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I doubt any cigars are in play, but the DNC has a history of executing conspiracies at this level far more effectively than the GOP. They own the "Debates" - whether you're talking about leaked emails lining up softballs or the rules updates this year to favor their desired outcome.
They struggle to control their idealogical upstarts in the party every once in a while, but they are in absolute lockstep with the mainstream media. Command and control here doesn't have to get everyone in a room. It's a couple texts here and there, conversations over cocktails in Manhattan, DC, and LA.
I've been wondering if they were just going to hurtle headlong into disaster, keep trying to hide Biden indefinitely, or what. I'll pick a side of the fence here and say the pressure on him to back down is going to be ENORMOUS, and he'll do so in the next few months.
Can Kamala or Harris save the election? Maybe. It has to be very difficult for anyone to look another human being in the eyes and say that Biden at this stage is worse than Trump. There is such a thing as mentally and physically unfit for office. I was filled this morning with, honestly, just pity. I've been extremely angry at Biden the past few years, but I think if you were to look at his whole career, he isn't even close to the worst politician in this country, and it feels like the dems are just riding his miserable corpse into the grave.
I agree. I felt the same way. I've absolutely hated him for his Covid policies, and for his lawfare, and for buying votes with student loan forgiveness.
But last night all I felt was pity as the CNN analysts tore into him. He's still with it enough to know that this was an epic disaster. His legacy is now in ruins, no matter what happens. Once he got home and it was just him and Jill, did he break down and cry? I don't know. Maybe politicians at this level don't have those feelings. But the non-thinking part of my brain felt a lot sympathy for him personally.
One of the points pressed by the CNN panel was, "How did the DNC/Biden's campaign let him get this far without intervening?"
I would be shocked if half of that panel wasn't already aware he was this bad. David Axelrod (who was oddly half-covered in water droplets for the first segment, like someone had thrown a cup of water at him right before cameras), Obama admin heavyweight, didn't know? Van Jones didn't know? It's their job to know. It's hard to buy the feigned shock from a bunch of high-level DC journos and politicos who surely never gossip.
As for Dr. Jill, if anyone knows, it's her, so it would be rich to assume that last night was some dam-breaking revelation for her. If she's let him get this far, it's either out of cynicism or a sense of entitlement, and I would guess neither of those states at this stage are penetrable by actual self-reflection or honest emotion.
My guess: they did and they didn't. In the Orwellian sense of doublethink. They had to know, because they were among those covering for him. But on the other hand, they also fully believed the narrative that Biden's decline was not real, a product of cherry-picked clips and misinterpretations from MAGA types.
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