Democrats

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris underscores support for Biden at Las Vegas rally: ‘He is a fighter’

      by

      Kamala Harris doubled down on her support of Joe Biden on Tuesday, describing the embattled president as a “fighter” as she warned Donald Trump would turn the country from a democracy into a dictatorship if he is re-elected to the White House in November.The vice-president, speaking at a campaign event in Nevada, alluded to Biden’s struggles since his calamitous debate performance last month. “We always knew this election would be tough, and the past few days have been a reminder that running for president of the United States is never easy,” Harris said.“But the one thing we know about our president, Joe Biden, is that he is a fighter. He is a fighter, and he is the first to say, when you get knocked down, you get back up.” An audience member shouted back: “Yes, we all know.”Harris spoke shortly after a seventh House Democrat, Mikie Sherrill, publicly called on Biden to step aside. “I realize this is hard, but we have done hard things in pursuit of democracy since the founding of this nation. It is time to do so again,” Sherrill posted on Twitter/X.Voters face the “most existential, consequential and important election of our lifetime”, Harris warned during her speech at the Las Vegas event focused on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe first person of south Asian descent to serve as vice-president, Harris noted that Trump “consistently incites hate”, including towards the AANHPI communities. “Someone who vilifies immigrants, who promotes xenophobia, someone who stokes hate, should never again have the chance to stand behind a microphone,” she added.Harris is at the forefront of the Biden-Harris campaign’s effort to reach out to Asian American voters, and on Tuesday spoke about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer research scientist who left India at age 19 to study in California. “My mother had two goals in her life: to raise her two daughters and to end breast cancer,” Harris said. “My mother never asked anyone’s permission to pursue her dreams.”Harris is scheduled to address a town hall in Philadelphia on Saturday hosted by an advocacy group focused on mobilizing Asian American voters. “We need to make sure that AA and NHPI voices are heard at the ballot boxes around our country, just as we need to make sure that those voices are represented in all levels of government,” Harris said in a video released by the campaign on Tuesday. “Asian Americans must be in the rooms where the decisions are being made.” More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats appear torn over Biden as concerns whether he can win deepen

