To give a hopeful note to the idea the Biden might actually step down, I think his recent statements that he has no such plans should be given approximately zero weight, since that's what he would say whatever his thoughts actually are. He knows that as soon as he steps down, he's already done in politics and probably public life, so there's really no negative consequence to breaking a promise to stay in the race. On the other hand, if he wants to preserve his option to stay in the race, giving any indication that he might step aside makes that much harder. If he does step aside, I expect he'll be saying he won't right up till the moment he actually does.
Correct, it's no different than when a football coach is on the hot seat and they talk tough until they either step down or are fired. Here's to hoping Joe takes the Nick Saban route and goes out on top and not the Bobby Bowden route where his corpse is basically dragged out.
Too late for going out on top with grace. He should have done that 6 months ago and there should have been a legit primary. Joe would be revered now as an elder statesman. The man who beat Trump and then handed off the baton. But, he now looks like a stubborn old man who has lost touch with reality. He could still recover his legacy but needs someone to tell him the hard and simple truth.
I think Biden probably won't step down and then most definitely lose. And history will remember him as the terrible president who handed Trump his second term. Then, there will be a whole revival in a couple decades where historians will actually label Biden a sleeper "good president" because of the IRA, CHIPS, IIJA, and ability to maintain basically a full employment economy while lowering inflation, which was a global issue to begin with.
But would those things really deserve a place in history if they are wiped out before being fully implemented? Trump will be motivated to do everything he can to erase every bit of Biden's legacy.
I hope there is not a revival, based on *that* legislation — or if it is, it is because historians are not particularly good at separating out what they want to be true, and what is.
I see a bit of Winston Churchill-ness in how history will regard Joe Biden -- he was the man we needed to beat the pandemic (and pandemic-adjacent things), but in the aftermath of that victory, he began to look small and people turned to other options.
An important part then would be what does Trump do. If he’s mostly benign then history’s judgment will not be bad for Joe but if Trump is bad Joe will be held accountable.
There's something advantageous to this huge spurt of attention on the state of the Democratic nominee, followed by a bandage-rip of a convention that declares a new candidate, compared to the drip-drip-drip of a real primary race.
That said, the real primary race is pretty much guaranteed to end up ok, while this process (if it terminates with Biden leaving) will end up very *exciting*, but exciting is risky.
But risk provides at least chance of winning. Probably a good chance, given how many people have been screaming into the void that they didn't want the choice to be Trump v Biden. If we can knock out one of the unpopular ones, there's a chance we can run up a good margin and prove Democrats can actually respond to public sentiment.
Days before taking the Bama job in the first place: “I don’t know how else I can say it. I’ve said it over and over and over. I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”
>I think his recent statements that he has no such plans should be given approximately zero weight<
I think, unfortunately, Biden's recent statements should be given maximum weight. It's over, barring another disastrous public meltdown or some unforeseen, precipitous decline in health. AOC has spoken. Fetterman has spoken. Congressional Democrats are clearly moving toward grudging acceptance of the reality that Biden can't be forced out. Big names like Harris, Obama, Hillary and Schumer aren't willing to go public.
I think the progressive Congressional faction believes (correctly, in my mind) that if they so much as make a peep suggesting Biden step down, an eventual Democratic loss in November will be blamed on them and spun as their disloyalty.
I got a message from someone who wanted me to ask you to check your chat messages. They've got an appropriately mathematical username to get my attention, but I obviously don't know how much attention you already pay to your Substack direct messages.
I think very little weight should be put on Fetterman here, given that he faced exactly the same set of demands during his election, when he had his stroke.
I don't disagree with you about Fetterman. I was just naming big names. My observation that the effort to remove Biden from the ticket is over isn't based on any one politician's public stance. But yeah, it's over. In 72 hours it's gone from "no way he survives this" to "no way Democrats pull off jettisoning him."
Believe me, I've seldom wanted more fervently to be wrong, because being right on this call very likely means disaster in November. It all seems scripted. It's as if God is Philip K. Dick, and he's having a deep belly laugh at America's expense.
I guess I shouldn’t say “little weight” generically. If he says “Biden should do the same as me”, then that should carry little weight, while if he says “the Biden case is different from me” that could carry more weight.
That is exactly what the institutional incentives suggest for her. She gains nothing with either the base or the leadership for drawing any attention to herself at this moment, unless she believes she has the key to actually settling the matter of him staying in or quitting.
At this point it's not courage but suicide. The rules don't appear to allow any way to force Biden out, and he's not going. As Matt points out, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Obama, Bernie, AOC, Jeffries, Hillary and every other Democratic grandee could sign a public petition demanding that he step down. But it wouldn't work. He's already told the party to pound sand. Or, more accurately "Challenge me at the convention if you think you can beat me."
TBH I kinda like ruthless Dark Brandon. It's just a pity the ruthlessness is borne out of delusion.
It would be nice for people in Congress to stop acting as subordinates to the Executive Branch. Congress is the supreme branch of government -- they control the money, they can't be removed by the President or the Judiciary, they have the power to remove any President or any judge. They are important as a separate institution!
Buttigieg/Torres would simultaneously be a historic shutout for straight people and a ticket designed in a lab to infuriate a particular kind of queer leftist
Buttigieg / Torres would be awesome!! But... I am a gay man... and even *I* wonder if America is ready for an "ALL GAY ALL THE TIME" ticket. Also, be prepared for jokes about the top and bottom of the ticket. I'm just sayin'.
"He seems to treat being gay as basically a non-issue."
This is part of his popularity. Most centrist (i.e. swing) voters want to exist in a world where we don't make a big deal about these things, and we just don't care. This, of course, involves a lot of only *pretending* that they don't care, too, but that's just part of the social contract that a lot of people live by.
That was a tweet someone had when Buttigieg was running, and there were suggestions he wasn't gay enough. "Who did you think would be the first gay president? Michael Alig?"
We are mostly in the coveted 35-44 college educated male demographic. (Though I had to stop to calculate whether my recent birthday didn't accidentally move me out.)
Not just from NYC--Torres represents one of the bluest districts of the country, in the South Bronx. He is good at navigating Democratic primaries but has never faced a general election in which the outcome was in any doubt. He would not be a good VP choice. I am commenting solely in the spirit of "fun idea"
Yeah I don't get the Torres idea. If you're Mayor Pete your best pick is still probably Shapiro or Whitmer given that importance of Michigan and Pennsylvania. I'd also probably urge consideration of Warnock in general even if that is essentially giving up on the Senate. And you're better off going with someone like Booker over Torres though Booker wouldn't be my first choice.
I think the idea is to double-down on the exciting parts of Buttigieg (young, articulate, gay) while covering the downsides of Buttigieg (not particularly popular among minorities and non-college youth, where Trump has already been making inroads).
I like Torres but is he really the best ambassador to non-college youth and to the kind of minority voter that's thinking of staying home or not voting D? As Matt always says about Harris, when has Torres ever had to appeal to swing voters? Pro-Israel centrist Democrats who feel validated by having Black guy on their team don't really count.
Plus I think if we had a ticket of two gay men the press wouldn't be able to shut up about how historic and inspiring this was and ngl as a gay man I'd personally be pretty enthused, but the identity factor in the choice would loom large and even I can't help but think that the Tammy Baldwin approach is to being gay in politics is a healthier one. Just deliver and don't talk about yourself too much, if *Republicans* can't help but make your identity a big deal that's their problem.
Al Gore was a 45 year old senator who'd been in congress for a decade when Bill Clinton picked him; Torres is 36 and hasn't finished his second term. Torres will go far (I hope) but picking him at this phase in his career to be the running mate of the South Bend Mayor / Transportation Secretary would be a bit much.
I think Matt is leaning in to the idea that being pro-Israel is a net electoral positive.
He's probably right about that but I have trouble thinking of anything memorable Torres has done *except* shill for the ADL and posture about this issue on Twitter. Buttigieg himself made his support for Israel very clear in the 2020 primary (to an extent I found distasteful, though YMMV), so I'm not sure what Torres would add in that regard.
It reminds me of the DeSantis campaign. People can have strong and maybe justified opinions about Israel and Gaza. It really is an important issue, and the American public really is pro-Israel.
But it is still like issue #15 for actual voters, who care about prices, healthcare and taxes.
A great break of the glass ceiling as well as a HUGE achievement in demolishing.m some very harmful stereotypes about gay people (=association with a handful of “queer activists” self appointing themselves to speak for millions who don’t give a shit about their moronic “intersectional” agenda)
To answer you seriously, though. The problem is that we don't have time to delve deeply topics that don't interest us as much, so we rely on some common take or people we trust. The problem is that sometimes those takes are just wildly, inexcusably, off, as was the case with Biden's functionality, for example. The antisemitism on the left and in academia is somewhat similar. If you only read certain types of left wing press, esp. if you read the headlines and not the detailed reporting, you won't have a clue of what is actually going on, and it could mislead you too think it's just people being dumb. But it's hardcore, pervasive, antisemitism, by which I mean the classic type including discriminating against jewish/jewish-seeming students for being jewish, spreading classic antisemitic tropes, using classic antisemitic imagery etc. and university admins failing to do anything about it because they *share* the basic sentiment. Importantly these aren't stray individuals ("nutpiciking") it's at the heart of the whole movement. This shocking development of course goes totally against our priors about jewish life in america and esp. about the American left, and so i can't blame people who don't see the mass evidence for themselves (and don't currently live and work in the worst-affected spaces) being skeptical of my claims here. But that's the reality, as unfortunately will become increasingly clear to more and more americans in the coming years, since the problem isn't going away.
P.S.
Another similarity to the Biden issue is the "cry wolf" dynamic. For too long Israel supporters, esp. of the right wing variaty, abused the antisemitism accusation to try to silence legitimate criticism of Israel (and to an extent continue to do so!). This makes it very easy for antisemites and their supporters to sell it to Americans who are low-information on current developments that the same thing is happening now (since the heart of the fiasco is ostensibly about Israel/Gaza). The facts are dramatically different, but I can see how it works in the antisemites favor.
My original comment was largely tongue in cheek. However, as someone with a Down syndrome brother, I would argue that it is unclear that, “antisemitic,” is a more accurate descriptor than just dumb when both are available.
Table your substantive stance on Israel-Palestine, being pro-Israel is the correct political stance. The vast majority of voters either don't care or are pro-Israel.
And there is no other way to say it but for campaign donations being pro-Israel is 100% the correct decision politically.
This ticket idea is horrific. Neither Pete or Torres has any history campaigning against Republicans. Pete comes from a very liberal city. Torres represents a district that has 0 Republicans.
He's a House member from the Bronx who used to serve on the NYC Council. He had a broadly progressive record as a city council member but he made many people on the left angry by negotiating a deal with the NYPD on a policing bill. When Jose Serrano retired in 2020 he won the Democratic nomination for the district in a crowded primary, beating, among others, a homophobic pastor with a long history in NYC politics (Ruben Diaz Sr.) and a DSA-favored candidate who did rather poorly, which made the NYC activist left dislike him even more. Now he is well known for being a pretty strong supporter of Israel and for harshly attacking some of Israel's critics--I don't particularly like this aspect of his political advocacy but it's gotten him a lot of fans among people who wouldn't necessarily like the rest of his politics. I think that is why Matt (I don't know how seriously) floated him as a VP contender.
I’ve gotten to the point of preferring Harris, because I realized I can’t defend Biden’s candidacy. He’s simply not up to the job, much less the job plus a campaign.
I may not love Harris, but she’s at least defensible in terms of her intellect and experience.
The mistake was picking her in the first place, when she’d demonstrated poor political skills.
"I think “it’s racist to believe a Black woman is less electable than a white man who can’t get through a 30 minute television interview” is a pretty reasonable take."
A Black woman who during the primary was polling at 8% in the Democratic primary in her home state, persistently riding at fifth or sixth in the polls, was unable to defend herself from a devastating debate attack from an irrelevant Tulsi Gabbard, and withdrew from the race rather than facing the coming humiliation. She has since developed a reputation for delivering word-salad non-answers when the administration lets her have opportunities for prominence, which isn't often. ("We've been to the border!" "You have not." "We're going to the border!") I think it is entirely non-racist to assume that she's not going to perform better than the old white guy in a country that we're all supposed to understand is still very racist and sexist. (If that's true, and the most important thing is to win, then we probably shouldn't nominate women of color, right?)
Biden probably won't stand down anyway, and because of the Iron Law of Institutions there won't be a critical mass of Democrat apparatchiks willing to cross him to make some sort of brokered convention happen. Either Trump dies sometime soon or he's president in 2025 with a likely trifecta.
Yeah isn't the "White Man is more electable than a Black Woman" suppose to be read as a statement about America not anything about the quality of the two people. Electability isn't a trait people have outside the context of a given electorate.
