I honestly cannot believe how badly the democrats are fucking this up. With how terrifying a Trump presidency is, this is extremely concerning.
Biden is clearly old. This should come as no great shock to anyone. And clearly, that’s going to impact his ability to win the election. Especially after his poor debate performance, etc etc etc.
Given that reality, what should the Democrats do? In my mind, there are exactly two good options.
As privately as possible, discuss this internally and decide that Biden is still the best candidate for defeating Trump. Rally behind him, offer as much support as possible, and do everything possible to make sure he beats Trump.
As privately as possible, discuss this internally and decide that Biden needs to drop out. Convince him to do so behind the scenes, and either have him throw his support behind Kamala, or have a quick primary to replace him - make that decision before Biden announces that he is stepping down. (The time frame for this option was very short after the debate, so so much for that.)
Instead, the democrats have chosen:
3) Half the party is going to sling mud till the election in an attempt to force Biden to step down while the other half is going to say that they support Biden, but between leaked comments and unintentional or out of context gaffes overly emphasized by the media, end up undermining Biden anyways.
To be fair - I don’t think the Democratic Party was ever capable of 1 or 2. Idiotic conspiracy theories about Bernie aside, they’ve never been that organized. Still, at this point we are doing pretty much exactly the last thing we should be. The hope would be that despite this, Trump’s obvious shortcomings lose him the race; but I’m not that confident in the decision making skills of the American voters.
I figured they did do #2: they went to him privately and discreetly explained that they’d come to the conclusion that he should drop out, so, c’mon, man: step forward like you reached this decision on your own, have all of us publicly sing your praises as you pass the torch, and — no? You’re not going for that? Look, we’re reluctant to do this in public, but — no, this isn’t a bluff. Seriously, don’t try to call our bluff; it’s not a bluff; we’d merely prefer to talk at you in private. Please do this with dignity in public. No? Fuck; we’ll go public, then.
Well what is your #3? They tried #1 and it didn’t work and then they tried #2 and it didn’t work. I think it is pretty clear that the public pressure was necessary to get Biden to even consider dropping out.
Number three is to give up and let Grandpa keep driving until he winds up in the middle of a farmer’s market and we’re all making memes based on the 2003 South Park episode “Grey Dawn”.
It’s been like this forever. The Democrats are a group that includes a few rather conservative whites but also all sorts of groups. The GOP has been white christians since like forever. They chose to have Trump represent them. It worked. They have no choice but to back him 100%. trump could have a stroke tomorrow and he would still be the cadidate. And it is pretty much under Trump control at the RNC. They have nothing else. The Trump scheme worked well enough in 2016. If he wins, it will be exactly the same numbers.
Honestly I think the attempt of leadership was 2 as much as possible with Biden rebuffing them and doubling down
Now if you as a party leader or major donor are personally convinced that it is critical for him to step down, and quiet conversations are ineffective, do you just shut up and get in line, or try other means?
In any case I dispute that this has hurt Biden, more than his horrible baseline position: his modest polling deficit is pretty rock solid. Okay a Trump bump after the assassination attempt and the convention, but it doesn’t seem to be from the discussions about Biden stepping aside.
The vast majority of voters see him as aging badly. That would not be any less true if we supporters tried to gaslight other voters pretending that such is not the case.
I think this is true. If he comes out strongly saying he is staying in, then Democrats will rally behind him, hoping he can really pull it out. It will be very easy for even those Democrats publicly calling for him to exit to say “well, I didn’t think he had it in him but look at him go - he’s stronger than I thought!”.
I know we have a few in this thread saying they won’t vote for a replacement if Biden drops out (but I would hope a strong campaign by the replacement would change their mind), but is there anybody that won’t vote for Biden if he stays in? I know I still will, even as I reluctantly think the course that maximizes Democratic chances is for him to drop out.
And I think your last point is good as well, in some ways it’s far better for the campaign to own the situation and try to control the narrative than to pretend that the debate went fine and the public can’t see with its own eyes that Biden has lost a tick or two from his fastball.
I’m also pretty astonished at how they’re handling this. Seems to me that whether they are going to push him out or not, the sausage should have been made in the dark.
They’re having an absolute field day with this over at Breitbart et al.
With all the panic and doomsaying, it’s important to remember it’s only July. The party will figure this out, probably (and hopefully) within a week or two. And then the convention, which will bring the party back together, and then the focus on Trump and the general election.
What’s happening now probably isn’t as important as it seems. We’re going to have a candidate in the convention, and then we’ll move on to the general. Everyone willing to vote for a Democrat is a gettable voter, and all or nearly all will come back into the fold, regardless of the candidate.
“They”, as in the Democratic Party, did not do #2. Clearly, they didn’t come to a concensus at all, because there’s still a bunch of disagreement.
No, a faction within the Democratic Party took it upon itself to unilaterally decide that #2 is what needed to happen, and rather than convince their allies, they went public to force their hand. Leading to the mess we are in now.
Yes, precisely. It seems like a faction within the party that didn’t like the spices the rest of the Democrats put into the sausage decided to open the window and call the press.
I don’t think the election is irretrievably lost. What I do think is that a bunch of things have happened recently that have significantly widened Trump’s lead. And I don’t see anything on the horizon that could be a game-changer. The Democratic convention sure isn’t that thing, because Biden will show up quite frankly looking like death warmed over and will once again fall over his words and maybe be barely audible as he often is. In the meantime, the Trump ticket is more horrible than anyone could even have imagined in their worst nightmares.
I was kind of hoping that it’s for show: that Plan A was to go to him discreetly, and Plan B is to go public one by one so he can still exit with as much dignity still remains at any given point — which would eventually morph into Plan C, where the full amount of consensus that’s already in fact there gets put on display; but, with any luck, he drops out before B fully morphs into C.
So far, the polls don’t indicate that Trump’s lead has widened. This is a guess from me, but ISTM that the vast majority of Americans have made up their mind, such that poor debate performances, and even assassination attempts, aren’t going to change it. The mission, therefore, will be turnout.
Trump’s lead may not have widened, but given the Republican advantage in the Electoral College, anything that isn’t a lead of 4% or greater for Biden (or any Democrat who replaces him) points to likely Democratic defeat.
Biden’s hole may not have become deeper since the shooting, but he still has a sizable hole to climb out of. He was 9% ahead of Trump at this same point in time four years ago yet still came alarmingly close to defeat on Election Night.
Once a politician has gotten to the point of Biden, they have too much of a built-in ego that’s too hardened to step aside - at least, not easily. Ginsburg wouldn’t retire in her cancerous 80s, same reason Pelosi won’t retire, same reason Feinstein plodded on until dying in office in her 90s and McConnell won’t go.
For all the talk about how nice and good Biden’s character and maturity is compared to Trump - and yes, he’s light-years ahead in that category - there is considerable arrogance in a lot of his statements and persona. I can imagine repeated gentle Democratic attempts to get him to resign being soundly rebuffed.
