Ahead of a key interview for Biden, now is not the time to panic, now is the time to give Biden some time and stand by him, unless Biden has more severe meltdowns in the near future, which he has not yet
(Traduce en español/translate to Spanish) By Brian E. Frydenborg (Twitter @bfry1981, Threads @bfchugginalong, LinkedIn, Facebook, Substack with exclusive informal content) July 4, 2024 UPDATED July 12 2:10 PM EST with new polling in section 7 showing Biden is closing his gaps significantly nationally and in the main swing states; because of YOU, Real Context News surpassed one million content views on January 1, 2023, but I still need your help, please keep sharing my work and consider also donating! Real Context News produces commissioned content for clients upon request at its discretion.
SILVER SPRING—On a day in which we just learned President Joe Biden’s economy added a preliminary total of over 200,000 jobs in June—more than expected—and just hours before a crucial, possibly-make-or-break interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos tonight (I think Biden will do really well in it), let me say: dear fellow Democrats and independents, Republicans, and anyone else who has been supporting or are considering supporting Biden: TURN OFF THE NEWS (except for Biden’s interview tonight). Go do something not related to politics. Wait until Biden’s public events, watch them live if you can, and see how our man does. If he does well or even just ok consistently with a few hiccups here and there, we’re fine for now and the frequency and volume of panic will recede. If he continues to do well after for the bulk of the remaining campaign, we will be competitive until the end. Give him a few chances and we really should be ok and stop the internal hemorrhaging inside the Democratic Party caused by Biden’s terrible performance at the debate last week and amplified greatly by the absolutely hysterical media coverage of Biden’s performance.
Here are the main reasons why I am not giving up.
1.) Time
It would be one thing if this debate had happened in October or even September, but, people, we have four freakin’ months left in this campaign. That is A LOT of time for Biden to change the narrative and to get a steady stream of new footage of himself being far more confident, capable, vigorous, and articulate than the disaster that was this first debate. If there is far more footage that is more recent of Biden out there in the final weeks and days of the election that is much better, it is possible that the concerns spurred by this debate performance will be largely overcome, that performance seen by enough voters as an aberration. And that is a lot more time for insurrectionist Trump to keep producing daily outrages that will only turn more and more voters off over time and add to his long list of negatives more and more. Insurrectionist Trump will be insurrectionist Trump and as people pay more and more attention as the race gets closer and closer to ending, he will continue to give plenty of new reasons for voters to turn against him and pick Biden.
2.) Voters Themselves
There are characteristics of voters which can work very much in Biden’s favor. The first is that many people are like Dory from Finding Nemo: they don’t remember or consider much that isn’t recent and forget a lot of things. So, playing into the first element, this can really work well for Biden as long as avoids any repeat performances à la this debate or only has a few more such incidents, especially the closer we get to Election Day.
Additionally, voters, even many of the most stupid ones, have levels of complexity: they generally aren’t going to cast their vote based on one thing, the main exceptions being those voters who are single-issue voters (especially on guns and abortion). For most voters, an array of multiple issues matter; character and truth-telling matter; the candidate not being a convicted-felon matters; the candidate not being an insurrectionist matters; the team the candidate will surround himself with and govern with matters; and preserving democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law matters. And for many people—including, I am anticipating by the end, most independents by a good margin—insurrectionist Trump is far inferior to Biden on most or all of these. One debate weighed against all this should not and will l not be what defines this election, nor be what decides people’s votes.
3.) Democracy
Unapologetic insurrectionist and fascist Donald Trump is, simply put, very likely an extinction-level event for our democratic republic and plenty of independent voters know this. More and more people are learning about the terrifying and far-reaching Project 2025, the Republican Party’s blueprint for a fascist America, and, simply put, many voters will say having an old president who isn’t 100% all of the time and has occasional senior moments is a small price to pay to preserve our democracy, period.
