Biden Becomes Litmus Test for 2028 Contenders

[applegrove]

Biden Becomes Litmus Test for 2028 Contenders

May 16, 2025 at 5:55 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 33 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2025/05/16/biden-becomes-litmus-teat-for-2028-contenders/

Politico: “Joe Biden may have cost Democrats the White House in 2024. Their inability to admit it, some Democrats fear, could hobble them in 2028.”

“As a fresh reckoning in the party unfolds around the former president’s mental acuity, potential presidential contenders have mostly dodged questions about his condition while in office. They’ve also sidestepped whether the party should have more forcefully called on him to abandon his reelection bid earlier.”

Playbook: “On some basic level, this is about credibility and authenticity. Biden’s decline while in office was apparent to most voters; the public was upfront from very early on in the 2024 cycle with their doubts about his age and acuity. And so the ability to acknowledge what is plain in most voters’ eyes risks becoming a basic test of candor and honesty.”

[sinkingfeeling]

1. F@#k 'em.

[FalloutShelter]

29. I know. This really gets me.

I’d like to remind all of my DU family that before the bad debate performance, many Democrats were celebrating Joe as the “best President of our lifetime.”

Now he’s just road kill on our way to oblivion unless we stop with the circular firing squad.

It just really pisses me off.

[displacedvermoter]

2. Politico is garbage

Are they actively reporting on the clear and indisputable collapse of the current President's faculties? Has this become some sort of litmus test for Republicans? Of course not.

This whole issue is just nonsense as the current administration flounders in terms of both competence and "candor and honesty". Did the people writing these articles read what they wrote, do they have no shame or self awareness?

[applegrove]

4. The Biden/honesty about his health thing has been

around for months. I think it was around during the election. It is not just Politico.

[displacedvermoter]

7. And the Trump blabbering about sharks and Arnold Palmer's

dick have been around for years. And all of these folks have not reported on it seriously.

[SocialDemocrat61]

24. All the bs about Hillary Clinton's emails

was around for months. Lies about Al Gore claiming he invented the internet. Just because the corrupt corporate media repeats the same lies over “for months” doesn’t make them true.

[Biophilic]

3. What a lot of white wash baloney.

Is that what they are going to say about trump and the republicans? Not a chance. And yet trump is so obviously over the boundaries of dementia that he should go into the textbooks as a classical example. Garbage, garbage and more garbage.

[marble falls]

5. Sounds like Politico is ginning up a fight int the DNC. Fuck Politico and those who end up buying into this fake thing.

... why would we do this? '24 is over, dump Mango T. Jebus's successor, who-ever they are in'28.

[applegrove]

8. You don't think democrats want to know their leaders are on

the same page regarding Biden?

[marble falls]

10. As Democrats we'd better all be on the same page as Joe Biden without a fucking hairpull. It's done and we're in the ...

... worst Presidency ever and will be in it's aftermath in '28. We have more important things to do than divert into a circle jerk over '24 in '28.

[travelingthrulife]

54. Not if that page is disrespecting a very good President.

The only reason this is an issue is because Trump is losing it mentally. The GOP media are shifting the focus as they always do, and Democrats are falling for it as they always do.

[sop]

6. Who came up with this "Litmus Test for 2028 Contenders"?

The media loves to make up shit like this. Biden's gone, but they're still flogging their "he's too old" narrative from 2024.

[Starbeach]

39. F Litmus Tests

They're laying ground for the hand-raising questions in a debate. Avoid these BS demands for phony squabbles from outsiders.

[travelingthrulife]

55. And Democrats keep falling right in line to lap it up. Why?

[uponit7771]

60. Yep M$M did

[newdeal2]

11. Funny, Republicans had no such litmus test when it came to Jan 6

In fact, they elected the main perpetrator and are now rewriting history to soothe one crazy man’s ego.

Fuck the MSM.

[yardwork]

12. They're going after Biden because he was reversing Reaganomics.

For the first time in 40 years, a president was leading the charge to redistribute wealth to the poor.

[applegrove]

16. That is a good reason for Democrats to say they softened

their criticism of Biden's age: he was reversing trickle down.

[yardwork]

19. Biden was functioning efficiently as president.

I didn't see any issues with the way he was governing. He had smart people around him and they were working well as an administration.

[applegrove]

21. Yes. But he acted aged. And that was not attractive

or inspiring to younger people.

[emulatorloo]

22. In other words, "Vibes." Vibes cultivated by a press that hated Biden because he was 'boring'

and got things done. Not to mention the Right Wing Media system’s falsely projecting Trump’s obvious mental decline onto Biden.

