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We were really hoping to make todays newsletter squarely about the implications of the Law of the Sea Treaty but, you know, this Biden storyline! And so, weve decided to dutifully keep covering it, with a mix of some fresh reporting, exclusive focus group data, and a poignant plea by Bill to the Democratic Party establishment.

Happy Thursday! [Its not Friday, right?]

Bidens campaign team, the influencers on his payroll, and a small cadre of loud political obsessives have argued this past week that there is a cabal of hand-wringing elites engaged in a palace coup against the will of Democratic base voters.

Im getting so frustrated by the elites now Im not talking about you guys the elites in the party, Oh, they know so much more. Any of these guys that dont think I should run, run against me,Biden said in an appearance on Morning Joe, the breakfast show of choice for coastal elites.

Nancy Lee Grahn, a white actress on daytime soap operas, offered a representative sample of how that argument was playing out on social media.

This framethat there is a cloistered, privileged media class playing games with democracy for shits and giggles while the average Democrat pines for Dark Brandonis a compelling one. Thats because it presents clear, digestible heroes (marginalized Americans worried about how Trump 2.0 could hurt them) and villains (know-it-all limousine liberal environmentalists who are personally protected from the Trumpian threat).

But heres the main problem with that story. Its just not true. In fact, as Ezra Klein shared with me on yesterdays podcast, the opposite is whats taking place.

The real conspiracy is that the Democratic elites are the ones protecting Biden. They dont believe he can win and they are sanguine about what a second Trump term would look like. And their stay the course talking points are merely an attempt to manipulate the desperate and worried Democratic base voters who are willing to do whatever it takes to beat Trump.

Heres Klein:

Klein: You don't know how the party can replace him. You don't want to be blamed for any of this. You just stay quiet and walk the calm path to defeat. I think it is clear. People are weighing this set of things. Like,it would be quite unpleasant for me personally to come out against the president as an elected official in an Democratic party and weighing what will happen if Donald Trump wins and saying, in a revealed preference way, I can live with Donald Trump winning. And I've had people say that to me off the record, to be fair.

Tim Miller: Really?

Klein: Ive had top Democrats say to me basically something like, I dont know why all these Democrats who think Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy are acting the way they are. But the reason Im acting the way I am is because I dont think that.

You can live with Trump?! Are you sure??? Like really, really sure?

These fuckers are out there telling those of us who are desperately arguing that the Democrats should present a path to victory, that we are helping Trump by demanding this bare minimum. Meanwhile, in private, they have come to terms with Trump winning.

Outrageous.

Grassroots Democrats who genuinely care about beating Trump should demand more from those they have entrusted with the responsibility to represent the party and successfully beat the Trumpian threat that they have been assured is existential.

Tim Miller

If I took a drink every time someone in one of my focus groups used the phrase the lesser of two evils to describe how they make their vote choice, I would die of alcohol poisoning.

But theres another thread thats emerging: voters comparing Joe Biden to their aging relatives who wont give up their car keys. Thats not an analogy you want to hear with democracy on the line. On Wednesday, these comparisons were more common than ever among the voters I talked toa group made up of those who cast ballots for Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020 but were now undecided.

I've seen firsthand how difficult it is to get, you know, mom's driver's license or aging parents license away from them, one participant said. What does that look like when it's the president of the United States?

This is fundamental to understanding voters fears about Bidens age. They are disinclined to give him the benefit of the doubt because many have seen this all before. They dont want their octogenarian father (or grandfather) running the country, let alone driving a car.

Most of these voters believed Biden should leave the race: Letting him continue to run is like not taking the keys away from your parents, one said. Anyones letting him run to this point is just being weak.

Sarah Longwell

Im still recovering from venturing into Trumps lizard brain yesterday, so this morning I wont expostulate at length. I do want to make one point, building on the excellent items youve just read.

Sarah reports that the participants in this weeks focus groups of Clinton 2016 and Biden 2020 voters are very concerned about Bidens age and his capacity to govern for another term.

As they should be. And as they have been for a long time.

There has always been wide support for the idea that Biden should be a one-term president. Biden himself said in March 2020 that he viewed himself as a bridge, not anything else.

Obviously the evidence of Bidens decline, in the debate two weeks ago and more broadly evident in recent months, only makes that sentiment more powerful. Its reasonable for voters to want Biden to be a one-term president.

Its not reasonable, on the other hand, to have Donald Trump as our next president. And a majority of Americans have also consistently balked at that, as well. Theres not as big a majority in resistance to that prospect as there should be, but still, its a majority.

So Americans dont want Trump, and they think Biden is too old. They are right on both counts.

Which brings us to Tims piece. Most of the time, in a representative democracy, voters have no direct way to effectuate their wishes and to solve the problems they see. It is the job of elitesrepresentative and responsive and responsible elitesto help do this.

Every society is going to have elites. In a liberal democracy, we try to structure things so that the power of those elites is checked. We try to see to it that elites are responsive to the broader public, that they can check and balance each other, and that, hopefully, they have a real sense of responsibility as well.

There is an organization that has been devised to try to tie together elites and the public in necessary and beneficial ways. That organization is the modern political party. Modern democracy depends on political parties to tie together the people and the elites, to ensure the circulation of elites, to arrange as much as possible for elites to be both responsive and responsible.

The failure of the Republican Party to do one of the main things a political party is supposed to doto check truly malevolent demagoguesis a signal elite failure of the last decade. Its been terrible to see for those of us who once had an attachment to and respect for that party. More important, its been terrible for the country.

Now its the Democratic Party that is being put to the test. Can Democratic elites get Joe Biden to step aside? Can they then arrange a process that allows for an open competition whose result will be responsive to public sentiment? This process will be somewhat more reminiscent of the old way convention delegates, influenced by party elites, selected presidential candidates. It produced some pretty good presidents!

This is the historic task of the elites of the Democratic Party today.

A Democratic Party that can rise to the occasion, and help arrange for Joe Biden to step aside in favor of a candidate able to win in 2024 and fit to serve for the next four years, would be a party whose voters and elites would be worthy of respect and support.

William Kristol

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Sam Stein asks: Upset at Biden for Sticking It Out? Blame the Voters. Why the voters? The presidents ability to survive has little to do with the steps hes taken. Its because voters can be weird and inconsistent.

About a third of [Barack] Obama 08 voters thought he might have been born in a foreign country. They still voted for him, said Stu Stevens, the longtime GOP political operative who, under Donald Trump, grew disaffected with his party. How many 1992 [Bill] Clinton voters thought he was trustworthy and honest? How many 2024 voters think a convicted felon should be president?

We have a strange human ability to hold contradictory ideas and decide which to ignore, he added. People are weird and inconsistent.

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The Bonfire of the Democrats - The Bulwark