We Really Do Need to Talk About This

The sum of all panics

“One thing was clear by the end of the first 2024 presidential faceoff: Democrats were in a panic following Biden’s halting debate night performance. Their consternation encompassed the halls of Congress, the moneyed coastal cities of donors, the party strongholds across the country and the bars and living rooms where Democratic stalwarts gathered to cheer on their guy.” — The Washington Post

“It’s like Satan is writing the script.’ - text from Never Trump Republican

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Welcome to the Morning After the Morning After. Where are we on D+2?

Dems are still in a panic, but some are taking comfort from Joe Biden’s en fuego comeback performance at a North Carolina rally on Friday.

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden said in a more vigorous tone than at the debate. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.”

Good stuff, but it would have been better if that guy had shown up on Thursday night.

**

But first, we need dog pictures today. Now more than ever.

Eli is airborne.

The debate we need to have

Let’s get something out of the way right away. I am with Bill Maher when he says, “I’d vote for Biden’s head in a jar of blue liquid versus Trump.”

Never Trump means absolutely never Trump, as in never ever.

Restoring that mendacious Vesuvius of deceit, sedition, and corruption to power would be a constitutional and moral catastrophe — and a tragic chapter in the American story. Some of us have been sounding that alarm for the last nine years; and it is now more alarming than ever.

That’s why we are having this conversation — not because we are squishy, but precisely because we grasp the urgency of the threat we face.

I mention this because the initial panic has been followed by a doubling-down-on-denial backlash. On social media, folks like Tom Nichols and I are being royally ratioed by Biden loyalists who are not only standing by their man (which is admirable), but also seem to be demanding that we not talk about what we all saw Thursday night. And that we should definitely not talk about doing anything about it.

In other words, they want to double-down on the sort of gaslighting and denialism that has brought us to this point — as if not talking about this omnishambles will somehow mitigate the damage.

But we all saw it. Fifty million Americans saw it. Thursday’s debate wasn’t simply a “bad night,” or a gaffe. It was a disaster and there is no way to spin it away. “Telling people they didn't see what they saw is not the way to respond to this,” remarked former Obama aide, Ben Rhodes.

The debate was especially devastating because it did not feel like a one-off; it seemed to confirm all of the fears about Biden’s fitness not just for the presidential campaign, but about his ability to serve another four years; and none of those concerns are going away. More immediately, it raised questions about his ability to take on and beat Donald Trump.

As former Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri noted afterward, "Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn't do it.”

For Democrats, then, Thursday’s debate should have been a moment of startling clarity: If the party does not make a change, Trump is very likely to win this election.

At this point there are no ideal options. Staging an intervention now will be messy and painful, and it is not at all clear what the Democratic Plan B would even look like, or if it’s even possible.

But if Democrats really believe that Trump represents an existential threat to our constitutional order, they need to act like it.

Because, ultimately, this isn’t about Joe Biden.

It’s not about whether he is a good man or has been an effective president. As much as you may like the guy, the prime directive of 2024 isn’t re-electing the president — it is preventing Donald Trump’s return to power and the parade of horribles that he will bring in his wake.

As Nichols wrote yesterday, the choice between Biden and Trump is an easy one, but this is also a time for blunt honesty. The debate, he writes, was “a full-blown, Hindenburg-level disaster.” Nichols admits he is torn. Part of him “stubbornly wants to argue that Democrats and the prodemocracy coalition they lead should stay the course with Biden—a good man and a good president—the political realist in me recognizes the danger of such obstinacy.”

And this is the heart of it all.

“Donald Trump must be defeated,” Nichols writes, “and after last night’s debate, I am no longer sure that Biden is electable.”

**

Thursday’s FUBAR has already radically reshaped the narrative of 2024.

Democrats can win an election that is a “referendum on whether an unstable coup enthusiast should get a second crack at power,” Nick Catoggio writes. But “Biden’s performance has foreclosed that possibility.”

The race will now be a referendum not just on his first term but on his ability to remain lucid during a second, and there’s no way to undo the impression he left at the debate with respect to that. He can’t win anymore.

Against all odds, the Democratic Party has maneuvered itself into placing a disgraced, vindictive authoritarian on a glide path to returning to office. Donald J. Trump, criminal sociopath, will now be seen by swing voters as the less unfit of their two options, God help us. 

**

Biden’s campaign also now faces a sharpened credibility crisis, even among supporters.

“The View” host Alyssa Farah Griffin says after watching President Biden’s shaky debate against former President Trump, she feels deceived by the White House about his fitness for office. 

