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      Biden and Trump Have Succeeded in Breaking Reality

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      Four years ago the Republican convention was a bizarre spectacle, a cross between a Napoleonic fantasy and a Leni Riefenstahl movie. The dominant image was of an imperial dynasty laying claim to forever rule. I expected more of the same when I tuned in on Monday night to watch this year’s convention, but amped up even further by the weekend’s terrifying near-miss assassination attempt.What I saw instead was an even-toned, inclusive performance that seemed designed to resemble conventions of a more, well, conventional era, or perhaps just entertainment-world award shows. The lineup of speakers offered racial, gender and even ideological diversity — including the Teamsters’ president, Sean O’Brien, who announced from the main stage that his organization was “not beholden to anyone or any party.”You don’t have to agree with Donald Trump on everything was a consistent talking point. As for the shooting, it had been instantly mythologized as a miracle of survival: Speaker after speaker, including Trump himself, credited the Almighty with saving the former president so he could save America. There was no reference to the speculation, multiplying across the internet, that the deep state was behind the assassination attempt. Even Donald Trump was, by his standards, cogent and calm.While one half of the electorate was being served this bland spectacle, the other half struggled to follow a dispiriting and confusing story in which the stakes in the presidential election are existential — and the only man who can save American democracy is President Biden. Even as more and more funders, political operatives and ordinary Democratic voters said that he should withdraw his candidacy, the campaign told them to put their faith in a frail, diminished man — worse than that, it insisted that he was neither frail nor diminished.In the interview with Lester Holt that was broadcast on the first night of the Republican convention, Biden’s most energetic moment came when he lashed out at the press for criticizing him rather than his opponent — a favorite tactic of demagogues everywhere. If the media criticize him, then the media are bad. If the polls show a lack of support for his candidacy, then the polls are wrong. If his allies are trying to save him from himself, then they are no longer his allies. The president and his campaign have adopted the habits of the monster they promise to save us from.The week felt like an emotional reprise of the early months (or was it years?) of the Trump presidency. Every day, it seemed, brought news that felt like it would change history. We assimilated it and moved on, getting up in the morning, going about our business, pausing to express shock at another piece of news, and starting the cycle over again. We developed the ability to feel simultaneously shaken and bored, dismayed and indifferent. As media outlets engaged with Trump’s lies — some enthusiastically and others because it could not be avoided — we grew accustomed to an ever growing gap between reality as we experienced it and the ways in which it was reflected back to us by politicians and journalists.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nancy Pelosi Endorsed ‘Open’ Nomination Process if Biden Drops Out

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      Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former speaker, recently told her colleagues in the California delegation that if President Biden were to end his campaign she would favor the “competitive” process of an open primary rather than an anointment of Vice President Kamala Harris as the new Democratic presidential nominee.In one of the delegation’s weekly closed-door meetings earlier this month, a small group of members were discussing the party’s stressful state of affairs, in which Mr. Biden appears defiant in the face of concerns from lawmakers and leaders in his own party who want him to step aside.Ms. Pelosi, who arrived late to the meeting, spoke up in response to questions from members. When asked about Mr. Biden, she said she did not think he could win, citing polling data, an assessment that she has shared privately with the president himself. Ms. Pelosi said that if he stayed on the ticket, Democrats would lose any shot they might have of winning back control of the House, according to three people familiar with the confidential conversation who insisted on anonymity to describe it. Lawmakers in attendance then pressed her on what the landscape would look like if Mr. Biden ultimately decided to step aside under pressure. Ms Pelosi told them she favored a competitive process. Ms. Pelosi, according to a source familiar with her thinking, is a friend and fan of Ms. Harris, a former senator from California. But she believes even Ms. Harris would be strengthened to win the general election by going through a competitive process at the convention.A second person briefed on Ms. Pelosi’s views, who also declined to be named discussing private conversations, said her desire for an open primary process is driven by polling data about who can win the election, and that she believes the Democratic Party has a deep bench of talent to draw from, including governors and senators in competitive states. Ms. Pelosi’s comments at the meeting regarding her preference for an open primary were first reported by Politico.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tester of Montana Becomes 2d Democratic Senator to Call on Biden to Step Aside

