I have to admit that I've been in a bad funk since the debate. Biden's performance shook me. Of course, Trump's was scary and terrible, but most of us knew to expect it and have never considered supporting him.
But Biden's performance was like watching the star quarterback that has played an outstanding first half fall apart in the second half and now putting the game in jeopardy. Do we send in a fresh replacement that has much better odds for winning? I think yes sadly. The stakes are too high to take a chance of doing nothing.
I can't imagine the Dems gain anything by replacing Biden at this point. Biden has a lot to prove now. And the people who prepped him for the debate by forcing him to memorize factoids failed him and us. We need to fight for Democracy. That means intelligent passion. Forceful attacks on what-the-hell is going on in America? We need emotions that remind us who we are, and why we are Americans.
David, I agree with your second option, the first one is not realistic. But I would argue that it should have been done regardless of the debate outcome and not as a direct response to it. The fact that party leaders couldn’t see this before the debate reflects more on them than anything else. So now this whole exercise can smack of being a reflexive response rather than a well thought out strategy which doesn’t bode well and didn’t have to happen. Let’s fix it with strategic thinking.
We don't know. We do know we have to defeat Trump and live to fight another day. THAT gets old. You were right the other day to wonder about the fat felon hole in our civic souls. Some democratic civic muscles atrophied; can they be revived?
If, as reported yesterday, Biden told Jill he ‘didn’t feel right’ the night of the debate, he owes it to all of us to get a checkup at Walter Reed and release the results. He’s had two cerebral hemorrhages. He looked just as bad at the Hollywood fundraiser w/Obama & Jimmy Kimmel. Pale, confused; Obama had to lead him off the stage. We need to know what’s going on. And Kamala will not win the Presidency, let’s be real. Hillary didn’t win! (Although I think she did. )
If we're being brutally honest, Biden has been an extremely poor communicator for the past 3.5 years.
He simply avoided every opportunity to explain what he was doing for the country...and why. Ditto for explaining foreign policy and why it matters. Ditto for SCOTUS reform. Ditto for the MAGA movement.
I could go on and on about missed opportunities to communicate. 3 years ago, I blanketed the WH and my Senators with pleas for Biden to release a nightly/bi-weekly recorded 5-minute clip ("What the Biden administration did for you today").
Instead, his staff accommodated his weaknesses, his inner circle protected him, and Democratic elders indulged him.. and here we are with SCOTUS destroying our institutions, MAGA propaganda pumped into the system 24/7, and Biden's campaign unable to clearly articulate either the dangers of Trump or a vision for the next 4 years.
This is beyond unacceptable.
If Biden won't step down, then his team must immediately execute a strategy for thousands of surrogates to blanket the country with both clear warnings and a coherent vision. Even on his best days, Biden can't do either.
@hw I don't think I want Biden to step down. I want him to step up. And as you suggested blanket the country with representatives. I loved your idea of Biden giving "fireside chats" about his Admins accomplishments for the voters. Opportunity lost.
I call BS on this a bit - Biden cannot break through the anti-Trump noise. I see more posts on Substack tearing down Trump voters and dismissing Biden’s successes because they weren’t progressive enough than I do positive ones about his successes. The information is out there, just not in the top news algorithm feed. There is also the very real problem that those horrified my conservative legislation and court rulings aren’t really supporting our democratic institutions—they’re calling them corrupt and demanding changes outside the norms themselves. Biden doesn’t have the power to do that as President. EOs are not lasting even if voters seem to think they are. Small r republican governance, which is what our institutions are set up as requires debate and compromise and the hard work of building consensus. Believe it or not, most people would vote for Democrats more if they focused on the policies and less on attacking people and tearing down their spiritual beliefs. Plenty of good arguments already available since this is not the first time the country has battled fascism. We do not need a radical Democratic version of Trump and MAGA, either. I’m a progressive and I can barely stand the rhetoric and tactics being used by too many of my supposed allies.
It’s not only Biden that needs to do some self reflection.
The 24/7 right-wing propaganda machine is a reality. It means that "business as usual" politics doesn't work.
It was crystal clear for months before Biden's inauguration that he would have to use his bully pulpit creatively and often to break through.
Prerecorded short clips, immediately posted to social media, bi-monthly meetings with leaders of important Democratic constituencies, cutting through red tape to accelerate the Infrastructure Act so people would see the results, having surrogates flood media to rebut the Big Lie of a stolen election, providing a clear vision for a 2nd term, etc, etc.
Democratic leadership should have blanketed the airwaves to discuss the dangerous path of SCOTUS, and the need for Court reform.
Democrats are always fearful of being labeled "radical ", but it happens anyway and it's far better to explain the issues preemptively than try to address the damage when there are few options.
There's nothing "radical" about effective communication strategies.
Very few people are voting for Bidrn on his policies because very few people understand either what he's done or what he plans to do.
The vast majority are voting against Trump, but it may not be enough considering the numbers of base voters that the Democratic party has lost over the past 4 years.
