White House Race- June 29, 2024

I ended last Saturday's post with the plea "Lord help us all." Even I did not realize just how much that would be needed.

Where do I even begin? For anyone who wants to see Donald Trump not return to the Presidency, Thursday evening was an unmitigated disaster. The Presidential debate was hard for me to watch at times.I can only imagine how painful it must have been to actual Democrats. For the record, this relates to the performance of both candidates. I knew I would be in an awkward position of hoping for the best for a candidate who would take positions and speak of policies that are diametrically opposed to my own beliefs, but I was hopeful he would at least be effective in doing so. We were told that 81 year old Joe Biden was well prepared. He had spent days practicing, preparing, anxious for his chance go once again be on a stage with Trump and take the case to him. In doing so, it would perhaps change the narrative of a tied race, and one in which an unpopular incumbent was struggling.

Biden got steamrolled though. Trump lied his ass off from start to finish, but that should have been expected and anticipated. Trump also, at least my his standards, managed to be disciplined in sticking to his illogical but well-planned talking points and in following the rules of the debate. Biden looked horrible, sounded horrible, and performed horribly. That is a strikeout. Challenging Trump to a June debate turned out to be a huge mistake. Biden agreeing to debate at all, as I feared months ago, turned out to be a huge mistake. Not because Donald Trump is any sort of amazing debater. In fact, Trump missed many good opportunities during the 90 minutes to be more effective, but the message being used against Biden for basically most of his Presidency was more than validated. He looked like he had no business being on that stage and he looked like he had no business being President.

This first made me  sad, because I do not like to see a person, one I even forced myself to vote for four years ago, struggle the way he did, and also angry, because it proves the other side right. For a long time, I have been arguing on here and elsewhere that despite all of Biden's gaffe problems and general goofiness, going back decades, that he was not senile and that people were taking things out of context and using exaggerated "cheap fake"videos and the like to unfairly tarnish him. I still think I am basically correct on that, but Biden did all of us who were trying to defend him on this front no favors.

I do not believe Biden has Alzheimer's or dementia. While I am clearly not a doctor, the people I have known in my life who have suffered from those horrible fates had very different issues. He is old though and clearly in decline physically and that seems to also be affecting his ability to communicate and thus to lead. There is no way that anyone can look at him on Thursday night and believe he can effectively serve as President up until January 20, 2029. Putting aside whatever you think of his Presidency (and I think very poorly of it), he should never have run for reelection. Four years ago, I thought he would not, but he stubbornly has been pushing forward, and that has been a risky gamble all along.

Sure, the next day he showed up at a North Carolina, suddenly looking less ghostly, and with a stronger voice.The "cold" we were told he had (which only leaked out well into the debate, one would think his staff would have at least leaked that earlier in the day) seemed to be gone, and Biden was more fired up and forceful. People were asking, "where was that Biden last night?" The better question would be, "where was the teleprompter last night?." Comparing the two events is a ridiculous exercise in rationalization, though I suppose it was better for him to not "bomb": the rally in front of friendly crowd, albeit with the usual interruptions by pro-Palestinian extremists.

So, here we are on Saturday, and I am more concerned that what needs to happen has not happened. I will get into that more specifically later. Democrats were obviously panicked and for good reason right after the debate. The left-leaning talking heads on cable tv did not even try to spin it, but really, how could they? Two days later though, we are told that the higher ups in the party are sticking with Biden and refusing to give any credence to the concern that his remaining the nominee will lead to defeat and the return of Trump.

Just think back as Trump was trying to lower expectations. He joked about how he might lose the debate "on purpose" in order to make sure Biden would not drop out of the race. Now, I expect some Biden apologists to try to say their candidate lost on purpose. Right wing kooks speculated that Biden might have a body double who would debate effectively. Now, left wingers are dipping their toes into conspiracy theories about why Biden was so bad  on the debate stage and better at a Waffle House after the debate. (If the answer is that the very presence of Donald Trump intimidated him, that is not a good thing for a Commander in Chief.) Of course, Trump surrogates also said Biden might do well because he would be "all jacked up" on some sort of performance enhancing drugs. Clearly, he was not. Maybe that was the first mistake of his campaign. MAGA said the CNN questioners would rig the debate for Biden to make him look good. If so, they failed at that. Now, some on the left are furious at CNN and Jake Tapper and Dana Bash for not doing more to help Biden during the debate.

