A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. They largely ignored Biden’s weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.
Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.
Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as a rosy assessment of Biden’s path forward. The chat function was disabled and there were no questions allowed.
And there is the problem laid bare - there are too many people associated with the campaign who have a vested interest in it continuing, and are unable or unwilling to step back and listen.
Its been blindingly obvious for the last 18 months that Biden is a very bad choice for the democratic nomination. But the entire discourse has been dominated by an attitude that if you don’t support biden, you’re basically support trump.
It is the Biden supporters who are going to hand the presidency on a silver platter to Trump.
They need to step back and look at the bigger picture. This is not just some Republican talking point to reflexively ignore and fight against. Biden IS too old, and he DOES come across as confused. And he is making trump look better by comparison - he is lowering the bar of expectation and scrutiny of trump because the focus is on Bidens age and mental capacity.
The democrats have to ditch biden right now and begin the urgebt search for a better, younger candidate to unite behind. Its already very late in the day but every day they continue with Biden is another wasted.
If you don’t support Biden (by voting for him) you’re supporting Trump (by splitting the vote), but in this phrase Biden can be replaced by anyone chosen by the Democrats to be the president, it doesn’t need to be Biden, it just happens to be him right now.
The issue (before Thursday) was that the anti-Biden wing of the party couldn’t really demonstrate that the alternatives had any better shot of beating Trump at all. All the reasonable alternatives backed out of any major 2024 challenge precisely because they are young and can wait until 2028 (or even later!) to make their push. Once Biden announced for 2024, it took a lot of the momentum out of finding any Democratic challenger.
There is an assumption, though, that the person Democrats are nominating in 2024 is the same man who beat Trump in 2020. I don’t think we can make that assumption anymore. Biden had his chance to demonstrate that and blew it. He doesn’t get that many more chances. If he continues to blow them, then Trump wins by default. No Democrat wants that.
2016 all over again
The primaries have already happened and Biden soundly won them. How exactly do you see a replacement being selected?
That assumes he’s going to drop out, which frankly isn’t going to happen.
Unfortunately.