“I feel duped,” she said Friday on the ABC daytime talk show during a discussion about the CNN debate the night before in Atlanta.

“I feel like I’ve been told this guy’s doing gymnastics,” Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official-turned-fierce critic of the 45th president, said of Biden.

Bari Weiss is pretty ticked off about the whole thing:

The debate was not just a catastrophe for President Biden. And boy—oy—was it ever.

But it was more than that. It was a catastrophe for an entire class of experts, journalists, and pundits, who have, since 2020, insisted that Biden was sharp as a tack, on top of his game, basically doing handstands while peppering his staff with tough questions about care for migrant children and aid to Ukraine.

That reaction is likely to be reflected in much more hostile media coverage of Biden’s “limitations.” On CNN, Axios’s Alex Thompson ripped the Biden camp’s instinct to gaslight:

“I can tell you that the White House’s response every single time has come up for three and a half years has been to deflect, to gaslight, to not tell the truth, not just to reporters, not just to other Democrats, but even at times to themselves about the president’s limitations at his age.”

It’s going to get worse. And harder to spin.

**

As of Saturday morning, though, Democrats seem reluctant to break with Biden; and the president seems determined to stay in the race. Axios reports: “The only way President Biden steps aside, despite his debate debacle, is if the same small group of lifelong loyalists who enabled his run suddenly — and shockingly — decides it's time for him to call it quits.”

This seems unlikely and there is already an angry backlash brewing among some ride-or-die Biden fans who are furiously blocking and unfollowing critics who are sounding the alarm.

But, as Brian Klaas argues, calls for Biden to withdraw are signs of a healthy political party. “The party that’s rallying around a convicted felon, whatever he may do, is the one to worry about.”

Republican fealty to Donald Trump—no matter his crimes, no matter his moral transgressions—is the hallmark of authoritarian devotion to a man, regardless of policies or ideas. It’s the telltale sign of a broken political party—one that long ago abandoned principles and values, falling back instead on an amoral, unwavering allegiance, by which Trump can do no wrong.

By contrast, the Democratic freak-out over Joe Biden is a sign of a healthy political party. Individual leaders—no matter how effective, decent, or well-intentioned—are not sacred cows, to be valued above the national interest. Democrats view Biden the way that normal political parties view their leaders: as a vessel to achieve policy goals that will improve the lives of citizens. Nothing more, nothing less.

Dear Joe, thank you for your service

You get the flavor of The Atlantic’s reaction from the headlines:

• A Debate Disaster for Joe Biden - David Graham

• Dropping Out Is Biden’s Most Patriotic Option - Jerusalem Demsas

• Time to Go, Joe Biden - Mark Leibovich

• Biden’s Loved Ones Owe Him the Truth - Peter Wehner

• Someone Needs to Take Biden’s Keys - Franklin Foer

• The Biden-Replacement Operation - Ron Brownstein

Bloomberg:

• Biden’s Debate Failure May Mean It’s Time to Step Aside — Tim O’Brien

Politico:

• The Worst Debate Performance in American History - Jeff Greenfield

And then there is NYT:

• And late Friday afternoon, the Gray Lady’s editorial board wrote: “To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race.”

The Best of the Panic

Tim Alberta on Xitter:

Act 1: Biden wins in 2020 by 43k votes under ideal circumstances (new absentee rules, no third party spoilers, Trump fumbling lethal pandemic, economy shuttered) after running a nonexistent campaign.

Act 2: Dems spend 3.5 years stroking Biden's ego while refusing to say publicly what they do in private, responding to media questions about his age and capacities with "just like you doubted him in 2020!"

Act 3: A clearly diminished Biden—now facing a harsh political environment and scrutiny he largely avoided during the last election—loses every battleground state because, in a shocking twist, it is no longer 2020.

Matt Labash:

Biden “sounded like a dying humidifier or my great-grandfather giving his last will and testament,” that even if Biden grew stronger as the night wore on, “he seemed to be auditioning for the glue factory,” and that “the big loser tonight was my sobriety” since “the only way to face the awful choice before us is stone-cold plastered.”

Which is a colorful way of saying that with 129 days to go before the election, if Joe Biden is the only thing standing between us and a man who many like me believe is a felonious, sociopathic narcissist who has already tried to throw over democracy once, and could readily do so again, then we are in deep doo-doo.