The people saying Biden is more electable (on a race/gender basis) are criticizing America not Harris.
There are other critiques of Harris and Biden as individuals but the generally electibilty thing isn't' really about either of them as a person.
It's supposed to be, but I'm not convinced it actually works out that way. I think the block of "I'd vote for you, but other people won't so I can't support you" is actually pretty large at this point.
Not trying to take sides in this, but I just find it ironic that the chief members of this bloc are... Black voters.
Sure, 2008 was a long time ago now, but Obama's biggest hurdle famously was, "Wait, can we really trust that THIS is the right guy for this?" with Black voters. Likewise, they famously decided that the answer to a similar question in 2020 was *Biden* over Harris.
It's possible that opinions have changed in the last 4 years, and we shouldn't make the mistake of asking EXACTLY the same question as either example, but we should be paying attention to whatever the current incarnation of this dynamic is for this prospective convention fight.
All of that is to say, if [mostly Black] SC Dems say that they prefer Pete over Kamala, then we should probably listen to them. It wouldn't be the first time Jim Clyburn had to explain why he dumped a Black candidate for a White one, and he's pretty damned good at it. Regardless of the actual result, he's going to be a critical element to maintaining party unity over the next two months.
Maybe in a primary that is how it works but in a general it isn't like there is a similar but more "electable" option. It would be Harris vs. Trump, if you prefer Harris it wouldn't make sense to vote for Trump because others don't like Harris.
Sure, but in the conversation of should we ditch Biden for Harris I think those voices do matter and are likely overstating Harris's downsides in a way that's functionally equivalent to sexism and/or racism.
If Trump dies, Rubio & Haley aren't the nominee, and DeSantis actually campaigning outside of a state with an incompetent state Democratic Party in 2020 showed his...less than ideal skills.
Also, a lot of Trump voters disappear when Trump is not on the ticket.
Yes, a Haley/Crenshaw ticket probably wins (unfortunately), but that's not going to be the ticket if Trump eats one too many Big Mac's.
Funny that we mostly said the same thing... however, I'm not ENTIRELY sure that a "lot" of Trump's base would disappear.
Vance, for instance, would stand a decent shot at keeping most of them, and may even manage to unite the rest of a wavering GOP behind him. He's smart enough to know to run to the center (hence the thing about mifepristone just today/yesterday), and he'd know to keep doing all the MAGA dog-whistles while picking someone like Haley or Rubio as his running mate.
You'd also never hear about Project 2025 again; he'd just do most of the same shit on the down-low and largely let the MAGA establishment run things while he goes out and plays President for the TVs. Without Trump around to discipline him against defecting on, say, Ukraine, he'd retcon MAGA to his own purposes and drop all the most counterproductive planks like Trump's across-the-board tariff while keeping the general gist.
Trump's "base" would hang around, because his "base" is actually long-term right-wing voters that have always been around, but the problem would be the low-propensity voters the GOP has picked up in recent years because of Trump, who basically haven't turned out for anybody but Trump in Presidential years.
As far as a VP goes, maybe Rubio because he's genuflected himself and such enough, but nobody with Haley's views is going to come close to a GOP Presidential ticket anytime soon.
So, the concern I may not have done too well at implying was, Vance is probably about the most popular MAGA figure right now *among* those low-propensity voters.
And for the handful who remain skeptical of him, they're liable to be FAR outweighed by the number of normie voters who "come home" for a less radically offensive/outspoken Vance who codes as a normie. Remember, he's not a True Believer in MAGA, he's just riding the wave because it's convenient. He is perfectly capable of code-switching back to normie-speak and reassuring Trump-skeptical "long-term right-wing voters" that he's OK to vote for.
The point is, if I was doing an updated version of House Of Cards for the MAGA Era and trying to write a post-Trump "competent demagogue" to make viewers terrified he'd actually get elected despite secretly being a terrible, scheming bastard who was possibly even worse than Trump, I'd write... Vance.
I'm not sure code switching will work out for Vance.
IMO, its not Trump's policy perspectives that have made him so popular - he famously switches those at his convenience. What drives much of Trump's support is his complete unwillingness to code switch and so comes across as much more authentic because of it.
edit - do think you're generally right about Vance being the best able to navigate those waters though.
Yeah, like John E said, I disagree on Vance's actual chops - sure, he can make the right moves now, nearly a year after Dobbs, but if some cultural war flashpoint happens during a campaign, is he going to say the right thing politically, or will he say the politically dumb thing?
Considering he ran behind Trump by nearly ten points in 2022, I don't think he's as good as you think he is, and the problem for the post-Trump MAGA world is I do agree he's the best person they have.
Which is why if we survive 2024, I'm generally actually pretty positive about the medium-term Democratic Party, because the GOP is split in a far harsher way than even the Democrat's are.
Like if Biden wins in 2024, if Kamala, Whitmer, or Warnock wins a 2028 primary, nobody outside of Ruy Texeria on the center or a few Twitter weirdos on the left would be upset about any of them.
If he dies before naming a VP and before the convention, then the convention names a ticket. Look forward to a nasty floor fight.
If he names a VP and dies before the convention, then they're probably the odds-on favorite to win, but don't count out challengers on the floor.
If he names a VP and dies after they're both nominated at the convention, then the VP takes over the ticket and names their own VP.
Regardless, I think pretty much any non-Trump Republican would stand a better chance than him at beating Biden or Harris, and a better chance at beating Biden or Harris than any other Dem. But Biden is the only one that any non-Trump Republican would have a chance at a "landslide" against; Harris or any other Dem could pretty competently execute a campaign on abortion etc., and most Trump alternatives would face difficulty keeping the MAGA base on board.
Freddie: if you're going to cite 2020 polls, you should also take a look at 2024 polls. Most of those show Harris doing about as well or maybe a bit better than Biden in the matchup against Trump. Plus, she surely has more upside, more room to grow her numbers. And yes, it probably would be desirable to have a nominee who is is able to schedule events after 8pm.
As I've said before, it's not like we don't have a history of politicos who failed in primaries who suddenly become stronger after being VP for a term or two or anything.
I really think the last two primaries have been extra incoherent. Running 10 or more candidates makes discerning who these people are and why I should vote for them into an absolute mess.
I agree the Harris drama isn't great. The main policy choice that has hurt Democrats on the national ticket is overspending on the economy causing a longer and higher peak of inflation than would otherwise result from COVID-19. The second thing has been the asylum policy approach to dramatically increase legal immigration.
The public's complaints are to the right of where the Democratic party is, and instead of moping about fairness in 2025, people closer to the center of the party should probably quit dodging and admit Biden governed poorly on those two items. They should make the case on the merits for having governed a little differently. Instead, their attitude appears to be to just kite the left flank with "we know we're the worst" and hope for less policy concessions leftward which they believe are inevitable.
Of course, the left flank of the party wants the platform to go further than it did from 2016 to 2020 in spending and what have you, so they won't exactly be delighted either. But it's not totally clear how racking up more spending promises is going to make voters trust Democrats more on cost of living and taxes after their experience with Biden's presidency.
I don't think dems have also really grasped the downside of campaigning for four months on behalf of a candidate who is clearly too infirm to be president next year. It will make them look like liars and hacks and haunt the party for years.
Also, I feel that for the educated millennials that joined the party because of the events of the great recession, the Iraq, 9/11 and to support Barack Obama, letting Trump waltz into a second term is going do a lot to shake our loyalty. I am basically ashamed to be a Democrat for the first time.
< Biden is probably going to be the nominee and he is probably going to lose >
I'll just add here that I've lost a lot of respect for Biden as this has played out. Biden said back in 2020 -- “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” He and his team can try to walk that quote back as much as they want but what everyone interpreted is he would hand this thing over - especially if he was in "poor health". He is and he fucked it all up. He's not "putting the country first"; he's putting himself and - fucking Hunter - first.
I’ve been a huge Biden Buddy™️ but if he refuses to step down and proceeds to lose to Trump in November then his legacy will be completely tarnished in my eyes.
I don't think my disdain for her is racist (or sexist), but listening to or watching Kamala Harris really makes my skin crawl. She just reeks of "insincere politician." I also really disliked her attacks on Biden during the 2020 debates.
Perhaps I'm unusual in this, but I don't think so. And if I am not unusual, I worry she'll just go the way of Hillary Clinton, who incited similar feelings in the electorate.
Honestly, the reason I supported Harris in the 2020 primary is because, other than Biden who seemed too old even then, of those running in the non-Sanders and non-unpredictable maverick lane, she seemed like the most intensely ambitious, the one most likely likely to do whatever it takes to climb to the top of the greasy pole and stay there, to borrow a phrase from Disraeli.
If there's disappointment in her since that, if anything it's that she's turned out to be possibly TOO sincere -- maybe she actually believes the moralizing platitudes of Hollywood-style Democrats too much to cast them aside now that they're no longer serving her, and are preventing her from adopting a less pristine, more moderate and messy modern human persona of someone who owns her ambition and makes no apology for it, like Bill Clinton or Donald Trump.
That's my reaction to Harris as well -- I don't think she actually believes in anything and will, in fact, say whatever she considers advantageous at the moment for her electoral prospects. (I have an identical reaction to Gavin Newsom.)
I like Harris, but then again I liked (and continue to like) Hillary Clinton. But, neither woman has much in the way of "common touch" appeal that normies supposedly go for. I'd take her over Biden in a heartbeat, though.
I always wonder how much the Willie Brown relationship and how he got her started in politics hangs over her public perceptions still today. It's definitely not a secret but I also don't think it's widely known. Still, my sense is it's like an anchor that holds her back.
I don't know if they are. Biden won 306 EC votes in 2020 and +4.4 on the popular vote. It was a pretty solid drubbing for a sitting President. I think that he's now clearly winning tells you more about how terrible of a candidate Biden is than anything about Trump.
Yeah-- I think that people often fail to notice that Trump does in fact pay an electoral price for being an awful human being and often polls worse than Republican politicians who have less popular underlying policy positions. (A Republican candidate with Trump-like positions on abortion and entitlements who was also not a huge piece of shit would probably do really well in the general, although he or she would struggle to win the Republican primary without the "owning the libs/identity politics for stupid assholes" factor.)
It also tells you that when people are pissed off, it's the sitting President that gets blamed. It's also tough because bitching about how bad things are is Trump's speciality.
I know at least one Republican woman who brings it up all.the.time. But I also grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I wonder how many people from the rest of the country know or care who Willie Brown is?
I think a lot of people would care if they knew the whole story:
- That Harris became Brown’s mistress when she was 30 and he was 60.
- That Brown was married.
- That Brown arranged for Harris to be appointed to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job for which she possessed no obvious qualifications, that met once a month, and paid $72K per year. (Adjusted for inflation’ that’d be $155K today.) And also the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, a part-time position that paid $97K.
It would be inappropriate to give a job to someone you're having a relationship with, especially if they are truly unqualified/aren't expected to do the work. I don't know what the qualifications for this are, or whether Harris met those qualifications. But the stories say that Brown separated from his wife in 1981. I've met a lot of people (I'm a volunteer income tax preparer) who don't get divorced because they can't afford it or don't even know where their spouse is. I don't know what Brown's situation was, but I wouldn't assume scandal if a person separated from their spouse over 10 years started a relationship with someone else.
“…I wouldn't assume scandal if a person separated from their spouse over 10 years…”
I wouldn’t either, generally speaking. When I said the whole thing is kind of gross, I meant the combination of dating a man more than old enough to be her father for what certainly appears to have been to help her political career as well as Brown gifting her what amounts to highly-paid no-show jobs.
Thats the thing. Shes not just a weak candidate, shes a terrible candidate. She might do OK in a dem primary where theyre too nice to bring that stuff up. But the Republicans will absolutely bring it up, and it will tank her rating among the undecided voters who are currently unaware of that stuff.
In my view, the biggest argument for Biden to step down is this: even if he’s fine mentally, every little verbal misstep (of the type we all make) will just be continually scrutinized between now and election day. As will any time he sounds hoarse or looks tired or whatever. This isn’t just a news cycle to survive unfortunately.
The media - which seems really pissed off at Biden, as if they think he’s been hiding something for the past four years - will just be relentless. Which means he will never get his message through, speculation over his health will just suck up all the oxygen, and Trump’s idiocy will never get covered. That’s a recipe for a loss.
I personally don’t think Biden is too old to do the job, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s too old to be able to convince people he’s not too old (if that makes sense). Wiping the slate clean so the media can focus on Trump is the only real way forward.
This story is catnip for the DC press corps - all palace intrigue with a whiff of Greek tragedy and not a boring policy debate in sight. They won't be able to resist.
It is actually one of the most important jobs of a journalist in a liberal democratic society to be able to get an accurate picture of the mental and physical health of the most powerful person in the world and, if the administration is not being forthcoming, to continue to probe and ask questions to find the truth.
