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BIDEN-TRUMP WAS A BOMBSHELL NO ONE EXPECTED  
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June 28, 2024
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_ These 90 minutes were anticipated as a defining moment of the 2024
Presidential campaign. They proved to be a bombshell that few
expected. Here is a survey of editorial comment from quarters that
have been broadly supportive of Biden. _

,

 

TRUMP WAS THE TRUMP WE KNOW. BIDEN WAS THE BIDEN WE FEARED.
David Corn / Mother Jones
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Minutes into the debate, without even checking with Twitter, you could
tell what the reaction was going to be. There would be no way to spin
this: a bad night for Biden and the Democrats. A debacle. And one
didn’t need a crystal ball to know that there would soon be—maybe
before the debate was done—renewed chatter about the possibility of
replacing Biden as the Democrats’ nominee. (How that can happen
without a complete mess is tough to envision. Would Vice President
Kamala Harris inherit the nomination? If she went for it and was
challenged by one or more candidates—California Gov. Gavin Newsom,
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—would that lead to a civil war within
the party and offend a key constituency: Black voters?)

Bill Clinton used to say that strong-and-wrong beats weak-and-right.
With his performance on Thursday night, Biden created a perfect test
case for that proposition.

JOE BIDEN IS A GOOD MAN AND A GOOD PRESIDENT. HE MUST BOW OUT OF THE
RACE.
Thomas Friedman / New York Times
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I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it
made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in
American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime, precisely
because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good
president, has no business running for re-election. And Donald Trump,
a malicious man and a petty president, has learned nothing and
forgotten nothing. He is the same fire hose of lies he always was,
obsessed with his grievances — nowhere close to what it will take
for America to lead in the 21st century.

The Biden family and political team must gather quickly and have the
hardest of conversations with the president, a conversation of love
and clarity and resolve. To give America the greatest shot possible of
deterring the Trump threat in November, the president has to come
forward and declare that he will not be running for re-election and is
releasing all of his delegates for the Democratic National Convention.

TRUMP SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD THIS PLATFORM
David Frum / The Atlantic
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Ferocious controversy will probably now erupt over Biden’s
leadership of the Democratic Party. We’ll hear all kinds of plans to
swap him out somehow. Maybe those plans will be workable, but probably
not. Through the uproar, it will be important to keep in mind that
this election is not about Biden. It’s about you and your
commitments and your values. Biden is just the instrument. Like any
instrument, he’s imperfect. But better an imperfect instrument than
a would-be autocrat who demands a cult of personality.

A century ago, the socialist leader (and presidential candidate)
Eugene V. Debs rebuked followers
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who idolized him: “I would not lead you into the promised land if I
could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out. You
must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of
your present condition.”

WAS THE DEBATE THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF JOE BIDEN’S PRESIDENCY?
Susan Glasser / The New Yorker
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The news of the debate was not Trump saying crazy, untrue things,
though he did so in abundance. It was Biden. The President of the
United States, eighty-one years old and asking to be returned to
office until age eighty-six, looked and sounded old. Too old. His
voice was muffled. He lost his train of thought. He raced through
answers. When Trump talked, the split screen showed Biden staring,
wide-eyed and open-mouthed, in a way that made him look even older.
…
The question now is not so much about what kind of bounce Trump might
get from Thursday’s debate but an even bigger one that we can’t
quite answer yet: Was this the beginning of the end of the Biden
Presidency?

A POST-DEBATE QUESTION: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO US?
Lz Granderson / Common Dreams
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Even before Thursday’s debate, I felt palpable nervousness in
Washington this week as we all began to sense that the worse candidate
(Trump) could prevail over the bad candidate (Biden). I was there as
the White House opened its doors to the LGBTQ+ community in
celebration of Pride Month, and with this close election looming, it
was hard not to think this could be the last White House Pride
celebration for a while.

That’s what I was thinking about as I was coming to terms with the
fact that America’s choices for president are between a very old man
with a decent heart and a crazy old man with an axe to grind.

For the vast majority of us, that equates to picking the lesser of two
evils.

But it’s not a close call for those of us who remember that past
administrations have hunted down queer employees of the federal
government and purged them from their jobs (the “lavender scare”
of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s). Or that the Republican
administrations of the ’80s and ’90s let us die in the streets
during the AIDS crisis. There aren’t two evils to consider.

There’s only survival.

THE TRUMP BIDEN DEBATE DISASTER
Jeet Heer / The Nation 
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The only plausible scenario is for the party’s ranking members of
Congress and party elders such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and
Hillary Clinton to converge on the White House to tell Biden to
withdraw his nomination for the good of the party and the country (not
to say the world). Kamala Harris would then become the party’s
nominee and she could select a vice-presidential pick from among the
party’s wide range of talent.

