We Shouldn't Pretend We Know What Will Happen

 When I saw the image of Trump, blood trickling down his face raising a fist to the crowd, my first thought was: "Fuck. He's going to win." Why I thought this was because there is no logical reason for Trump to even be close to winning since January 6th and Dobbs.  My default position is that politics for that critical slice of the electorate that swings back and forth is informed by irrational things, and that picture couldn't have been staged any better from the Authoritarian Populist Playbook.

Then, I did myself a favor and logged off and didn't watch the news. My blood pressure has been high since that fucking debate and I didn't need to doomscroll my way into a heart attack.

After reflection, I think a few things are true.

- This, along with the convention next week, will give Trump a polling bump.
- However, there's equally a chance that next week devolves into "American carnage" and the Cult of Personality around Trump that people will be turned off by. My worry about the convention was that it wouldn't be a freakshow, but I don't see how it can be anything other than one now.
- It's a long way to the election.

Events have certainly conspired against those of us who wish to avoid a second Trump Administration bent on vengeance and suckling at the dark heart of his perpetual grievances. The debate, the debate about the debate and now this. As soon as polls started returning to baseline and giving Biden a shot at winning again (he held the slimmest of edges in 538's model on Friday), something happens to throw everything up in the air.

However...

I'm uncertain how getting shot at helps Trump win over voters who didn't vote for him in 2020. I will say that I'm relieved that the shooter is almost certainly some marginalized young man with incoherent political views and a likely death wish. I am also relieved that more people weren't killed, given the weaponry the man had. 

The obvious parallel here is less John F. Kennedy and more any of the school shootings that plague our land. If he was - as it initially appears - someone motivated by a nihilistic vision of his own extinction; if he was is an Adam Lanza with a different target; then the discussions around this could very quickly change.

I was struck by how quickly Democrats all said exactly the right thing about political violence (more on that in another post) and how Republicans want to use this to quash criticism of Trump. I really don't think that will work. Democrats will, likely, go somewhat dark during the convention, unless something really nutso happens worthy of jumping on. 

If I was advising Democrats, I would urge them to introduce an Assassination Prevention Bill that would ban AR style weapons. Then, watch as Republicans filibuster it or let it die in the House. 

The thing about Trump is that he brings the crazy with him. He is a summoner of dark spirits. I have to wonder if this really helps him, but time will tell.

If, by November, we have returned to the idea that a presidential campaign is a job interview rather than a WWE cage match, I can't see how "getting shot at" is a positive bullet point.

Not Sure I Agree Here

 I've long enjoyed Martin Longman's analysis, but I think he's wrong here. 

He has been one of the commentariat who has taken great umbrage at what he sees as Biden's dishonesty about his health. I'm disappointed in what has transpired but I also don't think Biden is in cognitive decline, which Longman clearly believes. I think Biden is frail, physically, but I can recall seeing him in 2019 in a coffee shop on Nantucket and he looked frail then, too. Stiff legged.

Anyway,  Longman's point seems to be that Biden cannot possibly serve the next four years, based on George Stephanopolous' comment to that effect. What's more, if you believe that Biden is currently suffering from cognitive decline, then the next four years will be simply chaotic as various factions try and determine whether the senile old man can be removed from office.

Now, we know that Reagan was suffering from dementia during a fraught period of the Cold War. We know that FDR was re-elected in 1944 despite being in obviously worse health than Biden is now. JFK was suffering from a whole basketful of illnesses. This is not to say we should recommend that as best practices, but just to note that we have all sorts of ways to compensate if that should come to pass.

What's more - and I keep coming back to this point - if Biden gets re-elected and then it turns out he does have Parkinson's (it can take months to properly diagnose it) - and he becomes physically unable to do the job by the summer of 2025, then Kamala Harris becomes president. If Biden steps aside now, then Kamala Harris becomes the nominee. 

If you're afraid of Biden being unable to complete a second term, then you are afraid of Kamala Harris.  

Biden has made some "show don't tell" improvements over the past week, but he is obviously not out of the woods and away from the braying hounds. However, we are approaching a point where Biden is the nominee and the circular firing squads need to stop. 