We all knew this to be the case when Trump was the president so why are people trying to pretend it's not the case now?
I think the one thing that is actually a more important job of a journalist in a liberal democratic society is to talk about the policies that different candidates might actually implement, and what their implications would be for society.
Second to that, the details of the mental and physical health of the candidates is important too.
Biden and his campaign are the biggest reason he has been and seemingly will continue to be unable to get his message through. It's been almost 2 weeks since that disastrous debate and they have done next to nothing to try to convince voters that he's mentally fit. There was nothing to stop them from doing a live, unscripted press conference days after the debate, for example, to reassure voters and fellow Democrats but they instead chose to wait a week to do a precorded, edited ABC interview with a former Bill Clinton aide and local radio interviews where the host was only allowed to ask from an approved list of questions.
That is very much the natural impression that any thoughtful observer will have.
I suppose there's the possibility he was actually having a secret meeting with Modi about planting his assassin teams in Moscow during this visit to take out Putin, and Biden couldn't say anything about that, but that seems less likely.
Yeah, if Bill Clinton had that performance in 96 or Obama in 2012 we all know what they would do. They would have held ten or so unscripted press conferences/long for interviews. And then followed it up with a couple of town halls mocking their performance.
That Biden doesn't invites healthy skepticism even from supporters like us.
My hot take is that Reagan was able to play the doddering old man to cover for brutal domestic and FoPo campaigns. That can't work for Biden because he's been billing himself as a bridge-builder so far.
The obvious pre-election day tactic is for Biden to launch an invasion of Haiti and start calling immigrants super-predators.
>It's been almost 2 weeks since that disastrous debate and they have done next to nothing to try to convince voters that he's mentally fit.<
They've done "next to nothing" on this score because there is nothing they *can* do on this score. They can't turn an 81 year old's ailing brain into 54 year old's far healthier one.
VP Harris seems very capable of talking about abortion, 1/6, and Trump's criminality. But can she talk about why Trump would be so bad on inflation? Immigration (which she was supposedly in charge of)? That's what I would be worried about regarding a Harris candidacy. We need somebody who can articulate a positive vision on the issues most important to Americans, and contrast that positive vision with Trump's dark and bad vision.
She is definitely a step up from Biden at this point, but someone else would be better
On point #14, "[Biden's] clearly not going to do an impressive media blitz"...well, I think that's exactly what he needs to do if he has any hope of winning this thing. Over the next month, he needs to be holding as many press conferences and live interviews as he can do to prove people wrong and get his numbers back up. If he can't do that by the DNC, then the case for a change gets pretty much unquestionable.
If he could do that reliably and consistently, I think a lot of this would go away. They appear to be doing the opposite and still heavily scripting his every move. His team pretending it's totally normal to drag a teleprompter into a backyard for a small donor event isn't helping matters.
That's the thing, he just cannot do that. Discourse PR and strategies are all well and good, but at some point there are hard objective and immutable realities to face.
The question is even if he does everything right will the bedwetters in the media just butterymales a single thing while giving Republicans a complete pass?
One noteworthy element of this is, if Biden does stay in and the polling doesn't change, how is Trump covered in the last month of the election. In 2016, the media's excuse for overwhelmingly covering Clinton was that she was clearly going to win, and thus deserved added scrutiny. Will that be applied to Trump?
All the speculative and non substantive navel gazing over the past two weeks reinforces my impression the most journalists at major outlets are not interest in informing the public. They want easy sensationalism.
Manipulating the media into delivering the sort of narrative that you want is precisely what effective campaigns do. If you're in a position where you can be defined negatively this way, you're doing it badly. I think that a lot of Dems are uncomfortable acknowledging that the 2016 Clinton campaign made a lot of unforced errors and have twisted themselves into believing sort of weird and conspiratorial narratives.
I am extremely disappointed with President Biden for, among other things, saying to George Stephanopoulos: "If I lose to Trump, I'll be ok with it as long as I gave it my best" (paraphrasing).
Jeff Maurer, who has a way with words, put it in his typically brilliant and profane fashion, so I'll just quote him here:
"Jesus Christ, Joe: No it is not okay if you just do your best THIS IS NOT FUCKING TEE BALL!!! We are not playing Candyland, this is not the water balloon toss at a fucking three year-old’s birthday party, we’re choosing the most powerful person in the world YOU DON’T GET A JUICE BOX AND A “YOU’RE A WINNER AS LONG AS YOU HAD FUN” IF YOU HAND THE NUCLEAR CODES BACK TO TRUMP!!!"
It's very disappointing, but I think this moral failing reflects his cognitive decline. By the way, his exact words do too: "I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about."
It's bad on multiple levels. Not only should WH not behave in such disturbing fashion vis a vis the press, but the fact that after the debate they would even *care* and assume it *matters* tells you how out of touch they are. If they were connected to reality they'd realize that whether or not Biden said "goodest" is the least of their problems right now.
Exactly! & like the completely incoherent "good as" is somehow better too? None of it makes sense. If anything, it's worse because now they shot it back to the top of the page with a new story. Total incompetence.
I think the most hilarious result for America is that Biden stays in, and he wins, because the polls are actually off slightly because of weirdness around the crosstabs of young and minority voters, and it basically shows ironically, nominees matter less in an era of negative polarization.
Again, I'm not poll truthering - Trump is probably currently leading, but not by so wide a margin, that the fact the crosstabs are so off the rails compared to any polling that does oversampling I wouldn't be surprised if there's something fundamentally wrong with them.
Like, imagine we do all this tearing of garments, get everybody within the party pissed at each other, November happens, and it's basically 2020 all over again because suburban voters still find Republican's too damn weird?
>and he wins, because the polls are actually off slightly<
Not slightly. They'd have be off a decent amount. Biden probably needs to win the two party share by what, at least 1.5 points over Trump (does that sounds right) because of EC math? He's generally running 3 or 4 points behind Trump. So the polls would have to have gotten it quite wrong up to now, I think. There have been 15 polls released since June 15th by my count, and I think Trump led 13 of them.
More likely (but not *much* more likely) is that Biden closes the gap between now and November and comes from behind to win.
This is entirely possible and it would be quite bad for the country's democracy to have Jill Biden and Hunter Biden run the country from the president's bedside.
Do we know for sure Harris wants to be the nominee? If she’s thrust into the election as the nominee, she’s still likely to lose. That would pretty much be the end of her political career would it not? No way she goes on to become the 2028 nominee if she loses to Trump.
I just think we can’t be sure that Harris, or really anybody, wants to step into this situation. If they all see it as a losing proposition(and from their self interested perspective all the people mentioned as possible candidates would probably be better off just waiting to run in 2028, when the nation will probably be turning heavily against the second Trump admin).
It’s a good point, but I think the calculation for Harris has to be to take a swing at it. Even Hillary didn’t have the nomination handed to her like this (assuming Biden drops out). It’s not going to come around again.
You know, that's a great point. Further, she's already running for VP. I don't know that her career looks any worse if she loses running for president versus losing running for VP. May as well have the shot at the big chair.
Yeah, that's the most rational explanation I can see for the muted response - that everyone thinks the election is lost no matter who runs. But it doesn't vibe with the polling at all. And is particularly galling if you plan to run on the fact that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy.
Somebody or another (might have been Silver) was speculating that some of the "dream" candidates people love to talk about (Whitmer, Shapiro, etc) likely don't want to run this cycle even if given the opportunity—for the reason you cite: Trump is favored.
But I gotta believe Harris would be an exception. In 2028 she'll be pushing into her mid 60s. Why wait? Also, if the nomination became available and she declined it, it's obviously not impossible that whoever secures said nomination might defeat Trump. Which could mean Harris's White House window is effectively shut for good.
Harris does politics for a living. When that's your profession, you don't refuse a major party nomination. And yes, she could win.
I can see that but have zero sympathy- that’s what being VP means- accepting the possibility that you’ll be put in the presidential role at any time. If you don’t want that possibility then you shouldn’t accept the VP gig. She seemed to like being a California senator and probably could have had a decades long career there - maybe she should have stayed put if she’s this risk averse.
If Biden loses, then isn't her career mostly done anyway? I think the odds of her coming back in 2028 are minuscule. I'm doubtful she could even make it back to the senate.
Why would it be done? Walter Mondale was nominated in 1984. He lost of course, but in terms of internal D politics, I see no reason to think she can't be nominated in 2028 after a loss in 2024 by Biden/Harris.
Given how much Democrats despise Trump, I think if she is on a ticket that loses to him - especially if people talk about the reason Biden not stepping down is because Harris is less popular - will be dead politically in the party.
I think they talked about Reagan that way because he convinced so many Democratic voters to vote for him. That's how he beat Carter by 9 points, and Mondale by 18.
FWIW, Nate Silver thinks the betting markets are underestimating Biden’s probability of dropping out. I don’t always agree with his assessments, but he’s good enough at making probabilistic predictions relative to consensus that I’m inclined to consider his view seriously. Do you think that Nate is overestimating the odds/efficacy of elite intervention, or something else?
As I understand it, his main argument is simply that Biden will make another terrible blunder due to his cognitive decline, and then the game will be over.
Basically, that Biden’s problem is serious and consistent enough that it will continue generating negative news events (either bad public appearances or leaks— from a White House staff which has abandoned its previously tight-lipped posture and started privately disclosing more to the press) which cause him to lose further support.
There’s a story today about him not being able to come up with the word “veteran” while speaking and asking for help remembering the word for people who have served in the armed services.
The guy was a gaffe machine even when he was young, and every incident like this will now be seen as significant.
I fear Nate is underestimating the ugly possibility that Joe Biden cares about his career more than he prioritizes the national interest, and/or he's genuinely delusional about his chances (and Jill and Hunter are in any event calling the shots). I mean, if he's not playing with a full deck, is it really a stretch to believe he cannot accurately assess the odds or face up to polling evidence?
In other words, "negative news events" at this point just help Trump flip more states. They don't drive Biden out of the race. He doesn't care.
I would trust Silver. My main issue with his assessments is the clear condescension and disdain he displays to anyone a quarter inch to his left politically. I agree that progressives and leftists can be annoying but you could try to be a little more magnanimous in your delivery.
Nate is good at stats -> polling and gambling. That's valuable and people don't like his answers and so are dismissive of his skill. On the other hand, I don't see anyone going to him for thoughts on good policy, deep cultural issues, etc.
I said "pop thinker." And during COVID he spent a lot of time critiquing the COVID response and got treated like an expert in epidemiology based on the fact he's good at setting lines for MLB games.
As to his value in polling and gambling. The former is useful for society so I can give him credit there. Being good at gambling is the equivalent of being a drug merchant. You make profit by causing harm.
All gambling profits comes from addicts/whales who waste money on games of chance that could have gone to something productive. That is harmful not valuable for society.
I don’t think anyone treated Nate Silver like an “expert in epidemiology.” If anything, he was constantly told to shut up by people on Twitter for not being an expert in epidemiology.
If I correctly recall a lot of what he said in 2020 - 21, he was actually right that public health officials were trying too hard to shape public opinion and not being straight with people.
I'm not sure what a "pop thinker" is, so sure I guess he's overrated at it.
Otherwise, unless someone is doing something bad for society, I try not to assess their value. If he actually ran a casino, then I would agree with you about the gambling profits. But as best I can tell, he's a gambler and mostly writes about poker now which seems fine for those interested in it.
I just don't get why people care so much. If you don't find him interesting, then don't follow him. If you do find him interesting, then that's fine too.
Is he good at making probabilistic predictions relative to consensus? He is when it's as simple as just looking at a poll. But I don't know that his record at political punditry beyond polls is any better than anyone else.
Nate's an excellent number-cruncher and data interpreter. What he's not so good at is people-ing.
Excellent example: During Gavin Newsom's 2021 recall election, Nate could not for the life of him understand why Democrats refused to offer up an alternative Democrat candidate to Gavin. He was literally like: "The probability that Larry Elder wins the California governorship if Democrats DON'T offer a non-Gavin alternative, on paper, is higher than if they do! WHY DON'T DEMOCRATS AGREE WITH ME HERE??"
Basically, the notion that giving the recall election any respect at all would have weakened Gavin more, did not factor into Nate's calculations. Because again, he's bad at people-ing.
Apropos--There's an irrational, but compelling reason why the Democratic electorate is unlikely to rebel against Biden:
Him beating Trump would be more than ideal; it would be just. Poetic, even.
Biden is the object reason Trump became the first president to be impeached twice. Three of Trump's four criminal indictments are due to his reaction to losing the 2020 election to Biden. Biden's victory over him is why Trump became the first president in US history to launch a coup.
