I've been a strong Democrat for decades and I still feel the Democratic party has a Biden "stink". We were lied to by his administration, and based on the Jake Tapper book, I feel it was one of the worst cover ups in American history given the damage that Trump is doing to our country and institutions. And I'm not alone given the almost historically low approval records for the party. This is how great powers decline.
“Americans are going to think of Joe Biden the way post 1918 Viennese thought of Franz Josef: ‘Maybe he was a little confused in his final days, but at least we could then have real cream in our coffee.’”
It was obvious to many non-partisan observers that Biden had lost half-a-step when he was campaigning in 2020 from his basement. And it was clearly evident he had lost two steps mentally by the time of the summer 2024 debate. So yes, by all means throw Biden under the bus. What I don’t understand is why more (any) cabinet heads, etc. did not resign when they clearly knew he was too mentally compromised for the job? I know they would have been heavily smeared by the DNC and other operatives. But to me, in the end it just speaks of a lack of character putting personal and party over the good of the nation.
Minutely analyzing and criticizing Biden is a waste of time. The problem is with the Democratic Party, which is a faction-ridden shambles that can't responsibly or safely govern.
It is amazing to me that there is so little focus on how lawless and unpatriotic Biden's aides were to pretend to be the President and exercise his authority when the President himself was obviously incapacitated. You'd think it would be top-fold news for weeks. Did he even understand what he was approving? Did they not bother to tell him? The first real test of the 25th Amendment failed, since the necessary principals wouldn't step up and apply it. None of these people should ever work in government again.
How the media protected Biden’s secret but now completely blame him, an old man with dementia, and his “close circle” but refuse to take responsibility is like one of the dudes from weekend at Bernie’s trashing Bernie and the other dude for fooling everyone.
I think Matt should do a counter-factual on what if Bernie had won the 2020 primary, rather than Biden. He can break it down into two sub-cases, one where Bernie beats Trump, one where Bernie loses to Trump, and compare each of them with the state of the Democratic party today.
Because, if both of those cases leave Democrats in better shape in 2024 vs. the actual world, that's a good argument for the "must vote for Biden to beat Trump" argument in 2020 as very shortsighted.
The first line of defense against Trump remains the courts and the standards of evidence enforced in our courtrooms. If Biden had any confidence in our system of justice, that is a fight he should have allowed to proceed. Instead, he abandoned that fight before letting it go forward. He conceded what should have been contested -- not only to prove the innocence of of those hose unfairly targeted but to demonstrate the dangers and illegitimacy of normalizing politically-motivated prosecutions. It could have been a fight that many of us would have rallied to support, through legal defense donations and cheering on articulate advocates defending the accused in their days in court. History is made in such contests. It was a fight we should have relished, not shirked.
Damn Matt, tell us how you really feel lol. But in all honestly, this is a great summation and also lots of based and accurate takes. I approve of this message. Hopefully we can understand and learn the lessons we need to ahead of 2026, Republicans are bumbling things as expected. But we have to deliver, have a good message and honestly be honest with the American people. This all needs to be said, and by people with bigger platforms than you.
I don't see a single mention of how the a decision to step aside would have affected the ability to implement policy. Once would think from reading this that the sole purpose of winning an election is to win a subsequent election. One would also think that political actors are not faced with constraints, or never are stuck with a choice of bad options.
Here is the actual choice facing Biden in April of 2023:
1. Announce that he will not run for reelection. The results would be a) Kamala Harris, the sitting VP and someone likely to win the support of a huge pct of the primary electorate , African Americans,* is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee; b) it will be much more difficult to acheive policy ends, perhaps particulalry re foreign policy. The prisoner swap, which was planned to include Navalny, would not happen. Russia would be even more emboldened, knowing that the next US president was guaranteed to be less pro-Ukraine than the current one. Etc, etc.
2. Stick it out and see what happens. Worse case scenario, Kamala Harris steps in as the Democratic nominee.
By suggesting that your takes on Biden in the time between him choosing not to run for re-election and now were not sincere but rather a game of trying to align the incentives, you’ve undermined trust in your takes going forward in a way that I’m not sure how you would possibly remedy, in the same way that public health professionals asked for their evaluations during the pandemic destroyed their credibility long-term to the extent that their responses were driven by expectations management rather than a true evaluation of the situation. Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect pundits to do something different than advocacy, and if so, I guess congratulations for maintaining the illusion of saying things you actually believe for such a long time, but it’s still a downer.
Anyway, agree substantively with most of the things said here, but nevertheless it’s very dispiriting to read it.
I want to nitpick your into portion statement that Biden failed because Trump won again (and more handily than in 2016).
