Call Jamaal Bowman, It’s Time to Pull the Alarm
I feel like this is a good time to reiterate that I do this for free, as a hobby, for the handful of my friends and family who I know read this. There are some number of strangers who read — though I studiously avoid readership data so I couldn’t swear to how many — but this is mostly for, I dunno, a dozen or so people. So I have no reason or incentive to say anything that I don’t genuinely believe. My thoughts on the current state of American politics generally, and Donald Trump and the Republican party specifically, are well-documented. All that to say, I like to think I’ve built up enough credibility to be able to say: Joe Biden’s debate performance last night was quite possibly the worst presidential debate performance in American history.
There’s no sugar coating it, or even any point in trying; it was a disaster. I said on Wednesday that I wasn’t sure how many times we could go to the “Biden rises to the occasion” well, and I think we have our answer. This was one too many. Biden has a track record over his presidency of usually rising to the occasion, and he simply didn’t here. At the risk of overreacting, he likely ended his presidency.
Biden looked like hell off the bat. [I guess all that fretting about performance enhancing drugs was bullshit, eh?] From the first moment he started to speak, it was clear it was going to be a bad night. He obviously had a cold — which “sources close to Biden” admitted to reporters during the debate — but, I’m sorry, he simply couldn’t afford to have a cold. His one job was to reassure voters that he was up to the task to being president for four more years, and he failed on that score, and failed pretty dramatically.
The debate was effectively over a mere 11 minutes in. Biden was responding to a question about the national debt, and his answer was…simply bad. He said, in part:
We have a thousand trillionaires in America — I mean billionaires, in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2% in taxes. If they just paid 24%, or 25%, either one of those numbers, they’d raise 500 million dollars — billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period. We’d be able to wipe out his debt, we’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do — child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to s— strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person…er, uh…eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the uh, with, with the COVID, excuse me, with…um…dealing with, everything we have to do with, uh…look…if…we finally beat Medicare.
It’s barely worth mentioning, but Biden was clearly trying to avoid stuttering there, and was vamping to find something — anything — he could say fluently, and what his brain spit out was “we finally beat Medicare.” And I just…I got nothin’, you guys. I had vicarious terror while he was fumbling through that because I’ve been there. [And God knows it’s never happened to me on live television with probably hundreds of millions of people watching.] It’s an inexplicably and agonizingly lonely feeling when you’re desperately searching for fluent words and not finding any. As he was circumlocuting and pausing, I could tell he was stuck in a verbal cul-de-sac. Pretty much everything after “eligible” was a scramble to get to a fluent word, like trying to cross a river by jumping to boulders that were too far apart. I was nervously urging through my television “come on Joe, just say something…” …and that’s what came out. I know the despair, the feeling of failure, and it pains me greatly, but there’s no way around it. It was a bad answer that confirmed every concern of every plausibly gettable voter in America. Yes, that’s what stuttering can be like sometimes, and it’s not fair, but life isn’t fair.
Joe Biden had to come out and not look 81, and he looked every second of 81 and then some. The split screen did him no favors. When he wasn’t speaking, he often had a blank stare with his mouth open. It was simply terrible optics. He scarcely could have been less reassuring. As I told the friends of mine who were texting me, this was a click above him having a stroke on live television. It wasn’t the worst case scenario, but it was nevertheless excruciatingly bad. The bar was about as low as it could’ve been — just come across as plausibly presidential — and he nevertheless tripped over the bar, stepped in a mop bucket, and fell down the stairs into a passing garbage truck.
In a certain sense he was over-prepared, or at least ill-prepared. He had so many memorized stats and talking points, which he failed to execute, that he managed to seem both stilted and rambling. None of his canned lines really landed and his off the cuff content was…again, not great. Truly the worst of both worlds. He performed better immediately following the debate when he addressed the campaign watch party, but man. I think that was irreparable harm to his candidacy.
Trump, for his part, was either utterly dishonest or completely insane, but he managed to say dishonest and insane things convincingly, and that’s probably all that matters. As I suspected/feared, the debate rules actually helped him because they helped constrain his insanity. And for the first time since he entered politics, he seemed to recognize when enough was enough in a debate. He actually showed some semblance of restraint, and times when he could’ve viciously attacked Biden he opted instead to simply be subtly prickish. At one point when Biden had another less-than-coherent answer, Trump simply said “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he knows what he said, either.” Now, I loathe Donald Trump and think he’s an absolute bastard, but that is devastating, especially given how Biden stood there, mouth agape, looking confused as Trump said it.
As I said, Trump was either completely dishonest or insane, but I’ve given up trying to think any of that matters. What most offended me was, probably not surprisingly, his answer about January 6th. He basically tried to completely write it off by noting how good other things were for the country at the time. “On January 6th, we had a great border,” he said. “On January 6th, we were energy independent, on January 6th, we had the lowest taxes ever. We had the lowest regulations ever. On January 6th, we were respected all over the world.” As if to say, what’s one little insurrectionist riot, y’know? There were fewer illegal immigrants and milk was cheaper. Sometimes you gotta tolerate a little political violence to keep the price of bread down, I guess.
As someone who thinks that Trump was utterly disqualified for office on January 6th, regardless of what one might think of his presidency, I think it’s contemptible to “yeah, but” such a black mark on America’s history and reputation. I wouldn’t much care if he had been a better president than Ronald Reagan [which many of his acolytes inexplicably claim anyway]; his actions on January 6th should have gotten him drummed out of political life. But I also worry it’s going to work. Trump isn’t a Nazi, and he probably doesn’t meet the definition of a fascist, but he’s absolutely a demagogue. And it’s becoming clear, as if it weren’t before, how demagogues throughout history were able to obtain power by appealing to the baser instincts of the people. If Trump is able to whitewash his post-2020 election and January 6th iniquities effectively enough to get re-elected, it will be to the shame of the American electorate. More on that later.
