I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think that Biden is and always has been (including in 2020) a weak candidate, and that now is not the time to gamble on a weak candidate, especially after the debate just made him appear that much weaker.
But it just struck me that in the unique and bizarre situation in which we find ourselves - running against a brazen criminal with a stated goal of being a dictator fronting for a group of christofascists who already have a playbook for destroying American democracy - Biden has a built-in advantage as the incumbent.
I don’t mean the advantage that incumbents are generally presumed to have (he notably does not have that), but a much simpler and more immediate one.
It’s disturbingly likely that if/when Trump loses, his christofascist coattail-riders and his legions of angry, hateful and generally heavily-armed chucklefucks are going to literally go to war. They could well end up making Jan. 6 look like the peaceful protest they insist it was, at least in comparison to the violence and bloodshed they’ll potentially unleash should their fuhrer lose.
And at that point, it’s going to be much better to not have to deal with a transfer of power - to have a president already in place with a full set of aides and well-established communication channels, and to keep that president in office for as long as it takes to withstand the fascists.
As I said, that just struck me, and I haven’t fully analyzed it, but I think it has some merit.
And never in my life did I think that things might reach the point, at least in my lifetime, at which I’d be considering the best strategy to combat an impending bloody fascist coup in the US…
Yes - that is a very real possibility.
That’s actually part of the reason that I’ve favored dumping Biden and throwing the nomination open and the DNC backing the fuck off and letting the people rally around whoever they might choose - in order to improve the chances that the Democrat nominee wins by enough of a margin to undermine at least most of the grounds upon which the result might be challenged. Biden might be able to accomplish that, but IMO, a candidate that the voters sincerely want rather than one that they’ll just hopefully be willing to settle for in the face of the alternative would make it a sure thing.
Of course, that all could be for naught too.
The problem is how much recognition anyone else may have to the voting population. People here pay attention. Most voters do not. I can only speculate, but I’d bet that better than 20% of voters don’t actually know who the VP is. I’d make a similar wager that more than that didn’t know who their congressional representatives are.
Pure speculation, but say that 30% of registered eligible voters are unaware of a new candidate. Probably about 1/3 of those would never vote Democrat anyway. How do you get the remainder excited about the new candidate and fight off the inevitable misinformation in the next 3.5 months?
Anyone that fills that role is going to be starting at zero with a not insignificant number of voters.
The media would take care of that. Everyone would know the new guy within 24 hours.