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.

  • Liz@midwest.social
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    6 months ago

    You start from the bottom and work your way up. Switch your local elections to approval with a referendum campaign, and by the time you get up to the state level you’ll have people in office who have already proven they can win under approval. I’m serious. You should run a referendum campaign.

    • Toastypickle@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Lol, my state, county, and city are so deep red that there’s no chance. Most local primaries, there’s not even a democrat on the ballots. My options are to write in my favorite fictional characters or vote for the least shitbag republicans. My votes are quite literally a waste.

      • Liz@midwest.social
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        6 months ago

        Changing the voting system has nothing to do with the parties in power. Also, it’s a referendum campaign. You’d be collecting signatures from the citizens in order to get it on the ballot. Pretty much all you have to do is find some primaries where the winner got like 25% percent of the vote and talk about how unacceptable that is. St. Louis uses approval for their primaries instead of the general. Approval asks what fraction of the population approved of a candidate, so the winner’s percentage is practically guaranteed to go up, demonstrating they actually do have broad support.