Thanks for being the adult in the room. Which, ironically, is required of younger people these days. I hope we can do this with dignity and decorum. Yep its time to take grandpa behind the barn. Both of them.
Right now the Republicans are ecstatic while the Democrats are gnashing their teeth. I don't think you're going to find a lot of support on the right side of the aisle for ditching their candidate.
The fact that, mid debate, spin reports were already coming out saying Biden “had a cold” makes me want to rip my hair out. Even if I were to generously give him benefit of the doubt and believe that claim, is that supposed to make me feel *better*? That the President, who shakes hundreds of hands across thousands of miles on any given week, is a *cold* away from seeming virtually unintelligible during a public appearance for which he prepared extensively? If this was a cold, imagine what Covid or the Flu might do to him
After watching that trainwreck, I’m extremely concerned about a Newsom presidency. He has Biden’s mental acuity, Trump’s sleeziness, and an unrivaled record of incompetence. He’s turned my home city and state into a punchline. Please spare my country.
The British election season is short because the party leaders/presumptive PMs and their likely Cabinets have been in place for some time. People are not familiar with the idea of voting for Gavin Newsom or, for that matter, Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer. In that vein, Bernie Sanders or even Hillary Clinton might do better (assuming they are much more mentally fit than Biden).
DNC would have to actually change the rules to supercede Biden's delegates, and i just don't think there's anyway that happens. For him to be replaced he's going to have to do i ton his own, just have to hope he actually does the right hting.
I am loathe to disagree with Nate in the hour of his vindication. He has obviously been correct all along that Democrats were not giving enough weight to the idea of dumping Biden, he was obviously correct to suggest that they drop him a year ago, he took a lot of crap for it, and he is entitled to a victory lap now that they are, *finally*, realizing Nate was right all along.
However, I nevertheless think this call is too hasty.
In 2016, I was still a Republican, and (on my blog) I called on the Republican National Committee to replace Trump -- twice. The first time was shortly after the convention, when FiveThirtyEight showed Trump with around a 15% chance to win. The second time was a few weeks later, after the "locker room talk" that sent Trump's chances down to around 10%. That was in 2016, when Republicans had a key advantage that Democrats don't have today: a deep bench! But even with obvious fallback candidates who could surely easily thrash Hillary (Kasich! Rubio! even Cruz!), chucking the nominee was such an obviously dangerous move that it wasn't worth tactical consideration until Trump's odds were very bad indeed.
Today, Biden's odds of winning the race are officially two to three times better than Trump's were at that point in 2016. They may sink, as Nate predicts they will. There's good reason to expect that. If they do sink, they might not bounce back. There's good reason to expect that. But neither thing has actually *happened* yet. As of right now, the model still shows Biden with around a 35% chance of winning the presidency.
Replacing him without an heir apparent is a true break-glass-in-emergency moment. It is unprecedented in modern history, so priors may differ, but I don't think many people realize how many ways there are for an open convention to go horribly wrong. Of course, if you know going in that you're going to have an open convention, you mitigate that by picking delegates who are well-equipped to handle an open convention -- but the Democrats *didn't* know this would be open, and now they are stuck with thousands and thousands of delegates who were picked for Chicago because, like, they're getting on in years and everyone in the district loves them because they spent thirty years doing a great job door-knocking. What are their politics? Nobody knows! What kind of discipline will they follow? Nobody knows! It will be thrilling television, but a dreadful risk to the Democrats.
Even if all goes well, who will they nominate? Harris, who is somehow less popular than Biden? Newsom, the icon of far-left California? Gretchen Whitmer seems plausible, but she has only ever run against weak opponents. (Happily for her, Trump is a weak opponent.) Michelle Obama, who doesn't want it? Al Gore? A unicorn? (Actually, scratch that, Al Gore would win, but nobody's going to nominate him.)
Do any these candidates (besides Gore) have a better chance than Biden? Biden may be a corpse, but he's a (relatively) moderate corpse who has been able to hold together a (relatively) moderate coalition that relies on a lot of voters who were recently Republicans. He consistently holds the furthest-right positions the Democratic Party can sustain -- he was the last Democrat clinging to the Hyde Amendment, and refuses to capitulate today to anti-Israel sentiments within his party that are unpopular in the wider electorate. Does Biden's center-left coalition show up for a more left-leaning candidate? Dubious! This is one reason the Democrats shut their eyes to Biden's age problem for so long: their other options are really very bad!
So if they make this desperate swing, my prior is that their odds of successfully defeating Donald Trump in November are, optimistically, around 15-20% (and only because Trump himself is so unpopular). Biden's still above that waterline. If he falls to 15% in the Silver Model, that's the time to break the glass. Until then, I suspect that Biden is still -- despite everything -- Democrats' best shot at the White House.
My prior could be wrong, and I certainly understand Democrats' desire to roll the dice and hope to find themselves in a much better position. (It might just work! They might CRUSH Trump with the right candidate!) I agree entirely with Nate's analysis that tonight LIKELY moves Biden from an underdog to a long shot. But, before you drive Ol' Biden out to the glue factory, you'd better be darn sure that your alternative is *less* of a long shot. Nate hasn't made that case at all -- at least not yet.
Until we see the polls showing that Biden really has sunk into the 15% range, or that he's sunk to 20% and is stuck there, I don't think replacement is the tactically right move for them.
(OTOH, I hate the Democrats and actively wish them ill, so you can take all this with a grain of salt. I *like* to think that being a double-hater gives me objectivity, but it may also make me weak to schadenfreude, which could bias my analysis.)
I responded to none of the criticisms below, which was an oversight; I had intended to mention my view of Shapiro's prospects, Andrew D's sound suggestion that Biden will only get worse, and Phil Horwitz's excellent point that the goal is (edit: not) just the presidency, but a functional president. But I forgot. Maybe in Part II.
One problem with the comparison to Trump in 2016 is that Trump was new to politics and got better at it over time. Biden is going to keep aging and getting worse over time.
The problem is that if I were Josh Shapiro I wouldn’t want the candidacy right now, facing long odds against Trump due to a sour national mood - I’d want to wait until ‘28 when I’ve gotten some more experience under my belt and have had time to build a national campaign machine.
