In their song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” (Combat Rock, 1982) The Clash portrays a man agonizing over a relationship where he is not sure if his girlfriend wants him or not.
This song comes to mind every time President Joe Biden shows up in front of the news cameras, only in his case, the ones asking ‘the Clash question’ are the members of the Democratic Party. While Biden himself seems to be perfectly intent on going into the November election as the Democrat’s presidential candidate, a number of prominent Democrats want him to quit the presidential race—and that number is growing.
The problems for Biden erupted after his disastrous performance in the recent debate against Donald Trump. It did not help Biden that he decided to hold a press conference two weeks after the debate, where he started off by saying that Donald Trump is his vice president. This came on top of him referring to the Ukrainian president Zelensky as Vladimir Putin.
What is so interesting about the Democrat party infighting over Biden is that it has spilled over into the public arena. Normally, the Democrats are good at keeping party dissent within the ranks and out of the press (which, of course, to a very large degree has Democratic sympathies), but due to the inescapably public nature of Biden’s debate disaster, their internal party squabbling has been forced into the sunlight.
Or, as National Public Radio reports:
Democrats continue to raise concerns that [Biden] will lose in November—and take down ballot Democrats with him. Lawmakers have said both publicly and privately that the party is badly fractured on the issue, giving heightened power to drips of information from individual members who choose to voice their opinions.
The reference to “down ballot Democrats” is about voters tending to vote for candidates of the same party as the presidential candidate they choose. There is a fear among Democrats that if voters go for Trump for president, they will continue to pick Republicans for the U.S. Senate, for the House of Representatives, and even for elected offices in their state.
Their fears may be exaggerated. American voters are not as party faithful as voters tend to be in Europe. The most realistic scenario is that Democrats who switch over to vote for Trump will switch back and vote Democrat down the ballot. This was the case when, e.g., Ronald Reagan beat his Democrat opponent Walter Mondale in an absolute landslide in 1984. At the same time, the Democrats retained their majority in the House of Representatives and reduced the Republican Senate majority by two seats.
With that said, I am struck by the level of panic in the Democrat party. It suggests that they may have opinion polls, done by the party for internal use, that show down-ballot fallout for the Democrats if Biden stays in the race. This may explain why internal party opposition to Biden is growing; it has now risen to a point where Alexander Soros had to step into the arena. His father, billionaire George Soros, has basically owned the Democrat party for the past 25 years, and Alex is determined to maintain his father’s deep and far-reaching influence over the Democrats.
In a comment on X on July 10th, the younger Soros opined:
Apparently, Soros is at odds with other major Democrat donors, who have decided to “withhold about $90 million in pledges so long as Biden is still on the ticket” for November. And that is not all:
The fundraising is “already disastrous,” one source told NBC News. “The money has absolutely shut off,” said another. … the campaign’s problems are not just limited to the party’s big donors. Contributions from smaller donors have also seen a decline in recent days
None of Biden’s health problems have been a secret. His cognitive decline has been on full display for the world to see for at least a year, if not longer. However, that is not the most stunning part of all this; what takes the price here is how people inside the Democrat circles are now letting the world know that they, too, have known about Biden’s debilitating health. From CNN:
At a star-studded fundraiser for President Joe Biden in Los Angeles last month, George Clooney wasn’t the only one who came away concerned about the president. … whispers of concern rippled through the audience at the Peacock Theater
Among those who had given enough to have their picture taken with Biden, there were those who “expressed unease at how the president looked and carried himself.”
Really? And you did not sound the alarm to the nation? You thought it was perfectly OK to have a man in mental decline in the most important elected office in the world? You were apparently more concerned with keeping the façade up than with the fact that a man who doesn’t even remember the name of his own vice president is the same man who controls the military nuclear codes.
The CNN report continues:
Back in Washington, there have been clear signs throughout his term of Biden being increasingly stage-managed, with lists of talking points, names of questioners and drawings of where he should walk presented to him by aides.
The president’s meetings with his cabinet members have become fully scripted: cabinet members—ministers by European parlance—give their questions and comments on different subjects before the meeting, so that Biden’s aides can prepare a step-by-step, minute-by-minute managed agenda for the president. The cabinet members are asked to play along and pretend that it is all unfolding organically.
Explaining that they have talked to “more than two dozen current and former Democratic officials” about President Biden, CNN goes on to report:
In many of these conversations, sources blamed the president’s inner circle of advisers and family for what they said has become a painstakingly choreographed daily operation designed to prevent him from being in unscripted settings for extended periods of time.
