So this is the week that President Joe Biden, under fire by everyone since his lame debate performance last month (which I wrote about here), stepped down from his candidacy for a second term as president. This is virtually unprecedented in American history. It was an historic day. He endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, and remarkably, virtually all Democrats have endorsed her too, with no one emerging to challenge her nomination for, now, president; in fact, Biden’s abdication is regarded as a sacrifice for the greater good, putting principle before personal glory.
In contrast are the Republicans, who are undergoing hissy fits, upset that their plans to run against a doddering incumbent have been thwarted. You’d think a contract had been signed or something; some of them are threatening lawsuits to keep Biden on the ticket. And of course they’re engaging in their usual hyperbole and calumny, misogyny and racism. That’s what conservatives do.
Items today:
- Tom Nichols and Robert Reich think this is a good thing, that it illustrates the difference between Democrats and Republicans, that Democrats should unite behind Harris, and maybe Mark Kelly should be VP;
- Reactions, compiled by Slate, Salon, The Atlantic, and others, include accusations of a coup, the usual attacks against Harris, and yet another threat of civil war;
- And even-handed commentary from John Scalzi.
Tom Nichols takes the high road.
Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 21 Jul 2024: A Candidate, Not a Cult Leader, subtitled “After Biden’s decision to leave the race, the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans could not be clearer.”
President Joe Biden has chosen to put his country over his own ego, a heroic decision that shows the difference between a political party and a cult of personality.
Joe Biden, the president of the United States, has decided not to run for his office in 2024. He joins a small but honorable fraternity of men who, for various reasons, declined to seek reelection. This club was founded by George Washington, whose refusal to stand for the presidency again in 1796 was particularly important, because he was walking away from a virtually guaranteed victory.
Biden, by contrast, was facing the serious prospect of a loss, but his decision is similarly admirable. The president sees Donald Trump as a threat to American democracy, and he must know that he has been trailing Trump for months, even before the debate in June that sealed his fate. Biden tried to recover, but in every public outing, he raised more doubts than he dispelled. Anxious Democrats tried to get the message through to him, in private at first and then in public, that he was losing ground in swing states and that his continued presence in the race could even doom downballot candidates.
…
Of course, if the nominee is Harris, the Republicans will go into culture-war overdrive. They will say that as a Californian, she is too liberal. They will say that as a former prosecutor, she is too conservative. They will say that she is too female and too Black. (Well, they won’t say those last two out loud, but get ready for a fusillade of dog whistles that will be amped up to the point that they could shatter granite.)…
After today the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans could not be clearer. Biden faces challenges of age that are not going to get any easier. His decision to make way for a younger candidate reaffirmed that his party is not about one man. Trump, meanwhile, continues to bellow gibberish at his rallies, raving like the emotionally unstable, would-be dictator that he is.
\
Robert Reich, 22 Jul 2024: What we must do now
Trump swiftly reacted to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential campaign with typically nasty vitriol. Biden was “not fit to run,” “he wasn’t capable of being President,” “the Worst President, by far, in the History of our Nation,” who “just quit the race in COMPLETE DISGRACE!”
We all know that Trump projects himself onto his opponents. It is Trump who is not fit to run, is not capable of being president, is the worst president in the history of our nation, and is a complete disgrace.
We must be done now? Unite behind Harris, he says. And he concludes with a footnote:
My recommendation for Harris’s vice president is Mark Kelly. Kelly is the perfect response to JD Vance. Kelly has served America as a U.S. Navy combat pilot, as a NASA astronaut, and now as a U.S. senator for Arizona. He is the son of two police officers. He attended public schools from elementary school all the way through graduate school. His wife, Gabrielle Giffords, was a rising member of Congress when shot and almost killed by someone who should not have possessed a gun, and she is now one of the nation’s leading advocates for responsible gun regulation. Arizona is an important battleground.
\\
Republicans take the low. Several items.
Slate, Nitish Pahwa, 22 Jul 2024: MAGA Internet’s Response to Biden Dropping Out Is Dumber Than You Could Have Predicted
A sample:
Here’s where it all gets much weirder, however. The right-wing tinfoil geeks who’ve been crying coup now have found themselves teaming up with some strange partners who all but agree with them: the Biden loyalists who stuck by him throughout the past month and resisted every single call for the president to reconsider his electoral position.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the ex-progressive who previously used cherry-picked polling to mock anyone calling for Biden’s dropout, dug down on Sunday by evoking the image of “blades in our president’s back” and stating, “People pushed out an honorable man, loving father and a great president before an absolute sleazeball like [New Jersey Sen.] Menendez.” This was not only an inaccurate point—Democratic leaders had been calling for Sen. Bob Menendez’s resignation even prior to last Tuesday, when the senator was convicted on corruption charges in federal court—but one tailor-made to appeal to Sacks, who commended Fetterman’s Sunday statement. (Fetterman ended up endorsing Harris on Monday.)