What that means in practice is being OK with a potential Harris presidency. If you're not OK with that, please explain why. If it's because "I dunno, there's something about her" I suggest you re-evaluate how you are thinking about women.

Keeping The Lights On

 There are some core competencies that define effective governance. One of them is keeping the literal lights on. Texas is failing at that. And it's not a one-off. Texas' decision to maintain their own power grid is a terrible idea executed terribly. Power outages hit Texas all the time from everything from hurricanes to ice storms, but their grid is too small and fragile to function at scale. What's more, Abbott has been out of the state (Ted Cruz could not be reached for comment) during the crisis.

So, on a basic level Republican governance of Texas is bad. Yes, throw in restricting abortions and giving ready access to guns...there's a lot to choose from, but they do a poor job.

The problem is it doesn't matter. There's this pundit's fallacy that voters will vote their interests; they will make reasoned choices based on preferable outcomes. Well, Abbott and Republicans routinely plunge their state into actual darkness and yet voters will line up in November and vote for Republicans.

Since everything has to be tied back to Biden's age, I suppose I come at it this way. We have a new poll from NBC/Marist that has Biden up 2, and the 538 Model has him winning just enough electoral votes to win. The question is clearly not exactly "Who was a better president" because Trump's presidency was terrible and Biden's has been remarkably successful. Still, people think Trump's economic stewardship ended in December 2019 and Biden was responsible for Covid. People don't care about data.

The question that I keep coming back to is this one: Who is a Biden->Trump voter? Who voted for Biden i 2020, looked at January 6th and Dobbs and then decided to switch their vote to Trump? I can't imagine that, but I can't imagine someone voting to return Greg Abbott to the Texas governor's mansion, but they clearly will. Is that because they voted for him once? Or because nothing really matters?

Be Gentle With Each Other

 One thing I've noticed in the debate over Biden's age and status in the race is that we are starting to reach the absolute worst outcome: civil war. When you read posts like this, you see people who are terrified of Trump's return to power begin to take it out on people who are arguing that Biden might not, in fact, be toast. 

What's happening is that people are taking a position. "Biden will be responsible for the end of American democracy if he doesn't drop out." "I'm ridin' with Biden. I'm not going to let the Times destroy one of the most successful presidents of my lifetime." One of those positions will - by definition - lose the argument. 

The problem then becomes re-unifying the party around whatever turns out to be the final position. 

This is EXACTLY what we saw in 2016 at the Democratic Convention.

This is also EXACTLY why Ezra Klein's fantasies of an open convention would be a bigger disaster than simply keeping Biden on the ticket. You think the arguments are heated now? (They are.) Imagine what the convention would be like.

I am disgusted with the uneven treatment Biden and Trump are getting right now. Large majorities of voters think both men are too old and Trump is pretty clearly non compos mentis. As a campaign issue, the age of both men - the mental acuity of both men - should be a topic of debate. It is not, however, as Trump is largely getting a pass. Would Harris allow the coverage to come back into balance? I have very substantial doubts that it would.

Basically, I think the media is covering an important story but terribly. I think the Democratic Party needs to have this debate now, but it has to avoid creating entrenched divisions that will be hard to repair once the final decision is made. Hell, there are "people close to Biden" who are blaming Obama for things like George Clooney's op-ed. That sort of stuff is worse than his debate performance, in my opinion.

As Heather Cox Richardson points out, the test of whether Biden is up for the job is whether he can do the job. He is very much doing the job. He's a good president. We got good economic news again this morning. However, there seems to be real substantive questions about his ability to campaign.

Weirdly, Biden's argument for staying in is his "electability" as the calm old White Dude. The argument for him dropping out is his un-electability as a man in visible physical decline. How do you square that circle without tearing the party apart?

Perpetual Waiting

 I felt after the debate debacle that Biden needed a week or so to show that A) the debate was a fluke and B) it didn't cripple his campaign.

As far as A goes, the press has entered a feeding frenzy that Josh Marshall accurately compares to the Clinton-Lewinsky revelations in 1998 and the Al Franken frenzy. It's worth thinking about those, as Clinton and Democrats eventually saw a bounce back in the fall elections because of Republican overreach. We knew Clinton was a scoundrel, just as we know Biden is old. Biden's subsequent appearances have been....fine. 

