Pundit’s veto. The press said “jump” and every liberal in America said “how high”?
Go back and watch the debate and then reflect on the last week of news coverage. It’s not the debate that is making Biden’s numbers fall. It was bad but not that damaging, and I am sure regular Americans could tell he was giving decent answers, even if the press thinks the average American can’t speak English and communicates with grunts. He lost 1% in that debate at most.
It’s the press BURYING him that is forcing him out of the race. And our pitiful pants-wetting base begged our leaders to do what the smart man in the newspaper said, because we literally inversely trust all of our intuitions since 2016.
There was NO REASON for the press to not wait for the party to begin acting rather than DEMAND action from literally SECONDS after the debate ended. If it was actually as bad as they said - and it WASN’T - then they shouldn’t have needed to perform so much heavy advocacy.
Hope the Times enjoys all their blood money when people open their putrid, stinking pages to read about how a monster is destroying our country.
Oh my God. I cannot believe they published that. I know it’s a guest op ed but that is staggering civic irresponsibility.
No comments allowed. Figures.
Since the Times seems to be so in favor of an authoritarian government, I say they be subjected to brutal, borderline-constitutional congressional investigations because they are not on the level.
Very interesting and deeply logical. I certainly will vote for Biden, as I did in 2020, but what concerns me about both parties is that they fail to have a "minor-league system," where they train younger people with the express intent of having them fill the candidacy slots as the elder politicians leave office. I feel that Biden's Presidency should have been prefixed with the promise that he would serve four years in office, but that by 2024, a younger person would be running for Democratic re-election. That could be Kamala Harris, although my personal choice would be Sen. Mark Kelly, Arizona. But, there are many other possibilities, like Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky. Similarly, the Republicans have many younger folks who could replace Trump, Geoff Duncan of Georgia, for one. But. in neither party have these up-and-comers been seriously groomed for bigger roles, and that is a huge fault in the bureaucracy of these parties, and it has led to what we have now, where two embarrassingly old men are all these parties have to represent them. As an old baby-boomer myself, I feel I may level that criticism at these two parties for completely missing the opportunity to introduce fresh, but tested and trained talent to the voters.
I mean, I don't know that there aren't farm teams for both parties out there. There are plenty of good candidates in both parties, currently governors or senators or otherwise, who *could* run credible presidential campaigns. It's just that there are two presidents seeking another term right now and it's always really hard to compete with that.
I'm disappointed with Democrats but will absolutely vote blue up and down the ballot. If they have not been actively preparing a group of worthy replacements, I'm even more disappointed. There are so many smart, ethical people ready to serve.
Regarding trump, there is not, and likely cannot ever be, any replacement. Whatever happened to maga brains in 2016 is limited to a single “hero.” The brainwashing op worked too well by far. When he's dead and gone, they'll be finished, too.
Then we would have had 3.5 years of “are YOU going to vote for a president who’s such a loser he can’t even govern for a double term” or some such nonsense
Fantasy takes are built on believing every little puppy in his little den can face the sun's heat with data so clear that rarely people have translated to winning on the national stage.
Frustrated by people saying the media isn’t covering Tr*mp enough. That’s absurd. Since 2015 we’ve been on the Tr*mp media echo chamber I LITERALLY CANNOT STAND TO HEAR ABOUT HIM ANY MORE. Putting Biden back into a low-key behind the scenes role to beat the other side is a terrible strategy. Nothing is a guarantee but both of these men should step down imho. I’ll vote blue no matter what but there are a lot of us completely OVER the Old Guard. Either be a bridge to the next generation (as was said) or admit it was a lie to court us in 2020. This is a pathetic disaster and I’m disappointed by it. Corporate media, aside, this can’t be a good look to other countries.
Joe Biden is a great president. He also needs to be a great candidate, and running for President is grueling. Biden has to campaign hard to earn the votes of independents, young voters, and anti-Trump Republicans.
The debate isn’t the only sign that Joe isn’t up for it. Why didn't he spend this past post-debate week doing interviews and unscripted events? The campaign knows that Joe needs to calm the fears that he’s too old. If it was just a head cold, Joe could redeem himself by repeatedly demonstrating his ability to think on his feet. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes.
We have to beat Trump! Joe Biden can’t be scared to answer questions. Playing it safe, hoping voters will know he’s better, will give Trump the win. There’s so much at stake. We need to be aggressive, up and down the ticket.
