Quote of the Day

What happened last night was a tremendous disaster for efforts to defeat Donald Trump. What happened was a complete catastrophe that was self-inflicted by Joe Biden. We should be super clear about this. Biden showed, without any doubt, that he is clearly impaired. He is in no way up to the job of defeating Donald Trump. And in the history of presidential debates, no performance has ever come near being as disastrous as what Biden turned in. It was a gift to the extreme right wing, an enormous present to the neofascist Republican Party.

And what I think we have to look at now is the response from the Democratic Party establishment. We had, for instance, in the spin room last night after this disastrous debate, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, saying that Democrats are united fully behind President Biden. That’s preposterous. And it would be political suicide for the Democratic Party to proceed that way.

I think what we need to look at now is the imperative of a grassroots uprising from liberals, from progressives, from so-called moderates, who don’t want a return to four horrific years of Donald Trump, that show all signs of being far worse than the previous four years with Trump. What is necessary is something called democracy – lower case “d” – democratic activity, where people all around this country, starting today, calling upon anybody they have elected with a “D” after their name, a senator, a representative, demanding that they get real about where we are right now.

Where we are right now is that unless, very quickly, we’ve got Joe Biden no longer at the top of this ticket or on the ticket of the Democratic Party, it is a gold-plated invitation to a victory not only for Trump, but an entire extreme right-wing agenda.

So, I think we have to now organize swiftly. The crisis of the moment is extreme. And that calls upon us to end this pattern of Democrats in Congress serving as enablers for a president who absolutely is impaired and unable to get the job done to stop a fascist wave in this country.

. . . [T]o solve this problem, we would need an immediate and drastic change for implanting backbones into the Democrats in the House and the Senate. It would be an extraordinary effort that would be necessary, most importantly, to get Biden to finally agree that he’s not up to the job and to say that he’s voluntarily going to be a one-term president. That is the clearest glide path to getting Biden out of the way so we have a chance to get an actual strong candidate in there to save the country and the world from Trump.

If Biden isn’t willing to do that – and I’ve got to say, he’s been surrounded by sycophants and flunkies, not only in the White House and the Democratic National Committee, but, in effect, in Congress – if Biden is not willing to do that, then we need to have an enormous uprising. And as usual, it would start with and depend on organizing at the grassroots and insisting that power comes from the base of the Democratic Party, from people rather than elites deciding to do X, Y, Z.

– Norman Solomon
Excerpted from “‘Step Aside Joe’:
After First Presidntial Debate, Democrats Reeling
from Biden Missteps and Trump Lies”
Democracy Now!
June 28, 2024

Related Off-site Links:
Joe Biden Is Now Democracy’s Greatest Liability – Jeffrey C. Isaac (Common Dreams, June 28, 2024).
Trump Was Terrible. But Biden Was Worse – Jeet Heer (The Nation, June 28, 2024).
Dems Freak Out Over Biden’s Debate Performance: “Biden is Toast” – Lisa Kashinsky, Adam Cancryn and Eugene Daniels (Politico, June 28, 2024).
This Debate Was an Unmitigated Disaster for Biden – The Young Turks (June 27, 2024).
CNN Defends Decision to Not Fact-Check Debate Live: “It Is Up to the Candidates to Challenge One Another” – Todd Spangler (Variety, June 28, 2024).
It’s Not Too Late. Biden Should Step Aside – William Kristol and Andrew Egger (The Bulwark, June 28, 2024).
The Democrats Must Dump Biden. Here’s How – Harold Meyerson (The American Prospect, June 28, 2024).
Who Could Replace Joe Biden? Here Are Six Possibilities – Martin Belam (The Guardian, June 28, 2024).

UPDATES: Calls for Biden to Step Aside Grow as Major Donors Threaten to Withhold Funds – Sharon Zhang (TruthOut, July 5, 2024).
Biden Faces Rising Pressure from Dems To Drop Out But Insists: “I’m Not Going Anywhere” – Rising (July 5, 2024).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Damon Linker on the Democrats’ Need to Replace Biden
• Marianne Williamson, the Cassandra of U.S. Politics, on the “True State of the Union”
• AOC Falls in Line
• Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
• “Let the People Decide”: Marianne Williamson on the DNC's Efforts to Deny and Suppress the Democratic Process
• Thoughts on Cornel West’s Presidential Run
• Voters, Not the DNC, Should Choose the Nominee
• Norman Solomon and the Speech That Biden Should Give
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – July 14, 2022
• Inauguration Eve Musings
• “As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
• Election Day USA, 2020
• Progressive Perspectives on the Biden-Harris Ticket (2020)
• Beto, Biden and Buttigieg: “Empty Suits and Poll-Tested Brands”
• Progressive Perspectives on Joe Biden’s Presidential Run (2019)

Image: Former President Donald Trump (left) and President Joe Biden clash during the first presidential debate of the 2024 election season. (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)