Biden team has to make drastic changes now. Massive teams of surrogates need to be everywhere for the next 5 months explaining what Biden has done, what he's going to do, and the dangers of the MAGA movement and the catastrophic consequences of a 2nd Trump term.
This is a 5-alarm fire, and pretending that people are voting for policies helps no one.
I stand by what I said - there is plenty of clips and ads and speeches doing exactly what you say isn’t being done in the media. Lots of ads from former Trump voters that are now anti-Trump, too. It feels like there’s nothing because it does actually get drowned out by the “what did Trump do now” coverage and articles, which makes it appear as Biden is doing nothing. Biden is always below the fold so to speak. How do we bump that up? By searching out and reading articles about Biden so that they get more traffic. I see better positive coverage about Biden in the anti-Trump right wing press than I see in the anti-Trump left wing press.
No, it’s not a campaign as usual where we get to sit back and simply go vote, we must also be surrogates. It’s 2016 all over again with worse challenges because the press isn’t covering rallies and what they do cover is so sanitized, no one gets to see how unhinged Trump is. Trump is still leveraging the weaknesses of a system built on trust and honesty. Just like the GOP MAGA leveraged those weaknesses to take over the party they are only a minority faction within.
We have to change our own behaviors in the new media universe that we live in. This election, like the last (and like every election, really), will be decided on turnout, not ads. That means more boots on the ground doing the hard work and less online armchair quarterbacking (not a dig at anyone, I have been guilty of it myself).
We’ve all been pretty disengaged because we are familiar with the candidates, too, and the press has done an awful job of highlighting the choices at stake for low information voters. There is an asymmetrical nature to coverage between Trump and Biden that also benefits Trump because he has normalized his behavior.
Biden and the Dems simply have a much harder job, made harder by the framing of the protests against Gaza and the slew of disinformation about what Biden has said and done coming from the left, and the incessant overkill on press coverage on the issue of age based on a very small sampling of people and inside the beltway comments, all of which come with their own motivations and unconscious bias. Two weeks of coverage about age before the SOU before that was put to rest, and now probably weeks about age because seasoned political operatives won’t stop talking about it. The same people are driving the coverage then and now. It’s political malpractice to miss the forest for the trees.
Did you know that 40% of viewers of the debates thought Biden won the debate, and that it didn’t change the majorities views on who they were voting for? That’s a fair assessment of the debate. It might have been CNNs best ratings night but that was less than 1/2 of normal ratings for a debate — most people weren’t paying attention and it could have passed pretty unnoticed except for the wave of political punditry generated headlines generated not by Trump and the RNC, all of these headlines are coming from hot takes on the left — an overreaction of unprecedented scope that is completely based on panic and the optics of one night — it’s political malpractice.
Biden shouldn’t have to disprove a negative within his own party over and over again when the evidence for his competency to do the job is that he is already doing the job competently. He has a lot more to juggle than just a golf game. Trump is no avatar of virility and health because he can talk without stuttering issues. It’s insane. Trump is getting plenty additional opposition ads because of the very public framing of how Biden looked and not what Trump said.
Trump, once again free media because he’s click bait but it’s so watered down as to be meaningless. Trump has normalized his rhetoric as being just rhetoric for eight years with the mantra “take him seriously but not literally” so low information people just shrug off what he says. Project 2025 was reported on once last year — many people are shrugging it off because it’s the Heritage Foundation and not the Trump campaign. Forgetting that the GOP and MAGA are one this time around and Heritage is headed by a political operative and is no longer really a think tank.
I am now seeing more posts and articles about it now that we’re four months away, which is good. But the majority of news that average people watch has been filled with pieces that equate the dangers from the left because of protests about Gaza and now a second round of D infighting about age. Biden is an incumbent and so most of his stuff is treated as US news and not political news.
I can’t do anything about people ignoring or not ignoring news about Biden, but blaming anyone and everyone for where we are except ourselves is a bit much. The fact that we have a candidate that some are not thrilled with is no excuse. There is a lot of way too optimistic wish-casting going on about things being different if the Dems had a younger candidate. History shows us that isn’t so and ended up doing more harm than good.
The Trump campaign is thrilled by this. Good job Dems.
On this Age Issue … has anyone worked up a corollary reflecting “relative age” ??? Meaning, we enjoy longer lifespans than 100 years ago … FDR and Wilson looked older than Biden, and medical science has helped with longevity, so would a 60 year old man 100 years ago, equate to an 80 year old today?
I don’t think it’s disloyal to ask oneself the obvious question … but I do think it is an act of strategic MALPRACTICE to use your voice and platform to ask these chaotic questions WITHOUT offering a real solution. Kamala will never ever beat Trump (and I say this as a woman who loves Kamala and who loves to vote for black women whenever possible, but we all deeply know this.) So what are our REAL options? Don’t throw your questions out there without offering pragmatic solutions that WILL WORK. Otherwise it’s just Dems in Disarray and we’re playing straight in the the Putin/MAGA narrative. We must do better. The stakes are far too high.
