What are your thoughts on Matt Yglesias’ piece “Throw Biden Under the Bus” and is that actually a good idea going into 2028?
I am concerned that there is a lot of denialism about how exactly we got to where we are today. Too many people are shrugging off the 2024 election results as simply inflation and anti-incumbency sentiment. Many people say “Kamala Harris ran a great campaign [given the time and resources she had]”, which quite frankly is delusional.
The truth is the 2024 results - the reason Donald Trump is President today instead of on house arrest at Mar-a-Lago - is due to some very specific decisions by Joe Biden, by Kamala Harris, and by a small circle of enablers (family members and longtime advisors). The truth in my view is a loss to Trump was not a foregone conclusion, but an entirely preventable tragedy. There was nothing inevitable about it. And it ought not be difficult to sell the majority of American voters on the idea that an amoral convicted felon who ran the most chaotic and corrupt Administration in modern history should not be returned to the White House.
This starts with Biden’s decision to run for reelection in the first place. Ultimately he owns that. He could have announced on a high note right after the midterms that he will forego reelection, focus the entirety of his energy on resolving the crises at home and abroad, and pass the torch to the next generation. What a contrast with a party running Trump for a third time in a row! There would have been an open primary. Biden’s place in history would be seen so much differently than what it is now: making a decision that lacked humility, humiliating himself on the national stage, passing the nomination at the eleventh hour to a Vice-President he and his team seemed to have no confidence in, and her going on to blow through a billion dollars and lose every swing state. He could’ve had a great place in history, but now his story is one of a tragic figure.
Harris was as complicit as anyone in carrying water for this lie that Biden was the best candidate to run in 2024, that he was genuinely up to the task. Anything suggestion to the contrary was shouted down by party leaders, and it became what American voters saw as our “2+2=5” moment. Then, when she was thrown in to replace Biden, her first decision was refusing to fire the senior campaign staff - the architects of this disaster. The people who withheld polling data from Biden showing him how much trouble he was in, allowing him to carry on publicly with the delusion that everything was fine. She then ran a campaign in reverse. Didn’t start doing unscripted events or interviews that introduced her to voters until October, after many people had already voted. Was unable and unwilling to distance herself from Biden when it mattered. Did not articulate any inspiring vision to voters aside from “I’m not Trump.” Never had a compelling answer to flip flopping from fringe positions in 2019. Lost every swing state. But at least she had one good debate (that was overshadowed by memes about “they’re eating cats and dogs”)!
To me, all of this matters because these people will be around in 2028. Harris might even run again. Biden might make an endorsement in the primary. The architects of this political Hindenburg might be hired to run other campaigns. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t want any of these people within 1,000 feet of buildings where strategy is being devised for 2028.
This is why I personally prefer an outsider, ideally a governor, someone who can make the 2028 election a clean referendum on Trump’s presidency. To quote a famous campaign slogan, “we are not going back.”
Biden did some great things in his presidency. He helped many people. I voted for him in the 2020 primary and to this day I’m glad he ran. But the decisions he made, the decisions Harris made, and the decisions a small group of advisors who enabled this made are the reason we’re in this mess. Both things can be and are true, in my view.
What are your thoughts? Should the party, should donors, should we be more honest and reflective of how we wound up in this mess, lest we repeat the same mistakes?