The concern about Biden's capacity comes from voters, voters who were either already supporting or gettable for his campaign, before last week. Pundits and politicians have to talk about it because it's real. Millions of Americans saw the debate, more than have seen all other events of the campaign.
There are many things that are real, including Trump's anti-democratic plans for a second term and a serious of wildly false claims he made in last week's debates, and these haven't received a tenth the coverage that Biden's age has.
I mean "real" in terms of visible audience interest, the catnip of legacy media. They don't do civic responsibility so much anymore.
Would-be Dem voters know Trump is a liar; there's not much to say about that.
The second-term plans should get more attention, but that's unlikely if there isn't an articulate candidate making the case for how serious they are.
But, more specifically than his age, Biden's *incapacity* was news last week. Unexpected news that ordinary people could see happening, live on TV. Everybody knew he was old, but his gettable voters believed in his ability. Before any pundit takes had appeared, before the debate was half over, countless people who *wanted* to support Biden were traversing stages of shock, panic, and despair. These are, in most cases, the same people who voted for Biden in 2020, and earlier this year. Not "outsiders."
The press decided that Biden’s performance was a disaster before talking to a single voter. Press coverage in the days after the debate is more important than the debate.
Go read the transcript, it’ll blow your mind. Biden did SO much better than has been described, which is amazing because he did quite badly. They just managed to make it so much worse with repetition, fearmongering and appeals to authority.
The situation is what it is now and we’ll do whatever from here but there is absolutely no reason things should have been this way AT ALL.
Seth, how are the party leaders judging electability in their decision to push him out? More vibes? Are they spooked by the pundits? Working themselves into a collective panic?
It would be nuts to base a decision on the kinds of polling we’ve seen so far. I don’t see how they can know how electable some nameless other can be. Or even an other named “Harris.”
Once you go through the painful process of pushing out Biden and deciding on a replacement, even if, best case, there is no contested nomination and it’s a sudden, unanimous and enthusiastic embrace of Harris (which would probably surprise me), that race is an altogether different race, and you don’t know what those numbers are going to look like.
The race now isn’t against an old guy, a known quantity with a pretty defensible record who might might very well end up still getting the vote of all kinds of people who right now tell pollsters he is too old to be president and should get out of the race.
The race against Harris (or whoever) begins as one defined by party failure and televised chaos as they scramble to make the change and pretend the new candidate is not their second choice.
And it’s also being defined by the campaign that Trump runs against the new person.
The WSJ’s opening salvo against Harris this am is a taste of what we can expect if she is the nominee and their utter dismissiveness and contempt was a pretty good foreshadow for the all out campaign of racism and misogyny we are likely to see if she is the nominee. It might galvanize the Dem base but it also undoubtedly galvanizes the Rep base too.
The other day Josh Marshall at TPM tried to estimate the cost to a party’s electoral fortunes of switching candidates late in the game, compared to the cost of a really, really, really bad debate.
He was thinking optics, primarily — that the coverage over a couple of months, of a party in disarray, that can’t get its act together, doesn’t know what it’s doing, is deeply divided, etc. gives the impression of chaos and weakness and bad leadership. Meanwhile the party loses two months of opportunities to run against Trump while Trump can run against the whole party without an organized response.
His guess was that it could have a negative impact on electoral fortunes roughly 6 times (if I recall correctly) the size of the impact of one bad debate. It wasn’t remotely scientific and I can’t imagine where he pulled the numbers from but I found it an instructive way to think about the question of whether Biden, if able, should continue to run.
My point is all the current panic and the groups and individuals privately and maybe soon to be publicly calling for Biden to step down are comparing his electability in *this* race to the potential electability of an alternative in this race, but that alternative candidate will never run in this race. She/he can only run in a future race that is not likely to favor them nearly as much as the conditions right now do.
I am not sure if this makes any sense. I’ve been thinking about this too much for too many days now and my poor Covid brain is begging me to go back to bed and watch some cooking shows.
But what do you think these people pushing Biden out the door are basing that decision on? And is the decision likely to best serve the party’s interest in the end?
That's an interesting idea by Josh Marshall. I can't rule out the idea that an exciting party nomination in and around a convention that ends well might even be good for the party and its image, but I think the potential downsides are massive.