[Self Esteem]

42. It wasn't just that he was boring.

It was that he rarely interacted with the media - even favorable media like MSNBC. The narrative was built that he was being handled and the media didn't like that. They wanted access and the Biden team generally refused it.

Biden was strong at governing but awful at playing the media. That's where both Obama and Trump run circles around Biden. Obama was good at charming the media, and providing interviews, even with hostile outlets (think about the time he went on O'Reilly) and Trump is good at giving near-universal access. Trump berates the media but he at least talks to them. He holds press conferences. He does interviews.

Biden rarely did any of that. Biden held the fewest press conferences and interviews of any recent president.

I get it - Biden's team had a valid distrust for the media but part of politics in 2024 is playing the media's game and if you're not willing to do it, don't be surprised if they turn on you.

Biden had plenty of opportunities to engage with the media throughout his presidency and he rarely did it the final two years in office.

In his first year, he held town halls.

He stopped doing that in 2023.

It really isn't a surprise the media turned on him. They want access. Biden refused it.

So, their question now shifts to why they refused access. Especially since Biden was always known for his ability to engage the media. He used to love doing interviews and rubbing elbows with the press.

But by 2024, he wasn't even doing interviews with MSNBC anymore (his last interview with MSNBC prior to his final with Lawrence O'Donnell at the end of his presidency was with Nicolle Wallace in June of 2023).

The media sucks but as president, you kinda have to engage with them and it always felt like Biden was never allowed to.

[valleyrogue]

37. What does that even mean? It sounds ageist to me. n/t

[Bettie]

28. People say that Social Security/Medicare are the "third rail"

Nope. It's taxing the rich. That's the real one.

[yardwork]

31. I read that there's a tipping point when a society has too many ultra-wealthy people.

The theory is that the ultra-wealthy wander around looking for things to meddle in. They try to change the society to their own benefit. They don't understand what ordinary people are experiencing.

A lot of us see parallels with Nazi Germany but I also keep thinking of the French Revolution.

Trump won because he promised to lower prices. That isn't happening. At some point people notice, no matter what the pod caster says.

[Bettie]

33. And we definitely have ultra wealthy people

meddling in everything.

Now, I have to look up the French revolution to see if there were a bunch of the peasantry who were 100% in support of their own oppression....

[mcar]

13. In the meantime, a dictator and his minions

are destroying the country. But yes, let’s continue the circular firing squad here on DU.

[Prairie Gates]

14. Politico catapulting the right wing PR story of the week

That this is an orchestrated campaign at this point - including, ahem, close to home - is clear enough.

[EarlG]

15. Indeed -- a litmus test entirely created by the media

and driven by a few journalists who have books to sell. Apparently we are not permitted to look forward, but must only engage in lengthy, penitent navel-gazing sessions where we repeatedly rehash the historically weird circumstances of the last election, circumstances that are unlikely to repeat themselves in any of our lifetimes.

So thanks, media, for creating this litmus test, and indeed labeling it as a litmus test, so that from now on, none of our potential candidates are permitted to speak about the future without first jumping through a flaming hoop of pointlessness while flagellating themselves.

No offense intended to you for posting this news, OP — it’s just a tad depressing that the media has created this test to measure Democrats’ “authenticity and integrity” while a convicted conman tears down our entire Constitutional order for his own personal enrichment and the benefit of brutal foreign dictators.

[Lovie777]

20. Thank you.....

[emulatorloo]

23. Well said.

[Renew Deal]

27. Part of our problem in 2024 was we spent a good part of the time telling ourselves to not believe are eyes.

This is just the response to that.

The debate was bad, yet we had people telling us Biden "won." It's been reported that Biden's team was worried about him, which is why they wanted an early debate. It would give them room to replace him if it went bad. I remember this being reported through the Pod Save America guys, and possibly others.

We need to stop the head in the sand stuff when it comes to 2024. Biden was the better candidate over Trump. Kamala was better than Biden at the time on paper. If Biden was brave enough to step away in 2023, we would have had a much better chance in 2024. Unfortunately, we see very few people that are willing to let go of power, and that has dire costs.

[Prairie Gates]

32. Literally nobody said that Biden won the debate

Come on, now.

