I Don’t Think He is Going Anywhere
But the story will continue for a while yet.
To pick up a bit on where my co-blogger, James Joyner, left off, I am of the view that Biden is not going to step down and that there is almost certainly an insufficient coalition to push him out. As such, our instincts are at odds.
Note, as I have before, that this observation is separate from the question of whether he should go or not. Indeed, I think a lot of the media buzz and general conversation on this topic conflate the question of “Will he drop out?” with “Should he drop out?” Those are related, but very different questions. Indeed, the conversation then further hand-waves a lot of the details that are relevant to the consequences of his dropping out.
If he had made a series of major errors that mirrored his terrible debate performance yesterday, then I might be writing a different post. Yes, he said “Trump” when he meant “Harris.” As James noted, this is the kind of error we all make daily, and let’s not forget that even young Joe Biden was known as a gaffe machine who frequently misspoke. This is not disqualifying and only matters because of the heightened scrutiny we are giving to every word he utters (not to mention how he utters them). More importantly, however, the performance yesterday is hardly going to be enough to convince Biden to step down, or even to embolden enough new political allies to ask him to do so.
I will remind everyone again that the party organizations are weak and that the party is presidentialized, meaning, among other things, that the entire structure and purpose of the party is substantially focused on the office of the presidency and that fact empowers the nominee (or presumptive nominee) and especially does so when that person is the sitting president.
I would note that if the tactics to get him to go include columns from celebrities and coded messages from Nancy Pelosi, that underscores how weak the actual party apparatus is. And, indeed, if anyone thinks these maneuvers, to include, yes, a handful of elected Democrats calling for him to step down, is a show of party strength, I would revert to the trope of saying, demonstrate to me that you don’t understand what a weak party looks like without telling me you don’t understand what a weak party looks like. And note, I know that sounds snarky, and it is, but since the attempts at being all political science-y on the subject seem not to work, sometimes you have to go to the snark and hope people take it for being lighthearted and not too mean.
Put another way: if the only way to get Biden to step down is to stage an intervention, that is not a sign of a strong party apparatus.
(A caveat: if he is much, much worse in private, then an intervention may be necessary–but while there have been leaks about his agedness, I don’t see enough evidence to suggest it is bad enough for such an intervention to take place).
And, by the way, pointing to money drying up (such as references to “Hollywood money”) are likewise signs of party weakness. Yes, loss of contributions is important, and if the money does dry up, that’s a problem for Biden. But if we are talking about a series of individual choices by wealthy persons, that’s not the party in any formal sense. If everyone is “the party” then no one is “the party.”
Indeed, I would note that the current dilemma we face as a country, Trump as the GOP nominee and Biden as the Democratic nominee, is the direct result of weak parties that do not have any real control over who will represent them because that power was farmed out to a sub-section of the electorate about 50 years ago.
This returns me to a simple fact that seems to be continually ignored in these conversations. Yes, Joe Biden is old. Yes, there are legitimate concerns about how his age may be affecting his ability to do his job. But, he is the President of the United States. He is one of the most powerful people in the world. To get that job required a preternatural amount of ego and self-confidence. Getting a person like that to give it all up is going to be monumentally hard. And he clearly does not want to give it up. Moreover, if he is in decline, that often makes it all the harder to convince men to step down.
And, again, let’s not forget that the argument here is really less about his fitness (although I think that that is a fully legitimate discussion), but the real anxiety is not about Old Joe as POTUS. The anxiety is Trump winning. If Biden were up in the polls and that debate had happened as it did, we would not be having this conversation and the news this morning would not have led with “Biden said ‘Trump’ when he meant ‘Harris’!”
Let’s also note that the replacement conversation focuses an awful lot on fantasies that a switch would be easy. I remain unclear on how easy it would be.
Could Harris assume control over the campaign, its finances, and ballot access without any legal challenges coming to the fore to delay her access to resources? This alone is a major question I have not seen adequately answered.
Regardless, I am not going to go down that rabbit hole at the moment, but note it point out that the switcheroo thesis has risks as well.
(And note, I have not actually expressed any preferences here about whether he should stay or go, but am trying to underscore what the likely outcome is and why).
Worth noting – polls actually seem to be shifting in Biden’s favor while this whole discussion is happening!
Marist this morning has him winning 50-48 (https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/nx-s1-5036518/biden-trump-poll) after their last poll showed a tie. A few other polls today and yesterday show similar shit Biden-ward.
