The Summer of Our Discontent

I was in New London, Connecticut recently with one of my stepsons, who’ll be starting college there in the fall. New London is no Fairfield County suburb; it’s a gritty outfall pipe for a nearby naval base, one of those declining Northeastern towns that never seems to emerge from the ruins of its past: the whaling industry, farms built by slaves, textile mills shuttered a century ago.

I led the kid - he’s the one I call the Budding Neurosurgeon - out to the city wharf. As we marveled at the enormous wind turbines laid alongside each other on a massive barge, a white middle-aged guy wearing work boots pulled up in a truck. We started chatting about the wind project. Somehow the conversation turned to politics. I asked him what he thought about Biden stepping aside. He told us that he would vote for Biden but not Kamala Harris. “Unqualified,” he said, shaking his head. “Not in a million years.”

“You’d vote for Trump over Kamala?” I asked. He shook his head - not a no, more like I don’t want to admit it to a woman who was obviously a liberal but he sure as hell would.

I recently asked the same question of my nearest neighbor in the Hudson Valley, a sweet if moody guy named Josh who used to wear a Deplorables t-shirt. He’s wavering this time on Trump, thinks Biden is a good guy but old. Too old to get his vote? Maybe. But Kamala? Another hard no. The funny thing is, that guy kinda liked Bernie. And that's relevant. Read on.

In case you haven’t run across the phrase The Blue Wall, we’re talking Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, states where elections are often decided, often by men like the two I spoke with recently. Many believe the election will be decided in those states, as it was in 2020. Joe Biden is one of them, and that’s why he was in Detroit yesterday, ironically at the same high school where he once called himself a bridge to a new generation of leaders. (“What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited in terms of the economy, foreign policy, and domestic division,” he said Thursday when asked about that statement, adding that he had to finish the job.)

It may very well be that, as Biden has said, he’s more qualified than any other candidate, both domestically, in terms of dealing with Congress, and internationally, navigating this dangerous period of geopolitics. Now Biden is on the road to try to save his candidacy. He’s got about two weeks to do it. It’s a hell of an inflection point, not just for Biden, but for all of us and the world. The crazy thing is that the media, not the voters, and not Biden himself, may be making the decision.

“This is not your grandfather’s media, or your father’s media. This is not even our media,” David Phinney told me yesterday. “They’re driving the story instead of reporting it.”

A Washington D.C.-based investigative journalist who’s written for The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and produced shows on all three TV networks, covering national affairs, war, terrorism, and national security, Phinney is also a friend. I'd called him after he sent me this message of commiseration yesterday.

“This is fucked. The Dems are on a destruction derby and being egged on by the media harpies. Haven't seen such a clusterfuck since the Bill and Monica circus.”

In retrospect, the idea that a president could be impeached, as Bill Clinton was, for an extramarital affair, is preposterous. But it was preposterous then, too. “I worked at ABC at that time and people just realized they were driving shitloads of traffic,” said Phinney.

Advertising revenues took a dive after Trump left office and the electorate could relax again. Now, Phinney thinks, the relentlessness of the “Will he or won’t he?” coverage is driven, whether consciously or not, by the internalization of Business Thinking.

“I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. It’s institutional. That wall between content and advertising is bullshit because you’ve got to deliver the demographics,” he said.

“This hysteria is a reflection of advertising priorities. All the media is constantly fixated on age in terms of demographics and audience share. It’s kind of a wedge issue. By saying this old fart is no good, it’s time to put him out to pasture, saying old people don’t matter, they have an affinity with a new audience. They’ve internalized the ageism.”

As far as Clinton, Phinney recalls, even Newt Gingrich blamed the media for forcing the impeachment issue. Now the media may be forcing Biden to withdraw from the race. The New York Times has been the most glaring, repeatedly bending and sometimes even breaking the rules of journalism. On one day, I counted four stories about Biden stepping aside at the top of the Times digital version. The Times walked back, grudgingly, a report of eight White House visits by a Parkinson’s expert, debunked when it was found that the doctor had been attached to a unit within the White House dedicated to caring for military personnel and that he met with Biden only on the occasion of his annual physical.

The Times has relied on anonymous sources more than usual, building stories around a handful of insiders, often unnamed. The placement of quotes is one way a journalist can slant a story without breaking the rules. There are many examples of the Times doing that, as well as questionable story selection. How does an editor decide what merits coverage? I called recently and confirmed that the Times is losing readers over the Biden coverage. The editors don’t seem to care. But what are the long-term consequences if the media loses even more trust? Just what kind of democracy are we fighting for?

“This is the O.J. story all over again,” said Phinney.

But the polls. What about the polls? Can Biden win?

“I think Biden can win. I think he will win. He’s an old fuddy duddy but he’s smart. He knows what he’s talking about. They’re mixing up age with mental deterioration. He’s old. So it starts getting into this ageism thing instead of mental capacity. Picasso was painting until he died and he was over 90.