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      Senator Jon Tester of Montana called on President Biden to drop his campaign for re-election on Thursday night, becoming the second sitting Democratic senator to publicly join the effort to push Mr. Biden out of the race. “I have worked with President Biden when it has made Montana stronger, and I’ve never been afraid to stand up to him when he is wrong,” Mr. Tester, a vulnerable incumbent whose opponent has sought to tie him tightly to Mr. Biden, said in a statement. “And while I appreciate his commitment to public service and our country, I believe President Biden should not seek re-election to another term.”Mr. Tester’s Washington office said he was also endorsing an open process to select the nominee at the Democratic National Convention, rather than throwing his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.Mr. Tester is locked in a tight re-election race of his own, and he needs all the distance from Mr. Biden he can get in his deep-red state. Even before Mr. Biden’s poor debate performance last month put the spotlight back on his age and mental acuity, Mr. Tester had kept him at arm’s length while working to appear bipartisan and appeal to moderate and Republican voters. Mr. Tester is just the second Democratic senator to call on Mr. Biden to quit, though a group of House Democrats have done so and other senators have been said to be pushing Mr. Biden to the exits behind the scenes.Last month, when Mr. Tester debated Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and businessman who is his Republican rival for the Senate seat, he criticized the Biden administration’s energy policies and its approach toward immigration. “The bottom line is: He doesn’t listen to me enough,” Mr. Tester said of Mr. Biden. “He needs to.”But Mr. Sheehy has hammered at Mr. Tester, tying him to Mr. Biden and accusing him of being “the deciding vote for Biden’s America-Last agenda.” One of his recent advertisements played a clip of Mr. Tester vouching for Mr. Biden’s mental competency: “He’s absolutely 100 percent with it,” Mr. Tester says. Polls of the Montana Senate contest have shown a close race, with Mr. Sheehy often narrowly ahead.Mr. Sheehy immediately slammed Mr. Tester’s statement on Thursday night, which was reported by a local Montana news outlet moments before the senator released it publicly.“Is Jon Tester finally admitting he lied when he told us Biden is 100% with it?! And does this mean he’s endorsing his former colleague Kamala Harris??” Mr. Sheehy wrote on X. “Two-Faced Tester is desperately trying to distance himself from the train wreck he’s enabled and forced on Montanans.” More

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      Why MAGA Nation Embraces Donald Trump

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      More from our inbox:Exit Menendez?Joe, Keep Your DignitySpirituality in America Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Deep Source of Trump’s Appeal,” by David Brooks (column, July 12):I’ve always believed that the mass of Donald Trump supporters were fundamentally just working-class Americans who, as the country’s wealth increasingly skewed to the 1 percent ever since President Ronald Reagan, found themselves running faster and faster to stay in the same place, and finally (and justifiably) started to fume about it.While Mr. Brooks doesn’t flat out say it, I take away from his article that, rather than viewing their plight as old-fashioned liberals used to — as plain and simple economic class exploitation — the white working class has been conned by demagogues like Mr. Trump into seeing it as existential, zero-sum identity politics.If Mr. Brooks’s suggestion is that religious leaders guide Americans back to some form of enlightened democratic civility, they’re going to have to drop a bit more wealth redistribution into their message to the congregation.Steven DoloffNew YorkTo the Editor:Having been dismissed as “deplorables,” sniffed at as people who “cling to guns or religion,” and generally considered less worthy, it was only a matter of time before the voters who have become MAGA nation would decide to stand up for themselves and say, We matter, too, and as much as you do.For all his many shortcomings, Donald Trump does have a keen eye for a marketing opportunity, and he was happy to swoop in and exploit the concerns of this group.Democrats may prefer to fault President Biden’s frailty, but they have no one but themselves to blame or the burgeoning strength of the adversary they face.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Schiff Warned of Wipeout for Democrats if Biden Remains in Race

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      Representative Adam B. Schiff of California told attendees at a Democratic fund-raiser that the party would lose the Senate and miss a chance to take the House if the president did not drop out.Representative Adam B. Schiff, the California Democrat who is running for Senate, warned during a private meeting with donors on Saturday that his party was likely to suffer overwhelming losses in November if President Biden remained at the top of the ticket, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Schiff’s remarks at the meeting.If Mr. Biden remained, not only would he lose to former President Donald J. Trump, he could be enough of a drag on other Democratic candidates that the party would most likely lose the Senate and miss an opportunity to win control of the House, Mr. Schiff said at a fund-raiser in New York.“I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose,” Mr. Schiff said during the meeting, according to a person with access to a transcription of a recording of the event. “And we may very, very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House.”Mr. Schiff’s remarks underscore the depth of the concerns in the president’s party about the prospects for downballot Democrats if Mr. Biden remains in the race, even if most senior Democrats are still unwilling to express such dire warnings in public.The event was held in East Hampton, N.Y., shortly before Mr. Trump was shot on Saturday. Public calls from Democrats for Mr. Biden to step aside as a candidate have dropped off since the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life, providing Mr. Biden, who is insisting the he will remain in the race, an opportunity to overcome the dissent.In an effort to end the internal battle, leaders of the Democratic National Committee are moving to formally nominate Mr. Biden as the party’s candidate by the end of the month, weeks before their convention in Chicago in August.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Had a Clear Message: Trump Was a Threat. Then the Shooting Happened.