      by

      After a day of private meetings on Capitol Hill, congressional Democrats appeared torn over whether Joe Biden should remain the party’s nominee, as concerns deepen over the 81-year-old president’s age, mental acuity and ability to win the White House for a second term.Lawmakers emerged from closed-door gatherings on Tuesday stone-faced, appearing uneasy about Biden’s path forward, even if most weren’t ready to publicly call on him to step aside. Asked if the party was on the same page after a House Democrats meeting, Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee quipped: “We’re not even in the same book.”Senate Democrats offered a similarly assessment. “We’ve got a ways to go,” Senator Peter Welch of Vermont told reporters, after a lengthy caucus meeting over lunch on Tuesday afternoon.Hours after the House meeting, Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey became the seventh congressional Democrat to call on Biden to step aside, a reflection of the deep disagreement with the party over how best to respond to Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month in which he appeared weak and confused while Donald Trump, 78, spewed a stream of unchecked lies.“The stakes are too high – and the threat is too real – to stay silent,” Sherrill said in a statement. “I realize this is hard, but we have done hard things in pursuit of democracy since the founding of this nation,” she said in a statement. “It is time to do so again.”Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have yet to prod the president to end his campaign, a move Biden himself has categorically and repeatedly ruled out.The president’s adamance that he would stay in the race, outlined in a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday, appeared to have forestalled – for now – a flood of widespread defections, and possibly even beat back some public criticism.“Right now President Biden is the nominee, and we support the Democratic nominee that will beat Donald Trump,” Representative Pete Aguilar of California, chairman of the House Democratic caucus, said at a news conference following the House Democrats meeting at the Democratic National Committee headquarters on Tuesday morning.Aguilar said it was incumbent upon the president to prove to voters that he was up to the task, “campaigning and hustling” across the country, while demonstrating his ability to square off with the press at a news conference, scheduled for Thursday, at the end of the Nato summit in Washington. Few Democrats were eager to talk to reporters, who lined the pavement, pelting lawmakers with questions, as fresh polling shows Biden falling farther behind Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee viewed by the incumbent and his party as a singularly dangerous figure to American democracy. Most ignored the questions, some held a phone to their ear, and the Pennsylvania representative Summer Lee walked with headphones on, declining to stop.“Joe Biden is, will be and should be our nominee,” the Florida representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a former DNC chair, said tersely after the meeting.Biden’s closest allies were also eager to voice their support.“We’re ridin’ with Biden,” Representative James Clyburn repeated several times as he strode toward a waiting car. The South Carolina Democrat is credited with reviving Biden’s successful 2020 campaign against his presidential predecessor Trump – and is seen as one of the few people whose opinion on the matter could sway the president.“He’s our guy,” said Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has emerged as one of Biden’s most vocal supporters in the days since the debate. “I’m with Joe,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer repeatedly said in response to any question about the president’s standing.Several prominent Democrats, including senior members of the Black and Hispanic caucuses, have joined Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in voicing support for the president. On Tuesday morning, Representative Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat facing a serious primary challenge, likened her fight for political survival to Biden’s and said the party must unite to defeat the influence of Trump-aligned “Maga Republicans”.Lori Trahan of Massachusetts, a member of House Democratic leadership, said she shared her constituents’ “real concerns” about Biden’s “ability to beat Donald Trump”, given that a second Trump presidency would “do irreparable damage to women and to our country”. Demanding the president “act with urgency to restore Americans’ confidence so we can win in November”, Trahan said she would do “everything in my power to help”.On Monday night Biden also held a private meeting with the Congressional Black caucus, a key support bloc representing voters who form a powerful part of Biden’s base, having fueled his surge to the Democratic nomination in 2020.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You’ve had my back, and I’ll continue to have yours,” Politico reported Biden saying in the meeting. “I need you guys. They were wrong in 2020, 2022 [when Democrats did much better than expected in midterm elections] and now. With you guys, I know we can win this thing.”Congressional Hispanic caucus leaders, Nanette Barragán of California and Adriano Espaillat of New York, said on Monday: “We stand with President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.“For the last year and a half, the Biden-Harris administration partnered with the Congressional Hispanic caucus’ initiative to take CHC on the Road. Through that initiative we have worked to empower Latino communities across the country.“We look forward to our continued partnership on the road and legislative wins to benefit the American people.”Prominent progressives have also rallied to the president’s side.“The matter is closed,” Ocasio-Cortez, told reporters outside the Capitol on Monday evening. “He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race, and I support him.”In her re-endorsement of Biden she pointed to a lack of Republican calls for Trump to step aside, even after he was convicted on 34 criminal charges in his New York trial arising from hush-money payments made to an adult film star.Fellow progressives Pramila Jayapal from Washington state, Jasmine Crockett from Texas, and Ilhan Omar from Minnesota have joined Ocasio-Cortez in their support for Biden.On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez said Biden should “commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country.“If we can do that and continue our work on student loans, secure a cease-fire [in Israel’s war against Hamas], and bring those dollars back into investing in public policy, then that’s how we win in November.“That’s what I’m committed to, and that’s what I want to make sure that we secure.” More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Leading House Democrat Adam Smith calls on Biden to end presidential bid

