I've been disturbed this election cycle with the way in which journalists and political commentators seem to have self-consciously decided that "mere" reporting and analysis is no longer a suitable use of their talents, but have instead taken it upon themselves to become political actors in their own right. It's self-aggrandizing at best, propagandistic at worst.
Long before the debate, pundits deliberately poisoned the well against Joe Biden in the hopes of getting in a candidate more in line with their personal preferences. Their aim was to themselves alter the course of the election. The strategy backfired on them when Biden became the nominee despite their weasel-y maneuvers, but entered in a position of weakness because of their smear campaign. Panicking a bit at what they’d done, before the debate they briefly tried to walk back their deprecations, but after the debate there was no way to undo the damage, so they’ve now decided on doubling down against him. He won’t drop out, and they’re simply dragging him down ever further towards complete un-electability. If (when...) Biden loses, much of the blame will fall squarely on their shoulders, yet somehow I doubt it’ll occur to them to take any responsibility for their role in his loss.
you wrote that "top Democrats in Congress and other elected offices have endorsed him staying put" but isn't the situation a bit more mixed? so far at least nine house democrats have called on biden to drop out, and some democratic senators (jon tester, michael bennett etc) have refused to dismiss biden's condition.
it seems to me the main split is between democrats who worry biden's unpopularity will pull them under (the most biden-critical democrats are mostly from swing or d+5 districts/states) while progressives are less worried (why AOC has endorsed biden). but it's also true that we still don't know what's going on behind the scenes right now. nancy pelosi, chuck schumer and jim clyburn seem to be giving mixed signals, in my opinion. it's also not clear to me how popular biden is with the democratic base. obviously very left wing voters don't love him, ditto for very centrist ones. but it seems to me the kind of MSNBC-watchers and wine moms like him a lot and want him to stay. so that could be another factor.
trump is due to pick his VP soon, so that could draw a lot of attention away from this whole scene and give biden a reprieve, particularly if trump choses some weirdo like that dakota lady who shot her dog
I think you have to strain quite a bit to argue the reception from Democrats is "mixed." It seems overwhelmingly supportive, and the press is trying hard to keep the storyline going with what are basically crumbs of contrary evidence. Even Nancy Pelosi's supposedly "mixed signals" interview yesterday struck me as being pretty clearly pro-Biden-staying, it was just phrased awkwardly because she is herself quite old and stumbling in her communication style.
i suppose these things are ultimately a matter of perspective, but i'd say that congressional democrats are openly more anti-biden than pro at this point. more and more democrats in the house and the senate are coming out against him
just ten minutes ago right now, biden confused zelensky with putin on live television
but like you said, we'll have to see what happens. so to plant my flag early, i think biden will at least step down as the democratic nominee before the end of the month
I dunno JJ, recent polling from CBS shows that 70% of registered voters think Biden shouldn’t be running. If extrapolated, that’s as close to a consensus as you’re going to get on any political subject from the American public.
The election is not about "who should be running," it's about who people want to vote for. The number of people who think Biden shouldn't be running or is too old or whatever has always been way larger than the number of people who are voting for Trump.
I don't think the comparisons in pundit opinions here are fair, if you take a probabilistic view of things. The predictions in the first part of the article are either just pulled out of their ass or not based in data (saying that "Biden can't beat Trump" when Biden was consistently 8-9pts ahead of Trump for the entire 2020 election cycle is absurd). On the other hand, the pundits who are saying Biden should step down have an extremely high chance of being vindicated - these are opinions based in years of polling data and fundamentals. He polls worse than generic Democrats. He polls worse than Kamala Harris. He is behind 3pts in the popular vote, when he needs to be ahead by 3-5pts in the popular vote to break even in the Electoral College (by contrast he was 9pts ahead at this point in 2020). There are no election models that give Biden an edge, and those election models are based in fundamentals that don't necessarily apply anyway and will overrate Biden because it assumes Joe Biden is a generic Democrat and can campaign normally (Nate Silver has said he'd give Biden about a 10-15% chance right now, even with his model at 29% chance to win). His lead in fundraising has evaporated, and Trump will be outspending him in the final months of campaign. These fundamental issues, like him not being able to run a proper campaign or outspend Trump, limits his ability to come back from such a deficit. There are limited opportunities from now to the end of the campaign to turn things around, given the debates are the biggest opportunity and he blew one of two of them. Past that, this news story will just not go away for the rest of the campaign; it's an awful Catch-22 because the more Biden addresses it and tries to beat back the polling deficit, the more chances there are for horrific appearances like the debate, meaning his team will likely limit his appearances.
