27 Comments

Thanks for this.

Just to focus on one side point for a mo; there is a crucial difference between replacing Rishi and Joe which is what it reinforces in the minds of voters.

Since the 2017 election we've had four PMs (May, Johnson, Truss and Sunac) which averages at less than two years each. Most traditionally Conservative voters view the party as a collapsing institution presiding over a collapsing country. A last minute emergency leader actually reinforces that picture.

Certainly before the election was called Rishi wasn't their problem (although he's buggered that up now).

For the Democrats, keeping Biden in place is weakness. A failure to address a real problem at a critical moment - and many would be Democratic voters hate them for the position they are putting the public in.

Biden is the iceburg for the Democrats whilst for the Tories their whole disaster to disaster approach where they have no core beliefs can't be steered around by ditching the hapless scarecrow they accidentally elected leader.

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Jun 29Liked by James O'Malley

The argument I have heard on the 5th Column is that no one wants to be the person who initiated a new candidate and then they lose, since the argument will be Biden would have won. It also means that the Democratic Party will have to confess to having someone unfit to be a candidate in place and effectively hiding that from the electorate, which will make a loss even more likely.

This seems illogical in extreme to me, but groups of people can be weird.

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Jun 29Liked by James O'Malley

I think, Anthony, that's the bit of the story that has been overlooked (not surprisingly since the media go for the sizzle rather than the steak), but that old man on stage has been the man in charge of the world for the past four years. And the Democrats (and the media) knew this! Tbh I found that terrifying - what if there was a nuclear scare and that man was making the calls? It's an absolute disgrace that the Democrats tolerated this and threatened us all by enabling it.

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author

Stuff like this is terrifying. Makes it sound like he shouldn’t be in power now, let alone for the next four years: https://www.axios.com/2024/06/29/two-bidens-trump-debate-2024-president

(Though I’d still prefer Biden in a coma over Trump etc etc.)

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I disagree, both because I suspect Trump is less actively dangerous than he appears - I think to be dangerous he needs a plan and to want to Do The Work - and because of the moral value. No matter how you look at this the Democrats, and the media have lied.

I appreciate that all politicians lie all the time (sic), but every bit of footage of Biden looking a bit 'doddery' was met with strong rebukes and statements that " he hasn't lost it" etc. That was clearly false and people haven't been doing their jobs to find out, and act on the truth. These jokers have imperilled us all and deserve a good salting.

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Trump has a plan. He didn’t the first time out, but he’s had four years to work on it now, he’s eliminated internal opposition in the Republican Party, he’s got an actual think tank and some smart (utterly amoral, but smart) people working for him now. This is the real danger—people who think nothing changes. Sometimes you have to pay close attention to stuff that’s not in the headlines to see change coming.

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Hang on—did you not notice that there was a nuclear scare during Biden’s administration? The worst since the 1960s? I remember how people used to think nuclear war was inevitable, then the long decades where more and more countries acquired them and yet no one ever used them—the worry began to go away, until Putin invaded Ukraine. Somehow, though, it hasn’t happened yet.

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I'm not sure I understand your point Susan? Are you saying that we shouldn't worry who holds the nuclear button because there hasn't been a scare (that we know of)?

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I’m saying Biden is dealing with the threat and has been for over two years. In the spring of 2022 I had a moment of wondering if I should think about moving, since we live about 20 miles from a major Air Force base. That moment passed, now down to just worrying about what stunt Gov DeSantis will pull next.

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The Biden I saw couldn't deal with his lunch. I suspect you're attributing to "good judgement" what may be "blind luck"

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That run of “blind luck” has resulted in a Presidency that accomplished more in 4 years than Obama did in 8…the truth is, he is a terrible candidate. He has been an excellent president, was never better than so-so as a candidate. Obama was a fantastic candidate, but he kind of messed up the governing part. The healthcare reform that bears his name was entirely accomplished by the (old!) legislative leaders Pelosi and Reid. He failed to notice what Russia was up to…(his 2012 opponent, Romney, now looks prescient in that regard). Biden has so many messes to clean up, it would be impossible for anyone but he’s done better than most could have. The rest of the world isn’t doing so hot either.

