The first step is admitting you have a problem: Viewed as one big, televised retirement party for a sharply declining President Joe Biden, last night's debate was a success. Viewed as a showdown between two contenders jockeying for nuclear codes, last night's debate was a shitshow.
Even Democrats who had up until this point been propping up Biden are finally admitting that they have a massive problem. At first, they went with "he has a cold" as the excuse for a stunningly poor performance. (Also: "He overprepared!") Then, as the night wore on, they began to concede deeper problems.
"Right now, there is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party," said CNN's John King immediately after the debate wrapped.
"It started minutes into the debate, and it continues right now," added King. "It involves party strategists and involves elected officials. It involves fundraisers, and they're having conversations about the president's performance….Some of those conversations include: Should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside? Should prominent Democrats go public with that call?"
King's assessment is not unique. It was shared by strategists and normal people alike, all of whom seemingly want Democrats to win but increasingly doubt Biden's efficacy.
Beltway panic: "It was a slow start, that's obvious to everyone," Biden's vice president, Kamala Harris, admitted in a televised postgame. The New York Times described it as "a fumbling performance, and a panicking party." The Washington Post practically stole that same headline. The Atlantic's riff was a little more novel: "Dropping out is Biden's most patriotic option."
It felt like the omertà was finally broken. Back in March, talking heads would claim that Biden is the sharpest he's ever been, and that his mental acuity is a selling point; after last night's performance, nobody can delude themselves (or their viewers) anymore. But if democracy is on the ballot—the frequent refrain of much of the establishment media, particularly from CNN and MSNBC—why not be more choosy with your candidates?
Though members of the media, glancing at the headlines offered by other publications, may finally be free to admit what a problem Biden is, Democrats within the party have backed themselves into a corner. They have not fielded another clear alternative to Biden, and as the incumbent who would be unable to save face if he stepped aside, there's really no hope of letting the president down easy and replacing him with someone who has better odds of beating Donald Trump.
On the issues, neither candidate revealed anything new or proposed any policies that would be welcomed by libertarians. Biden's incoherence on entitlements, debt, and deficits should leave us all worried. It felt like a showdown between two immigration hawks, neither of whom articulated a clear solution for immigration reform or demonstrated any depth on the issue, being wholly derailed by the issue of border crossings. And Biden's answer on the overturning of Roe v. Wade and abortion being returned to the states was a shockingly jumbled mess. Judge for yourself:
"The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying, we're going to turn civil rights back to the states. Let each state have a different rule. Look, there's so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just murdered and he went to the funeral. And the idea that she was murdered by a by by an immigrant coming in to. They talk about that. But here's the deal. There's a lot of young women being raped by their by their in-laws, by their by by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by just it's just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it. And they try to arrest them when they cross state lines."
I personally think the odds of Democrats bringing someone in to replace Biden are extraordinarily low. But that doesn't mean California's Gavin Newsom isn't getting his hopes (among other things) up.
Scenes from New York: A wonderful debate watch party in Soho (candid moment captured of two of my dear buds, Nancy Rommelmann and Matt Welch).
Also enjoyed seeing Christina Fishman, Michael Moynihan, River Page, Suzy Weiss, Rob Henderson, and many others. Thank you to our gracious host, Jonathan Farber!
QUICK HITS
- "The court's 5-4 decision to scuttle Purdue Pharma LP's $6 billion opioid settlement, ruling that it improperly protected the OxyContin maker's billionaire owners, is set to have ripple effects that stretch far beyond the company and the victims of the drug crisis. It stands to change the way troubled organizations have used Chapter 11 for decades to survive onslaughts of lawsuits," reports Bloomberg.
- "When I am in a foreign city and in search of interesting food, I have a trick: In which neighborhood, I ask the locals, am I most likely to get murdered? In Stockholm, Rinkeby was the answer, even though many of the people I asked had never been," writes Tyler Cowen. "So I went to Rinkeby, which is mostly non-White and most notably Somalian."
- In defense of late bloomers.
- One interesting artifact of the current moment: Online betting markets show Biden's odds of being his party's nominee absolutely tanking.
The post Joe Biden, Hot Mess appeared first on Reason.com.