It was more than just a bad night for Joe Biden, who we now know, via Axios, is only good between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and otherwise is iffy.
What was revealed in last week’s presidential debate is, everything Republicans have been saying since the 2020 campaign about Biden having concerning his obvious cognitive issues, leading to questions about who is really running the country, among other things, appears to be valid.
What’s infuriating about what we now know is, the response of Team Biden isn’t to concede the point that should have been conceded long ago, that it is time for Biden to step aside in terms of 2024 – which, if that had been done a year or two ago, would have allowed a thorough vetting process for a presidential nominee for the 2024 cycle – but rather, the inner circle is trying to gaslight us all into thinking that we didn’t see what we saw.
First Lady Jill Biden, reprising the role of a former First Lady, Edith Wilson, told Vogue, which doesn’t often breaking politics news, probably for good reason, that Team Biden “will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight,” and added that her husband “will always do what’s best for the country.”
This is our Bat Signal that the president is committed to staying in the race, which might be best for Team Biden, but is not what’s best for the country, considering the alternatives.
The stakes
Disgraced ex-president Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the American experiment. He counts dictatorial leaders of countries who are our enemies as his friends and political role models, has signaled his intent to withdraw the U.S. from NATO and other multinational alliances as a matter of personal pique, and has made it clear that a Day 1 of his second term would be the beginning of a purge of those in the top rungs of government and news media who don’t kowtow to his whims.
The third-party alternative who has emerged this cycle is hardly better. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Trump in style and lack of substance without the authoritarian tendencies, a billionaire-backed anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist disguised as a populist.
Against this backdrop, Biden, who won the 2020 popular vote by more than 7 million votes, is consistently running in the polls behind Trump, who in addition to having been impeached twice during his single term in office, has been convicted of 34 felonies and faces more than half a billion dollars in civil judgments for business fraud and defamation in cases involving sex with a porn star and the sexual assault of a journalist.
And most of the polling that I’m citing here was done before last week’s debate.
The polling since has been, not good, would be one way to put it.
A CBS News/You Gov poll out on Sunday has 72 percent of Americans thinking Biden does not have the “mental and cognitive health to serve as president.”
Seventy-two percent is what we call in politics a veto-proof majority.
And yet the message from Team Biden is: “we will continue to fight.”
Is there a way out of this hell?
Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin told MSNBC on Sunday that there is a “serious conversation” ongoing at the top levels of the Democratic Party about replacing Biden as the nominee, though he didn’t go anywhere near talking specifics about what that conversation might entail.
A former Democratic National Committee vice chair, Raymond T. Rybak, the former mayor of Minneapolis, has suggested a sort of truncated primary, with a series of candidate forums and a straw poll to engage Democratic voters in the selection process.
Democratic strategist Mychal Wilson told NewsNation over the weekend that it’s “totally feasible” to replace Biden, but the initial move needs to come from “Biden himself.”
“If he wants to save democracy, then personally, I think he should step aside, and I think the perfect person to fill his seat would be someone like Gavin Newsom, and still have (Kamala) Harris run as the VP,” Wilson said.
Rybak, for his part, prefers Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer to Newsom, the California governor; and then there are camps backing Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzger and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
I’ll inject my own analysis in here at this point to say, one, any or all of the above, I don’t have a preference, they’re all good; and two, the key would be, coalescing around one of the above, whichever one we all decide is best, ahead of the convention, which begins on Aug. 19.
That’s six weeks to get to a consensus on the new ticket, recast the convention around the new top candidate, and start hitting home the new theme of the race – that 2024 isn’t about two ancient guys with outdated visions of America anymore, but is about moving America forward.
That last point is what wins this election for the Democratic side, because even more than, you know, we’re all concerned, Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliateds alike, that Biden isn’t up to the job, and hasn’t been, the one issue that seems to unite, well, those of us who aren’t MAGAs, is, seriously, the best we’ve got as a nation in the Year of Our Lord 2024 is Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump?
A new nominee gets us out of that anchor, and really any of the above can point to signature accomplishments as a chief executive, without having to defend the millstone issues from the Biden term, in the form of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the dithering over inflation and border security.
Instead of being stuck defending a so-so recent political here-and-now, a new nominee can lay out a vision for a brighter American future that a guy who would be 86 at the end of his term, if he makes it that far, doesn’t come across as even having anywhere in his mind right now.
Contrast having a candidate who can talk about a brighter future with Trump, who is focused on political retribution, and to be blunt, keeping himself and his cronies out of jail, and we’re talking, major breath of fresh air for the voters.
That’s all a pipe dream, unfortunately
Because Team Biden is clinging to power.
That’s what this is all about. No need to sugarcoat it.
Everything Democrats have said about Trump, and those who elevate him, in spite of the obvious, being focused on power, it’s true of the Biden cult as well.
Axios, on Monday, reported on the strategy from Team Biden to combat the Dump Biden movement, which feels like a read from the Trump playbook – dismiss the critics, issue dire warnings about an open convention descending into chaos, focus on photo-ops to showcase Biden’s vitality.
That strategy wouldn’t even work if it was true that all last week’s debate was for Biden was a bad night, because even if it was just a bad night, it was a bad night that 50 million people watched on CNN, and it’s going to be the enduring image of him the rest of the way.
And then there’s this reality: it wasn’t just one bad night.
For the love of god, Joe, it’s not 2008 anymore.
You beat Trump in 2020, and for that, history would be eternally grateful, but if you insist on hanging around in 2024, and lose, and Trump and the MAGAs undo American democracy, nobody is going to be around to remember 2020.
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Chris Graham
