It’s late Sunday evening, nope it’s now after midnight. I have consumed everything from sane publications and watched CNN and MsNBc. Have avoids the right winging networks and write ups.
If the media is correct, Biden is not going to step aside. if that is true, it is almost impossible to replace him and attempting to do so will cause more problems than worth it. Not to mention that there is no hero sitting by ready to come. Everybody we can think of , polls worse.
Don’t have a lot of desire or time to analyze for more than a minute why the Biden’s don’t seem to see what we do, but I strongly believe it has to do with dead son Beau who wanted Joe to run.
So , a reminder that the GOP , after the acccess Hollywood tapes took about 3 days to come back to Trump. They now are fully behind in every way their 34 convicted felon, a man found liable for multiple serious business frauds, found liable for sexual assault and defamation and will likely be convicted of more serious cases if we are given the chance to prosecute him. He is going to surround himself with criminals and sycophants , none of whom have an ounce of concern for the USA. Competence will no longer be required, but loyalty to the crook in chief will be job number one. Hundreds of thousands of competent and loyal to the country public servants will be fired, replaced with incompetent loyalists.
Women , LGBTQ, journalists critical of this Maga god will face persecution and loss of rights. Bowing before war criminals like Putin will be r required.
I don’t know if people realize how much the country will change.
So , in my mind, we have 1 choice- rally behind our guy- a decent human being who is old and not at his best but loves America and will be surrounding himself with competent people who also love America. Our guy maybe should have not run and made the decision a yr ago but he did not.
So we can moan about this or get to work, dammit. I am getting to work. I can send money to get out the vote organizations, answer phones , mail stuff. Others can walk the beats . There is something we all can do.
We’ve had our weekend to cry and I did.
Now, work. Send money . Do what you can - drive someone who has never voted to the booths. Help educate them.
But we can not lay down and let them walk through all victorious without fighting back. They think this is in the bag.
We are gonna do what they do- rally around our guy. And that needs to start today.
Yup, my post is la-la land but hey, the last nine years has been so here goes.....
With respect to replacing Biden......well, here's a fun idea:
In turbulent times, truth can be a dear friend.
If Biden has mental health challenges the truth is his best friend, the Democratic party’s best friend and democracy’s best friend.
Here’s how:
Biden needs to tell the truth to the American electorate regarding his health.
What 50 million voters witnessed Thursday night was not a cold. Such brazen spin is insulting and reckless. We the people are big enough to be told the truth, and we deserve nothing but the truth, so tell it.
At the same time, all donors but especially big donors, need to turn the donation spigot off as a safety measure to nudge the president for old fashion soul searching.
Biden can embrace the truth and weave it into a narrative that helps the country, the party and his legacy.
Biden saved the country from Trump in 2020.
Biden was a damn good president for four years.
He rolled up his sleeves for the Trump 2024 rematch but due to sudden pressing health concerns it was in the best interest of the country and his life to pull out of the race just before the convention.
Biden could then gracefully not only commit his delegates to an open convention but his unwavering support as well and be a vital part of the campaign up until November 5th.
He could commit his delegates with the understanding that in doing so he and the DNC would pick six initial candidates to “run” for president in July.
After each debate delegates and superdelegates would vote for one candidate to be dismissed from the next debate but all six candidates would be the potential vice presidential candidates. Yes, there's intentional Apprentice irony here - that's why this is so sweet.
There would be five national debates:
July 8th - six candidates
July 12th - five candidates
July 23rd - four candidates
July 26th - three candidates
August 1st - two candidates
August 5th and 6th - zoom virtual convention with the two final candidates with Biden in Philadelphia on August 5th and in Phoenix on August 6th. In each city the two candidates along with Biden would give speeches.
The delegates vote virtually for the nominee by 10 PM EST. At that time the two candidates and President Biden would be in Las Vegas when the nominee is announced.
On August 7th the presidential nominee meets the Ohio August 7th deadline.
Democratic National Convention - Chicago - August 19th - August 22nd
All five candidates speak -at the convention with the understanding that one of them will be chosen as the Vice President.
The convention is not contentious but rather a celebration of Biden and his administration and the passing of the torch is unified and is a symbol of the peaceful transition of power. Defeating Trump as the most unified Democratic Party in the country’s history will be the theme of the convention.
Yes, this is outlandish as hell but it also would work.
It would revolutionize national party conventions.
It would energize the youth vote.
It would consume the national spotlight for two months.
It would educate the American electorate for two months on the Democratic candidates.
The American electorate would be part of the process.
It might just save Democracy and energize the electorate like never before. Just say'n!
I don't think this is La La Land (which happens to be where I live). I like all of this with just a friendly amendment: The "the DNC would pick six initial candidates to “run” for president in July" - make that run for the NOMINATION. The candidate who runs for the president under the Democratic party is nominated by the delegates.
I specifically like: "the truth is his best friend, the Democratic party’s best friend and democracy’s best friend . . . We the people are big enough to be told the truth" - imagine restoring the truth to our body politic! And how that would show up the Republicans!!!
This is the proverbial thinking outside of the box. I am a member of this party that the candidate runs in the name of, along with all the registered Dems who have been donating to the Biden campaign since last year, as well as the pooh-bah insiders. I agree with Sarah on the emergency Bulwark podcast that this is a Dem family discussion and decision (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/sarah-longwell-jonathan-v-last-and).