Those who still harbor fantasies of a brokered convention clearly
haven’t been paying attention. The Democratic National Committee
just moved the presidential nomination roll call up to August 7
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so that Biden can get on the ballot in Ohio. Biden already has a total
lock on pledged delegates, and even if he could be persuaded to
release them, there is no process for adjudicating a successor.

BIDEN BOMBED, BUT CNN DEBATE MODERATORS SET A NEW BENCHMARK FOR
CYNICISM
Adam Johnson / In These Times
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After the first 2024 presidential debate
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wrapped up last night, seemingly all the pundits and commentators
could talk about were the rumblings from inside the Democratic Party
about President Biden potentially backing out of the race, given what
appears to be almost unanimous consensus he failed to combat Donald
Trump in any meaningful way.
…
At the risk of doing an, ​“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was
the play?” it’s useful to document how conservative and facile
these presidential debates are, because they serve as a useful window
into mainstream media priorities — they distill what the
corporate press thinks is important and what ideological assumptions
they carry around in their nominally objective and above-the-fray
status as Serious News People. 

CALLS FOR BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL ARE A SIGN OF A HEALTHY DEMOCRATIC
PARTY
Brian Klaas / The Atlantic
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The reaction to last night’s presidential debate showed that
America’s two major political parties are not remotely the same.

One has transformed into a cult of personality that continues to
intensify its unwavering support for a presumptive nominee who is a
convicted felon and habitual liar—a man who incited a violent mob to
try to overturn an election, and whom courts have found liable for
sexual assault and banned from doing business in New York. The other
is in full-blown panic mode, considering whether an incumbent
president should drop out of the race after he sounded frail in a
debate.

Many Democrats are worried that the debate over Biden’s political
future will have devastating consequences. The worst-case scenario for
Democrats is to have an ugly, public rupture, in which swaths of the
party call on Biden to drop out, others defend him, and he ultimately
limps toward November after suffering from an intra-party battering.
But the best-case scenario—an internal course correction, brought
about by healthy questioning of the party’s leadership—could be
very positive. The White House could be made to understand the urgent
need to change its political strategy, or the party could produce an
alternative nominee with, perhaps, a better chance of winning in
November.

PRESIDENT BIDEN, I’VE SEEN ENOUGH
Nicholas Kristof [[link removed]] / New
York Times
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President Biden is a good man who capped a long career in public
service with a successful presidential term. But I hope he reviews his
debate performance Thursday evening and withdraws from the race,
throwing the choice of a Democratic nominee to the convention in
August.

One of the perils facing this country, I believe and Biden believes,
is the risk of a victory by Donald Trump. And after the debate, it’s
hard to avoid the feeling that Biden remaining in the race increases
the likelihood that Trump will move into the White House in January.

BIDEN’S RECORD WON’T WIN HIM THE ELECTION IF HE CAN’T MAKE SENSE
FOR 2 MINUTES AT A TIME
Chris Lehmann [[link removed]] / The
Nation
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The urgent question before the Democratic Party is whether to keep
Biden at the top of the ticket in what had been, prior to last
night’s calamity, a closely fought election. But the person of Biden
is less a cause of the party’s woes than a symptom. Biden, after
all, can claim the same status that Hillary Clinton routinely did
during her candidacy against Trump in 2016—that’s he’s
preeminently qualified to be president, and that his long policy
résumé and dealmaking track record in Washington are more than
sufficient to earn voters’ trust for a second term. Clinton’s
candidacy was perfectly summed up in its tone-deaf rejoinder to
Trump’s campaign slogan: 

“America is already great,” with the unspoken disclaimer, “and
we’re the people keeping it that way.”

The worship of credentialed achievement is a longstanding vice of the
modern Democratic Party, going back to Adali Stevenson’s doomed
egghead crusades against Eisenhower, and Michael Dukakis’
buttoned-down pitch as the “competence candidate.” But the glum
moral of Biden’s disastrous debate performance is that the whole
elaborate mythology of résumé-driven leadership is propping up a
candidate who is clearly not qualified to be heading the party’s
ticket in an election that the republic can’t afford for the party
to lose.

TIME TO GO, JOE
Mark Liebovich / The Atlantic
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The best part of this debate for Democrats is that it happened on June
27. There are nearly two months to go until the Democratic Convention
in Chicago. If Biden has any sense of how he performed—and hopefully
some tough love from those closest to him will make it abundantly
clear—he will quit, and soon. It will be a mess to pick a
replacement in eight weeks. Harris would have a natural advantage, but
the Democrats should throw it open to all comers: Governors Newsom and
Gretchen Whitmer, Senators Warnock and Amy Klobuchar, all the usual
mentions and some surprises. See what happens in Chicago.

