Sean Mooney

Just to play devil's advocate for a minute- none of us here know what Biden was like in private meetings or what his leadership style was like behind the scenes in 2024 versus like 2022 or 2020 or anything like that. Yes there were some things he said in public where you scratched your head a little but I'd also argue that stringing together long cogent arguments was never a major strong suit of his. I'd also wager that some of his advisors were saying to themselves "Well Trump goes off on these weird tangents too at times and it never seems to hurt him..." But when the debate happened you had 90-120 minutes of Biden out there on live TV stumbling through words and thoughts and sounding off and at that point no matter what he was behind the scenes- the public perception was now going to be Biden on that June 27th night. And you 100% weren't going to recover from that- especially when everything coming out of the debate in the media was not centered around answers of either candidate. It was all around "So, what's wrong with Biden" Now if Biden was like that behind the scenes and they turned a blind eye- that's on them in every way. If there was a gap between his private self and public image- then yeah it's a little murkier and makes sense why maybe they were trying to play out the string

They are deflecting away from criticizing their own shitty job at running a campaign.

What facts? I'm saying Musk might not be the most qualified person for the amount of power he is going to be given. Additionally- he shouldn't be given unchecked power. The president's job is to check his power.

None of that applies to me. No you didn't. You guys must love authoritarian citizens.

That's true but doesn't change what I said. You want to try again?

It's fine by me if you are okay with the potential of Elon Musk having unchecked power....

He probably got mad he had zero friends? I mean- I'm of the age I went through the Facebook era. Hell i went through the MySpace era. I have an Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter as well. I rarely use them, but they are there

The problem becomes they are selling that they are "News" but they are offering takes. It goes back to the idea that they might not see what they are but that is how people see them. They are the most watched news network by far and you have people like my wife's grandmother who almost literally watches FOX News from the time she gets up until the time she goes to bed. I'd assume the numbers are huge in people like her. And for her it's all news, not opinion.

Saw this article, read it, and thought it fit in somewhere with the discussion of "unqualified" people in positions of power. https://www.axios.com/2024/11/07/elon-musk-trump-election

You have free rent in his head too? Awesome. Look at us in this horrible economy living rent free

Ask JuneJuly...maybe that alter ego gets the point?

I'm seeing some crying on my Facebook feed but also a lot of like weird over the top stuff about Trump from his supporters. I'll say what I've said numerous times here- hero worshipping politicians (be it Trump, Obama, etc) is just bizarre. I compare it to the people who define their lives through like Taylor Swift songs. Settle the hell down people.

They won't hold the same position but cool....hope you feel better now.

I've never sat and watched a full program of any of it- be it Gutfeld, The Five, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Anderson Cooper, Abby Phillips (I've seen clips online of these things)....but they are not news programs. They tell you a story and then spend time arguing about their opinions on it and at some point it just becomes a blur of nonsense being disguised as news. I mean I've seen clips of The Five and it is literally just PTI for the news- who the hell wants that?

I think they are probably called Keishas... that's a bad joke. I know

Every admin has at least someone who is unqualified in a position. I really hope Trump decides against RFK Jr......that dude is a dumb lunatic.

This is interesting to note because it seems to be pointed directly at legacy or older media. However, the most preferred places to get news by Gen X and younger is places like TikTok, and Twitter which are also places- especially the former- where stuff is presented as snippets of interviews edited in a way to make things sound worse than what they actually were. And there are two times as much "pro-Trump" content as their way "pro-Biden or pro-Harris" content there. Additionally, look at the amount of people here who share YouTube videos as fact when it is someone blowing up a singular quote to rant on it for 10-15 minutes. The biggest issue we have from a news source is we have allowed- in all forms and walks of media- for the line between opinion and news to blur to an insane point. Look at any of the 24 hour news channels. They are dominated from about 3pm on by personality driven opinion shows. Social media allows us to curate our timelines in such a way that we only see things that support our already held positions. This is all a problem because the general public isn't reaching out to learn opposing viewpoints, they are allowing the opposing viewpoints to be brought to them with a spin applied to it.

