Discussion of The Ezra Klein Show

Episode Link

I joined my Times Opinion colleagues Ross Douthat and Michelle Cottle to discuss the debate — and what Democrats might do next.

Mentioned:

“The Biden and Trump Weaknesses That Don’t Get Enough Attention” by Ross Douthat

“Trump’s Bold Vision for America: Higher Prices!” with Matthew Yglesias on The Ezra Klein Show

“Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden” on The Ezra Klein Show

“Here’s How an Open Democratic Convention Would Work” with Elaine Kamarck on The Ezra Klein Show

Gretchen Whitmer on The Interview

“The Republican Party’s Decay Began Long Before Trump” with Sam Rosenfeld and Daniel Schlozman on The Ezra Klein Show

The Democrats will continue with the leaks and the off-the-record comments and other such cowardice while they “wait and see” for a few weeks, before they switch en masse to “it’s too late to change candidates.” The cowardice of the Democrats and the pride and hubris of a foolish and selfish old man is going to doom the country to a second Trump term, and then who knows what.

After Joe Biden's disastrous CNN debate, he lost a grand total of two points of support in the You Gov weekly tracking poll. Trump gained nothing.

Among independents Biden lost four points and Trump, remarkably, lost one point. Their support mostly went to RFK Jr. and Jill Stein. This suggests that Trump really does have a ceiling on his support.

On average, other polls also show Biden losing a net of 2-3% after the debate. This is remarkably little, probably due to a combination of low viewership and high partisanship.

https://jabberwocking.com/joe-biden-lost-about-two-points-of-support-after-the-cnn-debate/

To be clear, I’m not talking about Ezra, or even the other Times opinion columnists. They have a job to do, while I don’t always agree, it’s their job to make their opinions known in print and podcasts. I’m talking about national reporters like Jonathan Martin, Astead Herndon, Alex Thompson, Brian Stelter, Olivia Nuzzi, etc.

I find the common liberal refrain of “But what about Trump??!!!” misplaced and reductive, and these reporters have done some good work during the Trump years. However, there is a clear difference in the way they report on Trump’s crimes and scandals versus the way the Biden palace intrigue is reported on. When it comes to Trump, the reporting is sober, matter of fact, and honestly a little mute. When it comes to the Biden debate fallout, the coverage is breathless, gossipy, full of editorializing and snarky tweets along with their news stories. It’s not just reporting of what Biden and his team are doing and saying - it’s second order reporting about how the party will react to the news of the day, how mythical base voters will perceive what’s going, how Biden is personally feeling (or how they guess he’s feeling) with little knowledge of what’s actually going on in his head.

I’ve tried to think about why there is this difference. My main theory is that at least at some level, these reporters who work for the Times, the New Yorker, CNN, etc. know that the Democratic base actually listens to and forms opinions based on those media outlets. Whereas they know they have absolutely zero currency with the 35%-40% hard MAGA base. What they report on doesn’t even penetrate that group. Therefore they know that they can engage in a subtle dialogue with the Democratic base, but not the Republican base.

Any other theories?

I think my confusion is making me very frustrated and angry. I don’t understand this current moment. All the data, all of the narratives, all of the momentum right now is favoring Trump. We’ve been told Democracy itself is on the line in November. Poll after poll suggests Biden dropping out is what people want. Yet, while Democrats are still broadly popular, Trump is scary, and many peolpe just need a minimal level of competency to not vote for Trump, we will lose.

There is no executable plan by the Biden campaign to turn this around for Biden. That was it. That was the gamble and the red button and it not only failed, it backfired entirely. Now we are running into the iceberg even though all the passangers see it and we sit here powerless. There might be enough time but the captain has gone mad and all the sailors are asleep or blind. And im fucking furious because I honestly trusted these people. I don’t understand what the plan is, why no one is doing anything, or what facts these supposedly smart people are using to make any of their decisions. We all see the emperor’s ass cheeks and its been pointed out that he is naked. There is no going back. This was a gamble and it backfired. Someone needs to steer the ship and no one wants to. I trusted the Democratic party too much to be pragmatic and competent.

People are talking like there's been some kind of cover up about Biden's infirmity, like we saw how old and senile he is for the first time on the debate stage. Has nobody watched anything of Biden's during his presidency?

The vast majority of his conversations have looked like they did on the debate stage. His weak voice (sickness?) was the only exacerbating thing. He performed exactly as I expected. He stumbled over words, couldn't complete sentences, couldn't enunciate well, sounded a bit incoherent at times, and just generally seemed old and senile. He shuffled and looked vacant.

This is how he has looked in virtually every unscripted conversation. His SOTU address was an anomaly. Best case scenario for the debate was that he could at least stick to the correct talking points and finish each thought after a little effort, but we didn't get that. I'm not sure what people were expecting.

…and path plausibility and difficulty must be figured into the candidates viability or you’re not making a serious argument.

