The former president has always considered himself to be the ultimate disrupter. But this time, the disruption is on the other side.
Through the weekend, there were an awful lot of questions that were going back and forth from people in the president’s tightest circle, and one of the questions that kept being asked was whether Joe Biden was going to endorse Kamala Harris or not. And the question didn’t revolve around whether he wanted to or not, but whether people in her camp thought it would be better for her to fight for it, win it on her own, and not be seen as somebody who was tapped by President Biden and so, in her own way, have a fresh start going into the campaign.
So the timing seems to be about as good as it could have been to end what has just been one of the craziest two or three weeks in American politics in quite some time.
I laughed a lot when the international news on TV around here claimed that “in a move that took politicians and campaign mangers by surprise, Biden left the race”… But the more I look around, the more it looks like people were surprised by it.
How come?
Because it hasn’t happened a lot. If you are the incumbent, you are running for a second term unless you are beat or dead. Leaving for whatever reasons is very rare.
People saying that Biden should have dropped out two weeks ago have never, in their entire life, had to make a life-changing decision. Whatever the result, I personally applaud his ability to put aside his pride and his ego for the sake of a cause larger than himself.
The timing was excellent in my opinion. The RNC spent an entire week focused on the messaging against Biden during their convention. Now Biden’s gone, and they’re not going to have another week of undivided attention from the press between now and the election.
Well played, from my perspective.
I’m not saying it isn’t well played. The DNC always does small little tactic shit like this well. Their issue has always been the longer strategy. That grand reveal. Whatever the Right has, they have played the same game for decades. What’s saved us is their infighting once they get any sort of foothold. For the first time in our history, so far as I am aware, we must focus on the Presidency as they have gambled everything on securing it. Stop that and we stop them. Don’t stop them and we’ll have a long and terrible fight on our hands.
That is unless some of their party is only playing ball and grow a pair when the proverbial shit meets mythical fan of shit flinging. I will say that we’ve seen moments where some of the party isn’t comfortable with the way things have gone. Problem is, as fucking classics, they refuse to stand because they know they’ll be pushed out of the club. Better to lay with the herd than be displaced and replaced, possibly by a non-Right.
Cal comes to mind… and that’s the only one that I can immediately think of.
Edit: looked it up: LBJ, Harry S Truman, Cal, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Buchanan, and James K. Polk. So yeah, really short list.
Everytime someone mentions Harry Truman, I have Linda from Bob’s Burgers song that she apparently sings while braiding her daughter’s hair come to mind:
And, again, disastrous every time. Landslide losses when you switch out the incumbent.
I don’t think too many realists were surprised. I think a lot of people that buy into a lot of bothsiderist bullshit might have been surprised, I dunno. Or the types that some call “blue maga”, but honestly, unless someone’s paycheck relies on believing in this, I don’t know who qualifies as “blue maga”.
No one. Outside of a MAGA talking point and an attempt to ‘both sides’ MAGA, it’s no one.