The books have detailed a president increasingly unfit for the task of taking on Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and his top aides in denial about it, or actively seeking to cover it up, even as the administration warned about the existential threat Trump posed to American democracy.
Journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes were first out of the gate with Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House. Revelations included how Biden aides planned for his withdrawal in 2023, then when his disastrous June 2024 debate against Donald Trump supercharged calls for him to quit, “aggressively” argued that he should not, given Harris would be a “disaster”.
Then Chris Whipple, author of a book about Biden’s 2020 win, released Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. Whipple’s book is slim, at just 204 double-spaced pages. But it hits hard. Ron Klain, a former White House chief of staff, describes debate preparations in which Biden seemed “out of it”, unable to “grasp … the back and forth”, and also says that after the debate disaster, Biden declined to do political work necessary to survive, preferring to enjoy the trappings of power.
So while I broadly agree with most of what’s in the article:
Nonetheless, Allen, Parnes and Whipple report extensive shortcomings in the vice-president’s own approach, including the flawed selection of the untested Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate, as well as infighting between Harris staffers and Biden aides who maintained campaign control.
The only problem with the selection of Tim Walz was that they didn’t fucking let him off the leash. He CLEARLY had his head on straight - perhaps to the greatest extent of anyone involved in any part of the Harris campaign. But they muzzled him, because the things he said were often not too friendly to monied interests.
Dude was punching way above his weight and came out the gate swinging. He really had the Republicans on the back foot with that messaging about how weird they are. He was much more inspiring and interesting than Harris who just came off as an empty suit.
Yeah, that’s the exact sentence I had a problem with too. I think he could have been better in the vp debate, but other than that, thought he was a great choice and I hope he runs in the next election if we have one.
Walz 2028
“Increasingly unfit” how about how the entire media (aside from reactionary media) and his aides and the Democratic party hid his senility, lied about it, ignored it, made excuses for it, and accused anyone who pointed it out of distortion and having an agenda in order to let him push ahead with running again and save themselves the embarrassment of admitting the president of the US was not all there. All so the Democratic party could keep control and prevent scary things like a debate on supporting the genocide of Palestine and other issues they’d rather not allow discussion on.
Are people saying Biden is too old to run? They must be a paid Russian agents the news told me so much about. Biden is the best candidate!
Responding to Guardian reporting on Whipple’s book, Klain said he “never doubted the president’s mental acuity”, and had merely expressed concern that Biden made tactical errors, such as thinking “being a great foreign policy president was enough”.
Foreign policy was the main problem with him! Did they just completely forget about the whole uncommitted movement?
When Biden stood on the stage with Harris after taking office I turned to my wife and said, “We’re looking at our next President.” I really thought they would put a lot of energy into promoting her as a logical successor. And even that would have been eleventh-hour politicking. The party should have been cultivating younger candidates years and years ago. AOC and her “squad” notwithstanding, US liberal politics is far behind the curve in promoting younger politicians, meaning not elderly.
I’d still rather Biden in the seat right now.
Biden being in the seat is how you got trump.
No, people voting for Trump or not voting is how we got Trump.
and people driving cars is how we got global warming
Astute observation but completely off topic.
My point is that you’re narrowing the focus of your analysis to only include the immediate proximate causes to the point that it becomes useless.
I thought your point was cars and climate change.
I was committing the same error with another example in the hopes the illustration would give you an aha
Genocide not being a dealbreaker for y’all is exactly why we’re in this position now.
Now we’re in the worse timeline for a lot of people so I wouldn’t go celebrating the win.
Especially when no leftists are trying to rebuild a functional party that they would vote for.
I spent years working with PSL, and then Democrats sued the candidate off of the ballot in my state.
Let me blow your mind for a minute: just because you don’t pay attention to it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I pay attention to it but for all intents and purposes it doesn’t exist.
How many people did the PSL have in lower levels of government before Claudia De la Cruz decided to parachute into the presidential race?
So insignificant enough to be ignored, but enough of a threat to warrant the party spending millions to remove her from the ballots.
Get the fuck outta here, bot.
Especially when no leftists are trying to rebuild a functional party that they would vote for.
This is the point I was trying to prove not whatever you tried to twist it into.
How many seats in lower offices did PSL get before Claudia De la Cruz parachuted into the presidential race to get her 4,225 votes?
Is there a reason you don’t want to answer this question?
They are working at the lower levels, too. But gatekeepers like you insist they gain seats at the bottom before even considering going for high ranking positions, because you know there are systems in place at the bottom to block change candidates.
Eat shit.
