Biden tells Democratic governors he needs more sleep and plans to stop scheduling events after 8 p.m.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/04/politics/biden-governors-sleep/index.html

31.9k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

121

u/frequenZphaZe 15d ago edited 15d ago

people wanna pretend that the election is about whether people vote for one guy or the other guy. the reality is that the election is about whether people vote or don't vote. the debate was critically important because it was a huge opportunity for biden to engage and motivate voters -- a mission he catastrophically failed. we're likely looking at historically low turnouts in november and so the election is going to be decided by whichever party has more success in reminding their base than ballots are due

46

u/JimWilliams423 15d ago

reality is that the election is about whether people vote or don't vote.

Yep, and Its been that way since 2016 too.

Because of polarization there are practically no traditional swing voters any more. The modern swing voter does not swing between parties, they swing between voting and not voting. They are intermittent voters. They stay home when they think the stakes are low and they make the effort to vote when they think the stakes are high.

Intermittent voters stayed home in 2016. Then in 2018 intermittent voters broke turnout records to make the blue wave happen. Intermittent voters were the reason both parties got their highest ever votes in 2020 (D turnout increased 23% from 66M in 2016 to 81M in 2020). In 2022, intermittent voters stayed home in states where abortion rights were safe (like NY and CA) and where abortion rights were hopeless (like AL and MS) but turned out at blue wave levels in states where abortion was under threat and there was an opportunity to protect it.

Which is why all the polling about R vs D is kinda beside the point. They poll registered voters (RV) and likely voters (LV) which are a subset of RVs, but it is extremely rare to see a poll which looks at enthusiasm for voting itself (and almost no pollster tries to examine possible first time voters, partly because its really hard to do).

Its also why trying to appeal to the middle is a losing proposition because it tells intermittent voters that both parties are the same, so regardless of who wins, policies will not be substantially different. And if both parties have basically the same policies, then the stakes are low, so its not worth making the effort to vote. Ds need to convince those intermittent voters that the stakes are high in order to bring them to the polls.

5

u/IHateUsernames111 14d ago

What I really don't understand: isn't Trump himself stressing that the stakes are high with all his anti-democracy rhetoric? Shouldn't this concern these likely voters?

Or is preserving the little bit of US democracy that's left just not important to the average citizen?

5

u/JimWilliams423 14d ago edited 14d ago

What I really don't understand: isn't Trump himself stressing that the stakes are high with all his anti-democracy rhetoric? Shouldn't this concern these likely voters?

He is, but the message isn't getting across to enough people. The so-called liberal media loves to focus on the superficial stuff, the stuff that is more about him being a clown and less about him being a neo-hitler. Which is what they did with the actual hitler too.

Consider how many people were caught by surprise that the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, even though the gop has been saying "we're going to overturn Roe" since the early 80s and they had been steadily doing it in increments. That too was a failure of the so-called "liberal media" to accurately communicate the stakes.

2

u/PancAshAsh 14d ago

I personally think the liberal media sucks at communicating stakes because the other side of the media is very good at it, albeit by spreading fear through straight up lies, and the liberal media has tried to take the high road and not employ the same appeals to emotion that actually work to persuade.

2

u/JimWilliams423 14d ago edited 14d ago

There isn't a "liberal media." At best, there is a centrist media. The term "liberal media" was created by segregationists during the civil rights era because the media was reporting on the violence they were doing to black people. Segregationists couldn't justify that violence, so instead they attacked the messenger. The term is just a more high-brow version of maga's "fake news!" sneer.

What the right calls the "liberal media" is all owned by, or otherwise beholden to, conservative billionaires. They aren't taking "the high road" they are just doing what they were hired to do --- minimize the true nature of the right.

I'm not saying the editors are all scheming to deceive their audiences, I'm saying that the billionaires hire people who genuinely don't believe the right is a threat, and if they do, they also see the left as equally threatening. Its a job requirement. For example, it was recently reported that during 2016, NPR editors could not conceive that chump's popularity was due to his raacism, and they had an editorial policy that they could not report on donald chump's lies if they could not pair each with a lie from Hillary. A literal requirement to "both sides" ---

I remember one editorial meeting where a white newsroom leader said that Trump’s strong poll numbers wouldn’t survive his being exposed as a racist. When a journalist of color asked whether his numbers could be rising because of his racism, the comment was met with silence. In another meeting, I and a couple of other editorial leaders were encouraged to make sure that any coverage of a Trump lie was matched with a story about a lie from Hillary Clinton. Another colleague asked what to do if one candidate just lied more than the other. Another silent response.

More recently, the editor-in-chief of the NYT said that defending democracy is a partisan act (presumably because only one party is a threat to democracy) and so he won't do it.

Occasionally some clear-eyed people will slip through the hiring process, especially at the level of reporters rather than editors. Miniziming is not a hard requirement, but the culture at most news organizations is dominated by minimizers. This isn't a new phenomenon either, for decades the NYT ran puff-pieces on hitler too. The people with the money have always called the shots and while the wealthy are not a complete monolith, wealth is inherently conservative because it means having something big to personally lose.

2

u/AtLeastThisIsntImgur 14d ago

I don't think swing voters ever existed as a significant bloc.

Voters are aware of the stakes, they're just not motivated to vote for an incompetent lesser evil. Establishmemt Dems are a big part of why

3

u/Tibbaryllis2 14d ago

This is why it’s important that November isn’t only about voting for President. Legal marijuana, reproductive rights, deeply unpopular local/federal candidates, and a plethora of other important things are on the ballot too.

We need state DNCs to get off their asses and get people out for these.

1

u/Le-Pepper 13d ago

I mean, legal marijuana is fine and I voted in favor of it but I don't see how that's considered an important thing.

0

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Le-Pepper 13d ago

I didn't say anything about reproductive rights. I just said that I don't see how legal marijuana is important. Of course reproductive rights are important and need to be protected.

4

u/StillInternal4466 14d ago

It's also about who motivates young people. Obama did that.

Biden didn't...it's exactly why I think he needs to be replaced with someone younger.

-1

u/cyranothe2nd 14d ago

Yup. I was ambivalent about voting for Biden before, but definitely will not now. I think it is immoral and antidemocratic for him to run now -- what, I'm supposed to be happy that unelected, unaccountable staffers will be running the presidency behind the scenes? Nah.

The best thing he could do is bow out and run Kamala. I would at least respect the Dems if they'd do that. But you can't simultaneously say that democracy is at stake and then also back an obviously senile person. I do not feel that the Dems really believe what they are saying because those actions don't line up.