For every Democrat who (like Nate) sees Biden's fart-as-debate-performance as a chronic, accelerating condition, there is at least one who not only sees it as a mere bad night, but is looking for any reason to make sure any future senior moments are also seen as bad nights.
Perhaps that's in the same category of irrationality as the death cult around Trump. But you can't blame them for wanting Biden to be the one to deal the deathblow to the dictator, and not give the latter the opportunity to say: "See, I told you he was a usurper. That usurper didn't have the guts to face me."
Nate doesn't believe Dems could possibly want that, because he is an android from Star Trek.
Not the worst thing to be. But kind of a blind spot.
I have to confess I've grown to really sour on Nate Silver. His obsession with gambling is really irritating. Why should anyone who isn't betting care what the betting markets think for presidential elections?
The theory is that a betting market is just a way to aggregate a bunch of people's opinions together. It's kind of like a polling average in the sense that lots of opinions are better than just one. The bettors also have better incentives than most pundits because they have money riding on getting the result correct not just on getting the result they want.
It's debatable how well the theory holds in practice, but that's the idea anyway.
I understand the concept. It is the same as the stock market. The stock market reflects the opinion of every person who invests on individual stocks. And that information is more reliable than the opinion of a single analyst, no matter how knowledgeable the individual analyst is. That has real value for society because it allows for more efficient allocation of capital.
The gambling market for elections reflects the opinion of every person who bets on election. And that information is more valuable than opinion of a single analyst, no matter how knowledgeable. I don't understand the value for society in knowing that Trump has a 78% chance of winning the presidency relative to 72% (making up numbers here as I don't have the energy to look up the betting markets)
What is the utility for society in knowing this difference if you're not betting on elections?
For the average individual I don't think there's much utility at all.
If someone is in the position of being able to exert some influence on Biden regarding whether or not to step down then it is valuable to have a sense of whether he's a better shot against Trump than Harris is for example. Heck Biden himself may read those numbers and weigh them into his decision making.
Maybe no one in a position of influence cares and the numbers don't matter at all. Maybe people take them badly and it makes things worse. I still think it's better to publish them than not to.
They aren't. Nate has jokingly referred to them as "Scottish Teens" because the greater legality of political betting in the UK means that's where a disproportionate share of a lot of those markets comes from.
I love Buttigieg and I think he'd a great Prime Minister in a different system, but he is way too dry, dispassionate, PMC-class McKinsey consultant personality to win a Presidential election. A lot of swing voters are voting based on who they'd rather have a beer with, which is why Bill Clinton won twice and his wife didn't. I do not see him as a majorly charismatic personality that could win over blue-collar voters
I think people really discount the McKinsey stint. Their brand is toxic. There might not be another name more responsible for the hollowing out of middle American manufacturing than McKinsey. Seems impossible to over-state how damaging that is for Pete.
Ok. So I asked Meta AI. They landed on 2-5%. Here's the analysis:
Here are some rough estimates of the number of employees in the US for the bigger firms:
• McKinsey: around 10,000-15,000 employees
• Bain: around 8,000-12,000 employees
• Accenture: around 50,000-60,000 employees (note: this number includes a large number of non-consulting staff)
• Deloitte: around 80,000-100,000 employees (note: this number includes a large number of non-consulting staff)
Expanding to all consulting firms, we can estimate the total number of consulting professionals in the US to be in the hundreds of thousands, likely between 500,000 to 1,000,000. This is a rough estimate, as there are many boutique consulting firms, smaller firms, and independent consultants not accounted for in this estimate.
Assuming an average career span of 30-40 years, and considering the number of people who have worked in consulting at some point in their career, we can make a rough estimate of the percentage of US workers who have worked in consulting.
Let's assume that around 2-5% of the US workforce has worked in consulting at some point in their career. This estimate is based on the assumption that many professionals in industries like finance, technology, and healthcare have likely worked with consulting firms or have been employed by them at some point.
I doubt it. I'm skeptical the Bain association hurt Romney much and the little harm it caused was due to the Great Recession being so close. McKinsey really isn't that important to normies.
Only people I think it would really alienate are the Chapo Lefties who never vote Blue anyway.
Seems comparable to Bain in terms of public perception, but in 2012 we had to explain who Bain was. McKinsey already has high (almost entirely negative) name recognition.
Same. I never heard of them until I went to law school and I come from a solid middle class NYC area family. They are a firm famous only among the affluent.
Management consulting firm aren't that famous. Heck finance isn't. They are nothing like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan in name recognition and even they aren't that famous.
"Vague value-squeezing consulting firm" is all I could tell you, and I'm a sufficiently high-information voter that I'm commenting on a paid politics-and-stuff blog on a Tuesday afternoon.
I'd be surprised. (1) Bain was and is *WAY* smaller. (2) their focus for a long time was much more on middle market and due diligence for M&A. McKinsey targeted Fortune 100 and drove the outsourcing agenda in a real way.
Especially since he refuses to talk about what he did while he was there. (If there's a time to break your NDA, it's when you're running for President and the voters need a complete sense of your record to make good judgments.)
Also ... their fucking CEO was found guilty of insider trading -- literally the worst offense in the world for a consultant and it was their *CEO*-- so if they want to sue you for breaking your 20 year old NDA when you were a 1st year analyst, then let em. Actually, if I was Pete, I would *try* to get them to sue me.
EDIT: And then after they sued me, I would submit the 1000s of current and former McKinsey LinkedIn profiles where they all break their NDA by describing in explicit and hyperbolic detail every project they ever worked on while at the firm.
Secretary Buttigieg polls very well with swing state voters. In a poll done by Bloomberg in May of 5,000 swing state voters of six potential candidates he drew the most support across all demographic groups in the seven swing states polled. Governor Whitmer was the runner up.
A more recent poll indicated that he would get the most swing state wins in a head to head with the Former Guy, winning a projected 301 electoral votes. Whitmer was the runner up with around 290.
He has gone to these states consistently both as USDOT Secretary and personally as a campaign surrogate and fundraiser for the Biden campaign and state/federal candidates.
Sadly, I think this would pretty much disqualify all of the Democratic candidates. Whitmer (who's my preference and as an aside as a person who lived in Michigan for a while––knows how much Michiganders love their beer and Whitmer is no exception) is a smart, competent woman, which is a turn off to the "I want to have a beer with you crowd." They liked Bush because was not the sharpest tool in the shed and reflected their incompetence. I think these voters will actually going with Trump because he's arsonist not in spite of it. I think the narrative is wrong in assuming that people want stability and a moderate center-left institutionalist. Consistent voters do, but the people who will decide this election, did not watch the debate, don't watch mainstream tv news or read newspapers. The people who read this blog, read the New York Times are the exact opposite of the voters who will decide this election. Many of those voters are just fed up with the entire system and they like Trump because he promises chaos. They believe the system is beyond repair and so it needs to be burned down. These voters are the people who root for the Joker to defeat Batman.
You're conflating the MAGA base (the people who, yes, love political arson) with persuadable normies. The latter aren't well-informed about politics and policy, true. But I don't think in the main they're as grimly nihilistic as you describe.
I think the persuadable normies would be voting against Trump anyways. I'm not saying they aren't persuadable swing voters but I believe many Normies when push comes to shove will vote against Trump. The people we need to picking up are the subset of swing voters who very much disillusioned with the entire system and they may not like Trump at all but they dislike the system more. What I've been saying is this 2016 not 2020. The people who are deciding this election are not the ones in 2020. They are in fact not the normies. I think some other candidate besides Biden might shore up some of the people who might sit out and are more likely to vote against Trump anyways but I don't think that's enough at this point. We actually need a candidate who can pick off voters who have been leaning towards Trump for a while now. The swing voters who are leaning towards Biden or against Trump will not go for Trump suddenly. They may stick with democrats but I don't actually think they are large enough compared to the voters who feel disaffected. I may be wrong on this but my general feeling is this centrist moderate narrative fundamentally undercounts how many people beyond the MAGA base are fed up with the entire system and because there isn't a democrat promising transformational change they'll either sit out or go for Trump.
Oddly I think he would be a lousy Prime Minister which is why I hold him in disdain. I legit believe if he was President during the COVID economy recovery decisions the US would have chosen the path of non-full employment/low inflation which punishes the poor/working class considerably. And I'm convinced he's the type of guy who thinks the Great Recession recovery went well.
My disdain for him is about having a beer with the guy (an insult used to dismiss non-professionals voting decisions). It is I think he will show a lack of concern for the poor/working class elements of the coalition.
And yes I would vote for him if he was the nominee.
To give a hopeful note to the idea the Biden might actually step down, I think his recent statements that he has no such plans should be given approximately zero weight, since that's what he would say whatever his thoughts actually are. He knows that as soon as he steps down, he's already done in politics and probably public life, so there's really no negative consequence to breaking a promise to stay in the race. On the other hand, if he wants to preserve his option to stay in the race, giving any indication that he might step aside makes that much harder. If he does step aside, I expect he'll be saying he won't right up till the moment he actually does.
Correct, it's no different than when a football coach is on the hot seat and they talk tough until they either step down or are fired. Here's to hoping Joe takes the Nick Saban route and goes out on top and not the Bobby Bowden route where his corpse is basically dragged out.
Too late for going out on top with grace. He should have done that 6 months ago and there should have been a legit primary. Joe would be revered now as an elder statesman. The man who beat Trump and then handed off the baton. But, he now looks like a stubborn old man who has lost touch with reality. He could still recover his legacy but needs someone to tell him the hard and simple truth.
We can't change the past. If he steps down in the next few weeks I think he will still deserve credit.
What if he doesn’t and loses?
I think Biden probably won't step down and then most definitely lose. And history will remember him as the terrible president who handed Trump his second term. Then, there will be a whole revival in a couple decades where historians will actually label Biden a sleeper "good president" because of the IRA, CHIPS, IIJA, and ability to maintain basically a full employment economy while lowering inflation, which was a global issue to begin with.
But would those things really deserve a place in history if they are wiped out before being fully implemented? Trump will be motivated to do everything he can to erase every bit of Biden's legacy.
I hope there is not a revival, based on *that* legislation — or if it is, it is because historians are not particularly good at separating out what they want to be true, and what is.
I see a bit of Winston Churchill-ness in how history will regard Joe Biden -- he was the man we needed to beat the pandemic (and pandemic-adjacent things), but in the aftermath of that victory, he began to look small and people turned to other options.
An important part then would be what does Trump do. If he’s mostly benign then history’s judgment will not be bad for Joe but if Trump is bad Joe will be held accountable.
There's something advantageous to this huge spurt of attention on the state of the Democratic nominee, followed by a bandage-rip of a convention that declares a new candidate, compared to the drip-drip-drip of a real primary race.
That said, the real primary race is pretty much guaranteed to end up ok, while this process (if it terminates with Biden leaving) will end up very *exciting*, but exciting is risky.
But risk provides at least chance of winning. Probably a good chance, given how many people have been screaming into the void that they didn't want the choice to be Trump v Biden. If we can knock out one of the unpopular ones, there's a chance we can run up a good margin and prove Democrats can actually respond to public sentiment.
Nick Saban also has a famous quote in this regard: "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach.". And then two weeks later, he was the Alabama coach.
Days before taking the Bama job in the first place: “I don’t know how else I can say it. I’ve said it over and over and over. I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”
I think we're trending toward the Joe Paterno route (fired in disgrace)
If it turns out that Hunter has actually been running parts of the government, then maybe that's right.
No way, that's an extreme level of horribleness. The Bowden analogy works very well in the bad scenario.
Agreed the Paterno situation is super icky stuff. That’s an unfair association.
>I think his recent statements that he has no such plans should be given approximately zero weight<
I think, unfortunately, Biden's recent statements should be given maximum weight. It's over, barring another disastrous public meltdown or some unforeseen, precipitous decline in health. AOC has spoken. Fetterman has spoken. Congressional Democrats are clearly moving toward grudging acceptance of the reality that Biden can't be forced out. Big names like Harris, Obama, Hillary and Schumer aren't willing to go public.
It's over.
Weird that Jamal Bowman is still with him. What does he have to lose!
https://x.com/metzgov/status/1810734970211651798
Project 2025 has promised harsh crackdowns on people who pull fire alarms and Bowman's keen political instincts have told him to ride with Biden.
I think the progressive Congressional faction believes (correctly, in my mind) that if they so much as make a peep suggesting Biden step down, an eventual Democratic loss in November will be blamed on them and spun as their disloyalty.
I got a message from someone who wanted me to ask you to check your chat messages. They've got an appropriately mathematical username to get my attention, but I obviously don't know how much attention you already pay to your Substack direct messages.
Cabinet position in a second term administration?
/s
I think very little weight should be put on Fetterman here, given that he faced exactly the same set of demands during his election, when he had his stroke.
AOC is the more significant one.