Shapiro or Whitmer i think would both be potentially interesting. The idea of a fresh face from a swing state that's very popular could be appealing. With that said, the downside of a more or less unvetted candidacy like that could also be as significant as the upside. Ultimately though, the tail risk on a shapiro, whitmer or newsome candidacy is surely no lower than Biden at this point while the upside could be becoming a significant favorite for the White House.
Great comment and perhaps I don't disagree with the analysis. However, you are only considering the odds of winning rather than the consequences of winning. Replacing a declining (let's be honest: a "declined") Biden with almost anyone else changes the odds from, using your thinking, 70/30 Trump/Biden to 80/20 Trump/a competent president. I'd prefer a 20% chance of a competent president than a 100% chance of either Trump or Biden.
(I recognize that you also made the point that we don't know the outcome of an open convention, and that many delegates will be wildcards: an absolutely reasonable point. But I'm assuming that most of the delegates will have been Biden supporters at one time or another and be reasonably moderate (and, obviously party-faithful), so the outcome is not nearly as unpredictable as you suggest. The universe of candidates in that scenario is still fairly small, and all significantly better options that either Trump or Biden.)
Well written, James. I have found this whole discussion about replacing Biden to be hollow; everyone who suggests it is picturing a different candidate in their mind to replace him. It feels like a very popular idea, because conservative Dems imagine a similar candidate to Biden, but younger. The liberal dems picture someone in line with AOC. Both are in favor of replacement, but if he did step down, these differences would become reality quickly and the mess would be very unpredictable.
Anyone who thinks Biden should step down must name candidates they believe would be better. I do think there are a few politicians that would be a strong political improvement, like Sherrod Brown, who has consistently won a Senate seat in red Ohio, but then the Dems have to scramble to get a new candidate for that seat and almost certainly will be sacrificing that seat. You better have really good polling and vetting on a candidate before you do that.
Honestly, in a post-truth political environment, I'm not sure it's even clear anymore that any specific decision is going to be politically advantageous.
Yeah, I've rethought this now that I've looked up his birthdate. I thought he was 10 years younger, but, no, that's just because I was a child in 2000.
The dude had all the attributes you want in a presidential candidate right now though: high name recognition, '90s nostalgia (and '90s moderation), policy mastery, and an *intensely boring* mien. Make Government Boring Again would, I think, be a hugely popular slogan right now.
I have also personally been feeling some pangs for Gore lately because, even though I never ever would have voted for him (nor would I today), his gracious acceptance of his final defeat in 2000 was such a stark contrast to Trump's... less gracious acceptance... that I am ashamed of my former political party.
But, you're right, dude's real frigging old, and I wonder if anyone under 35 actually remembers him.
EDIT: Also, "I'm Al Gore, and these are my Vice Presidential Action Rangers, a group of top nerds whose sole duty is to prevent disruptions in the space-time continuum."
"I thought your sole duty was to cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate!"
"And protect the space-time continuum! Read the Constitution!"
I apologize for doubting you about Biden dropping out, I wasn't familiar with your game... though I do think that performance had to be in the tail end of what I thought Biden's performance would be.
I'm not your personal assistant. If you want to find this information (which I don't think you do) you can find it by googling it. Hur stated that Biden mishandled documents but that he was so senile that it's unlikely that a jury could be convinced of the intent aspect of the crime.
If you want to continue to pretend that everyone else has been fooled by cheap fakes into thinking the senile old man is senile, I can't stop you
I do have this information and have read through most of it, so sorry if I left you with the impression I was asking you to assist me. I was asking so that I understand where you are coming from.
By the way, "senile" does not appear anywhere in Hur's report.
Yea pretty much. I expected biden would underperform. BUT, i also thought he'd prob just piovt to abortion and trump's criminal convictions wherever possible and ultimately would come out in not much worse shape than he was in going in. He couldn't even do that, or really give a coherent answer or attack on either.
Biden has always been a pretty poor debater, but mixing that with his decline and it just produces a result that is so sad. He was fixating on stuff that doesn't matter, failing to call out Trump on the stuff that *does* matter, and occasionally just completely losing his train of thought. By the time he and Trump were trading "Nuh uh!" and "Uh huh!"s over his golf handicap, it was clear that Biden has substantial mental decline, far beyond what might be hinted at by his occasional public appearances.
As someone who had a grandfather with Alzheimers, Biden's behavior really reminded me of my grandfather in the last few months before he died. He would occasionally have moments of great clarity and lucidity where he seemed back to his normal self, but they became sparcer and sparcer as the days progressed. He would slowly revert back to a toddler-level of responses and actions, and he was increasing uncoupled from what was going on around him.
I've had six relatives die with various forms of dementia. , some lasted 6 months my mom lasted 15 years. Biden seems to be suffering from Sundowner syndrome,. As you say dementia only gets worse.
Biden did a pretty good job debating a smart Paul Ryan
Yeah, I think back on that Ryan/Biden debate a lot lately. It was one of the better debates in recent history, given that the candidates talked substance for the most part, were polite/professional, but still took each other to task.
Thank you for articulating what has been in my head for about 2 years straight now.
By the way, one more thing to add to your ‘reasons to be pissed off at Democratic elites’ list: remember that the DNC restructured the primaries in no small part to shore up Bidens chances of winning early states, staving off potential primary challengers. Apart from the primary math changing, it was a pretty clear signal to any would-be challengers that the DNC and establishment were going to back Biden against newcomers.
Nobody was calling for South Carolina to be the first state in the Democratic primary until Biden was president and his nomination stemmed in its entirety from his winning of the SC primary in 2020. The motivation for the change couldn’t have been much clearer.
Oh no, I have, and every time nothing changed, except this time, it has indeed been decades, I remember people complaining about it as far back as 04.
If you don’t want to read between the lines of a restructuring move, that’s fine, but Democratic politicians who would be gambling their careers on challenging an incumbent president *absolutely* do, and the shift to SC, a state that was never anywhere near top of the list for ‘first primary state’ status, was clearly understood as being to Biden’s benefit.
