2024 US Election: Post-mortem

[degrassiknoll]

Or hear me out. You could just post your opinions instead of pretending like you are a victim.

Get smarter.

[SGR]

Am I allowed to opinions in this thread that aren't emotionally charged or do we have to believe in the antichrist to participate?

You still don't believe in the antichrist? 

[SGR]

Credit to @Buck_Mulligan for originally linking this New Yorker article (How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump - The New Yorker) in the Big Picture American Politics thread. Archive Today has been down for a bit - but here's a link to the archived article that should work when it's back up.

Based on some choice quotes from the article as seen below...

"quotes from the article"

It wasn't a straight line of decline; he had good days and bad. But, until the last day of his Presidency, Biden and those closest to him refused to admit the reality that his energy, cognitive skills, and communication capacity had faltered considerably. Even worse, through various means, they tried to hide it. And then came the June 27th debate against Trump, when Biden's decline was laid bare before the world. As a result, Democrats stumbled into the fall of 2024 with an untested nominee and growing public mistrust of a White House that had been gaslighting the American people.

"It was an abomination," one prominent Democratic strategist—who publicly defended Biden—told us. "He stole an election from the Democratic Party. He stole it from the American people." Biden had framed his entire Presidency as a pitched battle to prevent Trump from returning to the Oval Office. By not relinquishing power and refusing to be honest with himself and the country about his decline, he guaranteed it.

When the event ended, the three men stood. Obama began to walk offstage, but Biden walked to the edge and, after waving and giving a thumbs up, stopped and stared blankly into the crowd. Obama turned back and grabbed Biden's arm, then guided him backstage. He later explained that he just wanted to get the hell out of there, but he didn't want to leave Biden alone up on the stage. Biden folks insisted that the President was just basking in the glow of a supportive audience, and they called clips of the moment "cheap fakes," a term for video content that has been deceptively edited or taken out of context. But even some supporters present in the arena wondered what was going on.

That same night, in New York City, the Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, was at a wedding. He had jitters about the upcoming debate.

Sometimes the President would call him and, after some chit chat, admit that he'd forgotten why he'd called. Sometimes he rambled. Sometimes he forgot names. Schumer wasn't concerned about Biden's acuity, but he was worried about the optics. Biden talked sluggishly—his voice was not just slower but oddly quieter, reminding Schumer of his mother, who had Parkinson's. His gait was slower. Schumer was concerned about the President's electability. He talked about it with his staff, but he felt that he had to keep a close circle. If he talked about his worries with Obama or Hakeem Jeffries or Nancy Pelosi and it got out that they were discussing whether Biden was too old to run, that would make it even harder for him to win.

At the wedding, Schumer was discussing his concerns and the fact that the debate was so early—just twelve days away. "If things go south at the debate, it might change things," Schumer later recalled having said. The early date gave Democrats some time.

Another wedding guest, who sat at Schumer's table, recalled him saying, "If things go south at the debate, me, Barack, Nancy, and Hakeem have a Plan B," though Schumer would later deny it.

...Biden cast his position as that of a true exercise in democracy, having "received over 14 million votes, 87% of the votes cast across the entire nominating process."

"This was a process open to anyone who wanted to run," he wrote, which was not really true. "Only three people chose to challenge me." Of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Biden wrote that he "fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent." Of Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, the President said that he "attacked me for being too old and was soundly defeated. The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party."

...Clooney said it was important to him and his team to include what he saw as misleading testimonials about Biden. "We had to do it," he said, to underline the importance of speaking truth to power no matter which party currently rules.

Also, he acknowledged, lies serve as an important reminder for anyone in the audience upset about the current state of affairs. Democrats deceived the country about Biden's abilities and, Clooney said, "that's how Trump won."

[close]

...I can't help but do a bit of an "I told you so" with what I said in the 2024 election thread before the election happened, which tracks with most of the aforementioned quotes:

The great irony, and the story that might be told if Democrats lose is: the party that hollered and clamored about Trump's threat to democracy lost an election to him because they themselves circumvented democracy by being dishonest and incurious about their sitting president's health and mental fitness - and as a result, they (the party elites) decided to coronate their eventual nominee by committee, instead of by the vetting will of their electorate. In other words, it won't be the Democrat voters faults, blame would rest squarely on the shoulders of the party bigwigs and the media who ran cover for them for the open and fair primary the Democrat voter was ultimately denied.

