It may feel that another week in this Cloud of Unknowing — will President Biden withdraw? will he stay? — is intolerable.
This comes partly from my own unsettled feelings about it all. And from witnessing the high volume of “I’m not a regular diarist in here and I NEED TO SAY SOMETHING” diaries that the site is contending with, many of them short, over this past week. Like 100 mushrooms appearing after a bad rainstorm. Whenever this phenomenon happens, you know some hard stuff is going on.
We — or many of us, at least — are struggling with the extremely high stakes and the loss of control re: this situation. I can’t be the only one who’s clicking around the Internet way too often these days, morning noon and night, looking for breaking news updates that just might convey a crumb of a clue as to where things are headed.
But it’s becoming clear what the next several days look like. WAITING.
I have enough faith in President Joe Biden to believe that (a) he knows exactly what happened and what the consequences are, and (b) he wants another week to try his best to rescue his candidacy as our Democratic nominee. He’s giving it his best try. Let’s all allow him this.
I wrote the following in a comment way down in another diary, and want to share it with you all:
My sense is that President Biden at 81 has seen hundreds, even thousands of political fortunes rise and fall over the decades. And he knows what’s at stake.
Sadly at this point it’s not only about the debate. The fallout has led to a feedback loop of: doubt in his candidacy itself—> bad polling —> more doubt ~~> more bad polling.
If that negative feedback loop worsens for another week, I predict President Biden will withdraw and ask his delegates to support VP Kamala Harris.
If things seem to begin to reverse and improve, I predict President Biden will choose to stay our nominee.
Our job here on DK, not the easiest one, is to wait. Just… wait. Let President Biden try to win back enough voter and peer-leader confidence.
And for us all, in here, let’s try to encourage Democratic unity and resolve. And let’s treat each other with decency. Many of us are deeply unsettled and not at our best… and that’s an understatement. Personally, I’ve been a bit sub-par here and there on keeping a civil tone in my comments lately. I will aim to do better.
Mary Trump (see diary on the Trending List) has some good advice for this uncertain moment. She recommends two things. Self-care needs to be high priority: it is essential. And getting involved in a constructive way, supporting Democratic candidates — for those who can, it is powerfully good medicine.