The bigger question is B. Because we've entered the feeding frenzy stage, the question of his fitness to campaign is very much alive. In fact, Biden has been out campaigning quite a bit. This is not really registering with the press, however. That's troubling. If he's doing what he "needs to do" and no one notices, how is that helpful? With the media in full blown jihad mode, how can Biden even truly refocus attention on Trump's manifest unfitness for office. As Heather Cox Richardson points out: the reason we know Biden can "do the job: is because he is, at the moment, doing the job.

What's so frustrating is that we have SOOOO many pieces about whether or not Biden will step down...all while Biden is repeatedly and emphatically saying he won't. WTF?

It's incredibly hard to poll over the summer, too. So, if Biden's campaign if fatally wounded, we won't be able to accurately gauge that.

Finally, there are a few prominent voices who have raised questions within the Democratic caucus. The most important one to keep an eye on is Pelosi. She's about as smart and ruthless a political analyst as Democrats have. If there is a break with Biden that causes him to drop out, it will start with her (not Michael Bennett, though that's significant).

Finally, if Biden were to step aside, it would make sense to do it after the NATO summit. After that, the clock starts ticking down to the convention. 

Curious

 So I think we all know the biggest story in American politics right now. Biden's decision to stay in the race is obviously nerve wracking, as I think his decision to step aside for Harris would be. If you're deathly afraid of Trump's return to power, then this two weeks has sucked.

What I find interesting is that we haven't seen a flood of polling. We have a few, and if anything they tell a story of a lost opportunity for Biden in the debate rather than a collapse in support. I felt, prior to the debate, that Biden was winning despite polls showing a statistical tie. Now, I do think he's losing despite polls showing a statistical tie. 

There is obviously the Times/Sienna poll, which has always been rough for Biden, even before the debate. However, there are a bunch more polls that show Biden down by about a point of even slightly ahead. The conventional wisdom is that Biden needs to win by at least two points in the popular vote to overcome the structural advantage that Trump enjoys in the electoral college. 

What's interesting to me, in deliberating over Biden's future, is that Trump's support in a lot of polls seems capped in the low 40s.  That feels right. That's also why I keep coming back to the recent results in Britain and France and how their electoral systems led to the results we saw.

In Britain, the Right splintered and split the vote. In France, the anti-Right united and voted tactically to prevent the Right from winning.

Structurally, I do think that Trump's ceiling is around 44%. He got around 46% in both 2016 and 2020. In the interim we've had January 6th and Dobbs. I don't think he's discovering new voters at this point.

The worry - and it was my worry before the debate - was how many people are going to split off and vote for Brainworms or Cornell West or some other spoiler. The debate was Biden's chance to win over those who won't vote for Trump but might not vote for him. And he failed utterly to do that. 

Would that sliver of the electorate be more enthusiastic about Harris? We aren't talking about Democratic voters. Everyone I know who is appalled by Biden's age will still vote for him. It's that sliver of the electorate that can get him to about 47-48%. 

So, I'm curious why we aren't seeing more public polling. That would seem to be an important set of data points.

Biden/Harris

Dana Houle, who knows more about campaign law than you or I do, notes that the alternative to Biden is Harris and only Harris. Campaigns are entities that don't simply change hands like Pokemon cards. Biden could probably transfer everything to Harris, because she's part of the current campaign, but Johnny Unbeatable would need to start from scratch in ways that would be just as - if not more -  catastrophic than running the old guy (unless the old guy is genuinely impaired, in which case we are back to Harris).

There also seems to be some spine growing among Democratic voters and politicians about Biden. Yes...this sucks, and the debate proved that Biden (like Mueller and the Senate and Garland and Jack Smith) isn't going to save us. 

We are.

On Election Day.

Britain, France, Iran

 Lots of elections!  I wrote about the British election and how the splintering of the right into Conservatives and Reform UK/Brexit led to historic margins for Labour.