This panic among Democrats would not be so pervasive, were it not for the fact that they cannot just toss Biden overboard. First of all, if Biden wants to stay in the race, he will stay in the race. Secondly, the party convention, which is going to be held in Chicago August 19-22nd, is largely a done deal for Biden—but not entirely. There is a loophole that allows his convention delegates to vote for another candidate: the “Call to Convention,” which the Democratic National Committee issued as the formal announcement of the convention, stipulates the rules by which the delegates are supposed to formally nominate the party’s presidential candidate. On page 19, the “Call to Convention” says:
All delegates to the National Convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.
This has been interpreted as a promise which is moral—not legal—in nature. In other words, if the delegates choose to vote for another candidate than the one for whom they were sent to the convention, they cannot be held legally accountable for having broken a contract or anything of that sort.
Since Biden has promised to stay in the race, it would take a Herculean effort to peel off a majority of his delegates in favor of another candidate. In other words, the power brokers within the party—former president Barack Obama and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi being two of them—would have to orchestrate a coup de palais against the sitting president’s bid to win re-election.
This would be an unprecedented event. It would humiliate Biden to the point where the person who ‘steals’ his delegates could very well end up losing support relative to him; voters may feel such sympathy for Biden that they simply refuse to get in line behind his replacement. If anything could have down-ballot ramifications for the Democrats, it would be a convention that cleaves the sitting president from the herd and leaves him out in the political wilderness to fend for himself.
To be clear, this is my analysis—I have no doubt that many leading Democrats see the scenario quite differently. The power and allure of the presidency are strong enough to tame even the most opulent moral mindset. If Democrat party power brokers believe that Candidate X has a better chance against Trump, then Biden’s days as the party’s presumptive nominee for president will end in Milwaukee a little more than a month from now.
If this is the solution that the power brokers are going for, the big question is who they will launch as the Biden replacement candidate. Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, is about as verbally incoherent as he is—and she is nowhere near his age. Harris has a penchant for giggling when answering questions; she is an expert at talking without saying anything; and she has absolutely no achievements to point to as credentials for political leadership.
As for other candidates, it is pointless to speculate at this time. Once the party gives more hints of how they are going to move forward, it will be easier to assess the viability of potential candidates. One thing is clear, though: if Biden remains the candidate, more Democrats will come out of the woodwork and admit that Donald Trump isn’t such a disastrous presidential candidate after all. Some of them have begun admitting—under the guise of anonymity—that the Republican candidate is not an existential threat to American democracy.
To say such a thing is both sacrilege and high treason among Democrats. At least, it is now. A month ago, it was sacrilege and high treason to even question Biden’s mental acuity.
Who knows where we will be a month from now?
Should He Stay or Should He Go?
U.S. President Joe Biden greets a boy in Northville, Michigan, on July 12, 2024.
Photo: Mandel NGAN / AFP
In their song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” (Combat Rock, 1982) The Clash portrays a man agonizing over a relationship where he is not sure if his girlfriend wants him or not.
This song comes to mind every time President Joe Biden shows up in front of the news cameras, only in his case, the ones asking ‘the Clash question’ are the members of the Democratic Party. While Biden himself seems to be perfectly intent on going into the November election as the Democrat’s presidential candidate, a number of prominent Democrats want him to quit the presidential race—and that number is growing.
The problems for Biden erupted after his disastrous performance in the recent debate against Donald Trump. It did not help Biden that he decided to hold a press conference two weeks after the debate, where he started off by saying that Donald Trump is his vice president. This came on top of him referring to the Ukrainian president Zelensky as Vladimir Putin.
What is so interesting about the Democrat party infighting over Biden is that it has spilled over into the public arena. Normally, the Democrats are good at keeping party dissent within the ranks and out of the press (which, of course, to a very large degree has Democratic sympathies), but due to the inescapably public nature of Biden’s debate disaster, their internal party squabbling has been forced into the sunlight.
Or, as National Public Radio reports:
The reference to “down ballot Democrats” is about voters tending to vote for candidates of the same party as the presidential candidate they choose. There is a fear among Democrats that if voters go for Trump for president, they will continue to pick Republicans for the U.S. Senate, for the House of Representatives, and even for elected offices in their state.
Their fears may be exaggerated. American voters are not as party faithful as voters tend to be in Europe. The most realistic scenario is that Democrats who switch over to vote for Trump will switch back and vote Democrat down the ballot. This was the case when, e.g., Ronald Reagan beat his Democrat opponent Walter Mondale in an absolute landslide in 1984. At the same time, the Democrats retained their majority in the House of Representatives and reduced the Republican Senate majority by two seats.