My just-talking-here perspective on some pathways:

Michelle Obama: Crushes trump in my opinion, seemingly won’t run, so viability is 0%.

Joe Biden: Very likely loses to Trump, but can single-handedly block literally every other plausible pathway for every other plausible candidate queue Bugs Bunny “No” meme, so viability is decidedly non-zero.

Kamala Harris: Probably loses to Trump, but is a known (for worse more than better) quantity that has been vetted nationally and has the unknown power of “Not being Biden/Trump”. More importantly, she has multiple pathways—basically Coronation by Biden if he thinks a contested convention is too risky, a contested convention, etc. Finally, she can probably play spoiler to every non-Biden candidate if she doesn’t back them enthusiastically, and is definitely willing to run, so viability is way higher than her innate qualities as a candidate might suggest.

Every Non-Gavin Governor I’ve seen put forward (Whitmer/Shapiro/Moore/Pritzker/Etc.): Solid chance against Trump in a vacuum, but whether they’re willing to be drafted into this clusterboink at this point is, I think, uncertain. Moreover, all of their paths onto the ticket seem to run through a contested convention, which is a massive unknown risk to their candidacy. Viability: hard to judge, but much lower than any individual candidate’s “stats” would suggest due to the gauntlet they'd have to run to get onto the ticket.

Buttigieg: I think maybe beats Trump “on the stats”, but his professional and political background right now doesn’t exactly scream “President Ready”, and I think an openly gay man at the top of the ticket in 2024 introduces a huge unknown into the equation. My guess is he’d probably be willing to take a VP spot under Harris, which might be a shortcut onto the ticket without a contested convention, but for the top spot he’d likely have to go through a contested convention, which I think he certainly loses. Viability near zero.

General/Major, Joe Biden’s German Shepherds: Won’t take any guff from Putin/Xi, good at herding Congress Critters probably, but I worry some Deep Stater in the Secret Service will leak that they leaked in the Oval Office and I worry they might bite a child or bark disproportionately at black people on the campaign trail or something, so one must ask the question: Are they good boys?

…who am I kidding—I’d definitely vote for either. “WHO’S A GOOD BOY!? OW!”

But seriously, it seems every other post or comment I see in this sub suggests alternative tickets like "the Democrats" just have cards in a deck that they can deploy like it’s Magic TCG or something. Politics ain’t Pokemon.

I am so sick of people saying oh no you can’t pass over Kamala Harris because she’s a black woman and the optics would be bad. Democrats don’t dislike Kamala because she’s a black woman, they dislike her because she has no charisma, she’s not a good debater and her general demeanor isn’t appealing. She had her chance and got what, 1% of the Democratic vote?

/rant

The average American thinks this is a coverup. They reasonably believe this and won't be convinced otherwise.

This leads to a natural question for Harris: "what did you know about the coverup, when did you know it, and how much did you participate in it?"

Either she was in on the conspiracy or she hasn't actually participated in running the country, in which case there's no reason to vote for her.

It's damning either way and the sooner Dems realize this the sooner we can move into someone who can credibly claim "like all Americans I knew there were problems, but just like all of you they lied to me about how bad it was and the debate shocked me."

Keep in mind that this is ON TOP of the fact that polling shows Americans generally strongly dislike her already.

I find it odd that in most discussions here, this is not brought up all that often in regards to the topic of an ‘open’ convention’s prospects, given that it’s the closest historical precedent we have to such a proposal, and given the troubling parallels.

Here’s an article for the uninitiated: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/03/biden-steps-down-what-next-00166065

In 1968: -LBJ has an approval rating stuck in the 30s owing to discontent over the Vietnam War, among other things

-He decides that he can’t deal with the demands of his office AND run an effective campaign, and decides that it would be better for him and the party to step down

-the party quickly descends into in-fighting between pro- and anti-war Dems, among other factions

-this manifests at the convention, which is chaotic and marked by big anti-war protests and a rancorous competition between anti-war candidates like Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, and the establishmentarian choice, Hubert Humphrey.

-after a long, drawn-out disorderly battle, the delegates settle on Hubert Humphrey, who by the end of the convention is trailing Nixon by 12 points and can’t organize a campaign apparatus to match Nixon’s, hobbled by continued party factionalism and a late start

-Nixon wins the election, largely by painting the Dems as ‘the party of disorder’

What evidence do we have that the same process would play out differently this time, were Biden to step down in favor of an open convention?

How would the Dems avoid looking like ‘the party of disorder’? How would they ensure the coverage of the convention is positive?

Given the party’s organizational incompetence thus far, why would one believe it is capable of a well-orchestrated convention that united it smoothly around one candidate without a long, drawn out fight that pisses off either its progressive or centrist blocs? (Or both?)

It seems to me that these questions should be substantively answered before moving on to spitball who the ‘Democratic dreamteam’ is, but they rarely are. Ezra and others who have begun favoring some version of his proposal certainly don’t address them in any great detail.

