A private call of top Democrats fuels more insider anger about Biden's debate performance
A private call of top Democrats fuels more insider anger about Biden's debate performance
A sense of deep concern is growing among some Democratic officials that leaders inside Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance.
A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. They largely ignored Biden’s weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.
Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.
Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as a rosy assessment of Biden’s path forward. The chat function was disabled and there were no questions allowed.
And there is the problem laid bare - there are too many people associated with the campaign who have a vested interest in it continuing, and are unable or unwilling to step back and listen.
Its been blindingly obvious for the last 18 months that Biden is a very bad choice for the democratic nomination. But the entire discourse has been dominated by an attitude that if you don't support biden, you're basically support trump.
It is the Biden supporters who are going to hand the presidency on a silver platter to Trump.
They need to step back and look at the bigger picture. This is not just some Republican talking point to reflexively ignore and fight against. Biden IS too old, and he DOES come across as confused. And he is making trump look better by comparison - he is lowering the bar of expectation and scrutiny of trump because the focus is on Bidens age and mental capacity.
The democrats have to ditch biden right now and begin the urgebt search for a better, younger candidate to unite behind. Its already very late in the day but every day they continue with Biden is another wasted.
If you don't support Biden (by voting for him) you're supporting Trump (by splitting the vote), but in this phrase Biden can be replaced by anyone chosen by the Democrats to be the president, it doesn't need to be Biden, it just happens to be him right now.
The issue (before Thursday) was that the anti-Biden wing of the party couldn't really demonstrate that the alternatives had any better shot of beating Trump at all. All the reasonable alternatives backed out of any major 2024 challenge precisely because they are young and can wait until 2028 (or even later!) to make their push. Once Biden announced for 2024, it took a lot of the momentum out of finding any Democratic challenger.
There is an assumption, though, that the person Democrats are nominating in 2024 is the same man who beat Trump in 2020. I don't think we can make that assumption anymore. Biden had his chance to demonstrate that and blew it. He doesn't get that many more chances. If he continues to blow them, then Trump wins by default. No Democrat wants that.
2016 all over again
The primaries have already happened and Biden soundly won them. How exactly do you see a replacement being selected?
There, a candidate must win support from the majority of "delegates" - party officials who formally choose the nominee. Delegates are assigned to candidates proportionally based on the results of each state's primary election. This year, Mr Biden won almost 99% of the nearly 4,000 delegates.
According to the DNC rules, those delegates are "pledged" to him, and are bound to support his nomination.
But if Mr Biden were to drop out, it would be a free-for-all. There is no official mechanism for him or anyone else in the party to choose his successor, meaning Democrats would be left with an open convention.
Presumably, Mr Biden would have some sway over his pledged delegates, but they would ultimately be free to do as they please.
That could lead to a frantic contest erupting among Democrats who want a shot at the nomination. Source
The chat function was disabled and there were no questions allowed.
Nothing says "everything's fine" like refusing to allow anyone to talk.
Why don't one of them run? Oh they aren't viable candidates? Then you work with what you got.
It's not like democrats just happened to have this happen to them, they actively pushed for this in 2020 when they told all the candidates they could to drop and support Biden while paying for a PAC to keep Warren in the race to split votes with Sanders. They worked harder to fight Sanders than they did to fight Trump. Then democrats made sure to make the 2024 primary as one-tracked as possible, in the name of "unity". The democrats made their bed and they were content with lying in it until Biden shat in it and they woke up from their little bubble. It's not like Biden was doing amazing before this, but his debate performance was so bad, even democrats steeped in the kool-aid could see how decrepit their beloved candidate is.
The scary part is that we're so far deep in this shit that I don't know if it's even possible to back out. It's an oncoming train collision which had its course set back in 2020 (or perhaps even 2016) that many could see coming but democrats chose to ignore because they place upholding the status quo for their donors as the highest priority.