Iowa catastrophically blundered their 2020 caucus with their incorrect results release(first time vote totals were released) and their app nonsense. The Sanders camp was apoplectic. Non-white voters were quite vocal. Candidates in the race (Castro) were hammering it home.
Lots of states made sense. A rotating model more sense. But no one was going to seriously challenge Biden and the idea that they revamped the primary schedule for some hypothetical primary is absurd.
South Carolina wasn’t even selected as the opening state until February ‘23 And Nevada (a long contender for first state) and NH were the same week, with GA next.
Part of the problem is that the left was outright too lazy to run a primary candidate against him.
Given how 2022 went, especially in comparison to 1994, 2010, and 2014, I don’t think that the decision to run again is that outside of the realm of reasonability, especially when it was made. Biden’s favorables at the time weren’t far off from Obama’s or Trump’s in 2018.
Maybe lazy but definitely scared, people thought it would be career suicide to challenge Biden (maybe they could get re-elected in their district but they'd never have a shot in a presidential primary)
As someone that's watched a fair bit of Biden media appearances it feels like there's been a notable drop off as of late (past year especially) culminating in tonight.
Even if the thoughts were all there he's simply passed the point of being an even adequate communicator of those ideas. I'll still be voting for him in a heartbeat if necessary come November but this is a rough spot to be in.
I'm angry at the DNC, Dem elites, Biden, etc., for what they've already done. But it would be inexcusable if they do nothing at this point, sit back and let Biden's campaign crash, followed by a Trump landslide...
While the debate was indeed a disaster for Biden, we should also be blaming the Supreme Court for this mess due to their decision to protect Trump from being held accountable for his actions on J6. Had Trump been held accountable, it would've damaged him more severely in comparison to how badly Biden performed in last night's debate.
I mean come on, at a certain point we have to look in the mirror. Even though I agree the supreme court has done Trump a huge favor by delaying, we need to look at our candidate choice as the core reason we’re behind and now are seriously risking losing to a highly unpopular, convicted felon (found civilly liable for sexual assault and business fraud, and on trial for several serious offenses). 2016 was lost because of a poor candidate. Biden is not 2020 Biden anymore. He is a much poorer candidate. You need only look at Democratic Senator’s consistent polling above Biden to see this.
Yeah I mean we can complain about the Supreme Court all day (remember the 2000 election?) but Biden was essentially forced on us by Dem elites when they panicked at Bernie's strong performance in Iowa/NH in 2020. Biden suggested, and his surrogates swore up and down, that he would only run for one term. Everyone agreed he'd be to old to run for a second term. Now they outperformed expectations in 2022 and somehow people respond to the line "Biden is the only one who ever beat Trump" (you could just as well say Hillary is the only Democrat who ever lost to Trump, or better yet, Trump only won when voters thought Trump was never going to win - Brexit style). But the idea of an 86 year old president is kinda ridiculous, especially when you can see already at 81 his mental decline (at least in communications skills).
The idea that blame here should lie at the feet of the Supreme Court is kind of laughable. First off, Trump has never been on trial for insurrection, much less found guilty of insurrection. Biden's DOJ could have easily charged Trump at any time since his election, but no charges came out. Congress could have acted. From 2020-2022, Dems had majorities in both House and Senate, but not once did they pass any piece of legislation regarding insurrection or the 14th amendment.
Colorado (or any state) could have passed a state law banning candidates from office if they committed an insurrection, and then established the procedure to determine if a candidate has committed an insurrection, but they didn't do that either. Instead, they used an administrative process to determine that a federally enforceable provision of the 14th Amendment was grounds for disqualification.
We also shouldn't forget that the Supreme Court decided 9-0 (9-0!!) that Colorado was wrong to use the 14th Amendment to disqualify Trump.
Given the *many* opportunities that existed for so many legislative and executive officials to do something here makes it silly to point at the Supreme Court and say that they are the ones who should take the blame for this.
Yeah, but despite all this, when the DC Circuit made that phenomenal ruling on Trump's immunity claim in February, it seemed like Trump was finally going to be held accountable, but then, the conservatives on SCOTUS came to Trump's rescue.
It looks like I'm the only republican commenting but I will give my 2 cents.
There are far better candidates for president than either of these 2 old men. Democrats should have stuck with thier original plan and kept Biden as a 1 term president. There are Democrats that i would absolutely vote for over Trump. Republicans should have found a way to make Trump supporters (I may have voted for the guy but please don't ever give me that label) realize that there are other people who will fight for your interests (yes, I do believe that nobody other than Trump seems to be listening to die hard Trump supporters).
Indeed, this is why I think we should have a hereditary monarchy: effectively a random citizen, trained from birth in good governance, is going to do better than a random untrained citizen; and any random citizen would do better than these demagogues who tell people what they want to hear for votes. I like the Jacobite line, so perhaps Duke Franz of Bavaria would make a good first king.
This was not possible this cycle with Trump in the race. 'As President, I fought for you' is a far more credible statement than 'as President, I will fight for you'.
The votes I have cast in GOP primaries have gone to Ron Paul and Trump. I appreciate your closing statement. At least more people listen to us nowadays.
Jill Biden is an evil person. I’m no fan of Joe but he is a decent man. Shame on her for subjecting the man she allegedly loves to this nationwide ridicule. She should have pulled the plug on it all along year ago.
The Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality describes the age dynamics of human mortality rather accurately in the age window from about 30 to 80 years of age. At more advanced ages, some studies have found that death rates increase more slowly – a phenomenon known as the late-life mortality deceleration[2] – but more recent studies disagree.
Key points: It's *most accurate* until 80, when the model claims that death rates start to decline.
More recent studies disagree
Additionally, I'm pretty sure that Nate is using "exponentially increase" in the colloquial sense of "starts to go up much faster than it did in previous years". Exponential curves _start_ slow, before eventually getting much faster. So if the relationship *is* exponentian then the much larger increases after 80 are be exactly as exponential as the much slower increases in the 30s.
And, it may even be true that that increase is the slow part of an exponential from the 30s to the 70s, and then, while it increases by larger steps, it's not longer truly "exponential" in the mathematical sense, which would make your criticism technically correct (the best kind of correct), but missing the forest for the trees.