Why give your opponent a prime time television appearance in front of 50 million viewers when you are the sitting president and get a national broadcast anytime you want on Ukraine way, Gaza war etc.?
Seems odd to me but the Biden team are pros, they know what they are doing, and they have information that we are not privy to.
Why agree to 90 second periods of mic on and mic off? These rules would have resulted in Joe losing the 2020 debate. When asked if he would denounce white supremacist groups. Trump was about to get away with fudging until Joe shouted Proud Boys.
Why give Trump his favorite foils as debate moderators? Clinton News Network, enemy of the people, fake news. This allows Trump to ignore every question and just recite his rally lies.
Why win the coin toss and select a side instead of the last word? Turns out they picked the better side for Trump and gave him the last word. And made Joe go first where he clearly froze up. Nerves can happen to any one at any age. How can you be sure Gretchen would not have panicked in her first national spotlight?
Why fill Joe's head with facts and figures as if this was an Ivy League debate club? They did not tell him that he would be screamed at by a lunatic who has no regard for truth?
Why try to have Joe answer questions from moderators with 90 second time limit and then mic off? Sometime the answer is too complicated to finish in 90 seconds which resulted in Joe realizing he did not have time to finish, hurry his thoughts and come up with "we beat Medicare". Obviously this is stupid. But are we sure it is old age cognitive decline or just a panicked answer at the buzzer? Are we sure Gretchen would never make a misstatement?
Some questions can be answered simply and do not need 90 seconds. That forced Joe to ramble after answering the question and wander.
But Team Biden are pros, they know what they are doing, they are privy to things we do not know.
Turns out. No. Team Biden messed up. Yes Joe could have vetoed so it is on him.
But I think we should ask if this is dementia and cognitive decline or just a bad strategy?
Whichever, in hindsight it was a horrible strategy and not just a bad debate night.
I joined the Bulwark in response to a wonderful article by Cathy Young/Charlie Sikes entitled, ‘The Hinge of Fate’ published shortly after the’22 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It seems we are at a similar moment now where the future of the free world hangs very much in the balance. We all know what we saw in Thursday’s debate and Bob Woodward is very much on mark in saying we MUST learn the ‘How and Why’ of this immediately to plan next steps. We have all seen the effects on family members aging and this experience that many of us have had over decades should point us towards some very specific questions. I am not a doctor and will only relate experiences of my mother’s illness as it relates to these questions.
As my mother’s cognition failed, we sought every kind of test and she was found negative for Altheimers and many other specific dementias. In the end a number off doctors explained to us that her diminishment was more likely the result of many small events that they called ‘micro-strokes ‘.They said that the vascular problems that run in our family especially a tendency towards aneurism could cause tiny pieces of arterial plaque to float free and become lodged in the very smallest blood vessels in the brain causing a number of tiny almost imperceptible stroke like events. These are individually almost impossible to diagnose but their effect is cumulative. Over time, as my mother lost recognition of me as anyone other than the nice young man who brought her milkshakes, everyone in our family accepted this explanation. It fit every aspect of the progression of her disease.
I recount our experience not as uninformed amateur diagnoses for the President but to point us towards questions that need be comprehensively answered immediately. These are in nature utterly different than the general findings of even the most thorough standard physical medical examination. The President needs to undergo all five major types of brain scan repeatably of a period of several weeks. The most important of these would be the CT Angiography which would show any variation in circulation within the brain over time. The question that needs to be answered is not whether the President is a healthy 81 year old, but rather are there any detectable accumulating changes in brain circulation over time in the brain or other anomaly that could suggest changes in cognition. These questions are made all the more urgent by the fact that the President suffered a life-threatening aneurism decades ago and should be counted as member of a high-risk group in this regard
.
The answer to these questions would go some way towards answering at least the ‘How’ that Bob Woodward posits and point to a prognosis for the President. Anything less would indicate only further gaslighting from members of this administration.
I think Joe Biden has done a very good job as president, but he is clearly not up to the rigors of this campaign and another four years in office. He has also not shown the foresight to do what we all knew needed to be done a year ago. Namely, pass the torch to a new generation. Regrettably, I see no signs that he is prepared to do it now.
An observation: I wonder if not having an audience was a good idea. Biden could well have delivered a SOTU-level performance if he had had even silent support from his section. Ask any stage actor. Their performance feeds on vibes they get in the room.
A fantasy: Biden was intentionally bumbling so he could rope-a-dope Trump in the 2nd debate.
When I think of the SOTU masterclass Biden gave. When he recited off the teleprompter some facts and figures of some bill, did he sound that much different than the disastrous debate? Joe shined when Margorie Taylor Greene shouted at him in the middle of the speech and Joe responded "I know how to say her name". Even though he mispronounced her first name he responded with heartfelt sympathy for a family whose pain he knows all too well how to relate to.
The Post gave a detailed account of the intensity of a grueling Debate Practice put on Biden prior to the Debate. Perhaps Biden was over-prepared and pressured to bring up so many topics and statistics, that with just a two-minute response time to a broad question, he tried too hard to answer all the remembered responses he was grilled on. He sounded rushed and breathy and stumbled as though trying too hard. He also was said to have a cold.