With that out of the way, I've mentioned this feeling, not only in my quote, but in other posts - that it seems like many people are laying the blame for this fisasco solely on Biden; again, a quote from the article to that effect:

"We got so screwed by Biden, as a party," David Plouffe, who helped run the Harris campaign, told us. Plouffe had served as Senator Barack Obama's Presidential campaign manager in 2008 and as a senior adviser to President Obama before largely retiring from politics in 2013. After Biden dropped out of the race, on July 21, 2024, Plouffe was drafted to help Harris in what he saw as a "rescue mission." Harris, he said, was a "great soldier," but the compressed hundred-and-seven-day race was "a fucking nightmare."

"And it's all Biden," Plouffe said. By deciding to run for reëlection and then waiting more than three weeks after the debate to bow out, Plouffe added, "He totally fucked us."

but shortly before this quote in the article, we see it hinted at that Biden was shielded from bad news/bad polls/etc by aides:

The disconnect between Biden's optimism and the unhappy reality of poll results was a constant throughout his Administration. Many insiders sensed that his inner circle shielded him from bad news.

This shielding/cocooning of Biden and what information he had access to was also mentioned in the WSJ investigative article in late December.

I get the whole 'The buck stops here' mentality: presidents ultimately get blame and credit for things that happen during their admin, whether they deserve the blame/credit or not. But if there was ever an exception to this idea, I think it would be with Biden. How am I to believe, with a straight-face, that Biden deserves all or even most of the blame for not stepping down when it's clear he was cognitively diminished and his aides weren't even being fucking honest with him in regards to the information they provided him? This seems like such an obvious contradiction to me, and yet, I don't really see it ever pointed out. If I'm wrong or off-base in how I'm thinking about this, tell me, because I'm honestly curious. What I do think is that it would be awfully conveninent for the high-ranking Democrats (not talking about the voters or the rank-and-file congressmen/senators) if it was just stubborn old Biden's fault for not dropping out earlier or not running for reelection. The same Democrats who knew much more than the public did about his condition (and even we, the public, were rightfully concerned about it) - don't blame them though, it was all Biden's fault! Yeah...right. 

As to Jake Tapper and this book, great investigative work, chief. Sure would've been nice if him and the other Democrat-aligned media cronies would've done some of this incisive and critical investigative work while Biden was still in office and before the presidential race got going instead of covering for their ass and dismissing valid concerns about Biden's health and fitness for office. But now that Biden's expendable though, he (and others) decide to finally pretend to find their balls and do some 'real detective work' and make a profit with a book. If he and others covered Biden with half of the tenacity and interest that they cover Trump, the Democrats more than likely would've had a real primary. What a bunch of spineless, smarmy fucking stooges.

[Buck_Mulligan]

Tapper's book is not the first.There is another book out about a month by two other journos, Jonathan Allen of NBC, and Amie Parnes from The Hill, called Fight, on the same subject. Hasn't got as much attention, and some bad reviews.

After every change of Administration there's always a race to get the first book out, so although I agree with your comments on the money making, I think you're being too hard on Tapper etc.

Bob Woodward is probably working on a book worth waiting for.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/06/fight-book-review-biden-harris-us-election-2024

[SGR]

Tapper's book is not the first.There is another book out about a month by two other journos, Jonathan Allen of NBC, and Amie Parnes from The Hill, called Fight, on the same subject. Hasn't got as much attention, and some bad reviews.

After every change of Administration there's always a race to get the first book out, so although I agree with your comments on the money making, I think you're being too hard on Tapper etc.

Bob Woodward is probably working on a book worth waiting for.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/06/fight-book-review-biden-harris-us-election-2024

As to that book, Fight, yes - I actually bought that one. I've read a bit of it (some 60 pages or so) - haven't learned anything new yet but I'll get back to it once I finish my Grant biography. Anyways, that book is about the 2024 campaigns as a whole, not just Biden's decline and the efforts to cover it up. Its scope is much wider than Original Sin, which supposedly is focused more on Biden's decline, the coverup, and his decision to run again. As far as I'm aware, this is the first big name book focused on that subject.

