'He had a bad night' is a bad take
How does Madame President sound?
Firs of all, I want to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day. In theory, this should be an uplifting day — a time to celebrate the birth of a nation that, until relatively recently, had steadily evolved into what Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop called “a city upon a hill,” and Ronald Reagan later modified to “a shining city on a hill.”
As an aside: I don’t want to diminish the individual and collective accomplishments and inspirations that shine brightly in our own communities, but currently I’d say the blazing lights of national discord are blinding us to the positive goings-on we see in our daily lives. I see the poison every day.
Before last Thursday’s presidential debate, the national divisions were fairly easy to generalize about, especially regarding the upcoming election: We had conservatives who supported former Republican President Donald Trump and progressives who thought current Democratic President Joe Biden very much deserved to be reelected.
The latter cohort has been severely shaken by the president’s wobbly debate performance last week. ICYMI, my next-day review is below:
Until this point in the campaign, participants in the discussion of presidential politics had consisted mostly of supporters of Trump or Biden, and to a certain extent the so-called “double haters” that I wrote about in March.
What has happened since the debate is nothing short of astonishing. A schism has opened up between Democrats/progressives. Some are sticking by the 81-year-old president, insisting that it was a one-off and that he simply “had a bad night.” Others are clearly in panic mode. They’re terrified that Biden’s dreadful performance will turn what is now a fairly close re-election race into a Trump rout.
White House officials, the Biden campaign and staunch supporters of the president subsequently launched a gaslighting offensive, trying mightily to convince us we did not see what we saw. This tactic had little effect, coming as it did from members of the president’s inner circle who had largely shielded him from freewheeling events and steered him toward low-risk endeavors such as scripted campaign speeches read from a teleprompter.
On cable and social media, Biden loyalists insist he only had off night, or in the case of my own Sen. Richard Blumenthal, “This election is about more than just one night’s debate performance. It’s about four years. I believe that the contrast is so clear, even last night, when Donald Trump spewed falsehoods and refused to answer questions about child care and climate change and extolled the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.”
In other words, deny reality and change the subject to the man everyone should hate. The problem with this strategy is that it ignores the obvious question: Does anyone seriously believe that, at 81, Biden’s performances will get any better?
The excuses coming out of the White House are even more lame. 1) He had a cold. Would a cold cause an otherwise healthy president to inexplicably brag that, “We finally killed Medicare?” 2) He was tired and had jet lag from a recent trip aboard. That trip had ended 11 days before last week’s debate. Are you telling us we have a leader of the free world who cannot recover from jet lag after a week and half? Please …
As Bill Maher said last week, Trump vs. Biden reminded him of when Mike Tyson used to knock guys out in 30 seconds (click on the image or here to see the video on Threads):
As I’ve been telling people all week, and as Maher suggests, changing the subject to Trump and insisting Biden is better than the Orange Monster does not address the old man in the room. Demanding that Biden step down is itself a strategy to beat Trump and help Democrats across the country.
In national polls, Biden was either tied with or already trailing Trump. Released yesterday, the results of the latest New York Times/Sienna College poll (free link) shows Trump widening that lead among likely voters to 6 points, which is 3 points higher than before the debate. Trump’s lead among registered voters is 9 points. Nearly three-quarters of voters overall believe Biden is too old to be an effective president, up five points since before the debate, according to the poll.
Since the national popular vote doesn’t determine the victor, the key to predicting a winner will be upcoming polling data from individual swing states. As of this writing, those post-debate polls have yet to be conducted and released. But Puck News gained access to an internal Democratic polling memo (paywall) conducted 72 hours after the debate. According to the New Republic, which called it a “bombshell poll”:
… it’s bad: Several states that were considered solidly blue are now competitive for Donald Trump, including Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New Mexico. Plus, other Democrats, such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, are polling better than Biden in head-to-head matchups with the convicted felon and former president.
At some point, additional bad news, along with family and close advisers, will surely convince Biden to jump ship. He could withdraw from the race and release his delegates, but that might result in an ugly convention fight. The cleanest way would be for him to resign and hand the keys to the White House over to Vice President Kamala Harris, who would then be in a strong position to claim his delegates at the DNC convention next month because she has already been duly elected on the same national ticket as Biden.