I appreciate your point of view. And clearly, we disagree about Kamala. But, I hope you will understand it is my belief in her that leads me to believe she is a viable pragmatic solution.
It's greatly appreciated that you are actually putting forth your opinion for an actual replacement in Kamala, but all the other pundits name no one, and most seem to imply skipping over Kamala (which would be disastrous). Would you concede that the choices are either Kamala or stick with Biden? Or do you actually think a brokered convention would be a good idea?
I think a brokered convention would be insane. The only path is concurrence, guided by Biden, among all Dems to line up behind the VP and someone else (my personal choice is Whitmer...but you could hardly go wrong with Newsom, Shapiro, Moore, Beshear, etc. It would hit reset on the campaign and energize the base. That is the key to turnout which is the key to the election.
I have a question about "Team Biden". I am a relatively well-read consumer of the news. But as I think about how Obama represented his working relationship with his VP (Biden was represented as always "the last person in the room", for example. Which gave the impression that Biden was a very involved VP, unusual for a typical President-Vice President working relationship.) Harris started out as VP with a lot of bad press/rumors (mean to her staff. People quitting on her.) The only impression I have currently is that she is sent hither and yon to represent America at formal events, giving the occasional speech. Was I not paying attention? Did Biden only use her to get Black American votes? Or does he rely on her distinguished experience? She didn't just coast to high position. She obviously had to work hard, with a lot of smarts and charisma. Are the back room murmurs that presenting a (1) woman, who is at least (2) partly Black, somehow hurts the Dems getting undecided votes? (I have to add that I was an enthusiastic supporter of Obama, and have been totally disgusted by America's seeming backlash to "the Obama years" by outwardly supporting - even enthusiastically - a person as malevolent, stupid, and racist as the former guy.) I guess I'm asking why isn't Harris presented as a Star of a Democrat, who would continue Biden's efforts?
I admit to responding to the "debate" by turning it off early, and emotionally curling into a ball. I have since been heartened by words from people I respect reminding me (if not the Undecideds - of which there are probably more now) of the existential crisis America is in, and how accomplished Biden's been, including an accomplished Cabinet. And how we must bank on that.
Like you, I believe we need to be honest with ourselves. And, I think it's also time for me to unsubscribe from The NY Times, and possibly The Washington Post. WTH is going on with our major news sources?!
All of this yack would have been reasonable a year ago. It's simply too late now. The Scaredy Cat wing of the Democratic Party has offered no coherent plan for how we would change candidates at this late date without validating everything Trump has been yelling for months. And they don't care that they have no coherent plan.
Here's what's really happening...
Those who write for a living, and those who uses politics as reality TV show melodrama drug, is jumping on this opportunity to make money and get their rocks off.
There's a lot to unpack, but focusing on what's important, separating the fly s*** from the pepper. It's a well-known documented fact that Democrats do nuance, Republicans don't. As your state Democrats can handle the truth, the reality.
All this shitting the bed (a better metaphor than ringing your hands/ pearl clutching) is waisted energy. like Biden said he got knocked down, he'll get the fuck up again and deal with it. Everything else doesn't matter. As stated Get the Democrat back in the White House is foundational to the continuation of the Republic.
Bitching and whining is all fine and good, get it out of the system, but get your s*** together Democrats. Get behind Biden and push. Biden acknowledge he f***** up, it's the start of a Biden Resurrection story he can tell.
Ok... So - Tell me again the argument for considering throwing the Democratic presidential nomination process into complete chaos? (and even if you believe that Harris can ably proceed in Biden's stead, there will be plenty of folks who won't agree with you, and plenty more folks who will be offended by *those* folks, and, thus, her nominating process, if her candidacy survives it, will probably turn into a massive shitshow).
And how is your declaration that we're in crisis, ("no, really, *really* in crisis") somehow *new* information to those of us who think we should stick by Biden? Like we weren't taking it seriously before? Tim Miller did the same exact thing in his piece, as if, somehow, we didn't really *get* how serious the threat to democracy *actually* is, and that we can no longer afford the luxury of loyalty to our guy. Sheesh, we *know* democracy is in crisis! We are *fully aware* of what we have to lose. We're sticking with Biden because we think we have a better chance of forestalling disaster *with* Biden than with an open convention. Our opinion isn't because we feel like we don't have that much to lose and so we can take a chance on the old man out of misplaced loyalty - quite the opposite! The way things stand *right now*, Biden *can and will* beat Trump, because the election isn't about Biden versus Trump - it's about voting for someone, anyone, against the garbage scow of mendacity, sociopathy, and looming fascism that Trump openly embraces, represents, and declares. Plus, Dobbs, Dobbs, Dobbs.
We'll see how things play out in the next week or two, but there is yet no evidence to suggest that Biden's awful debate performance moved the dial away from him at all, nor has there been any clinical evidence suggesting that whatever happened to him that night is going to overtake him again between now and November. And I would expect that he and his team learned a few things from that meltdown, including how to avoid one like it in future.
Your asking questions about all of this is perfectly legit, of course. You asked, and, judging from your second entry on this topic, you got a pretty strong response from people. I'm an older person, and a phrase that comes to mind right now is what we used to say back in the late '60s - "Keep the faith, Baby!"