Given the global anti-incumbent backlash (that Harris outperformed; despite being a deeply flawed candidate) shouldn’t our prior be that the majority of outcomes regardless of Biden’s or Dem’s inputs would lead to Trump winning again?
We could get really philosophical about what failure means. But the way I see it, if you get a Poker hand with a 90% chance of losing…and you then do indeed lose, it’s weird to call that “failure” and assign directional blame.
I think this line of thinking is doubly true because you specifically think that an open primary would have lead to a further left candidate; something the voters realllyyy didn’t seem to want. For what it’s worth, I agree.
I agree that choosing Harris with the likelihood of being a one term president was a blunder. I also agree Biden is being a dick since losing. But I guess I don’t think changing the more proximate levers that were pulled actually has a massive impact on the outcome.
The main reason Democrats find themselves in this sorry state is not because of Biden, but rather because of lurch to the left by Democrats around the time millennials entered college campuses, and then started to vote in large numbers (~ Obama's 2nd term). They flocked to Bernie and branded Hillary as corrupt and a DINO. They came out hard against the Clintons for their support of the 1994 crime bill etc., end result of all this being Trump forging a narrow electoral victory.
Democrats responded by lurching even more to the left; they ran Bernie again in 2020 hoping to find those new "unicorn" voters who are ardent supporters of all progressive causes but don' show up because they don't have a candidate that inspired them. It was in this context that the moderate Democrats, desperate to ensure Trump's defeat, rallied around Biden, the only common sense choice in the primary, to help him win the nomination. That is how we ended up with Biden who was already too old and completely out of touch with younger voters. He was never presidential material and he should have never won the presidency.
That he behaved the way he did in office must have come as no surprise to Obama and his close advisors; they had seen Biden up close and knew him to be of average intellect with an inflated ego. Of course a person like that would pick a person as underwhelming as Harris for VPOTUS.
The liberal wave that started in 2008 with Obama's victory was bound to come to an end, forced by a backlash from the right to the liberal excess of democrats.
Democrats can only come back after the right falters in a big way - say like what GWB did with the financial crisis in 2007.
I've been a strong Democrat for decades and I still feel the Democratic party has a Biden "stink". We were lied to by his administration, and based on the Jake Tapper book, I feel it was one of the worst cover ups in American history given the damage that Trump is doing to our country and institutions. And I'm not alone given the almost historically low approval records for the party. This is how great powers decline.
On the contrary:
“Americans are going to think of Joe Biden the way post 1918 Viennese thought of Franz Josef: ‘Maybe he was a little confused in his final days, but at least we could then have real cream in our coffee.’”
—David Frum, seeing things more clearly
It was obvious to many non-partisan observers that Biden had lost half-a-step when he was campaigning in 2020 from his basement. And it was clearly evident he had lost two steps mentally by the time of the summer 2024 debate. So yes, by all means throw Biden under the bus. What I don’t understand is why more (any) cabinet heads, etc. did not resign when they clearly knew he was too mentally compromised for the job? I know they would have been heavily smeared by the DNC and other operatives. But to me, in the end it just speaks of a lack of character putting personal and party over the good of the nation.
Thank you for a sane thoughtful analysis!
Would like to hear a comment from Matt on Carville’s 7th string quarterback assessment of Ms. Harris. If not 7th, where would she be? First string?
Minutely analyzing and criticizing Biden is a waste of time. The problem is with the Democratic Party, which is a faction-ridden shambles that can't responsibly or safely govern.
It is amazing to me that there is so little focus on how lawless and unpatriotic Biden's aides were to pretend to be the President and exercise his authority when the President himself was obviously incapacitated. You'd think it would be top-fold news for weeks. Did he even understand what he was approving? Did they not bother to tell him? The first real test of the 25th Amendment failed, since the necessary principals wouldn't step up and apply it. None of these people should ever work in government again.
I like Joe. I think he did a good job. But...
1. He was too old and frail to beat Trump twice.
2. He certainly didn't do everything right. And
3. Politics ain't beanbag.
So, under the bus he goes, I suppose.
Thanks for the take, Matt.
How the media protected Biden’s secret but now completely blame him, an old man with dementia, and his “close circle” but refuse to take responsibility is like one of the dudes from weekend at Bernie’s trashing Bernie and the other dude for fooling everyone.
I think Matt should do a counter-factual on what if Bernie had won the 2020 primary, rather than Biden. He can break it down into two sub-cases, one where Bernie beats Trump, one where Bernie loses to Trump, and compare each of them with the state of the Democratic party today.
Because, if both of those cases leave Democrats in better shape in 2024 vs. the actual world, that's a good argument for the "must vote for Biden to beat Trump" argument in 2020 as very shortsighted.