Hopefully Project 2025 will be a difference maker.
To be clear, we agree here. On the surface, it just seems that the drumbeat for him to leave is insurmountable. But the Yglesias rule applies here: the only way to survive is to refuse to quit.
Indeed. Once a narrative takes hold, it is hard as hell to shift it. At a crucial moment, Biden failed. And worse, he failed in a way that perfectly complemented GOP attacks on him. If Biden were up in the swing states that debate would have been bad, but not this bad. But of course that’s the issue, isn’t it? 100% of people who were going to vote for Biden before the debate will still vote for him. But that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant are swing voters in six or seven states. What has Biden done to move the needle for them?
I agree. Whitmer is a fantasy. And we don’t know the details of campaign law. Or how well Harris would do.
If Biden stays in we’re toast. Every day he stays in the race my respect for him plummets. He has no business running to be president for another 6 months; let alone four years.
The Republicans are already running against Harris so I’m less concerned about opening up a new angle of attack. I think she understands what is at stake and has the potential to take it to Trump while energizing voters who are turned off by the current nursing home contest.
I say let her off the leash. I don’t see how the outcome could be any worse and if Trump still wins at least we would go down fighting. At the moment Biden is leading us off a cliff into oblivion.
Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
@Kathy: That song has definitely been in my head for days and was almost a post title a few days ago.
I haven’t talked much about my thoughts on Biden’s future as a candidate here since the debate disaster, so I’ll lay them out as best as I can.
I believe the Dems’ best chance of beating Trump at this point is keeping Biden as the nominee. I don’t know if he’s going to stay on, and I don’t know if he will beat Trump if he does. But I think it’s a safer choice than switching to Kamala (which I think most of us would agree is the only really plausible alternative if Biden steps down).
I know this is very much the minority opinion here and on other liberal forums I visit.
Let’s keep in mind that we’re currently in a period of incessant negative coverage of Biden, with members of his own party very publicly turning on him and pointing out his flaws, with virtually no attention toward Trump. And even then, the polls haven’t shown obvious, unambiguous evidence that he’s going to lose. He remains behind in most–though not all–polls in the swing states, though it’s well within the MOE in enough states that it would require only a tiny polling error for Biden to win if the election were held today. Of course it’s possible Trump would do better than the polls suggest, just as he did in 2016 and 2020, but given the overperformance of Dems in the past few years–not just in the midterms, off-year, and special elections, but also in the primaries, where Biden consistently outperformed his poll numbers and Trump consistently underperformed them–that is hardly self-evident.
And this is during a very bad news cycle for Biden, which won’t last forever. The news will shift, as it always does, and Trump’s flaws will reenter the focus of conversation. Especially once Dems accept Biden as the nominee, instead of doing everything they can to undermine him as they currently are.
Now, I know how the leave-Biden crowd will respond to all this. They’ll say it’s a virtual certainty Biden will have new moments where he looks old and doddering, and that’ll just bring the negative attention back to him.
That’s quite possibly true. It’s also possible these moments aren’t nearly as politically damaging as some people think they are, and that the race will come down to the fundamentals–the growing economy and Trump’s awfulness. But, despite their good intentions, a lot of Dems currently are heavily reinforcing the negative narrative about Biden by questioning his ability to continue, so the current drop in support is, I believ, at least in part a self-inflicted wound.
I also think that switching to Kamala could have a worse impact. It would come off as an act of desperation, it would blow up Biden’s coalition that he’s spent years building up, it would introduce unknown elements in how effectively Kamala could respond to the inevitable coming smear campaign against her (being old and doddering isn’t the only way Dem candidates can be weak in addressing the onslaught against them). Among other things, I’m anticipating there will be an effort by Republicans, picked up by the media, that Biden’s faculties were some secret the Dems hid from the public, and Kamala would be implicated in this supposed coverup.
Sticking with Biden gives us a known path, however narrow. It is, so to speak, the devil we know.
@Kylopod: I agree with you.
@Jen: Also agree, unless Biden is flat out impaired, which doesn’t look like the case.
And, I fully expect that Biden will remain the nominee. I would not bet on a head of lettuce outlasting him.
But, he has to actively show that he is competent to change the narrative and win the election. I think twice weekly press conferences, of about an hour each would do it.
@James Joyner:
Depends on the bubble you’re in.