“But not asking them may mean that someone who is ambivalent about Biden’s ability to lead might not show up at the polls. And that could be fatal.” - the unacknowledged problem is that asking the questions could also have the same effect. I’d argue that myriad think pieces - from democrats! - about whether Biden is up to the task does a whole hell of a lot more damage than a unified front in spite of one bad performance. How many bad performances has trump had? How many news cycles have we moved on from and forgotten? Honestly the bed wetting is ridiculous and unhelpful. Suck it up, grow some balls and go support the candidate. We have all the ammo we need to make the case he’s better than trump. Enough excuses get out and do it.
I have a question I can’t get answered anywhere else. Why are we all skipping the question of what the hell happened. Does this happen a lot? Why did they plan the debate in these conditions if so and why didn’t they prep him differently?
The fact that they did plan it and send him out there makes me wonder if this kind of episode is unusual. Did he see a freaking doctor? What does the doctor say? That’s a fair question. People demanded it of Mitch McConnell and they are right to ask now.
If this was a one off, then why is Biden not planning a televised sit down interview with Jonathan Swan right now to address his health and the campaign and what he should have said in the debate and anything else Swan wants to push him on.
If Biden wants to stay the course he’s going to have to change things up. Expose himself more. Let people get used to the fact that stumbles and gaffes can exist side by side with wisdom and leadership. I’ve thought they should do this from the start but they have made him a stranger.
If he isn’t up for that interview or if the medical news is disqualifying, then he needs to resign. Not in January but right now. Let Kamala take over. Let us rejoice over the first woman president even as we thank Joe for his service. Let HER run as the incumbent and let every panicky person calling for a brokered convention to pick a mystery candidate get in line with us to do every dam thing we can to elect her.
That is the only alternative if Joe is unable. She’s got the name recognition, the campaign infrastructure, and she is the only one who can spend the damn money.
Joe argues that the Dems care more about democracy because they are willing to make th hard choices while R’s embrace a failed living con.
But first the conversation about what the hell happened. I have to believe they wouldn’t have planned the event and sent him out there if there was ANY chance of this disaster. So, what happened? Cold? Cold medicine? TIA? What?
Very reasonable questions. In fact, this whole debate turns on whether Biden "had a bad debate" as has happened so often or whether there are deeper problems at work...problems that could reappear closer to the election and impact the result. But as everybody circles their wagons and makes positions on this a matter of loyalty or integrity or something...well, it becomes less likely that we will have the conversation we should have.
Yes, half the people I follow made a panic decision within 24 hrs — and sometimes far less — that Joe had to go (combined with very little understanding of what the options really are or how would work). The other half were the “we have his back” crowd based on no new info, as far as I could tell, beyond the NC speech (which was great and reassuring but not to my mind enough.). And now both camps are dug in defending their positions and I wish I had a giant megaphone to tell them to cool the fuck down for a day or two and be thoughtful.
I think we absolutely must get the medical info. Is it conceivable that they didn’t have him looked at? That tells me it happens enough that they already checked it out, in which case letting him on that stage was campaign malpractice. Or it tells me they did get him checked out but the answer isn’t benign. Because it’s easy enough to blame it on the cold meds if he’d taken any. Or even on a TIA — not good but people get them and recover and he was noticeably improved as the night and next day went on.
I’m speculating on zero knowledge and it seems to me that I can’t be the only one. I understand feeling gaslit and angry. I was in the drop out of the race camp for the first couple of hours. I left the room 5 minutes in and couldn’t watch anymore. I’ve swung back and forth pretty dramatically since then. I’m strongly inclined to support him staying in if he’ll just give me a reason besides wishful thinking.
It might have been stated earlier, but why isn't the Press pushing Trump to quit because he can't tell the truth? The double standard is infuriating.
Biden may have been inarticulate but at least he addressed the questions asked. The Single stranded helix (I guess the other side of the DNA helix contains the traits of telling the truth, compassion, non malignant sociopath, being a civil person) was incapable of addressing any of them and what he did say was lies. Where's the clamour for him to resign
If the Biden campaign were a business - and isn’t most if not all politics transactional, at the end of the day? - and Thursday’s debate was a truly miserable quarterly performance, then the business’ investors - in this case, big-money donors, influencial pols, etc. - would be on a conference call demanding a new business plan and a set of benchmarks to confirm it was effective before pledging any more resources to the candidate. Otherwise they would do well to take their money and influence elsewhere, say, to Dem. candidates in Senate and HR races, in hopes of providing for a congressional majority that could serve as counterweight to DJT after his election. I’d hope they had all read Rothkopf ‘s most recent post, and maybe thought about bringing him on board as a consultant.
I have to admit that I've been in a bad funk since the debate. Biden's performance shook me. Of course, Trump's was scary and terrible, but most of us knew to expect it and have never considered supporting him.
