The political punditry class, largely ensconced in their New York City and DC enclaves, continues to demonstrate that they are out of step with the issues that concern most Americans.
Many of them have been at it for decades.
While experience and expertise is often valuable, so is the ability to understand the mood and concerns of different segments of the population. Rural, suburban and urban. Black, white, hispanic, asian, and the kaleidoscope of places of ethic origin that make up the most diverse nation on the planet. Gen Z, millennials, Gen X. Too often, Boomers in the wealthy, urban northeast simply fail to understand what concerns, troubles, and motivates people in the rest of the country.
Some in the elite pundit class have distant roots outside the places they have inhabited for the past several decades. But their reference points to those places stretch back to the 1970s and 80s, and the people they grew up with have either moved away like they have, or their current views passed onto the punditry class consist of a random text from a geriatric uncle or a conversation at a 50th high school reunion.
Assessments on the tenor of the country derived from anecdotes used by the out of touch. Not useful.
The reason why I stopped watching cable news last year is because I found that I was being subjected to the opinions of the same people day after day, month after month. I watched many of these very same people when I was a political junkie in high school and college in the 1980s and 90s. They are still there, and still in Boston, NYC, and DC, while I have lived in urban, suburban and rural areas in the northeast, west coast, and deep south.
I stopped watching because I didn't want my judgment, which is shaped from a lifetime living in so many diverse communities across the country, to be influenced in any way by what I was hearing from a TV set from the pundit class. The herd mentality and GroupThink was obvious, and I didn't want to place myself anywhere in proximity to it out of a fear of infection. Call it my own Covid-era six foot rule from urban establishment consensus.
When I listen to them now, I see the clear and obvious disconnect between the talking heads on TV and the pulse of the people they claim to be reading.
I also saw the pack or herd mentality that easily and quickly drives some of them in a particular direction. So few of their opinions were original. A consensus would form sparked by thought from an analyst who managed to come up with a witty and semi-original take. News content took the form of a herd consensus versus a small handful of contrarians, but too often packaged for entertainment purposes only. None of it felt real or authentic, nor did it reflect my experience of the views of people in the hinterlands.
And the polls.
Where would they be without their polls? Polls are their lifeline. Since their daily lives don't put them in contact with the views and opinions of the various communities in this incredible diverse country, they depend almost entirely on the polling industry and the occasional text from Uncle Larry in Omaha. So much of political punditry is based around the latest poll results generated by a media company, with analysis based entirely on those results.
But what if the polling industry is wrong?
What if their traditional and time-tested models for reading the true opinions of the public has become irrelevant in the social media online age, where people either shun them or are unreachable from the methods they use? Increasingly, the polling industry over-samples older segments of the population that utilize traditional means of communication. Political pundits who rely on polls to provide them accurate information on the views of the electorate are stuck relying on data that has been demonstrably more flawed with each passing year. Until pollsters figure out how to accurately measure the views through more sophisticated modeling, the punditry class is forced to work with imperfect tools.
Which brings me to the last presidential debate.
Biden was bad. There is no sugarcoating that. Whenever people said to me that Biden should not debate Trump this cycle because that conferred legitimacy and normalcy on a criminal, my response was always that perhaps another incumbent president in this situation would be able to get away with that, but not Biden. That is because the main concern undecided voters had with Biden was his ability to do this for four more years. Ducking debates would only worsen that perception. He had to debate and show those voters that he had what it takes to do the toughest job in the world for four more years.
On that score he failed.
He looked old, tired, and struggled to maintain focus and to express himself forcefully and coherently. It was certainly cause for serious concern, and I don't completely dismiss those who expressed theirs. But there is a vast difference between expressing disappointment, frustration and concern, and calling for an incumbent president to drop out of the race after he has secured the nomination. Those are the people I am talking about right now.
While I don't agree with some Biden supporters that this was an aberration (he had had some moments like this before at campaign events), it is also worthy to note that at the majority of events - including critically the State of the Union speech and his speech in North Carolina the day after the debate - he was energized, focused, and put on a strong performance.
We also have to consider the wretched performance of Donald Trump. While he certainly had more energy and vigor during the debate, he also spewed a firehose of lies, racism, and hate. He failed to answer one policy question after another. His response about climate change was to talk about hordes of mentally ill migrant criminals living amongst us. His response to every policy question was to either conjure up images of future migrant terrorist attacks or to talk about his golf game. The frustrating part was that the debate format did not permit live fact-checking from moderators, and Biden was largely incapable of doing it himself.
