The rule of law ended today. Democracy will end if the christo-fascists win the election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries

Other people ran in the Democratic Party’s primary. As is typical of US politics, the incumbent president won their primary.

Biden and Trump both won their primaries, because people in their respective parties voted for Biden and Trump. Trump had even more challengers than Biden did. This outcome wasn’t predetermined, just predictable.

Hillary Clinton vs Jeb Bush in 2016 was predictable. But as we saw with Trump’s win, not predetermined.

In a democracy, the person who wins an election gets the position they ran for.

Biden won the Democratic Party’s primary election so he is going to be the Democratic Party’s candidate. That is democracy.

There is no mechanism at this stage that can force him to do so that I am aware of. They can of course try to convince him, but no one from Biden’s inner circle, like Jill Biden, or any of the hypothetical candidates people like to float, like Gavin Newsom, has expressed interest in doing that.

Yeah, at least Trump didn’t gain any ground. Biden lost the battle, but we’re still fighting the war.

The christo-fascists are not in complete control of all three branches of government yet. That is why this election and voting is so important. Calling it early is both inaccurate and unhelpful.

Only Biden can drop

This is a true statement. Biden won the primary. The delegates are pledged to him. Biden is the one who has to decide if he drops out.

You’re the hero we needed and the hero we deserved.

Biden has already committed to serving four more years.

The discourse around Biden exiting the race is moot because the only one who decides if he continues is Biden. Biden is still running so nothing changes. Biden is who we need to vote for to keep our democracy.

Biden had a bad debate performance. It was a missed opportunity to pick up new voters. Biden demoralized his base. But we’re still stuck with him, because there is no external mechanism to stop him from running.

The most effective tool we have to prevent the christo-fascist takeover this November is voting. The debate did not change that.

I switched to MSNBC. Biden sounded great at the watch party right after the debate. We could really have used that energy and audible clarity during the debate.

Please stay strong. We’re all in this together.

That was disappointing.

Trump got mic cut once at the start.

Trump is becoming more incoherent. Biden at least is staying consistent.

Trump keeps dodging questions by going back to the previous topic. It gives him as much time to talk as he wants. And then he doesn’t have to spend as much time on the issues where he is weaker.

This debate has the potential to hurt or help Biden. Biden needs a win. People need to be energized about his campaign, because he needs high voter turn out to win the election. A loss for Biden, a neutral performance, or no one watching, in this debate all functionally do the same thing. Any of those cases is a missed opportunity. Biden skating by in this debate isn’t going to cut it.

Trump succeeds when other people fail, so Biden’s performance will matter more than whatever Trump does. Trump has a cult. Since there won’t be a live audience, he could put a cap in Jake Tapper and Dana Bash and his supporters would cheer. So this debate isn’t really for the MAGA crowd. It’s for the rest of us.

I’m going to be incredibly frustrated if the headlines for the coverage after the debate is ‘no one watched’, because that can only help Trump.

Yeah, I think there will be people watching for that. I think they both will be trying to avoid that though so I doubt that we’ll see much of that. Also, the muted mics were a good call. Even if Trump does start shouting Biden should have no problem talking over him.

There might be a lot of people who aren’t paying attention still. So I would rather not be quiet. We won’t know for sure until the election, but it still seems reasonable that we are sleep walking into fascism. =(

We should assume Biden will do well in the debate and get as many eye balls watching it as possible. If you know people who might otherwise not watch the debate, consider sending them the how to watch link. Biden needs the debate win for his campaign where as Trump would prefer if everyone tuned out. It would be a missed opportunity if no one watches.