I don't begrudge Tapper for trying to get first-mover advantage with a book to make money necessarily. In a vacuum, that'd be fine - besides the fact that I would, as I stated in the other thread, take what I'm reading with a grain of salt (as I believe there will be information and context likely missing that we'll learn about in future books after enough time passes). What chaps my ass is that he will make money on this book about the coverup of Biden's decline after he was, in my view, part of said coverup. If not exactly directly, he certainly downplayed it, made excuses about it, deflected from it, and minimized it. That's what seems slimy and disingenuous to me. If he, in the book, writes about the media's role in this and maybe does a little self-reflection and takes a bit of accountability, I might be more forgiving - but I'm not holding my breath on that. My guess is that the book will lay blame on Biden, his family, and perhaps a few of his closest aides - and that'll be it.

https://x.com/tomselliott/status/1895052586249531798

What are your thoughts on my (somewhat tepid) defense of Biden's responsibility for running again? Do you think Biden bears all or most of the responsibility for the decision to run again and the delay in dropping out? If not, who do you think deserves blame?

[Buck_Mulligan]

^^^
I take your point on Tapper and I sure that Biden defense was offered by other TV people too.

My take is most of the blame (80%?) falls on Biden's head. He went back on his word to be one term and has never offered a satisfactory explanation why. He obviously should have realized that he was unfit. Power corrupts etc. His staff and inner circle who supported the conspiracy are less culpable because while they may or may not have encouraged Biden to run again, they did not make the decision. But once he made the decision they felt a duty of loyalty, or were simply afraid to speak up.

That said, I read somewhere that even after he stepped down one of his advisors Anita Dunn, ( married to another advisor Bob Bauer, They're a longtime power couple), said he should have remained. She also supposedly had negative things to say about both Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. So you never know what ulterior motives and score settling may have been at work.

[Jwb]

I mean,  to be fair,  anyone who thought for sure he was going to only try for one term was just going on one off hand comment where he floated the suggestion,  no? I was never convinced he wasn't going to run again if he got in,  and I thought he was too old back in 2019.

On the flip side of that,  I also was late coming to the idea that once he was the incumbent he might drop off of the ticket.  Even though I thought he was too old I thought we were basically stuck with him.

With regard to the defense of cognitive decline and dishonest subordinates, I haven't read the book but even if an aide is shielding him from poll results,  maybe that means they also have blame but it doesn't seem to alleviate his blame that much.  I feel like as slowed down as he is,  he's not like some drooling dementia patient who doesn't know how fucking old he is.  He doesn't need a poll to tell him to hang it up. Him refusing to do so is likely due more to a basic instinct to try to stay alive than anything else.  He knows damn well once he retires he's damn near on deaths door.  These 80 year olds in Congress and the white house literally need to stay in power the same way a shark needs to keep swimming, or else they just die.

The worst part of it all is that he probably could've had a decent legacy of he had just stuck to being a one termer and held an open primary.  Even if the Dems lost the election. Now,  I'm guessing he's gonna be like the next Jimmy Carter.  Except instead of ushering in Reagan he ushered in the actual spawn of Satan.

What's even more pitiful than that is when you think about it,  we would probably have fared better if Trump had just beaten Biden in the first place.  No Jan 6th. No failed indictments and trump being granted immunity. No 4 years to recalibrate and get project 2025 and DOGE in place.  And they would be working off the lackluster momentum of the first Trump administration, still reeling from Covid and yet to feel the full brunt of inflation.

[SGR]

I mean,  to be fair,  anyone who thought for sure he was going to only try for one term was just going on one off hand comment where he floated the suggestion,  no? I was never convinced he wasn't going to run again if he got in,  and I thought he was too old back in 2019.

On the flip side of that,  I also was late coming to the idea that once he was the incumbent he might drop off of the ticket.  Even though I thought he was too old I thought we were basically stuck with him.

Personally, I thought there was no way the Dems would run Biden again until we were maybe halfway through the primaries. Even then, I still couldn't really fathom that they were just going to run him again. Based on everything I'd seen of him, it just didn't seem tenable to me. By the time the debate happened though, I wasn't sure what exactly was going to happen. It seemed ridiculous to stick with Biden, but I didn't think Kamala was a great option either, and it was too late for any real primary to democratically select a successor.

To your point about 'promising' one term, whenever I hear that brought up I always dismiss it as bullshit. He never 'promised' that as far as I'm aware, and even if he did, to think that binds him to it is kinda silly. He also said his admin was going to cure cancer.