In terms of evidence? All they've got is evidence that Biden might lose. Everything else is a guess. I heard Ezra Klein a few months ago make the case that we can examine someone like Gretchen Whitmer *in Michigan*, where she's a known quantity, and she polls like 10 or so points ahead of Biden. That's not a bad analysis, but governors are generally treated very differently by the electorate, and it's possible for a governor to draw bipartisan support in a way that a presidential candidate just can't.
I think the real issue is his ability to serve. He clearly has some form of cognitive decline. It’s not safe having him make the type of decisions a leader of the free world needs to make. And it’s not about having advisors tell him what to do.. he needs to be clear headed and capable. Not comparing any of this to Trump… just saying that it’s clear Biden is not capable at this stage of his life.
It’s obvious (1) that the media will NEVER leave or seriously confront Trump and (2) that the media will make a circus out of any alternative plan the Dems have to replace Biden. They’re salivating at the mere thought of Dems dumping Biden. Oh the media circus that will follow - all the way to Election Day. So grow a spine Dems and get behind possibly your best leader ever. In my opinion, you certainly don’t deserve him but your public does. So get off your ego trip and do even more useful work under his leadership.
I can't help but think the pile on is generated by a liberal media and hyper-educated elites who judge politicians by the standards of an Oxford debate. That buzz has now infected politicians who worry the narrative of old Joe (which already existed) has now transformed to 'this guy is catatonic and can't make a decision. Call in the 25th amendment." If pundits gave a thought to the likely swap out to Harris and poorly scripted convention, they might ponder the Democrats losing Congress too.
Pundit's and legacy media piling on as if they're voice is God's will.The love for drama and control of driving the narrative is just different in the media, just so separate from its pretentious message.
The veto of an HBO pundit who is mostly an entertainer is different from the vetoes of the NYT and Economist editorial boards who try to represent liberal order and stability.
Economists' liberalism is different than in US. HBO pundit rolls with the polls has no substance, and frankly is not as funny as he could be if he weren't trying the unwoke or anti woke or whatever side.
Pundit’s veto. The press said “jump” and every liberal in America said “how high”?
Go back and watch the debate and then reflect on the last week of news coverage. It’s not the debate that is making Biden’s numbers fall. It was bad but not that damaging, and I am sure regular Americans could tell he was giving decent answers, even if the press thinks the average American can’t speak English and communicates with grunts. He lost 1% in that debate at most.
It’s the press BURYING him that is forcing him out of the race. And our pitiful pants-wetting base begged our leaders to do what the smart man in the newspaper said, because we literally inversely trust all of our intuitions since 2016.
There was NO REASON for the press to not wait for the party to begin acting rather than DEMAND action from literally SECONDS after the debate ended. If it was actually as bad as they said - and it WASN’T - then they shouldn’t have needed to perform so much heavy advocacy.
Hope the Times enjoys all their blood money when people open their putrid, stinking pages to read about how a monster is destroying our country.
NYT today running story about why people shouldn't vote, Today!
Oh my God. I cannot believe they published that. I know it’s a guest op ed but that is staggering civic irresponsibility.
No comments allowed. Figures.
Since the Times seems to be so in favor of an authoritarian government, I say they be subjected to brutal, borderline-constitutional congressional investigations because they are not on the level.
Very interesting and deeply logical. I certainly will vote for Biden, as I did in 2020, but what concerns me about both parties is that they fail to have a "minor-league system," where they train younger people with the express intent of having them fill the candidacy slots as the elder politicians leave office. I feel that Biden's Presidency should have been prefixed with the promise that he would serve four years in office, but that by 2024, a younger person would be running for Democratic re-election. That could be Kamala Harris, although my personal choice would be Sen. Mark Kelly, Arizona. But, there are many other possibilities, like Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky. Similarly, the Republicans have many younger folks who could replace Trump, Geoff Duncan of Georgia, for one. But. in neither party have these up-and-comers been seriously groomed for bigger roles, and that is a huge fault in the bureaucracy of these parties, and it has led to what we have now, where two embarrassingly old men are all these parties have to represent them. As an old baby-boomer myself, I feel I may level that criticism at these two parties for completely missing the opportunity to introduce fresh, but tested and trained talent to the voters.
I mean, I don't know that there aren't farm teams for both parties out there. There are plenty of good candidates in both parties, currently governors or senators or otherwise, who *could* run credible presidential campaigns. It's just that there are two presidents seeking another term right now and it's always really hard to compete with that.
