Unlikely bedfellows.
The Choice Is Still the Same (Political Wire)
June 29, 2024 at 5:02 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 77 Comments
Rick Wilson: “History is replete with bad debate performances: Clinton’s first outing in 1992, George W. Bush’s Boston groaner (I was there, and it was awful), and Obama’s first showing against John McCain. Debates matter until they don’t, but they matter most to the chattering and online classes.”
“But there’s no spinning it. I won’t bother. The herd is moving as herds so.”
“With that said, Donald Trump remains an existential threat to democracy, the Republic, the Constitution, and our most fundamental liberties, in addition to being a fraud, a liar, a felon, a degenerate, a sexual assaulter, a global embarrassment, and an ally of evil.”
“The race is still a choice between America and Trump.”
.
Democrats, Stop Panicking (Political Wire)
June 29, 2024 at 4:51 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 96 Comments
Stuart Stevens: “As a former Republican who spent decades pointing out flaws in the Democratic Party, I watch the current Democratic panic over President Biden’s debate performance with a mix of bafflement and nostalgia.”
“It’s baffling that so many Democrats are failing to rally around a wildly successful president after one bad night. But it does remind me of why Republicans defeated Democrats in so many races Republicans should have lost.”
“Donald Trump has won one presidential election. He did so with about 46 percent of the popular vote. (Mitt Romney lost with about 47 percent.) The Republican Party lost its mind and decided that this one victory negated everything we know about politics. But it didn’t.”
“One debate does not change the structure of this presidential campaign. For all the talk of Mr. Biden’s off night, what is lost is that Mr. Trump missed a great opportunity to reset his candidacy and greatly strengthen his position.”
h/t Josie
.
Posted without comment. He does have a way with words.
Listening to white folks blithely talk about pushing Biden off a cliff, skipping over Harris, and trotting out some white person like ain’t nobody gonna notice that is some *hilarious* shit.
Some of y’all need to phone a friend. A black one.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) June 29, 2024
h/t the person who sent this to me without their nym
Open thread.
Tony Jay
That’s a very valid point, and I say that as someone so white I can ambush polar bears.
Baud
We always tell Dems to be tough and not feckless, but when we need to stand strong in the face of adversity, even a self inflicted one, we crumble.
Starfish
Baud
Also, too, we want Dems to campaign strong like we think Republican do, yet you see these Never Trump Republicans being supportive, and we don’t want to emulate that.
WaterGirl
@Baud: We are not all crumbing.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Why don’t we want to emulate that?
Citizen Alan
At some point, we’re really going to have to consider the possibility that the media doesn’t suck because of Bothsiderism or the Cult of the Savvy or just fear of offending white owners but rather because the industry really is riddled with fascists and white supremacists.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
@WaterGirl:
Collective “we”. We can’t pretend that a lot of Dems aren’t having the reactions they’re having.
Jay
The correct response to Chevron being overturned is for every single environmental group to start filing millions of lawsuits, right now, today, arguing that various regulatory agencies didn’t go far enough.
Absolutely flood the zone.
Corporations are going to engage in “paper terrorism” anyway, environmental groups should as well.
WaterGirl
PSA: I don’t want to do another fundraising post for the Leadership School, so I’ll just let you all know here that we are $1,624 shy of $13,500.
As soon as the thermometer hits $13,500, the “$500 bonus” Angel will add the $1,500 that will take us to the $15k goal.
No need to add your donation in the comments, unless you want to help inspire other folks to donate, too.
Once we hit the $15,000 goal, we’ll take a week or 10 days off and will likely start with the next group on July 8.
P.S. This is the nice note I just received from one of the Worker Power peeps, after they saw the thermometer at nearly $12k.
Baud
@Jay:
Yes, Chevron actually helped industry more than people realize. But putting together a good lawsuit is a slow process. Don’t expect a stampede.
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan:
I’m already there. (You had me at hello?)
WaterGirl
@Baud: I agree with that. But I hate to tar the folks who are trying to stead the ship as people who want to jump overboard.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
That never stops the Republicans! We need our own judge like the asshole in TX.
munira
Amen to all of that. i can’t believe so many white liberals are such wimps. The right wing doesn’t care that their guy is crazy lying convicted felon – no problem – they just cheer him on. One bad debate and all these cowardly liberals are ready to bail – of course, egged on by the corporate media. The fact that Mike Johnson is saying Biden should step down should be a clue that that is absolutely the wrong option for the Democrats.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
That helps. But they also have a ton of attorneys and money, in addition to the judge shopping.
Splitting Image
Speaking of Trump, he’s currently whining about how everyone is talking about Biden and no one is talking about his great debate performance which was probably the greatest in the entire history of presidential debates and on top of that the polls aren’t moving enough in his favour and everyone is being mean to him and everyone is corrupt except him and blah blah blah….
NotMax
What? The Kentucky Derby winner finished second in his next outing? That’s it, shoot him.