Biden has had no real, spontaneous debates with anyone since his 2020 candidacy. And consider trying to think with a raving lunatic next to you, spewing lies and bonkers stream of consciousness.
Our problem is that we somehow expected him to be different from what he is. We wanted him to be confident, forceful, quick on his feet, ready to respond with his many accomplishments and future plans. But a debate, with open-ended questions, requiring a two minute answer, does not allow either man time to formulate much of an answer. And they devolved into sniping at each other since the moderators said next to nothing when they veered off topic. And I agree that Tapper and Bash were terrible at keeping them on topic and moving on in the debate.
I can't imagine who will step up to take his place. He was literally a consensus candidate in 2020 because Dems couldn't coalesce around anyone else. Also, do you really believe that Black Americans are going to turn to Trump after his "Black Jobs" comment? Whitmer, Newsome, Bernie, Amy?? Have any of them indicated they would jump at the chance? And do you think the American voters are going to be okay with the conventioneers deciding who they think is the best candidate Get Real?
Joe's mic was muted when Trump called him a criminal preventing Joe from responding in real time. For Trump, this was just a rally. He had 90 seconds of uninterrupted time to do his schtick. He scoffed at the questions from the "enemy of the people". Then here is Joe trying to answer in good faith complicated policy questions with fixed 90 second time limit. Yes, Joe is a sucker for agreeing to this. But read the transcript. Joe's answers were pretty good. We just did not get the Trump beat down that we all dream of. If taking down Trump is so easy then why did Jeb, Little Marco, Lyin Ted, National Review, DeSantos, Nikki, on and on do it?
Agreed. That comment was really dumb. I'm sure Joe would agree. But please look at the transcript. This was at the very end of a complicated answer at the buzzer. Not all full court buzzer shots swish.
"President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to this question about the national debt.
BIDEN: He had the largest national debt of any president four-year period, number one.
Number two, he got $2 trillion tax cut, benefited the very wealthy.
What I’m going to do is fix the taxes.
For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America – I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised $500 million – billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period.
We’d be able to right – wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that – all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID – excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with.
Look, if – we finally beat Medicare."
I concede this is poorly worded. But I disagree if this is portrayed as proof of dementia or mental decline. Joe made some important points. Joe wants billionaires to pay taxes at a lower tax rate than school teachers in order to address the national debt. I'm for Joe. I did not quote it but this was a response to a truly demented rant from Trump.
I have done little else since Thursday night but read, listen and consider the viewpoints of those to my left and to my right about what the democrats need to do next after a disastrous debate performance by Joe Biden. I have been a big supporter of the president, and while I was not excited that both of our choices are well into their senior years this election, I understand the importance of rallying the troops to support the president.
However, after Thursday's debate, I find myself not only wondering if Joe Biden can possibly be up to be president for four more years, but also wondering if he can even manage to be president for the rest of his term. I know there is great risk in trying to replace Biden on the ticket with four months until the election, but I believe after the debate, we have no other choice. It is irresponsible to continue on this path and pretend we didn't see what we saw.
We have spent the past 9 years watching the republicans give up the moral high ground on issue after issue, in service of a corrupt president who cared nothing for the greater good, but only for himself. We pleaded with them to take the principled stand and vote for the democrats in order to save democracy. And they failed time and time again.
Now we are at the same precipice. Perhaps not because of corruption, because Joe Biden is a good man who has served his country admirably, but because we need to do what is right, even when it seems too hard or too risky. We may lose in November because we pick the wrong candidate, or it has to be Kamala, or a million other reasons, but we will certainly lose if we try to gaslight the American public into believing there is nothing to see here and everything is fine.
I would rather lose trying to do the right thing than lose because we were too afraid to change course.
I'm coming to this comment thread late. I've been listening to and reading a lot of commentary since the debate.
Just to give some background, I have voted for democrats since the Clinton era, I have donated to Obama, Hillary, democratic congressional candidates, and democratic primary campaigns (I donated to Kamala & Cory Booker). I am a middle aged Black democrat. I vote & donate. I am surrounded by other middle class Black dems, all college educated centrist dems.
I love what the Bulwark has done in opposing Trump & Trumpism. I listen to a number of your podcasts. Unfortunately, I think you guys have a blindspot when it comes to race as it relates to the 2024 election. Tim & JVL come the closest to understanding.
If you think that Black voters will show up if Biden bows out and is replaced by Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro, instead of Kamala, you guys need to talk to more Black people. BTW, I listened to the Focus Group podcast with Maryland democrats. For all of the complaints about Angela Alsobrooks, when push came to shove she absolutely smoked her primary opponent.
The dems have not won the White vote since the 1960s, the only way they win is getting somewhere around 40% of the White vote with decent to high turnout amongst Black voters with 85-90% of the vote share. There is no way you get both of those things if Kamala is leapfrogged.
For better or worse it is Biden or, if something goes wrong, Kamala. That's it. There is no magical "White Centrist" savior to come in. Also, don't think that dumping Kamala and putting a Black guy (Warnock or Wes Moore) will get it done.
It is unfortunate that we are in the situation we are in at the moment but we've got the "coach the team we've got"
Enough, already. Yes, Biden had a very bad night , let's not panic ! It was heartening to hear comments from voters indicating that the debate performance did not change their minds.