But Biden's performance was like watching the star quarterback that has played an outstanding first half fall apart in the second half and now putting the game in jeopardy. Do we send in a fresh replacement that has much better odds for winning? I think yes sadly. The stakes are too high to take a chance of doing nothing.
I can't imagine the Dems gain anything by replacing Biden at this point. Biden has a lot to prove now. And the people who prepped him for the debate by forcing him to memorize factoids failed him and us. We need to fight for Democracy. That means intelligent passion. Forceful attacks on what-the-hell is going on in America? We need emotions that remind us who we are, and why we are Americans.
David, I agree with your second option, the first one is not realistic. But I would argue that it should have been done regardless of the debate outcome and not as a direct response to it. The fact that party leaders couldn’t see this before the debate reflects more on them than anything else. So now this whole exercise can smack of being a reflexive response rather than a well thought out strategy which doesn’t bode well and didn’t have to happen. Let’s fix it with strategic thinking.
I wonder if his advisors are panicked, like I am. How does one approach this clusterf**k strategically? Serious question.
We don't know. We do know we have to defeat Trump and live to fight another day. THAT gets old. You were right the other day to wonder about the fat felon hole in our civic souls. Some democratic civic muscles atrophied; can they be revived?
If, as reported yesterday, Biden told Jill he ‘didn’t feel right’ the night of the debate, he owes it to all of us to get a checkup at Walter Reed and release the results. He’s had two cerebral hemorrhages. He looked just as bad at the Hollywood fundraiser w/Obama & Jimmy Kimmel. Pale, confused; Obama had to lead him off the stage. We need to know what’s going on. And Kamala will not win the Presidency, let’s be real. Hillary didn’t win! (Although I think she did. )
If we're being brutally honest, Biden has been an extremely poor communicator for the past 3.5 years.
He simply avoided every opportunity to explain what he was doing for the country...and why. Ditto for explaining foreign policy and why it matters. Ditto for SCOTUS reform. Ditto for the MAGA movement.
I could go on and on about missed opportunities to communicate. 3 years ago, I blanketed the WH and my Senators with pleas for Biden to release a nightly/bi-weekly recorded 5-minute clip ("What the Biden administration did for you today").
Instead, his staff accommodated his weaknesses, his inner circle protected him, and Democratic elders indulged him.. and here we are with SCOTUS destroying our institutions, MAGA propaganda pumped into the system 24/7, and Biden's campaign unable to clearly articulate either the dangers of Trump or a vision for the next 4 years.
This is beyond unacceptable.
If Biden won't step down, then his team must immediately execute a strategy for thousands of surrogates to blanket the country with both clear warnings and a coherent vision. Even on his best days, Biden can't do either.
@hw I don't think I want Biden to step down. I want him to step up. And as you suggested blanket the country with representatives. I loved your idea of Biden giving "fireside chats" about his Admins accomplishments for the voters. Opportunity lost.
I don't usually like posts this long because almost always meander. But you really expressed yourself well, all good.
I call BS on this a bit - Biden cannot break through the anti-Trump noise. I see more posts on Substack tearing down Trump voters and dismissing Biden’s successes because they weren’t progressive enough than I do positive ones about his successes. The information is out there, just not in the top news algorithm feed. There is also the very real problem that those horrified my conservative legislation and court rulings aren’t really supporting our democratic institutions—they’re calling them corrupt and demanding changes outside the norms themselves. Biden doesn’t have the power to do that as President. EOs are not lasting even if voters seem to think they are. Small r republican governance, which is what our institutions are set up as requires debate and compromise and the hard work of building consensus. Believe it or not, most people would vote for Democrats more if they focused on the policies and less on attacking people and tearing down their spiritual beliefs. Plenty of good arguments already available since this is not the first time the country has battled fascism. We do not need a radical Democratic version of Trump and MAGA, either. I’m a progressive and I can barely stand the rhetoric and tactics being used by too many of my supposed allies.
It’s not only Biden that needs to do some self reflection.
The 24/7 right-wing propaganda machine is a reality. It means that "business as usual" politics doesn't work.
It was crystal clear for months before Biden's inauguration that he would have to use his bully pulpit creatively and often to break through.
Prerecorded short clips, immediately posted to social media, bi-monthly meetings with leaders of important Democratic constituencies, cutting through red tape to accelerate the Infrastructure Act so people would see the results, having surrogates flood media to rebut the Big Lie of a stolen election, providing a clear vision for a 2nd term, etc, etc.
Democratic leadership should have blanketed the airwaves to discuss the dangerous path of SCOTUS, and the need for Court reform.
Democrats are always fearful of being labeled "radical ", but it happens anyway and it's far better to explain the issues preemptively than try to address the damage when there are few options.
There's nothing "radical" about effective communication strategies.
Very few people are voting for Bidrn on his policies because very few people understand either what he's done or what he plans to do.
The vast majority are voting against Trump, but it may not be enough considering the numbers of base voters that the Democratic party has lost over the past 4 years.
Biden team has to make drastic changes now. Massive teams of surrogates need to be everywhere for the next 5 months explaining what Biden has done, what he's going to do, and the dangers of the MAGA movement and the catastrophic consequences of a 2nd Trump term.
