will come down to four battleground states. Those are the only states and battles that matter.

Yes, it would be beneficial for Biden to step down, as this would make Kamala Harris the presumptive nominee and simultaneously break the glass ceiling of a female US President. This would also demonstrate her presidential capabilities to the general public, who may not fully comprehend the responsibilities of the office. Furthermore, if Congress were unable to confirm a VP, it would reflect poorly on them and dominate news cycles, shifting the focus away from Republicans. As President, Harris would be able to address the nation with authority, rather than just as a VP campaigning for the top office. Additionally, it's been apparent for some time that Biden has been facing mental and physical health challenges; it's surprising that this isn't more widely acknowledged. Note: As an independent observer, I'm offering this perspective as a political strategist or from the perspective of Americans seeking to overcome the historical gender bias in US presidential politics.

...should he? maybe you meant to make some argument that he should do that?

It is surprising how the past three Presidential elections the Democratic party has had the least democratic process during the primaries.

In 2016, the Clintons ran a normal primary, but Bernie was creatively railroaded by the establishment and the superdelegates. The superdelegates went for Clinton 78% to Sanders 7%.

In 2020, COVID caused a lot of problems and Biden was basically selected without much of a real primary. Although he did secure the nomination and go on to win.

This year, due to party control they concealed the fact that Joe Biden was deteriorating. Fear of Trump was used to keep anyone from really challenging the incumbent. There was no real democratic primary here either. Due to campaign finance laws, the money donated to the Biden/Harris campaign is now locked to one of those two candidates. In effect, Kamala now is likely to be the candidate because of the lie about Joe Biden and collecting all the donations. For tons of reasons, the Democrats are now locked into a Harris campaign.

All of this is just a way to subvert a real democratic process...

Don't forget the 60+ rules they changed to keep RFK from winning the primary. Basically what they accuse Putin of doing to secure his election wins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFjZZjP25jk

He did the right thing.

DNC needs a policy where they won’t endorse candidates who will be over 65 on the day they take office.

Nobody in their 80s should be running for office. By then they had their chance to influence the next generation… or not.

Better yet, this needs to be the law of the land for all parties. Once someone reaches 60-65 or so, they need to step aside and serve at most in an advisory role. Let the younger crowd take the helm of leadership.

Is Gavin Newsome more likely as the Dem candidate now that the wealthiest members of the tech community got their preferred Republican VP candidate?

He did tick up after the debate, but now Kamala is heavily favored for the Democrats.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/betting-odds/2024/president

Given Biden's endorsement of Harris, a fellow Californian, Newsom will probably not be on the ticket, due to Constitutional limitations. That's not dispositive, but has generally been interpreted as requiring the two executive candidates to be from different states. The actual language concerns how electors must vote, in Article II, Section I, Clause III:

The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.

<https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-2/sec...>

In strict compliance, this would require California's electors to split their votes on candidates from other states, though other states wouldn't face this limitation.

History.com addressed this earlier this year: "Can the President and Vice President Be From the Same State?" <https://www.history.com/news/can-the-president-and-vice-pres...>

Two points that people are making that I feel necessary to refute because they come across as being offered from a place of bad faith or ignorance:

1) the suggestion that Biden should resign from the presidency because he is standing down from running. Biden is not saying that he is incapable of running. He and his team just understand how to read polls and don't want their party to lose the election which seemed almost certain with him at the top of the ticket.

2) the suggestion that Biden stepping down is subverting the will of the primary voters. There was no real 2024 democratic primary just like there was no republican primary in 2020. There were no serious candidates and no debates. I am sure there are Biden supporters who are disappointed and angry that he has dropped out but it was his choice to make. If he had stayed in the race, I am sure he would have secured the nomination. This wasn't taken away from him. He voluntarily stood down. A candidate should not be obliged to remain in a race just because they won a primary.

> There was no real 2024 democratic primary

This was also a subversion of the will of primary voters. It's not a defense. A huge portion of Democratic voters wanted the candidate replaced, and there were Democratic politicians that announced their intention to be the candidate that replaced him, and others undoubtedly who would have if there hadn't been so much pressure not to, yet a serious primary wasn't run.

Democratic insiders decided that no one was going to run against Biden, Democratic insiders decided after the debate that Biden was not going to run. Democratic insiders will also be choosing who will run. The most democratic and likely option will be Harris (because that's her job) but she was also chosen by Democratic insiders in 2020, not by Democratic voters, who mostly hated her. If not Harris, then Democratic insiders will either choose an arbitrary process or simply directly choose another candidate.