What are your answers?

[Image]

I don't know where else to post this.

I will be heading to DC Friday, 7/5, to peacefully and tactfully protest Biden's candidacy at the White House, calling for him to drop out.

I don't believe it will have any direct affect, but short of emailing my representatives and the party, I don't know what else to do. I simply want to be heard and show others within the party who have similar thoughts that they aren't alone.

If anyone else will be in the DC area on Friday and would like to join me, I plan on being near Lafayette Square between 10am and 5pm. Feel free, if you are so inclined, to share elsewhere. I have no following, don't expect one, but it's the only thing I can do as an individual.

Trump must be defeated.

This isn’t a rhetorical question. It feels a bit strange. A meeting with congressional leadership would make sense to try to unify party leadership.

But governors? They’re executives in their own right and not as beholden to the base. It feels a bit like walking into the lion’s den. I have to imagine they’ll be more willing to offer unfiltered concerns. So what’s the point? Do staff want him to hear from people who might give it to him straight and deliver the bad news?

I personally feel strongly that Biden should drop out of the race given the very serious concerns about this ability to campaign effectively. However, I also recognize that this is a difficult and risky decision to make, and that well-informed people can disagree strenuously but in good faith about the best course of action. I believe that the vast majority of people aligned with the Democratic party are united in the singular fervent goal of keeping Trump out of office and are reasonably torn about the best way to accomplish that.

It's been disappointing, then, to see ad hominem attacks coming from both sides of the debate, whether the Biden camp characterizing those who are concerned as the "bedwetter brigade" or, on the other side, some of the more wild-eyed claims about a power-mad Biden cabal desperate to cling to power.

Many of these comments are obviously coming from real people. But, beyond that, the online conversation (whether here or on social media or in the comments section of various media articles) feels toxic in a way that is highly reminiscent of the disinfo-saturated discourse we saw in the lead up to and aftermath of the 2016 election. We know that Russian troll farms and bots (quite possibly in collusion with the Trump campaign) were amplifying discord then and we can be sure that they have grown much more powerful and sophisticated since, most obviously through GenAI.

The other night I made an illuminating comparison. The comments on NYT articles behind the paywall were probably 90% in favor of dropping out. The comments on the NYT Instagram feed (not paywalled) were the opposite, with a lot of vicious ad hominem attacks against those who have raised the alarm. I suspect that many of those comments on the IG feed were trolls and bots and imagine that much of the online "conversation" right now is coming from the same. I don't know whether they are promoting one side over another or simply trying to amplify discord wherever possible.

What I do know is that at this moment of great peril for the nation we cannot afford to be divided like this. I hope that everyone can dial down the temperature a bit, keeping in mind the powerful forces that are seeking to divide us. I'd also be curious to know whether others of you have encountered evidence of what I'm describing.

I think Biden's age is a legitimate concern and a major roadblock in winning the election. Nate Silver made the point that Biden being too old might be the only thing a low-information voter knows about him as a candidate. Being 81 and showing clear signs of mental decline is already enough to raise serious concerns that you can do the hardest job in the world for another 4 years.

But I think an underrated angle to all of this is the economy, which is often the decider of elections. This article from March sums up the electorate's current attitudes. 74% of respondents think the economy is only fair or poor. 65% of voters rate the economy as good during Trump’s presidency, compared to 38% under Biden.

Feel free to comment about how the president doesn't control the economy and things are actually going great under Biden. You don't need to convince me, you need to convince the American electorate. And I just don't see the needle moving on this before November. I think this is the main reason Biden has been trailing and why he won't make up for lost ground. Swing voters think Biden made inflation go up, and Trump is a businessman who will make it go down.

I bring this up as another reason why replacing Biden on the ticket just makes sense. This is a once-in-a-lifetime situation where an incumbent has low approval ratings, particularly on the economy, and there is a legitimate opportunity to just swap them out for a fresh face. Some of this is partisanship, and there will be voters who think Democrat = bad for economy, Republican = good for economy. But a new candidate can promote a message that they will be different, they will turn things around.

What path does Biden have to turn this around? I can't imagine what a successful game plan looks like for Biden. Keep hammering that Trump is a felon and a threat to democracy? That hasn't worked so far, and literally any other candidate has the same benefit of being not-Trump. I get that there are major issues with swapping out the incumbent and there will be angles of attack for any candidate. But I think swapping out turns a near-zero chance of winning into an outside chance, so it seems like the clear choice.

i ask because i don't know the answer and because biden and harris's flaws have been litigated heavily on this subreddit and elsewhere. i tend to agree that other available options seem better, but tbqh i'm not super familiar with any of them (other than newsom by virtue of being an ex-californian) and when people start praising a politician too much, personally i get kind of skeptical since no politician is that perfect.

so, i guess, if you were running a campaign against any of these candidates, what would your line of attack be? what's the steelman case against any of them? why would they lose?