“So
if suddenly he were replaced at the
top
of the ticket,” he added, “I think in
many
ways it’s back to square one for
the
Trump campaign. They recognize
this.
And I think they’re deeply unnerved
by
the possibility of a switcheroo at the
top
of the Democratic ticket.”
Last
weekend, the Washington Post put
it this way:
“As Democrats debate the future of Biden’s
reelection bid, Republicans would prefer he
stay in a race they believe they are already
winning.”
On
Sunday, Face
the Nation reported “top
Democratic sources believe that Democrats who
had thoughts about challenging President Biden
are now standing down ‘because of this fragile
political moment.’” Yet a guest on the same
CBS program, Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, warned of
a “high risk” that his party will lose the
election “unless there is a major change.”
He said that
messaging from Biden’s campaign “is not
effectively breaking through.”
While
Biden boosters like to talk about national
polling that sometimes puts Biden within a
couple of points of Trump, such surveys mean
little. Due to the Electoral College, the
swing states will determine the winner. Biden
is behind -- and falling
further behind in
most of them. Arizona, Georgia and Nevada have
moved from
“toss up” states to “lean Republican” according
to the Cook Political Report.
More
Than Ever, Trump’s Most Effective Campaign
Ally Is Joe Biden
And with an approval
rating that now
hovers around an
abysmal 37 percent,
Biden is
increasingly playing defense in
states he won easily
four years ago.
“Democrats’ concerns about
Biden’s ability to win are expanding beyond
this cycle’s predetermined battlegrounds
into states that long ago turned blue in
presidential elections,” Politico reported last
week, in an article raising doubts about
Biden’s prospects in New Hampshire, Maine, New
Mexico and Minnesota. The headline: “Dems Are
Freaking Out About Biden Even in Once Safely
Blue States.”
Biden’s
presence at the top of the ticket promises to
not only deliver the White House to Trump but
also the House and Senate to Republicans.
In
the light of such realities less than four
months before Election Day, it’s alarming to
hear many elected Democrats -- including some
progressives in Congress -- publicly claim
that Biden is just fine as the party’s
nominee.
The
happy-talk denialism from those congressional
progressives shows a disconnect from the
progressive grassroots. Many activists who
devoted months of their lives on behalf of
Biden in 2020 to vote
Trump out are
disaffected from Biden in 2024. Many are
furious over Biden’s nonstop support of Israel
during its continuous slaughter of civilians
in Gaza. That includes Arab-American and
Muslim activists and groups who
mobilized for Biden four
years ago against
his Islamophobic opponent. Many climate
activists who
fought for Biden in 2020 against the “drill,
baby, drill” Trump are disgusted with his
reversals on climate policy.
Who
You Gonna Believe, Biden Loyalists or Your
Own Eyes?
So, the depressing
poll numbers may
understate the
problem for Biden as the
Democratic nominee,
because they don’t
count the gap in
campaign volunteer
energy -- especially
in contrast with the
highly energized
MAGA base. Early this
year, an anonymous
letter from 17 Biden
2024
campaign staffers urged Biden to
reverse himself on
Gaza and seek an
immediate ceasefire:
“Biden for President
staff have seen
volunteers quit in droves,
and people who have
voted blue for
decades feel
uncertain about doing so for
the first time
ever.”
In
2017, the Trump presidency was properly mocked
for its brazen assertions of “alternative
facts.”
It’s now disconcerting that Biden and his
advocates so often lapse into puffery as to
his true political situation.
That
situation was laid out with chilling candor in
a detailed New
York Times piece by
longtime Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik,
who was a senior adviser to President Bill
Clinton and has advised dozens of governors
and senators. The article makes for grim
reading: “President Biden has spent much of
2024 with a more challenging path to winning a
second presidential term in November than
Donald Trump. But for reasons that have become
glaringly obvious, that path has all but
vanished.”
Toxic
Stew of Zionism and Militarism Defeated
Jamaal Bowman
Biden “not only
faces losing battleground
states he won in
2020,” Sosnik wrote,
“he is also at risk
of losing traditional
Democratic states
like Minnesota and
New Hampshire, which
Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama
carried. If current
trends continue, Mr.
Trump could rack up
one of the most
decisive presidential
victories since
2008.”
But
so many Democrats in Congress are refusing to
call for Biden to step aside. And a lot of
them are even cheering him on, encouraging his
intransigence, as though nothing is amiss.
Until
the Democratic Party officially nominates its
presidential candidate, the push
for Biden to withdraw from
the ticket should continue.