I thought Biden should have stated at his inauguration that he was doing one term and encouraged an open primary, for which he would endorse his Vice President. I was pretty sure either Biden or Harris would lose as soon as the debate fiasco happened. I'm sure you can find one or two who said Biden won the debate, but it was not a general consensus or even credible minority opinion even here at DU. If you were going to make this case, you should have done it with the ACTUAL debate about whether Bien should have stayed in or dropped it, which was a real thing that happened. Even some of us who thought Biden should have 100% been one term knew that his stepping out would create an irreparable situation, which it did. Debate against an actual point, and not some invented strawman.

There's more than one way to have one's head in the sand.

[Renew Deal]

35. Here's one

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=19135724

And there's many more on DU.

[Prairie Gates]

38. ...

"I'm sure you can find one or two who said Biden won the debate, but it was not a general consensus or even credible minority opinion even here at DU. "

[EarlG]

36. I think it was a series of cascading failures

As soon as Biden announced he was seeking re-election -- and to be fair, he probably felt good at the time, he was the incumbent president, and he'd already beaten Trump once -- the wheels were set in motion and there was no turning back.

Being in the moment-to-moment of the campaign, Biden's team didn't reach a point where they felt that what they were seeing crossed a line serious enough to abruptly abandon their efforts, until it was practically done for them. The slow but increasing drip of criticism created the "frog in a pot of water with the heat being slowly turned up" scenario, in which the frog doesn't jump out of the pot until it's too late. During that entire process, Democratic politicians were being forced to take sides.

I'm sure most of the people who publicly called for Biden to step down during the campaign genuinely believed that he wasn't up to it. But the unprecedented, hyper-political nature of the thing, during a hyper-political point on the calendar, allowed the media to revel in the "Dems in disarray" narrative -- which, to be fair, we were! -- and forced all of our prominent politicians and media figures to have to label themselves as either a team player or a ship-jumper. That was a choice that absolutely nobody wanted to have to make.

So I don't think there was any single cause other than simply Biden's decision to run again -- which I'm sure he felt was the right decision at the time -- that then turned into the pretty much unstoppable chain of events we saw play out.

But ultimately, my original point was who cares? Obviously I do, because I just wrote a bunch of paragraphs about it. But I don't want to care. It's old news -- I don't think there's anything much to learn from it. It's not like it was a set of circumstances that will be repeated any time soon.

[Sympthsical]

43. There's a difference between navel-gazing and being able to admit obvious things

Last year wasn't that long ago, and I do remember the commentary surrounding it.

It was plain and obvious to everyone - literally everyone who wasn't invested in wild conspiracies out of partisan motivation - that something was wrong. People saw what they saw. And instead of acknowledging it, the lies, obfuscations, and redirects became more and more ridiculous over time.

It was a genuine scandal. If Trump weren't so singularly awful, it would legitimately be one of the biggest political scandals of the 21st Century so far. We still talk about Woodrow and Edith Wilson, and this instance had that flavor all over it.

This is a big problem for us. This inability to recognize, admit, and engage on obvious things. That the political narrative must always supersede the plain reality that voters perceive. Telling people grocery prices and housing prices and insurance and their wallets weren't an issue. The economy's great, jack. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a right-winger!

It was absolutely insane that that was a through line of our messaging. That there weren't issues with the President and why are you believing your lying eyes? Those was some insanely brazen brass balls to attempt on an electorate that has 24/7 access to video.

And layering conspiracies all over it? Remember the grand crypto/tech bro conspiracy post. I do.

C'mon.

Yes, I want this as a litmus test. I want Democratic candidates who can state obvious things, acknowledge obvious realities, and not live in reality-adjacent partisan media bubbles that no one believes outside of those who already attend the company picnic.

Yes, telling the truth and acknowledging the obvious should be a candidate litmus. Being able to gather information, process it, and make reality-based plans in the face of it is something we've lost in the age of social media where narrative must always reign and anyone who won't indulge the spin is a heretic.

If people can't look at the past decade and realize that this era of manufactured alternative narrative reality must come to an end, we're doomed. The 2030 census is coming. We need to knock this shit off and deal with what's coming. We're starting to lose youth, ffs. Us. Democrats. We can't even appeal to young people the way we used to. And that was, like, our entire thing.

How many alarm bells are required here that - just maybe - the insularity has not led to making the best choices?

[EarlG]

46. We played the hand we were dealt

Biden chose to stay in, and I had no control over how the Biden campaign played out -- only control of how it played out here on DU. DU has a decades-old precedent during General Election Season that protects candidates from being bashed. These principles go all the way back to the competitive primaries of 2004, when ugly fights from the primaries bled over into the general election campaign after the primaries were over.