The first line of defense against Trump remains the courts and the standards of evidence enforced in our courtrooms. If Biden had any confidence in our system of justice, that is a fight he should have allowed to proceed. Instead, he abandoned that fight before letting it go forward. He conceded what should have been contested -- not only to prove the innocence of of those hose unfairly targeted but to demonstrate the dangers and illegitimacy of normalizing politically-motivated prosecutions. It could have been a fight that many of us would have rallied to support, through legal defense donations and cheering on articulate advocates defending the accused in their days in court. History is made in such contests. It was a fight we should have relished, not shirked.
Damn Matt, tell us how you really feel lol. But in all honestly, this is a great summation and also lots of based and accurate takes. I approve of this message. Hopefully we can understand and learn the lessons we need to ahead of 2026, Republicans are bumbling things as expected. But we have to deliver, have a good message and honestly be honest with the American people. This all needs to be said, and by people with bigger platforms than you.
I don't see a single mention of how the a decision to step aside would have affected the ability to implement policy. Once would think from reading this that the sole purpose of winning an election is to win a subsequent election. One would also think that political actors are not faced with constraints, or never are stuck with a choice of bad options.
Here is the actual choice facing Biden in April of 2023:
1. Announce that he will not run for reelection. The results would be a) Kamala Harris, the sitting VP and someone likely to win the support of a huge pct of the primary electorate , African Americans,* is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee; b) it will be much more difficult to acheive policy ends, perhaps particulalry re foreign policy. The prisoner swap, which was planned to include Navalny, would not happen. Russia would be even more emboldened, knowing that the next US president was guaranteed to be less pro-Ukraine than the current one. Etc, etc.
2. Stick it out and see what happens. Worse case scenario, Kamala Harris steps in as the Democratic nominee.
What kind of a moron would choose #1?
*Yes, I know Harris did not perform well in the 2020 primaries. But neither did Biden in 2008, yet he carried African American votes by huge margins in 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101597/super-tuesday-democratic-primaries-exit-polls-share-votes-ethnicity/
By suggesting that your takes on Biden in the time between him choosing not to run for re-election and now were not sincere but rather a game of trying to align the incentives, you’ve undermined trust in your takes going forward in a way that I’m not sure how you would possibly remedy, in the same way that public health professionals asked for their evaluations during the pandemic destroyed their credibility long-term to the extent that their responses were driven by expectations management rather than a true evaluation of the situation. Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect pundits to do something different than advocacy, and if so, I guess congratulations for maintaining the illusion of saying things you actually believe for such a long time, but it’s still a downer.
Anyway, agree substantively with most of the things said here, but nevertheless it’s very dispiriting to read it.
I want to nitpick your into portion statement that Biden failed because Trump won again (and more handily than in 2016).
Given the global anti-incumbent backlash (that Harris outperformed; despite being a deeply flawed candidate) shouldn’t our prior be that the majority of outcomes regardless of Biden’s or Dem’s inputs would lead to Trump winning again?
We could get really philosophical about what failure means. But the way I see it, if you get a Poker hand with a 90% chance of losing…and you then do indeed lose, it’s weird to call that “failure” and assign directional blame.
I think this line of thinking is doubly true because you specifically think that an open primary would have lead to a further left candidate; something the voters realllyyy didn’t seem to want. For what it’s worth, I agree.
I agree that choosing Harris with the likelihood of being a one term president was a blunder. I also agree Biden is being a dick since losing. But I guess I don’t think changing the more proximate levers that were pulled actually has a massive impact on the outcome.
The main reason Democrats find themselves in this sorry state is not because of Biden, but rather because of lurch to the left by Democrats around the time millennials entered college campuses, and then started to vote in large numbers (~ Obama's 2nd term). They flocked to Bernie and branded Hillary as corrupt and a DINO. They came out hard against the Clintons for their support of the 1994 crime bill etc., end result of all this being Trump forging a narrow electoral victory.
Democrats responded by lurching even more to the left; they ran Bernie again in 2020 hoping to find those new "unicorn" voters who are ardent supporters of all progressive causes but don' show up because they don't have a candidate that inspired them. It was in this context that the moderate Democrats, desperate to ensure Trump's defeat, rallied around Biden, the only common sense choice in the primary, to help him win the nomination. That is how we ended up with Biden who was already too old and completely out of touch with younger voters. He was never presidential material and he should have never won the presidency.
That he behaved the way he did in office must have come as no surprise to Obama and his close advisors; they had seen Biden up close and knew him to be of average intellect with an inflated ego. Of course a person like that would pick a person as underwhelming as Harris for VPOTUS.
The liberal wave that started in 2008 with Obama's victory was bound to come to an end, forced by a backlash from the right to the liberal excess of democrats.
Democrats can only come back after the right falters in a big way - say like what GWB did with the financial crisis in 2007.