Faine Greenwood: 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.

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??

I truly, truly do not care. I only care about winning so I don’t spend the rest of my life dealing with fascist GOP terror.

Having lived through being lied to by Bill Clinton I can handle a little obfuscation about Biden until it's time to hand the reins to Kamala. I have no qualms about this as long as the GOP doesn't hold the White House.

I mean, same, but if the underlying truth is that he's not fit to serve as president right now then he is going to lose the election Should he? Of course not! But that also doesn't matter

I've voted in a dead guy before and I'll do it again! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Un...

2000 United States Senate election in Missouri - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Ne's more fit than Trump. He's more fit than anyone else they can drag out at this point.

I never said otherwise

True it's just there's no time. We do not have snap elections orva parliament and we have who we have. It was 45-45 before the debate; there's just no *viable* option.

That is very clearly not the underlying truth though.

There is a logic flaw there: Trump is DEFINITELY not fit to serve as president. If not Biden, Trump. Who already wasn't fit and already won once. See how that doesn't work?

People keep imaging what OTHER people might think and then behaving as if that is how they themselves think. Stop the meta bullshit!

*imagining obvs

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

Two things can be true. The media is being grossly irresponsible. The campaign is not meeting the moment.

Totally. The media is mean to Biden, and they are going to be mean to Harris. That's life. It sucks. Politics is dirty. But idk, part of campaigning is being able to help drive the news and get your message out to voters, not just be completely blindsided repeatedly by it.

This is, however, what I have heard from my Bronx friends and neighbors (all races): They're out to get him because he's been a good President. He's our President and that's who we need to back.

I think the general public can and should criticize the media to their heart's content, and there's plenty to complain about in all this. But I have very little patience for candidates blaming it all on the media when it's not going well. That's part of the job, that's on you.

Thank you for saying this, I feel like I'm going mad. Handling the media is a core part of the job. Sometimes that might mean crying foul when they're tough on you, as we'v seen w/ Trump, but if the strategy is to whip the base into a frenzy of hatred for the msm I have not seen any sign of it.

You can’t get the momentum reversed if the media puts every little slip on full blast.

We’ve seen a lot the last week or so of the media elevating the “he’s old” story. I am sure campaign folks tip them to things like Epstein logs, and don’t papers have SCOTUS beats? Is Biden supposed to write the stories for them? Honest question.

Yeah.

This is why "Biden not running would help Trump win" has totally evaporated as a compelling argument. Even if the debate itself was recoverable, and I doubt it ever was, he's shown his team has no clue what they're doing and no credible plan to fix it.

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

It's easy to say "they should be able to get the NYT to cover something different", and it's a view I'm sympathetic to in a lot of ways, but it's also true that the media has its own perverse incentives here. It's not totally obvious that campaigns can force coverage.

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 would think Biden could get 80% of this effect by firing everybody and announcing a "I'm old, deal with it" campaign reset.

I would add an “abuse his Purge powers in the lame duck period, if Harris wins”

I think the question was more, what would satisfy you that he is still fit to serve/fit to run

So, let me stipulate that I think it’s almost too late *now*, so I’ll give you my what I think he *could’ve* done: - Friday public events were fine (but immediately start private meetings with Congrssional Dems) - Saturday do some of the local radio interviews - 30 min Sunday morning TV interview

- Monday announce a town hall for Wednesday, additional local radio interviews - Tuesday follow up the Monday night remarks about the Supreme Court with an 4th of July announcement and press conference - Wednesday, live town hall, Q&A with voters, 90 mins, no pre screened questions

Dems (esp. Biden) are imho having a hard time putting court reform front and center because they never acted after setting up a Presidential commission on SCOTUS reform in 2021 that dropped its report the same year. 2.5 years just pissed away. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

www.whitehouse.gov

I think it's a category error to say that the media only owns "some" of this. It's become blisteringly clear to me that pretty much all of the "liberal" media has joined the NYT's campaign to drum Biden out of office no matter what. Even my wife has noticed that this is the NYT's policy.

Super spot on!

a democracy in which the media is not run by the state and the representatives arent puppets of the president

This is an indictment of the press. I mean, if you think the press would be covering things responsibly if Biden's people said they should cover these important things, or if Biden wasn't in the race, that's fine, but I think their behavior the past eight years suggests otherwise.

maybe we should check all members of the campaign team for cognitive decline

I supposed we could start by realizing that Biden doesn't actually control the media?

Sorry, what news credibly tied Trump to Epstein? I’ve seen claims to this effect on social media but no credible reporting.

The Times piece earlier in the week did have diplomats and foreign allies saying that, based on Biden’s performance in Europe, they would not trust him in the room with Putin. That sort of talk would be coming to the Senate Intelligence Chair from foreign leaders and diplomats too.

Which is a great reason to improve the odds of the guy who will give Putin everything he’s ever dreamed of.

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