12mo ago

Elizabeth Warren stands by Biden in first public comments since debate

www.bostonglobe.com

Elizabeth Warren stands by Biden in first public comments since debate - The Boston Globe

I normally don't even want to get involved in posting a drumbeat of "here's something about Biden staying in the race" stories because, (1) I'm not sure he should, and (2) it doesn't "cancel out" the waste of time that is the incessant drumbeat of articles about how he should drop out. It's like taking uppers to counteract downers; it just doesn't work that way, it makes everything worse. And the amount of press this whole thing is getting and the way it's being presented is absolutely fuckin absurd.

But that being said, I want to post this one because I like Elizabeth Warren quite a lot and I think what she says gets to the core of the issue.

Also, if you are a Democratic politician or donor and you want to replace Biden with someone else, surely talking to the press about how he should drop out without anyone in particular in mind that you're talking to them about as a replacement, and a strategy to get that person into place, should be an absolute last, last, last resort for a way to get that done. And probably not even then.

Biden's thing of "If you want to replace me then mount a challenge at the convention, that's what it's for, and whoever wins, let's fuckin fight the real enemy" makes quite a bit of sense to me, and the longer this goes on, the less sense the people who are talking to the press about him dropping out make.

So here you go, here's a story about someone who thinks he should stay in and what she has to say.

57 comments

It's all felt like external pressure to me. Trump's team knows it's hard for him to beat Biden, so it's all about undermining him in any way they can.
He's old, feeble, sundowning, has Parkinson's, has cancer, constantly forgetting things.
And in the debate? He answered every question in detail and got like two details wrong, while his opponent doubled down on comments that have gotten him impeached and in legal trouble.
But no, let's talk about the stuttering man who was a little hoarse, and demand his replacement with nobody. After all, they don't want to push a narrative that defines the replacement candidate, this is all about undermining the opposition.
And if you, reader, think you're in the crowd of amplifying that, fuck you.
- If replacing Biden was the answer to all the Democrats’ problems, all the papers like the NYT that are openly hostile to the Democrats winning the election wouldn’t be pushing it so hard.
  It’s not quite that simple, of course. They are not “pushing” it in the sense of sincerely advocating a particular course of action that is realistic, and interviewing the people who are trying to implement that plan of action, as they would if they were sympathetic to the Democrats’ efforts to stop a real fascist dictatorship to come to life in the US, and trying to report on that genuine strategic effort maybe with a little bit of partisan hope that it would work.
  They’re just very convincingly imitating this whole panicked concern trolling freak out, to hurt Biden, for reasons of their own. That doesn’t mean he isn’t old as fuck or that that’s not a problem. It could be that going through the total clusterfuck of replacing him as a candidate 4 months before the election might be worth the risk and we’d come into smoother waters successfully before November.
  But they’re recommending it with such a shouting in everyone’s face level of forcefulness and repetition and without any particular plan to substitute for him, because they know it will hurt his chances if he stays in, and that replacing him at this point will be a clusterfuck. Not because they sincerely believe it will help. And the Democrats who are buying into and amplifying the strategy free panicked shouting version of it should be ashamed of themselves.
- Trump’s team knows it’s hard for him to beat Biden
  Lol...wtf...Trump is up 9 points. He's going to wipe the floor with Biden. On top of that, if the D's DO run Biden, they might very well lose Congress due to pure apathy and disgust of having to vote for Biden.
  Once again, instead of doing the hard thing the Democrats are going to fail in the face of mediocre adversity.
  
  Anyone who uses LOL in a political conversation is not looking for a conversation.
  Fuck right off.
  
  Political polling means very little.
It's amazing how nobody notices that all the Senators and Congress people that support the working class are for Biden staying in. All the big wealthy plutocrats on the other hand want him out.
- What, you mean you aren’t deeply concerned about what all the wealthy DNC donors want to have happen? Those guys have always had our backs.
- That's just political machines doing their thing. It's the same dynamic as the Soviet Politburo propping up Brezhnev long after he'd started drooling on himself on TV.
  
  Don’t blame progressives for any of this shit. The left wanted Biden to not run or have a primary challenger. Now it’s all centrists leaking shit to the New York Times, which is still churning out so many articles about the debate that I have to scroll down to see literally any other news. Whole UK and French elections happened and they’re still giving it top billing.
- Lolwhat
But what does Jimmy Carter have to say?
Decisions like these can't be trusted to young'uns.
Also, if you are a Democratic politician or donor and you want to replace Biden with someone else, surely talking to the press about how he should drop out without anyone in particular in mind that you’re talking to them about as a replacement, and a strategy to get that person into place, should be an absolute last, last, last resort for a way to get that done. And probably not even then.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
I think that the winning strategy, rather obviously, is to throw the nomination entirely open and let it work itself out. The exact thing that's going to inspire the sort of enthusiasm that will steamroll Trump is a very public process by which a nominee is legitimately chosen.
Coming into it with some prepared scheme by which to hopefully force the nomination of a particular candidate is just duplicating the mistakes the DNC made in 2016 and 2020, and it's all too likely to just end us up right back where we were before the debate - with a disappointed and frustrated base that has to be guilt-tripped into voting for a candidate in whom they don't believe solely on the strength of them being not-Trump.
- Some version of that sounds pretty good, yes. I do think there’s a legitimate conversation to be had about what candidate would be best instead of just “fuck you it’s Biden,” even though the time is pretty fuckin tight at this point. As Biden pointed out, the convention is where that can happen, which would give people time to organize a competitor candidate or two and get their ducks in a row for how to run their challenger.
  Since Biden is such an objectively weak candidate that no one supports him anymore and he can’t even put a sentence together, that should be easy to do. Right?
  What I, and I think Warren, are objecting to, is the stupid idea that Biden should just respond to the obvious conservative-media thirst for the idea of him dropping out, and play into the Republicans’ hands, and hope that the DNC can come through in a clutch and come up with an alternate plan from scratch without tripping over their dicks and falling down at the critical moment as they are wont to often do.
  
