look i am not an elections expert but i will just say that it’s striking how few of the arguments for keeping biden have anything to do with biden’s merits as a candidate or his ability to lead the country for four more years and i don’t think that’s going to be entirely lost on voters
I think that’s because those arguments wouldn’t feel responsive to people’s fears. I haven’t been hearing anyone suggest that Biden’s performance changes their view of how he’d govern (no one’s suggesting he resign), only how he’d campaign
I see your point, but I worry that the people whose fears are being taken into account here are the professional political class and committed Dems. Whereas the people whose fears actually matter in an election are those who are on the fence about who to vote for or whether it’s worth turning out.
I will absolutely concede that I have zero idea what happens in the minds of "undecided" voters and how different scenarios would affect turnout. I'd just say that the argument for Biden on policy is roughly the same as the argument for Harris, so you quickly return to discussing other tradeoffs.
I agree that no one is disputing the fact that Biden is old and diminished compared to his younger self. But it doesn't seem damning to me that the main conversation is about what you gain and lose by switching to Harris (or contested convention), just as we talk about voting for Biden vs. Trump.
I think a lot of it is also that nobody in the professional political class really wants to admit what everyone knows is true: this election is /overwhelmingly/ just (another) referendum on Trump. Everything else is using proxies to try and paper over that fact, which is also why they don't land
That's why the polls are weirdly unresponsive to what would, in other elections, be larger swings. It's why journalists and D politicians freaked out so hard over what is, in the end, just a poor debate performance. They'll write 200 pieces about Biden old, but it's /about/ fear of a Trump return
Completely agree, tho it is infuriating they channel that fear like this and not like endless pieces about what trump-2 would be, headed and footed by "and this is why the country cannot—must not—allow this monster even remotely near the levers of power"
There's nothing particularly savvy and wise and profound in the observation that Trump is a monster, and his election would have republic-endingly bad consequences to everyone living in the US, but it is still true, and it is still the most useful thing newspapers could write about the race
Still somewhat bemused that this is somehow all Biden's fault for not being able to slay the fascist rather than the media's fault for not pointing out that the fascist is a fascist.
Agreed. In addition to core Trump supporters, there's a sizeable chunk of the moneyed classes that don't consider ending the republic-as-we-know-it to be a bad thing. Holding on to the hope that this bloc doesn't constitute an electoral majority, it seems that getting the word out is key.
I think tho it is reasonable & has been reasonable to question nominating Biden. However, I think it is by far more questionable to nominate Trump. What media ppl are saying is "we told you so." & while Biden can run the country ok probably, campaigning is different. & what happens in 25 or 26?
Its also why I wish any decent democrat or democrat soft money group is not just broadcasting 30 second clips of Trump at his rallies at the most lunatic and similar things that are just "this guy WANTS to be Orange Hitler, in his own words"
I know someone who won't vote for Trump, but will vote for Republicans -- who have kissed Trump's ring. While Trump is a monster, the current GOP platform is straight up white Christian nationalism. How much does that change with Trump out?
So maybe write about that.
And honestly, if they applied the same yardstick to Trump that they applied constantly on Biden — he is no longer just a monster, he has the same basic issues Biden does. Just he says incoherent racist lies with complete confidence.
Trump would likely have fared similarly in the debate aftermath.
How much of the avoidance around reporting on Trump is fear that he’ll win and take revenge on anyone who “attacked” him? Are journalists afraid of rousing his ire, or that of his minions?
That, at least, would make some kind of sense.
I think a lot of the people driving these editorial positions look at Biden and see “The Squad” and they are as scared of normalish progressive policies driven by nonwhite people as are they are of Trump.
This hits the nail on the head. If you've ready any @rvawonk.bsky.social, you know that righteous anger (e.g., anger over the torture of defenseless beings, whether babies, children, puppies, etc.) and fear play perfectly into the playbook of the nation states that are trying to weaken the US.
Or it’s too early for perceptions to show up. I think it’s a mistake to pin too much hope on polls staying static after the debate when it was objectively awful for Biden on his biggest weakness with voters. And Biden needed to *change* the dynamic. At best he cemented it.
I think that’s right but it’d be interesting to see how a newsom or Whitmer might turn the spotlight more aggressively on Trump’s flaws, thus making the media frame it as a referendum on Trump v how they’re currently framing it: as a referendum on Biden
when I look at this weird nyt crap and the "liberal freakout" going on, it feels much more like a group of moderate/business conservatives getting angry that their choice is between a literally dangerous candidate of their preferred party and a pro-labor old guy that lacks corporate charisma
Right. They want a Biden-Romney fight, where they can smugly put an X in the Romney box and get some tax cuts and tell Biden to fuck off with business regulations and green energy stuff, and they're in this giant cognitive dissonance of what to do about it, because it's a Biden-Trump fight instead
And some resolve the dissonance by persuading themselves that Trump is just Romney-but-sometimes-says-naughty-words, and 2017-2021 was really just a dream or "TDS"; but sometimes reality breaks through and they panic, realizing Trump is who he is, and then seeing Biden not doing well and lashing out
This is how I read the situation, and I think it’s spot on for the older, retired CEOs and executive class in additional ways, too. They *know* Trump is everything they thought they could plausibly say that they abhor in polite company back in 2016. That’s no longer possible and they know it.
honestly *I* want a Biden-Romney fight, because I do not think Romney winning would mean the end of American democracy.
but unlike the chattering class, I can admit that's not what's going on.
And leftists still can't handle the dissonance between "Bernie would have won" and "Everything Hillary nerds said was true about the stakes of 2016" so they blame shitlib centrists
This is also why you're seeing another "voting is nothing" despair wave - to prevent 2024 the way it's turned out we needed HRC to win in 2016 and b/c that can't happen, cue panik!
And I get it - a weak Biden with SCOTUS this far into its evil arc is terrifying even if we manage to get Congress on my theory America is still big mad about Dobbs. Hence my "let's just kill them mfers" fantasies. But that's a fantasy not a solution
The thing is, I think what they /actually/ want, if you really peel back the curtain, is for Biden to be doing so well that they could with a completely clear conscience not vote for him.
I also think as opposed to 2016, there's an entire portfolio of evidence as to how Trump will govern, and even more concerning, govern as someone who cannot run again. And he's very clearly saying "I will be much worse".
The absolute worst case scenario for these chucklefucks is an election with Trump where he’s neither currently in power nor written off. It means they need to stand for something without defaulting to being adversarial.
I think a similar dynamic was at play in 2015-6: of course Hilary will win so let’s kneecap her starting now so we can declare her presidency a failure on day 1.
