Democrats still scrambling to avoid any democracy in wake of Joe Biden’s debate disaster
President Biden looks on as he participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 elections with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on June 27, 2024. AFP via Getty Images
Democrats haven’t stopped scrambling since President Biden’s disaster Thursday night — publicly rallying behind him while leaking about their own fears and excuses amid a furious rush to figure out what to do now.
The absolute worst butt-covering has to be the White House aides who recounted to Axios that the prez is actually functional from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., which is apparently their excuse for hoping he’d somehow manage to survive the debate.
That is, they’re finally admitting part of the truth, in hopes they don’t have to reveal more of it (at least, not until they pitch their tell-all memoirs).
But what a reveal: Hillary Clinton’s famous attack ad against Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries asked viewers to think about whether he could field a “3 a.m. phone call” about some global crisis.
Now the sitting president’s staff is admitting he couldn’t reliably handle a 6 p.m. call.
Maybe those future memoirs will recount discussions about their clear duty to get the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, which presumably ended with the realization that no one trusted Kamala Harris to field that phone call, either.
Other press stories recount the (mostly anonymous) fears of Democratic congressional candidates and leaders that Biden (should he stay in the race) will be a huge drag on the entire party come November — dashing their hopes to retake the House and not lose the Senate.
Oh, and aides to various foreign leaders opened up to The Wall Street Journal about how Biden’s decline this past year has been unmistakable.
So far, no one’s offered any apologies for all the months of gaslighting, attacking The Post and The Wall Street Journal for “cheap fakes” and “Republican misinformation” blaring the truth about the blatant and shocking evidence of the president’s incapacity.
Publicly, it’s all circle-the-wagons, with ex-President Barack Obama disingenuously tweeting, “Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know.”
No, Barack: You just lost that 2012 debate with Mitt Romney. Joe’s performance Thursday was a complete disaster, confirming all the voters’ fears about Biden’s mental incapability.
The gaslighting, in short, will continue unless and until Biden drops out.
The president and his clan were said to be discussing just that on Sunday, having gathered at Camp David for a long-planned Annie Liebovitz (!!) family photo shoot.
Of course, having the whole family (well, except for poor little Navy Roberts) shot by the ultimate celebrity lenswoman is exactly the kind of perk and prestige that First Lady Jill Biden revels in; her desire to keep reveling is overwhelmingly seen as the reason her hubby didn’t announce he’d retire rather than run again.
Getting Jill to admit reality has to be the No. 1 goal of every Democratic insider at this point.
We expect they’re all also rushing to assure Hunter that he’ll get a pardon as long as any Democrat holds the White House after the election — and telling him and First Brother Jim that the party’s donors will keep the whole clan flush even if the influence-peddling biz dries up forever once Joe quits.
If the clan agrees to end the elder abuse, the actual announcement will follow soon enough: Democratic insiders want time to plan whatever comes next, but they must see if they can engineer a fast consensus on the replacement and then how to pull it off.
There won’t be a shred of democracy in that decision, of course: The power-brokers may pretend to leave it up to the convention delegates, but they already ignored all grassroots doubts in greasing the wheels so Joe wouldn’t have to do any primary debates.
If they actually allow a democratic competition among Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, etc. now, they’d be weeks without a nominee — and the candidates would covertly work to destroy each other; all that further endangers the party’s hopes of winning.
And keeping the Democrats in power matters far more than democracy to the party that keeps accusing Donald Trump of aiming to destroy it.