Many people were giving CNN praise for the debate format, and I suppose in a normal world it would’ve been great. The “no studio audience” and muted microphones rules are great ideas in theory. But I also said that I was worried the moderators wouldn’t push back against Trump’s provable falsehoods, and they didn’t. At all. There’s an argument to be made, I guess, that fact-checking Trump in real time is Biden’s responsibility and not CNN’s, but man, it’s still a hell of a thing to have a guy go on live television and make utterly untrue statements and have the people in charge of that television channel just shrug and say “not our responsibility.” It’s at least a little their responsibility, no? Also, they didn’t mention January 6 until halfway in and — bafflingly — there wasn’t a single question about the 2020 election conspiracies. But this is probably all shouting at the rising tide because even if they had moderated the debate precisely how I wanted them to, I don’t think that would’ve been enough to overcome Biden’s dreadful performance.
Since it became clear months ago that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican nominee, I have been of the opinion that “yes, Joe Biden is old, but even in his state of being old, he is still obviously preferable to the clearly insane person.” And I still believe, obviously, that in a serious country, Donald Trump would get zero votes. After last night, however, I cannot seriously make the argument that the Joe Biden we saw on stage is in any condition to be present of the United States for the next four years. And that’s a terrible place to be. I mean, I still prefer old to insane, but I recognize that’s asking a lot of people who are less politically engaged and/or ideological than I am. Donald Trump has no business being president for all sorts of reasons, but man, if that’s the best Biden can do with weeks to prepare and knowing the stakes, then he has no business either. I said two years ago that Biden couldn’t run for president this cycle. Not that he wouldn’t, but that he would be physically unable. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Over the last few months, I’d sort of come to grips with the fact that Biden was just good enough to quiet the talk about replacing him on the ballot. After last night, however — and again, at the risk of overreacting — I think it is political malpractice for Democrats to run this guy out there. What I don’t know, however, is the answer to “…and therefore what?”.
Unless something major, major happens — and it could, sure — this election is likely over. I’ve been wrong before: I was one of the many in 2016 suffering from plausibility bias in thinking that Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win. But now that we’ve shattered that illusion, it’s more plausible to me that we elect the coup-attempting convicted felon than we elect the whispering, rambling, raspy old man. Trump was winning before the debate, and it has only improved his chances.
As I see it, there are effectively two ways for Democrats to turn this around. First, Joe Biden needs to get out there, starting today, and prove that last night was just an incredibly unfortunate fluke. There’s supposed to be another debate in August, but Biden doesn’t have that kind of time. He can’t leave this sour note ringing in the air. He needs to give a live press conference, he needs to do interviews with every major network, he needs to give a string of high-energy rallies. He basically needs to do push-ups on like television like Jack LeLanne to prove he’s not disintegrating before our eyes. The flaw in that plan is that I don’t think it’s possible. If Biden were still capable of such a feat, he would have done it yesterday.
So, failing that, Democrats need to have a hard conversation and replace him on the ballot. The problem with that, of course, is the same as it ever was: There is a collective action problem among the Democrats such that there is no incentive for any one candidate to step aside in favor of another, but it’s necessary that all but one of them do so. Conventional wisdom is that Vice President Kamala Harris is perhaps even less popular than Biden, and so Biden stepping aside would also necessitate Harris simultaneously stepping aside. Jonah Goldberg likened it to how in order to launch a nuclear weapon, the two officers have to turn their keys simultaneously. That’s an apt metaphor because this is indeed the political nuclear option. But desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.
Personally, I’m not convinced that Kamala Harris would perform worse than Biden. She was a bad pick for vice president and her on-paper attributes as a candidate never seemed to materialize into a formidable political force, and maybe she was a worse candidate than peak Biden. But I don’t imagine she would be worse than last night Joe Biden. Whether that’s enough to defeat Trump, I’m not sure — he’s already denied one woman an historical presidency, after all — but pretty much anyone under the age of 70 and to the right of Bernie Sanders would likely be an improvement.
At this point, it’s a matter of patriotism, love of country. I can’t imagine voluntarily giving up the presidency, but if Biden actually thinks he can win in this condition, he needs to be disabused of that notion today. And if he truly believes that Donald Trump is a danger to the American political system, and therefore the world order, then he needs to do whatever he can to increase the odds of Trump’s defeat. I don’t know whether Joe Biden actually has that in him — I grant that it’s asking about as much as we could possible ask of someone. I’m likewise unsure that he has anyone around him willing to even have that talk. And beyond that, I don’t know that Kamala Harris is the answer or, if she’s not, how you convince her to follow Biden out the door. And even if we could manage all of that, I still don’t know whose name is in that envelope. A series of poor choices and conflicting incentives have led us to this unfortunate juncture. I wish I had more useful ideas than “good luck, America,” but I just don’t know.
Good luck, America.
Well on that Note
Since that was sort of a drag, here’s Jon Stewart doing what I just did, but funnier:
Occasional Trivia
Answer from last time:
Category: Contested Elections
Clue: Against bitterly divided Democrats, he won with the second-lowest percentage of the popular vote in history, 39.8%.
Abraham Lincoln
Today’s clue:
Category: American Literature
Clue: At the end of “Moby Dick,” this ship sinks and Ishmael is the lone survivor.
Dispatches from the Homefront
My younger daughter is right at the prime height to get licked in the face by our dog, which he does at every opportunity and which she thoroughly does not enjoy. And so the other day, I guess to show him the unpleasantness he inflicts on her, my daughter licked the dog on his face. But the joke’s on her, he seemed to really enjoy it.