So, Cenk Uygur really has a bone to pick with Biden. He's been consistently anti Biden the entire election cycle. He even tried running against him despite not being eligible. And now in this moment, he says we shouldnt give up vs Trump. Now, let's unpack this.
First let's discuss the strategy vs Trump himself. I know he just survived almost being offed by a lone wolf weirdo, and he had his moment yesterday, but his policies havent changed, the Republican National Convention starts tomorrow, and yeah, give him no quarter politically. We shouldnt use the kid gloves just because he almost died. We're still on election footing, and we cant be soft on him just because of this.
If anything, we should be hard on him. Conciliatory, but hard. Because this dude does pose a unique threat to democracy. And he's done a lot of so called "bomb throwing" that has destabilized the US and led to elevated political violence. Now, I dont support political violence, even against him, but just because some whacko decided to take some shots at him doesnt mean that he poses less of a threat. If anything, we should be angling in a way where we simultaneously condemn the violence against him, because it goes against the principles of liberal democracy, while continuing to criticize his own contributions to the erosion of norms surrounding said democracy. I dont know the shooter's motive. That seems to be a big question mark right now. But, Trump himself has incited a culture that has normalized political violence somewhat and he should be criticized here more than ever, and he should be held to account. Both legally, as per his felony accusations, and morally, through campaigning. If anything, democrats should be using this moment to encourage Trump to do better and to renounce his own behaviors that have eroded our democracy as much as they have.
I'm not gonna criticize his other policies here specifically. We can disagree about what policies are good and what aren't, but this wanna be dictator stuff and unitary executive theory stuff is not good, and yeah, dont lay off him for that. And you know what? We still got a campaign to win. So let's win it.
Now, Cenk is also upset because people are suddenly giving up on replacing Biden and uniting around him. Good, I say. I'm not opposed to replacing Biden, if the alternative does better, but it's very unclear an alternative would do better. Harris right now may do a little better, but its unclear if her national vote lead would lead to a lead in swing states. Same with Newsom, who is quickly catching up with Biden too.
Honestly, as I see it, what really sparked the replace Biden thing was Biden screwing up the debate. And Biden's polling going into free fall. Since June 27th, that's been all weve been talking about...until July 13th, the day Trump got shot. Now no one is focusing on Biden, we're all coming together on the left behind him, and condemn political violence regardless of the source, and right now, we have the high ground. We're slowing class. Well...most of us. Some people are using the opportunity to say that they wish the shooter succeeded. And I think that's kind of a problematic sentiment that accelerates the destruction of our institutions and I won't share that. Most of us, including Biden, are taking the high ground though. And we're coming off looking good and conciliatory. And the right cant really come after us, especially if the shooter himself wasn't a leftie. Some were trying to go that way, but yeah. We got the moral high ground right now. And we're playing this well, and honestly, it's good for us. People are gonna forget about the debate, things are gonna go back to normal, and our polls are gonna go back up.
A replacement only does about as good as Biden does now. Biden has a 10% chance now. I mean, I give a replacement a ceiling of around 15% based on what I've seen. Biden normally can get up to around 20-30% as a baseline. Which isnt great, but it's doable. We can work with it. I was gonna do a bigger post before the shooting, but then then I experienced serious executive dysfunction yesterday, and it never got made. But here's the core point I was gonna make. It's not all that unreasonable to expect one of the candidates to under/overperform by 3 points or so. And if Biden can bring the tipping point back within 3 points, he can still win. I can't say he's favored, Trump could perform on par or better instead and if things go the other way, we're losing Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. But the point is, he can technically win.
If the tipping point remains at 5+....I mean, the odds of that level of overperformance are MUCH lower. If Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are all within 3 points, if we overperform, we win. If we need to break the 5 point barrier, an overperformance would maybe win us Michigan and Wisconsin, but honestly, we wont hit 270. Even if we turn Georgia, Arizona, or Nevada (singular) blue, if we cant get a second state, we won't win. Because we need exactly 19 electoral votes from there, and only Pennsylvania will give them to us.
It's the same thing as Trump 2016 vs 2020. Trump overperformed by about 2-3..and he won. But he needed to overperform by 5 in 2020, and even if he overperformed, he still lost. Because he couldnt overperform on a level where he was able to overcome the odds against him. Same thing here.
As far as I know, only Biden can get us to a point where we can get within 3 points. The only reason replacing him is on the table is because he imploded after his flubbed the debate. He went from a 24% chance to a 10% chance. And now were talking about replacing him for another candidate that has, at most, a 15-16% chance. I mean, again, as good or better than Biden is the goal, ideally better given Biden is the nominee already. So we basically need someone demonstrably better than Biden to replace him, and at best, we're basically getting alternatives that perform roughly on par with or slightly better than Biden on a BAD day. That's not good.
So...if the issue goes away, and Biden recovers polling wise, and this whole ugly talk of replacing him is swept under the rug because everyone is focusing on Trump getting shot, then that's a good thing for us on the left. And I welcome dropping the issue and putting it behind us. Stay united against trump in the general, and do our best to defeat him. And if we can't, well, hopefully this incident helps us talk him back from the edge of the more crazy crap he wants to do.
So that's my view. We shouldnt lay off trump. NEVER lay off trump. BUT...i do welcome laying off Biden and uniting the dems behind him and putting this whole ugly debate-gate stuff behind us. The sooner the narrative moves away from this, the sooner our poll numbers can go back up again. That's how I see it.
Guys, I just wanna win and beat the GOP. We should support the candidate that best does that. I still believe Biden is either it, or its so statistically close to the alternatives it doesnt matter. If we let the issue go, and the media lets it go, and everyone gets it go, that's good for us and we should embrace it. Keeping the issue alive just keeps us divided and possibly implodes us. I only considered replacing biden because we were already implodiing. if we can recover and get Biden back up to his baseline, I'd rather do that.
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