It's Not a Betrayal. It's a Reality Check.

Biden has passed the tipping point of survivability.

Listening to the speeches of Warren Harding, H.L. Mencken once wrote, reminded him “of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abscess!) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.”

Why, Mencken asked, was Harding so awful? Why did his rhetoric chronically sound “so flabby, so banal, so confused and childish, so stupidly at war with sense?” For Mencken, the answer was very simple.

When Dr. Harding prepares a speech he does not think of it in terms of an educated reader locked up in jail, but in terms of a great horde of stoneheads gathered around a stand. That is to say, the thing is always a stump speech; it is conceived as a stump speech and written as a stump speech. More, it is a stump speech addressed to the sort of audience that the speaker has been used to all of his life, to wit, an audience of small-town yokels, of low political serfs, or morons scarcely able to understand a word of more than two syllables, and wholly unable to pursue a logical idea for more than two centimeters.

Unkind, but not wrong.

Which, of course, brings us to Donald Trump’s acceptance speech last Thursday night. With apologies to William Wordsworth: Mencken! Thou shouldst be living at this hour. American has need of thee — she is a fen/ Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen.

As he accepted the GOP nomination for the third time, Trump delivered a speech for the Ages — unprecedented in its length, incoherence, and buncombe. And, of course, it told us nothing we did not already know. Trump is still Trump., bitter, dishonest, unburdened by self-control, and palpably unwell. It also reminded us that when we talk about cognitive decline, we also need to talk about toxic narcissism and the prospect of a genuine psychopath in the Oval Office.

The speech was also a warning.

In the exhausted aftermath of that marathon rumble and bumble, Democrats saw a gleam of hope; They could beat this guy.

But they aren’t beating this guy. Trump was leading before the debate; he was leading before he was shot; he was leading before the convention. And right now, he’s stronger and Joe Biden is weaker than ever.

We really need to talk about this.

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But first…

Flying dog.

**

Eli, in a contemplative mood

There’s an iceberg

The NYT is reporting that a Covid-isolated Joe Biden is angry about what he sees as the betrayal by Democratic leaders who have urged him to step aside.

Sick with Covid and abandoned by allies, President Biden has been fuming at his Delaware beach house, increasingly resentful about what he sees as an orchestrated campaign to drive him out of the race and bitter toward some of those he once considered close, including his onetime running mate Barack Obama.

At least publicly, he is digging in, leaving Democrats in political purgatory. But something has to give. And soon. I had some thoughts about this on Morning Joe Last Friday:

This is a very united Republican Party — united behind Trump. They’ve made it clear they’re not going to stand against his extreme agenda. That makes the former president more dangerous than ever before.

Right now, Donald Trump has never been stronger, and President Joe Biden has never been weaker. 

We need to take a deep breath and ask ourselves: What’s at stake here? …

All the signals are blinking, all the alarm bells are ringing…

What we are seeing now is a reality check, not a betrayal.

The problem is not the people saying, “Oh, my God, there’s an iceberg there. We need to avoid the iceberg. Let’s not hit the iceberg.”

The problem is the iceberg.

Where we stand now

• Biden has passed the tipping point of survivability. The dripdripdrip continues, as Biden loses donors, media allies, and the party’s elected officials — Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Adam Schiff, Sherrod Brown, Zoe Lofgren. And then there are the brutal new polls, including this one that shows Michigan slipping away.

  Writes former Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer:

  I’m not sure how President Biden can continue a campaign when most of the party believes he is leading us into electoral disaster. How will that work? Will Biden spend the fall traveling to states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin while the Senate candidates in those states avoid and besmirch him? Every public uttering of the President will be flyspecked. Every misstatement will become a mini-crisis.

  Every Democrat will be accused of covering up the President’s infirmities.

  That is an undignified death march towards complete MAGA control of the government.

• This decision is not about Joe Biden. It’s about the country. A lot of folks out there feel badly for the president; and all of this is undoubtedly quite painful. But the presidency is not a lifetime achievement award for past good deeds. The winner of this November’s election could determine the nation’s future for decades.

• Reportedly Biden is feeling “betrayed.’ But that goes both ways. Lots of Democrats (and swing voters) feel that they were misled about Biden’s condition. And his refusal to put the country over his personal ambition is generating its own backlash. Here’s my former colleague Mona Charen, an OG Never Trumper:

• If it’s not Joe, it will be Kamala. You should discount the wish-casting about an open convention that will sideline the African American woman who is the sitting vice president. Not going to happen. If Biden goes, it’s Kamala, who would inherit both the campaign infrastructure and the cash. Via NBC:

  Harris’ name is listed on FEC filings for both Biden’s statement of candidacy and his campaign account’s statement of organization, meaning she would likely be able to use the funds if she continues with the campaign. Campaign finance law also states that a campaign committee designated by a presidential candidate can be used by the party’s vice presidential candidate. 

• As Pfeiffer notes, “There is no risk-free path. Switching candidates does not guarantee victory.” Harris’s candidacy poses a whole slew of unknown unknowns. But it would shake up the race in unpredictable ways that might motivate the demoralized and disengaged voters Democrats need to turn out for down-ballot races.

• The two short-term worst-case scenarios: (1) Biden insists on staying and the DNC rams through his virtual nomination. (2) Biden quits but angrily lashes out at his fellow Democrats who pushed him. If either of those things happen, it will rip apart the Democratic Party.

• So, this is crucial: Will Biden go raging against the dying of the light, or will he make a graceful exit; passing the torch to a new generation, as he accepts the thanks of a grateful (and relieved ) party?.

• And finally, Donald Trump and the GOP really really really hope Biden stays in the race.

Scenes from the convention

Two guys with lots of opinions.

Puck’s John Heileman and, well you know.

Mood.