I'm disappointed with Democrats but will absolutely vote blue up and down the ballot. If they have not been actively preparing a group of worthy replacements, I'm even more disappointed. There are so many smart, ethical people ready to serve.
Regarding trump, there is not, and likely cannot ever be, any replacement. Whatever happened to maga brains in 2016 is limited to a single “hero.” The brainwashing op worked too well by far. When he's dead and gone, they'll be finished, too.
Then we would have had 3.5 years of “are YOU going to vote for a president who’s such a loser he can’t even govern for a double term” or some such nonsense
Fantasy takes are built on believing every little puppy in his little den can face the sun's heat with data so clear that rarely people have translated to winning on the national stage.
Frustrated by people saying the media isn’t covering Tr*mp enough. That’s absurd. Since 2015 we’ve been on the Tr*mp media echo chamber I LITERALLY CANNOT STAND TO HEAR ABOUT HIM ANY MORE. Putting Biden back into a low-key behind the scenes role to beat the other side is a terrible strategy. Nothing is a guarantee but both of these men should step down imho. I’ll vote blue no matter what but there are a lot of us completely OVER the Old Guard. Either be a bridge to the next generation (as was said) or admit it was a lie to court us in 2020. This is a pathetic disaster and I’m disappointed by it. Corporate media, aside, this can’t be a good look to other countries.
Joe Biden is a great president. He also needs to be a great candidate, and running for President is grueling. Biden has to campaign hard to earn the votes of independents, young voters, and anti-Trump Republicans.
The debate isn’t the only sign that Joe isn’t up for it. Why didn't he spend this past post-debate week doing interviews and unscripted events? The campaign knows that Joe needs to calm the fears that he’s too old. If it was just a head cold, Joe could redeem himself by repeatedly demonstrating his ability to think on his feet. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes.
We have to beat Trump! Joe Biden can’t be scared to answer questions. Playing it safe, hoping voters will know he’s better, will give Trump the win. There’s so much at stake. We need to be aggressive, up and down the ticket.
The concern about Biden's capacity comes from voters, voters who were either already supporting or gettable for his campaign, before last week. Pundits and politicians have to talk about it because it's real. Millions of Americans saw the debate, more than have seen all other events of the campaign.
There are many things that are real, including Trump's anti-democratic plans for a second term and a serious of wildly false claims he made in last week's debates, and these haven't received a tenth the coverage that Biden's age has.
I mean "real" in terms of visible audience interest, the catnip of legacy media. They don't do civic responsibility so much anymore.
Would-be Dem voters know Trump is a liar; there's not much to say about that.
The second-term plans should get more attention, but that's unlikely if there isn't an articulate candidate making the case for how serious they are.
But, more specifically than his age, Biden's *incapacity* was news last week. Unexpected news that ordinary people could see happening, live on TV. Everybody knew he was old, but his gettable voters believed in his ability. Before any pundit takes had appeared, before the debate was half over, countless people who *wanted* to support Biden were traversing stages of shock, panic, and despair. These are, in most cases, the same people who voted for Biden in 2020, and earlier this year. Not "outsiders."
The press decided that Biden’s performance was a disaster before talking to a single voter. Press coverage in the days after the debate is more important than the debate.
Go read the transcript, it’ll blow your mind. Biden did SO much better than has been described, which is amazing because he did quite badly. They just managed to make it so much worse with repetition, fearmongering and appeals to authority.
The situation is what it is now and we’ll do whatever from here but there is absolutely no reason things should have been this way AT ALL.
I have read the transcript, and while it's obviously better than Biden's presentation, it's not particularly sharp or strong.
There was *plenty* of social-media reaction for journalists to draw on, starting 10 minutes into the event.
I am not at all convinced this is true.
Are you asking for more information? What part is not evident to you?
Seth, how are the party leaders judging electability in their decision to push him out? More vibes? Are they spooked by the pundits? Working themselves into a collective panic?
It would be nuts to base a decision on the kinds of polling we’ve seen so far. I don’t see how they can know how electable some nameless other can be. Or even an other named “Harris.”
Once you go through the painful process of pushing out Biden and deciding on a replacement, even if, best case, there is no contested nomination and it’s a sudden, unanimous and enthusiastic embrace of Harris (which would probably surprise me), that race is an altogether different race, and you don’t know what those numbers are going to look like.