None of this gets around the main point that ones actual risk of dying goes up every year in ones 80s and does so by a larger amount than at any other time in ones life.
Given that he's a statistical modeller, maybe he should have been a little more careful with uses of a word that have such a precise mathematical meaning, but then again, even your own link is hardly definitive proof that he was wrong. And in my personal opinion, the rhetorical strength is worth the mathematical imprecision.
"And in my personal opinion, the rhetorical strength is worth the mathematical imprecision."
Strong disagree. Words have meanings. And "Exponential" isn't a word like "literally" where the fight to preserve its literal meaning is completely lost, but rather a fairly specific technical term that has a useful meaning which we can still protect.
It has a very specific, technical meaning but, like "theory", it also has a very common lay meaning which is related to but notably different from the specific technical meaning.
i guess one difference to me is that the colloquial meaning of exponential (unlike "hypothesis", and for that matter, "organic") never really had its own existence; I'm pretty sure it came about as a result of laypeople trying to sound fancy and scientific (whereas the non-scientific definitions of hypothesis and organic predated the scientific definitions, so it'd be rude for scientists to "claim" those words fully).
Didn't Konrad Adenauer do well as German leader even into his late 80s? Same with Morris Chang, who really led TSMC to true greatness in his 80s. And Deng Xiaoping (though he definitely showed his age more).
There is substantial variation in how gracefully people age - Joe Biden is just not one of the graceful agers. Even John Kerry ages WAY better than Biden.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential Command”…. George Orwell
All senior citizens should be allowed to age well in retirement. Isn't that why we all pay into social security and Medicare? The flip side of that social contract is you step aside and retire when it's your time.
This debate is the first thing in a long while that has made me feel like a real radical. A part of me thinks that people from both sides should basically shut the country down until these jokers are replaced.
Maybe conscript the most politically centrist governor as an emergency replacement while we dismantle the two parties and the system that leads results like this.
This is a constitutional convention level crisis honestly. The process is broken.
It forces politicians to concern themselves with the values and interests of the widest possible segment of the US citizenry. This, unlike other forms of government, prevents narrow interests from capturing the government and using the police state to extract rents and curtail personal freedoms.
Take for example the US business community; we have a highly competitive market place that produces insane value and raises our standard of living well above other countries. If we did not have a democracy, it would be much easier for firms to acquire government enforced monopolies that squashed competition and resulted in stagnation.
I think those are all virtues in theory, but we aren’t getting a lot of mileage out of them currently because our system has become captured by the parties. And you are omitting the weaknesses.
1). The aggregate of everyone’s selfish interests isn’t “good government policy”, (which is one reason we have a bill of rights).
2). People are tribalist moronic sheep who are easy to herd and the current era of media only makes that easier.
3). You have a government that isn’t really accountable/dischargeable for its fuckups because it is just a rotating cast of people winning popularity contests instead of people who value and are invested in its long term health.
4). It puts the government on the back foot in terms of organization and cohesion in comparison to the growing number of industry groups who are effectively able to manipulate it and push it around. As their special interest exceeds any individual's particular interest in their scenario, and no one in the system is there for the good of the state. It is a bad fit for the era of megacorps.
Because history is full of successful planned state-run economies. Yet Americans are more afraid of the free market than unelected life-tenured government bureaucrats with the power to make, interpret and enforce law.
I am not at all a proponent of state run economies or socialism, but you do need a strong government protecting and enforcing markets and papering over the weaknesses of capitalism.
The very first thing a successful capitalist/corporation tries to do is destroy any semblance of market/competition.
SBSQ question: what happens to RFK's poll numbers after this debate, and how much does it matter? I'm not a supporter by any means, but after watching his livestream on X with John Stossel, I can confidently say he would have easily won the debate had he been allowed to participate.
Okay, then who do you think won? We all saw, and sadly can't unsee, Biden. And apart from staying at the podium and not interrupting, Trump's performance was fundamentally no different than the ones that were called disastrous in 2016 and 2020. Last night was basically pick your flavor of word salad.
Say what you want about RFK's voice or anything else about him. As I said, I'm not a supporter (his position on Ukraine alone disqualifies him, as far as I'm concerned) but the fact remains he was the only one of the three who actually answered the questions coherently.
Thanks for being the adult in the room. Which, ironically, is required of younger people these days. I hope we can do this with dignity and decorum. Yep its time to take grandpa behind the barn. Both of them.
Right now the Republicans are ecstatic while the Democrats are gnashing their teeth. I don't think you're going to find a lot of support on the right side of the aisle for ditching their candidate.
Ahem. Here in the big city we call that 'executing the power of attorney.'
You ... did plan ahead and get grandpa to sign his name on the nice white paper, yes? No? Oh, in that case we just call it 'executing'.
The fact that, mid debate, spin reports were already coming out saying Biden “had a cold” makes me want to rip my hair out. Even if I were to generously give him benefit of the doubt and believe that claim, is that supposed to make me feel *better*? That the President, who shakes hundreds of hands across thousands of miles on any given week, is a *cold* away from seeming virtually unintelligible during a public appearance for which he prepared extensively? If this was a cold, imagine what Covid or the Flu might do to him
He very clearly had a cold. But it doesn’t explain away his performance. He even had taken a covid test before the debate.
After watching that trainwreck, I’m extremely concerned about a Newsom presidency. He has Biden’s mental acuity, Trump’s sleeziness, and an unrivaled record of incompetence. He’s turned my home city and state into a punchline. Please spare my country.
Newsom is far above Trump, Trump only looked good last night because Biden was so bad. Trump couldn't even answer a single question!
You're right. A Newsom nomination would give us wall-to-wall TV (ads and "news") showing San Francisco homeless and migrants who killed white people.
Hannity must be frothing at the bit.
The DNC needs to do a monthlong primary for a replacement. There is plenty of time left!
Look at Britain, when it's election season they just get on with it and it's over fast. No reason really to hold onto Biden other than his own ego.
