A Few Thoughts on Last Night

A few thoughts on last night’s debate and the fallout, presented as a series of items.

• Last night really sucked. Someone said to me that it brought back feelings of déjà vu about election night 2016. You’re sitting there and the thing you were afraid of but didn’t think was actually possible is happening. And you can blink your eyes and it doesn’t stop happening. I had that same feeling. I’ve had various people write in and say, “You don’t get it, Josh,” in response to things I wrote last night or said on the pod — “It was physically uncomfortable for me to watch.” “I was horrified.” “I wanted to throw up.” All I can say to this is, it was really, really unpleasant for me, too. I just don’t talk or write that way. It royally sucked.

• Biden let us all down last night because he undermined a big part of the theory of the case of his campaign, that despite his age and clearly slowing down, he could be relied on to turn in a serviceable performance against a guy who is a pathological liar and, in his very different way, a wildly incoherent criminal. He didn’t. And that’s a bell that is very hard to unring. I don’t know the exact mix of things that led to that, who was responsible for what. But it happened. And now it looms over everything else.
  
• Quite a few of you wrote in and said essentially, “I’ve been in the mode that changing candidates was crazy and the people who were suggesting it were crazy but now I’m not so sure. Now I think we need a new candidate.”
  
• I wrote this in response to one of the emails I posted last night. “It sucked. It was brutal. But this is where we are. And a million people in history have been in suck and brutal situations and they pushed forward. Maybe they were in a battle and then they all died. Or maybe that was the moment when they made the critical decision to pull together and they won. This is living in history where we don’t know which story we’re in. That’s life. It provides an immense psychic relief to break the existential glass and say he should withdraw. Okay, then what? I think we get Harris. She’s less popular. Or then we have five candidates. This is where we are and we have to keep fighting because that’s the only realistic choice we have.”
  
• I’ve been pretty clear for months that the idea of replacing Joe Biden with another candidate is absurd. But after the shock of last night’s debate and the responses from various commentators, readers, etc., I’ve considered a range of options, including the absurd ones. You always have to be open to new evidence. That’s something very basic about life, not just politics. We are all constantly, or we should be constantly, getting new information and revising our life and decision maps in accordance with new information. What we owe ourselves though is keeping our heads about ourselves. That doesn’t mean one choice over another. It means not acting from a place of panic or shock. It means maintaining some space of of mental equilibrium amidst hurt, disappointment, disorientation, anger. The only relevant question here, or the only one that has ever been relevant to me is what set of choices provides us the best shot at preventing another Trump presidency. Whether Joe Biden has been a good President is not really relevant to this. But “Do something!” is not a plan to prevent another Trump presidency.
  
• This morning I thought I detected some wobbliness in comments from Pelosi and Jeffries. That’s less clear to me now. Barack Obama making a clear statement of support this afternoon makes me think that is not happening. Or that there was a period of wobbliness this morning but that’s done. A critical thing to keep in mind is that there are, I think, maybe a half dozen people who have real input on this. Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer, Obama. I’ve seen a few commentators say they owe us a conversation about whether Biden’s up to the rigors of a campaign. I disagree. They owe us a decision. We’re in the landing craft going in for D-Day. Only this time we don’t know how D-Day ends up. If there’s a problem with the strategy or the general, we need those folks to make a decision. They have more information and the simple fact is that you and I can’t make the decision. Whatever psychic relief one gets from saying, “He should step aside!” doesn’t actually change anything. That doesn’t mean, “Oh they’re our betters; they’re the establishment. I guess we’ll just have to do what they say” or any other pseudo-populist bullshit. It’s simply a recognition of the reality of the situation. They’re at the controls. We’re not. We need a decision and then we plow onto the beaches.
  
• The one thing that seems clear to me is that there’s only one Plan B and that’s Kamala Harris. I do not know any universe in which a party whose bedrocks are women and African-Americans does not split into open revolt if the Black woman vice president is passed over for someone else if the President is not up to the job. Wanting something else doesn’t matter. I don’t know any other Plan B that doesn’t involve magical thinking.
  
• The only question in my mind is, what has the best shot of preventing a Trump presidency? I’m going to keep my eyes open. The only poll data so far suggests little impact from the debate at all. But you’ll need to wait three or four days to know anything. My sense is that the best shot at preventing a Trump presidency remains Joe Biden. If new information says otherwise, I’m open to it. If those six decide it should be Kamala Harris I’m totally ready to get behind that. But I don’t want to run around like a chicken with his head cut off. It’s not a good way to be. It’s not a dignified way to be in the world. None of this is a prescription. It’s just my best understanding of the situation.