In order to abandon Biden, we would have had to abandon the principles and precedent that we've had on DU for decades. So at what point should we have abandoned those principles? After the first influencer called on Biden to step down? The first podcaster? The first celebrity? The first congressman? The second congressman?

In fact, the only question I had to answer to avoid abandoning longstanding precedent was is Joe Biden still running? I decided that as long as that was the case, we would stay the course, and we did. As soon as he dropped out, it was Primary Season again.

As I said above, during the 2024 general election all Democrats were forced to decide: Are you a team player or a ship-jumper? That was a choice with no good outcomes, and a choice that nobody wanted to make.

[Sympthsical]

47. But doesn't that bother you?

And I do understand that, as an administrator, you are in a much different position than me jumping in at random and wilding.

Setting aside DU, because I do understand you have policies in place for reasons, I'm talking about our side in general. Yes, Biden stayed in when he shouldn't have. But everyone kind of pretended that the vast majority of Democratic voters weren't screaming in poll after poll that this was a terrible idea. Then there were the denials of the obvious things. Then the insistence that you had to live in the fantasy.

I don't like being gaslit. I don't like being lied to. I don't like being told I have to pretend true things are not. If we must embrace large scale (and immediately obvious to everyone) lies, we've gone seriously wrong.

The topic we're addressing is candidates for 2028 and how their views on what happened color their fitness for consideration.

Yes, I want candidates who can look at 2024 and say, "This was terrible. This was a mistake. This was a very, no good, galactically terrible idea, and we shouldn't have done it."

Bare minimum. I know it sets many people off here something fierce, that there remains a collective difficulty in some quarters in acknowledging the reality of what happened. But isn't that a pretty big problem? This inability to not even acknowledge that there was a problem at all? How can we course correct and avoid future mistakes if people insist that they don't see the problem?

Fortunately, we do have a lot of 2028 potentials who seem ready and willing to acknowledge these things. But, as far as your position goes, you're going to end up watching them get torn down here one by one because anything outside of a vigorously disproved narrative is anathema.

This isn't good for the party. And I want us to win, damnit. The country needs us to win. If Donald Trump is the danger we claim he is - and I do believe he is uniquely dangerous in this moment - then we have to act like it and start getting serious. The election's over. The fantasy can be let go.

The fantasy must be let go.

[EarlG]

50. If we're addressing the candidates for 2028

then I'll tell you that my personal preference is to find a candidate who is Good At Politics, and one of the things that makes you Good At Politics is how good you are at deflecting bullshit gotcha questions and flipping the conversation around to what you want to talk about. So I guess in that regard I am interested in how potential candidates are addressing this current furore, because I think it might be a good indicator of their ability to control the narrative, rather than bowing to someone else's narrative. Next time around we are going to need someone who is very, very good at controlling the narrative.

But to be clear, if primary candidates want to make rehashing the last election a central piece of their candidacy going forward, of course people will be permitted to support those candidates and that point of view on DU, because we will be having a primary, and that's when candidates and their supporters are going to be fighting and attacking each other and trying to win. With that in mind, if candidates who spend time rehashing the last election do get torn down for that here, it will be because it's an unpopular position. On the other hand, if a candidate who spends time rehashing the last election becomes the nominee, then DU will support that candidate.

I guess I simply don't agree that in this very specific situation, 2028 candidates who are out there in public saying, "This was terrible. This was a mistake. This was a very, no good, galactically terrible idea, and we shouldn't have done it," are somehow helping us to "avoid future mistakes." With two aging candidates both in decline, one being the incumbent president and the other being the previous president, both winning their primaries by enormous margins (although Biden actually did far better than Trump in that respect) -- and then one candidate having a massive stumble at a debate, and subsequently dropping out of the race at the last minute -- the 2024 election was a unique, unprecedented situation that will not be repeated in our lifetimes. So I feel like doing a public autopsy on Biden's political corpse isn't relevant to any future election -- it's just more likely to make people watching go, "Ew."

[LeftinOH]

17. Our current president is fascinated by the word "groceries," and

thinks that submarines can remain underwater & fully operational without surfacing...for 30 years at a time. The relentless psychobabble from T's mouth invalidates any concerns about Biden's cognitive state.

[Tommy Carcetti]

18. OH, FUCK THIS SHIT.

Seriously.

[Demsrule86]

26. That is an excuse. I will vote for no Democrat in any primary who attacks Biden

I look at it differently...had the Democrats had his back as the GOP has the idiots If Biden had run, we would have likely won the election. This sort of nonsense will lead to a loss in 28 if we are not careful. Also, we need to work on the midterms. It is too soon for 2028,

[applegrove]

48. Biden's positive numbers were in the low 40s. They never went up.

[W_HAMILTON]

49. Ditto.

It's a self-own.

