Social media is having a meltdown over Biden’s debate performance. Many felt disillusioned by the prospect of either candidate — and their ages. There was one potential bright side to Biden’s horrendous performance at CNN’s debate: relatively few people watched it. But a critical demographic didn’t need to watch it live.
Polls have shown Biden has glaring issues with Gen Z and millennial voters, with their support for him slipping even before the debate. And those younger voters are turning to television less and less: Roughly one-third of Americans ages 18 to 29 consistently get their news from TikTok, a Pew Research Center survey from 2023 found. But if Biden had hoped that TikTok would react to the debate better than panicking Democrats, he’s going to be disappointed.
A study by the social-intelligence firm CredoIQ analyzed the top 450 TikToks about the debate, which together amassed about 483 million views. The report found that 39% of those videos expressed negative sentiments about Biden alone. By comparison, only 9.5% of those videos were negative solely about Trump, the study found. Negative TikToks about Biden also outpaced videos that were critical of both candidates, which made up about 35% of the videos. Overall, TikTok users seem to find the whole event pretty dismal. CredoIQ said that only 5% of the top posts included any positive sentiments at all.
While political pundits have largely focused on Biden’s bumbling answers, some on TikTok have focused instead on his “memeable face.” One video that compiled short clips of Biden looking confused, his mouth open and eyebrows furrowed, received over 5 million views. In the background, the creator can’t help himself from laughing — hard. Others compared Joe Biden now to Joe Biden of the past. A side-by-side video contrasting Biden’s 2012 performance in the vice presidential debate and his performance Thursday attracted more than 8 million views, with many commenters saying he seemed like a different man.
“I need an Adderall prescription, and it’s not for me, it’s for fucking Joe Biden,” James Charles, a popular influencer, said at the beginning of a video that garnered nearly 19 million views. Charles trashed Trump in the two-minute rant as well, railing against his federal convictions and calling both candidates “corpses.” But Charles also faced a torrent of criticism over his video when he blamed Biden for the fall of abortion rights and Roe v. Wade. And to be fair, Biden did have some defenders, with one creator surmising that his performance could’ve been the result of past health issues or his “speech impediment.”
Many users mourned America’s political trajectory beyond Biden himself, with critics calling out Trump’s rampant lies and criminal charges. One TikTok with nearly 18 million views compared the Obama-Romney 2012 matchup to the Trump-Biden disaster. Obama and Romney’s cordial exchange is set against patriotic music, while Trump and Biden’s voices are sped up and higher pitched. One commenter noted the candidates’ ages, writing: “The fact that even today, Obama and Romney are both still younger than Biden or Trump is just sad.”
“Give them both a pdf,” one creator on X wrote in a post with 4.6 million views, “first one that can rotate it gets to be president.” Despite the dismal reception, there were several moments that stood out — and even inspired levity. One Instagram post compiled the night’s biggest quotables, including Biden’s jab that Trump had the “morals of an alleycat,” Trump calling Biden a “very bad Palestinian,” and an argument over which candidate could hit the golf ball further. “My fellow Americans,” one commenter concluded, “we are so cooked.”
Here we go again, eh? For a short but wonderful period, it looked like Donald Trump’s political career was over. An indicted former president running again? It had never happened before. Trump’s legal problems looked insurmountable. And yet, like a phoenix with a toupee, Trump has risen from the ashes. It now seems inevitable that 2024 will be a repeat of 2020: a Joe Biden vs Trump rematch.
What’s very far from inevitable however, is that Biden is going to win again. I don’t need to tell you that his polling figures are dire. I don’t need to tell you that there are serious concerns about his age and mental competence. As November creeps closer, there is increasing panic in Democratic circles about Biden’s ability to win. Amid that panic, there’s also a lot of finger-pointing and recrimination. Anyone who raises concerns about Biden is immediately accused of helping Trump. Anyone isn’t jumping at the bit to vote for a man many of us now think of as “Genocide Joe” is being told that we’re useful idiots who are going to hand the election to the former guy.
I’ll put my cards on the table: I’m a permanent resident of the US which means I’m not allowed to vote. (I’m not sure what happened to the whole no taxation without representation idea.) But if I could vote and the election were tomorrow I would not be able to bring myself to support Biden. And I’d feel betrayed by my American wife if she voted for Biden. As someone of Palestinian heritage I have watched aghast as Biden has given Israel a green light to do whatever it wants in Gaza, international law and civilian deaths be damned. I have watched in horror as the entire population of Gaza starves and the US vetoes ceasefire resolution after resolution. And I have watched in disbelief as Biden has cast doubts on the number of Palestinians who have died, repeated inflammatory misinformation and ignored the suffering of Palestinians in official statements on the conflict.
I’m sorry but I simply could not bring myself to cast a vote for a man who doesn’t seem to believe that people like me are fully human. I cannot support a man who seems to think that it’s OK that babies in Gaza are needlessly starving to death. A vote for Biden is not just a vote against Trump, it is a vote endorsing his clear disdain for Palestinians, his dehumanization of Arabs, and his complicity in what many experts have termed a plausible genocide.
But, Arwa, Trump would have been even worse on Gaza! I know that. But, let me tell you something, that argument loses a lot of its potency when Gaza looks like hell on earth as its. There is not a single university left. The health system has basically collapsed. 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced. The UN has said 100,000 people in Gaza have been killed, injured, or are missing. And Biden seems to think so little of the devastation that he seems to think it is appropriate to weigh in on a ceasefire while eating an ice-cream cone. It’s honestly very difficult to think about how things could possibly be worse.
I am obviously not alone in my anger with Biden. Muslims, Arab-Americans, and many progressives feel conflicted about supporting a man who refuses to listen to our anguish about the horrific humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. It doesn’t seem to matter that 76% of Democratic voters want a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza. It doesn’t seem to matter what we do—how many protests we go on, how many petitions we sign, how many letters to our state representatives we write—every protest is met with some variation of ‘you idealistic morons had better just hold your nose and vote for Biden or Trump is going to win and he’ll be even worse!’
See, for example, the response from many high-profile Democrats to the Listen to Michigan campaign, which urged Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s primary in order to send Biden a warning that his policy on Gaza is alienating voters in the heavily Arab-American swing state. There was never any doubt that Biden would win the primary—the “uncommitted” campaign hurt him in no way whatsoever, it was just another desperate attempt to be heard.
Yet, once again, the Democrats didn’t listen. In an interview with CNN on Sunday Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, warned voters that that protest votes in the primary would help Trump. “It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” Whitmer said. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
We all know who Trump is; we all know how devastating a second Trump term would be. It is important not to understate this. But it’s also important not to understate the damage that Biden is doing to democracy and foreign policy right now by funding a plausible genocide. People aren’t asking Biden to suddenly become pro-Palestinian: we’re asking him to do the bare minimum. We’re asking him to respect international law and do what (famed liberals) Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush did: put some conditions on US aid to Israel.
To be very clear: I am not saying that people shouldn’t vote for Biden. I’m saying that it would behoove the Democrats to realize that bullying people into voting for the not-so-bad option is not a winning strategy. If they want to safeguard democracy they should start practicing it: and that means paying attention to why so many of their young and progressive voters are angry. I don’t know what’s going to happen in November but I do know this: if Biden loses, it’s not going to be the fault of progressives. It will be Biden’s fault and his alone.
Source: Business Insider, The Guardian