To wit:
CNN interviews black voters in Georgia:
Tristan Shell:
A Michigan voter on Joe Biden’s press conference speaking to CNN:
More from CNN:
Elitist pundit class hacks, out-of-touch podbros, and cowardly anonymous leakers are going to have to work much harder if they want a successful coup to overrule the Democratic Party base. Two weeks of some of the most biased, hysterical, untrustworthy journalism this country’s ever seen didn’t do the trick.
@Kylopod:
Check out Balloon Juice – nearly everyone there, front pagers and commentariat, are pretty solid on sticking with Biden.
They post lots of links to people like Stacy Abrams who are all in on Biden
https://balloon-juice.com/
@Kylopod:
Examples:
https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1811593108900995522
https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1811593108900995522/photo/1
@charontwo:
This is the MAGA pig Seth Abramson was fingering:
https://x.com/MattWallace888
https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1810764922902446118
Kamala Harris was the original Hawk Tuah girl
and this
https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1810557732417688036
This maybe or not be relevant but the life expectancy of a male in the US who is currently 81 is 7.82 years. Given the fact that Biden would be in the upper 10% with regards to health care and related data points odds are he will make it to January of 2029.
Sadly that same actuarial situation holds for Trump.
1. Biden was never my first choice when he ran in 2020 because of his age, and I believe my vote has never had any influence over who became POTUS because I have not lived in a battleground state.
2. I tried being active in local democratic politics, which gave me a view of how parties are run at the state level. Infighting and dysfunction, and very little discussion of how to solve local problems. I can’t imagine what goes on at the national level. Maybe I just can’t stand watching the sausage being made, but I quit my local activism to pursue just being a good neighbor and voting. I read the state-level platform, and it generally fits my views, so maybe the system works. I just don’t have the temperament to participate.
3. At least twice in my lifetime, the person who won by popular vote did not become president, most notably Al Gore, which led to Bush and the global destabilization caused by the Iraq war, from which we still suffer.
4. Admittedly, I may suffer PTSD from association with people with cognitive decline. There may be good days and bad days, but the trend is always toward decline. I do not trust his ability to maintain the level of performance he demonstrated last night.
5. What I believe the Democrats suffer from at the current moment is failure of imagination. If we were engaged in a war, I do not believe that a top general who performed like Biden during the debate would still be in command. I’m not suggesting that we overthrow Biden, but I do believe that Democrats should encourage Biden to step aside and pursue Carville’s recommended approach or something similar. We need to employ all tools at our disposal to present the best candidate. I’m old enough to remember the old conventions where everyone would wait with baited breath to see who would finally emerge as the candidate. Carville’s recommendation is a similar selection process that is more transparent than the days of old. To me is would be just as democratic as a few states and the electoral college have the power to make the choice.
6. I heartily recommend Liberty is Sweet: the hidden history of the American Revolution by Woody Holton. He make the point that our constitution was not designed to franchise women, indigenous people, people of color, and other minorities. It was designed to create a capitalistic society for the benefit of rich white men. In that regard it has worked quite well. In terms providing safety and happiness for anyone else…well… that’s why Americans are still fighting with each other.
7. Sorry to be pessimistic, but I think I’ll re-watch A Friend for the End of the World, and re-read The Bridge of Years by May Sarton.
@charontwo:
Just out of curiosity I created a new twitter account on a separate browser while running a vpn.
I was not ‘fed’ that tweet nor anything like it. Seth Abramson generally tweets unsubstantiated (and unsubstantiable) claims to farm engagement. He’s up there with MuellerSheWrote, Louise Mensch, and Shaun King in the BlueAnon-Grifter Mount Rushmore.
As far as money goes, I have a friend who just gave him 500 bucks. You know, after the debate.
I am considering following suit. Neither of us thinks the situation is ideal, nor do we think it is dire. Nothing that must be decided in 5 minutes or less ever gets to the president. It is discussed beforehand and decided then. He may face some things that need to be handled in the next hour or so, but I think he’s still up to that.
And if he gets to a state where he can’t, I trust him to figure out how best to handle it.
@Neil Hudelson:
True enough, but the link to @mattwallace888 he posted still is what it is.
And this mattwallace888 guy is a real sweetie – I skimmed his timeline – racist, anti-semitic and very misogynist.
Abramson does get out over his skies a lot, but even blind pigs find acorns occasionally.
@Skookum: I get that there are concerns, and your particular point about age-related decline being a straight line pointing down is a very valid one.
