I've often had similar thoughts of sports convo analogies for some of the discussions here. Here's one I've been sitting on for a while: imagine you and your buddies are watching the game on Sunday afternoon, and at the end of the 3rd quarter your team is down by a TD and is facing a 3rd & 7 on their on 40. And you say "for the love of god, put the ball in the air, don't get cute and try to run it!", and your buddy says "yeah but that's what they'll be expecting", and you get into a little argument about whether they should run or pass. But the decision the actual coach is making goes way beyond "run or pass" -- he's got dozens of plays in the playbook with a bunch of variations, and he's managing a crap-ton of info about his personnel, the opponent's personnel, his and their tendencies for the whole season, what worked well in practice, what his eyes-in-the-sky is telling him, etc.
You can have a great time arguing "run or pass" or even get really worked up about it, and maybe when they try a draw and get 3 yards and have to punt, you yell "fire the coach!" at the TV, but it's all for fun and has practically nothing to do with reality.
These are good points. Nate's observation is certainly not new (see eg this comic) but I think you've captured why that sort of thinking is so much less apt to survive for long in sports world.
Meanwhile, elected office-holders are starting to bail on Biden. And if you read the smoke-signals carefully, so are some of the elder statesmen in the party, like James Clyburn and Barack Obama. No, they’re not saying this explicitly — but that Obama failed to refute a Washington Post story that suggested he has private doubts about Biden is what we poker players call a “tell”.
He and the betting markets are putting the odds of Biden not being the candidate at >50%.
OK I guess I'll agree with the majority here -- Biden doesn't want to step down and there's too much risk and complication to make an open-and-shut case for it, so he'll be the one on the ballot in November.
But I'm wondering if we'll start to see a shift in tactics from here on out, where there's a concerted effort to try to raise Harris' profile, get her more visibly involved and burnish her reputation, and the Biden messaging starts shifting away from "He's great, don't believe your lying eyes" to "He's fine, but the future is hard to predict, and Harris is ready to step in should the need arise".
Either way, it's Trump's election to lose at this point. And if anyone could lose it in this situation, he can, but it will take more than just the usual Trumpiness.
"I think most of the “replace Biden” folks aren’t going to vote for him anyway."
Following up on Jay's comment, who exactly do you have in mind in this category and how do you arrive at your estimate of "most"?
In a recent poll, about 80% of Democrats think Biden is too old to be president. The people I've read or talked to who are asking/begging for someone else to take his place are Democrats or Never-Trumpers who are terrified of a Trump presidency, who liked Biden's first term, and who will absolutely vote for Biden if he doesn't step down, but who are understandably afraid that at this point he's quite likely to lose and would rather roll the dice with someone else. They think he'll lose because of what they think the non-committed voters out there will do, not because of what they themselves will do.
We each have our own experiences but I think you're delusional if you think the push for replacement is coming primarily from people who won't be ticking off the "D" box no matter what come November.
Checking recent headlines, looks like the world will be budging them soon. Reminds me of the line from Sun Also Rises about how Mike went bankrupt — gradually, and then suddenly.
@LeeEsq -- the people who are calling for Biden to step down are just as scared as you are about a Trump presidency. They just think that "rallying around Biden" is more likely to lead to Trump winning than finding a new candidate. There's no point in calling all hands on deck if the ship is sinking fast and there's no way to fix it, people need to be heading to the lifeboats at that point.
People can obviously disagree on what the best course is, but talking about how bad Trump is in this context doesn't make any rational sense at all. Everyone you're thinking about agrees on that -- the disagreement is about the best way to stop that from happening.
In all the discussions about what happens next, I'm not sure many people considered the possibility that Biden's very public struggles would provide the permission for a lot of folks to reveal information that they had previously been sitting on. Seems like he's going to be facing a flood of dammed-up and damning observations.
There was a set of people who were worried but who wanted to believe, and Thursday night was the fatal blow to their hope -- some are feeling quite angry at and betrayed by the party leadership, who they feel must have been lying to them all this time. And there are others who are determined to keep the faith and who are approaching the former group very much like a faith community treats (ex-)members who have lost the faith -- too weak to hold on to their belief in the face of adversity, or perhaps never truly believers in the first place.
Yes, I can even understand the argument that Biden's performance won't even hurt him much -- to me as a political junkie, Trump's firehose of BS was just normal expected Trump but Biden's struggles to express himself were much worse than expected; but I can't claim to understand the thought process of someone who's still undecided at this point (though I don't think the junkie optimists can either). Maybe the "cold" gambit is enough to sway them, maybe they forgot how crazy Trump is in general and were turned off by seeing it live again... who knows.