With regard to the defense of cognitive decline and dishonest subordinates, I haven't read the book but even if an aide is shielding him from poll results,  maybe that means they also have blame but it doesn't seem to alleviate his blame that much.  I feel like as slowed down as he is,  he's not like some drooling dementia patient who doesn't know how fucking old he is.  He doesn't need a poll to tell him to hang it up. Him refusing to do so is likely due more to a basic instinct to try to stay alive than anything else.  He knows damn well once he retires he's damn near on deaths door.  These 80 year olds in Congress and the white house literally need to stay in power the same way a shark needs to keep swimming, or else they just die.

He might not be drooling, he might not even have had clinical dementia - but I don't think that means the guy had full control of his thinking/decision-making. Old people commonly are in denial about their age and their abilities - this isn't exactly a rare thing, and probably was exacerbated by whatever mental decline Biden was suffering. There's a lot of gray-area between full blown dementia cases and being fully conscious and in control of your judgement to the point you can lead a country. It's well known that Biden's staff/advisors prepared him notecards (at some events, they'd even include pictures of where he'd walk out, where he'd sit (and in what order), and how he'd exit the stage), and would hardly let him speak to anyone 'off-the-cuff' (without teleprompter or notes, essentially - remember the multiple press events where Biden would speak, and after he was done, aides would shoo away the press before they started asking questions that Biden would inevitably attempt to answer?), because they didn't trust his cognition, didn't trust his judgement, and in essence, didn't trust him. Given that though, the story I'm to believe is that they did trust him enough to make the decision to run for reelection, greatly impacting the future of the country, and the future/reputation of his party? - and that Biden deserves all or most of the blame? Personally, I don't think he was capable of rationally making that decision (considering all the implications, risks, etc.), and that's just based on what I saw of him as someone in the public, not what his aides/advisors/others saw of him behind the scenes when he was probably even worse.

I think one missing piece in all of this - and maybe the book (which releases today I think) will illuminate this a bit - is how the decision for him to run for reelection came to pass - who was involved, what was discussed, all the details. You mentioned the dishonesty about aides in regards to polls (and didn't put much stock in that alleviating blame from Biden re: the decision to run), but I think it very well could represent a pattern of dishonesty. I have read stories that Biden during his presidency could get very angry and would chew people out when they rubbed him the wrong way/told him things he didn't want to hear. So some of this dishonesty among aides could CYA measures to save themselves from being fired or being put on Biden's shitlist. But what I'd like to know is whether or not there was anyone Biden trusted, whether that's close/longtime aides or even his family, who gave it to him straight and told him: "Joe, you don't have to do this. You're getting older and this will just make things harder for you. We're concerned about you and we don't think running for reelection would be in your best interest or the best interest of your party" - were there any voices/opinions like that being shared with him? If so, how many did they number? If not, were his longtime aides and family just gassing him up and saying that only he could beat Donald Trump and he was more than capable of doing it, since he already did it once before? I don't know, the details concerning that might change my perception of all this in one way or another. If details like that are available and I'm not aware of them, let me know.

But what I would offer is that his decision to step down didn't really seem like it was his own to me. The reason I think so is due to how adamant he was that he was staying in the race after the debate. He did a little mini-press tour in the weeks after, doing interviews and the like and trying to quiet the storm. But unfortunately for Biden, the public saw those interviews and appearances, and far from dispelling the public's concerns and suspicions, it confirmed them. Try as Biden might, he was not able to quell or withstand the storm of media and political scrutiny. Media scrutiny that was at best a dull whisper before the debate. But after that debate, I think everyone, including every Democrat, realized that if Biden were to stay in the race, they'd be an electoral laughingstock come November and their down-ballot races would get absolutely hammered. So the movers and shakers of the Democrat party turned up the heat, and the knives were out. It was clear from interviews with the appearances of the likes of Pelosi, that they'd lost faith - and their media engagement was to continue ginning up pressure against him.