4.) Character and the Truth
While Biden was confused and jumbled his facts during the debate, insurrectionist Trump gaslit the whole time he was on stage, deliberately lying in incredible ways and even taking credit for Obama and Biden programs. Americans know Biden is way more honest than insurrectionist Trump and most voters actually care about character, integrity and telling the truth. Even though Biden performed worse than his opponent in the debate, he still contrasted well with him on telling the truth and on character (Biden did not cheat on his wife with an adult film actress/producer and—when his wife was pregnant—a Playboy Playmate…). And throughout his political career, insurrectionist Trump has been known as a serial liar while Biden has always contrasted well with him in this way. Many voters will prefer an old man who occasionally has serious senior moments to a man who has lied more than any other president in U.S. history by far.
5.) Issues and Substance
Again, while Biden performed more poorly than insurrectionist Trump, most of the time he gave coherent answers that actually addressed the questions he was asked and showed he understood the issues at hand, though the exceptions to that were certainly glaring. His opponent, in contrast, was still terrible and answered almost nothing he was asked and demonstrated no understanding of policy, presented no substance. The debate may have gone worse for Biden, but he still scored points on insurrectionist Trump on issues and character even in the worst moment in his political career. The presidency is far more than public speaking, far more about picking and managing personnel, about behind-the-scenes engagement and policymaking, about forging and utilizing relationship, about crisis management, and about having knowledge and expertise on topics, not primarily performing well in a debate.
6.) People Don’t Just Vote for One Person, but a Team
It’s the Biden-Harris ticket with his solid cabinet with other great officials and the Democratic Party and their all-stars in Congress who are linked together in a common effort, led by Chuck Schumer and first Nancy Pelosi and now Hakeem Jeffries. As I noted before, empirically they are the most unified political party in Congress in American history and with one of the best-performances of a party for the first midterm for a presidential administration of the same party. If Joe stumbles or needs some help occasionally, he will never be alone in a quizshow/gameshow format, the country falling apart if Biden doesn’t have a quick quippy answer. Many voters will know that Biden has plenty of solid people on his team who will be there to support him, who have helped him deliver the most substantive legislative results by far of any president since Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, and will contrast them with the extremist wackos, weirdos, liars, felons, and dangerous fascists surrounding insurrectionist Trump now, who in his first term had some respectable people around him to restrain him and now seems to have mostly just sycophantic full MAGA cultists around him: there will be no adults in the room during a second Trump term. While Team Biden Democrats governs and governs well, Team MAGA sows chaos and division.
7.) Polling
In the week since the debate, you might have thought there would be a big drop in Biden’s support and a big increase in insurrectionist Trump’s, but there has been no large drop for Biden and no large bump up for insurrectionist Trump. If things were as bad as the media was claiming, you would think there would be a big change in the polling situation, but so far—as of the publishing of this article—there has only been a 2.2% shift towards insurrectionist Trump and away from Biden in the average aggregate of recent polling, per FiveThirtyEight’s weighted measure weighted measuring. Of course, this could change, but the current leads are leaks that can be plugged and the ship is not doomed to sink. If it does get worse, it may in part be because of a negative feedback loop created by the repetitive hysteria from the media. And even if it does get worse, it can also still get better: historically, the polls tend to shift significantly from this point in a general election to the end and are far, far more accurate in the final few months of the race after both conventions. We are nowhere near that yet and even after that disaster of a debate Biden is only averaging 2.4% behind insurrectionist Trump nationally (he was 0.2% behind him the day of the debate), with post-debate bumps in polls for a candidate perceived to have won a debate often disappearing not long after. UPDATE 7/12: Biden is now only 1.9% behind nationally, only a 1.7% shift in insurrectionist Trump’s favor post-debate, which was at its height on July 5 at 2.5%, meaning at most insurrectionist Trump gained 2.3% at Biden’s nadir and has lost 0.6% in his edge since then. And in all the key swing states, Biden is also gaining, recovering from post-debate nadirs:
- Arizona: 7/5 5.9%-7/12 4.1% +1.8%
- Georgia: 7/5 7.5%-7/12 4.8%, +2.7%
- Michigan: 7/5 2.7%-7/12 0.2%, +2.5%
- Nevada: 7/5 5.7%-7/12 4.4%, +1.3%
- North Carolina: 7/5 8.3%-7/12 5.8%, +3.5%
- Pennsylvania: 7/8 3.4%-7/12 2.9%, +0.5%
- Wisconsin: 7/5 1.9%-7/12 1.0%, +0.9%
- National: 7/5 2.5%-7/12 1.9%, 0.6%
Voters thus far are rejecting the media’s hysteria, telling them how to vote, distortion, and misframing of this election!
