The Most Active Threads Since Friday

Just as most days last week, the most active topics over the weekend were political. The first of those was titled, "ABC News interview TONIGHT with Biden" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started this thread in the late morning on Friday in anticipation of the recorded interview of President Joe Biden that ABC News was going to broadcast that evening. The original poster expressed his opinion that the interview would be too short and the fact that it was pre-recorded would be insufficient to demonstrate Biden's cognitive fitness. The interview was scheduled to be recorded in the afternoon which the original poster described as Biden's "functional" window and would be conducted by George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton White House staffer. None of this was reassuring to the original poster. Others were even more strident in their criticism. Several posters were certain that a conspiracy was in the works. Biden would be provided the questions in advanced, they said. The interview would be edited, they claimed. There is no evidence of the first and ABC News explicitly denied the the interview would be edited. One poster even predicted that artificial intelligence would be used to fake or enhance the interview. The thread was already 15 pages long before the interview even aired. Once ABC News started the broadcast, posters posted their reactions as they watched. Most were not impressed. Once again Biden's voice sounded off and every stumble over a word resulted in a rash of posts. Biden's skin tone which had taken on an orange hue reminiscent of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's, was also the subject of many remarks. There is very little indication that the interview had successfully achieved its goal of assuring the public that Biden has the cognitive ability to run the country. The problem that Biden faces is that he is not currently a good communicator. His critics are assuming, or at least arguing, that Biden's communications struggles reflect problems with other skills necessary to serve as President. I am not sure that this is a good assumption, but Biden and his team are doing little to convince the public otherwise. This thread is currently 55 pages long and I am unable to read it all. But shortly after the interview ended it appears that the thread started going off topic and simply turned in to a presidential campaign free-for-all thread. In a way that is fitting. There is nothing that Biden can do to convince diehard Republicans that he is fit for office. Similarly, plenty of Democrats are willing to vote for Biden even if he has to be propped up like Bernie in "Weekend at Bernie's". As such, Biden's performance in the interview is of little matter to these folks. As for those who are basing their vote on Biden's fitness for office, based on the little evidence they provided in this thread, they want to see more of Biden in order to better make a decision.

Next was a thread also posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and also about President Joe Biden. Titled, "What if Biden does not bow out?", the original poster says that she is worried that Biden will not drop out of the presidential race and, in the mean time, he is hurting Vice President Kamala Harris. She asks if there is a way that this can be resolved in a way that will result in a win for Democrats. This is a 20 page thread which, again, I don't have time to read. One thing I can say is that DCUM is not the type of forum in which a serious discussion of this sort of topic can take place. This is really a problem for Democrats to solve internally. DCUM in general, and this thread in particular, is full of conservatives who have no interest in the Democrats turning this controversy into a win. Rather, their interest is in making this even a bigger problem for Democrats than it has already become. Generally, therefore, these posters have nothing useful to add to the thread. As I wrote last week, if Biden is going to go, it needs to happen fast and, if it is not going to happen, the Democrats who oppose Biden should shut up. The constant trickle of Democrats coming out in opposition are not sufficient to convince Biden to step down and only serve to keep the narrative that he is being pushed out alive. Right now, Biden is suffering a death of a thousand cuts. Not only is he being weakened, but, as the original poster says, so are all of those around him, including Harris. Moreover, not only are the Democratic opponents to Biden ineffective, they are increasingly coming off as less than competent. Representative Dan Beyer, for instance, was recorded on a telephone call describing Biden as "very, very fragile" and saying that he would support Harris in Biden's place. But rather than take this position publicly, Beyer issued a statement pledging Biden his full support". Senator Mark Warner apparently organized a meeting of Democrats to discuss Biden but then canceled it after word of the meeting leaked out. Given the knowledge of their private doubts about Biden, these folks are not going to be convincing advocates for Biden in the future if that turns out to be necessary. Their inept actions are having no observable impact on Biden and, as such, they are only making things worse. Moreover, Biden is objectively being treated unfairly by much of the media but especially the New York Times. The Time's publisher has reportedly been miffed that Biden has not done an interview with the paper. Perhaps as an attempt at revenge, the Times has essentially devoted itself almost full time to anti-Biden coverage. The front page routinely has multiple stories about Biden's struggles and Maggie Haberman, who had been assigned to cover former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump, is now writing story after story about attempts to remove Biden. This media pile-on is actually creating sympathy and support for Biden. Meanwhile, Trump, who spends his days spreading insanity on Truth Social, is largely being ignored by both the media and Democrats who are fixated on Biden. None of this is good for Democrats and it is troubling that the assumed brightest lights of the Democratic Party either can't or won't do anything about it.