//
delphinium
100% all of this. Panicking over this 1 debate only continues to embolden the pundits and make us look weaker than we actually are. Wish some Democrats would learn that.
Splitting Image
@Citizen Alan:
Not to mention misogynists. A few years back I thought of trying to count how many men in the industry got tossed because of harassment accusations. There were an awful lot of them, and a good deal of 2017-2020 can be laid at their door.
Baud
Of course, underlying all this is: “oh it’s not me who won’t vote for Biden now. It’s all those stupid dopes out there who just don’t understand what’s at stake.”
NotMax
@Splitting Image
MSM pearl clutchitariat: “Oh noes! Where’s No Labels when we need them?”
//
Percysowner
I’m copying what I said in a Raw Story discussion where people were lobbying for Biden to drop out
Oh for Pete’s Sake! So we get Joe to resign. Who, pray tell do we anoint as his successor? Kamala Harris? The NYT and other publications have spent virtually every day since Biden was elected trashing her as unlikable and unqualified.Plus she’s female and black which is going to make her eventual run hard and switching this late makes it harder. However, not selecting her insults the Democrat’s strongest constituency, African Americans especially AA women.*
On to other candidates. Pete Buttigieg, well the homophobes and transphobes will have a field day. Sherrod Brown? Sure and when he gets the nomination we can buy a lovey cake and tell the Ohio Republicans that they now own the Senate Seat, because Brown is one of the few Democrats who MIGHT pull it out and even that is iffy at this date. Gretchen Whitmer? She’s not that well known and although she is white she still is female and that is a huge minus. Gavin Newsome? Maybe? He’s pretty well known, so that’s a plus, but does he have the juice for a national campaign?
And then there are the logistics. The money that has been raised has been for the Biden/Harris ticket, how does transferring that work under Federal Law? I assume Biden can release his delegates to whoever is selected, but what if they balk? A convention fight. will bring eyeballs, but make the Party look divided and weak. AND there is the little wrinkle of Ohio needing the convention to be held before the actual convention is scheduled, so we either give up all of Ohio’s Electoral votes, or have a rousing fight very early.
Biden didn’t do well. Throwing him out at this time, barring actual physical reasons (death, incapacity) would cause chaos that would probably hand the White House to Trump. This is a stumble, a bad one, but there is time to recover. Panicking is not a good move.
*Note I think Harris would be a great President and should get the nod the next time, but I was talking how our national press would view her suddenly taking the top spot on the ticket.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Inquirer.com:
Cheers,
Scott.
TBone
Reposting from earlier. The full Rick Wilson. FLY THE PLANE!
https://youtu.be/zw8te6EiIlY
In the “phone a friend” vein.
How to Make Biden’s Bad Night Into Trump’s Bad November
Baud
@Another Scott:
👍
zhena gogolia
@Starfish: THIS!!!!!
Chris
I was reading a few comments in the NYTimes article where Bouie argued Biden shouldn’t step down. One of the first good ones I read was a self-proclaimed independent saying that he fully admitted there were things about Biden and the Democratic Party that he didn’t like, but it didn’t matter, because Trump was a fucking fascist and people needed to keep their eye on that ball and stop shitting themselves.
It’s kind of spectacular to me that the white men with the sanest take on things seem to be ex-Republicans.
(Or maybe not so spectacular. I was a Republican for a couple years as a teenager, after all. Blame the 9/11 zeitgeist and too many Tom Clancy novels. I got better).
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: Uh . . . I’m way ahead of you on that one.
Joy in FL
I just put $24 in the Worker Power Act Blue.
If President Biden treated his son Hunter the way some Dems are treating him, he would have disowned that “loser” son instead of standing with him. How do some people think a debate performance over-rides 3 years of pretty decent Presidenting?
regarding comment #17, it’s great if Trump is unhappy about the attention Mr. Biden is getting (even though a lot of it is stupid). I like knowing that he is unhappy. Trump thinks he deserves constant adulation. Even if he weren’t a fascist wann-be dictator, that would make me shun him.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
It’s pretty transparent. The vice president is there to step in, but no one wants to suggest that here.
Joy in FL
@NotMax: I love that word “clutchitariat.”
pabadger
I gave a little speech supporting Biden at my Saturday morning coffee with neighbors.
Covered a lot of ground but basically said we need to buck up and enthusiastically support the president.
I think it was well received.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: BRAVO!!! How are their crossword puzzles, by the way?
Harrison Wesley
@Another Scott: Excellent.
Chet Murthy
@Joy in FL:
Hot damn yes! Best damn President of my lifetime, and we’re pearl-clutching b/c he screws up a *debate* ? A debate that isn’t even a real debate (b/c no fact-checking, an infinite tide of lies and bullshit as far as the eye can see) ? How can that overbalance 3+ years of the best President in my lifetime?
zhena gogolia
@pabadger: Good for you! This is what we all should be doing. That Philadelphia Inquirer editorial that Another Scott linked is good material.