This is what I find truly frustrating. Carville frankly knows better. Off the top of my head, here are my issues with Carville’s approach:
– It takes months–which we rather decidedly do NOT have–to set up what he’s made the case for in his article. He’s suggesting four regional town halls with no details on how they’d be organized, staffed, paid for, etc. He wants two former presidents to staff these…okay, do you know how long it would take to even select venues that would meet security concerns???
– He also completely ignores the fact that state processes have already been run. How does a party usurp the will of the voters ex post facto?
– And, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s suggesting ignoring state laws that govern the selection process.
– Of the money Biden-Harris has raised–a quarter of a billion dollars–$2,000 (not a typo) can go to the new candidate committee.
– And that new candidate? He or she will not have any staff or field offices. No vendor contracts with data companies or direct mail or outreach teams or a way to even distribute yard signs. No media buying agencies. NOTHING. It takes years to build the infrastructure that Biden-Harris has right now.
From his article:
Well, that’s an understatement. “I’m not a details guy,” says the guy who spends an op-ed engaging in unworkable hypotheticals.
The frustrating thing to me is that he knows better. He knows EXACTLY how much time it takes to set up a campaign. I’m not sure why the NYT printed that garbage, but it’s smoke & mirrors.
@Skookum: Your personal experience seeing people with cognitive decline is, of course, relevant. Biden in Jan 2029 isn’t going to be more capable than the man we saw at the press conference. But do you trust Harris and his advisers to pick up the slack? Or do you trust Trump (who is showing some degeneracy himself) and his band of incompetent sycophants?
@Skookum:
And you hit precisely on the difference between hierarchy and non-hierarchy.
@Jen:
Indeed. This what I meant above when I said “the conversation then further hand-waves a lot of the details that are relevant to the consequences of his dropping out.”
The amount of wish-casting in all of this is nuts and makes me doubt the seriousness and acumen of a lot of people who are engaged in said hand-wavery.
@Neil Hudelson:
I don’t normally look at Abramson. That Abramson link was something I saw at Balloon Juice.
As for Kamala Harris, the nugget of relevant truth is that at one time she was dating Willie Brown, some kind of big shot in the California legislature, it was an issue in some of her campaigns in California.
@Jen:
He may or may not. Or he may be suffering his own age-related cognitive decline. Or maybe not. This is the guy who called Bill Richardson a “Judas” for endorsing Obama in 2008, and then wrote an entire column in NYT defending his remarks. After Obama won, he wrote a book with a photoshopped image of himself with his arm around Obama, titled “40 More Years: How the Democrats will Rule the Next Generation,” which had the misfortune of hitting bookshelves just after the 2010 shellacking.
The man has a long record of talking out of his ass, simply because he’s a media darling as a former campaign manager of a successful presidential campaign. When you get that kind of platform by default, there isn’t much incentive for making an effort to give good advice, and the older you get the more you’re compelled to sound contrarian and shocking to stay relevant.
Speaking of Abramson, this link is certainly worth reading.
@Jen:
@Steven L. Taylor:
I still go with a Carville-like approach. I believe if we are in a “war” mode that we can summon resources, energy, and vision to produce a viable candidate. If you use the same recipe, you get the same bread. The recipe we’ve been using will not defeat Trump. By recipe, I mean the toothless primaries that didn’t challenge Biden and test his abilities and the dithering after the debate.
@Franklin:
Did you view Harris’s interview after the debate? She was poised, articulate, truthful without being disloyal.
@Skookum:
The recipe that defeated Trump was running Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, not Kamala Harris.
@DK:
That was 4 years ago. There was no opportunity for Americans to listen to debates for Democratic candidates in the 2024 primaries and express their choice by voting. Biden was for all practical purposes anointed as candidate.
@Skookum: But for all the dire realities we are facing, we are not in a war and there is not a hierarchical order that can remove Biden from the ticket–that was my point. I can understand (truly!) why people would prefer someone other than Biden, it is just isn’t likely to happen.
@Kylopod: Carville suffers, in my opinion, from a syndrome a lot of campaign managers from winning campaigns have. They take the win to mean that they have a unique and elevated understanding of American politics that is reinforced by the fact that after they win they are asked to be on TV and such and can give opinions with any accountability. It deepens their belief in their own wisdom. Plus, Carville’s schtick, in particular, has always been loud, obnoxious know-it-all.
I mean, “It’s the economy, stupid” may have been correct, it is hardly a sophisticated approach.