Yeah, let's try to make it happen. Before Biden meets with Dem Senators this afternoon, give them a call. https://maketrumploseagain.substack.com/p/how-to-stop-trump-call-your-representatives
The British election season is short because the party leaders/presumptive PMs and their likely Cabinets have been in place for some time. People are not familiar with the idea of voting for Gavin Newsom or, for that matter, Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer. In that vein, Bernie Sanders or even Hillary Clinton might do better (assuming they are much more mentally fit than Biden).
DNC would have to actually change the rules to supercede Biden's delegates, and i just don't think there's anyway that happens. For him to be replaced he's going to have to do i ton his own, just have to hope he actually does the right hting.
I am loathe to disagree with Nate in the hour of his vindication. He has obviously been correct all along that Democrats were not giving enough weight to the idea of dumping Biden, he was obviously correct to suggest that they drop him a year ago, he took a lot of crap for it, and he is entitled to a victory lap now that they are, *finally*, realizing Nate was right all along.
However, I nevertheless think this call is too hasty.
In 2016, I was still a Republican, and (on my blog) I called on the Republican National Committee to replace Trump -- twice. The first time was shortly after the convention, when FiveThirtyEight showed Trump with around a 15% chance to win. The second time was a few weeks later, after the "locker room talk" that sent Trump's chances down to around 10%. That was in 2016, when Republicans had a key advantage that Democrats don't have today: a deep bench! But even with obvious fallback candidates who could surely easily thrash Hillary (Kasich! Rubio! even Cruz!), chucking the nominee was such an obviously dangerous move that it wasn't worth tactical consideration until Trump's odds were very bad indeed.
Today, Biden's odds of winning the race are officially two to three times better than Trump's were at that point in 2016. They may sink, as Nate predicts they will. There's good reason to expect that. If they do sink, they might not bounce back. There's good reason to expect that. But neither thing has actually *happened* yet. As of right now, the model still shows Biden with around a 35% chance of winning the presidency.
Replacing him without an heir apparent is a true break-glass-in-emergency moment. It is unprecedented in modern history, so priors may differ, but I don't think many people realize how many ways there are for an open convention to go horribly wrong. Of course, if you know going in that you're going to have an open convention, you mitigate that by picking delegates who are well-equipped to handle an open convention -- but the Democrats *didn't* know this would be open, and now they are stuck with thousands and thousands of delegates who were picked for Chicago because, like, they're getting on in years and everyone in the district loves them because they spent thirty years doing a great job door-knocking. What are their politics? Nobody knows! What kind of discipline will they follow? Nobody knows! It will be thrilling television, but a dreadful risk to the Democrats.
Even if all goes well, who will they nominate? Harris, who is somehow less popular than Biden? Newsom, the icon of far-left California? Gretchen Whitmer seems plausible, but she has only ever run against weak opponents. (Happily for her, Trump is a weak opponent.) Michelle Obama, who doesn't want it? Al Gore? A unicorn? (Actually, scratch that, Al Gore would win, but nobody's going to nominate him.)
Do any these candidates (besides Gore) have a better chance than Biden? Biden may be a corpse, but he's a (relatively) moderate corpse who has been able to hold together a (relatively) moderate coalition that relies on a lot of voters who were recently Republicans. He consistently holds the furthest-right positions the Democratic Party can sustain -- he was the last Democrat clinging to the Hyde Amendment, and refuses to capitulate today to anti-Israel sentiments within his party that are unpopular in the wider electorate. Does Biden's center-left coalition show up for a more left-leaning candidate? Dubious! This is one reason the Democrats shut their eyes to Biden's age problem for so long: their other options are really very bad!
So if they make this desperate swing, my prior is that their odds of successfully defeating Donald Trump in November are, optimistically, around 15-20% (and only because Trump himself is so unpopular). Biden's still above that waterline. If he falls to 15% in the Silver Model, that's the time to break the glass. Until then, I suspect that Biden is still -- despite everything -- Democrats' best shot at the White House.
My prior could be wrong, and I certainly understand Democrats' desire to roll the dice and hope to find themselves in a much better position. (It might just work! They might CRUSH Trump with the right candidate!) I agree entirely with Nate's analysis that tonight LIKELY moves Biden from an underdog to a long shot. But, before you drive Ol' Biden out to the glue factory, you'd better be darn sure that your alternative is *less* of a long shot. Nate hasn't made that case at all -- at least not yet.
Until we see the polls showing that Biden really has sunk into the 15% range, or that he's sunk to 20% and is stuck there, I don't think replacement is the tactically right move for them.
(OTOH, I hate the Democrats and actively wish them ill, so you can take all this with a grain of salt. I *like* to think that being a double-hater gives me objectivity, but it may also make me weak to schadenfreude, which could bias my analysis.)
EDIT 28 June 2024 2:44 PM: I extended this comment and turned it into a post here: https://decivitate.substack.com/p/not-yet .
I responded to none of the criticisms below, which was an oversight; I had intended to mention my view of Shapiro's prospects, Andrew D's sound suggestion that Biden will only get worse, and Phil Horwitz's excellent point that the goal is (edit: not) just the presidency, but a functional president. But I forgot. Maybe in Part II.
One problem with the comparison to Trump in 2016 is that Trump was new to politics and got better at it over time. Biden is going to keep aging and getting worse over time.
Josh Shapiro. They should pick any governor with a pulse who isn’t a national figure yet.
The problem is that if I were Josh Shapiro I wouldn’t want the candidacy right now, facing long odds against Trump due to a sour national mood - I’d want to wait until ‘28 when I’ve gotten some more experience under my belt and have had time to build a national campaign machine.
Shapiro or Whitmer i think would both be potentially interesting. The idea of a fresh face from a swing state that's very popular could be appealing. With that said, the downside of a more or less unvetted candidacy like that could also be as significant as the upside. Ultimately though, the tail risk on a shapiro, whitmer or newsome candidacy is surely no lower than Biden at this point while the upside could be becoming a significant favorite for the White House.
Great comment and perhaps I don't disagree with the analysis. However, you are only considering the odds of winning rather than the consequences of winning. Replacing a declining (let's be honest: a "declined") Biden with almost anyone else changes the odds from, using your thinking, 70/30 Trump/Biden to 80/20 Trump/a competent president. I'd prefer a 20% chance of a competent president than a 100% chance of either Trump or Biden.
