This is exactly where I’ve been for the past few days—though I had a helpful conversation with someone here last night that reassured me that a switch from Biden to Harris presents as many opportunities as risks. So I’m feeling a little better about the world today.
Not that anyone is asking me, but I have no idea what the Democrats should do right now. All the options seem bad, and there isn’t one that seems less bad than the others. And as a professional opinion-haver, it’s disorienting to have no strong opinion about something so enormously consequential.
"What if Biden withdraws and it's a huge mistake?" is a legit case for him staying in. My feeling is that the odds against him are now so steep and the condition that has created those steep odds so impossible to change that even the shock of a new candidate is now a better bet. But it's a big risk!
I think that’s very fair; my main hangup has been that I’m not confident in my ability to assess how much has changed, since the large majority of voters are partisans whose votes are locked in, and I cannot hope to understand the minds of swing voters.
But thanks to my helpful conversation last night, I am now at least feeling good about the *potential* of a candidate swap (to Harris), and if the polling and wiser political minds agree that the damage to Biden’s candidacy is grave, I’m fine with that move
Yeah, I'm now feeling pretty okay about a switch to Harris if Biden is fully and enthusiastically on-board with the plan and throws all his support behind her.
On two conditions:
1. Harris immediately fires the strategists that got us in this mess.
2. Harris immediately turns the election into a referendum on Project 2025. This is not about Harris or Trump. It's about democracy or tyranny.
Are you worried that our efforts to enact sweeping epochal change (the nations first _____ President) have met with mixed results in the past?
And worse the consequences have been catastrophic?
We won twice in a row with a historic choice we were told "America" would never support. We lost, barely, with Hillary Clinton, and before that, with John Kerry, Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, and incumbent president Jimmy Carter. I'll take the odds on "historic."
There will be a steady drip drip drip about Biden’s mental capacity from now till Election Day.
I read all the articles and they keep getting worse, with more specific negative information.
Not to mention the next debate (which he likely won’t be able to do).
This is exactly where I'm at. And if he does step down, that'll be powerful confirmation that the folks who know him best, with the most invested in him winning, have concluded he's a lost cause.
In other words, the chances of him stepping down if he has a serious path to victory are basically zero.
For any replacement candidate to pose a serious challenge to Trump, the party would have to very swiftly unite firmly behind them, and that makes me really nervous. An open convention would be chaotic and I’m not confident of the party’s ability to cast Harris as a unity candidate.
I absolutely agree that Harris will be nominee if Biden isn’t. I’m concerned that the inevitable brinksmanship around Biden withdrawing will diminish enthusiasm among the Dem base and make turnout a problem.
My sense is that if we see him step aside soon—in the next two or three weeks, with Harris anointed as successor immediately—the transition will be pretty smooth. If we don’t, things will get weird and stay weird whether he goes or stays.
Trump’s public response will be: The Democrat party knows the last four years under Biden were a disaster for this country under the man who stole the election from me, and they’re looking in the couch cushions for any spare candidate they can find without his stink on them.
My cynical belief is that Obama and the 2020 primaries both landed on Biden because he’s genial, white, Christian, and male—and so palatable to a broad, somewhat bigoted electorate—and that concerns about Harris are largely motivated by the fact that she isn’t all these things.
It’s the people who want to somehow skip Harris that freak me out.
I think the “Biden decline” thing seems very dumb, but that the campaign has responded so poorly that 🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️.
But trying to skip Harris — when I’ve yet to see a detailed and credible plan for how that could even work! — seems…bad.
The states have rules for being on the ballot! I do not know them all, but there are around 50 different sets, and I have seen people point out that it wouldn’t fly in x or y or Ohio or the House, and I’m pretty sure if there were a state-by-state breakdown someone (you lol) would have linked it.
Yeah, I was thinking of the “trying to skip Harris” part as needing the details. Ohio’s ballot certification deadline appears to be 8/7, before the DNC.
Ok, I swear I searched several ways and found several recent stories that a fix _didn’t_ get passed. But it’s looking like those people searched the same ways I did.
The difference is I know I can be wrong and asked, lol.
#3: Surely Biden could just write a big ol' check? That is an Official Act, thus immune from campaign finance laws, right? (Or at least isn't that T's argument in NY?)
My current thinking is that a Biden/Harris ticket that heavily emphasizes Harris is the best strategy. Biden is polling strong with the olds - leverage that. But, get Harris out there every chance we get.
Yeah at this point I'm like this is beyond my paygrade, let the people who's job it is to decide figure out what's best so the rest of us can do our damndest to make sure Trump doesn't get elected in November.
IMO, most importantly is that Biden use his powers now to protect the country. The fact that he didn't come out strong with a plan of action does not bode well. His statement after SCOTUS was weak and frankly terrifying.
I was also disappointed in how weak he scotus response was. What he said didn't scare anyone into action that already isn't terrified. That said, my personal opinion is that he's still the one with the best chance to beat trump.
Joe should stick it out - there must be many many republicans crapping themselves about what Trump is going to do to their country…. Long way to go yet .
Agreed. The energy/opinions can shift so quickly, and sometimes easily, on an idea we thought was fixed and final.
I'm grateful to know I will vote blue no matter who and am not one of the ones making these decisions. I hope I have a lot of company! 🇺🇸💙
