How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us
It would be an almost comedic understatement to say that a lot has happened in the Presidential race in the last two weeks, but it would also not be incorrect to say that very little has happened at all, and I think the conflict between those two statements is slowly baking everyone’s brains in the summer heat. We’re all mad as hell and nobody’s happy, and I think now would be a good place to try to take a step back to see where we stand and what we can try to learn from this situation. If reading this isn’t helpful for you I’m hoping it will at least be therapeutic for me.
Right off the bat I want to make it clear — at this point I am completely ambivalent about if Joe Biden should stay on as the Democratic nominee for President or not. The man had a bad debate, but not in a way that seems to have materialized the completely catastrophic polling numbers that people assumed it would. There’s been a dip, sure, but that dip has not been proportional to the tenor of the coverage of the debate and the reaction to it from Democrats and it hasn’t been universal. Morning Consult shows Biden gaining ground in swing states, others don’t, and we more or less don’t know shit.
I’ve started thinking about it as a crisis of confidence among Democrats, people who were relatively confident in Biden were shook by his performance, but the people who have been bombarded with “Biden is old” memes and stories for four years saw what they were expecting so it doesn’t move the needle. It’s also still early July which means that the people who are going to decide the election, the completely inscrutable American swing voters, just aren’t paying attention. There’s really too many variables here to say anything definitive, which makes the discourse worse.
The one thing I can say with confidence is that if the Democratic Party wants to replace Biden, their only real choice is Harris. You can’t maintain the Democratic coalition if you’re going to tell a Black woman to step aside for a white haircut like Gavin Newsom (who is also the kind of empty suit that Trump used to eat for breakfast). The idea of a contested convention is a fantasy that we need to let go of, both because it’s unrealistic and to simplify the conversation. But it keeps getting pushed because everybody wants a compelling story.
Speaking of pushing things, the way that the New York Times is handling this is, quite frankly, completely disgusting. The Times has never liked Biden and now that they smell blood in the water they’re desperate to build the story that knocks him out of the race, pushing so many stories going after him that I’ve lost count. While I’m ambivalent on Biden staying in, the thing that’s pushing me hardest to a pro-Biden position is sticking it to Peter Baker and A.G. Sulzberger.
I will also say that I’ve found the way that the Democrats have handled this situation to be fucking disgraceful from square one. Trump could have shit his pants on the debate stage and the GOP talking heads would have argued that he was still the man to beat Biden. Instead of talking about Trump saying that there were “Black jobs” or that Democrats were “killing babies outside the womb”, every Dem decided to use the media as their therapist to handle their anxiety attack. The longer they continue to drag out the will-they-won’t-they around replacing Biden and leak statements to the press, the more we aren’t talking about all of Trump’s bonkers statements. Every hem and haw on TV or in the press just keeps this going, and it’s clear that the press is going to keep running this for as long as they can. You can say that trying to deny reality would be “Trumpy” of them, but hell, the guy won once and almost won again. You can and should learn from your enemies, and politics is a dirty business.
The reality is that this conversation needs to end, and the sooner it ends the better. It’s either a distraction from getting the Biden campaign back on track, or burning valuable time for Harris to get her campaign going. Pick a time, do whatever you need to get everyone on the same page, and move forward. It’s still early in the campaign, but it’s going to get late quick. The sooner the Democrats can make their case to voters, and to talk about how absolutely batshit Project 2025 is. Did you know that the Trump administration would be full of sick freaks who want to ban pornography, establish fetal personhood, and ban no-fault divorce? It’s so crazy that Trump’s lying his ass off to distance himself from it, but it also talks about windmills as an eyesore so you know he’s involved. We’ve gotta beat these guys.