Yeah it's so bizarre. Both to think that people's assessment of Biden's chances have anything to do with their personal life struggles, and to think that white males don't have personal life struggles and all non-white-males do.
Also it's hard to process the white males in this chat insisting that other white males are too blinded by their race and gender to appreciate the good chances of the white male candidate.
If I were advising the Dem leadership (still waiting for the phone call, any day now), I'd say that at this point they should just take as given that Trump will likely win in November regardless of what direction they go, and focus on what will minimize the damage for all the down-ballot races. Like, maybe they give D candidates the leash to acknowledge Biden's weakness and to even use that in their campaign, to say how it's even more important that folks who don't like Trump make sure to get out and vote for the people who will be in a position to block him.
Similarly, to the extent that they have any control over what Biden himself decides, the decision should be based on whether the state Dem candidates are better off with low-variance Biden or high-variance last minute substitute.
My wife and I watched about 60 seconds near the beginning and couldn’t handle it - Trump on the attack and all over the place, Biden’s age showing. Too depressing to keep going.
“Elite” here basically means “people in positions of governmental or cultural power.” All the time spent kvetching about how the proles are being willingly fooled would be better spent looking at how the decision makers themselves were and are making bad decisions due in part to similar “misinformation”, with wider impact.
The question in my mind is, if not for October 7 and his responses to that, would he still have lost? Is this about general disapproval from folks in his new territory, or really just the rift over Israel/Palestine?
Whoa there chief - the title is “22 of the Best Pizzas…”, not “The 22 Best Pizzas….”. It’s an interesting roundup, mostly about how the traditional approach has been adapted in various places around the country, but calling just these The Best would be crazy (especially for a NYC paper).
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Political Junkies Verses Sports Fans: Who Is More in Touch with Reality?”
I've often had similar thoughts of sports convo analogies for some of the discussions here. Here's one I've been sitting on for a while: imagine you and your buddies are watching the game on Sunday afternoon, and at the end of the 3rd quarter your team is down by a TD and is facing a 3rd & 7 on their on 40. And you say "for the love of god, put the ball in the air, don't get cute and try to run it!", and your buddy says "yeah but that's what they'll be expecting", and you get into a little argument about whether they should run or pass. But the decision the actual coach is making goes way beyond "run or pass" -- he's got dozens of plays in the playbook with a bunch of variations, and he's managing a crap-ton of info about his personnel, the opponent's personnel, his and their tendencies for the whole season, what worked well in practice, what his eyes-in-the-sky is telling him, etc.
You can have a great time arguing "run or pass" or even get really worked up about it, and maybe when they try a draw and get 3 yards and have to punt, you yell "fire the coach!" at the TV, but it's all for fun and has practically nothing to do with reality.
"
No, don’t fall for it - he’s just trying to trick the Democrats into switching!
"
These are good points. Nate's observation is certainly not new (see eg this comic) but I think you've captured why that sort of thinking is so much less apt to survive for long in sports world.
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules: 2024 Special Edition”
I'm sure that's good enough for a solid 40% of the electorate, maybe even more.
"
Nate Silver says:
He and the betting markets are putting the odds of Biden not being the candidate at >50%.
"
OK I guess I'll agree with the majority here -- Biden doesn't want to step down and there's too much risk and complication to make an open-and-shut case for it, so he'll be the one on the ballot in November.
But I'm wondering if we'll start to see a shift in tactics from here on out, where there's a concerted effort to try to raise Harris' profile, get her more visibly involved and burnish her reputation, and the Biden messaging starts shifting away from "He's great, don't believe your lying eyes" to "He's fine, but the future is hard to predict, and Harris is ready to step in should the need arise".
Either way, it's Trump's election to lose at this point. And if anyone could lose it in this situation, he can, but it will take more than just the usual Trumpiness.
On “Sleepwalking Towards Another Trump Presidency”
"I think most of the “replace Biden” folks aren’t going to vote for him anyway."
Following up on Jay's comment, who exactly do you have in mind in this category and how do you arrive at your estimate of "most"?
In a recent poll, about 80% of Democrats think Biden is too old to be president. The people I've read or talked to who are asking/begging for someone else to take his place are Democrats or Never-Trumpers who are terrified of a Trump presidency, who liked Biden's first term, and who will absolutely vote for Biden if he doesn't step down, but who are understandably afraid that at this point he's quite likely to lose and would rather roll the dice with someone else. They think he'll lose because of what they think the non-committed voters out there will do, not because of what they themselves will do.