(I recognize that you also made the point that we don't know the outcome of an open convention, and that many delegates will be wildcards: an absolutely reasonable point. But I'm assuming that most of the delegates will have been Biden supporters at one time or another and be reasonably moderate (and, obviously party-faithful), so the outcome is not nearly as unpredictable as you suggest. The universe of candidates in that scenario is still fairly small, and all significantly better options that either Trump or Biden.)
All of this assumes there is a “later” to break the glass. There isn’t. You either do it right now or you let Biden shoot his shot.
Amen. With things like state filing deadlines looming in the next month, it's almost too late already.
Well written, James. I have found this whole discussion about replacing Biden to be hollow; everyone who suggests it is picturing a different candidate in their mind to replace him. It feels like a very popular idea, because conservative Dems imagine a similar candidate to Biden, but younger. The liberal dems picture someone in line with AOC. Both are in favor of replacement, but if he did step down, these differences would become reality quickly and the mess would be very unpredictable.
Anyone who thinks Biden should step down must name candidates they believe would be better. I do think there are a few politicians that would be a strong political improvement, like Sherrod Brown, who has consistently won a Senate seat in red Ohio, but then the Dems have to scramble to get a new candidate for that seat and almost certainly will be sacrificing that seat. You better have really good polling and vetting on a candidate before you do that.
Honestly, in a post-truth political environment, I'm not sure it's even clear anymore that any specific decision is going to be politically advantageous.
Why do you think Gore would win? You didn’t state any reasons and it’s been 24 years…
Yeah, I've rethought this now that I've looked up his birthdate. I thought he was 10 years younger, but, no, that's just because I was a child in 2000.
The dude had all the attributes you want in a presidential candidate right now though: high name recognition, '90s nostalgia (and '90s moderation), policy mastery, and an *intensely boring* mien. Make Government Boring Again would, I think, be a hugely popular slogan right now.
I have also personally been feeling some pangs for Gore lately because, even though I never ever would have voted for him (nor would I today), his gracious acceptance of his final defeat in 2000 was such a stark contrast to Trump's... less gracious acceptance... that I am ashamed of my former political party.
But, you're right, dude's real frigging old, and I wonder if anyone under 35 actually remembers him.
EDIT: Also, "I'm Al Gore, and these are my Vice Presidential Action Rangers, a group of top nerds whose sole duty is to prevent disruptions in the space-time continuum."
"I thought your sole duty was to cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate!"
"And protect the space-time continuum! Read the Constitution!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YjhoHV184U
I apologize for doubting you about Biden dropping out, I wasn't familiar with your game... though I do think that performance had to be in the tail end of what I thought Biden's performance would be.
The problem is he's apparently worse in private. Like don't pillory WSJ for doing real reporting because it's uncomfortable
"He's apparently worse in private" Can you provide a verified example? Thanks
How about Robert Hur's report of his interview with Biden?
What about it? Please be specific, including page number from Hur's report. Thanks
I'm not your personal assistant. If you want to find this information (which I don't think you do) you can find it by googling it. Hur stated that Biden mishandled documents but that he was so senile that it's unlikely that a jury could be convinced of the intent aspect of the crime.
If you want to continue to pretend that everyone else has been fooled by cheap fakes into thinking the senile old man is senile, I can't stop you
I do have this information and have read through most of it, so sorry if I left you with the impression I was asking you to assist me. I was asking so that I understand where you are coming from.
By the way, "senile" does not appear anywhere in Hur's report.
Yea pretty much. I expected biden would underperform. BUT, i also thought he'd prob just piovt to abortion and trump's criminal convictions wherever possible and ultimately would come out in not much worse shape than he was in going in. He couldn't even do that, or really give a coherent answer or attack on either.
yeah he pivoted AWAY from abortion TO immigration (?!???!!)
Biden has always been a pretty poor debater, but mixing that with his decline and it just produces a result that is so sad. He was fixating on stuff that doesn't matter, failing to call out Trump on the stuff that *does* matter, and occasionally just completely losing his train of thought. By the time he and Trump were trading "Nuh uh!" and "Uh huh!"s over his golf handicap, it was clear that Biden has substantial mental decline, far beyond what might be hinted at by his occasional public appearances.
As someone who had a grandfather with Alzheimers, Biden's behavior really reminded me of my grandfather in the last few months before he died. He would occasionally have moments of great clarity and lucidity where he seemed back to his normal self, but they became sparcer and sparcer as the days progressed. He would slowly revert back to a toddler-level of responses and actions, and he was increasing uncoupled from what was going on around him.
I've had six relatives die with various forms of dementia. , some lasted 6 months my mom lasted 15 years. Biden seems to be suffering from Sundowner syndrome,. As you say dementia only gets worse.
Biden did a pretty good job debating a smart Paul Ryan
https://youtu.be/_f_3Kay43pQ
Yeah, I think back on that Ryan/Biden debate a lot lately. It was one of the better debates in recent history, given that the candidates talked substance for the most part, were polite/professional, but still took each other to task.
Thank you for articulating what has been in my head for about 2 years straight now.
By the way, one more thing to add to your ‘reasons to be pissed off at Democratic elites’ list: remember that the DNC restructured the primaries in no small part to shore up Bidens chances of winning early states, staving off potential primary challengers. Apart from the primary math changing, it was a pretty clear signal to any would-be challengers that the DNC and establishment were going to back Biden against newcomers.
This isn’t true. The primary restructure calls were coming from the left wing of the party and for many years, long before 2020.
Nobody was calling for South Carolina to be the first state in the Democratic primary until Biden was president and his nomination stemmed in its entirety from his winning of the SC primary in 2020. The motivation for the change couldn’t have been much clearer.
You clearly have not followed Democratic primaries very closely. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/11/29/why-do-iowa-and-new-hampshire-two-of-the-nations-least-diverse-states-get-to-vote-first/
It’s been decades.
Oh no, I have, and every time nothing changed, except this time, it has indeed been decades, I remember people complaining about it as far back as 04.
