Step outside the bubble.

July 4, 2024

I have begun to receive a stream of emails from readers saying, “Joe should drop out; he can’t win; the press has turned against him.” Such emails come from otherwise staunch Biden supporters. Note that their decision is based on what the press is saying, not what they believe is right.

It is true that on Wednesday, July 3, the press reached near unanimity that Joe Biden should drop out. The NYTimes, in particular, was essentially a special edition newspaper devoted to hounding Biden out of office. The Times drudged up Nate Cohn and Nate Silver to explain that they have been right about Biden all along and the rest of us are chopped liver. I received dozens of copies of Thomas Friedman’s op-ed imposing a deadline on Joe Biden to make a decision NOW. Because, you know, the press not only gets to decide who the Democratic nominee will be, they also get to set the schedule.

But it is not just the Times. All the DC inside-the-beltway publications have called for Biden to step down or have lost their nerve. “I am not certain what Biden should do,” wrote my all-time favorite political analyst. I was crushed. I can’t bring myself to say his name. In a similar vein, Dan Rather wrote a serious, thoughtful piece that told Biden not to let the door hit him in the backside on the way out. (Sorry, Dan. This will be your legacy.)

I received dozens of references to or copies of The Punchbowl, Hill, Fintan O’Toole (Irish Times), WaPo, Ezra Klein, Thomas Friedman, etc. (To those readers to whom I explained what anatomically impossible act some of those authors could do to themselves, I offer my sincere apology. You were trying to keep me informed by sending me the 100th copy of Thomas Friedman’s op-ed. Again, I apologize; I was angry at Friedman, et al., not you.)

It is unanimous: the political press wants Biden to step down. Here’s the thing: The press has no role in selecting the Democratic nominee or the president, despite their belief otherwise.

I estimate that no more than a thousand political journalists (and maybe only a few hundred) are telling Biden to drop out. They have created a bubble inside an echo chamber inside a computer simulation based on flawed polling.

The Constitution vests the power to elect the president in 250 million Americans. (Yeah, I know; the Electoral College yada yada.) Tens of millions of Democrats voted for Biden in the primaries despite the candidacy of a protest candidate (Dean Phillips) whose goal was to block Joe Biden from receiving the nomination. Those voters listened and cast their ballots. Those millions of votes are now meaningless according to most journalists—who refuse to even acknowledge the existence or weight of those votes in this decision.

Worse, the rush to oust Biden fails to acknowledge the millions of hours of work invested by grassroots volunteers to help Biden win in 2020 and 2024. Their work and existence are taken for granted, a trifling rounding error in the decision about Biden’s candidacy.

And then there is Joe Biden. Wednesday, Biden said he is not dropping out. Gavin Newsom sent a fundraising email later in the day saying he is backing Biden after having met with Biden and “a number of other governors.”

The sum total of the political press and the inside-the-beltway pundits who are trying to force Joe Biden out represent 0.00% of the 250 million Americans granted the power under the Constitution to elect our president. Do not let them bully you into forfeiting your right to make the decision about our nominee and our president.

As I said yesterday, if you have reconsidered your support for Biden and want another candidate, then you have a moral and patriotic duty to work your tails off to come up with a candidate and pathway to victory.

No part of that moral and patriotic duty involves trashing Joe Biden or insulting those of us who support Joe Biden. We disagree with you; you disagree with us. That’s okay. The last thing we should do is destroy party unity in our shared goal of beating Trump. We need each other.

If you want someone else to appear on the November ballot as the Democratic nominee, time is a wasting asset, and trying to convince me to abandon Joe Biden is not a useful investment of your time.

I support Joe Biden. He is the candidate most likely to beat Trump. He has been and is a great president. He has earned our support and trust. Other candidates and pathways are fraught with risks that must be acknowledged and cannot be dismissed. But if you choose a different path, go forth in a positive, constructive, realistic manner.

One final note: If Joe Biden steps down, it will be a body blow to the Democratic party, even if another candidate emerges and wins in November. Republicans can smell fear and doubt. So can the press. They are preying on those fears and doubts as we speak.

If the Democratic Party demonstrates that it can be scared off so easily, the GOP and Democratic faithful will take note. Do our votes count? Do our donations count? Does our labor count? The answer better not be, “Yes, until the press tells us otherwise.”

At a time when there seems to be precious little courage and leadership in the Democratic Party, I don’t know what to say other than, “I am not giving up on Joe Biden. You shouldn’t either.”

Each of us who supports Biden needs to be a leader and model strength and courage to others. Biden is losing support because people are caught in an inside-the-beltway bubble. Step outside the bubble into reality. It will set you free!

[Written in 20 minutes after eight hours on the road. Please forgive all errors and lack of self-restraint! No audio tonight due to limited Internet bandwidth.]