Post

Holy moly www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Sen. Mark Warner works to gather Senate Democrats to ask Biden to exit racewww.washingtonpost.com Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is attempting to assemble a group of Democratic senators to go to the White House on Monday and ask that Joe Biden exit the presidential race, according to two people with dir...

Jesus fucking Christ this is collective insanity

I'd like to believe that but honestly I think it seems like Biden is too risky now.

I think they’re falling for a gigantic rat fuck both of mass hysteria, personally.

Agreed.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. Biden’s risky because everyone thinks he’s risky. We’re all in a Schelling tipping point game.

That I agree with. But it feels like Democrats aren't just freaking out because the media is freaked - they are legitimately questioning his ability to be reelected under these conditions.

Exactly. “Ability to be reelected” is directly linked to what everyone is saying about the risks of him staying in the race. Perception is creating reality.

But it's linked to the reality we all saw of him faltering at the debate. Beginning to feel like we have to choose between what they say or our lying eyes.

I mean, Trump is an insane felon rapist and a lot of people still voted for him. There’s no rule that says we have to honorably give a shit about if our candidate comes off as slightly addled, especially when we’ve got a perfectly good VP who can take over as soon as he makes it past the post.

Hey, I'll vote for a literal puppet on a stick if that's who the Democrats nominate. They can weekend at Bernie's him for all I care. But will everyone, is the question.

Yeah like Agree or disagree with him (I honestly don't know which camp I'm in yet!), I'm pretty sure that what's motivating Mark Warner of all people is genuine, honest panic that Biden isn't up to winning this election He's not someone who like, has axes to grind with Biden

I don’t think he has an ax to grind with Biden. I do think that jumpy Democrat politicians in the DC bubble aren’t exactly immune to mass hysteria.

Yes, for sure I mean for me it just comes down to What is the underlying truth of the matter??

This week SCOTUS killed Chevron deference, gave Trump total immunity, and Trump was credibly tied to Epstein, and it seems to me if your campaign somehow seriously can't find a way to then change the topic of conversation in the newspapers or stop your party panicking, what are we doing here exactly

Like, yes, ok, the media owns some of this. But also ... if you have a campaign, literally any of those are gigaquake events to change the tide and frame what you're going to do and take that message to the voters, and how exactly is it the campaign can't capitalize on it? That's the issue

I mean this in the nicest and most earnest way possible, not as a troll: what *specifically* would you recommend he do here?

Specifically to step back from the campaign citing health reasons and simultaneously endorse Harris as candidate

Okay, you really and earnestly believe that this would shift the coverage to Trump? Not Democratic dysfunction? Not questions about whether or not Harris was covering up the (now surely proven, given that he gave up) health problems?

I think what happens then depends on Harris being able to bring new energy and for her team to shift the narrative back to a positive vision for her campaign and the horrors of what a Trump administration would be. But she can absolutely seize the narrative

I mean, hell, Biden could also do that. But the problem is that he hasn't, and everyone's run out of patience that they're ever going to.

I think you’re dramatically underestimating how hard getting *other people*, and DC press in particular, to present that narrative is and will be

The most likely way I currently see this playing out is that Biden says “fuck no” loudly and in public five or six more times, press realizes it ain’t gonna happen, other Ds realize it ain’t gonna happen, and he gets a modest bump for resisting a massive public pressure campaign

Some evidence it’s going this way

NEW: Biden has narrowed Trump’s lead in swing states despite a widely panned presidential debate performance, the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll finds

Biden Narrows Gap With Trump in Swing States Despite Debate Losswww.bloomberg.com The incumbent trails his GOP rival by just 2 points across key states, a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult shows, even as three in 10 Democrats say he should leave the race.

I think he either leaves soon or this just slowly goes away and just sits in the background like an elephant. Everyone will be on board post-convention, but it'll just be a wet blanket over the campaign

but this is also why everyone's bringing it up /now/. Because they can have this conversation right now; they absolutely cannot have it in two months if something else goes wrong, or if it doesn't improve.

also folks should avoid pre-litigating the blame game if it goes wrong. If Trump is elected, then folks will be angry and every decision will be retroactively the monocausal error: If Harris loses, it was the mistake of the century to swap; if Biden loses, the mistake of the century not to, etc

What matters isn't who's to blame if things go wrong, it's how to have the best chance of it not going wrong in the first place.

My view is that blinking in a crisis is *almost* always the wrong thing to do, and the public pressure campaign mostly elicits that response from me. And I think if he were mentally incapable of the job, he would have already blinked. Surviving the crisis is its own sort of proof.

If he’s not up for it, it happened QUICKLY. Hur tried to call him impaired just last year as a Republican operative and his evidence was practically nonexistent.

look, the important thing is that I personally was right the whole time in whatever it was I believed, not the survival of American democracy. wait is that right? that's maybe not right.

Folks are right to be mad that the Republic is in this absurd position, and right to be mad it's even remotely plausible Trump could win. If you're not mad about that, honestly, wtf.

Exactly right.

Well reasoned.

This is a key point. Keeping him in risks a situation where you guarantee a loss.

He tells the press corps to "Get off his plane".... Harrison Ford style

This is the way.