So if Biden was, as I suspect, forced to drop out against his wishes by the Democrat party elite, was it ever truly his decision to run for reelection in the first place? Jill Biden's comments after the election make it pretty clear that she feels betrayed by the party and former friends (e.g. Pelosi):

Jill Biden expresses disappointment with Pelosi: 'We were friends for 50 years'

Jill Biden Rips 'So-Called Friends' Who Made Her the Villain

My guess is if Biden remained steadfast and continued running, Democrats like Pelosi would've turned up the heat even further and made the Bidens' life a living hell. Recently, the tapes of Biden and special counsel Robert Hurr's conversations were obtained and released by Axios. Dollars to donuts, Pelosi and others surely were considering 'leaking' that earlier had Biden continued to run, and possibly used that as a threat, along with who knows what else to force the Bidens' hands.

https://x.com/AlexThomp/status/1923507928822108520

All this to say that Democrats had the ability to turn up the pressure and force him out whenever they wanted to - i.e. when they realized they would become complete laughingstocks if they didn't. The situation with Biden and his declining mental state slowly became normal to them (and honestly, it slowly became normal to the public too). To your point, I thought he was too old in 2019 as well, but if you go back to that timeframe, and watch videos of him, like the Democrat primary debates or even the debates with Trump, and compare that to his appearances in 2023/2024, you can see a pretty steep drop-off. He was much sharper and much quicker back then, even with the standard accompanying gaffes and stuttering that are par for the course with Biden. I think as a result, normalcy bias probably influenced and ruined the political calculus of the Democrats - they might have viewed it as too risky with too many unknowns to try and force Biden not to run before things got going. It would've taken real courage and bravery for them to have done so, against a sitting president's wishes - and part of the issue with that is probably a lack of leadership without Biden to rally around (as we're seeing now with the rather fractious state of the party). Instead, it probably felt safer to stick with what they knew, and tacitly accede to Biden's desire to run again, despite the accompanying warts and obvious weaknesses. As a result, I don't know, I might be amenable to pinning 50% of the blame on Biden and his family. But I can't quite get myself to 'most of the blame' and certainly not to all of the blame.

The worst part of it all is that he probably could've had a decent legacy of he had just stuck to being a one termer and held an open primary.  Even if the Dems lost the election. Now,  I'm guessing he's gonna be like the next Jimmy Carter.  Except instead of ushering in Reagan he ushered in the actual spawn of Satan.

What's even more pitiful than that is when you think about it,  we would probably have fared better if Trump had just beaten Biden in the first place.  No Jan 6th. No failed indictments and trump being granted immunity. No 4 years to recalibrate and get project 2025 and DOGE in place.  And they would be working off the lackluster momentum of the first Trump administration, still reeling from Covid and yet to feel the full brunt of inflation.

I think it's way too early for me (or anyone for that matter) to seriously assess and judge Biden's legacy. But yes, to your point, not stepping down and holding an open primary, and the ultimate loss to Trump are definitely not going to be something history forgets, and it will serve as a mark against him.

And also agreed that, despite Trump's constant whining and complaining about the stolen election of 2020, I think he ultimately was better off for losing that election and winning in 2024 and Democrats are worse off for it. Hindsight of course is 20/20.

[Jwb]

He might not be drooling, he might not even have had clinical dementia - but I don't think that means the guy had full control of his thinking/decision-making. Old people commonly are in denial about their age and their abilities - this isn't exactly a rare thing, and probably was exacerbated by whatever mental decline Biden was suffering. There's a lot of gray-area between full blown dementia cases and being fully conscious and in control of your judgement to the point you can lead a country.

No doubt.  But I think that his failure to come to terms with his age stems just as much from his ego as it does from his declined ability. There's a reason that we have so many cases of elderly statesmen who seem unable to grapple with their inability to continue to function as necessary.  Because they trudge along into their 80s with this sense of self importance that the country needs their service,  because that's how their entire career in politics trains them to think about their place in the world.  It's much harder to accept when what the country really needs you to do is step aside.

If we want to say he was with it enough to run in 2019, then he was with it enough to know how old he was,  to know what 8 years of being president does to you,  and to realize that even if he might have been competent enough at the time,  that he didn't have 8 years of being president in him.  But he wanted to think otherwise.  That might even be understandable on his part. It's not like it makes him some horrible person. But it's certainly a failure on his part.  He should never have been in the position of being a borderline dementia patient in the White House contemplating his campaign for reelection in the first place, and it was pure hubris that landed him in that position,  from my pov.

It's well known that Biden's staff/advisors prepared him notecards (at some events, they'd even include pictures of where he'd walk out, where he'd sit (and in what order), and how he'd exit the stage), and would hardly let him speak to anyone 'off-the-cuff' (without teleprompter or notes, essentially - remember the multiple press events where Biden would speak, and after he was done, aides would shoo away the press before they started asking questions that Biden would inevitably attempt to answer?), because they didn't trust his cognition, didn't trust his judgement, and in essence, didn't trust him. Given that though, the story I'm to believe is that they did trust him enough to make the decision to run for reelection, greatly impacting the future of the country, and the future/reputation of his party? - and that Biden deserves all or most of the blame? Personally, I don't think he was capable of rationally making that decision (considering all the implications, risks, etc.), and that's just based on what I saw of him as someone in the public, not what his aides/advisors/others saw of him behind the scenes when he was probably even worse.