  the obvious conservative-media thirst for the idea of him dropping out
  I see no reason to believe that the conservatives want him to drop out, and many reasons to believe they want him to stay in.
  There's absolutely no question that they're outnumbered. With a fully engaged voting public, they can't possibly win. Their only hope is to prevent as many people as possible from voting, and discourage as many more as possible.
  Additionally, they've spent the last four years flogging the "Biden crime family" narrative, so all they have to do against Biden is stay the course. A new candidate would need an entirely new set of oppositional propaganda, and they wouldn't have much time in which to get it to take root.
  I would think that pretty much the last thing in the world they'd want would be for the Democrats to make an 11th hour switch to an entirely different candidate, and quite possibly a candidate who will inspire the sort of enthusiasm Biden's candidacy is sorely lacking.
  and hope that the DNC can come through in a clutch and come up with an alternate plan from scratch without tripping over their dicks and falling down as they are wont to often do.
  Now that I agree with pretty much entirely, with only the proviso that, Hanlon's Razor notwithstanding, I tend to ascribe their failures more to malice than incompetence (though it could be argued that since it appears to boil down to stultifyingly shallow self-interest, it could qualify as just a different sort of incompetence).
AOC and Warren are right at the top of national politicians I admire. If they support Biden that's good enough for me.
Asked by The Boston Globe if Biden should stay in the race, the Massachusetts Democrat said, “President Biden is our nominee. He is an excellent president. He works hard on behalf of working families every day.”
This is the entire statement from the article. This isn't a "should stay in the race" statement. It's "I'm not going to answer that".
Also, if you are a Democratic politician or donor and you want to replace Biden with someone else, surely talking to the press about how he should drop out without anyone in particular in mind that you’re talking to them about as a replacement, and a strategy to get that person into place, should be an absolute last, last, last resort for a way to get that done.
This is just wrong. "Should we replace Biden" is an entirely separate question from "who should replace him". And if someone named a specific name, the Biden-stans would attack them for trying to promote their own pick, or worse start attacking the pick themselves.
And we're rapidly approaching the last resort of public pressure campaigns. The "give him time and let him step down on his own terms" strategy doesn't look like it's going to work.
- I think what Biden said was pretty spot on: If you don’t want me as the nominee, figure out a plan and mount a challenge at the convention. If I’m a weak candidate then beat me at the convention. But if you show up at the convention just standing there with nothing but your little sign that says “BUT HE’S OLLLLLLLD” then I hope you won’t mind if I don’t take you seriously, and run for president anyway, and in fact I would hope that in that case you’d be able to admit you don’t have anything better to offer and willing to vote for me so we don’t get Project 2025 instead.
  To me, that sounds pretty fair.
  
  There is no challenge at the convention, it's literally impossible. Unless he releases his delegates, they have to vote for him. Plus the convention isn't actually where the vote will happen this year. They need to run it virtually because they scheduled it too late to be on the Ohio ballot. And as we saw with the primary, no one wants to torch their political reputation to run a race challenging the incumbent leader when there isn't actually any chance of winning (in this case literally none, in the primary effectively none).
  If that's actually what Biden said, it's just straight out lying to try to get him out of the tough spot now, when a decision could actually trigger a real process to find a replacement.
  
  It is not just that he's old. Biden has such a low approval rating that it's comparable to Trump's when he lost reelection during a pandemic.
  If you truly do care about putting up a fight against Project 2025 then it is important that Democrats run almost anybody else.
  Also, the articles about Biden's perceived inability to get elected are not a waste of time. The donor class is finally recognizing what many of us have known and are pushing for a change. I can kick and scream all I want about how I don't want Biden but I don't have money to fund campaigns.
  Edit: You can boo me. I've seen you bet money on a corpse winning a race.
  Pointing out Biden's flaws is not the problem. Biden's flaws are the problem.
  Also I don't think that wealthy donors should have this much influence. I want to clear that up if it came across like I did.
It’s like taking uppers to counteract downers; it just doesn’t work that way, it makes everything worse.
She's my Senator and I find this deeply disappointing, but not surprising. She's about to be reelected for her third term, and she'll be Biden's age when she seeks a fourth. The gerontocracy protects itself.

57 comments