      by

      Joe Biden’s position among congressional Democrats eroded further on Monday when an influential House committee member lent his voice to calls for him to end his presidential campaign following last month’s spectacular debate failure.Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the armed services committee in the House of Representatives, issued the plea just hours after the president emphatically rejected calls for him to step aside in a letter to the party’s congressional contingent.Biden had also expressed determination to continue in an unscheduled phone interview with the MSNBC politics show Morning Joe.But in a clear sign such messaging may be falling on deaf ears, Smith suggested that sentiments of voters that he was too old to be an effective candidate and then president for the next four years was clear from opinion polls.“The president’s performance in the debate was alarming to watch and the American people have made it clear they no longer see him as a credible candidate to serve four more years as president,” Smith, a congressman from Washington state, said in a statement.“Since the debate, the president has not seriously addressed these concerns.”He said the president should stand aside “as soon as possible”, though he qualified it by saying he would support him “unreservedly” if he insisted on remaining as the nominee.But his statement’s effect was driven home in a later interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, one of the two moderators in the 27 June debate with Donald Trump in which Biden’s hoarse-voiced and frequently confused performance and demeanour plunged his re-election campaign into existential crisis.“Personally, I think Kamala Harris [the vice-president] would be a much better, stronger candidate,” Smith told Tapper, adding that Biden was “not the best person to carry the Democratic message”.He implicitly criticised Democratic colleagues – and Biden campaign staff – who were calling for the party to put the debate behind them as “one bad night”.“A lot of Democrats are saying: ‘Well let’s move on, let’s stop talking about it’,” said Smith. “We are not the ones who are bringing it up. The country is bringing it up. And the campaign strategy of ‘be quiet and fall in line and let’s ignore it’ simply isn’t working.”Smith joins the ranks of five Democratic members of Congress who publicly demanded Biden’s withdrawal last week. He was among at least four others who spoke in favour of it privately in a virtual meeting on Sunday with Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s leader in the House.Having the ranking member of the armed services committee join the siren voices urging his withdrawal may be particularly damaging to Biden’s cause in a week when he is to host a summit of Nato leaders in Washington.The alliance’s heads of government and state will gather in the US capital on Tuesday for an event that is likely to increase the international spotlight on Biden, who is due to give a rare press conference on its final day on Thursday, an occasion likely to be scrutinised for further misstatements and evidence of declining cognitive faculties. Unscripted appearances have been rare in Biden’s three-and-a-half-year tenure.In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last Friday, Biden stressed his role in expanding Nato’s membership and leading its military aid programme to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion as a key element of his qualification to continue as his party’s nominee and be re-elected as president.In the surprise interview with Morning Joe on Monday, Biden put the blame for his current predicament on Democratic elites, an undefined designation which he may now expand to include Smith. More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      The Democrats who have called on Joe Biden to step down

      by

      After Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in his first debate against Donald Trump super-charged concerns about his age and fitness for office, the president faces growing calls to stand down as the Democratic nominee this November.Biden has pushed back hard, telling MSNBC “elites in the party” were behind calls for him to quit, claiming strong support from actual voters, and challenging doubters in his own party to “run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president – challenge me at the convention!”Nobody has gone that far yet but a growing number of elected Democratic officials have either publicly called for Biden to quit or reportedly done so in private. Here they are:Lloyd Doggett (Texas)The Texas veteran was first out of the gate, saying last week: “Recognising that, unlike [Donald] Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.”Raúl Grijalva (Arizona)A senior progressive from a battleground state, Grijalva has sway in his party. Following Doggett, the 76-year-old told the New York Times: “What [Biden] needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.” Grijalva also said Democrats “have to win this race, and we have to hold the House and hold the Senate”, because if not, the party’s achievements under Biden would “go down the sewer”.Seth Moulton (Massachusetts)The former US marine, who briefly challenged Biden for the nomination in 2020, told a Boston radio station: “President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father, George Washington’s, footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up.” Moulton has since doubled down, citing the “disaster” of the debate.Mike Quigley (Illinois)Speaking to MSNBC on Friday, Quigley said: “Mr. President, your legacy is set. We owe you the greatest debt of gratitude. The only thing that you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this.”Angie Craig (Minnesota)On Saturday, the congresswoman said: “Given what I saw and heard from the president during last week’s debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the president himself following that debate, I do not believe that the president can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump. That’s why I respectfully call on President Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee for a second term as president and allow for a new generation of leaders to step forward.”Adam Smith (Washington)On Monday, the congressman said: “That candidate must be able to clearly, articulately, and strongly make his or her case to the American people. It is clear that President Biden is no longer able to meet this burden.” In an interview he also implored Biden. “I’m pleading with him − take a step back,’” he said on CNN. “Look at what’s best for the party, look at what’s best for the county.”Reported: Jerry Nadler (New York), Mark Takano (California), Joe Morelle (New York)According to multiple reports, on Sunday the three senior Democrats along with Smith had used a private call arranged by Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, to call for Biden to stand down. Others on the call reportedly expressed serious concerns but did not go so far as to say Biden should quit. More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden insists in letter to Democrats and live TV interview he’s staying in race