We each have our own experiences but I think you're delusional if you think the push for replacement is coming primarily from people who won't be ticking off the "D" box no matter what come November.
"
Checking recent headlines, looks like the world will be budging them soon. Reminds me of the line from Sun Also Rises about how Mike went bankrupt — gradually, and then suddenly.
"
@LeeEsq -- the people who are calling for Biden to step down are just as scared as you are about a Trump presidency. They just think that "rallying around Biden" is more likely to lead to Trump winning than finding a new candidate. There's no point in calling all hands on deck if the ship is sinking fast and there's no way to fix it, people need to be heading to the lifeboats at that point.
People can obviously disagree on what the best course is, but talking about how bad Trump is in this context doesn't make any rational sense at all. Everyone you're thinking about agrees on that -- the disagreement is about the best way to stop that from happening.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/1/2024”
In all the discussions about what happens next, I'm not sure many people considered the possibility that Biden's very public struggles would provide the permission for a lot of folks to reveal information that they had previously been sitting on. Seems like he's going to be facing a flood of dammed-up and damning observations.
On “Sleepwalking Towards Another Trump Presidency”
There was a set of people who were worried but who wanted to believe, and Thursday night was the fatal blow to their hope -- some are feeling quite angry at and betrayed by the party leadership, who they feel must have been lying to them all this time. And there are others who are determined to keep the faith and who are approaching the former group very much like a faith community treats (ex-)members who have lost the faith -- too weak to hold on to their belief in the face of adversity, or perhaps never truly believers in the first place.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/1/2024”
Bad guess, Rubin is at WaPo.
On “About Last Night: Debate Debacle Edition”
Yes, I can even understand the argument that Biden's performance won't even hurt him much -- to me as a political junkie, Trump's firehose of BS was just normal expected Trump but Biden's struggles to express himself were much worse than expected; but I can't claim to understand the thought process of someone who's still undecided at this point (though I don't think the junkie optimists can either). Maybe the "cold" gambit is enough to sway them, maybe they forgot how crazy Trump is in general and were turned off by seeing it live again... who knows.
"
Yeah it's so bizarre. Both to think that people's assessment of Biden's chances have anything to do with their personal life struggles, and to think that white males don't have personal life struggles and all non-white-males do.
Also it's hard to process the white males in this chat insisting that other white males are too blinded by their race and gender to appreciate the good chances of the white male candidate.
"
Would you put $100 at even odds on it? Biden could still win but I don't think it's 50-50 -- I'd be willing to take the other side of that bet.
"
What do you think Biden's odds are of winning the election? Would you bet $100 at even odds on it?
"
C'mon man, he had a cold. Who among us doesn't lose all ability to form complete or coherent sentences when they're sick?
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/24/2024”
If I were advising the Dem leadership (still waiting for the phone call, any day now), I'd say that at this point they should just take as given that Trump will likely win in November regardless of what direction they go, and focus on what will minimize the damage for all the down-ballot races. Like, maybe they give D candidates the leash to acknowledge Biden's weakness and to even use that in their campaign, to say how it's even more important that folks who don't like Trump make sure to get out and vote for the people who will be in a position to block him.
Similarly, to the extent that they have any control over what Biden himself decides, the decision should be based on whether the state Dem candidates are better off with low-variance Biden or high-variance last minute substitute.
"
I will try hard not to, so that I can get some sleep tonight.
"
What’s the score?
My wife and I watched about 60 seconds near the beginning and couldn’t handle it - Trump on the attack and all over the place, Biden’s age showing. Too depressing to keep going.
On “From Matt Yglesias: Elite misinformation is an underrated problem”
Perhaps, but then you’re not really questioning the term “elite”, you’re questioning the direction of the arrow of misinformation
"
“Elite” here basically means “people in positions of governmental or cultural power.” All the time spent kvetching about how the proles are being willingly fooled would be better spent looking at how the decision makers themselves were and are making bad decisions due in part to similar “misinformation”, with wider impact.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/24/2024”
Sounds plausible- I confess I didn’t put any time into actually researching possible answers to my question, so thank you for doing that work for me.
"
The question in my mind is, if not for October 7 and his responses to that, would he still have lost? Is this about general disapproval from folks in his new territory, or really just the rift over Israel/Palestine?
"
Whoa there chief - the title is “22 of the Best Pizzas…”, not “The 22 Best Pizzas….”. It’s an interesting roundup, mostly about how the traditional approach has been adapted in various places around the country, but calling just these The Best would be crazy (especially for a NYC paper).
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.