I mean it's also worth considering that people said Biden hid in his basement for his 2020 run.  It's not like the idea of them not being that confident to throw him in front of the public is new, or even unique to Biden. People made similar criticisms of the Harris campaign,  to a lesser degree.  That's just to point out,  there's obviously a difference between being less than confident in your candidates ability to navigate the press vs not having confidence in their basic cognitive abilities. So it's difficult to tell,  without the specific details,  how you would parse the specific concerns and motivations they had.

I think one missing piece in all of this - and maybe the book (which releases today I think) will illuminate this a bit - is how the decision for him to run for reelection came to pass - who was involved, what was discussed, all the details. You mentioned the dishonesty about aides in regards to polls (and didn't put much stock in that alleviating blame from Biden re: the decision to run), but I think it very well could represent a pattern of dishonesty. I have read stories that Biden during his presidency could get very angry and would chew people out when they rubbed him the wrong way/told him things he didn't want to hear. So some of this dishonesty among aides could CYA measures to save themselves from being fired or being put on Biden's shitlist. But what I'd like to know is whether or not there was anyone Biden trusted, whether that's close/longtime aides or even his family, who gave it to him straight and told him: "Joe, you don't have to do this. You're getting older and this will just make things harder for you. We're concerned about you and we don't think running for reelection would be in your best interest or the best interest of your party" - were there any voices/opinions like that being shared with him? If so, how many did they number? If not, were his longtime aides and family just gassing him up and saying that only he could beat Donald Trump and he was more than capable of doing it, since he already did it once before? I don't know, the details concerning that might change my perception of all this in one way or another. If details like that are available and I'm not aware of them, let me know.

Obviously I can imagine a scenario where his team knew he wasn't capable of leading but were afraid to stand up to him and call that out, and so instead just invested in an infrastructure to be able to shield the public from getting an accurate picture.  That would make them complicit in enabling the elderly statesman,  but he's still the prime mover who ultimately is causing this to happen.  So I can easily say they share in the blame,  but for me to shift the blame from Biden to them I need to be convinced that it was them who were manipulating him into thinking he can run,  not just reinforcing his existing bias as a CYA measure.

Like you can point to his wife and son as well but what if they just had the same vested interests and bias that Biden had,  which caused them to come to the same faulty conclusions? Maybe on one hand I might still say Jill and Hunter have more of their faculties about them and should know better.  But on the other hand,  Joe is the fuckin president.  So there's good arguments for blaming all sides of the Biden family to a certain extent,  but I do believe the buck ultimately stops with Joe.  I don't think even after that debate,  that he was so diminished in his capacity that he couldn't have seen the writing on the wall by reading a few headlines or catching his favorite show Morning Joe.

If his aides were able to shield him from negative perceptions it seems like that was likely only possible to do so in such a moment because he was incapable and unwilling to entertain any thought to the contrary. 

I'll put it this way.  They say Biden had good days and bad days.  Lucid moments and moments of confusion.  In at least one of those lucid moments,  he would have had time to read the public perception of him which was hard to even hide from after that debate, and which would be of the most pressing concern to any candidate taking their own run seriously.  The problem seems to be that he doesn't want to see it.  Even today.

But what I would offer is that his decision to step down didn't really seem like it was his own to me. The reason I think so is due to how adamant he was that he was staying in the race after the debate. He did a little mini-press tour in the weeks after, doing interviews and the like and trying to quiet the storm. But unfortunately for Biden, the public saw those interviews and appearances, and far from dispelling the public's concerns and suspicions, it confirmed them. Try as Biden might, he was not able to quell or withstand the storm of media and political scrutiny. Media scrutiny that was at best a dull whisper before the debate. But after that debate, I think everyone, including every Democrat, realized that if Biden were to stay in the race, they'd be an electoral laughingstock come November and their down-ballot races would get absolutely hammered. So the movers and shakers of the Democrat party turned up the heat, and the knives were out. It was clear from interviews with the appearances of the likes of Pelosi, that they'd lost faith - and their media engagement was to continue ginning up pressure against him.