I don't disagree with you about Fetterman. I was just naming big names. My observation that the effort to remove Biden from the ticket is over isn't based on any one politician's public stance. But yeah, it's over. In 72 hours it's gone from "no way he survives this" to "no way Democrats pull off jettisoning him."
Believe me, I've seldom wanted more fervently to be wrong, because being right on this call very likely means disaster in November. It all seems scripted. It's as if God is Philip K. Dick, and he's having a deep belly laugh at America's expense.
If god was Phillip K. Dick Biden would have used amphetamines to actually do well in the debate.
Philip K Dick would have argued all along that God has the tastes and tendencies of Philip K Dick.
Doesn't that actually make him the democrat in the best position to say this situation is different?
I guess I shouldn’t say “little weight” generically. If he says “Biden should do the same as me”, then that should carry little weight, while if he says “the Biden case is different from me” that could carry more weight.
AOC's endorsement couldn't be less enthusiastic: "Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race, and I support him."
That is exactly what the institutional incentives suggest for her. She gains nothing with either the base or the leadership for drawing any attention to herself at this moment, unless she believes she has the key to actually settling the matter of him staying in or quitting.
We need courage not triangulation
At this point it's not courage but suicide. The rules don't appear to allow any way to force Biden out, and he's not going. As Matt points out, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Obama, Bernie, AOC, Jeffries, Hillary and every other Democratic grandee could sign a public petition demanding that he step down. But it wouldn't work. He's already told the party to pound sand. Or, more accurately "Challenge me at the convention if you think you can beat me."
TBH I kinda like ruthless Dark Brandon. It's just a pity the ruthlessness is borne out of delusion.
It would be nice for people in Congress to stop acting as subordinates to the Executive Branch. Congress is the supreme branch of government -- they control the money, they can't be removed by the President or the Judiciary, they have the power to remove any President or any judge. They are important as a separate institution!
I don’t believe that, tbh. If all those people publicly asked Biden to step down, he would indeed step down.
Wouldn't saying that in private be courageous in the right way? For all we know...
I suspect she does gain with much of her base but overall I agree it's outweighed by the need to curry favor.
That's the accurate self-interest calculus for nearly all Democrats at this point.
Right. AOC didn't say "Biden should step down" but she also hasn't said "Biden should stay in"
I think his demeanor is that of someone who is going to hold on to this no matter what. Think Corbyn, not Cuomo.
To be accurate, he's saying exactly what he would say in either the "I am really running" or the "I am really stepping down" case.
Buttigieg/Torres would simultaneously be a historic shutout for straight people and a ticket designed in a lab to infuriate a particular kind of queer leftist
Buttigieg / Torres would be awesome!! But... I am a gay man... and even *I* wonder if America is ready for an "ALL GAY ALL THE TIME" ticket. Also, be prepared for jokes about the top and bottom of the ticket. I'm just sayin'.
FWIW (as a straight male from flyover country) I don't really see Buttigieg that way. He seems to treat being gay as basically a non-issue.
I didn't know Torres existed until about fifteen minutes ago, so I cannot comment on him.
"He seems to treat being gay as basically a non-issue."
This is part of his popularity. Most centrist (i.e. swing) voters want to exist in a world where we don't make a big deal about these things, and we just don't care. This, of course, involves a lot of only *pretending* that they don't care, too, but that's just part of the social contract that a lot of people live by.
That was a tweet someone had when Buttigieg was running, and there were suggestions he wasn't gay enough. "Who did you think would be the first gay president? Michael Alig?"
I still don't know who Torres is.
Gay Black Congressman from the Bronx (see the answer to my comment below)
This is a family-friendly comments section (except for David M-With-Too-Many-Syllables, but that's only when he gets animated). 🤣
"Friday F*ck's w/Dave"
I think we should be dropping Death of Stalin references.
I am off to represent the Red Army at the buffet.
It's mainly a Simpsons crowd around here, although I throw in the occasional West Wing reference from time to time.
We are mostly in the coveted 35-44 college educated male demographic. (Though I had to stop to calculate whether my recent birthday didn't accidentally move me out.)
I'll take the lion's share of credit/blame for the Simpsons crowd reputation.
It is a fun idea but if it were Pete why would he pick a congressman from NYC instead of Shapiro or Whitmer?
Not just from NYC--Torres represents one of the bluest districts of the country, in the South Bronx. He is good at navigating Democratic primaries but has never faced a general election in which the outcome was in any doubt. He would not be a good VP choice. I am commenting solely in the spirit of "fun idea"
Yeah I don't get the Torres idea. If you're Mayor Pete your best pick is still probably Shapiro or Whitmer given that importance of Michigan and Pennsylvania. I'd also probably urge consideration of Warnock in general even if that is essentially giving up on the Senate. And you're better off going with someone like Booker over Torres though Booker wouldn't be my first choice.
I think the idea is to double-down on the exciting parts of Buttigieg (young, articulate, gay) while covering the downsides of Buttigieg (not particularly popular among minorities and non-college youth, where Trump has already been making inroads).
I like Torres but is he really the best ambassador to non-college youth and to the kind of minority voter that's thinking of staying home or not voting D? As Matt always says about Harris, when has Torres ever had to appeal to swing voters? Pro-Israel centrist Democrats who feel validated by having Black guy on their team don't really count.
Plus I think if we had a ticket of two gay men the press wouldn't be able to shut up about how historic and inspiring this was and ngl as a gay man I'd personally be pretty enthused, but the identity factor in the choice would loom large and even I can't help but think that the Tammy Baldwin approach is to being gay in politics is a healthier one. Just deliver and don't talk about yourself too much, if *Republicans* can't help but make your identity a big deal that's their problem.
Al Gore was a 45 year old senator who'd been in congress for a decade when Bill Clinton picked him; Torres is 36 and hasn't finished his second term. Torres will go far (I hope) but picking him at this phase in his career to be the running mate of the South Bend Mayor / Transportation Secretary would be a bit much.
I think Matt is leaning in to the idea that being pro-Israel is a net electoral positive.
He's probably right about that but I have trouble thinking of anything memorable Torres has done *except* shill for the ADL and posture about this issue on Twitter. Buttigieg himself made his support for Israel very clear in the 2020 primary (to an extent I found distasteful, though YMMV), so I'm not sure what Torres would add in that regard.
It reminds me of the DeSantis campaign. People can have strong and maybe justified opinions about Israel and Gaza. It really is an important issue, and the American public really is pro-Israel.
But it is still like issue #15 for actual voters, who care about prices, healthcare and taxes.
A great break of the glass ceiling as well as a HUGE achievement in demolishing.m some very harmful stereotypes about gay people (=association with a handful of “queer activists” self appointing themselves to speak for millions who don’t give a shit about their moronic “intersectional” agenda)
Torres also seems to be pretty pro-Israel which might anger certain segments of the "Genocide Joe" crowd.
Which is of course a point in his favor ! The election will not be decided by the antisemites in nyc and la.
I think it is unfair to call them antisemites. I think they are mostly just dumb.
To answer you seriously, though. The problem is that we don't have time to delve deeply topics that don't interest us as much, so we rely on some common take or people we trust. The problem is that sometimes those takes are just wildly, inexcusably, off, as was the case with Biden's functionality, for example. The antisemitism on the left and in academia is somewhat similar. If you only read certain types of left wing press, esp. if you read the headlines and not the detailed reporting, you won't have a clue of what is actually going on, and it could mislead you too think it's just people being dumb. But it's hardcore, pervasive, antisemitism, by which I mean the classic type including discriminating against jewish/jewish-seeming students for being jewish, spreading classic antisemitic tropes, using classic antisemitic imagery etc. and university admins failing to do anything about it because they *share* the basic sentiment. Importantly these aren't stray individuals ("nutpiciking") it's at the heart of the whole movement. This shocking development of course goes totally against our priors about jewish life in america and esp. about the American left, and so i can't blame people who don't see the mass evidence for themselves (and don't currently live and work in the worst-affected spaces) being skeptical of my claims here. But that's the reality, as unfortunately will become increasingly clear to more and more americans in the coming years, since the problem isn't going away.
P.S.
Another similarity to the Biden issue is the "cry wolf" dynamic. For too long Israel supporters, esp. of the right wing variaty, abused the antisemitism accusation to try to silence legitimate criticism of Israel (and to an extent continue to do so!). This makes it very easy for antisemites and their supporters to sell it to Americans who are low-information on current developments that the same thing is happening now (since the heart of the fiasco is ostensibly about Israel/Gaza). The facts are dramatically different, but I can see how it works in the antisemites favor.
My original comment was largely tongue in cheek. However, as someone with a Down syndrome brother, I would argue that it is unclear that, “antisemitic,” is a more accurate descriptor than just dumb when both are available.
That they are antisemites has been repeatedly demonstrated by their words and deeds. *Why* they are antisemites is a separate question.
Table your substantive stance on Israel-Palestine, being pro-Israel is the correct political stance. The vast majority of voters either don't care or are pro-Israel.
And there is no other way to say it but for campaign donations being pro-Israel is 100% the correct decision politically.
This ticket idea is horrific. Neither Pete or Torres has any history campaigning against Republicans. Pete comes from a very liberal city. Torres represents a district that has 0 Republicans.
Has it occurred to anyone that Dean Phillips is the new Martin O’Malley? Probably just me.
Pete has history of looking good on Fox News, which has got to count for something.
I don’t know anything about Torres. Who is he?
He's a House member from the Bronx who used to serve on the NYC Council. He had a broadly progressive record as a city council member but he made many people on the left angry by negotiating a deal with the NYPD on a policing bill. When Jose Serrano retired in 2020 he won the Democratic nomination for the district in a crowded primary, beating, among others, a homophobic pastor with a long history in NYC politics (Ruben Diaz Sr.) and a DSA-favored candidate who did rather poorly, which made the NYC activist left dislike him even more. Now he is well known for being a pretty strong supporter of Israel and for harshly attacking some of Israel's critics--I don't particularly like this aspect of his political advocacy but it's gotten him a lot of fans among people who wouldn't necessarily like the rest of his politics. I think that is why Matt (I don't know how seriously) floated him as a VP contender.
Also, one of the two first gay black men in Congress. And age 36 - barely legal for the presidency.
Jailbait
I’ve gotten to the point of preferring Harris, because I realized I can’t defend Biden’s candidacy. He’s simply not up to the job, much less the job plus a campaign.
I may not love Harris, but she’s at least defensible in terms of her intellect and experience.
The mistake was picking her in the first place, when she’d demonstrated poor political skills.
"I think “it’s racist to believe a Black woman is less electable than a white man who can’t get through a 30 minute television interview” is a pretty reasonable take."
A Black woman who during the primary was polling at 8% in the Democratic primary in her home state, persistently riding at fifth or sixth in the polls, was unable to defend herself from a devastating debate attack from an irrelevant Tulsi Gabbard, and withdrew from the race rather than facing the coming humiliation. She has since developed a reputation for delivering word-salad non-answers when the administration lets her have opportunities for prominence, which isn't often. ("We've been to the border!" "You have not." "We're going to the border!") I think it is entirely non-racist to assume that she's not going to perform better than the old white guy in a country that we're all supposed to understand is still very racist and sexist. (If that's true, and the most important thing is to win, then we probably shouldn't nominate women of color, right?)
Biden probably won't stand down anyway, and because of the Iron Law of Institutions there won't be a critical mass of Democrat apparatchiks willing to cross him to make some sort of brokered convention happen. Either Trump dies sometime soon or he's president in 2025 with a likely trifecta.
Yeah isn't the "White Man is more electable than a Black Woman" suppose to be read as a statement about America not anything about the quality of the two people. Electability isn't a trait people have outside the context of a given electorate.
The people saying Biden is more electable (on a race/gender basis) are criticizing America not Harris.
There are other critiques of Harris and Biden as individuals but the generally electibilty thing isn't' really about either of them as a person.
It's supposed to be, but I'm not convinced it actually works out that way. I think the block of "I'd vote for you, but other people won't so I can't support you" is actually pretty large at this point.
Not trying to take sides in this, but I just find it ironic that the chief members of this bloc are... Black voters.
Sure, 2008 was a long time ago now, but Obama's biggest hurdle famously was, "Wait, can we really trust that THIS is the right guy for this?" with Black voters. Likewise, they famously decided that the answer to a similar question in 2020 was *Biden* over Harris.
It's possible that opinions have changed in the last 4 years, and we shouldn't make the mistake of asking EXACTLY the same question as either example, but we should be paying attention to whatever the current incarnation of this dynamic is for this prospective convention fight.
All of that is to say, if [mostly Black] SC Dems say that they prefer Pete over Kamala, then we should probably listen to them. It wouldn't be the first time Jim Clyburn had to explain why he dumped a Black candidate for a White one, and he's pretty damned good at it. Regardless of the actual result, he's going to be a critical element to maintaining party unity over the next two months.