      by

      Joe Biden came out swinging on Monday against critics of his calamitous June debate performance, telling Democrats in an open letter and Americans in a pugnacious live TV interview he is staying in the presidential race – rejecting growing calls to concede that at 81 he is too ineffective to beat Donald Trump and should drop out in favour of a younger candidate.The president lashed out at “elites in the party” in a live telephone interview with the MSNBC show Morning Joe, saying they were behind calls for him to quit.He added: “If any of these guys don’t think I should run, run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president – challenge me at the convention!”Touting what he said was a demanding campaign schedule around hosting a Nato summit this week, the president insisted: “The American public is not going to move away from me.“I’m here for two reasons, pal. One, to rebuild the economy for hard-working middle class people, to give everybody a shot. It’s a straight shot. Everybody gets a fair chance. Number two, people always talk about how I don’t have the wide support. Come on, give me a break. Come with me. Watch.”Concerns about Biden’s age have dogged his time in office but they exploded into open view late last month after the first of two scheduled debates with Trump.Onstage in Atlanta, Biden appeared hesitant, confused and physically diminished, struggles aides put down to a cold and jet lag.In comparison, Trump spewed lies virtually unchecked by his opponent or CNN moderators working to rules that precluded instant fact checks.The result was a polling bump for Trump and panic among Democrats. By Monday, nine House Democrats had called for Biden to quit. A reported move towards a similar call in the Senate did not produce a result.Biden insisted his poor debate was down to health issues.“I was feeling so badly before the debate,” he told MSNBC. “They tested me, they thought maybe I had Covid, maybe there was something wrong, an infection or something. They tested me, they gave me those tests. I was clear. So, I had a bad night.”Touting public appearances since the debate, Biden said he was in vigorous health and out meeting voters more than Trump.“I have a neurological test every single day sitting behind his desk and making these decisions,” Biden said. “You know it, they know it. I’m not bad at what I do.”Signaling the size of Biden’s problem, however, the New York Times cited White House visitor logs when it reported that “an expert on Parkinson’s disease” visited “eight times in eight months from last summer through this spring, including at least once for a meeting with President Biden’s physician”.Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told the paper: “A wide variety of specialists … visit the White House complex to treat the thousands of military personnel who work on the grounds.”Bates also said Biden had been seen by a neurologist once a year, finding “no sign of Parkinson’s and he is not being treated for it”.In his open letter to Democrats, the president said he was “firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump”.He also claimed that in “extensive conversations with the leadership of the party, elected officials, rank and file members and most importantly Democratic voters”, he had “heard the concerns that people have – their good faith fears and worries about what is at stake in this election. I am not blind to them.“Believe me, I know better than anyone the responsibility and the burden the nominee of our party carries. I carried it in 2020 when the fate of our nation was at stake.”Biden defeated Trump handily then. But on inauguration day, he was 78 – as old as Trump is now but the oldest man ever to take the presidential oath.On Monday, Biden said: “I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump.”It is unclear what mechanism could be used for replacing Biden, whether with his vice-president, Kamala Harris, or another candidate.In his letter, Biden pointed to his easy primary win over Dean Phillips, a Minnesota representative who campaigned on the issue of Biden’s age. The president also pointed to the independent Robert F Kennedy Jr, who threatens to take votes in battleground states.“Do we now just say this process didn’t matter?” Biden asked. “That the voters don’t have a say?“I decline to do that. I feel a deep obligation to the faith and the trust the voters of the Democratic party have placed in me … it was their decision to make. Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well intentioned. The voters – and the voters alone – decide the nominee.“How can we stand for democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party? I cannot do that.I will not do that.”Biden said he had “no doubt” he would beat Trump, touting achievements in office. He also said that in a second term, with a Democratic-controlled Congress, he would restore abortion rights by enshrining them in law, while bringing “real supreme court reform” – an ambitious statement, given a Senate map highly favourable to Republicans.Finally, Biden said he was “standing up for American democracy”.His letter invoked the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack carried out by Trump supporters, saying his White House predecessor “has proven that he is unfit to ever hold the office of president. We can never allow him anywhere near that office again. And we never will.“We have 42 days to the Democratic convention and 119 days to the general election … it is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.” More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Gretchen Whitmer says she won’t run as nominee even if Biden stands down