If you don’t want to read between the lines of a restructuring move, that’s fine, but Democratic politicians who would be gambling their careers on challenging an incumbent president *absolutely* do, and the shift to SC, a state that was never anywhere near top of the list for ‘first primary state’ status, was clearly understood as being to Biden’s benefit.
Iowa catastrophically blundered their 2020 caucus with their incorrect results release(first time vote totals were released) and their app nonsense. The Sanders camp was apoplectic. Non-white voters were quite vocal. Candidates in the race (Castro) were hammering it home.
Lots of states made sense. A rotating model more sense. But no one was going to seriously challenge Biden and the idea that they revamped the primary schedule for some hypothetical primary is absurd.
South Carolina wasn’t even selected as the opening state until February ‘23 And Nevada (a long contender for first state) and NH were the same week, with GA next.
https://www.npr.org/2016/01/29/464804185/why-does-iowa-vote-first-anyway
https://swampland.time.com/2011/12/27/why-iowa-shouldnt-vote-first-anymore/
https://www.vox.com/2016/1/31/10874446/iowa-caucus-new-hampshire-case-against
Part of the problem is that the left was outright too lazy to run a primary candidate against him.
Given how 2022 went, especially in comparison to 1994, 2010, and 2014, I don’t think that the decision to run again is that outside of the realm of reasonability, especially when it was made. Biden’s favorables at the time weren’t far off from Obama’s or Trump’s in 2018.
Maybe lazy but definitely scared, people thought it would be career suicide to challenge Biden (maybe they could get re-elected in their district but they'd never have a shot in a presidential primary)
As someone that's watched a fair bit of Biden media appearances it feels like there's been a notable drop off as of late (past year especially) culminating in tonight.
Even if the thoughts were all there he's simply passed the point of being an even adequate communicator of those ideas. I'll still be voting for him in a heartbeat if necessary come November but this is a rough spot to be in.
I'm angry at the DNC, Dem elites, Biden, etc., for what they've already done. But it would be inexcusable if they do nothing at this point, sit back and let Biden's campaign crash, followed by a Trump landslide...
While the debate was indeed a disaster for Biden, we should also be blaming the Supreme Court for this mess due to their decision to protect Trump from being held accountable for his actions on J6. Had Trump been held accountable, it would've damaged him more severely in comparison to how badly Biden performed in last night's debate.
I mean come on, at a certain point we have to look in the mirror. Even though I agree the supreme court has done Trump a huge favor by delaying, we need to look at our candidate choice as the core reason we’re behind and now are seriously risking losing to a highly unpopular, convicted felon (found civilly liable for sexual assault and business fraud, and on trial for several serious offenses). 2016 was lost because of a poor candidate. Biden is not 2020 Biden anymore. He is a much poorer candidate. You need only look at Democratic Senator’s consistent polling above Biden to see this.
Yeah I mean we can complain about the Supreme Court all day (remember the 2000 election?) but Biden was essentially forced on us by Dem elites when they panicked at Bernie's strong performance in Iowa/NH in 2020. Biden suggested, and his surrogates swore up and down, that he would only run for one term. Everyone agreed he'd be to old to run for a second term. Now they outperformed expectations in 2022 and somehow people respond to the line "Biden is the only one who ever beat Trump" (you could just as well say Hillary is the only Democrat who ever lost to Trump, or better yet, Trump only won when voters thought Trump was never going to win - Brexit style). But the idea of an 86 year old president is kinda ridiculous, especially when you can see already at 81 his mental decline (at least in communications skills).
The idea that blame here should lie at the feet of the Supreme Court is kind of laughable. First off, Trump has never been on trial for insurrection, much less found guilty of insurrection. Biden's DOJ could have easily charged Trump at any time since his election, but no charges came out. Congress could have acted. From 2020-2022, Dems had majorities in both House and Senate, but not once did they pass any piece of legislation regarding insurrection or the 14th amendment.
Colorado (or any state) could have passed a state law banning candidates from office if they committed an insurrection, and then established the procedure to determine if a candidate has committed an insurrection, but they didn't do that either. Instead, they used an administrative process to determine that a federally enforceable provision of the 14th Amendment was grounds for disqualification.
We also shouldn't forget that the Supreme Court decided 9-0 (9-0!!) that Colorado was wrong to use the 14th Amendment to disqualify Trump.
Given the *many* opportunities that existed for so many legislative and executive officials to do something here makes it silly to point at the Supreme Court and say that they are the ones who should take the blame for this.
Yeah, but despite all this, when the DC Circuit made that phenomenal ruling on Trump's immunity claim in February, it seemed like Trump was finally going to be held accountable, but then, the conservatives on SCOTUS came to Trump's rescue.
It looks like I'm the only republican commenting but I will give my 2 cents.
There are far better candidates for president than either of these 2 old men. Democrats should have stuck with thier original plan and kept Biden as a 1 term president. There are Democrats that i would absolutely vote for over Trump. Republicans should have found a way to make Trump supporters (I may have voted for the guy but please don't ever give me that label) realize that there are other people who will fight for your interests (yes, I do believe that nobody other than Trump seems to be listening to die hard Trump supporters).
I think a lottery selecting a random American would almost certainly yield a better result than either of these people.
Indeed, this is why I think we should have a hereditary monarchy: effectively a random citizen, trained from birth in good governance, is going to do better than a random untrained citizen; and any random citizen would do better than these demagogues who tell people what they want to hear for votes. I like the Jacobite line, so perhaps Duke Franz of Bavaria would make a good first king.
This was not possible this cycle with Trump in the race. 'As President, I fought for you' is a far more credible statement than 'as President, I will fight for you'.
The votes I have cast in GOP primaries have gone to Ron Paul and Trump. I appreciate your closing statement. At least more people listen to us nowadays.
That is a very good point. Even if somebody did listen, Trump would still have their trust and it would be hard to break that.
I would suggest that 2020 WAS the political equivalent of Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl with the Broncos.
It was very clear even at that point that Biden was slipping. And he won, due to some pretty incredible world circumstances.
Jill Biden is an evil person. I’m no fan of Joe but he is a decent man. Shame on her for subjecting the man she allegedly loves to this nationwide ridicule. She should have pulled the plug on it all along year ago.