DEMOCRATS CAN NO LONGER PRETEND BIDEN IS FIT TO BE PRESIDENT
Branko Marcetic / Jacobin
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Biden may be resisting
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pressure from within the party and liberal establishment as of this
morning, but persuading him to clear a path for someone else is a win
for everyone involved. For the president, at serious risk of undoing
what he sees as one of his chief accomplishments and bringing a
now-radicalized, vengeful Trump back to power, it will rescue his
floundering legacy. For the party, it gives them a fighting chance to
win in November and an opportunity to reset.

But replacing Biden likely won’t be enough. Democrats would have to
pair it with a drastic course correction, ending his unconditional
support for Israel’s campaign of mass murder that has split the
party and threatens to explode into a disastrous regional war any day
now
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while dropping Bidenworld’s insistence
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on running on nothing but fearmongering about Trump and taking a page
from the Biden 2020 campaign instead to offer voters actual, bold
ideas for how they will make people’s lives better.

THE DEMOCRATS MUST DUMP BIDEN. HERE’S HOW.
Harold Meyerson / The American Prospect
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In my view, there is now no plausible way that Biden can defeat Trump.
But there are plausible ways to defeat Trump with a different
presidential nominee.
…
Now, it’s up to the Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,
House Leader Hakeem Jeffries (or better yet, Speaker Emerita Nancy
Pelosi), former Presidents Obama and Clinton, all need to converge on
the White House to tell Biden that his time is up, too, unless he
wants to go down in history not as a president who enacted landmark
legislation with the slimmest of congressional majorities, but as the
man who handed America over to its first genuinely autocratic (not to
mention vindictive and deranged) president. They probably need to be
assisted in this task by the quiet urgings of Dr. Jill Biden; we must
hope she understands that her husband’s reputation depends on his
dropping his candidacy.

Here’s why it would be tough for Democrats to replace Joe Biden on
the presidential ticket

KAMALA HARRIS COULD WIN THIS ELECTION. LET HER.
Lydia Polgreen / New York Times
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Not long after the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on
CNN with Anderson Cooper. Watching her calmly and methodically respond
to a battering ram of questions from Cooper, it occurred to me: The
obvious, logical path out of the mess President Biden created with his
disastrous debate performance is for him to bow out with honor and
endorse his young, vigorous and talented vice president to stand in
his stead.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
Heather Cox Richardson
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Tonight was the first debate between President Joe Biden and
presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and by far
the most striking thing about the debate was the overwhelming focus
among pundits immediately afterward about Biden’s appearance and
soft, hoarse voice as he rattled off statistics and events. Virtually
unmentioned was the fact that Trump lied and rambled incoherently,
ignored questions to say whatever he wanted; refused to acknowledge
the events of January 6, 2021; and refused to commit to accepting the
result of the 2024 presidential election, finally saying he would
accept it only if it met his standards for fairness.
Immediately after the debate, there were calls for Biden to drop out
of the race, but aside from the fact that the only time a presidential
candidate has ever done that—in 1968—it threw the race into utter
confusion and the president’s party lost, Biden needed to
demonstrate that his mental capacity is strong in order to push back
on the Republicans’ insistence that he is incapable of being
president. That, he did, thoroughly. Biden began with a weak start but
hit his stride as the evening wore on. Indeed, he covered his bases
too thoroughly, listing the many accomplishments of his administration
in such a hurry that he was sometimes hard to understand. 

BERNIE SANDERS ON BIDEN’S PERFORMANCE: ‘NOT TERRIBLY ARTICULATE TO
SAY THE LEAST’
Yash Roy / The Hill
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In his first public comments since President Biden
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night, Sen. Bernie Sanders
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failed to clearly articulate his achievements or vision for the
future.

“I have to also be very honest with you and tell you that I think
the president was not terribly articulate to say the least, and he was
not focused,” Sanders said of Thursday’s debate, at a rally in
Stevens Point, Wis. “He did not defend a very strong record.” 

THE STAKES ARE TOO HIGH TO KEEP DENYING BIDEN’S SHORTCOMINGS
Luke Savage / Jacobin
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For years, Democratic Party leaders have gaslit the public about Joe
Biden’s fitness to lead. After last night’s debate, it's clear
that the costs of keeping up the act are higher than the costs of
admitting the truth and correcting course.
…
Whatever happens, last night’s train wreck is ultimately a searing
indictment of a Democratic leadership so deferential to corporate
America and so cynically hell-bent on resisting change that it was
willing to lie to the entire country about its standard-bearer’s
fitness to lead. The facade has finally cracked, and we’re now in
for a crackup of epic proportions.