      by

      The Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said she would not run for the Democratic nomination for president this year even if Joe Biden cedes to growing pressure and steps aside.“It’s a distraction more than anything,” Whitmer told the Associated Press, in an interview to promote her new memoir, True Gretch, which will be published on Tuesday.“I don’t like seeing my name in articles like that because I’m totally focused on governing and campaigning for the [Biden-Kamala Harris] ticket.”Whitmer was referring to a Politico report last week, which said that after Biden’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump in Atlanta in June, Whitmer called the president’s re-election campaign chairperson, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to say Michigan – a battleground state – was no longer winnable.In her immediate response to that report, Whitmer said she was “proud to support Joe Biden as our nominee and I am behind him 100% in the fight to defeat Donald Trump”.Politico said its source was “someone close to a potential 2028 Whitmer rival for the Democratic presidential nomination”.Speaking to the AP, Whitmer said: “I think it’s frustrating that there are news outlets that will publish something that a potential future opponent’s staff person would say.”Few doubt Whitmer will run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. Other governors thought likely to run for that nomination include Wes Moore of Maryland, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gavin Newsom of California and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.Biden is attempting to quash calls for him to quit from those who believe that at 81 he is too old and infirm to campaign and govern effectively. The volume of those concerns amplified considerably after his 27 June debate with his presidential predecessor.On Monday, Biden lashed out at “elites in the party”, telling MSNBC: “If any of these guys don’t think I should run, run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president – challenge me at the convention!”Whitmer says she will not do that but her ambitions remain on display.As the Guardian revealed last week, her book ends with a passage from Theodore Roosevelt’s famous “Man in the Arena” speech, about the need for leaders to take action.Speaking in Paris in 1910, the 26th president said in part: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”In her book, Whitmer adds: “Though these words were written more than a hundred years ago, they’re just as true today – except for two things. The ‘man’ may be a woman. And she may just be wearing fuchsia.” More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats to face pressure of revealing if they back Biden as Congress reconvenes

