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Whatever happens over the next few days, Democrats will have to unify and get down to the business of beating Donald Trump and the pool boy he has chosen as his running mate.
There has rarely been an environment as target-rich as the Republican National Convention that is going on right now in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wednesday night, they put up a smirking hillbilly as their nominee for vice president. Last night, they nominated as their candidate for president a serial sexual abuser, a judicially acknowledged rapist who had to post a $92 million bond to cover what he owes the woman he raped while he appeals his loss of a trial on charges he defamed her, a man convicted of felonies related to paying off a porn star to keep silent about their sexual encounter, a man who brags about appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned women’s constitutional right to abortion, and the man who incited an insurrection at the United States Capitol intended to overthrow the results of the last presidential election, which he lost.
Is that enough for you? There’s more. The Republican nominees for president and vice president both want Vladimir Putin to win his war against Ukraine, and they want to disassemble the most important defensive alliance against authoritarianism in the history of the modern world. Trump is a fascist who wants to be a dictator for life, and the entire Democratic Party—and most of his own party—knows it.
So, with a Republican Party that has been transformed by Donald Trump into a criminal enterprise to satisfy his own lust for money and power, why aren’t Democrats making hay of the spectacle in Milwaukee and readying themselves to win a landslide in November? Why are they instead engaged in what we have to at this point call what it is: an orgy of self-flagellation?
Have a look at the headlines in my newsfeed this afternoon, only hours before the Republicans crown their felonious prince:
“Biden appears to be dropping out.” New York Times
“Walls close in on Biden.” Axios
“Pelosi has told some House Democrats she believes Biden can be convinced soon to exit the presidential race.” Washington Post
“The end of Biden’s candidacy approaches.” The Atlantic
“The paralysis of the Democratic Party.” The New Yorker
“Biden weighs presidential race exit as Trump prepares for big moment.” Reuters
“People close to Biden say he appears to accept he may have to leave the race.” New York Times
“Biden in crisis.” Politico
“Obama tells allies Biden needs to seriously consider his viability to win reelection.” Washington Post
These headlines appeared in my newsfeed in just the last couple of hours. When you dive into the stories, the news gets worse. Biden is behind in national polls by four points, or six points, depending on who you listen to. Biden is behind in every battleground state.
The split in Democratic Party unity among leaders is getting worse. In a call with House lawmakers, Biden blew up at Representative Jason Crow, saying to him, “Tell me something you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son.” Crow is a former Ranger who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Crow reportedly remained sanguine, telling Biden, “It’s not breaking through, Mr. President, to our voters.” Biden blew up at Crow again, raising his voice as he said, “You oughta talk about it! On national security, nobody has been a better president than I’ve been. Name me one. Name me one! So I don’t want to hear that crap!”
It’s leading to real dissension and a backlash against the party by an important Democratic Party faction. I just saw another headline in the Daily Beast, posted at 6:46 p.m., just a half hour ago: “1,400 Black Women Sign Letter Condemning Dems for Plotting to Ditch Biden.” The story describes the women as “Black women leaders” who include the first Black woman elected to the Senate and a former mayor of Atlanta.
You will notice that there is not a single headline reporting on what grassroots Democrats are thinking about who should be at the top of the ticket come November. Every person quoted is either an elected Democratic Party official or a former elected official or a person who “wishes to remain anonymous.” Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo makes the valid point that the Democratic leaders quoted all day in the stories flooding everyone’s inboxes “are channeling the views of their members, members who either fear they will lose office or not be in the majority.”
That may be true, but this is painful stuff. It describes a Democratic Party coming apart at its seams. And the party is disintegrating during the Republican National Convention when Democrats should be out there pointing out the lies spewing from the mouth of every speaker, the truth about Republicans’ real position on the issue of abortion which they are concealing from the audience they are seeking to reach, and the outright authoritarian spectacle of the convention’s hero worship of an avowed and unrepentant criminal, Donald Trump.
The cracks in the Democratic Party started to show on the night of President Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump, and they have only widened since then. At this point, practically every sign out there points to Joe Biden relinquishing his position as the nominee of the Democratic Party. Whether this will happen, how it may happen, and when are questions that cannot be answered at this moment. That these are the questions in the air at all among Democrats is…I’m going to use a word I hate but which is sadly apt…unfortunate.
In the middle of all this, President Biden has come down with COVID, yet another unfortunate development for Biden personally and for Democrats in general. My wife Tracy and I went over to Walgreens today and got COVID vaccinations, and when we came home after lunch, both of us felt as many people often do after one of these shots. We felt out of sorts, headachy, even a little disoriented.
And then it came to us. We are Democrats, we felt like Democrats are feeling right now.
But we’ve been here before, all of us. We’ve gone through the COVID pandemic reactions to the vaccine before, and we’ll endure what our party is going through right now with its headaches and lack of focus and dissention in the Democratic body politic. Maybe the worst thing of all about this time in our political lives is the uncertainty. We don’t know what’s next, and that is never a good feeling, especially with the election just over a hundred days away.
It is looking like we will know a lot more about where we stand within a few days. If Biden is going to stay in the race, we’ll know that. If he decides to relinquish the reins, I don’t see any way he can hand them to anyone other than Kamala Harris. If that happens, it will be a different contest, and that is for sure. She is younger, she is energetic, she is smart as a whip. If Biden pulls out, it will be a shock to the system of the Democratic Party, and maybe that is what we need right now.
Whatever happens over the next few days, we will have to unify and get down to the business of beating Donald Trump and the pool boy he has chosen as his running mate. You look at those two and the records they both have on abortion, on Ukraine, on cozying up to the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, on the madness of tariffs and cutting taxes on the wealthy, and their contempt for our democracy and what this country has always stood for, and you know in your heart, we can beat them in November.
It will take truth-telling by Democrats to themselves and a lot of hard work, but we can do it. We have been presented with a challenge. We have faced far worse challenges before, and we have risen to meet them, and we have prevailed.
With all the baggage we carry as a nation, Democrats elected the first Black president in this nation’s history. We can win this election, too. Unite. Fight. Stay strong. Move forward. We can do it.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
You can read Lucian Truscott's daily articles at luciantruscott.substack.com. We encourage our readers to get a subscription.
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