On Saturday, I took seriously the criticism that I was emotional and reactive after the debate. I turned my phone off for 24 hours.
I meditated. I read. I let the anxiety wash over me without reaching for my phone to numb it.
I still feel the same way: President Biden should step aside.
I feel slightly less despondent because the pressure has not decreased. I do want to address the arguments I’ve heard since the debate.
“He started slow and finished strong”
First of all, I disagree marginally better than awful is not what I describe as strong.
Also that’s not how viewership of debates work.
This moment happened 12 minutes into the debate
It’s also not how social media works. No one is sharing the whole debate on TikTok. Just this one video of this one moment has 16 million views on TikTok. Just this one
Watch it.
Watch it again and think about how you’d vote if that was one of the 8-10 data points you took in as a low information voter.
It’s just a bad debate
Biden was losing this race BEFORE the debate
Biden’s approval rating is 37%
In all six states that could prove decisive, he was behind by 1-6 points.
The Economist model gave Biden a one in three chance of winning. He is losing in NEW JERSEY! Even the models who had him up were only by an average of 1-3%
Voters have been saying one thing over and over that they think Biden is too old.
The campaign knew this that’s why they pushed for an early debate with muted mic and no audience. That’s why they prepped for a week. They needed to show he was capable. It was an extremely low bar.
He did not clear it. They put it on red, and it came by black.
Look at him at the rally!
The Biden campaign is trying to stick by their previous strategy - pay attention when we want you to and insult anyone who asks you to pay attention when they don’t
They tightly control his schedule from 10 to 4. They turn down interviews. They keep him to telepromptered events where he has a high energy crowd.
They insult anyone who points out the problems with this approach (pollsters, The NY Times, “self-important Podcasters”) and tell voters they didn’t see what they saw.
In a way it’s understandable. There is no strategy that beats Father Time
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We have to stand by him.
Biden made this process absent almost any process.
But as proud as Mr. Biden is of those accomplishments, he knows his legacy will turn largely on whether he keeps Mr. Trump out of the Oval Office. If he went through any kind of organized process to consider the pros and cons of seeking re-election beyond talking with family, no one near him knows about it or is willing to say. Around the 2022 midterm elections, he told aides to assume he was running unless he told them otherwise. At some point, the conversation simply turned to the logistics of setting up a campaign.
He didn’t trust us and now he’s asking us to trust him. That’s ego not patriotism
SHOCKINGLY, I agree with Maureen Dowd
He’s being selfish. He’s putting himself ahead of the country. He’s surrounded by opportunistic enablers. He has created a reality distortion field where we’re told not to believe what we’ve plainly seen. His hubris is infuriating. He says he’s doing this for us, but he’s really doing it for himself.
I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about the other president.
In Washington, people often become what they start out scorning. This has happened to Joe Biden. In his misguided quest for a second term that would end when he’s 86, he has succumbed to behavior redolent of Trump. And he is jeopardizing the democracy he says he wants to save.
He still has a chance to channel his inner George Washington. Instead of becoming who he warned us against:
The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; an sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
The choice is still clear. We can’t vote for Trump.
Literally no one is arguing we should vote for trump. EVERY person is saying if this is how it ends we’ll still vote for Biden
But I REFUSE to grade my candidate and party on a curve.
I’m not a republican for a reason and, for the record, they are THRILLED with the idea that we would stick with Biden. When you are in complete and total agreement with your political opponent, you should question your strategy and your motivations
Or worse you are PITIED by your opponent My MAGA dad says he feels sorry for Biden
The stakes are too high to risk a brokered convention or inter-party fight
I believe in the Democratic Party. We nominated and elected the first black president. We nominated the first female major party candidate.
It will be hard. It will have risks.
That has never happened before.
And I think we will be rewarded for taking the first step.
I know we have a collective action problem but I believe there are patriots inside the party and can rise to the occasion
As a political scientist, Schlozman hates questions like this, so he answered me somewhat facetiously: He cited “the old joke of ‘Why is Profiles in Courage such a short book?’ ‘Because we don’t see these kinds of behaviors very much.’”
Yes, it’s a short book but it’s a book written by a Democrat!
If you are a Democrat, use your voice.
Call your reps, call our party chairs, call you delegates - tell them that the Democratic Party is great, that this is a party of ideas not blind loyalty, that it is a party that wants to do whatever it takes to defeat Donald Trump even if its scary even if its hard.
Because if we decide we are the party of Joe Biden then we will lose and we will deserve it.
If democracy is on the ballot, then I refuse to leave it to one family to decide. Their priority is their beloved father and grandfather - as it should be. My priority is the future of my party and my country.
Sarah
The one thing we made this week we can’t stop thinking about…
Beth has been reading and reviewing Supreme Court Cases on our Premium Channels over the weekend. Sarah and Beth recorded a new episode today to discuss the court’s ruling on Trump’s partial immunity from prosecution, but the court made a number of important decisions in this last week that are worth our care and attention.
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I want you to know I feel defensive of you. You are allowed to be emotional and reactive, especially after something so vitally important and impactful. I know you can’t count on strangers to be a safe place for raw emotions, but the vulnerability with which you shared your reaction validated my own reaction and emotions, and made me feel seen and heard even though we don’t know each other. So for that…thank you!
I’ve been quite surprised by the way you’ve had to defend yourself, Sarah, after Friday’s episode. Perhaps it is because I feel so deeply the same way that the “shut up and back Biden” rhetoric feels hurtful and uncreative. It feels exactly like what the GOP did after Trump clinched the nomination in 2016 and I refuse to believe the Democratic Party would bend to that level of “party [or person] over country.” I, too, feel devastated, despondent…AND I believe the Democratic Party has enough talent, grit, intelligence, and creativity to find an alternative. Will it be hard? Absolutely. Will it be worth it? It has to be.