      by

      Washington is bracing for what may be one of the most politically significant weeks in recent memory, as the US Congress reconvenes Monday and leading Democratic lawmakers will face pressure to reveal openly if they plan to stick with Joe Biden as their nominee for re-election.Pressure continued to mount on Sunday as some prominent House Democrats reportedly told caucus leader Hakeem Jeffries in a virtual meeting that they believe the president should step aside in the race after his poor debate performance against Donald Trump and an underwhelming ABC interview.The Senate and House of Representatives will both be in session in Washington simultaneously for the first time since the debate, during which Biden struggled to make his points, became muddled and couldn’t effectively parry a litany of attacks and lies from the former president.This drew renewed scrutiny to Biden’s ability to serve as president for another four years as, at 81, he is already the oldest president in US history and had been suffering in the polls over questions over his mental fitness and stamina.Lawmakers’ return to Capitol Hill could pressure party leaders known to be influential with Biden, including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and South Carolina congressman James Clyburn, as well as Jeffries, to signal definitively if they think Biden should stay in the race, and also give those urging him to quit the opportunity to rally support.“I think that he’s got to go out there this week and show the American public that he is still that Joe Biden that they have come to know and love. I take him at his word. I believe that he can do it, but I think that this is a really critical week. I do think the clock is ticking,” Democratic senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut told CNN in an interview Sunday morning.But later, reports began surfacing that in the afternoon meeting with Jeffries, Congressmen Jerry Nadler of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland were apparently among a significant clutch of lawmakers who told Jeffries that Biden should leave the presidential race, with the New York Times reporting this was the consensus. Jeffries has not revealed his hand.In the days since the debate and ABC interview, a small number of Democratic congressman have openly called on Biden to step down, and other reports emerged that Virginia senator Mark Warner was looking to assemble a group of Democrats from the upper chamber to encourage Biden to quit his crisis-hit re-election campaign. That had been expected to lead to a key private meeting for senators with Warner on Monday but the effort is now more likely to continue with smaller-scale conversations after too much became public, the Associated press reported late on Sunday.Biden spent Sunday campaigning in Pennsylvania, where the state’s Democratic senator John Fetterman likened Biden’s struggles to his own recovery from a stroke and said: “I know what it’s like to have a rough debate, and I’m standing here as your senator.”Biden insisted to supporters in Philadelphia that he was the person to reunite America in a second term. Last Friday to ABC he said his debate performance was “a bad night”, while downplaying the importance of his low approval ratings and insisting he is capable of doing the job.But there were more questions on Sunday and those will only mount this week.“The interview didn’t put concerns to rest. No single interview is going to do that,” Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, who is expected to win election as California’s senator in November, said on NBC News.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Either he has to win overwhelmingly, or he has to pass the torch to someone who can. It’s as simple as that.”Schiff said Vice-President Kamala Harris could beat Trump decisively and some House lawmakers reportedly also told Jeffries in their virtual meeting that Harris was the most likely person to take over the nomination. The House Democratic caucus is expected to meet in person Tuesday.Biden’s exit from the race would be a historic upheaval that the United States has not seen in decades, and could kick off a vigorous contest ahead of the party’s convention six weeks from now in Chicago where the nominee is traditionally anointed.The last president to decline to seek re-election was Lyndon B Johnson, who abandoned his campaign in 1968 amid the carnage of the Vietnam War, slumping approval ratings and concerns about his own health. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats don’t just need a new candidate. They need a reckoning | Osita Nwanevu

