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So... where's Joe Biden?
I will state for the record that these sort of questions come up fairly regularly. Almost always, the VIP emerges soon enough, seemingly no worse for wear. Kim Jong-un was MIA for a couple weeks, and I think Putin may have disappeared too at one point.
So normalcy bias being what it is, I expect Joe to turn up soon and give some sort of speech.
But, isn't it a bit strange that Biden made his announcement via Twitter of all places and hasn't been seen in public since? We have no idea whether he wrote that statement, or even signed it. The only evidence of him "stepping aside" is a JPEG on Twitter. Personally, I think there is a real chance that he is seriously ill. The stress of the two weeks cannot have been good for his health.
On a more meta level, this seems to pattern match a behavior we've seen from the Democrats a lot. Instead of proactively using openness to refute conspiracy theorists, they seem to double down on secrecy. Why let the rumors swirl? Why not have Joe pop out to say hello?
Whatever happens, I expects some great books and movies to come out about this two week period. To be a fly on the wall in the White House!
Update: 12:20am Tuesday. There are some crazy rumors swirling on Twitter with one source claiming that Biden is in hospice care and might die soon. It's a very low status source, but they correctly called the Sunday resignation. (Humorously they are squabbling with another low status source and have a ban bet going). Back in normiestan, Biden's physician claims that he is nearly recovered from Covid and is performing all Presidential duties (odd statement, that). More facts: Biden was supposed to meet with Netanyahu today but it's been moved to Thursday. Polymarket currently has Biden with a 50% chance of finishing his term - with no movement in the last 24 hours.
What would be the point of pretending Biden isn't dead?
If he died we'd get president and candidate Harris. Seems to be what everyone wants.
She’d take the office as the first woman President of the US after having dropped out of the 2020 primaries due to bad polling and having been nominated by Biden due to her demographic profile (“Black” woman). She’d be seen as the face of DEI quota hiring, not a woman who succeeded due to her merits like Secretary Clinton would have been. The House will have to vote in her successor as Veep, and she’d be stuck with whoever they chose. None of the optics are good. And the polling says she has a good chance to occupy the office for all of half a year before Trump becomes 48th.
They also want her to earn the office of 47th President with votes, because they can campaign on “if you vote for her, you can show the world a woman can be President!” This boosts the down-ballot races.
It's a ceremonial office anyway.
Of course, the 25th amendment doesn't cancel the election.
I don't totally discount the argumentum ab vibum, but I don't think it's strong enough to keep a conspiracy going.
I agree, I think there's a much likelier chance that Biden is very upset at what happened and is just not being very cooperative with the people who engineered his ouster
I think he's probably in a moderately-bad state (but not terminal) plus not cooperating. If he hadn't taken a downturn, I think he's not coerced to resign.
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