Did Biden fail to capitalize on Trump's psychosis, lack of knowledge about policy, and serial lies? Yes, he did. And he was rightly criticized for that. But there has been almost no reporting on the fact that Trump also failed to garner any new votes from Biden's failures because his performance only reinforced concerns those same voters have about him.
But that story is not being told by the pundit class.
With all of that said, what would be the pathway forward to replacing Biden at this point? When you game out scenarios, none seems entirely satisfactory. All will fracture the Democratic base. So you make a seismic, panicked move to assuage the pundit class and small group of fickle undecided voters who may not like the replacement any better? In what way is that productive? It would also cause a number of serious issues for Democratic candidates in critical House and Senate races across the country.
Fear of Trump has caused this overreaction.
I get that completely. I don't agree with the Biden Campaign referring to people who have called for him to step down as the "Bedwetting Brigade," as they did in a recent fundraising email. They should not dismiss the concerns or personally attack supporters expressing them. That is also not the right path forward. The bottom line is that once critics realize that Biden is not going to drop out, they will come back into the fold. That is because a Democratic
Administration led by an octogenarian who had lost his fastball is infinitely preferable to a criminal malignant narcissist who left office in disgrace after an unsuccessful coup attempt.
The other point to make is that Joe and Jill Biden are not going to drop out of this because of the opinions of pundits, editorial boards or TV talking heads.
I included Jill in this sentence for a reason. While many correctly viewed the Clinton presidency as a partnership between two people who shared ideas and common beliefs working together, the public and punditry class have failed to understand that the Biden presidency is exactly the same - although in a less formal or publicized way than the Clintons, who openly owned that their Administration was led by partnership. The idea (yes, I also wish Biden hadn't started every debate answer with that phrase) that Jill is going to bow to the whims and wishes of the pundit class is laughable. Not happening.
When you understand that, you understand how counterproductive calls for Biden to drop out truly are.
They are being made to each other. It has become group therapy with social media platforms as the therapist couches. But, while talking this through and venting may provide an outlet to rage against the machine, this ship has sailed long ago. A small handful of the current critics expressed these same concerns when the primaries began, but no serious Democrat stepped forward to challenge the president and the vast majority now calling for him to step aside now said nothing then. If they had concerns in private, which I'm sure that many did, they failed to express them publicly using their large platforms. Why?
They weren't willing to take the heat.
They didn't want to say what they thought when they knew their opinion would be deeply unpopular. But now, after Biden's debate performance, it seems safe for them to come out of the closet. This is politics turned inside out. They believed that Biden was too old when it was possible and practical to effectively do something about it - primary season. But they failed to speak up because it would cost them personally. Now they will do it because they feel it is safe because there is safety in numbers - at a time when it is not possible and practical to effectively do something about it. That isn't what the campaign, the party, or the country needs right now.
I am not Biden apologist.
I posted a thread right after the midterms in November 2022 stating that I did not want him to run for a second term. Sure, age was factor, but the main reason why I didn't want him to run again was because he inherited a mess from Trump. A disaster. I knew Biden was going to do what had to be done to clean up those messes. I also knew that he would get the blame from the public for all of it. That is why he was the first Democrat I voted for in my entire life. Biden is blamed for what he inherited in Afghanistan as well as global inflation and so many other things. That is why I thought a new, younger candidate would be better in 2024 who didn't carry that baggage.
But once Joe made the decision to run again, that was it for me. I was fully on board because that is what was required to defeat Trump. Now the pundits, almost all of whom said nothing back then, are calling for Biden to step down at the worst possible time.
Profiles in courage.
If Joe and Jill decide that now is the time to step aside, they will come to that decision on their own after listening to the small handful of people they trust completely. It should be obvious to anyone that their circle of trust is very tight, and includes few people. While we can't know for certain what the discussions amongst that tight circle is with the Bidens right now, none of them have joined the public chorus of critics.
So what is the point of the 11th hour calls from the punditry class to attempt to influence a president to step down using their very public platforms? While it may not be their intent, the point is that it will only divide, dishearten, and alienate activists and donors who badly need to rally around their candidate right now. When Donald Trump was indicted and later convicted, his supporters and right-wing media circled the wagons and backed their guy stronger than ever. As reprehensible as that was given the cause, from the perspective of winning an election it was smart strategy.
What the pundit class is doing right now is not smart strategy.
So I end where I began. It is time for many of these elitist, urban northeastern dinosaurs to retire. Or take a sabbatical to spend a few months in diners and shops on Route 66.
Or just realize that your role in American society isn't to replace a president, no matter how much you wish you had that kind of influence.