@Skookum: Carville’s approach is a) not feasible in the time frame we have; b) almost certainly run into legal challenges; and c) it would be a sh!tshow.
Carville’s approach is essentially a recasting of the smoke-filled back rooms politics used to be, with a thin veneer of the appearance of transparency. Note that his “democratic” solution is to let two former presidents and governors pick who will run.
The reason we don’t have smoke-filled back rooms in politics anymore isn’t just that they fell out of fashion, the laws changed too. Carville knows this.
ETA, sorry I meant to address this too:
“we can summon resources, energy, and vision to produce a viable candidate.”
Again, I find this so frustrating…it’s not just a matter of WANTING something. There are actual structures involved…you’re essentially trying to bake a cake in 10 minutes that usually takes an hour or more.
Just one example…staff and payroll. A brand new campaign–even if you have the incredible fortune of having 95% of Biden’s team move to the new candidate (this is unrealistic, BTW, it would likely be somewhere in the 60-75% range), ALLLL of those people need W2s, new payroll setup, etc. I’ve pointed out before and I will again: a campaign is a *legal entity*. Contracts don’t transfer, they need to be re-signed by the new entity.
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/12/biden-news-old-democrats-president
In addition, noted rabid right wing outlet CNN notes that staffers are being threatened for not healing to the Biden line. Elected Dems will not be so easy.
OTB reminds me of an old line attributed to George Patton: When 99% of people think one way, and 1% the other, a lot of people aren’t thinking.
@Skookum: No candidates that are viable decided to challenge the weak old man. Who were people going to listen too? Why do you hate Democracy when it doesn’t yield YOUR preferred outcome.
Shorter:
1. No candidate with the ability to win millions of primary votes elected to mount a campaign.
2. Millions of voters selected Joe Biden
3. You want Biden to step aside for candidates that never ran…and no one voted for?
Lollololollolollololol
@Jen: @Steven L. Taylor: Additionally, the article I linked to earlier this week about Carville’s
brainfaidea noted his age as 79. For me, the idea of a 79-year-old lecturing people about putting too much trust in an 81-year-old man has more irony (and chutzpa) than I’m interested in investing in this “age is only a number” clown car crash. Yikes!@Kylopod: “…his own age-related cognitive decline…”
Gosh, ya think? WHOA!
@Jim Brown 32:
I don’t hate democracy. I just don’t think our country is very democratic. And it was designed that way.
@Skookum: I didn’t see it yet, but I think that’s my point. Even if she’s not at the top of the ticket, she’s ready at a moment’s notice.
And heck, I believe it saves her two more full terms if she waits to take over until the day after Biden’s second inauguration 🙂
@Jack:
Something you’ve never once thought or wrote re: Republican Party kicking out all congressmen who opposed rapist felon Trump, including Liz Cheney — who Trump now wants hauled in front of a military tribunal.
OTB’s rightwing trolls remind me of this quote by Tennessee Williams: “The only thing that’s worse than a liar is a liar that’s also a hypocrite.”
It’s not elected Dems you need to worry about as the main obstacle to the media’s Biden Derangement Syndrome. As in the 2020 primary, the Democratic base and especially black Democrats. You know, the Americans most hated by your deplorable white supremacist MAGA cult.
@Jen:
I appreciate your view, and see you point. But I do believe that presenting a viable candidate in November IS a matter of WANTING something and using legal means to get it done.
Please note: Carville’s half-baked let’s get ‘er done op-ed was premised on Biden having the judgment to realize that staying in the race in not in the country’s best interest. Carville at least had a sense of urgency and was willing to think out of the box.
Not WANTING making an effort to produce a healthy candidate within legal means (instead creating a double entendre election where we are betting on the vice president to take the reigns in case the nominee is too frail to carry out the duties of POTUS or wringing hands or choosing to believe the emperor wears no clothes) is how autocracy comes to power.
Okay, I’ve said my piece. Like a said, I recommend the move A Friend for the End of the World. Only if Trump is elected our world won’t end, it will create misery for generations.
God, where is our Churchill?
I’ve heard and read several instances of reporting recently on Biden’s supposedly limited working hours due to his something-or-other, inexplicably not followed by a comparison to Trump’s famously short working hours.
However, as reported today at RollCall,
and
and
@Skookum: Our country is not purely Democratic—nor should it be. 49% of people are smarter than the other 51% .