With that said, I am struck by the level of panic in the Democrat party. It suggests that they may have opinion polls, done by the party for internal use, that show down-ballot fallout for the Democrats if Biden stays in the race. This may explain why internal party opposition to Biden is growing; it has now risen to a point where Alexander Soros had to step into the arena. His father, billionaire George Soros, has basically owned the Democrat party for the past 25 years, and Alex is determined to maintain his father’s deep and far-reaching influence over the Democrats.
In a comment on X on July 10th, the younger Soros opined:
Apparently, Soros is at odds with other major Democrat donors, who have decided to “withhold about $90 million in pledges so long as Biden is still on the ticket” for November. And that is not all:
None of Biden’s health problems have been a secret. His cognitive decline has been on full display for the world to see for at least a year, if not longer. However, that is not the most stunning part of all this; what takes the price here is how people inside the Democrat circles are now letting the world know that they, too, have known about Biden’s debilitating health. From CNN:
Among those who had given enough to have their picture taken with Biden, there were those who “expressed unease at how the president looked and carried himself.”
Really? And you did not sound the alarm to the nation? You thought it was perfectly OK to have a man in mental decline in the most important elected office in the world? You were apparently more concerned with keeping the façade up than with the fact that a man who doesn’t even remember the name of his own vice president is the same man who controls the military nuclear codes.
The CNN report continues:
The president’s meetings with his cabinet members have become fully scripted: cabinet members—ministers by European parlance—give their questions and comments on different subjects before the meeting, so that Biden’s aides can prepare a step-by-step, minute-by-minute managed agenda for the president. The cabinet members are asked to play along and pretend that it is all unfolding organically.
Explaining that they have talked to “more than two dozen current and former Democratic officials” about President Biden, CNN goes on to report:
This panic among Democrats would not be so pervasive, were it not for the fact that they cannot just toss Biden overboard. First of all, if Biden wants to stay in the race, he will stay in the race. Secondly, the party convention, which is going to be held in Chicago August 19-22nd, is largely a done deal for Biden—but not entirely. There is a loophole that allows his convention delegates to vote for another candidate: the “Call to Convention,” which the Democratic National Committee issued as the formal announcement of the convention, stipulates the rules by which the delegates are supposed to formally nominate the party’s presidential candidate. On page 19, the “Call to Convention” says:
This has been interpreted as a promise which is moral—not legal—in nature. In other words, if the delegates choose to vote for another candidate than the one for whom they were sent to the convention, they cannot be held legally accountable for having broken a contract or anything of that sort.
Since Biden has promised to stay in the race, it would take a Herculean effort to peel off a majority of his delegates in favor of another candidate. In other words, the power brokers within the party—former president Barack Obama and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi being two of them—would have to orchestrate a coup de palais against the sitting president’s bid to win re-election.
This would be an unprecedented event. It would humiliate Biden to the point where the person who ‘steals’ his delegates could very well end up losing support relative to him; voters may feel such sympathy for Biden that they simply refuse to get in line behind his replacement. If anything could have down-ballot ramifications for the Democrats, it would be a convention that cleaves the sitting president from the herd and leaves him out in the political wilderness to fend for himself.
To be clear, this is my analysis—I have no doubt that many leading Democrats see the scenario quite differently. The power and allure of the presidency are strong enough to tame even the most opulent moral mindset. If Democrat party power brokers believe that Candidate X has a better chance against Trump, then Biden’s days as the party’s presumptive nominee for president will end in Milwaukee a little more than a month from now.
If this is the solution that the power brokers are going for, the big question is who they will launch as the Biden replacement candidate. Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, is about as verbally incoherent as he is—and she is nowhere near his age. Harris has a penchant for giggling when answering questions; she is an expert at talking without saying anything; and she has absolutely no achievements to point to as credentials for political leadership.
As for other candidates, it is pointless to speculate at this time. Once the party gives more hints of how they are going to move forward, it will be easier to assess the viability of potential candidates. One thing is clear, though: if Biden remains the candidate, more Democrats will come out of the woodwork and admit that Donald Trump isn’t such a disastrous presidential candidate after all. Some of them have begun admitting—under the guise of anonymity—that the Republican candidate is not an existential threat to American democracy.
To say such a thing is both sacrilege and high treason among Democrats. At least, it is now. A month ago, it was sacrilege and high treason to even question Biden’s mental acuity.
Who knows where we will be a month from now?
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