Some news media outlets also have, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, “a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.” As you might expect, conservative outlets have been pushing the Biden dementia narrative very hard. But most mainstream and Democrat-friendly outlets had not insisted on answers about the health issue before the debate.
Right-wing media outlets have flatly asserted that sympathetic media were covering for Biden, but I suspect it was more of a case of not wanting to appear ageist. Besides, some mainstream outlets have indeed been sounding the alarm for awhile.
The New York Times has incurred the wrath of Bidenistas for a string of stories on the president’s age over the last few months. The Wall Street Journal published a story last month, Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping (free link), that provoked furious pushback from Biden supporters, including Joe Scarborough, and the White House itself. Where are those same critics now?
The next step should be for the nation’s largest and most powerful media outlets to demand extensive medical records on Biden, including cognitive testing by third parties. Anything less would be an abdication of responsibility.
P.S. Respected political scientist and global risk analyst Ian Bremmer said it better than I can. And right on cue, I see that Dr. Bremmer has received lots of “fuck-off” and “unfollow” epithets for this post on Threads:
Forget about whether or not Biden should be the candidate. I'm wondering if he should continue as President. I don't think he's up to the job. He should absolutely have a cognitive test. Merrick Garland should release the Robert Hur tapes. Let everyone hear what was said, and how he said it. After all, by now, those interviews were done almost a year ago. Let the American public determine what they're hearing. Regarding his campaign appearances and the George Stephanopolous interview--big deal. He's reading off a teleprompter at campaign stops, and the televised interview might be edited. Cheap fake in reverse.
He won't step aside. The best we can hope for is for Biden to release his delegates and let the Democrats fight it out at the convention. If I were a voting Democrat, I'd be pissed. It isn't like this Biden stuff is a revelation--staff, family, insiders, all knew about his deteriorating condition and still lied about it. If he had done the noble thing--the LBJ thing--and bowed out before the primaries started, at least Democrats could have had a discussion and examined their weak bench and coughed up someone to run against Trump. BTW--this might have changed the trajectory of the Republican race as well. For months, this race has slowly, inexorably been moving toward a rematch, which no one wanted. As a double-hater, I place myself in that camp. Trump presented himself as the only candidate who could beat Biden, just as Biden says he's the only one who could best Trump. Neither statement is true. These are two stubborn, myopic politicians jousting.
I'll say one thing--for a political junkie like me, this is gold. History is being made right before our eyes. Will we have a "Madame President"? Lord, I'd love one, but not Kamala. She is absolutely and completely incapable of being the leader of the free world. Miss Word Salad has only a 36% approval rating, compared to Joe's 39%. Still, she does poll better against Trump, probably because Joe is shedding support like a sinking ship. I just heard the even Nate Silver is saying that Biden should step aside--now. https://www.mediaite.com/politics/nate-silver-says-biden-should-resign-the-presidency-after-watching-incoherent-comments-to-george-stephanopoulos/
Just....yikes.
Biden should hold off until he wins the nomination and then quit so he could create a ticket that would win. For example, what about Sherod Brown or some conservative Dem as Prexy and Gretchen Widmer (?) as VP. If it goes to convention, Kamila will win along with a gender/identity correct VP and Trump wins. Let Trump keep bashing Biden, then pull a trick on him. It'd be a welcome, sensible ticket.
If a Democratic nominee withdraws after the convention, the party rules are clearer. If the nominee resigns, dies or is otherwise unable to run for president, the DNC — conferring with Democratic leadership in Congress and the Democratic Governors Association — fills the vacancy. But withdrawing from the race after the convention could pose different challenges. For starters, Democrats could bump up against ballot access deadlines similar to the one in Ohio that prompted the party to plan to nominate Biden virtually before the convention, although Ohio lawmakers subsequently moved their deadline. Also, a postconvention withdrawal would leave any new nominee very little time to organize a campaign, while allowing the hand-wringing over Biden to drag on for another two months.