The really unfortunate thing is that most people have instant access to superficial takes on everything, but no idea what is actually going on. No one knows what government actually does in this country, which is why so many aren’t worried about losing it.

As for worrying about holding the nuclear button, that makes it sound like POTUS could butt-dial us into a nuclear war, which is obviously not true. Hell, Trump was President for four years, so it’s obviously not easy to do. I’d certainly feel a lot better about Biden than Trump being in charge of it.

I also want to note that, maddening as it is, Biden seems to have been perfectly fine the next day, there is video of him speaking to a rally in NC. Agreeing to the debate was obviously a disastrous decision no doubt borne of some kind of weird overconfidence which I think came from misunderstanding how well Trump would deal with a “debate” under the agreed rules, which were very different from any Presidential debate in the past—it turned out that it was Biden who crumbled under the pressure of the situation.

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People forget that the enormously popular, to Tories, Margaret Thatcher was pushed out by.. the Tories. Tony Blair was pushed out by.. Gordon Brown. We have only had a couple of elected leader changes via voting in the UK in the past 50 years: Thatcher from Callaghan (who took straight over from Wilson), Blair from Major, Cameron from Brown - and the latter only because the LDs wouldn’t negotiated with Brown (idiots).

And next Thursday Starmer from Sunak.

Americans, meanwhile, are very bad at this game altogether.

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The fundamental problem is that, unlike British parties, the parties in the states are incredibly "hollow", as Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld call them. Because of the primary system, the nominee is chosen by the public much more and it's much harder to get rid of them. There's no such thing as the party "losing confidence" or the 1922 committee, there's no such thing as the "men in grey suits" who can push the leader out. There's no way to force Biden out without him deciding to (as you noted as his delegates are now legally bound to him), and if he's already decided that he doesn't want to (despite all the obvious evidence that he's too old and the electorate think he's too old), then it's still gonna take a lot to convince him now to not run. It's basically impossible to deselect an incumbent (you can't get the momentum, it looks like a divided party etc.), and that's how the two parties have managed to sleepwalk into this mess where two incredibly unpopular candidates are against eachother. Both parties would almost certainly win if they got rid of their current candidate in favour of someone more reasonable. But because both candidates are seen as incumbents it's basically impossible to deselect them, which is what makes American politics so unweildly. It's not a problem of the democrats needing to "learn a little ruthlessness from British politics", ultimately, given the structural form of the two parties, there's nothing they can do.

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Aren't the donors the "men in grey suits" in the US contest? My memories of the 'Making of the President' books (admittedly about elections in the 60s) are that if the money dries up the campaign is dead because "those that matter" have deemed it so.

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They're maybe the closest the US has to the "men in grey suits" but there's no official way for them to force the candidate out. They're essentially in a sort of catch 22: all they can do is kill Biden's campaign (by withdrawing funds) rather than force him to step down, but they can't do that because they can't afford to not fund whoever is going up against Trump. There's also the issue of a collective action problem: even if one donor decides "I'm gonna stop giving money because I think you're too old and need to bow out in favour of a younger candidate who can beat trump", the rest of them probs won't have, so it has no actual impact, and just alienates them from any influence they did have. They can try as hard as they can to influence Biden to step down, but they can't do it in anyway that would acc hurt his campaign in case he does decide to continue, and they can't force him to step down because the only way Biden's delegates can go for anyone else is if he chooses to release them

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Possibly, in theory, but I suspect in practice that the actions of donors would be coordinated through PACs (although I don't understand the mechanism), and this would send a pretty strong message that 'it's over Joe'. Agree that, in theory, Biden could fight on, not release delegates etc. but I remember that Boris could technically have "fought on" when the Government fell apart. He probably had the numbers to survive a VONC.

In reality though, politicians can count, and after a while the soft signals are strong enough that they make the point.