On 2 I think the suggestion is more that this whole chain of events has resulted from persistent and willful dishonesty by Democratic leadership (including Harris) about the President’s health. So the argument is that if the public was not intentionally misled then there would have been a real primary. And now we are getting whoever those same party elites decide we should get.

On point 1 I checked the polls and they look no different than Bidens. Recent articles say the same thing. So that can't be why they chose her.

"A flurry of polls conducted in the wake of the June 27 presidential debate showed Harris performing roughly the same as Biden against Trump (who has been leading the president by a slim margin for months), and more recent polls after the attempted assassination of Trump show similar trends."

President Kamala Harris has a great ring. Will be great to have someone that isn’t old, a sex offender, or a felon (or all three).

    > someone that isn’t old

If she wins she'll be 60 years old and 3 months old the day she assumes office. That'll make her the 13th oldest president (out of a total of 47)[1].

That's "old" by any objective definition. The only thing that makes her seem young is that the two candidates who've been in the race so far are #1 and #2 on that list.

She'll certainly be a young president compared to the two oldest presidents to have ever held the office.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...

I think this was the right thing to do for his health, being president is a notoriously stressful job.

Non-American here. Do you think will there ever be serious room for more parties in America?

No. Due to the game theory of the (non-parliamentary, winner-take-all) system, 2 is an equilibrium for number of parties. As in, smaller third parties are quickly “absorbed” into one of the two large parties to have any shot at winning.

As a consequence, the two parties are constantly changing, to the point that, for instance, the Republican Party of 2024 has little to do with the Republican Party of a decade ago.

Non-American answer: that will never happen unless both parties agree to switch to ranked-choice single-transferrable-vote. So no, never.

A view from Canada: thanks, Mr Biden. You honour your record and your nation.

Moderators unflagging this makes a lot of sense.

I felt the threads about the assassination attempt a week ago deserved similar treatment for the historical relevance.

Whatever is done here should be done with a consistent set of principles applied to both parties.

The Democrats now need to emphasize that Trump, who is 78, is too old too. They can feature clips of Trump in 2020 saying that Biden at 78 was too old.

Is this the quote you're referring to (from 2019)?

> Trump added, "I would never say anyone is too old, but I know they're all making me look very young, both in terms of age and I think in terms of energy. I think you people know that better than anybody."

(I'm looking for it in old articles and having trouble finding what you're talking about.)

I also found this from an AP article in 2020:

> With Election Day less than four months away, Trump has spent more money on one television ad claiming that Biden lacks “the strength, the stamina and the mental fortitude to lead this country” than any other single ad this year.

I really dislike this idea that someone can be "too old" to be president. The issue isn't age, it's the conditions and diseases that often come with age.

The issue with Biden for me wasn't his age at all, it was that for whatever reason he was struggling to form coherent sentences. Trump on the other hand seems more or less completely fine. I'd actually argue the best thing about Biden was that he was perhaps the most qualified person to president ever given his long history and respected history in politics.

That said, I do think the older the presidential candidate is the more important it becomes to weight their VP pick when casting your vote, but still, I don't think this reason trend of discounted people solely on their age is a healthy trend. I'd even argue that the ideal age for a leader is probably quite old, maybe around 50-60.

From Europe, so not as much skin in the game as others here.

But jeez the Democratic party needs to new leadership. And I don't mean Harris or whoever, but the party leadership itself.

The gaslighting in the past year about Bidens age was insane to watch. Literally asking people to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.

While not as much skin, we sadly have more skin in this game as I'd wish

The election of the next President will have a large effect on the security of Europe with respect to both Russia and Israel

> Literally asking people to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears

I mean, it seems to be a winning strategy for the other party.

The parties are not as strong as your typical European party - if you win the presidency, in a very real sense your people become the party. Biden's people picking a process that favored Biden is expected here. For better or for worse there is no smokey back room of elders with superdelegate powers driving the show, the closest is probably the donor class who aren't part of the formal party leadership but back horses in the party.

Agreed, it's been obvious for the last year to everyone in my bubble (educated liberals mostly in tech) that Biden was demented. The democratic party is now holding every non-conservative american hostage more or less (what are you gonna do? vote trump?) and I would love to see the party collapse or have a serious overhaul. Why can't they put up candidates people like? At least trump has actual fans, I don't know anyone who actually likes Biden they just prefer him to trump

You’ve got it exactly right. The DNC has been a clown show since as long as I can remember. Probably Clinton? Obama was an obvious favorite at his time, the party couldn’t even get Clinton across the line against Trump and Trump was so bad, most people voted anything but. Basically it’s all been accidental success.