How long do you think a nation can survive ruled by 51%. Its why we elect Representatives who are supposed to be amongst the smartest of us.
@Franklin:
My guess is that the GQP would wait until… maybe 8 years from today to complain to the Supremes about whether she’s entitled to run again. With “the sanctity of the rule of law” on the line, the Supremes will lurch into action, call themselves back from vaycay and do whatever Leonard Leo (or his successor) tells them to do about a week or 3 later.
The best laid plans, and all that.
@Skookum: Really??? I’m not a Biden guy. I remember the gaffes from the past, the embarrassment of getting caught using someone else’s stump speech (Neil Kinnock?? IIRC), and all the baggage that went with being the “Senator from MBNA.” Even so, I don’t think we’d have gotten any better leadership these past 4 years. Churchill? You’re looking at him and don’t recognize it.
I have to say that it must be really entertaining for Jack, JBK, and the rest of the troll gang to watch you guys running around like your hair is on fire screaming “We’re dooooommed! The end of life as we know it is coming January 7, 2025! Somebody do something! Anything! Even if it’s wrong!” I say that because I know that it’s been entertaining for me. Sad, too, but mostly entertaining. It’s just like when Luddite was back in college following his stint at the home for wayward boys, and the students sharing the house that his friend was living in were absolutely positive that George HW Bush (for clarification) was going to use his contacts in the CIA to suspend the Constitution so that he and Reagan could take over as dictators. I LOVE IT when you guys go all bat shirt crazy like this!
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I appreciate Biden’s contribution during his presidency, but that does not change his decline.
I prefer Pelosi’s willingness to step aside and mentor the next generation, which in my view, demonstrates that she still possesses good judgment.
People that have cognitive impairment past a certain point are not aware of their impairment. Biden is obviously (a) afraid to take a cognitive test; (b) lying to us about his health, or (c) simply unable to recognize the magnitude of his cognitive decline.
To me it’s crazy to set up voting for someone with the assumption that the VP (who has not been through a primary selection process) will be the de facto president.
Time will tell if I’m crazy or Cassandra.
Unfortunately I don’t LOVE IT when people don’t believe what they see and merrily march over the cliff like lemmings.
@Skookum:..Unfortunately I don’t LOVE IT when people don’t believe what they see and merrily march over the cliff like lemmings.
I can’t speak for all humans who merrily march over the cliff but I think that we should leave the lemmings out of it.
@Skookum: There are no legal means to “get it done”. Carville should know this. Replacing Biden on the Georgia and West Virginia ballots ain’t gonna happen.
We can all talk about fairy tales and unicorns, but legally and financially, there’s no way to replace Joe Biden unless it’s Kamala Harris, and that’s only if Joe decides to step down. Which he isn’t.
So we’re gonna have to get the fuck over it and save democracy. Vote Blue, no matter who!!!
@DK:
I’ve seen this talking point a lot and it’s just nonsense. For all practical purposes, the primary was uncontested as the DNC threatened candidates who were talking about opposing Biden and made it next to impossible for them to even get on ballots. The Soviet Union and Iran have more competitive elections than the 2024 Democratic primaries. (The Republican primaries at least featured viable candidates. Trump won overwhelmingly.)
Although I know it can’t POSSIBLY happen, I would love to watch the heads explode if Joe the Vegetable got a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize for finally brokering a ceasefire in the Middle East.
My take is still that if someone can’t document Biden’s senility in the performance of his duties as president, they should probably STFU until they can. And please, no anecdotes about Grampa’s or Uncle Lou’s senility issues. Literally everyone in the the bleeping world has seen relatives decline and die, and the lesson seems to be that actually everyone is different, and not that all old people age in the same way. And the first one to reference “optics” or “narrative” loses.
@James Joyner: Still, your “candidates” consisted of Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, and Cenk Uguhr. These yahoos having problems getting on the ballots of 4 states is your example of “The Soviet Union and Iran have more competitive elections?” Really?
@James Joyner: I’m not sure it’s entirely nonsense…it IS weird that rank and file Democratic voters are like “yep, he’s old, we’re aware but we’re sticking with him,” while the donor & pundit classes are demanding he step down.
Biden wasn’t even on the ballot in NH and he won.
And, RE: Iran and Russia, let’s remember that Republican state parties in several states tried to prevent any opposition to Trump.
@Jax:
I did appreciate Bernie Sander’s op-ed today.
@Mister Bluster:
No more lemming analogies from me!