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Yeah, it's not necessarily impossible, but if we look throughout American history, they've never gotten rid of a presidential candidate or an incumbent, just because the structures do make it much harder compared to British party structures. In the UK, if the party thinks the leader can't win an election, they'll almost certainly be out within a couple weeks or months. The Tory party is esp ruthless at this. That the Americans haven't done this is not indicative of a lack of will to do so (American politicians want to win just as much as British ones), but just the fact that the structures make it more or less impossible. That people are calling on Joe to step down, rather than resigning and triggering a leadership contest by pushing alternatives is indicative of this.

Not only this, because the incumbent has much greater power to just sit it out and stay in the game, it makes it much harder to unseat him even if it is possible, just because any attempt to is so much more costly (risking a split party and a split vote). This is esp so this time round, because Trump is the opponent and Democratic voters and members and donors hate him so much that they can't risk dividing the party or the base.

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Terry Eagleton in 68 (admittedly a VP) is a counter-example but I take your point.

The original sin is that in "normal" circumstances there would have been a primary and this would have come out - I think there's always a Primary even if there's no competition?

I think where we disagree is that I think there is power in the system, even in the absence of a formal structure. I refuse to think that if e.g. Obama, Clinton, Head of the DNC, Union leaders and the major donors told him that it was time to go and for the good of the Party/Country he should stand down, he wouldn't go gracefully. He might hang on, I just think it unlikely.

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I guess because VPs are comparatively less important, it is probs easier to deselect them, without creating such a rupture. But yeah I do think it is much harder to do for Presidents, esp compared to in British parties, and it's much harder to get everyone to come together, so whilst it is theoretically possible, it is much harder, which is why it hasn't really happened before. There is an official primary process, but when someone is an incumbent, that's basically just a formality.

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I found this an interesting read. I know little about US politics though, so I don't know how valid the points are.

https://open.substack.com/pub/benansell/p/joe-biden-ginsburg

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Another lesson from British politics should be that getting rid of a manifestly unfit leader quickly is key. It was already clear by January 2022 that partygate had turned Boris Johnson into a liability for his party, and that there was no riding it out. Instead, everyone prevaricated, turning the next six months into a highly damaging will-they-or-wont-they saga.

Now that elite opinion has crystallised so much in the U.S., whether they get rid of Biden and who they replace him with is all anyone will be talking about from now to the convention. There is nothing more momentum-sapping than this, and in a system where fundraising is so important momentum is critical.

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I put this on another substack back in February I think but the logic at the time was:

1. Would there be a realistic chance that Biden's replacement would be anyone other than Kamala Harris (rightly or wrongly)?

2. Would Kamala Harris stand a better chance of beating Trump than Biden does

At the time both Qs were "no" so Biden staying made sense. Now I think #1 is still "no" but #2 feels much more like a yes than it did on Thursday morning.

Any non-Biden candidate is going to be Harris, there's just no way around that at all.

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100%. You’ve just put it better in a couple of sentences than I managed in 1500 words! I think what changed after the debate was #2. (Even after you factor in the necessary convention shit-show etc.)

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I liked the article, but I feel like your argument is that 'biden was best placed, now he isn't, he should be replaced' is kinda circular: he's partly where he is because there is noone with a better chance of defeating Trump, either a year ago or now.

I noticed you didn't name a clear successor (tho you did mention Kamala in passing). 😉 And yes, the replacing of a candidate at this stage is likely to get messy, AND the Dems have a tendency for disorder that makes the 2020-era UK Tories look like a well-oiled machine!

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One whole in this theory is your sentence "if Trump had faced Elizabeth Warren, or one of the other candidates the Democratic activist class had preferred, [he would have won". If that was true in 2020, why won't be it true in 2024? Appreciate what you say about novelty, dynamism etc but didn't that hold just as true four years ago?

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I think there’s two important things: Biden in 2024 is not Biden in 2020. That’s just a thing you can visibly see with your eyes, as strongly evidenced by the debate. (Now imagine endless TV ads and viral clips comparing how he was to how he is now, making “cognitive decline” not just a right wing meme, but something that is very visibly actually true).

As for the alternatives like Warren etc, I think it’s still the case that they would probably lose to Trump for the same reasons they wouldn’t have won in 2020. But changing candidate the only roll of the dice the Democrats have left. Hopefully they’ll pick some boring swing state governor British people have never heard of, rather than AOC or whoever.

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