Maybe in a primary that is how it works but in a general it isn't like there is a similar but more "electable" option. It would be Harris vs. Trump, if you prefer Harris it wouldn't make sense to vote for Trump because others don't like Harris.
Sure, but in the conversation of should we ditch Biden for Harris I think those voices do matter and are likely overstating Harris's downsides in a way that's functionally equivalent to sexism and/or racism.
That seems to be about the electorate and not the candidates.
It's about people's perceptions of the electorate causing them to treat the candidates in different ways.
That's the entire argument against just voting for Chase Olivier at this point. I'm still going to though!
If Trump dies then whoever is the republican nominee wins in a landslide, no? Trump remains unpopular in a way Rubio/DeSantis/Haley aren’t.
If Trump dies, Rubio & Haley aren't the nominee, and DeSantis actually campaigning outside of a state with an incompetent state Democratic Party in 2020 showed his...less than ideal skills.
Also, a lot of Trump voters disappear when Trump is not on the ticket.
Yes, a Haley/Crenshaw ticket probably wins (unfortunately), but that's not going to be the ticket if Trump eats one too many Big Mac's.
Funny that we mostly said the same thing... however, I'm not ENTIRELY sure that a "lot" of Trump's base would disappear.
Vance, for instance, would stand a decent shot at keeping most of them, and may even manage to unite the rest of a wavering GOP behind him. He's smart enough to know to run to the center (hence the thing about mifepristone just today/yesterday), and he'd know to keep doing all the MAGA dog-whistles while picking someone like Haley or Rubio as his running mate.
You'd also never hear about Project 2025 again; he'd just do most of the same shit on the down-low and largely let the MAGA establishment run things while he goes out and plays President for the TVs. Without Trump around to discipline him against defecting on, say, Ukraine, he'd retcon MAGA to his own purposes and drop all the most counterproductive planks like Trump's across-the-board tariff while keeping the general gist.
Trump's "base" would hang around, because his "base" is actually long-term right-wing voters that have always been around, but the problem would be the low-propensity voters the GOP has picked up in recent years because of Trump, who basically haven't turned out for anybody but Trump in Presidential years.
As far as a VP goes, maybe Rubio because he's genuflected himself and such enough, but nobody with Haley's views is going to come close to a GOP Presidential ticket anytime soon.
So, the concern I may not have done too well at implying was, Vance is probably about the most popular MAGA figure right now *among* those low-propensity voters.
And for the handful who remain skeptical of him, they're liable to be FAR outweighed by the number of normie voters who "come home" for a less radically offensive/outspoken Vance who codes as a normie. Remember, he's not a True Believer in MAGA, he's just riding the wave because it's convenient. He is perfectly capable of code-switching back to normie-speak and reassuring Trump-skeptical "long-term right-wing voters" that he's OK to vote for.
The point is, if I was doing an updated version of House Of Cards for the MAGA Era and trying to write a post-Trump "competent demagogue" to make viewers terrified he'd actually get elected despite secretly being a terrible, scheming bastard who was possibly even worse than Trump, I'd write... Vance.
I'm not sure code switching will work out for Vance.
IMO, its not Trump's policy perspectives that have made him so popular - he famously switches those at his convenience. What drives much of Trump's support is his complete unwillingness to code switch and so comes across as much more authentic because of it.
edit - do think you're generally right about Vance being the best able to navigate those waters though.
Yeah, like John E said, I disagree on Vance's actual chops - sure, he can make the right moves now, nearly a year after Dobbs, but if some cultural war flashpoint happens during a campaign, is he going to say the right thing politically, or will he say the politically dumb thing?
Considering he ran behind Trump by nearly ten points in 2022, I don't think he's as good as you think he is, and the problem for the post-Trump MAGA world is I do agree he's the best person they have.
Which is why if we survive 2024, I'm generally actually pretty positive about the medium-term Democratic Party, because the GOP is split in a far harsher way than even the Democrat's are.
Like if Biden wins in 2024, if Kamala, Whitmer, or Warnock wins a 2028 primary, nobody outside of Ruy Texeria on the center or a few Twitter weirdos on the left would be upset about any of them.
Depends on *when*.
If he dies before naming a VP and before the convention, then the convention names a ticket. Look forward to a nasty floor fight.
If he names a VP and dies before the convention, then they're probably the odds-on favorite to win, but don't count out challengers on the floor.
If he names a VP and dies after they're both nominated at the convention, then the VP takes over the ticket and names their own VP.
Regardless, I think pretty much any non-Trump Republican would stand a better chance than him at beating Biden or Harris, and a better chance at beating Biden or Harris than any other Dem. But Biden is the only one that any non-Trump Republican would have a chance at a "landslide" against; Harris or any other Dem could pretty competently execute a campaign on abortion etc., and most Trump alternatives would face difficulty keeping the MAGA base on board.
Trump's not going to die, not for a long time. We just aren't that lucky.
Reading these comments after todays events and this one was right in the money
Freddie: if you're going to cite 2020 polls, you should also take a look at 2024 polls. Most of those show Harris doing about as well or maybe a bit better than Biden in the matchup against Trump. Plus, she surely has more upside, more room to grow her numbers. And yes, it probably would be desirable to have a nominee who is is able to schedule events after 8pm.
I mean, Biden in 2008 got less than 1% of votes in the Iowa caucuses, finishing fifth.
Nice to see you as always, Freddie.
As I've said before, it's not like we don't have a history of politicos who failed in primaries who suddenly become stronger after being VP for a term or two or anything.
Primary results mean less than nothing.
I really think the last two primaries have been extra incoherent. Running 10 or more candidates makes discerning who these people are and why I should vote for them into an absolute mess.
Time to rewatch the debate...
Perhaps a trifecta, but the size of that trifecta matters. Which is why party infighting in the 4 months leading up to an election is a very bad idea.
I agree the Harris drama isn't great. The main policy choice that has hurt Democrats on the national ticket is overspending on the economy causing a longer and higher peak of inflation than would otherwise result from COVID-19. The second thing has been the asylum policy approach to dramatically increase legal immigration.
The public's complaints are to the right of where the Democratic party is, and instead of moping about fairness in 2025, people closer to the center of the party should probably quit dodging and admit Biden governed poorly on those two items. They should make the case on the merits for having governed a little differently. Instead, their attitude appears to be to just kite the left flank with "we know we're the worst" and hope for less policy concessions leftward which they believe are inevitable.
Of course, the left flank of the party wants the platform to go further than it did from 2016 to 2020 in spending and what have you, so they won't exactly be delighted either. But it's not totally clear how racking up more spending promises is going to make voters trust Democrats more on cost of living and taxes after their experience with Biden's presidency.
I don't think dems have also really grasped the downside of campaigning for four months on behalf of a candidate who is clearly too infirm to be president next year. It will make them look like liars and hacks and haunt the party for years.
Also, I feel that for the educated millennials that joined the party because of the events of the great recession, the Iraq, 9/11 and to support Barack Obama, letting Trump waltz into a second term is going do a lot to shake our loyalty. I am basically ashamed to be a Democrat for the first time.
I don't think it would haunt the party for years. The GOP rebounded from Watergate in 6 years, and from the 2008 stock market crash in 2 years.
The more long-term damaging thing might be if Biden wins and then the Democratic president has advanced dementia in 2028.
< Biden is probably going to be the nominee and he is probably going to lose >
I'll just add here that I've lost a lot of respect for Biden as this has played out. Biden said back in 2020 -- “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.” He and his team can try to walk that quote back as much as they want but what everyone interpreted is he would hand this thing over - especially if he was in "poor health". He is and he fucked it all up. He's not "putting the country first"; he's putting himself and - fucking Hunter - first.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/politics/joe-biden-bridge-new-generation-of-leaders/index.html
I’ve been a huge Biden Buddy™️ but if he refuses to step down and proceeds to lose to Trump in November then his legacy will be completely tarnished in my eyes.
In fairness, paintings done by the son of a sitting president are worth more than paintings done by the son of a former president.
I just emailed my Senators and Congressperson so I didn't feel totally helpless. I encourage others to do the same. Will also email the White House.
“Dear Mr. President, There are too many states nowadays. Please, eliminate three. P.S. I am not a crackpot.”
I don't think my disdain for her is racist (or sexist), but listening to or watching Kamala Harris really makes my skin crawl. She just reeks of "insincere politician." I also really disliked her attacks on Biden during the 2020 debates.
Perhaps I'm unusual in this, but I don't think so. And if I am not unusual, I worry she'll just go the way of Hillary Clinton, who incited similar feelings in the electorate.
Honestly, the reason I supported Harris in the 2020 primary is because, other than Biden who seemed too old even then, of those running in the non-Sanders and non-unpredictable maverick lane, she seemed like the most intensely ambitious, the one most likely likely to do whatever it takes to climb to the top of the greasy pole and stay there, to borrow a phrase from Disraeli.
If there's disappointment in her since that, if anything it's that she's turned out to be possibly TOO sincere -- maybe she actually believes the moralizing platitudes of Hollywood-style Democrats too much to cast them aside now that they're no longer serving her, and are preventing her from adopting a less pristine, more moderate and messy modern human persona of someone who owns her ambition and makes no apology for it, like Bill Clinton or Donald Trump.
But you see, ambition in women is always framed in a pejorative light. It’s horrible and we saw that in 2016.
"She just reeks of 'insincere politician.'"
That's my reaction to Harris as well -- I don't think she actually believes in anything and will, in fact, say whatever she considers advantageous at the moment for her electoral prospects. (I have an identical reaction to Gavin Newsom.)
I think that’s a good thing. I think America could use a less ideological president and someone just focused on governance
I like Harris, but then again I liked (and continue to like) Hillary Clinton. But, neither woman has much in the way of "common touch" appeal that normies supposedly go for. I'd take her over Biden in a heartbeat, though.
I always wonder how much the Willie Brown relationship and how he got her started in politics hangs over her public perceptions still today. It's definitely not a secret but I also don't think it's widely known. Still, my sense is it's like an anchor that holds her back.
All the while all Trump’s rape and sexual assault allegations are tacitly accepted.
I don't know if they are. Biden won 306 EC votes in 2020 and +4.4 on the popular vote. It was a pretty solid drubbing for a sitting President. I think that he's now clearly winning tells you more about how terrible of a candidate Biden is than anything about Trump.
Yeah-- I think that people often fail to notice that Trump does in fact pay an electoral price for being an awful human being and often polls worse than Republican politicians who have less popular underlying policy positions. (A Republican candidate with Trump-like positions on abortion and entitlements who was also not a huge piece of shit would probably do really well in the general, although he or she would struggle to win the Republican primary without the "owning the libs/identity politics for stupid assholes" factor.)
It also tells you that when people are pissed off, it's the sitting President that gets blamed. It's also tough because bitching about how bad things are is Trump's speciality.
I know at least one Republican woman who brings it up all.the.time. But I also grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I wonder how many people from the rest of the country know or care who Willie Brown is?
I think a lot of people would care if they knew the whole story:
- That Harris became Brown’s mistress when she was 30 and he was 60.
- That Brown was married.
- That Brown arranged for Harris to be appointed to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job for which she possessed no obvious qualifications, that met once a month, and paid $72K per year. (Adjusted for inflation’ that’d be $155K today.) And also the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, a part-time position that paid $97K.
The whole thing is kind of gross.
It would be inappropriate to give a job to someone you're having a relationship with, especially if they are truly unqualified/aren't expected to do the work. I don't know what the qualifications for this are, or whether Harris met those qualifications. But the stories say that Brown separated from his wife in 1981. I've met a lot of people (I'm a volunteer income tax preparer) who don't get divorced because they can't afford it or don't even know where their spouse is. I don't know what Brown's situation was, but I wouldn't assume scandal if a person separated from their spouse over 10 years started a relationship with someone else.
“…I wouldn't assume scandal if a person separated from their spouse over 10 years…”
I wouldn’t either, generally speaking. When I said the whole thing is kind of gross, I meant the combination of dating a man more than old enough to be her father for what certainly appears to have been to help her political career as well as Brown gifting her what amounts to highly-paid no-show jobs.
It's all over 30 years ago, though. I actually think being from San Francisco is more scandalous at the moment, and may be disqualifying.
Thats the thing. Shes not just a weak candidate, shes a terrible candidate. She might do OK in a dem primary where theyre too nice to bring that stuff up. But the Republicans will absolutely bring it up, and it will tank her rating among the undecided voters who are currently unaware of that stuff.
Is this verified or rumored?
Reuters deemed the stuff about their relationship as "Missing Context" in 2020: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/fact-check-kamala-harrisandwillie-brownhad-a-relationshipover-adecadeafte-idUSKBN26Y2RJ/
In other words, true.