Today, we have the second round of French parliamentary elections. Very much the opposite happened in France. If in Britain, the first-past-the-post system can disproportionately reward a party like Labour when the other side has a schism, in France, the two round system means that everyone votes their heart in round one, and then makes a cool political calculation in round two. So, you might go to the polls in round one and vote for the centrist candidate, but if that candidate doesn't make the second round, you might shift to the leftist, if that means defeating Le Pen's National Rally.

Sadly, our system does not accommodate this two rounds of voting except in a few states like Maine and Georgia, where the candidate has to get 50%+1 to win the election. If we had, say, a national popular vote where there were two rounds, I doubt very much that Trump would have won in 2016. In fact, his reasonable showing might've shocked people into voting for Hillary in round two.

Meanwhile, in Iran, democracy is very much a constrained, withered, stunted thing, but it does survive barely. The death of President Raisi led to a new election. Typically, the Guardian Council of religious figures bans reformist candidates or anyone who might shake the status quo. For whatever reason, they agreed to let Masoud Pezeshkian run...and he won. Given that real authority in Iran remains with the Supreme Leader, other clerics and the Revolutionary Guard, it's unlikely that Iran will suddenly open to the West. It's not impossible though, that this could thaw relations and speed a resolution in Gaza.

Taken together, we are seeing in Britain, France and Iran the limits of right wing populism on a global scale. Even in Iran there seems to be a ceiling for this shit.

Are you listening America?

Man, I Don't Know

 These last ten days have been just awful, right?

On the critical question of the day, I keep going back and forth. On the one hand, Biden has been a good - actually very good - president. He is also a bad candidate. He was likely a bad candidate in 2020 in many ways, but Covid restrictions likely hampered that. On the other other hand, Biden won precisely because he was Biden: loved by Black voters and deemed safe by White ones.

Is Biden non compos mentis? I really don't think so. The transcripts of the debate read just fine. 

Is Biden able to fulfill the president's role as voice of the country? I really don't think so. His stutter has left his mouth mushy and indistinct.

There is a long, long history of Democrats freaking out over their candidates. They freaked out over Clinton, they freaked out over Obama. It's a hallmark of Democratic Party politics: second guessing and requiring that their candidate be absolutely perfect in every way, of they will lose. It's understandable to be gun shy, given that Democrats have won the popular vote in every election but one since 1988, yet they've also lost in 2000 and 2016 (with disastrous implications). The stakes are so incredibly, incredibly high in November, that it's natural for Democrats to want some mythical savior to alleviate their worries. Biden's debate debacle feeds into precisely that worry.

Then there's the media. It's a feeding frenzy at the moment. To give an example, Stephanopolous asked about Senator Warner's efforts to get Biden to drop out. Biden chuckled that Warner was a failed presidential candidate himself. A few reporters suggested that this was a sign of dementia on Biden's part. In fact, Warner conducted an exploratory campaign in 2006 - all the trips to Iowa and New Hampshire - before failing to find traction and dropping out. If anything, this shows the acuity of Biden's memory...yet it is being spun as further signs of Biden's mental decay.

But then...if you give in to the media frenzy and Biden drops out - frankly if he does that, he should resign so that Harris gets the boost of incumbency - then the media will sharpen their knives for Harris. I 100% guarantee that they will be like sharks with blood in the water. They are nihilists with no apparent beliefs in the safety and future of the American experiment. 

It's incredibly easy to compare Biden's age to Trump's manifest unfitness for office. Yes, I'm concerned about Biden's age; I'm terrified of everything surrounding Trump. I will crawl over broken glass to vote for anyone over Trump, including the old guy. I don't care that Biden talks like he has a mouth full of oatmeal.

I wind up worrying though that many people do. However, I can also see people voting for the boring old man over the chaos of Trump, and some of those people are uncomfortable voting for Harris.

Then there is 2016. The fucking Times helped scuttle Clinton's candidacy by overblowing the email "scandal" at a time when Trump was floundering after the Access Hollywood tape. They are going to do the same goddamned thing to Harris. (And it will 100% be Harris if it is not Biden. Stop thinking there are any other alternatives.)

