Mr UD insisted on watching, so I asked him to watch it way over in the livingroom, with the sound off.
“I stopped watching after fifteen minutes,” he said later. “It was very sad.”
What now? For the sake of the country and the world, Biden should drop out.
********************
I had been ready to give Biden the benefit of the doubt up to now, because during the times I engaged with him one on one, I found him up to the job. He clearly is not any longer. His family and his staff had to have known that. They have been holed up at Camp David preparing for this momentous debate for days now. If that is the best performance they could summon from him, it’s time for Joe to keep the dignity he deserves and leave the stage at the end of this term.
June 28th, 2024 at 6:36AM
Instead of rating it like a TV performance, what was actually said? A non stop barrage of lies by a convicted felon and sex offender. While Biden was rational all the way through, and Trump became more and more incoherent.
Can Biden be a good president? He is being a good president. Can he do the job well? He is doing the job well.
If the take away from the debate is that a candidate should drop out as unfit, it should be Trump.
June 28th, 2024 at 11:19AM
Matt: Having read tons of post-debate analyses and arguments, I conclude that four more years as president, when Biden is already mentally unreliable, would be a bad move. He really is, very simply, too old.
June 28th, 2024 at 1:28PM
If you are worried about a candidate’s age and mental condition impeding his performance, than I would be more concerned about the off brand Mussolini. And more worried about the people around him.
June 28th, 2024 at 1:39PM
Absolutely. The point is to do everything we can to defeat him. That means picking another Democrat.
June 29th, 2024 at 7:23AM
OK, so let’s say Biden can (somehow) be convinced to relinquish the job he’s been thirsting for his entire adult life, one that it turns out he’s pretty good at. Now what? The obvious choice is Kamala Harris, but she polls worse than Biden does. She wasn’t a particularly good debater last time and her backstory provides ample opportunities for the sexist scumbags of MAGA-land to charge her with sleeping her way to the top. Have people outside of California heard of Willie Brown? If Harris is the nominee, they will. (Obviously, none of this disqualifies the VP and one hopes that slut-shaming would backfire badly in 2024; rather, my point is that *any* Democrat chosen to replace Biden will be slimed in ways we can and cannot predict. Recall that the Democratic electorate settled on Biden in 2020 not out of enthusiasm, but out of a sense that he was the safest choice. Sadly, he may still be.)
But if you bypass the Vice President, what message are you sending to Black women, the most reliable Democratic constituency, one whose tireless efforts will be critical to winning Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia.
I can certainly see the case for Biden dropping out, but then, in my opinion, the only plausible option is Harris, possibly paired with an effective, take-no-prisoners VP candidate (Jamie Raskin? J.B Pritzker?). But even then it’s not clear you’ll come out ahead.
June 29th, 2024 at 7:37AM
TAFKAU: Both Raskin and Harris are too far left for the general electorate. I’m in love with Raskin (he’s my representative), but the rest of the country won’t be.
I take your point – ditching Biden means an entry into the unknown. But for instance take the sliming problem you mention – a younger faster feisty candidate will revel in this and powerfully turn it against Mr Slime himself. I think Dems need to roll up their sleeves, pick a charismatic centrist, and tough it out. It’s risky, but I think it’s the only viable path.
Harris is not viable. I think most black voters are able to be as pragmatic about that as I am. She’s hopelessly affiliated with liberal San Francisco – a comically easy target, just as Newsom would be. I have no idea why people are mentioning him as a possible candidate.
In a perfect world, Dems would run Buttigieg. He’s close to perfection. But the country’s not ready for a married gay guy.
June 29th, 2024 at 11:25AM
Not quite topic drift: Chevron is reversed. Should a Democrat, including Old Joe, secure the presidency, the ability of that president or the cabinet secretaries to rule by decree has just been attenuated, and the litigation is already being prepared. Leave my gas stove and ceiling fan alone, for openers. (On the other hand, Pete McKinsey could secretly welcome that sort of litigation, it might get those electric car chargers built more quickly! Yeah, some days about all one can do is enjoy the spectacle.)
The real fun comes in the event of a return of The Donald. The fisheries case just holed his Project 2025 below the waterline, bigly. Imagine when his chosen cabinet secretaries and those underlings he’d like to replace the current GS-15s with start revising regulations and the litigation from the likes of the Sierra Club and the various civil rights organizations begins.
As far as a “charismatic centrist,” that’s interesting, although it would require the Donks to do in public, before the convention, the conjuring trick by which James Clyburn and a few party pros got Old Joe nominated and the Sanders platform approved. I don’t know how many of those swing voters are ticked off at what came after that conjuring trick. They voted for the anodyne Democrat and they got open borders and Weimar America. But if you want to be either amused or annoyed, visit Common Dreams just about any day and see how the people who wrote the Sanders platform are ticked off, bigly, about any attempt by Old Joe on a lucid day or his handlers every day to do anything to acknowledge with a policy change what those swing voters thought they were getting.
All I know is that having two national conventions nearby, and a new train with Business Class seating serving Milwaukee, that some road trips in July and August to see the spectacle are in the works!
June 29th, 2024 at 12:10PM
A new train? As my Euro husband loves to remind me, America doesn’t do passenger trains. So that IS exciting news.
The gist of your comment – that the Dem. party is hopelessly sclerotic – I disagree with. Admittedly, the resolution of the Biden problem will tend to prove me right or wrong.
June 29th, 2024 at 4:49PM
UD: Best to Mr UD, and he’d best not get me started on how the USA used to do passenger trains. (Well, he could hit the ferroequinology category on my Cold Spring Shops and see!) The new train: Wisconsin and Minnesota came up with some money to extend one trip each day from Milwaukee to the Cities. It’s a far cry from the days of the Afternoon Zephyr that at one time had a schedule, St. Paul to Chicago, that makes today’s Baltimore to Boston Acela look pathetic.
Libertarian Tories don’t get involved in intramural spats among Democrats. We might drink Sprecher and buy a lot of popcorn. With the Brewers going to lead the NL Central at Independence Day, life is good. Enjoy Freedom Week, at the beach or what have you.