Verified? Those things happened, if that's what you mean.
That they were together is true.
That he was married is out of context (I mean, c’mon).
That he got her a job also seems to lack context.
I don’t see why anyone would care about any of that, really.
In my view, the biggest argument for Biden to step down is this: even if he’s fine mentally, every little verbal misstep (of the type we all make) will just be continually scrutinized between now and election day. As will any time he sounds hoarse or looks tired or whatever. This isn’t just a news cycle to survive unfortunately.
The media - which seems really pissed off at Biden, as if they think he’s been hiding something for the past four years - will just be relentless. Which means he will never get his message through, speculation over his health will just suck up all the oxygen, and Trump’s idiocy will never get covered. That’s a recipe for a loss.
I personally don’t think Biden is too old to do the job, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s too old to be able to convince people he’s not too old (if that makes sense). Wiping the slate clean so the media can focus on Trump is the only real way forward.
This story is catnip for the DC press corps - all palace intrigue with a whiff of Greek tragedy and not a boring policy debate in sight. They won't be able to resist.
It is actually one of the most important jobs of a journalist in a liberal democratic society to be able to get an accurate picture of the mental and physical health of the most powerful person in the world and, if the administration is not being forthcoming, to continue to probe and ask questions to find the truth.
We all knew this to be the case when Trump was the president so why are people trying to pretend it's not the case now?
I think the one thing that is actually a more important job of a journalist in a liberal democratic society is to talk about the policies that different candidates might actually implement, and what their implications would be for society.
Second to that, the details of the mental and physical health of the candidates is important too.
"Won't" isn't even the right word. They *shouldn't* be able to resist.
It's certainly possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Biden and his campaign are the biggest reason he has been and seemingly will continue to be unable to get his message through. It's been almost 2 weeks since that disastrous debate and they have done next to nothing to try to convince voters that he's mentally fit. There was nothing to stop them from doing a live, unscripted press conference days after the debate, for example, to reassure voters and fellow Democrats but they instead chose to wait a week to do a precorded, edited ABC interview with a former Bill Clinton aide and local radio interviews where the host was only allowed to ask from an approved list of questions.
The whole campaign is a total joke.
Isn’t it clear that the reason they didn’t do an immediate unscripted press conference is because they’re aware it would likely be another disaster?
That is very much the natural impression that any thoughtful observer will have.
I suppose there's the possibility he was actually having a secret meeting with Modi about planting his assassin teams in Moscow during this visit to take out Putin, and Biden couldn't say anything about that, but that seems less likely.
Yeah, if Bill Clinton had that performance in 96 or Obama in 2012 we all know what they would do. They would have held ten or so unscripted press conferences/long for interviews. And then followed it up with a couple of town halls mocking their performance.
That Biden doesn't invites healthy skepticism even from supporters like us.
My hot take is that Reagan was able to play the doddering old man to cover for brutal domestic and FoPo campaigns. That can't work for Biden because he's been billing himself as a bridge-builder so far.
The obvious pre-election day tactic is for Biden to launch an invasion of Haiti and start calling immigrants super-predators.
At this point, yes, obviously.
>It's been almost 2 weeks since that disastrous debate and they have done next to nothing to try to convince voters that he's mentally fit.<
They've done "next to nothing" on this score because there is nothing they *can* do on this score. They can't turn an 81 year old's ailing brain into 54 year old's far healthier one.
The take in more pro-Biden quarters of the internet is that he's basically done that: https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/status/1810367325079744894
VP Harris seems very capable of talking about abortion, 1/6, and Trump's criminality. But can she talk about why Trump would be so bad on inflation? Immigration (which she was supposedly in charge of)? That's what I would be worried about regarding a Harris candidacy. We need somebody who can articulate a positive vision on the issues most important to Americans, and contrast that positive vision with Trump's dark and bad vision.
She is definitely a step up from Biden at this point, but someone else would be better
One big inflation talking point can always be "We tried, but a MAGA federal court blocked us"
On point #14, "[Biden's] clearly not going to do an impressive media blitz"...well, I think that's exactly what he needs to do if he has any hope of winning this thing. Over the next month, he needs to be holding as many press conferences and live interviews as he can do to prove people wrong and get his numbers back up. If he can't do that by the DNC, then the case for a change gets pretty much unquestionable.
If he could do that reliably and consistently, I think a lot of this would go away. They appear to be doing the opposite and still heavily scripting his every move. His team pretending it's totally normal to drag a teleprompter into a backyard for a small donor event isn't helping matters.
That's the thing, he just cannot do that. Discourse PR and strategies are all well and good, but at some point there are hard objective and immutable realities to face.
The question is even if he does everything right will the bedwetters in the media just butterymales a single thing while giving Republicans a complete pass?
One noteworthy element of this is, if Biden does stay in and the polling doesn't change, how is Trump covered in the last month of the election. In 2016, the media's excuse for overwhelmingly covering Clinton was that she was clearly going to win, and thus deserved added scrutiny. Will that be applied to Trump?
All the speculative and non substantive navel gazing over the past two weeks reinforces my impression the most journalists at major outlets are not interest in informing the public. They want easy sensationalism.
Yeah, I'm not exactly hopeful either.
Manipulating the media into delivering the sort of narrative that you want is precisely what effective campaigns do. If you're in a position where you can be defined negatively this way, you're doing it badly. I think that a lot of Dems are uncomfortable acknowledging that the 2016 Clinton campaign made a lot of unforced errors and have twisted themselves into believing sort of weird and conspiratorial narratives.
I am extremely disappointed with President Biden for, among other things, saying to George Stephanopoulos: "If I lose to Trump, I'll be ok with it as long as I gave it my best" (paraphrasing).
Jeff Maurer, who has a way with words, put it in his typically brilliant and profane fashion, so I'll just quote him here:
"Jesus Christ, Joe: No it is not okay if you just do your best THIS IS NOT FUCKING TEE BALL!!! We are not playing Candyland, this is not the water balloon toss at a fucking three year-old’s birthday party, we’re choosing the most powerful person in the world YOU DON’T GET A JUICE BOX AND A “YOU’RE A WINNER AS LONG AS YOU HAD FUN” IF YOU HAND THE NUCLEAR CODES BACK TO TRUMP!!!"
It's very disappointing, but I think this moral failing reflects his cognitive decline. By the way, his exact words do too: "I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about."
He actually said, "goodest"?
Apparently, and there is a funny/disturbing story about the WH trying to hush that slip up: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/opinion/joe-biden-goodest.html
(the gist if you don't have nyt: https://nypost.com/2024/07/08/media/ny-times-maureen-dowd-says-biden-campaign-aide-pressed-her-to-scrub-goodest-gaffe/)
I can't believe it's come to this.
It's bad on multiple levels. Not only should WH not behave in such disturbing fashion vis a vis the press, but the fact that after the debate they would even *care* and assume it *matters* tells you how out of touch they are. If they were connected to reality they'd realize that whether or not Biden said "goodest" is the least of their problems right now.
Exactly! & like the completely incoherent "good as" is somehow better too? None of it makes sense. If anything, it's worse because now they shot it back to the top of the page with a new story. Total incompetence.
30 second mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE2wV_ud2Ro
Thanks!
Not clear if he said "goodest" or "good as."
Sort of like Trump said "big league" and it got twisted into "bigly."
Having watched the video David_in_Chicago linked, I agree it's ambiguous.
It could have been "as good as" with him slurring a bit--not great either way.
I think the most hilarious result for America is that Biden stays in, and he wins, because the polls are actually off slightly because of weirdness around the crosstabs of young and minority voters, and it basically shows ironically, nominees matter less in an era of negative polarization.
Again, I'm not poll truthering - Trump is probably currently leading, but not by so wide a margin, that the fact the crosstabs are so off the rails compared to any polling that does oversampling I wouldn't be surprised if there's something fundamentally wrong with them.
Like, imagine we do all this tearing of garments, get everybody within the party pissed at each other, November happens, and it's basically 2020 all over again because suburban voters still find Republican's too damn weird?
>and he wins, because the polls are actually off slightly<
Not slightly. They'd have be off a decent amount. Biden probably needs to win the two party share by what, at least 1.5 points over Trump (does that sounds right) because of EC math? He's generally running 3 or 4 points behind Trump. So the polls would have to have gotten it quite wrong up to now, I think. There have been 15 polls released since June 15th by my count, and I think Trump led 13 of them.
More likely (but not *much* more likely) is that Biden closes the gap between now and November and comes from behind to win.
That would definitely be hilarious. Really scary along the way, but still hilarious.
This is entirely possible and it would be quite bad for the country's democracy to have Jill Biden and Hunter Biden run the country from the president's bedside.
May you speak it into existence but the recent history of polling shows us that Biden is in for drubbing.
Do we know for sure Harris wants to be the nominee? If she’s thrust into the election as the nominee, she’s still likely to lose. That would pretty much be the end of her political career would it not? No way she goes on to become the 2028 nominee if she loses to Trump.
I just think we can’t be sure that Harris, or really anybody, wants to step into this situation. If they all see it as a losing proposition(and from their self interested perspective all the people mentioned as possible candidates would probably be better off just waiting to run in 2028, when the nation will probably be turning heavily against the second Trump admin).
It’s a good point, but I think the calculation for Harris has to be to take a swing at it. Even Hillary didn’t have the nomination handed to her like this (assuming Biden drops out). It’s not going to come around again.
You know, that's a great point. Further, she's already running for VP. I don't know that her career looks any worse if she loses running for president versus losing running for VP. May as well have the shot at the big chair.
Yeah, that's the most rational explanation I can see for the muted response - that everyone thinks the election is lost no matter who runs. But it doesn't vibe with the polling at all. And is particularly galling if you plan to run on the fact that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy.
Somebody or another (might have been Silver) was speculating that some of the "dream" candidates people love to talk about (Whitmer, Shapiro, etc) likely don't want to run this cycle even if given the opportunity—for the reason you cite: Trump is favored.
But I gotta believe Harris would be an exception. In 2028 she'll be pushing into her mid 60s. Why wait? Also, if the nomination became available and she declined it, it's obviously not impossible that whoever secures said nomination might defeat Trump. Which could mean Harris's White House window is effectively shut for good.
Harris does politics for a living. When that's your profession, you don't refuse a major party nomination. And yes, she could win.
I can see that but have zero sympathy- that’s what being VP means- accepting the possibility that you’ll be put in the presidential role at any time. If you don’t want that possibility then you shouldn’t accept the VP gig. She seemed to like being a California senator and probably could have had a decades long career there - maybe she should have stayed put if she’s this risk averse.
If Biden loses, then isn't her career mostly done anyway? I think the odds of her coming back in 2028 are minuscule. I'm doubtful she could even make it back to the senate.
Why would it be done? Walter Mondale was nominated in 1984. He lost of course, but in terms of internal D politics, I see no reason to think she can't be nominated in 2028 after a loss in 2024 by Biden/Harris.
Given how much Democrats despise Trump, I think if she is on a ticket that loses to him - especially if people talk about the reason Biden not stepping down is because Harris is less popular - will be dead politically in the party.
Didn't Democrats hate Reagan the same way back in 1980? Even 20 years later liberals spoke about him like he was the devil.
I think they talked about Reagan that way because he convinced so many Democratic voters to vote for him. That's how he beat Carter by 9 points, and Mondale by 18.
Chait just published a good post making this point: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/do-democrats-care-more-about-their-jobs-than-beating-trump.html
FWIW, Nate Silver thinks the betting markets are underestimating Biden’s probability of dropping out. I don’t always agree with his assessments, but he’s good enough at making probabilistic predictions relative to consensus that I’m inclined to consider his view seriously. Do you think that Nate is overestimating the odds/efficacy of elite intervention, or something else?
I'm not so sure Nate is better at n=1 predictions than other people. But what's his reasoning here?
As I understand it, his main argument is simply that Biden will make another terrible blunder due to his cognitive decline, and then the game will be over.
Basically, that Biden’s problem is serious and consistent enough that it will continue generating negative news events (either bad public appearances or leaks— from a White House staff which has abandoned its previously tight-lipped posture and started privately disclosing more to the press) which cause him to lose further support.
There’s a story today about him not being able to come up with the word “veteran” while speaking and asking for help remembering the word for people who have served in the armed services.
The guy was a gaffe machine even when he was young, and every incident like this will now be seen as significant.
I fear Nate is underestimating the ugly possibility that Joe Biden cares about his career more than he prioritizes the national interest, and/or he's genuinely delusional about his chances (and Jill and Hunter are in any event calling the shots). I mean, if he's not playing with a full deck, is it really a stretch to believe he cannot accurately assess the odds or face up to polling evidence?
In other words, "negative news events" at this point just help Trump flip more states. They don't drive Biden out of the race. He doesn't care.