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      Former President Donald J. Trump has gone from being an instigator of political violence to a victim of it. The assassination attempt raised questions about how far language should go in a heated campaign.For months, the message from the White House and Wilmington was as stark as it was simple: This year’s election amounts to an existential choice between a defender of democracy and a destroyer of democracy. Nothing less than the future of America is at stake.And then the bullets started flying.The assassination attempt over the weekend has complicated President Biden’s argument now that former President Donald J. Trump has gone from being a longtime instigator of political violence to a victim of it. Republicans, including Mr. Trump’s newly anointed running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, instantly blamed Mr. Biden, citing his sharp rhetoric.No one in Mr. Biden’s camp thinks that is a good-faith argument, especially from allies of a former president who sent the mob that marauded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and did nothing to stop its assault, and has now vowed to pardon rioters convicted of violent crimes. But the images of Mr. Trump with blood streaked across his face after being grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet raise the question of how far language should go in a heated campaign.Mr. Biden, who has long preached unity and civility, conceded on Monday that it was “a mistake” to tell supporters a week ago that he wanted to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye,” an expression that was certainly metaphorical but opened the president to criticism after his opponent found himself in literal cross hairs. At the same time, Mr. Biden and his team have made clear that they will not back off efforts to demonstrate that Mr. Trump is a budding dictator who is dangerous to the country.“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says?” Mr. Biden asked Lester Holt of NBC News on Monday during his first interview since the assassination attempt. “Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody? Look, I’m not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric.”Mr. Biden responded to the shooting in Butler, Pa., on Saturday by calling Mr. Trump to express relief that he was not more seriously wounded and urging Americans to “lower the temperature” this campaign season. His campaign suspended television ads and its regular barrage of attack emails.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For Biden, a Race Against Time

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      When my mom got into her 80s, we had to deal with periodic medical issues. Fainting. Falls. Broken bones.Luckily, she was in good stead with the local rescue squad because she faithfully attended their crab feast fund-raisers.Each time, my siblings and I would move heaven and earth to get her home from whatever hospital she had landed in.In 2003, I tried to talk one emergency room doctor into releasing her after 11 hours.“I’ll let her out if she can tell me who the president is,” the doctor said.We both looked at my mom, expectantly.“George,” she said.I was thrilled; W., it was.“George Washington,” she finished.After each episode, I’d proudly tell her internist, Dr. Simon, how we had nursed her back to health.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Female President? Big Deal.

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      In her concession speech to President-elect Donald Trump in November 2016, Hillary Clinton declared, “We have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but some day someone will — and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.”There was lots of talk about gender in politics then. Many of us thought that Clinton lost in part because of both hard-core misogyny and a softer unconscious bias that led just enough voters to think of presidents only as guys in suits.I’ve been thinking lately of that glass ceiling because of a conversation we’re not having — one about the gender of the Democratic nominee if Joe Biden takes advice from so many of us to drop out of the presidential race.If Biden withdraws, his most likely successor is a Black woman, Vice President Kamala Harris, who polls a bit better than Biden against Trump. Some of us have urged instead that Democrats nominate Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, believing that she would be the nominee most likely to defeat Trump. And a few of us have mentioned the talented Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a former governor and a star of the Biden cabinet.Our argument isn’t a feminist one about the significance of elevating women. It’s not even an argument that these politicians would perform better than Biden as president. Astonishingly given our history, it’s that they would also be more electable.Perhaps even more intriguing, gender has largely gone unmentioned. I’ve had people push back at my recommendation of Whitmer on the basis that she’s untested nationally, that choosing her over Harris would antagonize Black voters, that her name recognition is weak. All fair objections. But I haven’t heard anyone scoff: But Whitmer is a woman. We tried that in 2016, and it got us Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More