This is a 5-alarm fire, and pretending that people are voting for policies helps no one.
I stand by what I said - there is plenty of clips and ads and speeches doing exactly what you say isn’t being done in the media. Lots of ads from former Trump voters that are now anti-Trump, too. It feels like there’s nothing because it does actually get drowned out by the “what did Trump do now” coverage and articles, which makes it appear as Biden is doing nothing. Biden is always below the fold so to speak. How do we bump that up? By searching out and reading articles about Biden so that they get more traffic. I see better positive coverage about Biden in the anti-Trump right wing press than I see in the anti-Trump left wing press.
No, it’s not a campaign as usual where we get to sit back and simply go vote, we must also be surrogates. It’s 2016 all over again with worse challenges because the press isn’t covering rallies and what they do cover is so sanitized, no one gets to see how unhinged Trump is. Trump is still leveraging the weaknesses of a system built on trust and honesty. Just like the GOP MAGA leveraged those weaknesses to take over the party they are only a minority faction within.
We have to change our own behaviors in the new media universe that we live in. This election, like the last (and like every election, really), will be decided on turnout, not ads. That means more boots on the ground doing the hard work and less online armchair quarterbacking (not a dig at anyone, I have been guilty of it myself).
We’ve all been pretty disengaged because we are familiar with the candidates, too, and the press has done an awful job of highlighting the choices at stake for low information voters. There is an asymmetrical nature to coverage between Trump and Biden that also benefits Trump because he has normalized his behavior.
Biden and the Dems simply have a much harder job, made harder by the framing of the protests against Gaza and the slew of disinformation about what Biden has said and done coming from the left, and the incessant overkill on press coverage on the issue of age based on a very small sampling of people and inside the beltway comments, all of which come with their own motivations and unconscious bias. Two weeks of coverage about age before the SOU before that was put to rest, and now probably weeks about age because seasoned political operatives won’t stop talking about it. The same people are driving the coverage then and now. It’s political malpractice to miss the forest for the trees.
Did you know that 40% of viewers of the debates thought Biden won the debate, and that it didn’t change the majorities views on who they were voting for? That’s a fair assessment of the debate. It might have been CNNs best ratings night but that was less than 1/2 of normal ratings for a debate — most people weren’t paying attention and it could have passed pretty unnoticed except for the wave of political punditry generated headlines generated not by Trump and the RNC, all of these headlines are coming from hot takes on the left — an overreaction of unprecedented scope that is completely based on panic and the optics of one night — it’s political malpractice.
Biden shouldn’t have to disprove a negative within his own party over and over again when the evidence for his competency to do the job is that he is already doing the job competently. He has a lot more to juggle than just a golf game. Trump is no avatar of virility and health because he can talk without stuttering issues. It’s insane. Trump is getting plenty additional opposition ads because of the very public framing of how Biden looked and not what Trump said.
Trump, once again free media because he’s click bait but it’s so watered down as to be meaningless. Trump has normalized his rhetoric as being just rhetoric for eight years with the mantra “take him seriously but not literally” so low information people just shrug off what he says. Project 2025 was reported on once last year — many people are shrugging it off because it’s the Heritage Foundation and not the Trump campaign. Forgetting that the GOP and MAGA are one this time around and Heritage is headed by a political operative and is no longer really a think tank.
I am now seeing more posts and articles about it now that we’re four months away, which is good. But the majority of news that average people watch has been filled with pieces that equate the dangers from the left because of protests about Gaza and now a second round of D infighting about age. Biden is an incumbent and so most of his stuff is treated as US news and not political news.
I can’t do anything about people ignoring or not ignoring news about Biden, but blaming anyone and everyone for where we are except ourselves is a bit much. The fact that we have a candidate that some are not thrilled with is no excuse. There is a lot of way too optimistic wish-casting going on about things being different if the Dems had a younger candidate. History shows us that isn’t so and ended up doing more harm than good.
The Trump campaign is thrilled by this. Good job Dems.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/heritage-working-election-legal-challenges-case-biden-pulled-from-dnc-nomination
https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/trump-camp-dismisses-dem-talk-biden-debate?r=3ynoe&utm_medium=ios
On this Age Issue … has anyone worked up a corollary reflecting “relative age” ??? Meaning, we enjoy longer lifespans than 100 years ago … FDR and Wilson looked older than Biden, and medical science has helped with longevity, so would a 60 year old man 100 years ago, equate to an 80 year old today?
I don’t think it’s disloyal to ask oneself the obvious question … but I do think it is an act of strategic MALPRACTICE to use your voice and platform to ask these chaotic questions WITHOUT offering a real solution. Kamala will never ever beat Trump (and I say this as a woman who loves Kamala and who loves to vote for black women whenever possible, but we all deeply know this.) So what are our REAL options? Don’t throw your questions out there without offering pragmatic solutions that WILL WORK. Otherwise it’s just Dems in Disarray and we’re playing straight in the the Putin/MAGA narrative. We must do better. The stakes are far too high.