Tina Nguyen is a writer for Puck and previously worked with Tucker Carlson, Breitbart, and other places like that. She is fairly plugged in to the MAGA world and Donald Trump. She wrote a long social media thread where she argued that Project 2025 most likely is not what Trump is going to borrow from. Mainly because the Project 2025 playbook from the Heritage Foundation was designed to be a turnkey playbook for any Republican President, not specifically Donald Trump. Additionally Trump is not a huge fan of the Heritage Foundation because they have a board and donors and Trump feels like they will have a layer of independence from him and he doesn't want that. Instead Trump will most likely pull from a "MAGA version" of the Project 2025 handbook which was developed by the America First Policy Institute which was founded 4 years ago by many people who were former Cabinet members and Trump officials- this includes people like Linda McMahon, Chad Wolf, and Larry Kudlow. They argued that they were better attuned to Trump's thought process and best for creating a ready made policy for him. Their playbook is designed to be for one GOP president and that was Trump. It is a means of providing and protecting a legacy for him. The thread ends with this: Make of all that what you will. Thread is on Twitter

Yup. All the pieces are in place. No reason to not get stuff done. If he does good for him. If he doesn't, he should be called out on it.

I figured maybe like AOC or Wes Moore who were two of the people still backing him Maybe Tammy Duckworth

100% she should have

You can say it....League Champion.

I posted it yesterday but if I'm Biden I go into the DNC and re-enact the scene from half Baked where the guy quits the fast food place and tells everyone "Fuk You"

I gave some thoughts on this before but I'll quickly recap: 1.) She should've taken the Joe Rogan podcast invite. There were almost no negatives to it. She either goes on and completely bombs out and loses no votes most likely, or she goes there- trades shots with Rogan and comes off looking tough and presidential. There was more upside than downside to doing it and they miscalculated. 2.) They narrowed the scope of what they were going for voter wise (this ties into 1 some). You need to throw the net wide and try to catch people. They decided their path to win was women and young people and then they zeroed in on essentially just women and started thinking "We've got these votes in hand." It is the same thing Hillary did in 2016 where she abandoned polling in the Rust Belt states thinking "I've got those" and started looking to a rout and it blew up in her face. 3.) They never established strongly enough the policies she wanted to implement and they relied on focus grouped catchphrases. "I want to create an Opportunity Economy." Okay but that means nothing. Just say "I want to cut taxes x%." Speak in simple, direct phrasing. That's why Clinton rolled in the 90's. That was an appeal of Obama. Yes Barack was an intelligent guy, but he knew how to speak in a way that cut right to what he wanted to do. 4.) They badly misread the emotions of the general populace. Every poll indicated this was about the economy. I pointed out here that this is despite a lot of markers being positive economically but still people's perceptions of the economy was not meeting reality because they were focusing on the singular tangible issue of a grocery bill. But the Kamala team message then was all about "Feel those vibes? Aren't you feeling joy? Let's party everyone" Then it became "Hey, don't put the potential dictator in charge." Then in the last week it went back too "Enough of that dictator stuff, back to the vibes." Look when people are pissed you can't stand there and try to tell them "We are having fun though right?" That just further pisses people off. 5.) To the point about #4- the Kamala campaign central message changed 3 times in a 107 day campaign. So basically, once a month. You can't do that.

My thing would be this- pointing the finger at Biden is silly too because- I don't think he wins either. I'm not sold any Democrat wins necessarily. There are some signs that maybe they would have- I mean in Michigan and Wisconsin they elected Democrat senators despite going GOP for President. Nevada and Arizona seem like maybe they elected Democrat senators. Pennsylvania is leaning GOP right now so in the 7 battleground states, you had 5 senator races and 4 of them potentially went Democrat. That speaks to a divide at the top of the ticket. But again- if I'm Biden I'm annoyed. He got pushed aside in 2016. He got pushed aside in 2024. He will be the only Democrat candidate who can say he beat Trump in a Presidential election and it was fairly handily from a popular vote and electoral vote perspective. And he is going to have to deal with the person he instilled as his vice president having her team point fingers at him.