2 of 2: Debate follow-up

June 29, 2024

[This is the second newsletter for 6/29; the first deals with the Supreme Court opinions released on Thursday and Friday.]

The reaction to Thursday’s debate came at a torrential pace on Friday. I corresponded with hundreds of readers and have exhausted myself in defending President Biden and my position that we should continue to support him. Despite the media’s collective meltdown over the debate, I continue to feel that way. But rather than hearing from me, I will devote this short newsletter to highlighting statements by others.

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President Biden’s statement

Appearing at a campaign event, President Biden said

I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t talk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but i know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job, I know how to get things done. And I know what millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up.

See the video here: Joe Biden at Fairgrounds Rally. You owe it to yourself to watch the video.

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Statement by former President Obama on Twitter

President Obama posted the following on Twitter (which was viewed 59 million times):

Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November. JoeBiden.com

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Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo considers whether Biden should drop out

I have repeatedly said that Josh Marshall is the print media's most insightful, drama-free political thinker. Marshall wrote a thoughtful piece about whether Biden should drop out. He concludes, “My sense is that the best shot at preventing a Trump presidency remains Joe Biden.” But his thought process is helpful to anyone believing Joe Biden should drop out. See Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, A Few Thoughts on Last Night.

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Heather Cox Richardson

Dozens of readers said they took comfort in Heather Cox Richardson’s essay, as did I. HCR writes,

This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them.

It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has.

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Rebecca Solnit in The Guardian

My favorite writer, Rebecca Solnit, got to the heart of the problem: This was not a debate; it was a made-for-t.v. spectacle that gave free reign to lies and is no measure of how Joe Biden will govern. Indeed, we have the last three years as evidence of that. See Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, The true losers of this presidential debate were the American people.

Solnit writes:

Throughout the excruciating evening, Joe Biden in a hoarse voice said diligent things that were reasonably true and definitely sincere; Donald Trump in a booming voice said lurid things that were flamboyantly untrue. The grim spectacle was a reminder that this is a style over substance game.

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Simon Rosenberg

See Simon Rosenberg, Joe Biden Is A Good President Who Had A Bad Night. Donald Trump Is A Very Bad Man, A Compulsive Liar and Would Be A Very, Very Bad President.

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David Pepper

David Pepper, Debate Thoughts -Pepperspectives.

[W]hen you pre-announce that you will not be correcting blatant lies or propaganda, you are giving an advance gift to the propagandists. And they will game it out accordingly: use every answer to disseminate lies and wild theories. This leaves the opponent with only two choices: spend their answer rebutting the lie, or simply letting the lie go unresponded to so they can get to their preferred answer.

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Jay Kuo

Jay Kuo, A Tough Night (and a Mea Culpa). Jay Kuo posted a thoughtful piece about his initial panic about the debate and his reaction after a night of fitful sleep:

I admit, I was feeling the panic, too, as text messages came in from friends and colleagues all over the country. And frankly, I let the moment get the better of me. I wrote and posted on social media that I love and respect Joe, but didn’t believe he was the man to lead us to November.

In retrospect, I think that was, to borrow a recent phrase from the Supreme Court, “improvidently” shared. For that, I apologize. Upon calmer reflection and some admittedly fitful sleep, there were three main reasons I took it down and have changed my mind on this. I hope they offer you some helpful perspective.

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Seth Abramson on Substack

Wow! Read this from Seth Abramson on Substack: The Extremely Simple Reason MAGA Wants President Joe Biden to End His Campaign. Abramson gives ten reasons why Joe Biden won’t and shouldn’t drop out. Powerful! And his concluding comment about MAGA’s fervent hope that Joe Biden will drop out says it all: “To sum up, if your political enemies are begging you to do something, maybe ask why?”

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Concluding Thoughts

Dozens of media editorial outlets called for Biden to drop out, presumably because that would increase the election drama, drive clicks and revenue, and ensure a Trump victory in November. The worst offender was the NYTimes editorial board. The Times has been attempting to undermine President Biden for months, apparently because he will not accede to the publisher's demand to a one-on-one interview with an outlet that has been biased and irresponsible in its election coverage.

But even the editorial board was struck by the idiocy of its position—calling on Biden to drop out but not doing the same for a convicted felon, insurrectionist, adjudicated sexual abuser, adjudicated fraudster to the tune of $700 million, and a man who has promised to be a “dictator on day one” (which is the same thing as being a dictator).

So, the editorial board put on its thinking cap and came up with this logical absurdity: Biden should drop out because Democrats are the responsible grown-ups in the race, and Trump will never drop out because he is nuts.

In the words of the NYTimes editorial board:

It is a tragedy that Republicans themselves are not engaged in deeper soul-searching after Thursday’s debate. Mr. Trump’s own performance ought to be regarded as disqualifying. He lied brazenly and repeatedly about his own actions, his record as president and his opponent.

The Republican Party, however, has been co-opted by Mr. Trump’s ambitions. The burden rests on the Democratic Party to put the interests of the nation above the ambitions of a single man.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. The geniuses at the editorial board are REWARDING behavior that is crazy, corrupt, immoral, and dangerous! Trump wants Biden to drop out because Trump knows Biden can beat him. So, by being irremediably crazy and incorrigible, Trump is rewarded by the Times while Biden is given the bum’s rush to the door.

As I told the NYTimes editorial board in my comment to the article, the editorial marks one of the darkest days in the rapidly diminishing legacy of a once great newspaper. The New York Times has been and continues to be complicit in the slow-rolling second act of the attempted coup that began in November 2020. The Times helped elect Trump in 2016 by obsessing over the “But her emails!” non-story about Hillary Clinton. It is helping Trump in 2024. Shame, shame, shame!

Tens of millions of Americans are willing to continue their work for Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot. Let’s keep at it and recognize that the media environment is broken, co-opted, and antithetical to democracy, decency, and normalcy. If you are shaken by the debate, that’s understandable, but we cannot give up or spread despair. Each of us has a moral responsibility to help defeat Trump. Our candidate is Joe Biden. He needs our help. He deserves it. He’s earned it.

Talk to you on Monday!

[I will leave the Comment section to this newsletter open over the weekend given the huge interest in this topic.]