From TPM Reader JH …

I’m writing because I’m not sure I get the panic and hysteria some of your very smart readers are showing about Biden. 

From TPM Reader BR …

I was hoping with AOC’s statement and the CBC backing Biden the other day we’d be converging on riding with Biden through the end.

I don’t care who the nominee is, I just want to win, and it made sense to me that Biden is it. In the last 24 hours a bunch of prominent Dems, elected and not, purposefully and not, undid the last week of progress towards that goal. That more than anything takes away my hope for the election. Biden stumbling didn’t bother me though it was his fault for creating this mess — he can, as he says, get back up — and as long as folks back him up and put in the work then we win.

From TPM Reader BK …

Josh, you and DK have expressed your concerns about the way the political press is covering Biden recently. 

I want to tell you that I am not reacting by way of anything Ezra Klein, or Paul Krugman, or Rob Reiner, or George Clooney or anyone else is saying. I feel certain about what I see with my own eyes: a fragile old man having trouble concentrating. I recognize that man because I too am old and I know what it feels like. I cannot take much hope from Biden’s comment that he will do his goodest, because I seriously doubt it will be goodest enough. 

From TPM Reader AO …

It is utter madness that the Democratic party is going to circle the wagons around Biden and think that we will all fall in line. The polling since the debate has been terrible.  He cannot win.

I love Joe.  He has accomplished so much. FFS, I have a 2024 Biden bumper sticker on my car. I give money.  I told everyone who said he was too old that they were being ageist. Then I watched the debate (or the first twenty minutes of it before I had to turn it off and go take a very long, depressed walk). 

Waking this morning, I confess to being perturbed at politics or history or whoever else is running this story. Because each time I feel like it’s coming into focus and I have an understanding of the motion of events, somehow that motion trundles into a sign post or lurches off in another direction.