I'm genuinely curious: If not Thursday's performance, what would cause you to panic? The voters who will really matter in November - suburban swing voters in a dozen counties in PA, MI and WI - are not the people who are doubling down after the debate. I live in a WOW county in WI and it absolutely will have an impact here.
I think we are all going to have to be patient and respectful through this process. I think this might take a while to make this decision. Not just if but how, and it should. This puts many influential people on a tightrope of both showing public support in case Biden and his team flat out refuse, while pushing him to go behind the scenes. We shouldn't read to much into what Obama and others are saying.
JVL — I would be grateful if you all could pull in a campaign finance expert who could explain what would happen to all the money that the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign has raised to date if A) Biden stepped aside and endorsed Kamala Harris, or B) Biden stepped aside but did not endorse Kamala Harris and the nomination ended up going to someone else at the convention. Because understanding the lay of the land on this point would be critical to even entertaining the possibility that the party should explore alternate options at this point. If none of that money would be accessible to Harris (or another candidate), then I think we're all wasting our time even thinking about this, no matter how passionately we are feeling all the feels. Thanks.
All of us have endured nine years of gaslighting by the official Republican apparatus. These same people have anonymously leaked to the press that of course Trump is crazy, and that of course they know it, but they can't actually SAY it publicly. And why can't they say it publicly? Because the Republican party is now a cult of personality.
The Democratic party, however, is not a cult. And I will be deeply suspicious of anyone within the Democratic establishment who attempts to tell me that my eyes did not see what they saw on Thursday night, or that my ears did not hear what they heard, that things aren't really that bad and I should just suck it up and pretend everything is fine.
There are two Joe Bidens: Joe Biden the President, who is capably running the country, and Joe Biden the Candidate, who is incapably running for president.
Joe Biden the President has been a great and consequential leader. But that is not who is running against Donald Trump; Joe Biden the Candidate is. And what we all saw on Thursday night was catastrophic.
Every one of us knows what is at stake in this election, which is essentially everything. Not just for us, but for our children and grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, and all the generations to come.
The truth is that literally no one—including Joe Biden—has a crystal ball that can reveal what will ultimately be the best ticket to beat Donald Trump in November. Maybe Biden-Harris can pull it out in a squeaker—or maybe they can't. Maybe a Harris-TBD ticket would do better, or maybe it would do worse. Maybe a ticket topped by Newsom or Whitmer or Buttegieg or Raimondo or Shapiro or Brown or Moore or Beshear or fill-in-the-blank with any of a dozen other stars in Democratic circles would garner more votes from swing voters in swing states—or maybe it wouldn't. As maddening as it is, none of us can know for sure; it's all a guessing game, and polling on the topic is woefully inadequate. So we should all approach this with the appropriate humility.
But the conversation of whether there is a better option than Joe Biden is going to be had, and it absolutely is being had across the country and around the world. (I'm an American who now lives in Italy, and trust me, we are ALL talking about this.) Because it's not just the Editorial Board of The New York Times calling on Biden to drop out. As one example: In nearly eight years of listening to Pod Save America, I've never heard anything like their reaction to this debate. So many F-bombs, so much consternation that we are all in this horrific situation.
It would be highly irrational to dismiss such concerns, to chide them for not being team players, to suggest they just shut up and get back to work. No. Not this time. It may be big and messy and public and without precedent, but this gigantic elephant in the room cannot just get shoved back under the couch cushions. We need to at least have the conversation.
One way or another, Joe Biden has the biggest decision of his life to make. Quickly. And if he decides to stay in the race, then our other shining stars have the biggest decision of their lives to make, as to whether they will step forward and attempt to challenge him publicly for the nomination, or not (if such a thing is even possible according to the convention rules?).
I am alarmed. Right now, I do not know what I think is best, and I'm not arguing for any particular position, other than that this is not the time for the establishment to tell people to fall into line. This is the time for the Democratic family to hash this out. If we really believe democracy is in peril, then we need to act like it.
If Joe Biden remains the nominee, I will of course still vote for him and will of course still work to get him re-elected. But for today, I will not just pretend that everything is fine, that it's too late to change course, when the future of the country is on the line.
I'm sure we all have PTSD from 2016. We're all exhausted, we're all anxious, we're all afraid, many of us are angry. But none of that will be helped by simply sticking our heads in the sand and not having a party-wide conversation about where in the hell we go from here.
I, of course, am not really in the rooms where such conversations are (hopefully) happening, so I will largely have to trust that the people in the appropriate places are saying the frank, blunt, confrontational, and uncomfortable things that need to be said, to the people who need to hear them, and that those people are receptive to what they're told, and that they will have the wisdom needed to make the best decision possible in the midst of this utter cluster.
"Consider all sides. Begin from the proposition that whatever your instinct is here, you might be wrong." Thank you for this, JVL. This is the point I have repeatedly been trying to make on Twitter for 2 days now, albeit much less cogently and, unfortunately, less respectfully, than you did here.
This is a horrible, complicated problem to have, and all the "I told you so and you're an idiot if you don't agree this minute" takes are getting me down almost as much as the debate itself did.
JVL is always right and after the discussion with AB tonight, JVL is not just always right, he’s always f’ng right!!
It’s late Sunday evening, nope it’s now after midnight. I have consumed everything from sane publications and watched CNN and MsNBc. Have avoids the right winging networks and write ups.
