SUMMARY: After Biden’s historically bad debate performance, watched by only 51 million Americans, which isn’t a lot, everyone’s hot take is that Biden must drop out of the race, resign his office, and retire to the old folks home to eat pudding and jello until he dies tomorrow. For fuck’s sake. That has all the insight and awareness of my sixth grade class. Zack Beauchamp over at Vox has a warmer hot take, Maybe our political problems require a radical solution like Biden dropping out etc. Carpe Diem, y’all! The real problem that Biden’s performance points up is that the American electorate hasn’t been doing its job and punishing the buffoons that we’ve elected to office. Wake the fuck up America and vote like we want a world capable of supporting 8 billion people for foreseeable future instead of like we’re rooting for sportsball teams.
KEY WORDS: Election 2024, Biden-Trump Debate, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Democracy, Hot Takes, Electorate, the Blame Game, Drop Out, Radical Change
COMMENT: Who is really to blame for the dysfunction of the American political system?
“I don’t think the election is over. I think it’s just starting,” he wrote on Twitter/X. “We’re finally out of the [delusion] phase. Country and parties both.”
Astead Herndon, New York Times reporter
This is an interesting and perhaps accurate hot take on Biden’s debate performance, the state of the 2024 Election, and our democracy, but it is a little too glib and a little too short on substance. It in itself being a post on Xitter is a microcosm for what actually is wrong with our democracy.
Herndon has to reduce a complex problem not only to a short statement but also to a catchy memorable memeable phrase. That’s the problem with our whole damn culture. Everything has to be a viral moment, but complex problems like the economy, war in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, and climate change are not reduceable to viral Tik Tok videos or Xitter posts, especially since Elon Musk gutted Twitter as a viable place to exchange ideas, which was his goal all along, but that is another blog post.
Beauchamp is right, America needs radical change, but to get it, the thing that needs to change radically is the electorate, not the politicians. The problem with American democracy is that the electorate is settling for illusory explanation, motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, and confirmation bias instead of holding elected officials accountable for their poor performance.
We have met our enemy, and they are us. It isn’t Russian and Chinese disinformation. It isn’t the GOP’s many efforts at voter suppression and nullification. It isn’t the GOP sabotaging of our Congress and courts. It is that we won’t hold the political buffoons like Boobert, Maddog Green, Ted Craven Cruz, and Hillbilly Vance, Tommy “Bless His Heart” Tuberville, and Ron Nyet Johnson.
With these colossuses the wonder isn’t that we can’t get anything done, it is that we keep returning them to office. And, here we sit on the cusp of replacing political vision and will with grift and lies.
We don’t need Republicans to get a backbone and stand up to Trump, we need the American electorate to reach down their pants, find their balls, and vote the rascals out.
Sure, Biden shit his pants on the national stage during that shambolic debate. For fuck’s sake, that was the best American politics has to offer? An AI-driven debate moderation, a lying smug narcissist, and an aging politician holding the line against the madness that has overtaken the country?
The debate was just the latest in a long line of shit-centered clouds wrapped in a thin veneer of silver lining but still stinking as much. Sure, the delusion was popped. The ugly truth was there for us all to see, but if you’re reaction is that Biden must go! or Holy shit, we just handed the election to Trump! or whatever the latest hot take is, you’re missing the big picture.
The time to replace Biden was in 2022 when viable challengers could have been quietly putting their case to him and the party. If Harris were capable of taking over for him, she would be. If Newsom or Buttigieg or Whitmer had the vision and huevos that this moment needed, they would’ve been quietly building the coalition and support they would’ve needed to make the move in case it was needed. If the leaders of the Democratic Party and political operatives that all the talking heads on MSNBC were texting with instead of watching the debate that they later discussed had the political savvy that this moment in our history requires, they would’ve had a plan b tucked neatly up their collective asses ready to pull out should it be needed.
The failure as Beauchamp puts it isn’t in our institutions or our politicians, it is in us, the electorate. And if we are to save ourselves from us, we have punish those politicians that chose only to pander to our worst instincts and those who are too timid to risk their “careers” to do the right thing.
It’s rare to see a clear pathway toward rebooting American politics. But Biden’s disastrous debate performance has created an opening for one. It’s up to him to take it.
Astead Herndon, New York Times reporter
Biden is risking his life to serve. If he really truly wanted to be president, his time was 2016. He was at peace with never being president. Then Trump shat upon the Resolute Desk and the Constitution along with his pee-hookers and oligarch wannabees, and Biden answered the call. He saw what was needed in that moment — the steady hand of experience.
Who recognized the need we have in this moment? Ain’t no one. Biden is doing his level best and will continue to hold us steady as a nation and guide us into a viable future, but we the electorate have to get off of the pot and do our part. We have to hold ’em accountable at the ballot box.
Go ahead and read the article that started this rant. It’s pretty good. Maybe we have a politician who can seize the moment. Maybe we have an electorate who will rally behind good governance instead of falling for glib one liners. Maybe monkeys will fly out our collective asses, too.
The silver lining to Biden’s debate disaster
The president’s performance prompted calls for a radical change. That might be just what America needs.
Zack Beauchamp on 29 June 2024
There is no way to sugarcoat President Joe Biden’s debate performance on Thursday night: It was a disaster. He muttered, babbled, and failed to pounce on Donald Trump’s lies and threats to democracy. By Friday morning, the country’s liberal commentators were telling Biden to step down — and, behind closed doors, many Democrats were saying the same thing.
Amid this gloom, I found a ray of hope from an unusual source: Astead Herndon, the New York Times reporter who has been banging on about the political risks of Biden’s age for months (and taking a lot of Democratic fire for doing so). After being proven spectacularly right on Thursday night, Herndon didn’t take a victory lap — he looked to the future.
“I don’t think the election is over. I think it’s just starting,” he wrote on Twitter/X. “We’re finally out of the [delusion] phase. Country and parties both.”
Herndon’s comment stood out not just because it cut against the chorus of gnashing teeth, but because it pointed to why everything might not be doomed. If we truly were in a mass delusion about Biden’s ability to campaign, and now that’s ending, it opens up new possibilities for the 2024 election.
If you liked this hot take on the state of American politics, the debate, and Election 2024, then consider doing one or all of the following:
- SHARE this post with someone who you think needs to see it. I’m sure there are lots of people out there who need to understand the root problem with our democracy.
- LIKE or RATE this post using the buttons above and below the article. It’s fun, easy, and it makes a world of difference to me.
- COMMENT on this post. Tell me what you think needs to be done to beat Trump and why he’s poised to win again after causing a million unnecessary deaths and causing such misery the first time round.
- FOLLOW the blog or join our email list!
Image Attribution
The image was found on Quote/Counterquote using a DuckDuckGo Creative Commons search.
Share this:
Categories: Politics
The Psy of Life 