@evan Not only is President Biden *not* the only Democratic politician who could beat Mr. Trump, post-debate he's probably not the Democrat with the best odds of doing so.
It would be worth doing some polling for Whitmer, Shapiro, Newsom and Harris, though the results would be skewed as only Harris is well-known at present.
@evan Another possibility is that President Biden chooses to step aside and anoint a successor, based on his assessment of who would carry on his policies and would be best-placed to defeat Mr. Trump. It would be an honourable thing to do.
@evan I chose qualified no. I've read enough #JonathanHaidt to worry about the effects of social media, particularly upon adolescent girls, so I don't think it's a crazy idea to have warnings. On the other hand, the Fediverse isn't designed to maximise eyeballs like corporate social networks are, so I lean towards no warning here.
But you're someone who's been building social networks — I would have expected you to be less sceptical about them than I am, not more.
@evan "Can"... lots of things could happen between now and November; the only really necessary precondition for a win is that President Biden is still alive then.
@evan I'd say the people on the Fediverse are neither, but the Fediverse as technology is counter-cultural: it is a return to the early days of the Internet, before it became about exponential growth, monetizing users and IPOs.
@evan No one particularly bothers me here [0]; on the other hand, I'm aware of people who *are* harassed on the Fediverse, particularly Blacks and Jews. It's a damned shame.
[0] Though part of my tranquility is because I generally avoid jumping into political conversations to disagree with strangers. I let people be wrong on the Internet.
@evan It's awful that leaders of extremist parties can find their way into cabinet in Israel.
I know it's a hobbyhorse of mine, but I can't help wondering what Israeli politics would be like with an electoral system that tends to reward the party that wins a plurality of votes with a majority government.
"International law tends to be poorly understood, even among lawyers. But it retains an aura among laymen which frequently leads to its invocation as a form of higher law, though often in a severely mangled form. Recent events such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have made the problem even more acute, so that it may be useful to provide here a short primer of some of its salient features."
@evan Political conventions in the US have been mostly boring since the primary process made them a dead letter. Where's the conflict? Where's the surprise? You can't really blame the media for covering what goes on outside.
There's still time though for President Biden to step aside and release his delegates. Now that would be exciting...
Dr. Johnson also had some wisdom on the idea of "The One": Boswell: "Pray, Sir, do you not suppose that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as happy, as with any one woman in particular?" Johnson: "Ay, Sir, fifty thousand."
"[W]hether you think this is an accurate portrayal of the kind of politics that became dominant in progressive circles in the last 10-12 years, something happened. Something changed."
Of course campus protests as such are not new to US politics.