The bottom line is that Biden had one job, cold or no cold. For how many years have us "Trump haters" been waiting to see someone bring it to him in rhetorical combat. Many of us have probably even fantasized about how we would go about doing so if we magically had the chance. Biden put practicing for his moment as his number one priority for several days and he wet the bed. Was he overbriefed and overfilled with facts? Maybe, but that is the fault of both him and his staff/ Have other past incumbents bombed their first debate before? Sure, most in fact, but nowhere near this bad. Not even close. If Biden were going to be completely inarticulate and unable to effectively make the case against Trump, the President, the candidate, and the human, the least he could have done was not stand there when he was not speaking, with his mouth agape,sadly looking like an old man in a nursing home. The liberal comedian Jon Stewart brutally referred to it as "resting 25th Amendment face."

 

If Biden was going to look ancient and sound geriatric, he could have at least had better responses about inflation and immigration, which Trump hammered him on over and over again. There would have been ways to answer those attacks, but honestly, Biden's record on those matters has been pretty abysmal and tough for anyone to defend. Biden was not even able to effectively make the case for his party on abortion and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. What were the debate handlers telling him to say? Did he just not say those things? If so, that does not speak well about his ability to function as an effective President.

Towards the end of the debate, the two senior citizens, started squabbling over their golf handicaps. Who can seriously say America does not deserve better?

For decades, Democrats have tried to make an issue out of the age of the Republican Presidential nominee, who was usually the older man. Biden is far older than any of those men were and now Democrats have insisted that this cannot be talked about. The media has said that all their attempts to ask about Biden's age or health and how it might affect his ability to serve were met with dismissal and gas lighting. The Hur Report which referred to Biden as a well-intentioned man with a failing memory caused explosive anger among the President's partisans. Maybe they should have been listening. It is hard to argue that it was not accurate. There is certainly a reason why Biden does so few interviews and press conferences. Who in the hell thought it would be a good idea to put him on a debate stage with Trump or for that matter  with anyone? (Nikki Haley, just to pick a recent relevant name, might be up by 20 points now.) Were the debate prep and mock sessions really that good? If so, what the hell happened when the lights went on? If the practice sessions were as bad as they probably were, they should have pulled out of the debate, even if that would looked horrible. Nothing could have looked as horrible as the debacle of the actual debate.

Now, let me say this next. Donald Trump should drop out of the race and let the Republican Party pick a new standard bearer. He is a convicted felon and in my view a sociopath and cult leader. He has no business running for President. I have been saying this about him though since the moment he came down an escalator in 2015, and calling for him to leave politics and public life, so this is nothing new to me.

 

While it is not a completely fair comparison, I believe that if the Access Hollywood tape had come out in June of 2016 instead of mid-October, Republicans would have forced Trump out of the race. He wound up winning regardless. Can Democrats be so lucky? They need to act while there is still time.

Unlike Trump, I believe Biden genuinely loves America. He is a flawed person, with a fairly bad record, and has been a lousy President in my view, but I believe he actually cares about the country.

This is not a normal election. Joe Biden must drop out of this race.

 

He must let his party pick someone else, virtually anybody else, (we can talk more about the options in the weeks ahead) in order to beat Trump. If they truly believe the things say about democracy being on the line, (putting aside all their malevolent actions in meddling in recent Republican primaries to bolster the MAGA forces in their successful domination of the opposition party) and if they are truly serious that Trump poses an existential threat to the America we know and love, Biden has to do the right thing, as difficult as it may be.