JOE BIDEN IS FACING THE BIGGEST DECISION OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER
Walter Shapiro / The New Republic
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After an uninspiring, wavering, hoarse-voiced debate performance in
which he constantly failed to halt Donald Trump’s torrent of lies,
it is time for Biden to face up to the reality of his 81 years. The
president, away from his aides and enablers, should ask himself the
blunt question: “Can I save American democracy by beating Trump?”
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There are major risks to the Biden withdrawal scenario, which is why I
have never taken it seriously until I endured the Atlanta debate.
Whoever is the replacement nominee would have a serious learning
curve, since running for governor in California or Michigan does not
prepare you for the rigors of a four-month presidential race against a
dangerous demagogue. But any major figure in the Democratic Party
would bring more energy and effervescence to the race against Trump
than the laudable, but worn-out, Biden.

90 MISERABLE MINUTES OF BIDEN V TRUMP
David Smith / The Guardian
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That sickening thud you heard was jaws hitting the floor. That queasy
sound you heard was hearts sinking into boots. That raspy noise you
heard was a US president embodying what felt like the last gasp of the
ailing republic.

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

The first US presidential debate in Atlanta on Thursday was the night
that Democrats [[link removed]] went
from “Don’t panic!” to “OK, time to panic!” After months of
preparation and expectation, they got to the altar and suddenly
realised they were marrying the wrong man.

THE TRUE LOSERS OF THIS PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE WERE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Rebecca Solnit / The Guardian
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We didn’t need this debate. Because 2024 is not like previous
election years, and the reasons it’s not are both that each
candidate has had plenty of time to show us who they are and because
one of them is a criminal seeking to destroy democracy and human
rights along with the climate, the economy and international
alliances. If you are too young to remember 2017-2021, this would not
help you figure that out.
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Much has been said about the age of the candidates, but maybe it’s
the corporate media whose senility is most dangerous to us. Their
insistence on proceeding as though things are pretty much what
they’ve always been, on normalizing the appalling and outrageous, on
using false equivalencies and bothsiderism to make themselves look
fair and reasonable, on turning politics into horseraces and
personality contests, is aiding the destruction of the United States.

IS THERE A GOOD REASON NOT TO PANIC? WELL, NO, NOT REALLY.
Michael Tomasky / The New Republic
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The Democrats have always had three options. Sticking with Joe Biden
always seemed like the least bad option. Last night, that changed.

Trump lied like crazy, sure. Nobody’s aborting a fetus after it’s
born
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“Everyone
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did not want Roe overturned. Millions
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of people from prisons or mental institutions have not crossed the
border. Food prices haven’t “quadrupled.” It went on and
on—CNN’s fact-checker said he counted at least 30 outright lies
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Jake Tapper and Dana Bash never stepped in to fact-check Trump. All
that is true. But none of that changes the overwhelming fact. Biden
confirmed Democrats’ worst nightmares. “We finally beat
Medicare”? Dear God.
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So: Is an abbreviated, multicandidate campaign even possible? Here’s
a scenario. Biden drops out next week, releasing the delegates he’s
amassed during the primaries to do whatever. Candidates
announce—Harris, the governors I named above (along with a few
others, like Kentucky’s Andy Beshear), Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker,
maybe another senator or two. Throughout July, they have an intensive
schedule of debates. Six or seven. Over the course of those debates,
some will rise, some will fade. In early August, in time for Ohio, let
the rank-and-file decide via electronic vote. Make all the contenders
commit to supporting the process and standing 100 percent behind the
winner.

THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC FREAKOUT IS UPON US
Karen Tumulty
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/ Washington Post
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It will be difficult for even the most creative spinners in President
Biden’s camp to manufacture a victory narrative out of his dreadful
performance
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at Thursday night’s debate against his predecessor, Donald Trump
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Which means the anxieties that Democrats have had all along about
Biden’s decision to run for a second term will come to the fore,
along with far-fetched scenarios in which he might be compelled to
step aside. There will no doubt be talk of throwing open the
Democratic convention in Chicago in August to pick a new nominee.

But the turmoil that would create would be catastrophic. Biden and
Trump are the candidates that each party has cast its lot with — a
choice that polls consistently show is the most distasteful one
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that Americans have faced in modern history.

* Joe Biden
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* Donald Trump
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* elections
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