The party is run by a weird mix of blue dogs who don’t really reflect progressive values, and left wing extremists who kowtow to the dogmatic sect of the party. The middle class, who they’re _supposed_ to represent are completely forgotten.

good move, thank you Joe

Dang, this shouldn't be flagged. This is hugely important and relevant.

Email such concerns to moderators at hn@ycombinator.com. "Dang" or "@dang" in comments is a no-op:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36526450>

100%. Biden becoming president was one of the biggest HN threads,very odd to see this thread killed.

I don't personally think it's relevant... but more importantly the comments are pretty much a dumpster fire. I don't begrudge people their positive opinions of Biden (even if I do disagree), but even fairly tepid pushback on that idea is being flagged into oblivion. That's completely one sided, and not worth much as a discussion.

How the fuck does this end-up flagged ... There is over 90 upvotes does this not count ?

Where is the mythical vouch feature I could never find ? A yes I believe it's not yet dead, so you can't vouch ?

Is this unprecedented?

Depends on how you look at it.

As others have pointed out, Lyndon B. Johnson declined the nomination for Democratic Presidential candidate in March of 1968, well before both most of the primary contensts and the then-open Democratic Convention in Chicago. Rather famously, that convention didn't go particularly smoothly.

(In an interesting coincidence, this year's Democratic primary is also in Chicago.)

George McGovern's 1972 vice presidential nominee, Thomas Eagleton, stepped down after it was revealed Eagleton had undergone electroshock therapy, two weeks after the Democratic Convention. McGovern selected Sargent Shriver as the replacement candidate.

Horace Greeley, Liberal Republican Party and Democratic Party candidate in the 1872 election, running against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant, died on 29 November 1872, after the general election but before the Electoral College met to count its votes. Greeley carried no states and won no Electoral College votes.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_Party_presiden...>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Eagleton#Replacement_on...>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_United_States_presidentia...>

No. Johnson did not seek reelection after his first term.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/03/politics/lbj-biden-what-m...

Lyndon B Johnson was the last to not seek reelection, though he stepped out in late March.

It’s unpresidented.

It was probably the right decision on Biden's part.

My main right now is who are they going to position in opposition to Trump? This is too little, too late. Four months until the Election... and I don't feel like the Democrat party has a strong candidacy showing at this point.

Biden winning the race in 2020 [1] was the most commented post on HN.

I found that yesterday while trying to figure out how popular the "crowdstrike" post was, and it is actually the second most commented one.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967

For others that are interested here is a top list of most commented posts using clickhouse:

https://play.clickhouse.com/play?user=play#U0VMRUNUIERJU1RJT...

All of this discussion. Most people don't understand, were not voting for Biden, were voting against Trump. The DNC could nominate a floating turd in a bowl, and we'd still vote Democrat, because it's not a vote for Trump.

To the best interpretation of the above post, the poster seems to forget that those who take care of winning an election need to focus on the undecided voters in the middle.

I actually think this loses Democrats the election. I don't know who the nominee is going to be but if it's Kamala I think they REALLY lose the election. People may be lukewarm on Biden but they despise Kamala for her shady history as a prosecutor.

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.

Prosecutor vs convicted rapist and convicted felon could run well. It's not 2020 anymore, the wave of anti-cop hysteria has well and truly ended.

As an anti-trump voter (aka a circumstantial democrat) - that’s what I’m worried about too. It feels like we’ve left it til too late without the democrats putting up anyone that people are excited about - while we know how the other side feels about trump.

The most recent poll this Saturday had Trump up 7 points in Michigan. It's basically impossible for Biden to win in that scenario.

I think they were well on their way to losing and so they hit the panic button with good reason, if anything this will now introduce some uncertainty which improves their chances.

It sure seems like there are better chances with him gone; but yeah, he might have already given Trump the presidency by waiting so long (and for running for this election in the first place)

This is the first time in a while there’ll be an brokered (open) convention; especially so if Biden does not announce support for another candidate.

He endorsed Kamala

From the tweet:

> Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.

Nancy Pelosi and the Obamas have not endorsed Kamala

Trading the open primary news on the prediction markets, there’s a lot of liquidity finally!

