All of us have endured nine years of gaslighting by the official Republican apparatus. These same people have anonymously leaked to the press that of course Trump is crazy, and that of course they know it, but they can't actually SAY it publicly. And why can't they say it publicly? Because the Republican party is now a cult of personalit…
All of us have endured nine years of gaslighting by the official Republican apparatus. These same people have anonymously leaked to the press that of course Trump is crazy, and that of course they know it, but they can't actually SAY it publicly. And why can't they say it publicly? Because the Republican party is now a cult of personality.
The Democratic party, however, is not a cult. And I will be deeply suspicious of anyone within the Democratic establishment who attempts to tell me that my eyes did not see what they saw on Thursday night, or that my ears did not hear what they heard, that things aren't really that bad and I should just suck it up and pretend everything is fine.
There are two Joe Bidens: Joe Biden the President, who is capably running the country, and Joe Biden the Candidate, who is incapably running for president.
Joe Biden the President has been a great and consequential leader. But that is not who is running against Donald Trump; Joe Biden the Candidate is. And what we all saw on Thursday night was catastrophic.
Every one of us knows what is at stake in this election, which is essentially everything. Not just for us, but for our children and grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, and all the generations to come.
The truth is that literally no one—including Joe Biden—has a crystal ball that can reveal what will ultimately be the best ticket to beat Donald Trump in November. Maybe Biden-Harris can pull it out in a squeaker—or maybe they can't. Maybe a Harris-TBD ticket would do better, or maybe it would do worse. Maybe a ticket topped by Newsom or Whitmer or Buttegieg or Raimondo or Shapiro or Brown or Moore or Beshear or fill-in-the-blank with any of a dozen other stars in Democratic circles would garner more votes from swing voters in swing states—or maybe it wouldn't. As maddening as it is, none of us can know for sure; it's all a guessing game, and polling on the topic is woefully inadequate. So we should all approach this with the appropriate humility.
But the conversation of whether there is a better option than Joe Biden is going to be had, and it absolutely is being had across the country and around the world. (I'm an American who now lives in Italy, and trust me, we are ALL talking about this.) Because it's not just the Editorial Board of The New York Times calling on Biden to drop out. As one example: In nearly eight years of listening to Pod Save America, I've never heard anything like their reaction to this debate. So many F-bombs, so much consternation that we are all in this horrific situation.
It would be highly irrational to dismiss such concerns, to chide them for not being team players, to suggest they just shut up and get back to work. No. Not this time. It may be big and messy and public and without precedent, but this gigantic elephant in the room cannot just get shoved back under the couch cushions. We need to at least have the conversation.
One way or another, Joe Biden has the biggest decision of his life to make. Quickly. And if he decides to stay in the race, then our other shining stars have the biggest decision of their lives to make, as to whether they will step forward and attempt to challenge him publicly for the nomination, or not (if such a thing is even possible according to the convention rules?).
I am alarmed. Right now, I do not know what I think is best, and I'm not arguing for any particular position, other than that this is not the time for the establishment to tell people to fall into line. This is the time for the Democratic family to hash this out. If we really believe democracy is in peril, then we need to act like it.
If Joe Biden remains the nominee, I will of course still vote for him and will of course still work to get him re-elected. But for today, I will not just pretend that everything is fine, that it's too late to change course, when the future of the country is on the line.
I'm sure we all have PTSD from 2016. We're all exhausted, we're all anxious, we're all afraid, many of us are angry. But none of that will be helped by simply sticking our heads in the sand and not having a party-wide conversation about where in the hell we go from here.
I, of course, am not really in the rooms where such conversations are (hopefully) happening, so I will largely have to trust that the people in the appropriate places are saying the frank, blunt, confrontational, and uncomfortable things that need to be said, to the people who need to hear them, and that those people are receptive to what they're told, and that they will have the wisdom needed to make the best decision possible in the midst of this utter cluster.
All of us have endured nine years of gaslighting by the official Republican apparatus. These same people have anonymously leaked to the press that of course Trump is crazy, and that of course they know it, but they can't actually SAY it publicly. And why can't they say it publicly? Because the Republican party is now a cult of personality.
The Democratic party, however, is not a cult. And I will be deeply suspicious of anyone within the Democratic establishment who attempts to tell me that my eyes did not see what they saw on Thursday night, or that my ears did not hear what they heard, that things aren't really that bad and I should just suck it up and pretend everything is fine.
There are two Joe Bidens: Joe Biden the President, who is capably running the country, and Joe Biden the Candidate, who is incapably running for president.
Joe Biden the President has been a great and consequential leader. But that is not who is running against Donald Trump; Joe Biden the Candidate is. And what we all saw on Thursday night was catastrophic.
Every one of us knows what is at stake in this election, which is essentially everything. Not just for us, but for our children and grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, and all the generations to come.
The truth is that literally no one—including Joe Biden—has a crystal ball that can reveal what will ultimately be the best ticket to beat Donald Trump in November. Maybe Biden-Harris can pull it out in a squeaker—or maybe they can't. Maybe a Harris-TBD ticket would do better, or maybe it would do worse. Maybe a ticket topped by Newsom or Whitmer or Buttegieg or Raimondo or Shapiro or Brown or Moore or Beshear or fill-in-the-blank with any of a dozen other stars in Democratic circles would garner more votes from swing voters in swing states—or maybe it wouldn't. As maddening as it is, none of us can know for sure; it's all a guessing game, and polling on the topic is woefully inadequate. So we should all approach this with the appropriate humility.
But the conversation of whether there is a better option than Joe Biden is going to be had, and it absolutely is being had across the country and around the world. (I'm an American who now lives in Italy, and trust me, we are ALL talking about this.) Because it's not just the Editorial Board of The New York Times calling on Biden to drop out. As one example: In nearly eight years of listening to Pod Save America, I've never heard anything like their reaction to this debate. So many F-bombs, so much consternation that we are all in this horrific situation.
It would be highly irrational to dismiss such concerns, to chide them for not being team players, to suggest they just shut up and get back to work. No. Not this time. It may be big and messy and public and without precedent, but this gigantic elephant in the room cannot just get shoved back under the couch cushions. We need to at least have the conversation.
One way or another, Joe Biden has the biggest decision of his life to make. Quickly. And if he decides to stay in the race, then our other shining stars have the biggest decision of their lives to make, as to whether they will step forward and attempt to challenge him publicly for the nomination, or not (if such a thing is even possible according to the convention rules?).
I am alarmed. Right now, I do not know what I think is best, and I'm not arguing for any particular position, other than that this is not the time for the establishment to tell people to fall into line. This is the time for the Democratic family to hash this out. If we really believe democracy is in peril, then we need to act like it.
If Joe Biden remains the nominee, I will of course still vote for him and will of course still work to get him re-elected. But for today, I will not just pretend that everything is fine, that it's too late to change course, when the future of the country is on the line.
I'm sure we all have PTSD from 2016. We're all exhausted, we're all anxious, we're all afraid, many of us are angry. But none of that will be helped by simply sticking our heads in the sand and not having a party-wide conversation about where in the hell we go from here.
I, of course, am not really in the rooms where such conversations are (hopefully) happening, so I will largely have to trust that the people in the appropriate places are saying the frank, blunt, confrontational, and uncomfortable things that need to be said, to the people who need to hear them, and that those people are receptive to what they're told, and that they will have the wisdom needed to make the best decision possible in the midst of this utter cluster.