Joe Klein:

Trump was Trump. A lying, petulant charlatan. But that won’t make much difference. He didn’t even need to point out how frail Biden seemed—although at one point, he said, “I don’t understand what he just said.” Neither did I, neither did anyone. Trump understood that he didn’t need to ridicule the geezer—indeed, it would have seemed cruel, even for Trump. He just stuck to calling Biden a terrible President; Biden was on the ropes from the first minute, unable to defend himself. Someone should have stopped the fight.

Bill Kristol:

For Never Trumpers this is particularly tricky. 

How many times have we used this Orwell quotation against Trump, his apologists, and his enablers: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command”?

We’ve been right to do so. As we saw and heard again last night, Donald Trump is a liar and demagogue. He is also an aspiring authoritarian. He is a dangerous and contemptible figure. He should never again be president.

But how can we deny the evidence of our eyes and ears when it comes to Joe Biden?

The evidence of our eyes and ears is that Biden should step aside.

We will be accused of being handwringers. But it is not we who are wringing our hands in private while putting on a good front in public.

We will be accused of urging a risky course. But surely the greater risk is trying to persuade our fellow citizens to pretend all is well. A messy and unpredictable open Democratic convention would be risky. But that risk is better than an orderly march to a neat and predictable defeat.

Peter Hamby and John Heileman in Puck:

Believe me, Democrats of all stripes are now in full-blown freak-out mode, angry that an obviously-aging Biden stubbornly sought a second term, frantically Googling how to replace him on the ticket before or during the Democratic National Convention, and blitzing reporters with texts like the ones I received from a longtime donor just as I was writing this: “Talk to me! Are we fucked?” Everyone wants answers and no one has them.

Susan Glasser in the New Yorker: Was the Debate the Beginning of the End of Joe Biden’s Presidency?

The news of the debate was not Trump saying crazy, untrue things, though he did so in abundance. It was Biden. The President of the United States, eighty-one years old and asking to be returned to office until age eighty-six, looked and sounded old. Too old. His voice was muffled. He lost his train of thought. He raced through answers. When Trump talked, the split screen showed Biden staring, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, in a way that made him look even older.

Biden struggled so much that even several scathing pre-planned lines failed to land with any force, as when he brought up Trump’s hush-money conviction and said, “You have the morals of an alley cat,” or when he fumbled over himself saying that Trump was the first President since Herbert Hoover to lose as many American jobs. Sure, Trump was also rambling and incoherent, but at a much louder decibel level. He looked and sounded healthier; Biden was literally painful to watch.

David Ignatius (who really did try to warn us):

Thursday night had the sense of an ending. There was something Shakespearean about the gaunt, haunted face of Biden on stage squinting as if to see in a dwindling light, often struggling for words even as the nobility of his purpose remained. I was reminded of a passage in “King Lear,” when Edgar advises his struggling father, the Duke of Gloucester, “Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither; Ripeness is all.”

But an ending is also a new beginning. That’s what Biden, with the wisdom of his age, can give to the country.

Jonathan Martin: Democrats Face the Hard Truth: It Might Be Time to Talk About Biden’s Retirement

Crestfallen by the president’s weak voice, pallid appearance and meandering answers, numerous Democratic officials said Biden’s bet on an early debate to rebut unceasing questions about his age had not only backfired but done damage that may prove irreversible. The president had, in the first 30 minutes of the debate, fully affirmed doubts about his fitness.

A second House Democrat said “reflection is needed” from Biden about the way ahead and indicated the private text threads among lawmakers were even more dire, with some saying outright that the president needed to drop out of the race….

Many top party officials, however, believe Biden can’t be persuaded let alone pressured. One Democratic governor called the debate “beyond bad,” but said it was “too late” to nominate a new standard bearer.

For those close to Biden, his appearance was the realization of their worst fears. His top strategists sought to make the best of it — citing focus groups and snap polls that showed voters also detested former President Donald Trump — but made no attempt to hide their disappointment. Nobody in Biden’s orbit wants to be the one to approach him about whether to stay in the race, but as one adviser told me: “it’s got to be a conversation and he will hate it.”

George Will:

Perhaps the nation is by now in a torpor, resigned to the spectacle of, as the phrase goes, two bald men fighting over a comb. Perhaps, however, Thursday night — the campaign’s nadir (so far) — was for the best. The Democratic Party might yet give a thought to the national interest. Persisting with Biden’s candidacy, which is as sad as it is scary, rather than nominating a plausible four-year president, would rank as the most reckless — and cruel — act ever by a U.S. party.

And finally…