Getting Real

Created
Mon, 04/03/2024 - 02:30
Updated
Mon, 04/03/2024 - 02:30
Playing the hand you are dealt Jonathan Last throws water on the magical thinking about skittish Democrats replacing Joe Biden on their presidential ticket. (Really? Are we still talking about this?) Scary New York Times polls? How about scarier polls? Virtually all the also-mentions poll worse than Biden against Trump: Harris, Newsome, Whitmer and Shapiro. Ten days ago already, Lawrence O’Donnell’s “the governing will not be televised” monologue refuted Ezra Klein’s speculation about Democrats replacing Biden. If that was not sufficient to dispel the notion that the DNC is going to rub a monkey’s paw and produce a younger presidential candidate, Last provides bullets on why it won’t (The Atlantic): Democrats may have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but not since 2018. Unless the carnage abates in Gaza soon, there will exist the potential for protests in Chicago that (for those of a certain age) will evoke bad memories from 1968. Even the rowdies of The Big Tent Party will want to avoid that kind of bad press. All the more reason for DNC and FBI bloodhounds to alert on any ratfucking schemes the RNC or Russia may cook up to recreate that chaos on Democrats’ “behalf.” Joe Biden is Joe Biden. He isn’t going to win a 10-point, realigning victory. But his path to reelection is clear: Focus like a laser on suburban and working-class white voters in a handful of swing states. Remind them that Trump is a chaos agent who wrecked the…