One person familiar with President Biden’s thinking cautioned that he had not yet made up his mind to leave the race, after three weeks of insisting that almost nothing would drive him out.
What are “the voters” going to do about it? “Voters” don’t determine the party nominee or the president. The US isn’t a democracy. The party bosses committed to going down with the ship aren’t doing that because they believe Biden stands a better chance of keeping the presidency; they’ve all publicly resigned themselves to a second Trump term. The opportunists speculated for replacement as the party nominee all know they stand an even worse chance than Biden at being selected for the presidency. The current internal conflict among the party elite is people who don’t expect the party to hold power, and are fighting over what they think will best advance their personal careers by 2028 after Trump leaves office and Biden’s dead (from old age, Mr. FBI).
The media and donors suddenly pushing for replacement aren’t doing that because they’re afraid Biden’s public deterioration might make voters vote Trump into office. They’ll continue to profit whichever of the two is in office. They’re pushing for replacement because they rely on the mythology of the two-party system of liberal democracy in order to keep consumers consuming, investors investing, and voters voting. Most of the country doesn’t like Trump, and Biden is doing a bad job of both pretending to represent a meaningful alternative to Trump and pretending to actually be making any of the decisions nominally coming out of the white house. If Democrat voters lose immersion in the fantasy that they have influence and representation in the American system of government, they might start to become more inclined toward political activity outside the acceptable boundaries of “vote, consume, invest”. As we saw in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd (among others), once people start engaging in political activity that strays outside those boundaries, capital will feel vulnerable and react with violent police and military crackdowns to protect property.
Not vote for him. The donors seem to be awfully concerned about that, for the reasons you mentioned.
Note that I’m not saying this actually demonstrates that the voters have representation. We’re just being placated. What I’m saying is it creates the perception of rank-and-file influence, and that would be disastrous for the Democrats because they can’t have voters thinking they matter or getting any ideas. This extends the illusion of so-called democracy, so it’s not revolutionary, but it’s also a disaster for the Party itself because it also makes voters feel empowered to take further actions in the future.
If they remove Biden it lessens the contradictions in the short term, but in the long term it will only raise them when voters realize they don’t control the donor class.
What are “the voters” going to do about it? “Voters” don’t determine the party nominee or the president. The US isn’t a democracy. The party bosses committed to going down with the ship aren’t doing that because they believe Biden stands a better chance of keeping the presidency; they’ve all publicly resigned themselves to a second Trump term. The opportunists speculated for replacement as the party nominee all know they stand an even worse chance than Biden at being selected for the presidency. The current internal conflict among the party elite is people who don’t expect the party to hold power, and are fighting over what they think will best advance their personal careers by 2028 after Trump leaves office and Biden’s dead (from old age, Mr. FBI).
The media and donors suddenly pushing for replacement aren’t doing that because they’re afraid Biden’s public deterioration might make voters vote Trump into office. They’ll continue to profit whichever of the two is in office. They’re pushing for replacement because they rely on the mythology of the two-party system of liberal democracy in order to keep consumers consuming, investors investing, and voters voting. Most of the country doesn’t like Trump, and Biden is doing a bad job of both pretending to represent a meaningful alternative to Trump and pretending to actually be making any of the decisions nominally coming out of the white house. If Democrat voters lose immersion in the fantasy that they have influence and representation in the American system of government, they might start to become more inclined toward political activity outside the acceptable boundaries of “vote, consume, invest”. As we saw in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd (among others), once people start engaging in political activity that strays outside those boundaries, capital will feel vulnerable and react with violent police and military crackdowns to protect property.
Not vote for him. The donors seem to be awfully concerned about that, for the reasons you mentioned.
Note that I’m not saying this actually demonstrates that the voters have representation. We’re just being placated. What I’m saying is it creates the perception of rank-and-file influence, and that would be disastrous for the Democrats because they can’t have voters thinking they matter or getting any ideas. This extends the illusion of so-called democracy, so it’s not revolutionary, but it’s also a disaster for the Party itself because it also makes voters feel empowered to take further actions in the future.
If they remove Biden it lessens the contradictions in the short term, but in the long term it will only raise them when voters realize they don’t control the donor class.