Let’s splash some cold water on the non-Trump options for 2024.
In the wake of the most catastrophic debate performance I have witnessed in my lifetime, it would be safe to say that Democratic Party elites and the chattering class are freaking the f**k out about the 2024 election.
I can’t blame them! I am someone who had been pretty dismissive of Biden’s age as a serious issue — until Thursday’s debate. If I was Trump’s communications manager the only ad I would run for the entire summer would be this clip followed by the text, “Do you think Joe Biden is up to being president for four more years?”
The question, for those of us who do not want to see a second Trump term, is: “what now?” And this is where there some cold water is called for, because there are really only two viable choices:
- Stick with Joe Biden; or
- Have Biden resign the presidency sometime this summer, Kamala Harris sworn in as President, and have Harris be the Democratic Party nominee.
That’s it, those are your options. Everything else is nonsense. Let me explain.
First, sticking with Biden remains a very viable option. Despite his disastrous debate performance, it should be noted that the post-debate news has not been all that bad for Democrats. Biden raked in $27 million in campaign donations the day after the debate. Morning Consult’s morning-after poll showed that Biden did not lose any ground to Trump even though a majority believed that Trump won the debate. Biden’s poor performance might be causing many observers to overlook Trump’s uneven performance, with some undecided focus groups switching to Biden because they could tell that Trump was lying.
Furthermore, despite his poor debate performance Biden did rather well on the stump the next day, artfully acknowledging his errors of the previous evening.
Joe Biden cruised through the Democratic primary and has been a pretty decent president. Biden stumbled early in the 2020 cycle, so this could just be a familiar reprise.3 Maybe the best response is to chalk Thursday up to a bad night and proceed with the horse that brought you. If the polling holds up it would be fun to watch the chattering classes pirouette to explain why American voters are not reacting the way they are!