If the media is correct, Biden is not going to step aside. if that is true, it is almost impossible to replace him and attempting to do so will cause more problems than worth it. Not to mention that there is no hero sitting by ready to come. Everybody we can think of , polls worse.
Don’t have a lot of desire or time to analyze for more than a minute why the Biden’s don’t seem to see what we do, but I strongly believe it has to do with dead son Beau who wanted Joe to run.
So , a reminder that the GOP , after the acccess Hollywood tapes took about 3 days to come back to Trump. They now are fully behind in every way their 34 convicted felon, a man found liable for multiple serious business frauds, found liable for sexual assault and defamation and will likely be convicted of more serious cases if we are given the chance to prosecute him. He is going to surround himself with criminals and sycophants , none of whom have an ounce of concern for the USA. Competence will no longer be required, but loyalty to the crook in chief will be job number one. Hundreds of thousands of competent and loyal to the country public servants will be fired, replaced with incompetent loyalists.
Women , LGBTQ, journalists critical of this Maga god will face persecution and loss of rights. Bowing before war criminals like Putin will be r required.
I don’t know if people realize how much the country will change.
So , in my mind, we have 1 choice- rally behind our guy- a decent human being who is old and not at his best but loves America and will be surrounding himself with competent people who also love America. Our guy maybe should have not run and made the decision a yr ago but he did not.
So we can moan about this or get to work, dammit. I am getting to work. I can send money to get out the vote organizations, answer phones , mail stuff. Others can walk the beats . There is something we all can do.
We’ve had our weekend to cry and I did.
Now, work. Send money . Do what you can - drive someone who has never voted to the booths. Help educate them.
But we can not lay down and let them walk through all victorious without fighting back. They think this is in the bag.
We are gonna do what they do- rally around our guy. And that needs to start today.
Yup, my post is la-la land but hey, the last nine years has been so here goes.....
With respect to replacing Biden......well, here's a fun idea:
In turbulent times, truth can be a dear friend.
If Biden has mental health challenges the truth is his best friend, the Democratic party’s best friend and democracy’s best friend.
Here’s how:
Biden needs to tell the truth to the American electorate regarding his health.
What 50 million voters witnessed Thursday night was not a cold. Such brazen spin is insulting and reckless. We the people are big enough to be told the truth, and we deserve nothing but the truth, so tell it.
At the same time, all donors but especially big donors, need to turn the donation spigot off as a safety measure to nudge the president for old fashion soul searching.
Biden can embrace the truth and weave it into a narrative that helps the country, the party and his legacy.
Biden saved the country from Trump in 2020.
Biden was a damn good president for four years.
He rolled up his sleeves for the Trump 2024 rematch but due to sudden pressing health concerns it was in the best interest of the country and his life to pull out of the race just before the convention.
Biden could then gracefully not only commit his delegates to an open convention but his unwavering support as well and be a vital part of the campaign up until November 5th.
He could commit his delegates with the understanding that in doing so he and the DNC would pick six initial candidates to “run” for president in July.
After each debate delegates and superdelegates would vote for one candidate to be dismissed from the next debate but all six candidates would be the potential vice presidential candidates. Yes, there's intentional Apprentice irony here - that's why this is so sweet.
There would be five national debates:
July 8th - six candidates
July 12th - five candidates
July 23rd - four candidates
July 26th - three candidates
August 1st - two candidates
August 5th and 6th - zoom virtual convention with the two final candidates with Biden in Philadelphia on August 5th and in Phoenix on August 6th. In each city the two candidates along with Biden would give speeches.
The delegates vote virtually for the nominee by 10 PM EST. At that time the two candidates and President Biden would be in Las Vegas when the nominee is announced.
On August 7th the presidential nominee meets the Ohio August 7th deadline.
Democratic National Convention - Chicago - August 19th - August 22nd
All five candidates speak -at the convention with the understanding that one of them will be chosen as the Vice President.
The convention is not contentious but rather a celebration of Biden and his administration and the passing of the torch is unified and is a symbol of the peaceful transition of power. Defeating Trump as the most unified Democratic Party in the country’s history will be the theme of the convention.
Yes, this is outlandish as hell but it also would work.
It would revolutionize national party conventions.
It would energize the youth vote.
It would consume the national spotlight for two months.
It would educate the American electorate for two months on the Democratic candidates.
The American electorate would be part of the process.
It might just save Democracy and energize the electorate like never before. Just say'n!
I don't think this is La La Land (which happens to be where I live). I like all of this with just a friendly amendment: The "the DNC would pick six initial candidates to “run” for president in July" - make that run for the NOMINATION. The candidate who runs for the president under the Democratic party is nominated by the delegates.
I specifically like: "the truth is his best friend, the Democratic party’s best friend and democracy’s best friend . . . We the people are big enough to be told the truth" - imagine restoring the truth to our body politic! And how that would show up the Republicans!!!
This is the proverbial thinking outside of the box. I am a member of this party that the candidate runs in the name of, along with all the registered Dems who have been donating to the Biden campaign since last year, as well as the pooh-bah insiders. I agree with Sarah on the emergency Bulwark podcast that this is a Dem family discussion and decision (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/sarah-longwell-jonathan-v-last-and).
Things that made us go hmmm.
