JUNE 28, 2024 – Here’s my take on yesterday evening’s train wreck in Atlanta: the debate produced a rare and magical freeze-framed moment in the annals of American presidential campaign history. Far from being an actual “total disaster,” it’s a juncture where Democrats, Republicans, and all stripes of political independents are in total agreement. The agreement, of course, is that Biden’s performance was god-awful.
I can easily imagine the gleeful chatter on Republican news outlets and social media feeds. I don’t have to envisage how Democrats are reacting. I’ve seen all the hand-wringing I need to see and heard all catastrophe-talk that I need to hear. A high-five to my Republican friends, family members, and acquaintances. Your guy won by way of my guy losing. To my Democrat friends, family members, and acquaintances, look at the bright side: better for your horse in the race to break a leg in training run more than four months out than for that horse to stumble on the day of the derby.
Yes, today, tomorrow, this week, Democrat operatives have lots on their collective plate, and it ain’t filet mignon au jus on gilt-edged Lenox. It’s a paper plate loaded with bacon and beans with a load of lard oozing through the plate and soaking the tablecloth of down ballot races. It’s a mess. It’s a problem.
But before we yield our hearts, minds, and souls to total despair, let’s savor the moment; the ever so rare occasion when all Americans are united over something. Then let’s consider the remarkable window of opportunity that now lies before us.
For all too long we’ve been divided. Not even the Super Bowl could unite us, thanks to the whole business over Taylor Swift, which controversy, I must admit, I neither followed nor understood. And sadly, not even the universal threat of a deadly virus could unify the disunited state of America. In fact, Covid-19 infected us with extreme discord and exposed how far we’d grown apart: we couldn’t even agree that there was such a thing as science or that vaccines are a good thing. Just as discouraging, when a bunch of goons egged on by their cheerless leader attacked the Capitol, much of the country would come to see them as heroes, political hostages, even as tourists and recast the whole ugly, horrific scene as a false flag operation. That same large swath of the electorate would view a criminal conviction, an adjudication of civil fraud, and a jury verdict of liability for defamation in a matter involving sexual abuse, no less, as marks of persecution and victimhood, while another chunk of voters would shrug their shoulders. The rest of us, wholly scandalized, would see these legal results as confirmation of disqualifying character flaws.
Now we’ve witnessed an explosion on the “debate” stage, which blowup, in a most curious way, didn’t operate as most occur. It produced the exact opposite effect: a fused reaction by the whole of our body politic.
From a host of settings over many years, what I’ve learned about consensus building among a contentious throng is that you don’t start at the top; you don’t start with the ideal at the pinnacle of the mountain, where the air is rarified and the view is clear into forever over all the lakes and rifts, twisting rivers and shadowy valleys throughout the landscape below. No. You start with the lowest common denominator in the woods at the base of the mountain and blaze a trail from there. You navigate around obstacles, never in a straight line, always maneuvering this way and that but all the while seeking higher ground. Eventually you reach the tree line, and once you emerge, your sights rise to the summit in all its majesty. No matter how weary you and your group are, no matter what disagreements have raged through the woods, everyone can now see the common goal. Dissension dissipates, as inspiration lifts hearts and minds. Hikers who couldn’t stand each other now lend each other a hand over the rocky climb. Political enemies in the woods now even share a canteen while taking a break to refresh and take stock of how far they’ve come. Then onward to the top—where everyone finally rallies around the same flag, “United We Are!”
Our culture is imbued with a bias against “quitting.” We’re not a country of quitters; we’re a country of “fighters.” We don’t give up, we buck up. We don’t stop until we’ve reached the top, until we’ve crossed the finish line. Fine. Persistence and determination are admirable even essential traits for individual and collective survival—but not always. The refusal to stop, to quit can just as easily bring disastrous results. If you were on the back deck of the Titanic urging people not to give up the ship, you and everyone who heeded your appeal would have gone down with the ship.
Biden’s disastrous performance last night created a miraculous opening; a chance for the Democrats to regroup, rethink, recharge, and redirect a dangerously moribund campaign to save democracy. There is ample time yet to change course. Remember 1968, when the presumptive Democratic candidate, the sitting president, announced in March that he would not seek or accept the nomination; when the victor of the California primary in June and thus the most likely nominee, was shot dead on the very night of his victory; when, Hubert Humphrey, badly crippled politically by the shadow of LBJ and Vietnam, prevailed at the Democratic convention in August, but left Chicago badly burned by the chaos both inside and outside the International Amphitheatre.
Fairly late in the game, the unhappy Happy Warrior had to pull his stride together to face Nixon, who enjoyed a healthy head start. However flawed the former Vice President was as a candidate, he looked and communicated like an adult—and he was 55, 23 years younger than the Duly Defeated. The Watergate Scandal lay ahead, not behind Nixon. In the fall of 1968, he had far greater political assets than Trump has in the early summer of 2024. Yet on election day, he defeated Humphrey by a mere 0.7% margin.
Almost any plausible Democrat candidate, starting with Kamala Harris, can trounce Trump. What we’ve been witnessing to date has been a horse-race between an old nasty nag and an old hesitant champion. Last night the latter stumbled, but against the former, the bad break can be transformed into a resounding victory by a fresh new racehorse.
Democrat operatives and convention delegates—and most important of all, Jill and Joe Biden—must snap to their senses and switch horses before the final curve, so all Americans can win the race for the greater good.
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
