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."
I get it you’re counting Obama twice. Fair.
The problem with that win and with winning generally is that it can fool winners into thinking they’re brilliant and can’t lose. The consequences of HRCs loss are beyond catastrophic.
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).
