Right, but the thing about this sort of frenzy is that once it becomes clear there’s no scalp to be had the story moves on.
The underlying merits of his oldness *might* be a reason to step aside, but “I’m scared of bad press coverage” is not.
I'm not sure about that, I don't think there's any just riding it out here and it eventually goes away. It won't necessarily stay the feeding frenzy top story for months, but it's never going back to pre-debate levels. Though I agree the negative media coverage itself shouldn't be dispositive.
IMO the merits in favor of Biden stepping aside have to be *really strong* to do it in part b/c I’m pretty sure it will be an electoral liability to do that.
At this point I'm inclined towards the electoral implications of it have flipped, that it is actually the better move to beat Trump now, and I'd have thought that crazy talk before. But in part that's because the debate really was that bad on the merits, in principle, of if he's still up to the job.
Maybe. It was def a bad debate. But we don’t get to have him resign and all our problems are solved; we would have a massive new problem of “we held a party primary and ignored the outcome.”
And like, you can do that, but you have to have a damn good reason that’s better than “the press coverage is too hard” and more like “doctors tell me I’m going to die soon.”
I don't think it has to be as far as "die soon" or a specific diagnosis as opposed to "I'm just not up to it anymore, I've taken a turn" etc. But I don't see setting aside the primary result as a huge problem. Everyone knew Harris is his VP and would be his running mate again. You're up, Veep.
Part of my calculus here is I think we've seen good signs, quickly coalescing, that the party wouldn't actually be thrown into divisive chaos or some bloody contest and would immediately rally behind Harris more effectively than the actual chaos and rebellion happening right now.
Yeah. For me it basically comes down to, has he in fact seen his capacity decline lately such that the guy we saw in the debate is just who he is now? Because if so then it'll continue to be an open wound in the campaign
Sure! But this all then becomes an exercise in priors, right? If you were inclined to think he’s good, it was a bad night. If you’re inclined to think he’s not, no amount of good appearances shed enough caveats to convince you he’s good.
I wouldn't go so far to say I was previously a fan, he's not my cup of tea on a ton of normal politics policy stuff, but I went from being convinced he clearly had the best chance to... not thinking that anymore.
And I think the freakout is largely because people did have concerns about this before the debate, and the debate didn't do anything to contradict those fears
To me on merits it appears: from other public appearances, it was a bad performance but not “this is just who he is now.”
I don’t see the wisdom in trading the relatively known set of electoral vulnerabilities for a somewhat unknown set.
Well it would absolutely positively have to be a quick coalescing around Harris, I think, for all those reasons
I agree it's not something to be undertaken lightly!
Right. Like if immediately next day or two he did a live, lengthy unscripted town hall with voters and knocked it out of the park, you maybe could have at least staunched the bleeding. Instead everything they've done and said has only made it worse and tended to confirm the worst fears.
If the NYT has the power to override the will of Democratic primary voters any time they feel shameless enough to do so, we are in for a rough fucking ride.
