First off, I’m not here to trash our community’s illustrious founder. We all have, and deserve to have, our own opinions on the incredibly difficult situation that Democrats find ourselves in as we head into summer 2024. And of course old-timers know the [heart emojis] in that title.
But, Kos, I gotta say--I’m kinda waiting on a more decisive statement from you. I suspect we all are.
Your first piece came out less than 24 hours after the debate.
Biden needs to fix what happened at the debate.
The fatal equivocation is right there in the title. See it?
First you noted that Biden screwed up badly at the debate. (No kidding #1.) Then you reminded us that in 2020 Kamala Harris wasn’t exactly an ideal candidate. (No kidding #2.) Finally you warned that making a change at this very late date would be difficult in all kinds of ways. (No kidding #3.)
And your conclusion was? That now Biden and his team have to fix things.
Um, okay. But the fact that things need fixing wasn’t at issue. The question of how to fix it and who can fix it was. You suggested that Biden was capable without coming out and saying so, which I found a bit mealy-mouthed. But it was only Friday.
Now, eight days later, you’re back for another swing:
Switching out Biden won’t save Democrats from its [should have been ‘our’] critics.
But again you tell us what we already know and avoid the real question, just as you did a week ago.
My position is that President Joe Biden and his team crapped the bed at the debate, and it’s on them to fix it. I don’t think that’s an impossible task, even with the current pearl-clutching on the left. We’re in July, few are paying attention, and the Republican convention starts soon on July 15, which will pull attention toward Donald Trump.
What’s particularly strange, however, is the belief that things would be fixed with a not-Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. Anyone who believes that is, unfortunately, beyond naive.
You then go on to point out that if (or when) Kamala Harris replaces Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket, a lot of things won’t change. Our opponents are going to Hillary her! The handover will be chaotic! The media gets rewarded for shitting on Democrats!
Having thus dispensed with this diary’s No Kiddings #1-3, you vaguely conclude that our best course is to chill out and count on Team Biden to carry us to victory, lest your nightmare scenario happen:
Then it will be September, and the new nominee will face a few more months of “vetting” by the national media, until the end of October. Trump will be forgotten in that noise.
And then, people will vote, having mostly forgotten about Trump. All thanks to Democrats’ inability to keep their eye on the ball.
THAT is the scenario that keeps me up at night.
Really? It isn’t the scenario that keeps me up at night, for several reasons.
1. Nobody in 2024 is going to forget Donald Trump and what he represents. Quite the opposite—just the past day or two we’ve seen Hair Fuhrer skittering away from Project 2025 as soon as one of their headlines was shocking enough to break through to low-info voters. SCOTUS just took us back to, what, the mid-18th century? And how many states could have abortion rights initiatives on the ballot this fall? Florida, PA, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri...
2. Yes, if Harris becomes our nominee they’ll Hillary her. Just like they Kerry’d Kerry and Gore’d Gore and tried to Hussein Obama. So? Lowest-common-denominator Republican demagoguery is a given. Swapping Biden for Harris doesn’t change that reality one iota. All it changes is the capacity of our nominee to fight back.
Which brings me to the all-important reason #3.
3. The nightmare scenario isn’t Republicans being mean or low-info doofuses shrugging at Trump. The nightmare scenario is that Joe Biden really is losing it and this sad reality becomes more and more apparent as the months go by and we approach Election Day.
This is where, all due respect, you’re being chickenshit, especially by Markos standards. If it’s true that Biden just had a (really) bad night at the debate and in reality he’s still at least his 2020 self and will remain such at least for the rest of the year, then, yeah, all your arguments make sense.
But is that true? And if it isn’t true, don’t all the points you’ve made kind of fly out the window?
I’m not a neurologist, and I’ve never met Biden personally (I have met a couple POTUSes). But from watching him as much as any of us over the past decades and then at that debate the other night, I’m now absolutely terrified. I think he absolutely is in cognitive decline, and all kinds of reporting around him says the same thing. What I saw at the debate wasn’t an old man who had jet lag or a bad cold or a lifelong stutter or was up too late or was shocked that Trump kept lying or mad that Trump kept talking over him even when they shut his mic off.
What I saw at the debate was a person who is losing the ability to compose sentences. Who tried to memorize talking points for each major subject by numbering them 1 and 2 and rarely made it to 3. Whose verbal stumbles way beyond stuttering or poor word choice and straight into word salad like they talk about when your parent had a bad stroke and is in NICU (I would know). And given what I saw, I think the odds of Biden’s cognitive abilities improving between now and November are very low, and the odds of them declining at least moderately high.
And his self-presentation that night really was disqualifying, for lots of Americans. Period. It was. We movement progressives deny that at our peril.
And no, I couldn’t give a flying fork that a lot of the fear-mongering about Biden is GOP-inspired and/or Putin-directed. Of course the global fascist movement is going to try to hijack our election. Again: that’s a given. And yes of course we here at DKos are all like that awesome woman in PA who told a TV reporter she’d vote for the corpse of Joe Biden before she cast a ballot for Donald Trump. Never Trumpers across America might get any Democratic candidate, including Joe Biden, close to an Electoral College win.
But there’s that crushing 3-5% in the middle who can be persuaded, usually for stupid reasons. The polls say they’ve jumped to Trump (maybe a few Kennedys) for now. We certainly can get them back. After a few weeks of obligatory Democrats-in-disarry headlines I think Kamala Harris and a well-chosen running mate can win them back. Americans have every reason in the world to vote for our party, and a huge number want nothing to do with Trump. The only way I think we can lose, frankly, is by putting forward a candidate who is just completely, disgracefully incapable.
That’s the question that you haven’t yet answered, Kos, and which I think you and every other Democratic leader in this country needs to answer: firmly, publicly, and ASAP.
Do you believe President Biden is capable of showing enough physical vigor and mental clarity to convince those 10 million low-info swing state voters who will decide the election that he’s capable of leading America for another four years? If you think he is, say so with clarity.
And if (like me) you don’t, do your patriotic duty.