The race now isn’t against an old guy, a known quantity with a pretty defensible record who might might very well end up still getting the vote of all kinds of people who right now tell pollsters he is too old to be president and should get out of the race.
The race against Harris (or whoever) begins as one defined by party failure and televised chaos as they scramble to make the change and pretend the new candidate is not their second choice.
And it’s also being defined by the campaign that Trump runs against the new person.
The WSJ’s opening salvo against Harris this am is a taste of what we can expect if she is the nominee and their utter dismissiveness and contempt was a pretty good foreshadow for the all out campaign of racism and misogyny we are likely to see if she is the nominee. It might galvanize the Dem base but it also undoubtedly galvanizes the Rep base too.
The other day Josh Marshall at TPM tried to estimate the cost to a party’s electoral fortunes of switching candidates late in the game, compared to the cost of a really, really, really bad debate.
He was thinking optics, primarily — that the coverage over a couple of months, of a party in disarray, that can’t get its act together, doesn’t know what it’s doing, is deeply divided, etc. gives the impression of chaos and weakness and bad leadership. Meanwhile the party loses two months of opportunities to run against Trump while Trump can run against the whole party without an organized response.
His guess was that it could have a negative impact on electoral fortunes roughly 6 times (if I recall correctly) the size of the impact of one bad debate. It wasn’t remotely scientific and I can’t imagine where he pulled the numbers from but I found it an instructive way to think about the question of whether Biden, if able, should continue to run.
My point is all the current panic and the groups and individuals privately and maybe soon to be publicly calling for Biden to step down are comparing his electability in *this* race to the potential electability of an alternative in this race, but that alternative candidate will never run in this race. She/he can only run in a future race that is not likely to favor them nearly as much as the conditions right now do.
I am not sure if this makes any sense. I’ve been thinking about this too much for too many days now and my poor Covid brain is begging me to go back to bed and watch some cooking shows.
But what do you think these people pushing Biden out the door are basing that decision on? And is the decision likely to best serve the party’s interest in the end?
That's an interesting idea by Josh Marshall. I can't rule out the idea that an exciting party nomination in and around a convention that ends well might even be good for the party and its image, but I think the potential downsides are massive.
In terms of evidence? All they've got is evidence that Biden might lose. Everything else is a guess. I heard Ezra Klein a few months ago make the case that we can examine someone like Gretchen Whitmer *in Michigan*, where she's a known quantity, and she polls like 10 or so points ahead of Biden. That's not a bad analysis, but governors are generally treated very differently by the electorate, and it's possible for a governor to draw bipartisan support in a way that a presidential candidate just can't.
I think the real issue is his ability to serve. He clearly has some form of cognitive decline. It’s not safe having him make the type of decisions a leader of the free world needs to make. And it’s not about having advisors tell him what to do.. he needs to be clear headed and capable. Not comparing any of this to Trump… just saying that it’s clear Biden is not capable at this stage of his life.
Just stupidity, idiots reading msm & blindly listening.
It’s obvious (1) that the media will NEVER leave or seriously confront Trump and (2) that the media will make a circus out of any alternative plan the Dems have to replace Biden. They’re salivating at the mere thought of Dems dumping Biden. Oh the media circus that will follow - all the way to Election Day. So grow a spine Dems and get behind possibly your best leader ever. In my opinion, you certainly don’t deserve him but your public does. So get off your ego trip and do even more useful work under his leadership.
WEAK!
I can't help but think the pile on is generated by a liberal media and hyper-educated elites who judge politicians by the standards of an Oxford debate. That buzz has now infected politicians who worry the narrative of old Joe (which already existed) has now transformed to 'this guy is catatonic and can't make a decision. Call in the 25th amendment." If pundits gave a thought to the likely swap out to Harris and poorly scripted convention, they might ponder the Democrats losing Congress too.
Pundit's and legacy media piling on as if they're voice is God's will.The love for drama and control of driving the narrative is just different in the media, just so separate from its pretentious message.
The veto of an HBO pundit who is mostly an entertainer is different from the vetoes of the NYT and Economist editorial boards who try to represent liberal order and stability.
* and at least in the case of the Economist do not get involved in American political parties making decisions
Economists' liberalism is different than in US. HBO pundit rolls with the polls has no substance, and frankly is not as funny as he could be if he weren't trying the unwoke or anti woke or whatever side.
In my opinion, that party is weak, especially to lose to Trump, of all people!!!