Why give your opponent a prime time television appearance in front of 50 million viewers when you are the sitting president and get a national broadcast anytime you want on Ukraine way, Gaza war etc.?
Seems odd to me but the Biden team are pros, they know what they are doing, and they have information that we are not privy to.
Why agree to 90 second periods of mic on and mic off? These rules would have resulted in Joe losing the 2020 debate. When asked if he would denounce white supremacist groups. Trump was about to get away with fudging until Joe shouted Proud Boys.
Why give Trump his favorite foils as debate moderators? Clinton News Network, enemy of the people, fake news. This allows Trump to ignore every question and just recite his rally lies.
Why win the coin toss and select a side instead of the last word? Turns out they picked the better side for Trump and gave him the last word. And made Joe go first where he clearly froze up. Nerves can happen to any one at any age. How can you be sure Gretchen would not have panicked in her first national spotlight?
Why fill Joe's head with facts and figures as if this was an Ivy League debate club? They did not tell him that he would be screamed at by a lunatic who has no regard for truth?
Why try to have Joe answer questions from moderators with 90 second time limit and then mic off? Sometime the answer is too complicated to finish in 90 seconds which resulted in Joe realizing he did not have time to finish, hurry his thoughts and come up with "we beat Medicare". Obviously this is stupid. But are we sure it is old age cognitive decline or just a panicked answer at the buzzer? Are we sure Gretchen would never make a misstatement?
Some questions can be answered simply and do not need 90 seconds. That forced Joe to ramble after answering the question and wander.
But Team Biden are pros, they know what they are doing, they are privy to things we do not know.
Turns out. No. Team Biden messed up. Yes Joe could have vetoed so it is on him.
But I think we should ask if this is dementia and cognitive decline or just a bad strategy?
Whichever, in hindsight it was a horrible strategy and not just a bad debate night.
The ‘Hinge of Fate’ Redux
I joined the Bulwark in response to a wonderful article by Cathy Young/Charlie Sikes entitled, ‘The Hinge of Fate’ published shortly after the’22 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It seems we are at a similar moment now where the future of the free world hangs very much in the balance. We all know what we saw in Thursday’s debate and Bob Woodward is very much on mark in saying we MUST learn the ‘How and Why’ of this immediately to plan next steps. We have all seen the effects on family members aging and this experience that many of us have had over decades should point us towards some very specific questions. I am not a doctor and will only relate experiences of my mother’s illness as it relates to these questions.
As my mother’s cognition failed, we sought every kind of test and she was found negative for Altheimers and many other specific dementias. In the end a number off doctors explained to us that her diminishment was more likely the result of many small events that they called ‘micro-strokes ‘.They said that the vascular problems that run in our family especially a tendency towards aneurism could cause tiny pieces of arterial plaque to float free and become lodged in the very smallest blood vessels in the brain causing a number of tiny almost imperceptible stroke like events. These are individually almost impossible to diagnose but their effect is cumulative. Over time, as my mother lost recognition of me as anyone other than the nice young man who brought her milkshakes, everyone in our family accepted this explanation. It fit every aspect of the progression of her disease.
I recount our experience not as uninformed amateur diagnoses for the President but to point us towards questions that need be comprehensively answered immediately. These are in nature utterly different than the general findings of even the most thorough standard physical medical examination. The President needs to undergo all five major types of brain scan repeatably of a period of several weeks. The most important of these would be the CT Angiography which would show any variation in circulation within the brain over time. The question that needs to be answered is not whether the President is a healthy 81 year old, but rather are there any detectable accumulating changes in brain circulation over time in the brain or other anomaly that could suggest changes in cognition. These questions are made all the more urgent by the fact that the President suffered a life-threatening aneurism decades ago and should be counted as member of a high-risk group in this regard
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The answer to these questions would go some way towards answering at least the ‘How’ that Bob Woodward posits and point to a prognosis for the President. Anything less would indicate only further gaslighting from members of this administration.
BTW, Valerie Biden is Joe's sister. Jill Biden is Joe's wife.
I think Joe Biden has done a very good job as president, but he is clearly not up to the rigors of this campaign and another four years in office. He has also not shown the foresight to do what we all knew needed to be done a year ago. Namely, pass the torch to a new generation. Regrettably, I see no signs that he is prepared to do it now.
An observation: I wonder if not having an audience was a good idea. Biden could well have delivered a SOTU-level performance if he had had even silent support from his section. Ask any stage actor. Their performance feeds on vibes they get in the room.
A fantasy: Biden was intentionally bumbling so he could rope-a-dope Trump in the 2nd debate.
When I think of the SOTU masterclass Biden gave. When he recited off the teleprompter some facts and figures of some bill, did he sound that much different than the disastrous debate? Joe shined when Margorie Taylor Greene shouted at him in the middle of the speech and Joe responded "I know how to say her name". Even though he mispronounced her first name he responded with heartfelt sympathy for a family whose pain he knows all too well how to relate to.
The Post gave a detailed account of the intensity of a grueling Debate Practice put on Biden prior to the Debate. Perhaps Biden was over-prepared and pressured to bring up so many topics and statistics, that with just a two-minute response time to a broad question, he tried too hard to answer all the remembered responses he was grilled on. He sounded rushed and breathy and stumbled as though trying too hard. He also was said to have a cold.