Fair Economist
@Jay: I would LOVE seeing a string of judges issuing injunctions that regulatory agencies must intensify regulations. Our counterpart to the nutso 5th circuit.
And make doing this a requirement for nomination to higher court.
bbleh
Some of this is just One Weird Trick magical thinking. “If Joe steps aside, then all our problems will disappear!” (Which btw also absolves said magical “thinker” from actually having to DO anything him/herself.)
Even a LITTLE bit of personal political involvement — attending meetings, volunteering, postcarding, whatever — seems in my experience to help immensely in dispelling this kinda nonsense. Kinda wonder whether it might be useful to start asking people who offer political advice what they’ve actually DONE in politics beyond opine remotely.
Ehhh … probably not. But it still chafes.
Splitting Image
@Baud:
Yeah, I’ve noticed this as well. If Biden were genuinely unable to do the job anymore, he would have two choices.
1) Resign the presidency immediately, hand things over to Harris and let her run as the incumbent.
or 2) Play out the string as president but resign the candidacy for the next election, throwing the entire party into disarray and leading to a brokered convention where the party chooses somebody other than Harris. (I’ve heard Joe Manchin’s name bandied about.)
Option 1 would be way better for the party and the country than Option 2, so the New York Times has decreed that Option 2 is what it’s gotta be.
EDIT: One of the little tricks I’ve noticed is that they talk about Biden as though he is a candidate rather than an incumbent. This not only allows them to ignore the fact that his handpicked VP is the obvious successor (the entire purpose of the office) if Biden were really too ill to continue, but allows them to ignore all his achievements over the past four years.
Kelly
I visited with a friend of mine that is regulatory liaison for a door and window company. Building codes, energy standards that sort of thing. Classic boring administrative state. He expects the demise of Chevron deference to lead to paralysis maybe a little chaos. He’s appalled.
NotMax
@Joy in FL
Thanks. Came to me whilst typing out of the blue.
;)
WaterGirl
@delphinium: We need the equivalent comeback to “Fuck you, pay me.”
Maybe “Fuck you, your guy is a pathological liar.”
or
Maybe “Fuck you, your guy is a convicted felon.”
or
Maybe “Fuck you, your guy can’t string two thoughts together on a good day.”
or
Maybe “Fuck you, your guy wants to deport American citizens.”
I could go on all day. But we don’t need to choose just one. Dems who are interviewed could come back with their own choice, as long as it’s short and sweet like this.
That would help shut down the bullshit, I think. Even if not, it would be gratifying and morale-building.
edit: Or maybe that’s what WE do when someone we know wants to raise the issue about Biden.
Jay
https://nitter.poast.org/DrGJackBrown/status/1806831577386930495#m
WaterGirl
@Starfish:
Sad truth.
TBone
We’ve created another wedge issue that will be used against us by every bot and troll and evil operative in the world.
wjca
I hear a lot about how great he is. (Often in reasponse to me referring to him as an empty suit. So I’m not neutral here.)
The State of the State speech is usually in winter, and represents a chance to lay out the budget plan, schmooze with the legislators, and get some great press coverage. This year, he mailed it in., by which I mean it “happened” in June. “Happened” is in quotes, because there was no speech. He sent the legislature the text of a speech. And did a YouTube video. That’s it.
If you’re that allergic to using a Teleprompter (which he reputedly is), if you’re that tone-deaf about dealing with legislators (no matter your party has the legislature locked up), you aren’t a serious candidate for the big stage.
Frankensteinbeck
The results say Biden won the debate – or more specifically, Trump lost it by repulsing the non-MAGA with his Hitler schtick. All this panic is utterly wasted.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: hahaha I see where you’re going with that.
Flanders Other Neighbor
My long-time coworker, another liberal white male edging toward 60, was freaking out yesterday about the debate. I told him to stop freaking out. He said he’s not. I said yes you are. He was doing the “who should replace Joe?” dance, and I told him nobody.
Newsom was right when he said you don’t turn your back on our guy over one poor debate showing. I’m not only voting for Biden, I’m voting for his vision for the country, and the excellent team of people he has assembled that execute it.
WaterGirl
@bbleh: One weird trick! Only this time it’s not a platinum coin, it’s throwing out our very successful president just 4 months before the election.
TBone
@Jay: I posted about that twice earlier today. Heather Cox Richardson gives the insight in her letter:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2024
I think it’s a must-read for context and background.
pat
@Percysowner:
I agree completely. I saw a list of possible replacements and how is it that Whitmer makes the list but Harris doesn’t? Hmm, why could that be. Is a puzzle…..
And Sherrod Brown is 72. That means that if he decides to run again, he would be 76.
Frankly, how about if the MSM just starts to attack the pathological liar and malignant narcissist and support the candidate who has defeated him once and can defeat him again?
Wouldn’t that be great? Do NOT treat this like a “normal” election between a repub and a dem. IT IS NOT.