Elections are basically referendums nowadays. If people aren't happy with the current status of things -- and they never are -- they will vote out whoever is in power because they believe that they are responsible for all their problems.

Anyone foolish enough to buy into this continued media-manufactured narrative about Biden -- hello, dumbasses? Biden wasn't even on the ballot, you successfully ran him off, remember? -- will not be getting my vote in the primary.

Furthermore, I would imagine such attacks on what has been one of the strongest political allies for black Americans in recent memory will not sit well with the black voters that pretty much singlehandedly propelled Biden to the nomination to begin with. And if you can't win over black Americans in the Democratic primary, you aren't going to win the Democratic primary -- period.

[Fiendish Thingy]

30. Sadly, this will be Biden's legacy

Instead of being remembered as the most progressive president since LBJ, who had the best economy since LBJ, Biden, like LBJ, will be remembered most for one significant failure.

LBJ’s failure was Viet Nam; Biden’s was his stubborn insistence on running for a second term, when it was clear to many even in his inner circle that his age and fitness would be the central focus of the campaign, whether deserved or not.

[Paladin]

56. Speak for yourself.

I am sick of all the gratuitous Biden-bashing---particularly on a long-time Democratic site such as this, and especially in comparison to the lawless, brain-dead dictator who now inhabits the White House. Find a better target for vilification---there are only several hundred individuals from which to choose, these days...

[Fiendish Thingy]

57. Let's see how his legacy is viewed in 10-20 years

That was my point.

[ecstatic]

34. That's nonsense framing. Democrats don't think like that

We don't see things in black and white and we understand nuance. Authenticity will always trump political expediency.

Let's be clear, Biden looked old AF and he refused to wear makeup and toupees. He was not aging well visually, and yes, like the rest of us (including those of us who are half his age), a lack of rest for several days in a row could cause temporary impairments or brain fog. His work schedule was not compatible with his age. But, in my opinion, that's not the same thing as a mental/cognitive decline. A senile person could not deliver those state of the unions or interviews that he delivered.

In my opinion, Biden should have been 'one and done' with an open primary season. My main concern was with winning, not with loyalty to a specific person.

If a 2028 contender says they think Biden should have stepped down sooner, no problem. A lot of us felt that way. If they say they had personal interactions with Biden and they were concerned, that's also not a problem as long as they weren't saying the opposite to us in real time.

Anyone who says what s/he thinks is the right thing to say to score political points will be crossed off my list. I don't like phonies or snakes.

[ananda]

40. This victim stuff has to stop, now!

Dems need to become fighters and quit
the stupid blame game.

[BannonsLiver]

41. I have other litmus tests.

[usonian]

44. HEY BIDEN-BASHERS

My "senior" thesis on you slimeballs.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20320851

Go after a senile, deranged and lunatic who is destroying the country for profit.

OR ARE YOU CHICKEN?

[hatrack]

45. According to who? Jake Fucking Tapper? Jeff Bezos? Jesse Watters? Jeanine "Box Wine" Pirro?

What a steaming pile of BULLSHIT.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

51. Contenders should say "Biden was a good President. End of story. I'm not taking sides but leaving it to historians." .nt

[everyonematters]

52. We need to stop acting like a bunch of rock band groupies.

Before the debate, the polls showed that a strong majority of the voters believed that Biden was no longer up to the job. Running him for a second term was lunacy. The past is the past. We need to concentrate on the future.

[Scrivener7]

53. Oh, for fuck's sake. What a crock.

[Torchlight]

58. It's quickly becoming my own litmus test for good-faith conversations.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

59. Sounds like bullshit to me

A lot can happen in 4 years though it's more likely to be 3.

[Xolodno]

61. This will be unpopular....

....but age limits for elected office....all of them. And while were at it, lets toss in the Supreme Court.

Litmus Tests, questions about mental capacity, etc. all go out the door and thus slams the door on the media trying to manufacture a story about age. Just throwing this out there and lets say 74 is the max age for Senate, Mitch would have been long gone by now. If you run and win again say at 73, ok, but that's your last term.

Some people say "term limits", but I don't think that is the answer. Some people simply don't know how to retire when they should.

[Hekate]

62. Every Democrat needs to be told DO NOT PLAY THEIR GAME. We need to stop this madness NOW