\
Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 22 Jul 2024: Joe Biden’s brilliant exit: Democrats get a boost, Republicans left bewildered, subtitled “It’s a new race and now Donald Trump is the old guy”
July 21, 2024, was one of those “where were you when you heard” days that people will remember for a long time to come. I was online that early Sunday afternoon and I saw the news that President Joe Biden was withdrawing from the presidential race come across my social media feed in real time. A friend texted me “You were right, it wasn’t going to happen until the moment it happened.” That’s what I’d been saying for the past couple of weeks when people would get anxious whenever Biden would say that he was absolutely not dropping out. No candidate would ever say “well, I’m thinking of giving up.” They’re all in until they’re not.
\
The Atlantic, Ali Breland, 22 Jul 2024: MAGA Cries ‘Coup’, subtitled “The right’s playbook against Kamala Harris is already clear.”
\
Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 21 Jul 2024: The right’s incoherent response to Biden dropping out
Biden’s decision was a blow to President Donald Trump, whose campaign was built around a run against the president and reportedly believed Biden’s nomination gave Trump the best chance of winning in November. Republicans are flailing as they grapple with the prospect of a different opponent for their historically unpopular nominee.
Mike Johnson thinks something “unlawful” has happened; or, that Biden should resign immediately. Or, Republicans will sue to keep Biden *on* the ballot.
Republicans are telegraphing that the coming days will feature an avalanche of bad faith nonsense — and that’s how reporters should treat their arguments.
\
As predicted:
LGBTQNation, 22 Jul 2024: Unhinged Republican candidate calls Kamala Harris a “little wh*re” as GOP descends into misogyny, subtitled “For a lot of conservatives, all they can say about Kamala Harris are gross, sexist comments.”
Also: J.D. Vance calls Kamala Harris a ‘miserable cat lady’, subtitled “The mega-MAGA VP pick says having no kids means you can’t run the country.”
Salon, 22 Jul 2024: Ohio Republican calls for a “civil war” to save the country if Trump and Vance “lose this one”, subtitled “Ohio state Sen. George Lang was speaking Monday at a rally alongside Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance”
\\
Then there’s science fiction writer John Scalzi, who always manages to say extremely reasonable-sounding things without coming across as particularly partisan.
Whatever, John Scalzi, 22 Jul 2024: Biden, Harris, Trump and 2024
A few excerpts from a long post:
1. I was not a fan of the idea of Joe Biden leaving the race, and I still have my suspicions that Biden was done dirty by the Democratic Party. I’m not happy about that. This is not because I am some extreme Biden partisan, just mostly because it looked and felt like panic and flailing around for weeks at a time over one bad debate. However, in the fullness of time and roughly 20 hours of hindsight, I’m beginning to wonder how much of the flailing about was actual panic, and how much of it was carefully choreographed messaging leading up to Biden choosing to step aside.
…
So let’s talk about Kamala Harris for a moment. To begin, I am 100% fine with her being the candidate presumptive. Long-time readers may recall that in the 2020 Democratic primary cycle, she was my first choice candidate. Here’s the link to the whole piece …
…
4. What are Harris’ disadvantages? Bluntly, she’s a black woman running for president in racist and sexist country where straight white men freaked out so hard at the Obama presidency, and the possibility of Hilary Clinton back in the White House, that the majority of them voted en masse for a felonious grifter in 2016, and then did it again in 2020. Do not kid yourself that the majority of them will do anything but in 2024, either. The question is how many of the straight white women they will take with them when they do.
(You may or may not think this is a reductive observation, but if you do, I suspect you may be a straight white person who decided not to vote for Clinton “because of her emails,” or because she was “unlikeable,” or whatever, i.e., you were looking for any reason not to vote for the candidate who was actually qualified for the job, in order to vote for the unfathomably shitty person the other side hauled up out of the incompetent depths, who had no platform besides his own cretinous id and still does not. …
…
Who will be the Vice Presidential candidate? A white man from a swing(ish) state. Elsewhere I have already suggested Mark Kelly or Andy Beshear, and other people seem to like Josh Shapiro. I have no real personal preference, although the nerd in me likes the idea of an astronaut VP. But bluntly, this is a racist and sexist country, remember? Having a white dude from a swing(ish) state is probably worth just enough votes to make it useful.
\\\
The car arrived today!