Biden has had no real, spontaneous debates with anyone since his 2020 candidacy. And consider trying to think with a raving lunatic next to you, spewing lies and bonkers stream of consciousness.
Our problem is that we somehow expected him to be different from what he is. We wanted him to be confident, forceful, quick on his feet, ready to respond with his many accomplishments and future plans. But a debate, with open-ended questions, requiring a two minute answer, does not allow either man time to formulate much of an answer. And they devolved into sniping at each other since the moderators said next to nothing when they veered off topic. And I agree that Tapper and Bash were terrible at keeping them on topic and moving on in the debate.
I can't imagine who will step up to take his place. He was literally a consensus candidate in 2020 because Dems couldn't coalesce around anyone else. Also, do you really believe that Black Americans are going to turn to Trump after his "Black Jobs" comment? Whitmer, Newsome, Bernie, Amy?? Have any of them indicated they would jump at the chance? And do you think the American voters are going to be okay with the conventioneers deciding who they think is the best candidate Get Real?
Joe's mic was muted when Trump called him a criminal preventing Joe from responding in real time. For Trump, this was just a rally. He had 90 seconds of uninterrupted time to do his schtick. He scoffed at the questions from the "enemy of the people". Then here is Joe trying to answer in good faith complicated policy questions with fixed 90 second time limit. Yes, Joe is a sucker for agreeing to this. But read the transcript. Joe's answers were pretty good. We just did not get the Trump beat down that we all dream of. If taking down Trump is so easy then why did Jeb, Little Marco, Lyin Ted, National Review, DeSantos, Nikki, on and on do it?
Ummm, “we … got rid of … of … Medicare” does not qualify as a “pretty good” answer. Just sayin’.
Agreed. That comment was really dumb. I'm sure Joe would agree. But please look at the transcript. This was at the very end of a complicated answer at the buzzer. Not all full court buzzer shots swish.
"President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to this question about the national debt.
BIDEN: He had the largest national debt of any president four-year period, number one.
Number two, he got $2 trillion tax cut, benefited the very wealthy.
What I’m going to do is fix the taxes.
For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America – I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised $500 million – billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period.
We’d be able to right – wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that – all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID – excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with.
Look, if – we finally beat Medicare."
I concede this is poorly worded. But I disagree if this is portrayed as proof of dementia or mental decline. Joe made some important points. Joe wants billionaires to pay taxes at a lower tax rate than school teachers in order to address the national debt. I'm for Joe. I did not quote it but this was a response to a truly demented rant from Trump.
I have done little else since Thursday night but read, listen and consider the viewpoints of those to my left and to my right about what the democrats need to do next after a disastrous debate performance by Joe Biden. I have been a big supporter of the president, and while I was not excited that both of our choices are well into their senior years this election, I understand the importance of rallying the troops to support the president.
However, after Thursday's debate, I find myself not only wondering if Joe Biden can possibly be up to be president for four more years, but also wondering if he can even manage to be president for the rest of his term. I know there is great risk in trying to replace Biden on the ticket with four months until the election, but I believe after the debate, we have no other choice. It is irresponsible to continue on this path and pretend we didn't see what we saw.
We have spent the past 9 years watching the republicans give up the moral high ground on issue after issue, in service of a corrupt president who cared nothing for the greater good, but only for himself. We pleaded with them to take the principled stand and vote for the democrats in order to save democracy. And they failed time and time again.
Now we are at the same precipice. Perhaps not because of corruption, because Joe Biden is a good man who has served his country admirably, but because we need to do what is right, even when it seems too hard or too risky. We may lose in November because we pick the wrong candidate, or it has to be Kamala, or a million other reasons, but we will certainly lose if we try to gaslight the American public into believing there is nothing to see here and everything is fine.
I would rather lose trying to do the right thing than lose because we were too afraid to change course.
As JVL always says - "Good luck America"
I'm coming to this comment thread late. I've been listening to and reading a lot of commentary since the debate.
Just to give some background, I have voted for democrats since the Clinton era, I have donated to Obama, Hillary, democratic congressional candidates, and democratic primary campaigns (I donated to Kamala & Cory Booker). I am a middle aged Black democrat. I vote & donate. I am surrounded by other middle class Black dems, all college educated centrist dems.
I love what the Bulwark has done in opposing Trump & Trumpism. I listen to a number of your podcasts. Unfortunately, I think you guys have a blindspot when it comes to race as it relates to the 2024 election. Tim & JVL come the closest to understanding.
If you think that Black voters will show up if Biden bows out and is replaced by Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro, instead of Kamala, you guys need to talk to more Black people. BTW, I listened to the Focus Group podcast with Maryland democrats. For all of the complaints about Angela Alsobrooks, when push came to shove she absolutely smoked her primary opponent.
The dems have not won the White vote since the 1960s, the only way they win is getting somewhere around 40% of the White vote with decent to high turnout amongst Black voters with 85-90% of the vote share. There is no way you get both of those things if Kamala is leapfrogged.
For better or worse it is Biden or, if something goes wrong, Kamala. That's it. There is no magical "White Centrist" savior to come in. Also, don't think that dumping Kamala and putting a Black guy (Warnock or Wes Moore) will get it done.