“Bush took us to Iraq. There’s young,” Phinney said soberly.

Let's be clear, as Obama says. The media isn’t making up stories out of whole cloth, even if it often seems that the sense of proportion is crazily out of whack, as evidenced by the reporters shouting questions to Biden about a letter that actor and powerhouse fundraiser George Clooney wrote presumptuously urging the president to step aside. This shoutfest happened at the NATO conference, it’s worth noting. How much coverage did anyone see of the issues discussed at the conference?

Most of what we learned about discussions at the NATO conference was from Biden himself. The media gave up on most international coverage years ago, because that coverage is expensive, and most Americans aren’t interested. Of course, that lack of interest is accentuated when international stories aren’t covered. And so is our ignorance of anything outside our borders. (See above comment on Iraq. And think about how the U.S. destabilized Libya on Obama’s watch. Plus, uh, Afghanistan.)

Phinney had sent me a Google Doc of a memo - an unsigned memo - allegedly written by self-described senior Democratic operatives. The gist? Only Kamala can win. Maybe this is journalism now.

"Who’s driving the boat?" Phinney asked rhetorically. "Aren’t they out of place to send an unsigned letter around? Putin could have done it."

In the end, will Biden go? I asked Betsy Loyless, former political director of the League of Conservation Voters, a pro who worked more than 20 election cycles. And if he does, can Kamala Harris, the most likely candidate, convince the kind of men I spoke to? Can she get past the Blue Wall?

“I can’t see that with an entirely new candidate, including Kamala, that it’s only the Blue Wall that would be of concern,” she said. “The good news is that most people don’t know much about her. The bad news is that she already has a set of detractors. White men are not gonna like her any better than they did Hillary.”

Setting aside the desperation - comments like “I’d vote for the reanimated corpse of Richard Nixon to keep Trump out” or “I’d vote for a dead dog instead of Trump” - there are genuine questions about Harris’ qualifications, and they’re not just being raised by conservative blue-collar white guys who didn’t like Hillary, either. That she's not a good executive is not in dispute, whether the complaints come from sources who knew her as California's Attorney General or reports about the high turnover of her staff as vice president. But there are also questions about her policy chops.

“She has a very narrow expertise,” Loyless said. “She didn’t serve in the Senate long enough.” Harris did attend the Munich Security Conference this year, and presumably through this and other tasks she's taken on as vice president, she's amped up her foreign policy expertise to some extent.

Would Biden in a second term do better? I asked.

“I’m not saying that,” Loyless said. “I do think that the business about his cognitive ability now is odd because he’s got all his marbles at this point. But he’s clearly showing signs of memory loss and inability to think quickly on his feet.”

What Loyless thinks is justified are the fears about Biden’s eventual decline. “Four years from now I think this man will be in the middle of not just a memory decline but on his way [out]. That’s what worries me.”

Like most political observers, Loyless said that Biden should have stepped aside last year. But it’s too late. And as much as everyone appreciates Biden’s warmth and compassion, Loyless said: “When push comes to shove he’s no different than any political figure that wants to maintain their control.”

Biden’s stance on leaving the race has softened recently. If he does, it needs to happen in the next two weeks. Loyless thinks this is more likely than not. “I think the media is pushing him out. And, you know, there is a part of me that says that’s not your job. And yet, in a way, it needed to happen.

“It’s clear that Biden has not acknowledged even to himself what happened in that debate. He keeps referring to things as if it were one mistake. No, that’s not what happened during that debate. The business of isolating the president is so real and so present that the guy himself doesn’t have real recognition of how things went.

“Republicans, for years, have been talking about the Joe Biden we’re talking about now. I think most Democrats have brushed it off. It is a known factor now thanks to the media and thanks to Joe Biden himself.”

I asked Loyless about the men I spoke to, going back to the Blue Wall, the key Electoral College states. Apart from her qualifications or lack thereof, could Kamala Harris win? Can any woman win? Beyond the chatter about tapping Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as Harris' vice president, it’s an interesting question for Loyless, a political operative and organizer who held her own in a male world.

“I think it would be very difficult for her to win, but I don't think it's impossible,” she said. “She’s different from Hillary. She’s, I think, pretty tough, and she has the advantage of having seen Trump in action with another woman as a candidate.

“And she’s a different generation. She’s younger and younger is better, because younger doesn’t accept, even in any small way, how men disregard women. They see it faster and respond to it.

“That’s not to say Hillary didn’t do all of that. But I do think Kamala has advantages. The biggest advantage is her last name isn’t Clinton. Hillary was already carrying enormous quantities of baggage."

