Is there anyone who watched last night’s Presidential debate who really thinks Joe Biden can survive?
It’s not just Biden’s chances of winning an election I’m talking about. I’m referring to his extremely fragile physical and mental state. Voters have every reason to question whether the walking corpse we saw on CNN’s debate stage last night can see the end of a second term or function any better than what we saw last night. The man is not well, and it’s shocking that the DNC allowed Biden to take the stage in Atlanta — especially after images surfaced of him “frozen” at a Juneteenth celebration on the South Lawn of the White House.
The man most of us saw last night shuffled onto stage and squinted into the cameras, appearing slack-jawed and confused. Speaking in a barely perceptible whisper, Biden often lost the thread of what he was saying, misquoted facts and figures, or mumbled incomprehensible jibberish. Almost as troubling, a clueless and self-unaware Biden insisted his poor performance was due to a head cold, adding “I think we did well.”
In comparison, a practiced Donald Trump spoke in the convincing manner of the sleazy, racist real estate salesman he is. And to those who judge debate performance primarily on appearances, Trump’s incessant lying miraculously did not diminish a pretense of presidential command and competence.
But Biden’s abysmal performance finally grabbed the attention of the liberal pundocracy, long in denial and now terrified. A surprising number of one-time Biden cheerleaders are now calling for candidate Biden to step down, including panicking donors. By and large, however, a timid and unimaginative Democratic establishment is doubling down on support for their guy.
Among the liberal columnists now calling for Biden to voluntarily drop out of the race are: New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman, Frank Bruni, Ezra Klein, Ross Douthat, and Nicholas Kristof; Current Affairs’s executive editor Nathan Robinson; Harold Myerson of the American Prospect; The Slate’s David Faris; and Mehdi Hassan, who jumped from MSNBC to the Zeteo platform. Sacramento Bee opinion writer Robin Epley warned readers that “for the Democrats, only a fresh injection of visible vitality and something more than a minimally-acceptable level of intelligence will save Americans from a second Trump administration.” Presciently, last month Alex Shepherd wrote in the New Republic (“Democrats have a Joe Biden Problem”), warning Democrats to replace Biden on the basis of his consistently awful polling.
But such warnings are nothing new.
A year go The Atlantic acknowledged that “Democrats would like a new presidential candidate. The problem is that the current president is plugging along fine.” But this morning things were not so fine. Franklin Foer’s article in the Atlantic is titled “Someone Needs to Take Biden’s Keys.” Another by Jerusalem Demsas counsels the same: “Dropping Out Is Biden’s Most Patriotic Option.” In February 2023 Michelle Goldberg’s piece in the New York Times, “Biden’s a Great President. He Should Not Run Again,” warned against precisely what debate viewers saw last night.
Despite last night’s fiasco, the Democratic establishment is still not ready to throw in the towel on Biden.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who has an obvious dog in the fight, conceded that Biden had a “slow start” but warned that the election should be decided on the basis of “substance.” California governor Gavin Newsom, a rumored replacement for Biden who was in Atlanta for the debate as a Biden surrogate, dismissed Biden’s replacement: “With all due respect, the more times we start having these conversations, going down these rabbit holes, it’s unhelpful to our democracy, the fate and future of this country, the world. They need us right now to step up and that’s exactly what I intend to do.” Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, another whispered replacement, tried to cast the debate in the best light for Biden: “Tonight, voters were presented with a clear choice — a president working hard every day to improve the lives of all Americans or a convicted felon, a selfish blowhard looking out only for himself. The contrast between these two men was clear before the debate — it is even clearer now.” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called rumors of Biden dropping out “bizarre” while Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) dismissed the idea as well. “I’ve heard no credible plan B, and I’m not counting on a plan B.” Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro pooh-poohed replacing Biden, calling only for Democrats to “stop worring and start working.”
But much of the media cheering section is still with Biden.
MSNBC, the Fox News for centrist Democrats, denied that Biden was unfit and said only that Biden had had a bad night, counseling optimism: “Biden still has months to right the ship.” But no one can fault MSNBC for inconsistency: a year ago the network ran a segment denying problems with Biden’s candidacy, letting 2016 runner-up Hillary Clinton tell listeners why he was a great a candidate as she was. The Slate’s Jill Filipovic still supports Biden — but by the thinnest of threads: “That Biden bungled even his party’s strongest issue should be a moment of reckoning –not just for his supporters, of which I am one, but for the man himself.” Robert Reich wrote nothing about Biden’s unfitness, only leaving panicking readers with a panicky lecture on how Trump is exactly like Hitler. Heather Cox Richardson also wrote nothing about Biden’s unfitness, but dissected each of Trump’s lies. Meanwhile, New York Times columnist and Israel hawk Bret Stephens is still betting on Biden but sounds like he’d prefer Republican Elise Stefanik to the Vice President.
And this is only the “morning after.”
We’re going to have to wait a few days or weeks to see if Democrats are capable of moving past their shock and denial to a rational — actually the only possible — response to last night’s disaster. In any rational universe the DNC would replace Biden.
Despite the fact that it’s never been done before so late in the game, a new candidate could soften the rift between centrists and progressives, allay concerns over Biden’s age, address his terrible polling and also his choice of VP, offer a stronger challenge to the many third party candidates in the race, and (providing the replacement is not another zealous Christian Zionist) pacify somewhat the 10-15% of Democrats who voted “undecided” in the primaries because of Biden’s collaboration in Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
But this is a party that doesn’t care, never learns, and never takes responsibility. Blaming voters for Biden’s almost certain defeat in 2024 will be the the DNC’s response to their own irresponsibility. It’s going to be a repeat of 2016 unless the party grownups wake the hell up.
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