I'm wondering if the Obamas haven't because Michelle hasn't ruled out running. She has said she wouldn't but that may have been to support Biden and now that there is an opening, she may take it.

What about Biden as VP? He would stay around to support Kamala and the formula would benefit from his popularity.

If Biden is unfit to run and there was an adhoc referendum for him to step down, why would he be fit to be VP?

This is so exciting! If I could be a fly on the wall in Trump-ville right now. I wonder what they’re thinking?

Why would not think they were very aware this was a possibility? Because it is a shock to you, you assume it would be a shock to them?

Do you really think they read the news to find the news? Or do you think there are layers and levels that you are not privy to?

I’m still dreaming of seeing Bernie Sanders as POTUS.

This will be a much more relevant story on HN if it turns out that Elon Musk sent this rather than Biden.

(At the time that I write this, the only place this news is sourced from is Twitter. Every news org is quoting Twitter and then adding their own gloss.)

https://apnews.com/live/biden-trump-election-campaign-update...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-drops-2024-presidentia...

Trump assassination attempt - no discussions on HN, Biden was told to step down - BREAKING!!!

Trump injured but ‘fine’ after attempted assassination at rally (apnews.com)

267 points by happyopossum 8 days ago | 552 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40957564

and multiple other threads (most eventually merged)

I’ll pass on Kamala. Biden should have let democracy do its thing during the primary.

does anyone know the psychology of sharing photos with Harris and Biden tilted like pi/8 radians counterclockwise?

I see it repeatedly since this story broke, but not earlier.

It likely relates to how outlets looking to promote a person (athlete, candidate, whatever) tend to show them from below, as if they're larger than normal, but that's just a guess.

As an outsider who lived in different countries and different regimes — i am very surprised substantial amount of people are still blind to the disaster which Biden’s administration are currently moving country to.

how is this on HN but the assassination attempt wasnt? at least not until much later

I’ll vote whoever the dems pick.

Elon and his wackos are going to ruin our country.

Hey I saw your old comment [0] but couldn’t reply there so was wondering if you worked on this medical system thing you talked about. I was impressed you knew so much about the private equity clinics and am interested in whatever you make.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37019642

Here's what @dang posted on the giant thread of Biden winning presidency (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967). I suspect this thread has been auto-killed by some spam algo and there's a good chance dang will resurrect it at some point.

"As many have pointed out, a dozen or so submissions on this topic were flagged by users. That's actually the immune system working as intended, but another component of the system is that moderators rescue the very most historic stories so HN can have a single big thread about them. We did that 4 years ago, also for Brexit, etc.

Since this was the first submission on the topic, it seems fairest to be the one to restore. (It's still on our todo list to have some form of karma sharing for situations like this, to make it be less of a race and/or lottery.)"

you know, on autoimmune diseases the immune system is actually working as intended. It's just that the target is all wrong.

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

There was a thread; they are allowed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Because HN is not a democracy. ;)

Don't worry Trump will make sure we will never forget about it anyway so it will find its way into conversation like it is now.

As a registered Republican who voted IND in 2016 and then for Trump in 2020 (which probably puts me in about a 0.1% minority on a site like this), I feel upset that the democratic process for choosing a nominee for the Democratic Party is about to just get bypassed. Are other folks feeling this? I’d be even more riled up if this were my party telling me, “Oh, that guy you voted for in the primaries? We thought he couldn’t win so we will harass him until he quits, then we are going to replace him with someone better (since we know better than the voters).”

Voting for the candidate at the convention actually is the process. It always has been. It’s just been a while since the outcome of the vote was unknown until we got to the convention itself.

No, I am not feeling riled up about this. I’m much more riled up about the state of the executive branch from 2016-2020.

It's difficult to take this in good faith since the amount of effort to understand why this opinion is misguided is so minimal:

People voted for him in the primary based on the belief that he was and would stay in good health. The debate revealed that belief to be false. Post-debate, Democratic voters were massively (70+%) in favor of him resigning his candidacy. NOT stepping down would have been the UNdemocratic thing to do.

No, I am angry at Biden, he shouldn’t have run again. He is the one that created this situation by not accepting his obviously growing limitations. While the lack of real primary competition will further reinforce the elitist “kingmaker” perception of the Democratic Party, I also can’t really blame them for working within the system and the one we have doesn’t encourage hard primaries against your own incumbent President.

For reference, in February 2019, the RNC voted to provide undivided support to Trump. A few states outright cancelled their primaries.

