The Joe Biden old/unable-to-serve drama continues without fail. Joe has to go — or so say a shitload of media types and supposedly Democrat-party heavies (except for lefty blogs who refer to chilling out and letting Joe go forth) and none with sense.
In this case, I think Joe should continue the run, there’s still four months to go and a shitload of shit could happen (spill) with time to watch the clock full-time. Or if circumstances play right, maybe he could resign after the nomination/convention and throw his weight behind Kamala Harris (as he should). Or persevere on the same track.
Even in this fast-paced world of 2024, it’s still too early to tell — the future is usually not what was supposed:
Reminder for people who seem to be convinced that a deficit barely outside the margin of error in July is insurmountable pic.twitter.com/7oKQUnzP91
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 3, 2024
Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice tackles the panic scenario and concludes:
Biden has had a successful first term; he and his party won historic victories in 2022 and 2023. He beat Trump in 2020. The polling is scary; the debate performance was even grimmer. But right now, there’s no easy path to replacing the president, and no obvious candidate who would do much better than him.
Biden knows he’s able to do the job and he can argue plausibly that switching candidates right now would do more harm than good. Given that, it’s extremely unlikely he will take himself out of the race.
Pundits like stuff to happen. Biden stepping down would feel like action; it would be good copy. The media wants dramatic choices and dramatic events. Choosing to stay the course feels boring and insufficiently proactive, especially when the stakes are so high.
The future is difficult to predict. There’s no guarantee Biden will win this election. But there’s no guarantee Harris or some other Democratic replacement would win either. Sometimes the best thing to do is to follow through. Biden’s the nominee. We’d all be better off accepting that rather than indulging in panic, or in fantasies of easy victories with some perfect candidate to be named later.
Never give up, run hard:
Time to run, Joe, or not, yet once again here we are…
(Illustration out front: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les Deux Saltimbanques: l’Arlequin et Sa Compagne,’ found here.)