Electoral Death By A Thousand Leaks
Few Democratic officials have publicly said anything, but have happily leaked that they want Biden to quit after his debate faceplant, fueling a media obsession.
A week ago, President Biden held a nearly one-hour press conference where, while he rambled a bit at times (and had one very noticeable gaffe right out of the gate!), he showed command of facts and policy that should have put to bed people’s concerns about his mental capacity. Monday, in the above interview with Lester Holt of NBC News, he was even sharper, combative, giving a great answer about the civility issue that my wife (who generally dislikes politics) loudly cheered, which surprised me. Again, I thought, well, this will probably slow the roll of any further Democrats coming out publicly calling for him to withdraw from the race.
Somehow it still has not stopped.
It’s been a bad few weeks for the President. He’s clearly pissed off at a lot of things: himself for having a bad debate; the media for hammering him about it; the party for hand-wringing and bed-wetting (which is a Democratic tradition at this point); and, based on subtext in the last couple of interviews, that voters think Donald Trump isn’t too old to be president when Trump is just short of 80 himself! On that last point, I can’t disagree with him. It’s absurd that voters are like, nope, Trump isn’t too old to be president at 79, but Biden at 81 is. And realistically, it’s hard to tell whether the poll data is realistic or a reflection of the media practically being in the tank for Trump, especially after the attempt on his life.
There has been a fever to proclaim some sort of Hand of God moment keeping Trump from being killed by the media. The Washington Post and the New York Times have tripped all over themselves to ordain him as the chosen one.
Yesterday Rep. Adam Schiff, the likely next senator for California (and someone who went from a man I respected to a man who shiv’d Katie Porter by talking up a right-wing retired baseball player as a legitimate candidate so she’d finish third and couldn’t face him in the general election), called for Biden to step down. Schiff is likely a proxy for his political fairy godmother, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Reports have come out in the last 24 hours that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also asked the President to quit the race. Today it was MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, a longtime Biden backer, joining the dropout chorus. When you factor in the repeated pieces by the media about Biden’s age, this is, as I wrote earlier on BlueSky, a self-propelled machine of “questions about Biden’s age persist.” This slow public drip-drip-drip by Democratic elected officials provides just enough oil to the gears of the media machine to keep pushing forward. At some point, Democrats need to consider what is worse: arguing for an extended length of time without success that the President should step down, or dropping the pressure so he can run without taking repeated friendly fire.
I continue to stick by my belief that if it’s going to happen, it has to happen this weekend. If Biden doesn’t drop out, he’s been fragged so badly that winning will be exceedingly difficult. If he does drop out, the only person able, at this point, to be the candidate without major hurdles would be the Vice President, Kamala Harris. It may be that Biden’s announcement of having COVID, days after he said perhaps a medical issue would cause him to drop out, is the vehicle to do so without losing face. Perhaps we’re too cynical for thinking that, but one thing that polling is consistently clear on is that Americans have their lowest level of trust ever in governmental institutions. We shouldn’t still be dealing with two Boomers duking it out for the Presidency thirty-plus years after the first one was elected (Bill Clinton, 1992). There should’ve been a much more honest assessment by Democrats about the feasibility of Joe Biden holding up against the demands of a modern campaign and disinformation environment at 81 years old. We know that Trump gets a pass. He always gets a pass.
Instead of complaining about it, the party should have done something about it, brought this pressure earlier, convinced Biden that handing off to his Vice-President or having an open primary would benefit the party in terms of news coverage and in honing a message. It’s absurd that Donald Trump is even within range of the White House after his final year in office, after brazenly stealing classified documents, trying to overthrow election results, inciting an insurrection against the government, and violating his oath of office. He’s a convicted felon whose handpicked Supreme Court justices basically said, yes, it really is okay to commit crimes if you’re the President. None of this is good or healthy for our future as a nation, and it is a damning indictment of Democratic leadership that they did not prepare for this outcome. It is a damning indictment that they have allowed this death by a thousand anonymous comments to Axios and POLITICO and the Times to persist in the face of what is considered a grave threat to American democracy. Our only choice shouldn’t be an aged President in his 80s—it truly invites comparisons to the fall of the Weimar Republic in Germany when the similarly-aged Paul von Hindenburg gave way to Adolf Hitler.
The damage is done. Either he stays and everyone shuts up, or he goes and we elevate the Vice President so she can have a fair chance to beat Trump in November. But this, this endless circular firing squad, must come to an end in the next few days. Our continued freedom demands it.