It is unfortunate that we are in the situation we are in at the moment but we've got the "coach the team we've got"
Enough, already. Yes, Biden had a very bad night , let's not panic ! It was heartening to hear comments from voters indicating that the debate performance did not change their minds.
I'm genuinely curious: If not Thursday's performance, what would cause you to panic? The voters who will really matter in November - suburban swing voters in a dozen counties in PA, MI and WI - are not the people who are doubling down after the debate. I live in a WOW county in WI and it absolutely will have an impact here.
I think we are all going to have to be patient and respectful through this process. I think this might take a while to make this decision. Not just if but how, and it should. This puts many influential people on a tightrope of both showing public support in case Biden and his team flat out refuse, while pushing him to go behind the scenes. We shouldn't read to much into what Obama and others are saying.
JVL — I would be grateful if you all could pull in a campaign finance expert who could explain what would happen to all the money that the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign has raised to date if A) Biden stepped aside and endorsed Kamala Harris, or B) Biden stepped aside but did not endorse Kamala Harris and the nomination ended up going to someone else at the convention. Because understanding the lay of the land on this point would be critical to even entertaining the possibility that the party should explore alternate options at this point. If none of that money would be accessible to Harris (or another candidate), then I think we're all wasting our time even thinking about this, no matter how passionately we are feeling all the feels. Thanks.
All of us have endured nine years of gaslighting by the official Republican apparatus. These same people have anonymously leaked to the press that of course Trump is crazy, and that of course they know it, but they can't actually SAY it publicly. And why can't they say it publicly? Because the Republican party is now a cult of personality.
The Democratic party, however, is not a cult. And I will be deeply suspicious of anyone within the Democratic establishment who attempts to tell me that my eyes did not see what they saw on Thursday night, or that my ears did not hear what they heard, that things aren't really that bad and I should just suck it up and pretend everything is fine.
There are two Joe Bidens: Joe Biden the President, who is capably running the country, and Joe Biden the Candidate, who is incapably running for president.
Joe Biden the President has been a great and consequential leader. But that is not who is running against Donald Trump; Joe Biden the Candidate is. And what we all saw on Thursday night was catastrophic.
Every one of us knows what is at stake in this election, which is essentially everything. Not just for us, but for our children and grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, and all the generations to come.
The truth is that literally no one—including Joe Biden—has a crystal ball that can reveal what will ultimately be the best ticket to beat Donald Trump in November. Maybe Biden-Harris can pull it out in a squeaker—or maybe they can't. Maybe a Harris-TBD ticket would do better, or maybe it would do worse. Maybe a ticket topped by Newsom or Whitmer or Buttegieg or Raimondo or Shapiro or Brown or Moore or Beshear or fill-in-the-blank with any of a dozen other stars in Democratic circles would garner more votes from swing voters in swing states—or maybe it wouldn't. As maddening as it is, none of us can know for sure; it's all a guessing game, and polling on the topic is woefully inadequate. So we should all approach this with the appropriate humility.
But the conversation of whether there is a better option than Joe Biden is going to be had, and it absolutely is being had across the country and around the world. (I'm an American who now lives in Italy, and trust me, we are ALL talking about this.) Because it's not just the Editorial Board of The New York Times calling on Biden to drop out. As one example: In nearly eight years of listening to Pod Save America, I've never heard anything like their reaction to this debate. So many F-bombs, so much consternation that we are all in this horrific situation.
It would be highly irrational to dismiss such concerns, to chide them for not being team players, to suggest they just shut up and get back to work. No. Not this time. It may be big and messy and public and without precedent, but this gigantic elephant in the room cannot just get shoved back under the couch cushions. We need to at least have the conversation.
One way or another, Joe Biden has the biggest decision of his life to make. Quickly. And if he decides to stay in the race, then our other shining stars have the biggest decision of their lives to make, as to whether they will step forward and attempt to challenge him publicly for the nomination, or not (if such a thing is even possible according to the convention rules?).
I am alarmed. Right now, I do not know what I think is best, and I'm not arguing for any particular position, other than that this is not the time for the establishment to tell people to fall into line. This is the time for the Democratic family to hash this out. If we really believe democracy is in peril, then we need to act like it.
If Joe Biden remains the nominee, I will of course still vote for him and will of course still work to get him re-elected. But for today, I will not just pretend that everything is fine, that it's too late to change course, when the future of the country is on the line.
I'm sure we all have PTSD from 2016. We're all exhausted, we're all anxious, we're all afraid, many of us are angry. But none of that will be helped by simply sticking our heads in the sand and not having a party-wide conversation about where in the hell we go from here.
I, of course, am not really in the rooms where such conversations are (hopefully) happening, so I will largely have to trust that the people in the appropriate places are saying the frank, blunt, confrontational, and uncomfortable things that need to be said, to the people who need to hear them, and that those people are receptive to what they're told, and that they will have the wisdom needed to make the best decision possible in the midst of this utter cluster.
"Consider all sides. Begin from the proposition that whatever your instinct is here, you might be wrong." Thank you for this, JVL. This is the point I have repeatedly been trying to make on Twitter for 2 days now, albeit much less cogently and, unfortunately, less respectfully, than you did here.
This is a horrible, complicated problem to have, and all the "I told you so and you're an idiot if you don't agree this minute" takes are getting me down almost as much as the debate itself did.