Another Scott
@wjca:
Dyslexia.Yale.edu:
Cheers,
Scott.
kindness
So yea….there are a lot of mysogynists who don’t want to vote for women for powerful offices(in both parties). And yes, there are quite a few abject racists who will not vote for a black person (more Republicans than Democrats thankfully). But Democrats are supposed to be better than that. The ideal of equal treatment is not a surface value, it’s a core value. Any ‘Democrat’ who is tossing Kamela overboard isn’t a very solid Democrat. Just saying.
NotMax
@wjca
Every president between John Adams and Woodrow Wilson delivered the annual message to Congress by letter.
Baud
@Another Scott:
He’s out. Our candidates must be perfect in all things.
karen marie
@Baud: Who is this “we”? The only people I see folding like a wet deck of cards are the assholes getting paid as “experts.”
@Splitting Image: That delights me beyond words.
Splitting Image
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think so too. I’m not really worried about the debate causing Biden to lose in November. I’m worried that people will still trust the media enough for whatever October surprise The New York Times has got cooked up this year to cause Biden to lose in November.
WaterGirl
@Joy in FL: Thanks for the donation.
The night before I had to teach my first class in college, I was so wound up that I didn’t get a lick of sleep.
I decided that I was going to pretend to be the teacher. I was going to act as if I were the teacher. After 3 days of pretending, I WAS the teacher.
Even if part of your brain is screaming “oh no, this is terrible!” we need to carry on and act as if this is going to be a hiccup not a critical injury. And in a few days, I believe we won’t be “acting as if”, it will be reality, and we will be ahead of the game because we won’t have lost several days worrying and wondering. Every day matters.
Baud
@Splitting Image:
Good point.
Ken
Sure, that part of industry that doesn’t put chalk powder and sawdust in flour to bulk up the weight. But what about the others?
BTW we got an immediate foretaste of how well the courts are going to do with this: Supreme Court Corrects EPA Opinion after Gorsuch Confuses Laughing Gas with Air Pollutant. Nitrous oxide, nitrogen dioxide, whatever.
(John D. Clark’s Ignition has quite a lot to say about the many horrors created by combining nitrogen and oxygen in various molar ratios.)
TBone
Our Jawn, like the Phila. Inquirer, is a beloved PA institution. We adore quirky! Just lookit Gritty!
https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1806658909052055762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1806658911119831457?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Geminid
@pat: Also, Sherrod Brown is running for reelection, and Democrats need that seat. I think it was Nicholas Kristof who suggested Brown. That tells me that Kristof is a political dilletante.
kindness
@wjca: With all due respect and as a Californian, Newsom is the awesome and will be a force in national politics. You sound like people used to whine about Hillary.
wjca
Companies, emphatically including big ones, really, really, really hate uncertainty. Especially regularory uncertainty. Which is what they now have in spades.
Yes, a handful of would-be (or currently, but haven’t been caught yet) big polluters are happy. But even companies/executives who bitch about the “administrative state” are going to be happy for maybe about 48 hours (it is the weekend, after all). And then reality will intrude. And they will embark on a crash project to figure out how to survive (forget about prosper) during the years it will take for the situation to sort itself out.
Moving any investments you can overseas could be real attractive. Because the strongest economy on the planet just shot itself in the foot** big time.
** More accurate, but not standard slang, would be “shot its balls off”
EDT, Also, what @Kelly: said.
dr. luba
Jen “get knocked down, get back up ” Rubin @JRubinBlogger
gobsmacked by the hysteria of the get out of the race crowd? Let me explain.
1. refusing to leap to an impossible non-solution does NOT mean you think the debate went well. It was really bad.
2. white males tend to publically freak out when things dont go just so. Women cope. Nonwhites don’t have the luxury of melting down.
3. a serious contingent of pundits and pollsters insisted Biden shouldn’t run and are now playing the I told you so game. They want him out or to lose so they can be right.
4. many of #3 predicted the red wave and have been scrambling to save face.
5. many policy wonks brilliant on econ or foreign policy have no fucking idea how politics works. the idea of dumping Biden and bypassing Harris is political suicide.
Baud
@dr. luba:
Another former Republican.
Chris
@pabadger:
Saw several more liberal friends today, including the one who can normally be relied on to obsessively follow events like the debate and doomscroll through everything. Apparently, she didn’t even do that this time, skipping the debate instead. All of them agreed that “look, if Biden is on the Democratic ticket in November, are we all going to vote for him? If someone else is on the Democratic ballot in November, are we all going to vote for him? Then what is there to talk about?”
Gives me hope. Hopefully there are more people like them than there are panicky lunatics like my immediate family, whose emails I’ve been mostly ignoring.
Baud
@Chris:
👍
jowriter
@Another Scott: They pull no punches in Philly. Great editorial and truth-telling. I will share with my nervous Dem friends.
zhena gogolia
@Chris: The people we had dinner with last night didn’t even bring it up. (And I certainly didn’t!)