So if Biden was, as I suspect, forced to drop out against his wishes by the Democrat party elite, was it ever truly his decision to run for reelection in the first place? Jill Biden's comments after the election make it pretty clear that she feels betrayed by the party and former friends (e.g. Pelosi):

Jill Biden expresses disappointment with Pelosi: 'We were friends for 50 years'

Jill Biden Rips 'So-Called Friends' Who Made Her the Villain

My guess is if Biden remained steadfast and continued running, Democrats like Pelosi would've turned up the heat even further and made the Bidens' life a living hell. Recently, the tapes of Biden and special counsel Robert Hurr's conversations were obtained and released by Axios. Dollars to donuts, Pelosi and others surely were considering 'leaking' that earlier had Biden continued to run, and possibly used that as a threat, along with who knows what else to force the Bidens' hands.

https://x.com/AlexThomp/status/1923507928822108520

All this to say that Democrats had the ability to turn up the pressure and force him out whenever they wanted to - i.e. when they realized they would become complete laughingstocks if they didn't. The situation with Biden and his declining mental state slowly became normal to them (and honestly, it slowly became normal to the public too). To your point, I thought he was too old in 2019 as well, but if you go back to that timeframe, and watch videos of him, like the Democrat primary debates or even the debates with Trump, and compare that to his appearances in 2023/2024, you can see a pretty steep drop-off. He was much sharper and much quicker back then, even with the standard accompanying gaffes and stuttering that are par for the course with Biden. I think as a result, normalcy bias probably influenced and ruined the political calculus of the Democrats - they might have viewed it as too risky with too many unknowns to try and force Biden not to run before things got going. It would've taken real courage and bravery for them to have done so, against a sitting president's wishes - and part of the issue with that is probably a lack of leadership without Biden to rally around (as we're seeing now with the rather fractious state of the party). Instead, it probably felt safer to stick with what they knew, and tacitly accede to Biden's desire to run again, despite the accompanying warts and obvious weaknesses. As a result, I don't know, I might be amenable to pinning 50% of the blame on Biden and his family. But I can't quite get myself to 'most of the blame' and certainly not to all of the blame.

Yes, I have no basic disagreement with the idea that the Democratic shot callers put pressure on Biden to step down. I don't really like the argument that because they could have theoretically put the knife to him sooner, it wasn't really his decision to run again.  Ultimately,  there are obvious reasons why parties typically don't put the knives to their own incumbent presidential candidates.  Suggesting that the fact that maybe there was some lever the Dem shot callers could pull (and this is assuming they would have had the leverage to do so without severe backlash prior to the debate,  which is a questionable premise) somehow alleviates some of the blame from Biden seems to ignore the fact that it was Biden who put them in this awkward position in the first place! I really think that's flawed.

I think it's way too early for me (or anyone for that matter) to seriously assess and judge Biden's legacy. But yes, to your point, not stepping down and holding an open primary, and the ultimate loss to Trump are definitely not going to be something history forgets, and it will serve as a mark against him.

And also agreed that, despite Trump's constant whining and complaining about the stolen election of 2020, I think he ultimately was better off for losing that election and winning in 2024 and Democrats are worse off for it. Hindsight of course is 20/20.

Yeah, and I dunno if you agree with this but I'd say that it seems likely it would have not only been better for the Democrats but better for the country. Jan 6th alone is enough to make that argument,  but I think the 4 years to recalibrate is potentially even worse,  depending on what Trump is able to accomplish as a result.

[Trollheart]

Biden:

[Buck_Mulligan]

Just watched/listened to three interviews with Tapper/Thompson, PBS Newshour, PBS Washington Week, and Ezra Klein. I thought that they gave good account of themselves and the media in general regarding the criticism that they were part of the coverup.
YMMV.

[Buck_Mulligan]

Nate Silver has a detailed look at the numbers underlying the 2024 election.

OK, so that was a lot of work. So let's roll these up into three large categories:

Democrats lost a net of 6.4 million votes from repeat voters switching, mostly to Trump (5.5 million) but some to third parties (0.9 million).
Then they lost a net of 2.7 million votes due to dropoff voters.7
Further, they lost a net of 0.8 million votes because more new voters went for Trump.

https://www.natesilver.net/p/turnout-didnt-cost-kamala-harris