Also, crackpot conspiracy theorist and vaccine denialist Kennedy—unsupported by most in his own family, who mostly support Biden—only saw 1.1% in growth since the debate, but I fully expect his support to shrink a lot as people get more and more exposed to his sheer ignorance, insane ideas, and strange way of communicating and get beyond RFK, Jr.’s name recognition. Additionally, I expect him to take more votes from insurrectionist Trump than Biden as voters get more exposure to him since they align on some key issues and since I suspect more liberals than those open to Trump are liking him from name recognition while those open to Trump are more likely drawn to him because of his stances (the Kennedys as a political dynasty are not exactly popular with MAGA Republicans); indeed, there is some solid polling showing RFK, Jr. does take more from insurrectionist Trump even if not all the polling shows this.
8.) Debate Was One of Least-Watched in History
This was the least viewed presidential debate since 2004, twenty years ago, and while over 51 million Americans watched the debate, and that may seem like a lot, in 2020, 73 million watched the first Trump-Biden debate and 84 million watched the first Clinton-Trump debate in 2016. In fact, the only debates with fewer viewers were when Reagan debated an independent candidate—John Anderson, who only would end up receiving 6.6% of the vote—in 1980 before his debate with Jimmy Carter—both Clinton-Dole debates in 1996, all three Gore-Bush debates in 2000, and the second and third Bush-Kerry debates in 2004 (the third just barely so), but that’s it. This means that it was the ninth-least-viewed presidential debate since all the other general election presidential debates since 1960 had more viewers, all in Americas with fewer, often far fewer people, ninth out of thirty-six total presidential debates.
This is also the earliest debate in U.S. presidential general election debate history, the farthest from the general election, so for this reason and the low viewership, it may be one of the least impactful debates: people simply tuned the debate out and will have four more months of inputs affecting their vote before casting their ballots. Yet it is possible if the worries about Biden’s fitness grow dramatically, the effect of the debate might seem to grow in hindsight, but a week after, there has not been much movement in the polls, as noted.
9.) Not Many People Watch the News or Subscribe to Newspapers
The fact is that not that many people watch or read the major news outlets for a country of over 335 million people. Earlier this month pre-debate, ABC’s main primetime news show got over 7.1 million viewers, NBC’s 5.7 million, and CBS’s only about 4.3 million. As for cable news, earlier this month before the debate, only about 2 million people watch Fox News in primetime, less than 960,000 MSNBC, less than 465,000 CNN. In all these cases, the vast majority of viewers are 55 or older. Maybe older people will have more sympathy for Biden being… old?
As for newspapers, more than ten million subscribe to The New York Times, and less than four million to The Wall Street Journal, and about 3.6 million to The Washington Post. Overall, newspapers around the country have been rapidly declining in readership.
The media may be trying to push Biden out, but how many people are listening?
10.) The Media Overhypes Its Own Debates
While it could be subconscious (but may not be), as presidential debates are televised by corporate media companies and moderated and covered by their journalists, these journalists and media are executives benefit from hyping presidential debates so it is in their interests to make the debates seem like crucial, decisive moments in campaigns. And while they can be, that is hardly always the case and seems less so in recent years, so the media can very likely be overselling both how important the debate is overall and especially how important it is to voters, which consider them an input but often not the determinative one. For the news media, selling the debate’s importance is selling their own importance, getting subscriptions from consumers and money from advertisers (this debate had several commercial breaks). And debates are not something that are anything close to what a president does when he actually carries out his duties, only during election campaigns. Media executives also likely would wager that that fueling speculation about Biden being unfit or needing to step aside will also draw viewers even if it is a fake, premature crisis fueled largely by the pundit class and its own debate. Despite the media’s intense coverage of its debates, more often than not they are not game-changers.
