I didn’t want to write this column, I really didn’t.
Since Thursday night I have vacillated between borderline obsession (monitoring every tweet, reading every story, phone-banking donors, reporters, and insiders) and trying to ignore the democratic world that has abruptly and rapidly come crumbling down around us.
But I was always taught that in life you cannot solve a problem you are unwilling to admit.
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The major question commanding the conversation is both naive and disingenuous: How did we–the Democratic party–at a time when there is already a crisis of confidence and trust in basic democratic institutions, both affirm that skepticism for the world to see and, potentially, cost ourselves the election all in 90 minutes?
To answer this honestly, a lot of people have a lot to own up to. So first, let’s make our way into the collective confessional booth and have a chat.
First there is the “they” who concealed the truth about the president’s apparent condition. That “they” is comprised of a long and distinguished list, starting with the first family, top White House and Biden campaign staff, and likely a notable list of Democratic senators, Congress members and Cabinet officials.
They’ve been doing it for months, if not well over a year. And don’t kid yourselves, there is a lot of anger from the rank and file over it.
Second, there is the “they” who gaslit us and enabled the situation. That “they” would be the fourth estate, who I’d like to take a minute to congratulate for confirming Trump’s infamous 2016 “fake news” mantra. It’s possible the American public, whose faith in the news was already at an-all time low, will never fully recover from this. So for all of the “reporters” who appear to have found the light switch in the last few days: too little, too late. No one will ever believe that the mainstream media didn’t know this story was there. They will believe that they made a conscious decision not to report it.
Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times, embodied the issue herself in a head-spinning statement that at first blush appeared to be taking both the White House and the media to task for a massive cover-up and failure to do their jobs respectively, but in doing so outed herself and her former colleagues as complicit when she said the quiet part out loud to Semafor: “I worry that too many journalists didn’t try to get the story because they did not want to be accused of helping elect Trump. I get that…”
“I get that?” Really? You do? Well, do you get why the American public doesn’t trust the news, and believes they’re partisan? Do you get that, too?
Breaking News Alert: The media’s job is not to put its thumb on the scale—no matter their personal politics or that of their editorial boards.
Compounding the problem, ever since Thursday night’s slow-motion car crash, “they”—in this case, the Biden campaign and its inner circle—have committed a series of missteps that could best be described as professional malpractice. They believed the jaw-dropping revelations around the debate could be dismissed as “one bad night” compared to “Obama/Romney 2012” and papered over with a few scripted appearances with the aid of a teleprompter. No press questions would be answered, no unfriendly media allowed.
And then the Bidens departed for Camp David.
Within hours, a story in the New York Times painted the picture of the first family clinging to the East Wing and blaming White House staff for the debate catastrophe.
The article went further, saying that—in light of the staff’s poor performance—the family would be taking on more of an active role. Everything would be fine because the grandkids were going to start volunteering on the campaign. The president, it stated, is leaning on Hunter Biden for advice, leaving many Americans to question the president's judgment as much as they had been questioning his mental acuity.
Monday, straight from the department of horrific timing, Jill Biden, appearing to do her best Claire Underwood impression, graced the cover of Vogue, leaving top Democratic donors and operatives nationwide wide-eyed, mouths fully agape.
And amidst the greatest crisis to face the party in modern political history, the party elders have been all but absent. Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama appear to be taking a leading role in ushering their successor to his come-to-Jesus moment, nor are they serving as the public face of his defense, their support muted and confined to social media.
With the Bidens dug in and the party’s institutional forces appearing to apprehensively tow the line, the only thing that could change the dynamic was numbers.
And then… polling started to trickle in.
CBS was the first significant survey out of the gate: 72 percent of Americans no longer believe the president has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president. A New Hampshire one put Trump up 2—a 12 point swing since December. Harvard/Harris put Trump up nationwide by 6 points—results that were mirrored by CNN. Leaked internal Democratic polling put Biden behind in all seven battleground states.
Suddenly elected Democrats—who were split between publicly falling in line and privately fuming—have begun to openly call for the president to leave the ticket.
So now what? Where do we go? Identify the solution. Or in this case choose between two less than ideal, realistic options.
After days of fantasy football-like jockeying, yelling out good-on-paper names that are largely unknown, untested and unvetted nationally–some of whom are not the least bit interested (Michelle Obama), others who could turn the next four months into a referendum on the state of San Francisco (Gavin Newsom)—let’s let a dose of reality set in.
Campaign finance laws don’t allow for Biden/Harris funds to be transferred to a brand new set of knighted candidates. While another duo could arguably energize the donor class, no one in their right mind would flush $240 million down the drain and start from scratch. That, this week’s polling boomlet putting Kamala as the party’s best shot to contend with Trump, and the already complicated politics of attempting to side-step the nation’s first-ever Black female VP, put to bed the question of who the party’s nominee—if it is not Joe Biden—would be.
The only realistic paths forward are either 1.) President Biden remains the nominee, and in turn—absent a seismic governmental or political event in his favor (which could happen)—Trump likely wins in November;
Or 2.) Historically unpopular Kamala Harris takes the party’s reins. In the latter scenario Harris could choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her VP, putting the crucial swing state back squarely in play, hope that the historic nature of her candidacy energizes the backbone of the party, and give it a shot.
Neither is far from a sure thing. But we have reached the fork in the proverbial road.
And our deadline is not the convention. Thanks to an inconvenient quirk in Ohio’s election law, presidential tickets must be certified by Aug. 7, meaning the Democratic party has 35 days to make a choice.
Knowing the existential threat that a second Trump presidency would present compounds the recklessness and culpability of everyone involved. And there isn’t another minute to waste.
Tick. Tock.