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Wow. I thought all your friends were awful.
wjca
@Another Scott:
No argument that having dyslexia is a challenge. But it may well be an insuperable one on the national stage. There are just too many parts of the job where it’s a handucap.
For an (imperfect) analogy: you are 6′ 10″. You are athletic, and love basketball. Unfortunately, you lost a leg at some point in the past. However brilliantly and impressively you have dealt with that, even to the point of making your college basketball team, playing in the NBA is just not in your future,
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: That’s her church.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
What’s this “we” shit kemosabe?
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: Dunno!
https://www.inquirer.com/puzzles/
You tell me. :-)
(Looks like one needs an account of somesort…)
Cheers,
Scott.
wjca
Things have changed. Every president from Washington thru Wilson was elected without women having a vote, for example.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@wjca:
I don’t think he’s awesome by a long shot. I dread the day he runs for president.
That being said, what he’s been doing post-debate is good *Democratic* politics, not related to much of his neolilberal, economic bullshit.
Almost Retired
@Another Scott: Good for the Inquirer. My ordinarily reliable hometown paper was in full meltdown this morning (Los Angeles Times). Including LZ Granderson. Even the front pagers at LGM would say “chill out dudes.”
Maybe tomorrow will be better after they pick up all the pearls that scattered after their chains were clutched too hard.
I suspended my subscription and told the Times it was because I needed a break from this overwrought drama and irresponsible journalism.
Actually, I was going to do it anyway for a pre planned vacation hold, but they don’t need to know that.
TBone
A Moscow police stunt team decided to demonstrate their skills but something went wrong 😆…(no death or life-threatening injuries sustained. Unless you are squeamish).
Demonstrates stunting “skill” 😆
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/06/russian-police-stunt-goes-horribly-wrong
Of more import, this destruction was apparently successful:
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/06/ukraine-destroys-russias-much-vaunted-s
wjca
With all due respect, and as a northern Californian who has watched Newsom since he was mayor of San Francisco, I am underwhelmed by him. Obviously perceptions vary.
He may well become a force in national politics. Especially if he ends up in the Senate. But president? No.
Chris
@zhena gogolia:
It’s interesting to me that my Facebook feed has had nothing about it. That thing is normally a right-wing puke funnel. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything: it could just be that I’ve clicked “I don’t want to see this” and “block this person” so many times that Facebook’s algorithm is finally deciding that I either don’t like right-wing shit or don’t like political shit. But, like… shouldn’t there be something there? Isn’t this the kind of feeding frenzy that social media lives for?
Ksmiami
@Splitting Image: low key that’s actually darkly hilarious…. “What about MEeeeeeee?” Sunset Boulevard would be proud
TBone
@Ksmiami: par for the course with him. I read somewhere that he loves to watch Sunset Blvd. 🙄
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: My FB feed is almost entirely left of center people and I have see nothing about debate there either. It make you wonder. Tempest in a teapot?
Martin
@Baud: I think it’s kind of wild that we have this thread anchored by Mystals excellent point about black Democrats, particularly black women regarding representation and access to power, with an implied threat regarding their turnout in a hypothetical and are like ‘yeah, of course!’ but every other group is not entitled to the same expression. It’s not as if black women are neutral regarding the impact of a Trump presidency and shouldn’t be exempted from the ‘don’t be a fucking idiot, you need to vote for the Dem’ motivational approach we’re relying on here. And yet, we are expressing that yeah, per Mystals point maybe it would be understandable if they stayed home if we put Newsom at the top.
As if 12 hours after a Trump victory there wouldn’t active wordshopping for how to blame black women for the loss, without coming off as racist. Because I’ve been around here long enough to see that more than once.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: I saw about half a day of mild freakout and then it died down.
But I deliberately noped out of here and most of the politically charged social media I frequent for about a day starting just before debate time, because I figured some kind of freakout was probable and it’d be best for me to lie low. Even if Biden had been brilliant, expectations were just too high.
UncleEbeneezer
This is exactly why I had zero need to watch the debate. I already know I’m voting for whoever the Dem candidate is and it will almost certainly be Biden. I don’t mind being a Blindly Loyal Dem. Considering the alternative party of Fascists and the fact that everything good being a result of the hard work of the DemCoalition (or Republicans, before the great realignment) I struggle to imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to be just that.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
Mine too, but I still get ads and bots and hot takes of people I’ve never friended showing up in my feed regularly.
This time? My sister posted a stupid “Biden must step down!” thing. That’s about it. Apparently another relative who’d been spamming Facebook with pro-Biden memes for months did something similar, but I’m not friends with him.
I don’t even know if this is a good thing! Could just as well show that everybody’s just checked out and that come November, we’ll find that means too many of our people didn’t come out and vote! But whatever it is, it’s freaking weird, especially in contrast to the algorithm’s usual fondness for clickbait and right-wing puke funnels.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chris: Or people have checked out because they know they are voting for Biden and just don’t want the anxiety that comes with getting into this colossally stupid fantasy of replacing him.