11.) An Unintentional Assist from the Rogue Radical Activist Supreme Court
Between the historically disastrous two Supreme Court decisions—Chevron v. NRDC gutting regulatory agencies and the even somehow-even-worse presidential immunity one—and the debate, this has been a historically bad week for the country, not just Democrats. With the immunity ruling coming right on the heels of the debate, I think a lot of liberals are snapping, a lot of independents and even some principled Republicans are snapping, and I think, much like when Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade and energized larger turnouts for Democrats and other pro-choice voters across multiple elections and referenda, a backlash and a reckoning Republicans are totally not expecting are on their way and it can only help Democrats and Biden.
12.) More than Inspiration from the UK’s Labour Party
All the way back in 2016, just after Brexit, I warned that that own-goal of Britain might very well portend bad things for we former colonials back here across the ocean in America, that a similar rise in the extreme right here could mean trends that might lead to a Trump victory. Unfortunately, I was right.
Now, the historic, roaring, total victory for Labour giving it a supermajority and obliterating the power of the Conservative Tories who blundered into one crisis after another from Brexit until the present can have the opposite effect of Brexit and portend good things for Democrats and Biden. After all, the UK is more like the U.S. politically than any other European country. It is the only European country (other than oddball Malta) with essentially a two-party system, both are majority-white countries with very high levels of immigration and immigrants, and both hail from a predominantly Ango/English culture and political tradition. So it’s not crazy to suggest that the UK election results might be a preview of a strong showings for Democrats in November just as the disaster of Brexit was a preview of the horror show that was the Trump Administration.
Furthermore, voters richly rewarded a Labour Party led by a Sir Keir Starmer (now Prime Minister Starmer), who is largely regarded as boring and uninspiring and was not well-known, reminding voters that elections can be about parties and issues, not just one man.
13.) Joe Biden Has a Strong Record of Overcoming Being Underestimated
Will this be the time that Biden is not able to get back up after being knocked down? Time will tell. I was one of the only people who was bullish on Biden from the beginning of the primary back in 2019 and the only to predict basically exactly how the primary would unfold. People were surprised Obama elevated him to the vice presidency. People were saying it was naïve for Biden to try for bipartisan legislation as president only for him to get major, historic bipartisan legislation passed. He has a long career of overcoming adversity, and, in the past, those underestimating him have been proven wrong repeatedly. Don’t count joe out, not just yet.
Conclusion: Maybe 13 Lucky Reasons to Keep the Faith, Democrats?
Look, I am not going to sugar-coat it: I’m worried. That debate performance has really set Joe Biden back and given him less room for error. But we have to give Biden time to see if, as our captain, he can right the ship and get us through these troubled waters. Things very much can get better and may very well—I believe they will—so, again, stop the hysteria and ignore the hysterical.
But things could get worse, and I can see scenarios after some time passes where it might be the best move for Biden to step aside in favor of his vice president, Kamala Harris (who has better approval ratings that are improving and is polling better than you might have been hearing from the “experts”; she and Biden poll better than the rest against Trump so far, other than Michelle Obama who has repeatedly made it clear she does not want to run).
But we simply are not there yet, the current calls are irresponsible panic and premature, and we have all these solid reasons to be hopeful that Biden can bounce back. Only time will tell, but people need to give it time, as the Democratic National Convention is in late August and it’s only early July at the moment. If Biden avoids having multiple major meltdowns like the one he had on debate night, I like the odds for this resilient candidate who hasn’t let us down yet when it comes to beating Donald Trump and overall leadership. Ultimately, Biden will have to make his own decision and I trust him to make the right call as he has done so many times before. The media “experts” who have done a terrible job of covering Biden and Democrats for years are certainly not the ones who will make that call, nor should they be. This process has to play out and until it does, no one know what the outcome will be.
So, take a deep breath, give the old man some time to recover and show us the old Joe, and take heart for the reasons I outlined above.
© 2024 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome
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