executive editor, barbell quarterly: honestly? i think he'll do fine. i don't know if it will be enough for the panic frenzy, though.

I think the freakout has been absurd and overblown and far more damaging than the debate itself, which would have been survivable if everyone had been willing to circle the wagons and push back on it I am, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, extremely concerned that the damage cannot be overcome

Breaking news: President Biden and his senior team said they accepted the grim ultimatum they’ve been hearing from almost all quarters of the Democratic Party — to demonstrate his fitness for office or face a significant effort to force him to step aside.

Biden and aides concede he needs to quickly demonstrate his fitness for officewww.washingtonpost.com Critics have been shaken by his relative inaction to directly address the panic ignited by his halting debate performance last Thursday.

I may well be wrong about this - it's still the beginning of July, and a number of people I respect have a different view of the situation but at this point the only thing that matters to me is beating Trump in November and I don't think Biden can do that without full support from his party

tbh i think it just requires biden doing an interview, spouting off some of his malarkey talk, and making a few disparaging jokes about the nyt and it'll be fine

I hope you're right, I really do, and I guess we'll see how this weekend's interviews go but I am not convinced, not with the depth of worry across the party I would be absolutely delighted to eat shit here

i mean, legitimately, if he flubs an interview with stephanopolous it would be disasterous. but i doubt it'll happen.

if he can nail that and we can get a round of "Dems feel reassured by Biden's performance, donors back on board, etc" stories that would be ideal

honestly? i think he'll do fine. i don't know if it will be enough for the panic frenzy, though.

Legit think a lot of people have already made their minds up and will not accept any showing of strength from him

eh. long way to go. but the news frenzy has to break

You can break the news frenzy by just outlasting it and aggressively telling them “the thing your coverage suggests should happen will *never* happen.”

Maybe after three weeks of the NYT front paging this horseshit people we stop worrying and start laughing.

that's basically what I mean by "can the damage be overcome" I don't know if even a great interview would shift the narrative here, and if it doesn't... like, the whole thing is shit, I am not endorsing the ratfucking campaign, I just worry that it worked in the eyes of the voters

doesn't seem to have moved the needle much yet. very little will, in this race, i think.

I am stuck on this too. What I really want is for them to publicly acknowledge that the reason SCOTUS did what they did is that they know one side will not take the gun and get out of jail free card, but the other will grab and use both. Then threaten to use them unless changes are made.

Unfortunately, yeah. The tail is absolutely wagging the dog now. If Dem establishment doesn't solidify around Biden American media will 100% try to gin up a contested convention.

This was absolutely made worse by the panic. No question.

The panic now is everything. A bad half a debate in June should be discarded other than insane Trump soundbites. The idea that an incumbent POTUS should drop from the ticket is absolute madness.

Such a huge gift to Trump and the right.

Just not content to let the Brits have the worst own goal of the century. Pure fucking madness.

I think it would be enough, but what are all the folks who've explicitly gone on record as saying they want him to go going to do if that happens? Explicitly recanting will just make them look like completely useless cretins.

i mean, as far as i can tell the on-the-record shankers are like a couple of backbench house mediocrities and rahm emanual's brother

like nobody gives a fuck about susan collins' little protoge in maine

Not even Mainers

this took literally moments of research (which means maybe I missed something, but um... maybe not) bsky.app/profile/nied...

In case you're wondering, here is the donation record of "stalwart democratic fundraiser" Ari Emanuel's Endeavor PAC from 2018 to 2024. www.opensecrets.org/political-ac...

doggett coming out for this was embarrassing man

same as it ever was. i'm surprised he was awake

big "if we make it to the other side i guess greg is the austin rep to go to now if you have a problem"

raul from az isn't a back bencher, but hes like, not very healthy

oh yeah forgot about him. still, biden comes off strong in the interview and he can do a big "my fears were unfounded and i fully support" and nobody remembers it by september

yeah. i mean like i am antagonistic towards which out come we get (kamala or joe) because i am pulling that fuckin lever regardless. i would just like my party to not look like undignified idiots in the process.

if you wanted to look organized and not undignified, well, will rogers had a saying about that

The first one I think was some at-risk congressman from Texas I’ve never heard of?

lmao it was one of austin's two congresspeople, who's been rep since 1994

Well then he’s just a loser

Yeah there is a more fundamental problem here where the media reporting on democrat nervous breakdowns is going to make the entire party look ridiculous regardless of what happens. The NYT handed them shovels and they started digging.

"Explicitly recanting will just make them look like completely useless cretins." me, very politely: ...and?

To quote The Thick Of It's Jamie McDonald: "Oh, I know you *are*, but we don't need everyone to know that!" 😜

Considering the majority of the panic seems to be from folks who've been complaining since the primary, I don't think anything will shut them up.

The interview was kept to 15 minutes. Not great.

where'd you see that? only thing i've seen is people calling it "extended".

I heard it on a podcast, not sure which one. I don’t have anything more than that.

sort of a weird way to phrase it, since they haven't actually *done* it yet.

The way I heard it phrased was that his staff is limiting Stephanopoulos to 15 minutes. It could be total bs. We’ll see.

media friggin loves interviews and formal press conferences. if he's capable of doing a few good ones, hopefully something else will take over the news cycle

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