I would trust Silver. My main issue with his assessments is the clear condescension and disdain he displays to anyone a quarter inch to his left politically. I agree that progressives and leftists can be annoying but you could try to be a little more magnanimous in your delivery.
He holds everyone in disdain. He basically thinks being good at gambling qualifies him to be an expert on every single policy issue in the country.
It is nuts. Easily the most over-rated pop thinker of this century.
Is he considered a top thinker?
Nate is good at stats -> polling and gambling. That's valuable and people don't like his answers and so are dismissive of his skill. On the other hand, I don't see anyone going to him for thoughts on good policy, deep cultural issues, etc.
I said "pop thinker." And during COVID he spent a lot of time critiquing the COVID response and got treated like an expert in epidemiology based on the fact he's good at setting lines for MLB games.
As to his value in polling and gambling. The former is useful for society so I can give him credit there. Being good at gambling is the equivalent of being a drug merchant. You make profit by causing harm.
All gambling profits comes from addicts/whales who waste money on games of chance that could have gone to something productive. That is harmful not valuable for society.
I don’t think anyone treated Nate Silver like an “expert in epidemiology.” If anything, he was constantly told to shut up by people on Twitter for not being an expert in epidemiology.
If I correctly recall a lot of what he said in 2020 - 21, he was actually right that public health officials were trying too hard to shape public opinion and not being straight with people.
I'm not sure what a "pop thinker" is, so sure I guess he's overrated at it.
Otherwise, unless someone is doing something bad for society, I try not to assess their value. If he actually ran a casino, then I would agree with you about the gambling profits. But as best I can tell, he's a gambler and mostly writes about poker now which seems fine for those interested in it.
I just don't get why people care so much. If you don't find him interesting, then don't follow him. If you do find him interesting, then that's fine too.
Is he good at making probabilistic predictions relative to consensus? He is when it's as simple as just looking at a poll. But I don't know that his record at political punditry beyond polls is any better than anyone else.
That’s a good question— I wouldn’t weight this sort of prediction as heavily as one that he’s throughly modeled and backtested.
Nate's an excellent number-cruncher and data interpreter. What he's not so good at is people-ing.
Excellent example: During Gavin Newsom's 2021 recall election, Nate could not for the life of him understand why Democrats refused to offer up an alternative Democrat candidate to Gavin. He was literally like: "The probability that Larry Elder wins the California governorship if Democrats DON'T offer a non-Gavin alternative, on paper, is higher than if they do! WHY DON'T DEMOCRATS AGREE WITH ME HERE??"
Basically, the notion that giving the recall election any respect at all would have weakened Gavin more, did not factor into Nate's calculations. Because again, he's bad at people-ing.
Apropos--There's an irrational, but compelling reason why the Democratic electorate is unlikely to rebel against Biden:
Him beating Trump would be more than ideal; it would be just. Poetic, even.
Biden is the object reason Trump became the first president to be impeached twice. Three of Trump's four criminal indictments are due to his reaction to losing the 2020 election to Biden. Biden's victory over him is why Trump became the first president in US history to launch a coup.
For every Democrat who (like Nate) sees Biden's fart-as-debate-performance as a chronic, accelerating condition, there is at least one who not only sees it as a mere bad night, but is looking for any reason to make sure any future senior moments are also seen as bad nights.
Perhaps that's in the same category of irrationality as the death cult around Trump. But you can't blame them for wanting Biden to be the one to deal the deathblow to the dictator, and not give the latter the opportunity to say: "See, I told you he was a usurper. That usurper didn't have the guts to face me."
Nate doesn't believe Dems could possibly want that, because he is an android from Star Trek.
Not the worst thing to be. But kind of a blind spot.
I have to confess I've grown to really sour on Nate Silver. His obsession with gambling is really irritating. Why should anyone who isn't betting care what the betting markets think for presidential elections?
The theory is that a betting market is just a way to aggregate a bunch of people's opinions together. It's kind of like a polling average in the sense that lots of opinions are better than just one. The bettors also have better incentives than most pundits because they have money riding on getting the result correct not just on getting the result they want.
It's debatable how well the theory holds in practice, but that's the idea anyway.
I understand the concept. It is the same as the stock market. The stock market reflects the opinion of every person who invests on individual stocks. And that information is more reliable than the opinion of a single analyst, no matter how knowledgeable the individual analyst is. That has real value for society because it allows for more efficient allocation of capital.
The gambling market for elections reflects the opinion of every person who bets on election. And that information is more valuable than opinion of a single analyst, no matter how knowledgeable. I don't understand the value for society in knowing that Trump has a 78% chance of winning the presidency relative to 72% (making up numbers here as I don't have the energy to look up the betting markets)
What is the utility for society in knowing this difference if you're not betting on elections?
For the average individual I don't think there's much utility at all.
If someone is in the position of being able to exert some influence on Biden regarding whether or not to step down then it is valuable to have a sense of whether he's a better shot against Trump than Harris is for example. Heck Biden himself may read those numbers and weigh them into his decision making.
Maybe no one in a position of influence cares and the numbers don't matter at all. Maybe people take them badly and it makes things worse. I still think it's better to publish them than not to.
They aren't. Nate has jokingly referred to them as "Scottish Teens" because the greater legality of political betting in the UK means that's where a disproportionate share of a lot of those markets comes from.
I assume it is just gamblers who bet on sports.
I love Buttigieg and I think he'd a great Prime Minister in a different system, but he is way too dry, dispassionate, PMC-class McKinsey consultant personality to win a Presidential election. A lot of swing voters are voting based on who they'd rather have a beer with, which is why Bill Clinton won twice and his wife didn't. I do not see him as a majorly charismatic personality that could win over blue-collar voters
I’d have a beer with Mayor Pete! Or some tea, I don’t really like beer.
Unfortunately, the tea drinkers aren't the swing votes.
I would gladly have a Dr. Pepper Cherry Zero Sugar with Pete!
I think people really discount the McKinsey stint. Their brand is toxic. There might not be another name more responsible for the hollowing out of middle American manufacturing than McKinsey. Seems impossible to over-state how damaging that is for Pete.
I’d be very surprised if more than 2% of Americans know what McKinsey is.
2% of Americans have probably worked for a "consulting" firm at some point in their career. Accenture alone has 700,000 globally. Deloitte 500,000.
Um, what do you think the population of the U.S. is?
Ok. So I asked Meta AI. They landed on 2-5%. Here's the analysis:
Here are some rough estimates of the number of employees in the US for the bigger firms:
• McKinsey: around 10,000-15,000 employees
• Bain: around 8,000-12,000 employees
• Accenture: around 50,000-60,000 employees (note: this number includes a large number of non-consulting staff)
• Deloitte: around 80,000-100,000 employees (note: this number includes a large number of non-consulting staff)
Expanding to all consulting firms, we can estimate the total number of consulting professionals in the US to be in the hundreds of thousands, likely between 500,000 to 1,000,000. This is a rough estimate, as there are many boutique consulting firms, smaller firms, and independent consultants not accounted for in this estimate.
Assuming an average career span of 30-40 years, and considering the number of people who have worked in consulting at some point in their career, we can make a rough estimate of the percentage of US workers who have worked in consulting.
Let's assume that around 2-5% of the US workforce has worked in consulting at some point in their career. This estimate is based on the assumption that many professionals in industries like finance, technology, and healthcare have likely worked with consulting firms or have been employed by them at some point.
What do you think the 1st and 2nd year turnover rate is?
I doubt it. I'm skeptical the Bain association hurt Romney much and the little harm it caused was due to the Great Recession being so close. McKinsey really isn't that important to normies.
Only people I think it would really alienate are the Chapo Lefties who never vote Blue anyway.
IDK. The Obama ads were brutal:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/obama-super-pac-election-ohio-priorities-usa-action/
https://www.npr.org/2012/05/22/153253005/obama-campaign-hammers-away-at-bain-capital-issue
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/reasons-obama-doubling-down-bain-capital-attacks-against-romney/327843/
Seems comparable to Bain in terms of public perception, but in 2012 we had to explain who Bain was. McKinsey already has high (almost entirely negative) name recognition.
My jaw would collapse through the floor and into the sub-basement if more than a quarter of Americans could tell you who or what McKinsey is.
Same. I never heard of them until I went to law school and I come from a solid middle class NYC area family. They are a firm famous only among the affluent.
Management consulting firm aren't that famous. Heck finance isn't. They are nothing like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan in name recognition and even they aren't that famous.
"Vague value-squeezing consulting firm" is all I could tell you, and I'm a sufficiently high-information voter that I'm commenting on a paid politics-and-stuff blog on a Tuesday afternoon.
I'd be surprised. (1) Bain was and is *WAY* smaller. (2) their focus for a long time was much more on middle market and due diligence for M&A. McKinsey targeted Fortune 100 and drove the outsourcing agenda in a real way.
Especially since he refuses to talk about what he did while he was there. (If there's a time to break your NDA, it's when you're running for President and the voters need a complete sense of your record to make good judgments.)
Also ... their fucking CEO was found guilty of insider trading -- literally the worst offense in the world for a consultant and it was their *CEO*-- so if they want to sue you for breaking your 20 year old NDA when you were a 1st year analyst, then let em. Actually, if I was Pete, I would *try* to get them to sue me.
https://observer.com/2012/10/former-mckinsey-co-ceo-rajat-gupta-gets-two-years-prison-time-for-insider-trading/
EDIT: And then after they sued me, I would submit the 1000s of current and former McKinsey LinkedIn profiles where they all break their NDA by describing in explicit and hyperbolic detail every project they ever worked on while at the firm.
Secretary Buttigieg polls very well with swing state voters. In a poll done by Bloomberg in May of 5,000 swing state voters of six potential candidates he drew the most support across all demographic groups in the seven swing states polled. Governor Whitmer was the runner up.
A more recent poll indicated that he would get the most swing state wins in a head to head with the Former Guy, winning a projected 301 electoral votes. Whitmer was the runner up with around 290.
He has gone to these states consistently both as USDOT Secretary and personally as a campaign surrogate and fundraiser for the Biden campaign and state/federal candidates.
Sadly, I think this would pretty much disqualify all of the Democratic candidates. Whitmer (who's my preference and as an aside as a person who lived in Michigan for a while––knows how much Michiganders love their beer and Whitmer is no exception) is a smart, competent woman, which is a turn off to the "I want to have a beer with you crowd." They liked Bush because was not the sharpest tool in the shed and reflected their incompetence. I think these voters will actually going with Trump because he's arsonist not in spite of it. I think the narrative is wrong in assuming that people want stability and a moderate center-left institutionalist. Consistent voters do, but the people who will decide this election, did not watch the debate, don't watch mainstream tv news or read newspapers. The people who read this blog, read the New York Times are the exact opposite of the voters who will decide this election. Many of those voters are just fed up with the entire system and they like Trump because he promises chaos. They believe the system is beyond repair and so it needs to be burned down. These voters are the people who root for the Joker to defeat Batman.
You're conflating the MAGA base (the people who, yes, love political arson) with persuadable normies. The latter aren't well-informed about politics and policy, true. But I don't think in the main they're as grimly nihilistic as you describe.
I think the persuadable normies would be voting against Trump anyways. I'm not saying they aren't persuadable swing voters but I believe many Normies when push comes to shove will vote against Trump. The people we need to picking up are the subset of swing voters who very much disillusioned with the entire system and they may not like Trump at all but they dislike the system more. What I've been saying is this 2016 not 2020. The people who are deciding this election are not the ones in 2020. They are in fact not the normies. I think some other candidate besides Biden might shore up some of the people who might sit out and are more likely to vote against Trump anyways but I don't think that's enough at this point. We actually need a candidate who can pick off voters who have been leaning towards Trump for a while now. The swing voters who are leaning towards Biden or against Trump will not go for Trump suddenly. They may stick with democrats but I don't actually think they are large enough compared to the voters who feel disaffected. I may be wrong on this but my general feeling is this centrist moderate narrative fundamentally undercounts how many people beyond the MAGA base are fed up with the entire system and because there isn't a democrat promising transformational change they'll either sit out or go for Trump.
Oddly I think he would be a lousy Prime Minister which is why I hold him in disdain. I legit believe if he was President during the COVID economy recovery decisions the US would have chosen the path of non-full employment/low inflation which punishes the poor/working class considerably. And I'm convinced he's the type of guy who thinks the Great Recession recovery went well.
My disdain for him is about having a beer with the guy (an insult used to dismiss non-professionals voting decisions). It is I think he will show a lack of concern for the poor/working class elements of the coalition.
And yes I would vote for him if he was the nominee.
Pete is the kid in class who looked at his test, fist-pumped, then turned around and asked you how you did on the test.
Everyone hates that kid.