This horrible limbo from now until election day feels like being in free fall. In some ways, I just want the issue of Biden's candidacy resolved so I can panic about the next thing. Here's what I see happening, Biden is going to stay in the race unless:

- the Democratic establishment convinces him he's doomed.
- he has a health issue that forces him off the trail.

There are some rumors that Biden exhibits signs of Parkinson's or a similar condition. I can say that I saw him in a coffee shop in 2019 (maybe 2018) and he looked stiff and frail then, too. His movements are really poor. If it is a Parkinson's type illness, then he can back off his candidacy and resign with grace.

However, Biden is a guy who has been underestimated and sneered at his whole life. He's a fighter and this is the fight of his life. Does he understand how he's perceived, though, by his friends? Does he know there are other fighters?

Every day talking about Biden's age is a day wasted from attacking Trump's rank criminality and horrifying plans for his presidency. Hell, there are new Epstein documents that put Trump at the heart of that horror show, and no one is talking about it.

Biden has shown enough this week to get another week, but...time is running out in many ways.

I really, really do not know what to think.

Duverger's Law Is Undefeated

 The Labour victory yesterday in Britain is absolutely astounding. Not that they won, but that they seemed to have blown by even the most optimistic predictions. 

Now, there's a weird quirk in the British electoral system. There are a TON of districts (650) for a country that size. The person with the most votes wins. In most districts, there are a ton of candidates running so it's unlikely that there are a lot of candidates who get over 50% of the vote.

In fact, Labour have won at least 412 seats out of 650 with only 33.7% of the vote.

That's only an increase of 1.6% in the popular vote overall (as of this morning).

So what the hell happened? 

The Conservatives lost about 20% of their share of the popular vote. Why? Reform UK - the anti-European party - increased their vote share by 12.3%. 

In other words, Duverger's Law came for the Tories. With an even farther Right party drawing away from some of their voters in one direction, Labour and the Lib Dems were able to win seats without really increasing their support substantially.

It was the fracturing of the Right into Conservatives and Reform that helped Labour regain their seats in the the Midlands, the North of England and Scotland. Meanwhile the Lib Dems cleaned up in the south and west of England.

There was a repudiation of the Conservatives in every direction. There was only a slight move to Labour and Lib Dems, but the strength of Reform UK in swing districts made all the difference.

The reason this matters to America is that we could have a similar dynamic this fall. Neither Biden (nor Harris) nor Trump is popular. This opens the door for a third party candidate, with Brain Worms being the leading candidate at the moment.

Whomever Brain Worms draws more from will decide the election. It would seem almost impossible for either candidate to get over 50% in this landscape, so keeping an eye on Kennedy's support will be critical.

If You Believe In Omens...

 The harbinger of Trump was Brexit, idiocy fueled by the same sort of ethnonationalism that fuels Trump.

Britain has given us a very different omen this time.

The Tories have gone from having 365 seats in a 650 seat House of Commons to what looks like around 130. The Liberal Democrats will have around 60 seats, which is an amazing total for them.

Labour will have more than 400 seats (if the exit polls are accurate).

I guess July 4th is Independence Day in Britain this year, too.

The Declaration Of Independence

 The Declaration is an odd document. The first two paragraphs are about a stirring as an example of political rhetoric as one can find. The bulk of the document, however, is an indictment of George III that is prosaic, to the point of boredom. It begins thusly:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

I guess I'm an originalist now.

Polling And The Next Week

 At the moment, Biden is going to stick it out. The literally unbelievable SCOTUS ruling has both pushed off Trump's sentencing and given Biden a powerful campaign issue. Non-partisans do trust Biden more on basic decency than the One Man Crime Wave.

However, Biden and senior Democrats (as opposed to Senior Democrats...heh heh...) will need to see how badly the debate damaged him. The early polling has not shown that it has.

The problem, of course, is that polling has been notoriously fickle for the past few years. Response rates are abysmal; do you pick up calls from strange numbers? So even measuring the impact of the debate has go to be tough.

Secondly, the debate was a debacle, but how much will the coverage of the debate matter more? How much have voters basically baked Biden's age into their calculations already? The immediate polling was basically status quo, but perhaps the non-stop coverage of the debate and the calls for Biden to drop out will add an impact we aren't seeing yet. Or, have voters simply priced in Biden's age and Trump's personality?

