Josh Chafetz: 1/ I'm agnostic as to whether Biden should withdraw from the race. It's a genuinely tough question IMO. But I have clarity on one thing: He should absolutely not step down as president. If Harris becomes President, the Vice Presidency is empty. Under the 25th Amendment ...

1/ I'm agnostic as to whether Biden should withdraw from the race. It's a genuinely tough question IMO. But I have clarity on one thing: He should absolutely not step down as president. If Harris becomes President, the Vice Presidency is empty. Under the 25th Amendment ...

2/ ... confirming a new VP requires majority votes in the House and the Senate. If there is no VP, then Mike Johnson is next in line to the presidency. I think there's a very good argument that the House would not confirm anyone Harris nominated as VP.

3/ We are in a moment of high and rising political violence. ~ 9% of all US presidents have been assassinated, and ~ 13% have been either killed or wounded in an assassination attempt.

4/ Add in the fact that Harris would be the first woman president and only second president of color and it gets scarier. Add in that her replacement would be from the other party and it starts to look like an invitation to assassination attempts.

5/5 If Biden decides to withdraw, he should just say something like, "Being president is a full-time job. Campaigning for the presidency is a full-time job. I'm too old to work two jobs, so I'm going to focus on the one I was elected to do. Vote Harris in November!"

Biden should absolutely cite, at least in passing: that the House majority is corrupt, would not fill the veep vacancy, and that the incoming President would thus not be safe.

Yes, this needs to be made clear! That he will not resign for the safety of Kamala Harris

He would void his opportunity to act unconstrained by political calculations around reelection, too, if he were to resign. By withdrawing from the race but remaining president, he would have the rare chance to use the powers of the presidency more or less strictly for the good of the country.

Also: assuming Harris is (or might be) the replacement nominee, you really don't want her in the position of having Putin/Netanyahu/MBS/every-other-world-leader-who-likes-Trump try really hard to make her look bad for the next 4 months; lame-duck Biden would shield her from geopolitical ratfuckery.

bsky.app/profile/shau...

The best argument for Biden to step down as candidate, but serve out his term is that the fascists clearly intend to try to seize power regardless of the vote count. We need a President who will resist the coup without the appearance of a self-serving attempt to stay in power for himself.

This will create wall-to-wall House committee hearings, GOP state AG lawsuits, and saturation coverage that will strangle the Democratic campaign. Not to mention the program of ballot ratfuckery that’d be sure to come.

We’ve all seen the news media’s “rise to the occasion” so far, so we should have a pretty good idea of how this is going to go.

Biden should have already ordered every American to stop cooperating with Congress on even the smallest hearing, pardoned his son and ordered the the DOJ to charge Trump's entire family and every white house employee from his regime and his entire campaign team with serious felonies

There are only a few tipping-point states that matter: Nevada and Arizona come to mind as places where extremist Republicans are entrenched. Obviously all kinds of resources, legal, messaging, GOTV, will be needed in such states.

She would have been my first choice in 2020, nevertheless now I don't know that she could win against Trump. The Dems need the rational Republicans on their side, and they have been conditioned for decades to see women in power as a violation of Gods order, and there is the racisim. 💔

There is no replacing Biden at this point. It is too late for a new nominee to get on the ballot in some states.

I saw a post earlier explaining that Biden is the presumptive nominee right now. He’s not officially the nominee until he’s confirmed at the DNC convention in August; thus he’s not on any ballots right now. Harris could be swapped.

Genuine question: Who is calling for him to resign from office!? Name names.

well, just to take one quick example washingtonmonthly.com/2024/07/03/i...

If Biden Quits the Race, He Should Resign the Presidency | Washington Monthlywashingtonmonthly.com If Biden Quits the Race, He Should Resign the Presidency: Being a lame duck for seven months would be far worse for him—and us—than leaving office and propelling Vice President Harris to the Oval Offi...

A vote for Biden is a vote for Harris. If dems can get Biden reelected, Harris is in line for the presidency if something tragic happens. As for the House and Senate, if dems can flip the House and keep the Senate first order of business should be to expand SCOTUS.

You can't sell that claim anymore when they're making it so clear that they have never seriously considered her as the real, actual replacement if anything happened to him. They will just openly say there's "no one" who can take his place. It's terrible.

I don’t think Biden saying that he’s not competent enough to campaign, but is totally able to be the President of the fucking United States will win the Ds any votes.

If she was running, she'd have a full schedule of public events and rallies that make her more accessible than at any other time. I think Biden is still dispositioned to finish his term and none of his advisors are going to advise him step down and leave them on the street.

yeah, if anyone thinks it's possible for Biden to resign & have President Harris sworn in a second time 1/21/25, I invite you to ask yourself why was JFK even IN Dallas (he needed to shore up TX, despite having a Texan on the ticket with him, securing him was impossible, the threat was understood)

This potential could persist for some time should Biden won, die in office, and the house remains insurrectionist.😳

🤔

also who presides over the counting of electoral votes if there's no VP? mike johnson???

president pro tempore? Is that Patty Murray? Not that these reprobates would follow Senate procedures or anything.

This isn't a helpful statistic. No president has even been the target of a serious assassination attempt in 43 years. No one has been murdered in 60 years -- because security has gotten much better. Not saying it couldn't happen, only that these numbers are deceptive.

It's also the case that, as the parties have become more internally cohesive, the payoff to assassination has declined. For most part, no chance in recent years of a Lincoln-->Johnson shift or a Garfield-->Arthur. But the possibility of a Harris-->Johnson shift ...

Since we’re saying these things out loud, I’ve spent a lot of time this week very worried about SCOTUS assassinations. Lifetime appointments are an absolutely terrible idea for so many reasons.

Were any assassinations (attempted or otherwise) besides Garfield based on a political calculation? Not Reagan, Kennedy, McKinley, T. Roosevelt.

this is unhingedly wrong 1) drones (security is better, emergency medicine is better, robots that lower the skills required? also better) 2) the political payoff for putting Johnson in the WH is what changes the odds of attempts 3) read up on white supremacists' organizing online & give it thought

My facts are "unhingedly wrong?" Okay.

your predictions fail to account for (at least) the 3 factors I'm suggesting should be included along with your facts about historical trends in assassination attempts against US Presidents

Way more of those assholes deserved to be shot

This is a real Clinton referencing RFK as an excuse to not withdraw and endorse Obama after he clinched the primary message.

~4% having been wounded is a much more honest way to say that, without double counting the 8.88%!

She could simply have sufficient Republican House members “detained” to tilt the numbers in her favor. Not counseling this of course. But could it be reviewed by a court?

An "official act" investigating insurrectionists?

And there is no one to break a tie in the Senate.

Doesn't this also apply if he is reelected and dies in office?

yes, assuming Republicans still control at least one house of Congress

I think that the only way they would is if she picked a Dem from the House, helping Johnson's very narrow majority.

Why not rip off the band-aid now instead of when dems don't have the presidency? When is the correct moment to try and force the GOP to play by the rules the Dems do, if not now?

By not doing it now, you're merely delaying when a fight like this happens. What is the optimistic case for having a better venue than the president choosing their own vice president?

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