The next most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Chicken salad: discuss" and posted in the "Food, Cooking, and Restaurants" forum. The original poster says that her husband has invited a work colleague to lunch and asked the original poster to make chicken salad. Therefore, the original poster wants to discuss chicken salad as a lunch choice to serve to a guest. I am convinced that the original poster bet someone that she could post a thread on DCUM about chicken salad and get hundreds of replies. If so, the original poster has won that bet. Not only is this thread already at 13 pages, but it inspired a spin-off thread that has already reached 8 pages. The original poster can't be accused of artificially boosting the thread as she only responded a single time and that was to say that she had decided not to serve chicken salad on this occasion. It would appear that DCUMers really do have strong feelings about chicken salad. Not long ago, one of the most active threads that I discussed in a blog post was about mayonnaise-based salads for which a huge number of posters expressed disdain. Surprisingly, therefore, the original poster was not roundly castigated as might be expected, but instead received quite a bit of positive feedback. In fact, while there were a few posters who were not fans of chicken salad, this thread was dominated by those who are quite fond of the dish. Just about the only controversy was over whether men eat chicken salad. Even the poster who started the controversy by saying that she wouldn't serve chicken salad to a man agreed that men eat chicken salad. So this was blown much more out of proportion than was necessary. The thread was mostly dominated by posters expressing their enjoyment of chicken salad and describing their particular way of preparing it. One issue that came up is that almost every poster had her own particular recipe for chicken salad. While they loved their own recipe and most of them claimed that others loved it as well, not every poster seemed enamored with the way others prepared chicken salad. This created some opposition to serving chicken salad to a guest because while almost all of those responding would love to be served chicken salad, many would only be happy about certain chicken salad recipes. For instance, there were divisions about buffalo sauce and curry. Some posters included one or the other in their personal version of chicken salad, but others wouldn't eat chicken salad if one of these ingredients were included. Mayonnaise was again somewhat controversial. While few disliked it altogether, some posters only found it acceptable in specific quantities. In her single follow-up post, the original poster provided additional details of her eating habits and I am fairly certain that she could almost create weekly threads that would be among the most active. However, I fear most of them would not be as positive as this one. For instance, she said that she recently learned that beans are offensive. Certainly a thread on that topic would easily reach the double digits in number of pages.

The final thread that I will discuss today was again posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "What can regular people do to help prevent Trump's election?", the original poster asks what regular people who are fearful of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump being elected can do to prevent that from occurring beyond voting. Not many ideas were offered, but suggestions included helping register people to vote, donating to campaigns, helping get out the vote, and simply discussing things like Project 2025 with others, including those who support Trump. One of the more ambitious suggestions was to move to a swing state. As was the case with the Biden dropping out thread that I discussed above, this is really a conversation that should take place between Democrats, or at least those who oppose Trump. Those who support Trump do not want to prevent him from being elected and, therefore, cannot contribute helpfully to this conversation. Instead, they disrupt the thread, mostly by posting off-topic posts. In a partisan political environment and on a forum such as DCUM in which there virtually no barrier to entry for posting, probably both sides engage in similar behavior. But since this is a thread aimed at Democrats, the disruptive actions of the MAGA crowd are most visible. I don't know if they simply lack self-awareness and don't realize how disruptive they are or if they are intentionally trying to be disruptive. But either way, the MAGA posters completely ruined the thread as far as its original purpose is concerned. Without exception the MAGAs feel that they have every right to post their off-topic rants and that removing such posts is an attack on their freedom of speech and is despicable "censorship". As such, this thread was soon filled with attacks on Biden, criticism of the original poster and other Biden supporters, and proclamations of support for Trump. Before the thread even got to its third page, it was completely off-topic and, again, nothing more than a general discussion about election issues. I lock or delete a surprising number of new threads in the political forum these days because many posters seem to want to start a new thread for every thought that crosses their head, even when there are already threads related to that thought. But, I may still be leaving too many because it seems that every thread eventually turns into the same sort of discussion. Maybe we really only need one thread in which posters can argue about Biden and Trump?