For Loyless, the outcome could hinge on whether Harris has the ability - Loyless called it mental agility - to engage in quick repartee with Trump. "Certainly that’s what’s needed to call him out on his behavior and his lies. Biden can’t do it. That’s huge," she said.

In meantime, the uncertainty has Americans stressed and arguing, as if they, and not the president or the party, could decide Biden's fate and the nation’s. Nancy Pelosi’s recent appearance on the MSNBC Washington insider program Morning Joe had both amateurs and pros buzzing. The trigger? Pelosi said “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.”

The New York Times ran a story about that alone, with a perfectly fine headline (Pelosi Suggests That Biden Could Reconsider Decision to Stay in the Race) undercut by the thumb-on-scale subhed: Representative Nancy Pelosi, a longtime Biden ally and the former speaker, is the most senior member of his party so far to suggest his status at the top of the ticket is uncertain.) Those are not the same statements. As Phinney said about the Biden defections: “What do they have, 17 members of Congress? What are they? The Freedom Caucus of the Democratic Party? They’re gonna take Biden out like the Freedom Caucus took out McCarthy?”

Tone is everything. Was Pelosi jumping ship? (Is 17 members telling him to step aside a groundswell?) Would Chuck, Nancy, and Hakeem have a come to Jesus with Joe? How much dissatisfaction is there inside the party? 

Not really a groundswell. You could call it a slow drip. It’s notable that the Congressional Black Caucus is still all in on Biden, despite some reported grumbling, as are Bernie Sanders, the Squad, Stacey Abrams, and among the Black Caucus members, notably firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

The talented progressive commentator and attorney Wajahat Ali was retweeting and echoing Lincoln Project co-founder Stuart Stevens (I worked in campaigns for 30 years. I am hardwired to respond one way when your guy is in trouble: fight harder. Don’t start looking for exit ramps or magic bullets. Play the next play. Do your job. Ignore the scoreboard. It’s supposed to be hard) plus adding his own version on Democracy Now, which is as left as it gets.

"Listen, I have no fidelity to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, throw any name you want out there. I have fidelity to this flawed democracy and I think we all of us agree right now this flawed democracy is under attack and under threat from a very real right-wing fascist movement which is MAGA, democracy or dictatorship. I also know the lessons that we can learn from Hungary where democracy failed is when the pro-democratic coalition splinters and falters, what happens? Fascism wins....And I also know as of this week after two weeks of breathless coverage, where we've talked about Joe Biden being old and that terrible, no good debate, have you heard about that debate, did you hear how old he is? For two weeks this has been the nonstop news..that's what the corporate media's talked about nonstop and it's influenced public opinion...

"The ticket right now is Biden-Harris....I understand the risk. We have four months left, it's still a winnable race, a lot can happen in four months...If you're telling me right now if Biden's in the race, and the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) is behind him, you're gonna jettison him, force him out, and then in a month in the Democratic convention put Harris with some random white person, because that's what it's gonna be, and then pitch this to the American public. that is even more risky and I believe a recipe for disaster.

"Go on offense, you have four months, you have a winning campaign: we just found out about Project 2025 thanks to Taraji Henson. You have four months. Attack, attack, attack. This firing squad is going to weaken us and we're gonna lose."

It’s all a matter of risk assessment. Is changing candidates when time is short and the candidate, process, and outcome so uncertain a risk more attractive to well-heeled liberal white men? Certainly the donor class (aka really, really rich white men) is on board with making a change. (See Robert Reich's article.)

Actor George Clooney's letter urging Biden to resign got traction because Clooney is a major fundraiser. Clooney reportedly cleared the letter with former President Barack Obama before sending it to the Times, which printed it July 10. Obama and Biden are friends, but not really. Remember that Obama picked Hillary Clinton as his heir in 2016; if he'd chosen Joe Biden, it's likely we wouldn't be in this jam now. Trump might never have happened. Imagine....

One has to ask: are those mega-rich, usually white male donors oblivious to how much racism and misogyny still exist in the U.S. because they don’t experience it personally? Or are they on the right side of history?

More to the point, what will Chuck, Nancy, and Hakeem tell Biden in the coming weeks? Jeffries told reporters that he was meeting with his caucus and "listening." Nancy Pelosi's words on Morning Joe were intriguing but ultimately opaque perhaps as they were meant to be.

“I think Pelosi is trying to let people vent,” said David Phinney.

He noted that Pelosi didn’t seem to be wearing makeup during that appearance. Was it because she wanted to look old? Make a point that you can be old and still bring it? It gets down to that level of reading the tea leaves.

“It’s either Biden or Kamala, we know that,” Phinney said. “All the San Francisco money is behind Nancy Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi is the kingmaker. She doesn’t seem to be having any problems upstairs.”

Susan Zakin is the Journal's editor. She covered politics as a columnist for several national magazines and wrote a syndicated newspaper column in the early 2000s.