💯
I appreciate your point of view. And clearly, we disagree about Kamala. But, I hope you will understand it is my belief in her that leads me to believe she is a viable pragmatic solution.
It's greatly appreciated that you are actually putting forth your opinion for an actual replacement in Kamala, but all the other pundits name no one, and most seem to imply skipping over Kamala (which would be disastrous). Would you concede that the choices are either Kamala or stick with Biden? Or do you actually think a brokered convention would be a good idea?
I think a brokered convention would be insane. The only path is concurrence, guided by Biden, among all Dems to line up behind the VP and someone else (my personal choice is Whitmer...but you could hardly go wrong with Newsom, Shapiro, Moore, Beshear, etc. It would hit reset on the campaign and energize the base. That is the key to turnout which is the key to the election.
I have a question about "Team Biden". I am a relatively well-read consumer of the news. But as I think about how Obama represented his working relationship with his VP (Biden was represented as always "the last person in the room", for example. Which gave the impression that Biden was a very involved VP, unusual for a typical President-Vice President working relationship.) Harris started out as VP with a lot of bad press/rumors (mean to her staff. People quitting on her.) The only impression I have currently is that she is sent hither and yon to represent America at formal events, giving the occasional speech. Was I not paying attention? Did Biden only use her to get Black American votes? Or does he rely on her distinguished experience? She didn't just coast to high position. She obviously had to work hard, with a lot of smarts and charisma. Are the back room murmurs that presenting a (1) woman, who is at least (2) partly Black, somehow hurts the Dems getting undecided votes? (I have to add that I was an enthusiastic supporter of Obama, and have been totally disgusted by America's seeming backlash to "the Obama years" by outwardly supporting - even enthusiastically - a person as malevolent, stupid, and racist as the former guy.) I guess I'm asking why isn't Harris presented as a Star of a Democrat, who would continue Biden's efforts?
I admit to responding to the "debate" by turning it off early, and emotionally curling into a ball. I have since been heartened by words from people I respect reminding me (if not the Undecideds - of which there are probably more now) of the existential crisis America is in, and how accomplished Biden's been, including an accomplished Cabinet. And how we must bank on that.
Like you, I believe we need to be honest with ourselves. And, I think it's also time for me to unsubscribe from The NY Times, and possibly The Washington Post. WTH is going on with our major news sources?!
All of this yack would have been reasonable a year ago. It's simply too late now. The Scaredy Cat wing of the Democratic Party has offered no coherent plan for how we would change candidates at this late date without validating everything Trump has been yelling for months. And they don't care that they have no coherent plan.
Here's what's really happening...
Those who write for a living, and those who uses politics as reality TV show melodrama drug, is jumping on this opportunity to make money and get their rocks off.
There's a lot to unpack, but focusing on what's important, separating the fly s*** from the pepper. It's a well-known documented fact that Democrats do nuance, Republicans don't. As your state Democrats can handle the truth, the reality.
All this shitting the bed (a better metaphor than ringing your hands/ pearl clutching) is waisted energy. like Biden said he got knocked down, he'll get the fuck up again and deal with it. Everything else doesn't matter. As stated Get the Democrat back in the White House is foundational to the continuation of the Republic.
Bitching and whining is all fine and good, get it out of the system, but get your s*** together Democrats. Get behind Biden and push. Biden acknowledge he f***** up, it's the start of a Biden Resurrection story he can tell.
This is the beginning
Ok... So - Tell me again the argument for considering throwing the Democratic presidential nomination process into complete chaos? (and even if you believe that Harris can ably proceed in Biden's stead, there will be plenty of folks who won't agree with you, and plenty more folks who will be offended by *those* folks, and, thus, her nominating process, if her candidacy survives it, will probably turn into a massive shitshow).
And how is your declaration that we're in crisis, ("no, really, *really* in crisis") somehow *new* information to those of us who think we should stick by Biden? Like we weren't taking it seriously before? Tim Miller did the same exact thing in his piece, as if, somehow, we didn't really *get* how serious the threat to democracy *actually* is, and that we can no longer afford the luxury of loyalty to our guy. Sheesh, we *know* democracy is in crisis! We are *fully aware* of what we have to lose. We're sticking with Biden because we think we have a better chance of forestalling disaster *with* Biden than with an open convention. Our opinion isn't because we feel like we don't have that much to lose and so we can take a chance on the old man out of misplaced loyalty - quite the opposite! The way things stand *right now*, Biden *can and will* beat Trump, because the election isn't about Biden versus Trump - it's about voting for someone, anyone, against the garbage scow of mendacity, sociopathy, and looming fascism that Trump openly embraces, represents, and declares. Plus, Dobbs, Dobbs, Dobbs.
We'll see how things play out in the next week or two, but there is yet no evidence to suggest that Biden's awful debate performance moved the dial away from him at all, nor has there been any clinical evidence suggesting that whatever happened to him that night is going to overtake him again between now and November. And I would expect that he and his team learned a few things from that meltdown, including how to avoid one like it in future.