All things considered, I’ll take an elitist party with a whiny progressive arm over a President and party that tried to stop the peaceful transition of power.

So as a Republican, what do you think about the certainty that your party will suddenly find themselves no longer concerned about the age of presidential nominees?

I don't think most democrats actually care who the president is as long as it isn't Trump. That's why they voted for Biden in the first place. It is kind of ironic though that the party of "saving democracy" will not put the winner of the primaries as their candidate but I think practically speaking there is already somewhat of a consensus among the party for doing this. Also see polling that shows Harris with equal or better numbers than Biden.

Not even a little bit. The Democratic Party has clearly stated policies and goals, the vast majority of which I agree with (possibly besides some of the trans policies). Who the final candidate is this time matters very little compared to making sure Trump doesn’t win and destroy American hegemony.

Independent here. Did not vote Trump in 2020.

I tend to agree that for a party that spends a lot of time talking about the importance of democracy, we’re in fairly undemocratic territory here. However, you could make the argument that voters did kind of vote for Harris when they voted for Biden.

> I’d be even more riled up if this were my party telling me, “Oh, that guy you voted for in the primaries? We thought he couldn’t win so we will harass him until he quits

...What do you think your party has been doing to Trump challengers?

I think Kennedy will get way more votes than usual because of this. Which will ensure a Trump victory.

US Politics are the "keeping up with the Kardashians" of all political drama around the world.

It was clear they should not have let Biden try for a second term. How many hundreds of millions of people live in the US, and this is the best we can present as candidate in a two-party system? Instead of arguing why he's "actually not THAT old, he has good days too!" like an alcoholic defending himself by saying he only had light beers yesterday - it's ridiculous. completely missing the forest for the trees. Or the other way around.

Waiting from the debate until now (that the Republican convention is over) to announce Biden's retreat was just a waste of time. Especially without a clear and backed replacement. As a party they should have pulled him out and said, we as a party have a better representative of our ideas and values, here's Johnny! but they didn't because of losing face. To who? To the republicans. They were not voting for your team either way, you dummies!

You are red or blue in 2024. Any voter that can truly be convinced at this stage to change their color and vote, well, how can I put this without being rude. Let's say I would value my toddlers' navigational instructions more than your opinion and vote. You think any 'undecided' voter that might have gone with Biden, will now switch team because they don't like the new candidate, and then go 180 and vote Trump?

It's painful to even think of this hideous game of charades. Money wins in the end anyway. Apologies, this was perhaps more of a rant than a usefull comment adding to the discussion.

"Donald Trump is going to win. And I'm OK with that." - Jared Golden, Democratic House Representative of Maine

I really hoped it wouldn't be so, but anyone that's ever seen Kamala speak will find she is about as compelling as Joe Biden on a bad day. I believe this means China and Russia can prevail in the short term, unless he actually boosts Taiwan's defence meaningfully, which I doubt he will after the Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan aid holdup fiasco.

It is what it is. I wish the nominee was Gretchen Whitmer with anyone but Kamala. I wish Biden had not run for reelection. I wish he hadn't endorsed Kamala. I wish the Democrats and Obama had backed Sanders or Biden in 2016 when they were fit to serve. I wish Trump moderated himself after the attempt on his life instead of business as usual a week later.

I hope I'm wrong about everything observably bad about Trump's first term and his decline since, because with another trifecta of loyalists, he's probably getting much more done this time.

Its really simple though.

Do you want a dictator with near unlimited legal immunity in charge of the country? Thats what the November vote is for. Everything else is secondary.

"It became necessary to destroy [democracy] to save it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B%E1%BA%BFn_Tre

Just looking at the top 1k comments to that joe biden's tweet, it looks like they are all written by one man. At least written by from one side i.e. hate and insults and pro republican side!

I wonder if we can give the voters an option of no president. I would choose it, barring some insane calamity (like country X deciding to invade USA) I think everything will run fine without a presidency.

Be skeptical. Why are announcements being delivered from the social media staff via twitter ? Where is the President ?

The party of let's save democracy, just had a successful soft coup against their popularly elected primary candidate. Now the party elite will choose your candidate for you.

I think it’s incredibly significant that the announcement came on twitter a network run by a prominent trump supporter. You have to wonder how that all went down for the administration to have to resort to that opinion.

For many hours it seemed like the announcement might have actually been a hoax because of how unofficial seeming the announcement was. I really want to read on how this all went down.

Hard to draw a line here in terms of guidelines:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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