If Joe Biden wants Americans to take seriously the growing dangers of MAGA tyranny—as he urged them in comment after the Supreme Court The president’s surprising immunity ruling Monday—maybe his campaign members should stop firing people To be concerned about that threat like “bedwetters”.
That’s the pejorative term some of the president’s surrogates have reserved for those who even suggest he should consider dropping out of the race. Donald Trump following last week disastrous debate. Ignore the “bedwetting brigade,” deputy campaign director Rob Flaherty speak in a fundraising email. “I worry about the cognitive abilities of the panicked invertebrate expert class,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates speak My colleagues Molly Jong-Fast“Calm down,” Senator John Fetterman advise.
Calm down? Have you looked around lately? Biden had been trailing in national and swing-state polls—consistently—before last Thursday’s debate, in no small part because of concerns about his age. The debate, rather than diluting those concerns as it was intended, merely served to crystallize them: Here we have a man who is honest and decent, but clearly not the same man he was four years ago. Is he more popular than Trump? God, yes—obviously. But call from New York Times and elsewhere Biden’s withdrawal is not—as some include—because the people making them want Trump to be president again. The calls for Biden to resign are coming right because Trump’s re-election fears appear to be close to coming true: Polls, which were already unfavorable to Biden, appear to be only getting worse. keep going in the wrong direction—and the president’s response appears to be to stay the course. The campaign seems to think those calling for a course correction are overreacting. But with so much at stake, is there a need for alarm?
“I really criticize the campaign for its disdain for people who raise questions for discussion,” as Democratic Sen. Peter Welch speak Semafor. “It’s just facing the reality that we’re facing.”
There’s a legitimate argument to be made that Biden is still the best chance of keeping Trump out of the White House. But it’s insulting — not to mention counterproductive — for the Biden camp to mock those who believe otherwise. These aren’t bedwetters or just a few out-of-touch pundits. These are regular people who don’t want to lose their democracy, but are genuinely concerned about Biden’s ability to stop Trump’s efforts to undermine it. They were among the 51 million people who tuned in to CNN’s debate on Thursday, watching the 81-year-old president fight back familiar lies from their opponents, failure to make strong arguments for their own administration’s accomplishments, and being drawn into silly back-and-forths about golf and other antics. These are people who live in a country that elected Trump once—in an election that Hillary ClintonThe skeptics have also dust are “bed-wetters”—and are well aware of the dangers of doing so again, especially now that the right-wing Supreme Court has granted the president powers far beyond those intended by the framers of the Constitution.
Indeed, the already high stakes of this year’s election were raised significantly on Monday when the Supreme Court issued a ruling granting presidents “absolute immunity” from prosecution for acts they commit under the auspices of their official duties—which could include anything from Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election to any wrongdoing he might conjure up if he were to assume the Oval Office for a second time. Biden rightly condemned that ruling in his prepared remarks Monday night, highlighting a line from the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor‘s dissent: “Any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law,” he said, declining to announce any significant action to rein in the court, but noting that he also dissented out of “fear for our democracy.”
With the democracy that Biden helped preserve with his 2020 victory now on the brink, it’s understandable why some might panic. Not only do they ignore those legitimate fears, but they also mock Perhaps the campaign can learn something from the people it seems to regard as woefully unsettled: Right or wrong about the best next steps for the party’s effort to keep Trump out of the White House again, they seem to recognize the dangerous position our country is in—and how much worse things could get if Biden’s confidence turns out to be unfounded.
