They’re Going To Have To Drag Biden Out Of The White House, You Know
All weekend long, particularly following a poor appearance in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Friday night, the rumor mill surrounding Joe Biden’s prospects to remain on the November ballot as the Democrats’ presidential nominee has been churning.
This morning, Biden took a stab at putting the speculation about resigning from the ticket to bed…
President Joe Biden, in a letter to congressional Democrats, stood firm against calls for him to drop his candidacy and called for an “end” to the intraparty drama that has torn apart Democrats since his dismal public debate performance.
Biden’s efforts to shore up a deeply anxious Democratic Party came Monday as lawmakers are returning to Washington and confronting a choice: decide whether to work to revive his campaign or edge out the party leader, a make-or-break time for his reelection and their own political futures.
Biden wrote in the two-page letter that “the question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it’s time for it to end.” He stressed that the party has “one job,” which is to defeat presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in November.
“We have 42 days to the Democratic Convention and 119 days to the general election,” Biden said in the letter, distributed by his reelection campaign. “Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us. It’s time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.”
Except it really doesn’t appear that a ghostwritten letter is going to shore up what seems to be rapidly-draining momentum for keeping him around…
But a private call Sunday of some 15 top House committee members exposed the deepening divide as at least four more Democrats — Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state and Rep. Mark Takano of California — privately said Biden should step aside.
Nadler, as the most senior ranking member on the call, was the first person to speak up and say that Biden should step aside, according to a person familiar with the call who was granted anonymity to discuss it. He did so aware of his seniority and that it would allow others to join him.
Many others on the call raised concerns about Biden’s capability and chance of winning reelection, even if they stopped short of saying Biden should step out of the race.
Still other members, including Rep. Maxine Waters of California and Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, both leaders in the Congressional Black Caucus, spoke forcefully in support of Biden, as did Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
And several lawmakers appeared frustrated that leadership was not providing direction or a path forward, according to people familiar with the call. One Democratic lawmaker said regardless of the decision, the situation has to “end now,” one of the people said.
It isn’t like Biden is doing anything to knock down the speculation – or that, in his diminished mental state, he even can. This happened Sunday…
And then Biden began speaking, and…
The thing is, it won’t get any better from here.
And the public knows not only that we’ve been gaslit as to Biden’s capability for the past four years, but that we’re continuing to be gaslit despite the fact that they know we know it’s happening.
This is an especially bizarre, surreal situation which can’t really continue. The internal poll numbers for the Democrats are catastrophic at this point, so much so that this could be a 1980-style wipeout if he remains on the ticket.
And the oddsmaking in all the swing states is beginning to look very bleak indeed…
So it’s a disaster, but here’s the thing: getting rid of Biden without his consent is almost impossible, and even if the muckety-mucks inside the Democrat Party are committed to doing it they’re pretty much stuck with Kamala Harris. Only Harris can access the $240 million Biden campaign war chest, because she’s on that ticket. Anybody else they’d go with can only lay claim to a fraction of that money.
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And it isn’t like forcing a 25th Amendment succession, which House Republicans would certainly accede to if Harris were to summon up a supermajority of the Biden cabinet to vote for, is anything but a mess. That produces Harris as acting president and the likely nominee, something which creates a giant sucking vacuum of leadership.
There is even talk of having Harris run at the top of the ticket and Barack Obama joining it as the VP nominee, which would fully expose the Obama machine as being behind this farce from the very beginning. That would make for the Democrats’ first all-black presidential ticket; it would be interesting to see how that would go over with the electorate.
But what seems clear, at least for now – and we’ll have to take this day-by-day, likely being whipsawed by events as this deliciously excruciating drama continues – is that Joe Biden will be dragged kicking and screaming from electoral politics and will go no other way.
Which doesn’t say much for the character of his wife and son, who are apparently calling the shots inside the Biden White House as the rest of the team nervously weighs their options.
A parting shot: it seems that the Dementia Caucus in Democrat politics is still sticking with Biden…