There is a whiff of polling suggesting that Harris might be stronger than Biden against Trump. The second impact that polling needs to accommodate is the SCOTUS Six removing legal consequences for a lawless president...like Trump. There could be some people who are uncomfortable with both Biden's age and Trump's character but could talk themselves into "it wasn't so bad last time" and this decision could give them pause.

There's some evidence that the Biden team is dropping opposition info on RFK, Jr. this week that could be a realization that they don't want to lose the overall dissatisfied voter who REALLY doesn't want Trump but also thinks Biden is too old. 

Biden is doing an interview on Friday. The fact is - despite media claims to the contrary - Biden actually does do sit down interviews. He just has contempt for the Times. If he does a good job on Friday, though, I don't really see that having a massive impact on the media voices calling for him to drop out. Many of them - Nate Silver, Ezra Klein - have been calling for his replacement for months. They aren't changing their minds if he nails the interview with Stephanopolous. However, if he has another "bad moment" then you could see the next firewall break. 

It would be clarifying if we can have clear evidence that we could be confident in about whether people were as appalled by the debate as the media and those who follow politics compulsively. I'm not sure we can be confident in anything right now. 

Perhaps that's why it feels like election night 2016. We are staring into the void right now.

The Loaded Gun

 Man, after sitting with the SCOTUS decision yesterday for a while, it's pretty clear that they have taken upon themselves powers that are far beyond what any Court has claimed. Combined with the Chevron reversal, the Supreme Court is basically taking away the ability of the Executive and Legislative branches ability to govern without their consent...without saying what they will consent to.

As for the broad immunity that SCOTUS granted, it's pretty clear that that will only apply to Republican presidents. Trump can launch an autogolpe, but Hunter Biden's laptop is a criminal offense, etc.

One thing that I don't think the Federalist Six have considered is that they have handed Biden a very, very powerful campaign issue. The first is the simple partisan lawlessness of the Court itself. The legitimacy of the Court is pretty much in the toilet right now, with even moderate Senators raising the idea of expanding the Court. The most important reform - term limits - is impossible without a Constitutional Amendment, but there are ways to limit or dilute the Court's powers and that is absolutely on the table now.

The better issue, though, is the one Biden raised last night: this SCOTUS ruling makes the character of the president more important than ever. By removing most legal constraints on presidential action, they have put a premium on the president himself restraining himself from doing outrageous things.

There was some desperate/sardonic suggestions that Biden use his new found powers to assassinate the judges or Trump as national security threats. Biden, of course, won't do that, and THAT is the campaign issue he can run on. 

The whole "Democracy is on the ballot" thing is both true but abstract. This ruling is a loaded gun aimed at the heart of American liberty from monarchical power. Whose hand do you want on the trigger?

No One Is Coming To Save Us

 So, The Federalist Six on the SCOTUS decided what they likely decided a month or more ago: presidents enjoy immunity from official acts but not from private ones. This will push the decision back to the lower courts and drag out the time before the trial. Sadly, this ruling - combined with Aileen Cannon acting as a de facto defense attorney in the open-and-shut documents case - means that Trump's legal peril before the election is greatly, greatly reduced. I think this outcome was what we all expected when SCOTUS agreed to take up the issue on the timeline that they did. 

We have a corrupt partisan court. That much is obvious. 

It also looks like - for the moment - Biden won't step aside. I think there is still data that needs to be accounted for, but there is no Johnny Unbeatable waiting in the wings to save us.

We are voting in November for either a man that is likely too old to be the president we need or a felon and congenital liar who would be a dictator if he could. I can argue - and will - that we elect administrations not individuals, and Biden's administration has been very, very impressive. He is, clearly, an inferior candidate at this point, but he does have a compelling record.

So, Trump v Biden is our choice and that means we have to save ourselves in November. That's job one. If we do, then the legal cases against him will come due and maybe...just maybe...we can have our moment of accountability for a man who has used his wealth to escape it (for the most part) so far.

Not liking the situation does not change it.

UPDATE: Everything...EVERYTHING...Josh Marshall said.