Gretchen, Booker, Abrams. Lots of potential candidates that are young, charismatic, and have largely clean slates like Obama.

People fell in line to avoid another 2016 infighting, not because we don’t have candidates. Literally anyone young would do better for aforementioned reasons.

The only way this works is if Biden voluntarily agrees and steps down, which ensures nobody is burned by the party.

I seriously doubt it but I really hope this is a wake-up call for Democrats. I remain convinced that Biden voluntarily stepping down and permitting a younger more charismatic figure in his place will be all that is needed to win, and I say this for a few reasons:

• By the polling, age is a huge issue for a significant majority of Americans, with it clearly harming Biden more.
• Any youthful semi-in-the-shadows candidate will be fresh for Americans, who will be excited for anything different.
• The right-wing talking-points won’t be pre-written.

Call it a reverse-October surprise.

That being said, this is the earliest debate ever and Trump still needs to go through sentencing in July. People won’t really remember this debate, but it certainly did not help Biden in any capacity.

Agreed. One strategist on PBS pre-debate show put it succinctly: “The debate is won or lost in the first 30 minutes.”

Let’s be honest, fact-checking doesn’t matter to the American people watching this. The people who need to hear these facts have already been preprogrammed to believe CNN is biased and lying.

Buttigieg, Booker, Abrams, fuck even Warren despite her age would mop the floor with Trump.

I really wish Americans weren’t ignorant enough to fall for someone who looks better on TV even though they’re a convicted felon who tried to undermine and overthrow a free and fair election, but history tells me otherwise.

I seriously hope there are high level discussions within the Democratic party and with Biden about putting someone else forward.

I voted for Biden and I’ll vote for him again to keep a fascist out of office, but it is quite clear that the best thing Democrats could do is to have Biden back out and put forth a younger charismatic candidate. Age and the excitement about someone fresh would be enough to sweep this. That’s just a reflection of what polls are already telling us. The debate just started, but it’s quite clear that the optics of a debate thus far are going to Trump.

Immigration talking-points for Biden:

• “I tried passing the strongest border security bill in decades, and your party blocked it”

• “White American citizens commit more crime than undocumented immigrants. Let’s worry about the right-wing extremists already inside our country that the FBI warned us about.”

• “These immigrants actually help keep food prices lower. Donald doesn’t seem to care that this action on this overblown fearmongering will make your grocery bill even higher.”

• “Let’s focus on the big fish like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Chinese foreign nationals buying large swaths of American soil. Heck even the King of Jordan owns beach front Malibu mansions that subtracts from the average America’s chance at the American dream.”

Everyone owes it themselves to watch the PBS Frontline documentary on the Uvalde response.

Cowardice, gross negligence, and outrageous incompetence.

The only people I had respect for was the BORTAC team that showed up and got the shit going and actually made entry into the room.

Watching the PBS stream and they show the attack ad against Biden;

“Are you financially better off since he became president.”

Is your family safer?

Is our country more secure?"

Yes to all three in my family’s case.

Thanks to Democratic legislation I dodged nearly $35,000 in emergency medical expenses and instead had to only pay about $750. Thanks to the IRA legislation, I was able to invest in both solar and an energy-efficient A/C for my house for which I got 30% off through deductions that I otherwise wouldn’t have obtained.

I definitely feel safer in this border state, my elections more secure, and I appreciate a leader who stands up to global tyrants.

Democrats could get so much fucking better messaging.

For instance, Gallup shows a majority of Americans hold a favorable view of small-business and an unfavorable view of big business. (the latter wasn’t always the case).

They could easily talk about universal healthcare liberating people to innovate and entrepreneur without concern of either Healthcare for themselves or subsidizing employee health insurance. This was a huge burden on my dad’s successful small business for years.

The image of wealthy executives making record profits while productivity sores and yet the slice of the pie gets smaller for everyone is powerful.

We need to remind folks that the majority of Wall Street, bankers, real estate investors, corporate executives are conservative Republicans and that these people DO NOT have the best interest of the common Joe in mind.

The official Democratic candidates must get better, more evocative talking-points. Rachel Bitecofer’s book is a must-read. If we’re facing radical extremism in bully form then we must assertively push the bully back.

It matters though. The weight of a single Rep in the House is far less than a US Senator. It sucks, of course, but very relevant. He can’t be a Manchin.

Because I was well trained

Well you see, many of these cops joined the force because they would’ve flunked or did flunk basic.

They got banned site-wide, according to the modlog :)

Top 150 ranked in world on Company of Heroes 1v1 a long time ago lol. Got to play against some of the #1’s - one of them left to join the South Korean military I heard. Got stomped but was fun.

I was pretty damn good at C&C Generals: Zero Hour back in the day. Damn I wish they remastered that game.

Was ranked on global leaderboards in Dota for a brief moment, too. Top 1%, but never close to the 0.1%.

My favorite moment in gaming was playing a sniper in Red Orchestra in a large 64 player game. Huge map. All game I’m sniping people left and right. Not dying once. Meanwhile throughout the game, like 30 minutes, the enemy sniper is equally decimating my team’s ranks. I was hunting for him the entire game to no avail. Then, while prone I crest this ridgeline to scout a valley below and as I pan my scope to look all the way down toward the other side of my ridgeline, I see the other sniper lock with me at Exactly. The Same. Time.

We both fire.

And since Red Orchestra actually tries to simulate ballistics, we both hit each other and die.

Did you have boots with the fur?

If it’s just us, it’s pretty much based on how soon we can get PTO for those days, so 1-3 months.

But coordinating a vacation with others requires you to go WAY far out and basically harass people as you continuously remind them.

Bail out banks: Good.

Bail out poor/middle-class: Bad!

Edit: Video of the moment in OP’s post during Portsmouth, NH 2016 rally

The GIF is from Trump’s 2016 Green Bay, WI rally @ 43:20

Save these videos, people. They’ll be handy gotchas from here until November.

Look I’m from such a small Pennsylvania town. Rural Appalachian. Coal mines and specialty steel production most notably.

Both of you are right, and the problems feed back into each other to some extent.

After my family migrated west more than a decade ago, every single time we go back to PA to visit family, attend a funeral and so forth — it just keeps looking more and more run down. Honestly the place is a shit-hole nowadays. I’m sad to see my old county went for Trump by 70%. You couldn’t pay me enough to move my family back.

The young, educated, smart, and compassionate folks leave and GTFO asap — both for jobs, and for more diversity and tolerance. The sad part is I remember watching a slew of documentaries in the early 2000s forewarning of what would happen to these small-towns…

• Because of shipping manufacturing off elsewhere.
• Because of big box corporate eating up local shops, eroding community and draining out the money.
• Because administrations were unwilling to break the hard news that things like coal mines wouldn’t last forever and we’d have to help retrain and get them to new modern job sectors.

No doubt these communities feel the pressures they’re complaining about; they’ve just been exploited by right-wing media about who is responsible: the southern migrant more desperate than them, the trans, the homosexuals, the liberals, etc…

@FlyingSquid is also right that there is FAR more bigotry among these communities as well; and that ties back to not being well-traveled, our education system collapsing, and the right-wing fearmongering machine.

Edit: Shit, Inside Out 3 should be about being inside the head of a MAGA supporter.