I just wouldn't weight your statements at the end equally. Assuming the polls mostly hold (they have been incredibly consistent) then Biden will have something like a 90%-95% chance to lose by the end of the campaign. If they move against Biden, then he is into a 98-99% chance of losing. At this point, injecting variance into the race with a new candidate is (from a probabilistic standpoint) the ONLY way to win, it's not even a question.
The thing I'm also fearing (but I hope will not happen) is that everyone's opinions about the liberal media and polling will be amnesia'd after 2024. They've been proven wrong and wrong again over the years, yet no one is stopping or even correcting them.
While Trump constantly fucks things over, he's basically unchecked at the electoral Republican level. When the liberal media constantly fucks things over, they're unchecked in terms of the American liberal news monopoly.
It's just like 1948 and 1968 in regards to the media. Johnson buckled to anti-Vietnam media pressure and the Democrats lost to Nixon. Truman refused to buckle to media pressure and ended up winning the 1948 election in a stunning upset.
What confuses me most is the "it's just a matter of time" camp as you dubbed them. What's wrong with saying that you think he ought to step down, or that it's a strong possibility? Why take the further step and stake your reputation on the prediction that he will definitely step down, unless you have some sort of insider knowledge? I expect that kind of confident prediction from loud Youtube goofballs like Tim Pool or Cenk Uygur, but you'd think more professional voices would be more careful. To be fair though, I don't read enough opinion pieces on mainstream news sites to know if this is typical or not.
I've been disturbed this election cycle with the way in which journalists and political commentators seem to have self-consciously decided that "mere" reporting and analysis is no longer a suitable use of their talents, but have instead taken it upon themselves to become political actors in their own right. It's self-aggrandizing at best, propagandistic at worst.
Long before the debate, pundits deliberately poisoned the well against Joe Biden in the hopes of getting in a candidate more in line with their personal preferences. Their aim was to themselves alter the course of the election. The strategy backfired on them when Biden became the nominee despite their weasel-y maneuvers, but entered in a position of weakness because of their smear campaign. Panicking a bit at what they’d done, before the debate they briefly tried to walk back their deprecations, but after the debate there was no way to undo the damage, so they’ve now decided on doubling down against him. He won’t drop out, and they’re simply dragging him down ever further towards complete un-electability. If (when...) Biden loses, much of the blame will fall squarely on their shoulders, yet somehow I doubt it’ll occur to them to take any responsibility for their role in his loss.
you wrote that "top Democrats in Congress and other elected offices have endorsed him staying put" but isn't the situation a bit more mixed? so far at least nine house democrats have called on biden to drop out, and some democratic senators (jon tester, michael bennett etc) have refused to dismiss biden's condition.
it seems to me the main split is between democrats who worry biden's unpopularity will pull them under (the most biden-critical democrats are mostly from swing or d+5 districts/states) while progressives are less worried (why AOC has endorsed biden). but it's also true that we still don't know what's going on behind the scenes right now. nancy pelosi, chuck schumer and jim clyburn seem to be giving mixed signals, in my opinion. it's also not clear to me how popular biden is with the democratic base. obviously very left wing voters don't love him, ditto for very centrist ones. but it seems to me the kind of MSNBC-watchers and wine moms like him a lot and want him to stay. so that could be another factor.
trump is due to pick his VP soon, so that could draw a lot of attention away from this whole scene and give biden a reprieve, particularly if trump choses some weirdo like that dakota lady who shot her dog
I think you have to strain quite a bit to argue the reception from Democrats is "mixed." It seems overwhelmingly supportive, and the press is trying hard to keep the storyline going with what are basically crumbs of contrary evidence. Even Nancy Pelosi's supposedly "mixed signals" interview yesterday struck me as being pretty clearly pro-Biden-staying, it was just phrased awkwardly because she is herself quite old and stumbling in her communication style.