Your asking questions about all of this is perfectly legit, of course. You asked, and, judging from your second entry on this topic, you got a pretty strong response from people. I'm an older person, and a phrase that comes to mind right now is what we used to say back in the late '60s - "Keep the faith, Baby!"
“But not asking them may mean that someone who is ambivalent about Biden’s ability to lead might not show up at the polls. And that could be fatal.” - the unacknowledged problem is that asking the questions could also have the same effect. I’d argue that myriad think pieces - from democrats! - about whether Biden is up to the task does a whole hell of a lot more damage than a unified front in spite of one bad performance. How many bad performances has trump had? How many news cycles have we moved on from and forgotten? Honestly the bed wetting is ridiculous and unhelpful. Suck it up, grow some balls and go support the candidate. We have all the ammo we need to make the case he’s better than trump. Enough excuses get out and do it.
I have a question I can’t get answered anywhere else. Why are we all skipping the question of what the hell happened. Does this happen a lot? Why did they plan the debate in these conditions if so and why didn’t they prep him differently?
The fact that they did plan it and send him out there makes me wonder if this kind of episode is unusual. Did he see a freaking doctor? What does the doctor say? That’s a fair question. People demanded it of Mitch McConnell and they are right to ask now.
If this was a one off, then why is Biden not planning a televised sit down interview with Jonathan Swan right now to address his health and the campaign and what he should have said in the debate and anything else Swan wants to push him on.
If Biden wants to stay the course he’s going to have to change things up. Expose himself more. Let people get used to the fact that stumbles and gaffes can exist side by side with wisdom and leadership. I’ve thought they should do this from the start but they have made him a stranger.
If he isn’t up for that interview or if the medical news is disqualifying, then he needs to resign. Not in January but right now. Let Kamala take over. Let us rejoice over the first woman president even as we thank Joe for his service. Let HER run as the incumbent and let every panicky person calling for a brokered convention to pick a mystery candidate get in line with us to do every dam thing we can to elect her.
That is the only alternative if Joe is unable. She’s got the name recognition, the campaign infrastructure, and she is the only one who can spend the damn money.
Joe argues that the Dems care more about democracy because they are willing to make th hard choices while R’s embrace a failed living con.
But first the conversation about what the hell happened. I have to believe they wouldn’t have planned the event and sent him out there if there was ANY chance of this disaster. So, what happened? Cold? Cold medicine? TIA? What?
Very reasonable questions. In fact, this whole debate turns on whether Biden "had a bad debate" as has happened so often or whether there are deeper problems at work...problems that could reappear closer to the election and impact the result. But as everybody circles their wagons and makes positions on this a matter of loyalty or integrity or something...well, it becomes less likely that we will have the conversation we should have.
Yes, half the people I follow made a panic decision within 24 hrs — and sometimes far less — that Joe had to go (combined with very little understanding of what the options really are or how would work). The other half were the “we have his back” crowd based on no new info, as far as I could tell, beyond the NC speech (which was great and reassuring but not to my mind enough.). And now both camps are dug in defending their positions and I wish I had a giant megaphone to tell them to cool the fuck down for a day or two and be thoughtful.
I think we absolutely must get the medical info. Is it conceivable that they didn’t have him looked at? That tells me it happens enough that they already checked it out, in which case letting him on that stage was campaign malpractice. Or it tells me they did get him checked out but the answer isn’t benign. Because it’s easy enough to blame it on the cold meds if he’d taken any. Or even on a TIA — not good but people get them and recover and he was noticeably improved as the night and next day went on.
I’m speculating on zero knowledge and it seems to me that I can’t be the only one. I understand feeling gaslit and angry. I was in the drop out of the race camp for the first couple of hours. I left the room 5 minutes in and couldn’t watch anymore. I’ve swung back and forth pretty dramatically since then. I’m strongly inclined to support him staying in if he’ll just give me a reason besides wishful thinking.
David, would you invite me to a meeting of the Punditry and Chardonnay Drinking Society next time I'm in DC?😉
It might have been stated earlier, but why isn't the Press pushing Trump to quit because he can't tell the truth? The double standard is infuriating.
Biden may have been inarticulate but at least he addressed the questions asked. The Single stranded helix (I guess the other side of the DNA helix contains the traits of telling the truth, compassion, non malignant sociopath, being a civil person) was incapable of addressing any of them and what he did say was lies. Where's the clamour for him to resign
If the Biden campaign were a business - and isn’t most if not all politics transactional, at the end of the day? - and Thursday’s debate was a truly miserable quarterly performance, then the business’ investors - in this case, big-money donors, influencial pols, etc. - would be on a conference call demanding a new business plan and a set of benchmarks to confirm it was effective before pledging any more resources to the candidate. Otherwise they would do well to take their money and influence elsewhere, say, to Dem. candidates in Senate and HR races, in hopes of providing for a congressional majority that could serve as counterweight to DJT after his election. I’d hope they had all read Rothkopf ‘s most recent post, and maybe thought about bringing him on board as a consultant.