      by

      It was 17 years ago that Joe Biden ⁠– having just launched a second, hopeless bid for the presidency, his first having been toppled, 20 years earlier, by his habit of talking nonsense ⁠– infamously offered Barack Obama a compliment he thought magnanimous: “You got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he told the New York Observer. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” It was the political gaffe as art form ⁠– at once a casually, shockingly ugly assessment of Black leaders and candidates like Jesse Jackson and Shirley Chisholm and a condescending slight against the party’s fastest rising star, who was more than merely “articulate”. His many failures aside, Obama won that primary, and the presidency, on his extraordinary gifts as a communicator.On Friday, Obama tried, rather wanly, to put those gifts to use on the behalf of his friend and former rival one more time. “Bad debate nights happen,” he posted on X after the debacle the night before. “Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.” It was more than a “bad debate night”, though, as all who tuned in saw for themselves. After months of speculation and argument about his condition and in what could be the final, gutting irony of his political career, Biden proved unprecedentedly and perhaps fatally inarticulate. Since he took office, Biden and his backers have labored mightily to convince the American people he’s well enough not only to take on the duties of the presidency but to save American democracy. As it stands today, it’s doubtful he can even save himself.It’s been reported now that Obama and other party leaders, their initial displays of support aside, have been harboring doubts about Biden’s viability as a candidate; the Democratic omertà has only been broken within the last few days. The critical question is why there wasn’t movement to encourage Biden to drop out sooner. Leaks have been flooding out about the Biden team’s extraordinary insularity and insecurity, but what’s happened with Biden doesn’t outwardly seem terribly different from the way Hillary Clinton coasted to the nomination with only Bernie Sanders in opposition in 2016 or the inertia that kept Dianne Feinstein and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in their posts even as their age became a liability.It’s clearly difficult for Democrats to dislodge their most important figures even when political realities suggest that they should; all told, the Democratic party is best understood less as a political party organized to enact or protect specific policies than as a professional association committed to protecting its most valued members.Until now, that included Biden. Years of disdain from the party’s leadership were set aside after he beat Trump in 2020 ⁠– while there was open conversation that year about the unlikeliness of a second term, no one in the party wound up pushing seriously for a primary or a replacement even as his poll numbers slid and questions about his health emerged. It became clear that Democrats would only topple him in an emergency. After his debate performance, he finally presented them with one. And part of the alarm now gripping the party stems from the realization that Biden’s state might cost the seats of moderate Democrats in Congress, who may have to spend their campaigns parrying questions about his health. On Tuesday, Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat in a district Donald Trump won by seven points in 2020, published an op-ed in response to Biden’s debate performance saying he’d be fine with Trump winning the election. “Unlike Biden and many others, I refuse to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system,” he wrote.Golden will remain a Democrat in good standing. They need him, vital as candidates like him are to the Democratic task of securing safe, stable and comfortable majorities that achieve as little major policy change as moderates can manage to constrain them to. The Democratic party, in other words, tolerates figures like Golden because it’s governed less by vision than by fear. It was fear that put Biden over Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primary. It was fear that prevented a serious field of alternative candidates from mounting primary challenges against Biden. And it’s fear, swollen into a full-blown panic, that’s shaping the party’s harried actions and deliberations now.There is, in fairness, much to be afraid of. Contrary to the slander of party moderates, serious progressive critiques of the Democratic establishment under Biden have been leveled precisely because the left gravely understands what another Trump term could mean for the country. Up until now, part of the Democratic party’s strategy for avoiding one has been to concede ground to the right ⁠– unable to alter perceptions on Biden’s age and inflation, it’s spent the last few months trying to look tough on undocumented immigration and student protests.That hasn’t worked and neither have the hits against Trump. The debate was supposed to turn the tide. Instead, it clarified the risk the Democratic party now faces ⁠– not only that it might lose to Trump but that it might lose in a way that will damage the party and the country in the long run, bolstering the power of a right now indisputably tilting towards fascism. Democrats simply cannot spend the next four months insisting to the American people that Joe Biden is fit for another four years as president. Doing so would push Americans more deeply into the political nihilism that has made Trump an attractive prospect for so many and that has, rightly or wrongly, encouraged many more Americans to disengage from a political system they see as hopelessly tainted by dishonesty and corruption. It would, in sum, continue the corrosion of the faith in politics Biden promised to help restore in the first place.Instead, the Democratic party should prove to justifiably cynical voters that it’s capable of leveling with them and making a thorny decision in the country’s best interests. That alone won’t inspire confidence, but offering more than a purely defensive vision for the party and the country’s future might help. As it stands, the major items on what may or may not be Biden’s second term agenda haven’t been defined. Meanwhile, on the right, the platforms released by the Trump campaign and the Heritage Foundation, along with the conservative supreme court’s rulings ending Chevron deference and bolstering presidential immunity, have offered up horrifying glimpses of the vision that will prevail in America if Democrats can’t develop and sell a better one.The right knows where it wants to take the country in the next four years and the next 40; it’s willing to play the long game to get there. And there’s no reason whatsoever why the left shouldn’t take up a competing project at least as bold and ambitious: a plan not just to save the institutions of the republic we call “American democracy” by habit in the near term, but to make American democracy fully real at a moment in which we have every reason to doubt the American people ⁠– not just a subset of them, and not just the wealthy ⁠– truly rule.But Democrats will be impotent and unconvincing messengers on democracy as long as they remain beholden to the feudal political culture this crisis has exposed for all to see. If the party that let Biden glide to this point is democracy’s last line of defense ⁠– a collection of now tittering and feuding fiefdoms and cliques united less by solid goals than by mutual self-interest and inertia ⁠– then democracy is done for, plain and simple. It is time for a new candidate, yes. But it is also time for a reckoning.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More