But his position enriches their whole family. Its a family business.
To be fair, any POTUS enriches their family. Exhibit A Trump.
Sure, but both these last two have taken’ it pretty far. It is a growing problem in Washington.
> "the late 70s and early 80s are often a sad point of decline...It’s also the age at which the risk of death begins to exponentially increase"
The risk of death increases exponentially starting around age 30:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompertz%E2%80%93Makeham_law_of_mortality
I know you probably didn't mean it literally, but the early 80s are, ironically, exactly when the risk of death _stops_ increasing exponentially.
From your link:
The Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality describes the age dynamics of human mortality rather accurately in the age window from about 30 to 80 years of age. At more advanced ages, some studies have found that death rates increase more slowly – a phenomenon known as the late-life mortality deceleration[2] – but more recent studies disagree.
Key points: It's *most accurate* until 80, when the model claims that death rates start to decline.
More recent studies disagree
Additionally, I'm pretty sure that Nate is using "exponentially increase" in the colloquial sense of "starts to go up much faster than it did in previous years". Exponential curves _start_ slow, before eventually getting much faster. So if the relationship *is* exponentian then the much larger increases after 80 are be exactly as exponential as the much slower increases in the 30s.
And, it may even be true that that increase is the slow part of an exponential from the 30s to the 70s, and then, while it increases by larger steps, it's not longer truly "exponential" in the mathematical sense, which would make your criticism technically correct (the best kind of correct), but missing the forest for the trees.
None of this gets around the main point that ones actual risk of dying goes up every year in ones 80s and does so by a larger amount than at any other time in ones life.
Given that he's a statistical modeller, maybe he should have been a little more careful with uses of a word that have such a precise mathematical meaning, but then again, even your own link is hardly definitive proof that he was wrong. And in my personal opinion, the rhetorical strength is worth the mathematical imprecision.
"And in my personal opinion, the rhetorical strength is worth the mathematical imprecision."
Strong disagree. Words have meanings. And "Exponential" isn't a word like "literally" where the fight to preserve its literal meaning is completely lost, but rather a fairly specific technical term that has a useful meaning which we can still protect.
Words have meaning yes. Often more than one.
It has a very specific, technical meaning but, like "theory", it also has a very common lay meaning which is related to but notably different from the specific technical meaning.
Neither is more valid than the other.
i guess one difference to me is that the colloquial meaning of exponential (unlike "hypothesis", and for that matter, "organic") never really had its own existence; I'm pretty sure it came about as a result of laypeople trying to sound fancy and scientific (whereas the non-scientific definitions of hypothesis and organic predated the scientific definitions, so it'd be rude for scientists to "claim" those words fully).
Didn't Konrad Adenauer do well as German leader even into his late 80s? Same with Morris Chang, who really led TSMC to true greatness in his 80s. And Deng Xiaoping (though he definitely showed his age more).
There is substantial variation in how gracefully people age - Joe Biden is just not one of the graceful agers. Even John Kerry ages WAY better than Biden.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential Command”…. George Orwell
All senior citizens should be allowed to age well in retirement. Isn't that why we all pay into social security and Medicare? The flip side of that social contract is you step aside and retire when it's your time.
Right. I don’t remember ever hearing anyone complain that Berlusconi was too old.
This debate is the first thing in a long while that has made me feel like a real radical. A part of me thinks that people from both sides should basically shut the country down until these jokers are replaced.
Maybe conscript the most politically centrist governor as an emergency replacement while we dismantle the two parties and the system that leads results like this.
This is a constitutional convention level crisis honestly. The process is broken.
These two did win their primary races though, which is arguably the most democratic process we have.
The problem is only 20% of Americans pay attention and vote in the primaries, which can lead to poor choices of candidates like we have currently.
What is so good about democracy?
It forces politicians to concern themselves with the values and interests of the widest possible segment of the US citizenry. This, unlike other forms of government, prevents narrow interests from capturing the government and using the police state to extract rents and curtail personal freedoms.
Take for example the US business community; we have a highly competitive market place that produces insane value and raises our standard of living well above other countries. If we did not have a democracy, it would be much easier for firms to acquire government enforced monopolies that squashed competition and resulted in stagnation.
I think those are all virtues in theory, but we aren’t getting a lot of mileage out of them currently because our system has become captured by the parties. And you are omitting the weaknesses.
1). The aggregate of everyone’s selfish interests isn’t “good government policy”, (which is one reason we have a bill of rights).
2). People are tribalist moronic sheep who are easy to herd and the current era of media only makes that easier.
3). You have a government that isn’t really accountable/dischargeable for its fuckups because it is just a rotating cast of people winning popularity contests instead of people who value and are invested in its long term health.
4). It puts the government on the back foot in terms of organization and cohesion in comparison to the growing number of industry groups who are effectively able to manipulate it and push it around. As their special interest exceeds any individual's particular interest in their scenario, and no one in the system is there for the good of the state. It is a bad fit for the era of megacorps.
Because history is full of successful planned state-run economies. Yet Americans are more afraid of the free market than unelected life-tenured government bureaucrats with the power to make, interpret and enforce law.
I am not at all a proponent of state run economies or socialism, but you do need a strong government protecting and enforcing markets and papering over the weaknesses of capitalism.
The very first thing a successful capitalist/corporation tries to do is destroy any semblance of market/competition.
SBSQ question: what happens to RFK's poll numbers after this debate, and how much does it matter? I'm not a supporter by any means, but after watching his livestream on X with John Stossel, I can confidently say he would have easily won the debate had he been allowed to participate.
Nobody who listens to RFK's voice would ever think he won a debate.
Okay, then who do you think won? We all saw, and sadly can't unsee, Biden. And apart from staying at the podium and not interrupting, Trump's performance was fundamentally no different than the ones that were called disastrous in 2016 and 2020. Last night was basically pick your flavor of word salad.
Say what you want about RFK's voice or anything else about him. As I said, I'm not a supporter (his position on Ukraine alone disqualifies him, as far as I'm concerned) but the fact remains he was the only one of the three who actually answered the questions coherently.