‘It’s Never Been Darker’

Plus: The RNC's ‘new normal.’

Thanks to everyone who joined the three of us (plus Jim Swift!) last night for our livestream of day three of the RNC. You can catch the video here; there will be a “highlights” video, if you can call it that, up on The Bulwark’s YouTube later this morning as well.

Last night’s headliner, new vice-presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance, gave a cheerful, largely flat speech in which he focused on his personal story and didn’t call for Trump to defy Supreme Court rulings even once. 

The big night, featuring the big guy, is tonight, and we’ll be back at it: You can tune in here. Happy Thursday.

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We’ve seen your comments: “Bill and Andrew, we’re getting a little tired of you writing all this doom and gloom.” We’ve heard you loud and clear—so today we’re having Sam Stein do it:

(Photo by Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images.)

It’s Not Panic. It’s Terror.

—Sam Stein

Just a few months ago, Joe Biden was sailing to renomination over lightweight challengers Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips. And while Donald Trump was locking up his renomination as well, he was still losing around a fifth of the primary voters in most states—even after his last remaining rival, Nikki Haley, dropped out.

That’s all ancient history. Republicans are presenting a united front at their Milwaukee convention this week. As for the Democrats, they’re spelunking never-before-seen caverns of despair about President Joe Biden’s spot atop the ticket. Here’s just a sampling from our conversations Wednesday: 

“It’s never been darker,” one top Democratic operative told us. 

“People are veeeeeerrrrry uneasy,” said a senior administration official.

“It’s terrible,” said a top Democratic lobbyist with ties to leadership. “I don’t think it can be worse.” 

But it could. Hours later, the White House announced the president had COVID. 

Panicking, of course, is part of the Democratic DNA. But this isn’t panic. It’s terror, worsened by fears that Biden and his team are dug in. 

Up till now, the primary approach among Democrats hoping the president will end his bid has been to back-channel to the White House rather than launch a public pressure campaign. “Their best chance to get him out is through private communication,” the aforementioned lobbyist said of party leadership.

To that end, prominent pollster Stan Greenberg presented the White House with data showing the party risked a wipeout with the president atop the ticket. But when asked to share that data, he declined. “Private is [the] best course,” he said. 

But by Wednesday afternoon, leadership was sending undeniable public signals. Adam Schiff, a close ally of Nancy Pelosi, put out a statement calling for the president to step down. Then it was reported that Chuck Schumer told Biden the same during a private meeting—a conspicuous leak met with a non-denial denial by Schumer’s office. And then it was reported that Pelosi herself presented Biden polling showing he couldn’t win.

There is some concern that even this won’t be enough; that Biden has more or less surrounded himself with similarly-stubborn advisers who think the situation isn’t as dire as others see it. 

“This is a White House that has a very tight group at the top,” said the senior administration official. “I think very few of those people, for a number of reasons, are ever going to advise him not to be in the race.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The administration official went on to say he believed Biden was not being shielded from bad press but that he and his team genuinely thought the alternative paths were no better and potentially worse. The official, on a personal level, shared that reading of the electoral landscape.

But others clearly don’t. Some top Democrats have seen their anxiety over the situation morph into incredulity. While others have begun imagining a more nightmarish fate: one in which the White House and both houses of Congress aren’t just lost, but lost by such margins as to make the most noxious elements of the Trump agenda unstoppable.

“There is a huge difference between 54 and 51 GOP Senators,” said the lobbyist. “At 54, Ric Grenell is getting confirmed as Secretary of State.”

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We don’t sugarcoat the news because we know the stakes. We hope you’ll join us:

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The New Normal?

—William Kristol

While Democrats are pulling their hair out, this week’s Republican Convention has been orderly. It’s felt almost normal. It’s even been kind of boring. 

Which is what Team Trump wanted. They believe they’re ahead in this race. They’re happy not to take risks. They want to run out the clock.

But having an orderly and normal-seeming convention is more than a tactical success for the Trump campaign. It’s an achievement for Trumpism as a movement. The most authoritarian ticket and the most extreme party agenda in modern American history have been presented to the American people, at this convention, in a relatively non-threatening way.

Charlie Sykes has said many times about Trumpists that clowns with flamethrowers . . . still have flamethrowers. He’s right, and he saw the real dangers of clownish Trumpism earlier and more clearly than most.

But now the clown has wiped off some of the makeup, and the flamethrower looks more like a standard cigarette lighter. It all looks less scary and less alarming.

Which makes it even more dangerous.

What characterized previous Trump campaigns and the Trump White House? Chaos and extremism. Which the American public didn’t much like. But this convention hasn’t been chaotic. And the organizers have strategically hid the extremes.

We’ll see if Trump personally has the discipline to avoid too much craziness in his speech tonight. But what we can already say on the basis of this convention is that Trump and his campaign are unlikely to self-destruct. The thought that Trumpism will just inescapably re-reveal itself to the American people in the course of the next few months—that seems to be wishful thinking.

Which doesn’t mean Trumpism isn’t extreme and can’t be made unacceptable. A Democratic campaign that prosecutes the case against key elements of Trump’s behavior and the Trumpist agenda can succeed. The majority of the American people aren’t on board with much of Trump’s agenda. They’re anti-Dobbs, anti-Putin, anti-January 6th, and anti-felons as president. They’re also inclined to be hostile to tax cuts for the rich, to tariffs that will raise prices, to draconian anti-immigration policies.

But what this convention shows is that the case against Trump and Trumpism won’t make itself. It will have to be made. And we still don’t know if the Democrats will have a candidate and a campaign that can make it.

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Catching up  . . .

• How security for Trump failed to stop an assassination attempt: New York Times

• Biden called ‘more receptive’ to hearing pleas to step aside: New York Times

• Jeffries, Schumer privately warned Biden he could imperil Democrats: Washington Post

• J.D. Vance calls for a ‘big tent’ GOP in VP nominee acceptance speech: NBC News

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Quick Hits: Resigned to the Big, Bad Wolf

Why cry when you could be laughing, right? Alexandra Petri, the Washington Post’s excellent satirist, has a great column up today: 

Look, I am not afraid to say, on the record, that I think the Big Bad Wolf is an existential threat. That huffing and puffing is going to make so many lives worse. All of our precious institutions are at risk, vulnerable to his hated winds! For folks out there who live in straw houses, yikes! It’s going to be a rough four years. Does the prospect of him coming to power scare me? Absolutely! You bet I’m scared, for other people.

But — candidly? Off the record? If worse comes to worst, and we do end up with the Big Bad Wolf descending upon our community again, I think: I’m resigned to that.

Would I prefer he didn’t? Sure! But kind of, at this point, you know, what can I really do? Not be resigned? There are months between now and when the wolf will show up, and maybe I could work to build some kind of palisade or wall, or moat, or get everyone together inside a brick house — well, I have a lot of ideas, but I am resigned to not implementing them.

Do I think that if enough of us stepped forward instead of just sitting backward, we could figure out a strategy to stop him? Sure! I would gladly join a courageous majority of people who were stepping forward, provided that the majority was already assembled by somebody else.

But I’m just one individual. One individual who, I guess, could say, on the record, “Hey, I don’t think we’re in a good position to fend off the Big Bad Wolf right now, and I think unless we do something different, we’re in for some bad times.” But that could be the end of my career! And if we have to endure the onslaught of the Big Bad Wolf, I at least want my career to survive.

Read the whole thing.

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