The June debate was a disaster but it can also be a blessing in disguise for Democrats if they act. That had to be part of the reason the debate was held this early. The clock is ticking though and from everything we are hearing, Biden is being very stubborn and in denial about what happened and what he faces. We live in a divided country and there are ample anti-Trump votes. Reality is reality though and the polls thus far, cannot all be dismissed. I would like to be proven wrong on this, but more polls will be coming. Right now, I think Biden would carry the deep Blue states and not much else. This could also cause losses for his party down the ballot, which is less of my concern, but should be a concern for them. Biden has to go. The clock is ticking. He has to do the selfless and patriotic thing. Otherwise, his permanent legacy will be as the guy who let Trump come back. I maintain that any other Democrat (although some more than others) can absolutely beat Trump in 129 days. I wish there was a center-right or conservative option to beat Trump, but there is not. Only Democrats can do this. 

 

After the primaries, Joe Biden is the legitimate presumptive nominee of his party. He has to agree to go leave the race in order to be replaced. Otherwise, they are going to be stuck with him. Who can convince him to do so? Above all else, that is obviously First Lady Jill Biden. So much pressure will be brought on her to prevail on her husband to do what is right for them, and their family, but more importantly the country. If Trump wins, they will, and we all will, live with regret for decades.

 

Democrats are in a tough spot .There is no perfect solution, but anything has to be better than shrugging off what is currently happening and awaiting the inevitable. Was Biden "more honest" than Trump in the debate? Sure. Although Biden told some horrific whoppers as well, such as horrifically stating that no American troops have died on his watch. Yes, they have, most of them as the result of your horrific withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Biden Administration has never recovered from that day since and have consistently been in denial about it. 

For the good of America, Biden has to let someone else take over as the nominee. This is not even about the Presidency for the next seven months. Let him stay in that if he wants, but this election is a very big deal. Democrats might be fretting privately, but publicly, they are afraid to speak out. Back in the primaries, after Congressman Dean Phillips sounded warnings about Biden and said he would lose, nobody else stood up to join him or to challenge Biden, so Phillips did and was basically laughed out of his party. His once promising political career was over, but he may go down in history for other reasons.

All of this reminds me of Trump and Republicans, the party I spent so many years being proud to be a member of. Lots of people in the GOP had doubts about Trump and to this day basically hate Trump privately, Publicly though, they fall in line, because to be disloyal is to risk hurting their own political viability. They have to overlooks the things Trump has said or done or promises to do. They pretend it does not exist and just tell themselves, :"the other side is worse. We have to stick by our guy." Privately, these cowardly Republican politicians wake up every day hoping to hear that Trump passed away in his sleep and his hold on them is over.

Democrats do not want Biden to die, (and they should consider the fact that being President for another term is probably not a good thing for him healthwise), but privately, I have to believe almost all of them want him to agree to step down at this point from the campaign.They are scared to say anything though. They are directed to just focus on how bad Trump is, which is true, but irrelevant, when you are on the path to losing an election. They also seem prepared to blame the media for telling the truth about Biden's debate performance and the legitimate concerns Americans have about his health and age. Soon, they will be taking a page from Trump and speaking about "fake news" and "the enemies of the people."

I have written a lot here and I could write a ton more  I know I have no influence over the Bidens personally and I am not even a Democrat, but those that can exert influence on them must, as hard as it might be personally or politically. The Bidens may never forgive you and some people may risk losing their political career as a result. They have to put their party before any one man though,and most importantly their country before anybody's ego.

So, what do I think will happen? Right now, I think Biden and those in his inner circle are convinced he can ride this out. They think he can do better in a debate in September. Can he really? Why would Trump even agree to that debate now? 

This week and in the time shortly after, there will be many public and private polls, and Democrat politicians will examine them closely. Maybe I will be wrong, but I think they are going to look pretty bad, and at that point, those politicians, with their own survival in mind,will start speaking out and telling the President of the United States that he has to drop out.

Right now, my prediction is that Biden will be out of the race no later than the end of the day on Friday, July 19, right after the Republican convention. However, it would be best to end this sooner than later, so their party can start the difficult process  of the next steps and who might be next for a number one and number two spot on the ticket, hopefully keeping in mind that beating Trump must come before any other concern.

For the sake of America, this has to happen. Democrats have to prove themselves to be more patriotic than Republicans on matters like this. The campaign slogans are posted on the walls at rallies that read, "Let's Go Joe"and go, he must.