Jackie
@Another Scott: I read that and burst out laughing – which was the Inquirer’s intent. They basically took the NYT’s editorial and flipped it.
Let’s hope other liberal-leaning newspapers follow suit.
Coyoteville
I donated $26 a few minutes ago.
gene108
Don’t panic, but first impressions matter.
The debate is the first time a lot of people saw what the 2024 version of Biden is like, and it didn’t go well.
First impressions matter.
Biden has a hole to climb out of.
delphinium
@WaterGirl:
I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing long enough to probably say anything-so many of these pundits are just so utterly ridiculous. The NYT, for example, just can’t stop embarrassing themselves with their stupid opinions.
Luckily, Newsom and Buttigieg are great examples of how to respond. They should be teaching some of the ‘wishy-washy’ dems.
TBone
Hubby is still on Fascistbook despite my very vigorous vocal protestations. His feed is chock full of offensive memes about the debate. He’s got some real morons in his family/friends list.
catclub
@TBone: Yes! Pointing out Trump calling the US – where you live – disaster, the worst, no future, all the up to but not quite to shithole, is opposition ad worthy.
Baud
@Martin:
We won’t know who to blame for a loss until we see who came out and who didn’t.
Black women, as a group, vote for Dems in such high numbers that they have some give, however.
Elizabelle
@Tony Jay:
You haz a way with words too. Funny.
karen marie
@gene108: I don’t think the problem is with voters who watched the debate – it’s voters who didn’t but have their TVs on 24/7 and all they’ve heard is “Biden should step aside.”
I’d like to kick all those overpaid fuckwits right in the nuts.
TBone
@catclub: 🎯🎯🎯
TBone
@karen marie: come sit by me.
WaterGirl
@Coyoteville: Thank you!
danielx
@Citizen Alan:
Or one could say it’s owned by rich fucks who don’t like to see or hear anything about social justice, or living wages, or health care, or….
Jackie
@wjca: Newsom is one of Biden’s staunchest supporters and loudest cheerleaders – and has been before Biden officially announced he was running for re-election, so I don’t understand the hate.
wjca
FTFY
YY_Sima Qian
Dems replacing Biden now would be committing seppuku, yet lots of people I follow on Twitter (normally sober & serious wonks, academics, think tankers, & foreign journalists) are advocating for just that. Immediately after the debate I wonder if I was completely obtuse or the world has gone nuts. 24 hrs later it is clear that otherwise smart people can be obtuse when it comes to nitty grotty politics, because they think too much in clean & idealized mental models.
wjca
No hate. I’m just massively unimpressed. (And mildly amazed by his avid fans.)
As for him being a staunch Biden supporter, good for him. Every Democratic officeholder should be. And most are.
YY_Sima Qian
@wjca: From afar, Newson has always come off as greasy & sleezy to me, but perhaps his style of politics is what’s effective w/ the population in current moment.
Chris Johnson
@wjca: That you did. Well said.
You know all this would be going on no matter WHAT happened in the debate, right?
The bad faith was just too primed and ready. This would have happened no matter what. It was The Narrative, and I would point out that it hasn’t really been any different since 2016 and yet Trump already lost once, and is way worse than he was when he lost the first time.
This is simply a picture of the bad faith. I still wonder if there was an element of rope-a-dope but that’d be a bit too perfect. Still, way to make the enemies blow their wads even before July.
I’d like to see some follow-up on that suggestion that Trump knew about Putin’s dreams of invading Ukraine and was trying to throw it to Putin in advance. It would be really interesting to know if there’s proof Trump is a literal traitor.
206inKY
Harris is very obviously the nominee to replace Biden. There is no alternative, she would be dynamite, and all this blather about black voters being completely unbothered by the obvious cognitive decline on display is wholly anecdotal and without data. I remember when there was actual polling on strong black support for Biden in 2020 and a lot of white folks here brushed it off until South Carolina. Fact of the matter is that Biden is among the greatest presidents in US History, as RBG was among our greatest jurists, and now we’re being led to slaughter.
This is not just a debate. It’s been obvious in public and private. Anyone who has had parents or grandparents with dementia knows the early signs of cognitive decline will only get worse. There’s no fountain of youth or debate prep that can fix this. It’s either Kamala or a full-court press that the cognitive decline doesn’t matter since Biden has effective handlers.
The WSJ news desk has a brutal article with quotes from numerous world leaders.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/biden-age-concerns-world-leaders-democrats-6d753921
I do not understand why folks are scared of turning to Kamala (which we’ll need to do anyway during Biden’s second term, if he agrees to resign when the decline gets even worse, which it will). She will torch Trump and stay relentlessly on message with abortion, where we clearly win. Her strong suit is clear, direct communication and an aura of competence. This is not an election that’s going to hinge on warmth or entertainment.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: A lot of those think tankers do not pay much attention to practical political matters. They leave that for the little people. I would describe them as elite normies.
