Riding with Biden now looks untenable
Continuous cracks in party unity are making the odds against Biden's favor.
Don’t be fooled by the recurrent notion that Joe Biden — and Joe Biden alone — will determine whether he’s nominated by the Democratic Party as their 2024 presidential standard-bearer in six weeks.
While it is Joe and Jill — along with the closed cocoon of Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and of course, Anita Dunn (to finagle the precise wording of the gracious, stoic but heroic goodbye) — who will ultimately have to come to the somber conclusion that most Democrats already have soberly arrived at, the party’s anxiety-induced elected officials in tandem with a ravenous media ecosystem standing ready to amplify them will hold an outsized effect on the president’s fate.
Americans have already rendered their verdict. Two-thirds believe Biden should exit the 2024 race, including a majority of Democrats. Top Democratic leaders are ambling there too, albeit slowly, reluctantly and ambiguously. The party, as individuals, as personalities, as powerbrokers with constituencies still hold sway among Democrats — Democrats who intrinsically believe in the collective. Especially at a time when their leader looks feeble.
What faces these VIP Democrats is whether they will remain as weak in private as their leader is seen in public?
They have about three weeks (~ two weeks away from convention time) to summon the courage and move publicly to force a historically risky switch through a unified movement that even a stubborn 81-year-old Irish Catholic president could not ignore.
What Democrats are grousing in private conversations and in text messages must be written on the White House wall. First gently and privately and with compassion, but if ignored, by resolute force to the outer world, meaning appearing in boxes alongside the wolves at the networks and inside the bubbles scrolled on social media.
Absent an instantaneous and miraculous transformation in Biden’s daily media performances — the Stephanopoulos sit-down did nothing to ameliorate the debate debacle, on Thursday, he flubbed his introduction of Ukrainian President Zelensky with … President Putin … are you expecting a Hail Mary with Lester Holt? — they can get there.
Look at where they sit now. They are already at the precipice.
Nancy Pelosi can no longer stomach saying she wants Biden to run.
Ave Maria, he’s lost the Qween.
Chuck Schumer’s privately telling donors he’s open to non-Biden options. And his office hasn’t even bothered to deny it.
Sherrod Brown — the last standing Senate Democrat representing red state Midwestern America (i.e Scranton Democrats) — is telling his colleagues Biden cannot win.
A lesser known Democrat in deep blue Washington State — Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — is uttering the same thing. Actually, give Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez more credit. She is not equivocating or parsing. She is not fucking around. “Biden is going to lose to Trump,” she says.
One New York Times report cited congressional Democrats privately declaring Biden should go by … a 9-to-1 margin.
It’s easy to forget Biden was already losing to Trump well before the debate. He was down in May and in March, after his BFD SOTU, and in January. He’s been losing all year long. The voters were telling us, but as usual, Washington was slow to follow the lead of the mids populating the country.
Even the electeds who are sticking with Biden out of personal loyalty or genuine affection are failing this moment’s test. They are struggling to present an affirmative case for Joe, and perhaps more importantly, articulate a substantive contrast with Trump and all of his undesirability.
The pro-Biden camp oozes exasperated acquiescence, a despondent acceptance. It’s walking the plank to loss, a defeat in which most Democrats say they believe could vanquish democracy and rule of law for good.
In fact, this election is no longer about Donald Trump at all. Imagine that.
He was convicted on 34 felony counts just six weeks ago. His villainy has vanished from the political ether.
The Democrats have a full six entire weeks until their convention. They can escape their own stench too.
But they must unite in order to pull off what is admittedly a risky and unprecedented gambit that may very well fail. Coming to terms that the riskier option is still the better one is part of the seven-step process.
It means Sherrod holding hands with Gluesenkamp Perez. AOC locking arms with Jon Tester. It’s Jaime Harrison signing on the line with Terry McAuliffe. It’s Gavin Newsom aligning with Jared Golden.
Or something close to a fortified template of recognizable names representing the heart of the party from all parts of the country, together urging Biden, with all of their respect, heartfelt love and gratitude, to save democracy one more time. It could actually could end up quite inspiring and invigorating for a party swallowed by acceptance.
If Biden were still to thumb his nose at the plea of the majority of his party’s officials and powerbrokers, a legacy-wrecking loss would rest solely with him.
Adam Smith, the representative from Washington State, who has articulated the most candid and effective case for Biden’s withdrawal, admits that Biden “could still win” this November.
What is not debatable, he told “The Daily,” is “at this point … we can do better than Joe Biden for a candidate.”
“Joe Biden, he’s not an effective messenger. And the frustration for me as a Democrat, we’ve got a great message,” Smith said.
So who would carry it, you ask? Does it have to be Kamala? Big Gretch? Do we need another safe white moderate male? Ugh, no one knows them? What about the process? The fight? It looks messy. Risky.
All valid questions and ones that many of the above names would have to answer as they compiled their game plan.
But the only blessing for Democrats in the June debate disaster is that it provided an early reveal and opportunity. Six full weeks until their convention. One hundred and fifteen days until the election.
The biggest barrier to a Democratic recovery isn’t time. It’s the inability to accept an uncomfortable reality and the human reluctance to act brazenly.