i suppose these things are ultimately a matter of perspective, but i'd say that congressional democrats are openly more anti-biden than pro at this point. more and more democrats in the house and the senate are coming out against him
just ten minutes ago right now, biden confused zelensky with putin on live television
but like you said, we'll have to see what happens. so to plant my flag early, i think biden will at least step down as the democratic nominee before the end of the month
I dunno JJ, recent polling from CBS shows that 70% of registered voters think Biden shouldn’t be running. If extrapolated, that’s as close to a consensus as you’re going to get on any political subject from the American public.
The election is not about "who should be running," it's about who people want to vote for. The number of people who think Biden shouldn't be running or is too old or whatever has always been way larger than the number of people who are voting for Trump.
do you intend to write a follow up piece to this?
the whole ordeal with biden just feels really gross and opportunistic on the part of the pundits.
Genuine concerns about biden should have been amplified earlier, airing out laundry now just makes it seem like they smelled blood in the water.
I don't think the comparisons in pundit opinions here are fair, if you take a probabilistic view of things. The predictions in the first part of the article are either just pulled out of their ass or not based in data (saying that "Biden can't beat Trump" when Biden was consistently 8-9pts ahead of Trump for the entire 2020 election cycle is absurd). On the other hand, the pundits who are saying Biden should step down have an extremely high chance of being vindicated - these are opinions based in years of polling data and fundamentals. He polls worse than generic Democrats. He polls worse than Kamala Harris. He is behind 3pts in the popular vote, when he needs to be ahead by 3-5pts in the popular vote to break even in the Electoral College (by contrast he was 9pts ahead at this point in 2020). There are no election models that give Biden an edge, and those election models are based in fundamentals that don't necessarily apply anyway and will overrate Biden because it assumes Joe Biden is a generic Democrat and can campaign normally (Nate Silver has said he'd give Biden about a 10-15% chance right now, even with his model at 29% chance to win). His lead in fundraising has evaporated, and Trump will be outspending him in the final months of campaign. These fundamental issues, like him not being able to run a proper campaign or outspend Trump, limits his ability to come back from such a deficit. There are limited opportunities from now to the end of the campaign to turn things around, given the debates are the biggest opportunity and he blew one of two of them. Past that, this news story will just not go away for the rest of the campaign; it's an awful Catch-22 because the more Biden addresses it and tries to beat back the polling deficit, the more chances there are for horrific appearances like the debate, meaning his team will likely limit his appearances.
I just wouldn't weight your statements at the end equally. Assuming the polls mostly hold (they have been incredibly consistent) then Biden will have something like a 90%-95% chance to lose by the end of the campaign. If they move against Biden, then he is into a 98-99% chance of losing. At this point, injecting variance into the race with a new candidate is (from a probabilistic standpoint) the ONLY way to win, it's not even a question.
welp
He did the thing
The thing I'm also fearing (but I hope will not happen) is that everyone's opinions about the liberal media and polling will be amnesia'd after 2024. They've been proven wrong and wrong again over the years, yet no one is stopping or even correcting them.
While Trump constantly fucks things over, he's basically unchecked at the electoral Republican level. When the liberal media constantly fucks things over, they're unchecked in terms of the American liberal news monopoly.
It's just like 1948 and 1968 in regards to the media. Johnson buckled to anti-Vietnam media pressure and the Democrats lost to Nixon. Truman refused to buckle to media pressure and ended up winning the 1948 election in a stunning upset.
What confuses me most is the "it's just a matter of time" camp as you dubbed them. What's wrong with saying that you think he ought to step down, or that it's a strong possibility? Why take the further step and stake your reputation on the prediction that he will definitely step down, unless you have some sort of insider knowledge? I expect that kind of confident prediction from loud Youtube goofballs like Tim Pool or Cenk Uygur, but you'd think more professional voices would be more careful. To be fair though, I don't read enough opinion pieces on mainstream news sites to know if this is typical or not.
It doesn’t sound like you read what I wrote