Martin
@Percysowner: Newsom is good. Here’s my breakdown:
He would be one of the stronger while male allies to all Democratic demographics. He’s quite good there. And he can be bold – he personally started issuing gay marriage licenses in the state upending that apple cart. There are valid debates over whether that helped force the issue forward or produced the Prop 8 backlash. Personally, I think that’s not just good but necessary, even if you need to take the L in the short term. The Edmund Pettis bridge was a loss in the moment, but was necessary for the longer win. Democrats seem afraid of that, Newsom understands the importance of it. One of the reasons I like him.
He’s very polished, which until this moment I hadn’t considered is probably directly related to the dyslexia, which I have known about for a long time but never put those together. I initially found him to be off-putting. He has a ‘slick politician’ affect about him, and I prefer Jerry Browns fuck-you-and-get-off-my-lawn down to business affect. Personal preference, but I think that is going to be a little off-putting to a lot of people. Like, if you wondered what the fast talking elitist California liberal would look like, it’s 100% Newsom. He is 100% that stereotype, and you have to come to terms with the impact of that. I think even Texas Democrats are going to dig a little deep to vote for him. Not disqualifying, but in the same way that Ann Richards would be for a lot of New England and west coast liberals. It’s a vibes thing.
I think what makes him powerful, like Dems like Granholm, Pete, Kamala, Orcasio-Cortez, Brown before him is that they are good at not pulling their punches, at least relative to most other Dems. These are candidates that will give as full-throated defense of abortion access as anyone, or environmental protection, etc.
The thing we don’t know, except for Kamala, is how they might change their approach in a national election. Do they stick to that, or do they wave off of it. Newsom has the benefit of always running in a deep blue state – he was never pressured to moderate his positions. Granholm is a different story – we can better evaluate that with her.
One other thing with Newsom is that his partner is a pretty powerful force in her own right, definitely moreso than Michelle was in 2008 and probably even Hillary in 92. She is very well known in political circles around her own advocacy efforts, she is an actress (dated George Clooney), well connected in Hollywood. She carries a LOT of juice all on her own, to the extent that her name sometimes comes up as a candidate. She is also one of the Weinstein accusers. You can see her getting a strong turnout coalition in her own right, much as Michelle did.
So, yeah, we’ve got a lot of good options in ’28. Not my first choice to have yet another straight white guy at the top of the ticket, but he’d be a force.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Haha!
Baud
@Geminid:
They want something interesting to talk about at their soirees.
Chris Johnson
@YY_Sima Qian: People resonate with neighboring opinions of those they trust. That’s why massive propaganda and troll farm campaigns work.
‘everyone is talking about’ how the sky is freaking green. Some say, the sky is actually green. You have to admit many people are talking about the sky being green! Also, Ukraine will welcome Russians as liberators, and Trump is actually going to be more left wing than Biden. Or so ‘many people’ said: I saw it, but curiously don’t know any such people. But you got brigaded into oblivion on Reddit if you dared argue. I saw that too.
I hope they’re taking soldiers away from important defense tasks to make ’em do this bullshit. Nobody knows ‘many people think’ like Prigozhin’s old workplace.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: That’s a good way of putting it, “elite normies” in their own ivory towers. The foreign journalists probably just does not understand US politics.
Of course, we are all human w/ our own limitations, that is why every source needs to be read critically.
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
Foreign journalists largely just parrot what the U.S. mainstream media has to say.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris Johnson: I don’t think the people I follow are that vulnerable to Russian sh*t stirring, but they can act like lemmings as much as anyone else on subjects they are not familiar w/.
I think they are genuinely frightened by the prospect of Trump 2.0, & want to take whatever course of action that might minimize that probability, but they have no political common sense.
pabadger
@Chris: the ratings were well down from 2020.
l am surprised I have not received more communication from my New England relatives who can be counted on to be nervous about all elections.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I respect Ragip Soylu’s work and Barak Ravid’s too, but they both joined the stampede. I replied to them, “Don’t count Joe Biden out.”
Soylu has been saying Biden is in decline for a while, but he’s also pretty angry about what has happened in Gaza so there may be some projection there.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: Yes, most have internalized the US MSM narrative that Biden is going senile. I mean, I have seen so many instances of Biden “senior moments” over the past few years, especially in international settings, that I’ve felt exasperated that two [near] octogenarians are the best the U.S. politics could produce to contest for the highest office of the land.
However, still have to respect political reality & keep in mind the stakes.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Yep, Edward Luce of the FT went there immediately.
Chris
@pabadger:
That’s putting it mildly. I think the viewership was nearly half of what it was in 2020. I mean, that’s spectacular.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I gave Ravid my line that “horses stampede, but Democrats are donkeys and we hold our ground.” It looked kind of funny in a stream of Hebrew comments but it added a little color to the discussion, I thought.
Jackie
I watched the last half of Jonathan Capehart (MSNBC) and he had his very outspoken Auntie on to discuss her thoughts on the debate. Speaking about TCFG’s remark about migrants taking away jobs “from the Blacks.” She was incensed! Capehart asked what TCFG meant by that , and she was blunt: “He meant low paying jobs. He was insinuating that Black people only have low skills and those jobs are being taken away.”
She’s feisty, and if the majority of Black voters got the same impression, TCFG lost voters who might have been flirting with voting for him. She also took umbrage of being grouped as “The Blacks,” and told her nephew that he was one of The Blacks.
Good on her!🥰
MomSense
@206inKY:
Contrary to jackal opinion, I am deeply committed to winning this election because I know just how high the stakes are. I think our only shot at winning is with a Kamala Harris ticket. I don’t care if VP is Whitmer, Pritzker, Buttigieg or some other candidate (can’t be Newsom because they are both Cali residents).
I’m furious that Biden and his team put us in this position, but we have to be smart and do our best with what we’ve got.
I think it has to be Harris because that may get us past the Biden Harris campaign funds issue. Also she was always my #1 even though I’m not sure our racist mysogynist country will actually vote for her.
In the debate with trump she would have gone after him like the badass prosecutor she is and the talk post debate would have been about all the crazy and corrupt and awful things he said.
WaterGirl
Hey, we broke $12,000 in the thermometer, yay!
stinger
@wjca:
My sister taught kids with disabilities for 35 years, and she thinks Trump has dyslexia. Never reads anything that doesn’t prominently feature his name (a group of letters he’d find easy to read), prefers images to words, etc. Granted, she’s only Fristing (diagnosing from afar), but I’m a former teacher too, and it explains a lot.
If she’s right, then we’ve already had a president with dyslexia. I think Newsom has enough else going for him that he could find the necessary adaptations and make it all work.
Citizen Alan
@MomSense:
No offense, but that’s just nonsense. If Kamala had been on the stage and “gone after him like a badass prosecutor,” the media game would have been “how close can we get to calling her an uppity n****** bitch without actually saying it?” These are the same assholes who rewrote observed historical fact to say that Al Gore lost a debate to Bush because he sighed too loudly.
Damien
@Citizen Alan: shhhh, let people have their fantasies. As long as they end up voting for Biden I don’t even care if they decide not to do a single lick of work to get him reelected because they’re so caught up in the beautiful dream that Biden steps down. Perhaps there will also be cake?
But seriously, if people wanna have themselves a good old fashioned freak out, who am I to deny them?
Princess
@stinger: oh, how interesting. I have always thought Trump was a bright man who had some serious learning disability, probably dyslexia.
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen Alan: She will get a villain edit from our MSM of a power hungry conniving woman who pushed out a good man for her ambition.
strange visitor (from another planet)
https://x.com/BidensWins/status/1806864285450043709
…annnd she got flustered, and emotional, and screwed up her delivery there at the end. my GOD, she even mixed up biden and pervert hoover!
jasmine crockett must have fucking dementia.
Mike E
@strange visitor (from another planet): the PTSD we’ve all been suffering from under these constant wartime conditions (yep, we’ve been under siege for fucking years) has messed with our brains something fierce… I know it’s affected my thinking and speaking skills, and I’m a novid (afaik)
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Mike E: i mean, i was joking, but i was on the q, on the manhattan bridge, when one of the planes hit the world trade.
“you’ve covered your ass” and “bin laden determined to strike” and all of that jazz.
this entire century has been traumatic.
sab
@Chris: Lawrence O’Donnell said the viewership was 50 million, which is about 1/3 of the 150 million voters in 2020. And it’s unlikely that any of the low information voters tuned in in June for a November election.
Also too, almost every incumbent president has had a bad first debate night. They mostly went on to win in November.
BellyCat
Kamala would undoubtedly make a great President. The question and problem at this juncture are the same: how to get her elected?
T’is a puzzlement….
Miss Bianca
@Baud: This is the thing that makes me fucking crazy. I take some comfort in the fact that none of the top Democratic leaders are piling on with this “Joe’s gotta go” BS. Really, really sick of white liberals and our fickle, skittish “oh, NOES!11!! the sky is falling!” BS every time we suffer a setback or even a *perceived* setback.
Makes me crazy to think I have more in common with Never Trumpers these days than I do with a great many of my alleged cohort.
Pittsburgh Mike
TBH, I think Kamala can learn to be a good campaigner faster than Biden can convince people who saw the debate that he’s still mentally agile.
There’s no way the party wins if Biden drops out and KH doesn’t get the nomination, so there are really only two paths that might get us to victory:
1 — stick with Biden and convince people he’s up to the job, even though he can’t speak extemporaneously about anything
2 — Biden resigns before the convention and so KH goes into the convention, and the general, as President Harris. She gets 3-4 months to describe her vision of the future to voters.
Ryan
THANK YOU Rick Wilson and Stuart Stevens.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
Yup.
Reminds me of a quote I’ve seen on twitter:
I’d rather deal with a Klansman than a NPR neoliberal.