In the dog-eat-dog world of American partisan politics, about the worst thing you can show is weakness.
And that’s what the Democrats are radiating after their pick for president fumbled and stared his way through Thursday’s debate.
Joe Biden’s team had requested this gladiatorial spectacle to expose the dangers posed by Trump 2:0 they said, and show the skilled leadership of their own man, who, they insisted, was not too old for another four years.
What were they thinking?
The outlandish claims and outright lies that spewed forth from former President Trump on Thursday night – on everything from abortion to migration to the events of 6 January – are largely forgotten.
Biden got all the headlines – for the wrong reasons.
Trump’s answers, although evasive and often nonsensical, were delivered with confidence, in stark contrast to Biden’s rambling incoherence.
It is a brutal reminder, as if it were needed, that American TV debates are all about style over substance.
It is not just President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance – something even he acknowledged at a rally in North Carolina on Friday afternoon.
It’s the cat-amongst-the-pigeons disarray that beset the Democratic party from the moment – a few minutes into the debate – it became clear 81-year-old Biden was floundering.
Forget what the Republicans had to say about it, as the Trump camp ran victory laps around the post-debate “spin room” at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, where the cringeworthy head-to-head took place.
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The biggest issue is how Democrats reacted.
“That was painful,” Van Jones, former special adviser to President Obama said.
“I love Joe Biden, I worked with Joe Biden, he didn’t do well at all, he did not do well at all,” he added.
Vice President Kamala Harris said her boss had had a “slow start,” but a “strong finish”. She was trying to be supportive, but the remark ultimately sounded damning.
Jill Biden’s post-debate congratulations – “Joe, you did such a great job, you answered every question” – fell flat, as observers compared it to what a Kindergarten teacher might say to a pupil who finished last.
Party donors, strategists and even the New York Times editorial board made open calls for the President to step aside.
President Biden appeared energetic and on message at the rally – perhaps a good night’s sleep and an autocue was what he needed to drive home the points he’d failed to land on the debate stage.
And heavy hitters rallied round.
“I’ll leave the debate rating to the pundits,” former President Bill Clinton said in a post on X.
“But here’s what I know: facts and history matter. Joe Biden has given us 3 years of solid leadership…..pulling us out of the quagmire Donald Trump left us in. That’s what’s really at stake in November”.
In the same vein, former President Barack Obama posted “bad debate nights happen.”
But the choice, he wrote, was between someone who “tells the truth, who knows right from wrong…..and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit”.
Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the…
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 28, 2024
But none of this really matters. The cracks in the Democratic party were already laid bare and the well-oiled Trump machine was primed to swing the knock-out punch.
Within minutes, the Trump campaign had compiled a devastating montage of Biden’s pauses, fumbles and freezes.
Throughout the 90-second clip, the two men appear in split-screen, but Trump does not say anything. He simply looks on, uncharacteristically calm and disciplined, as his opponent babbles unintelligibly.
And they will not stop there.
How often are we likely to hear the Trump campaign point to the lack of confidence in Biden expressed from within his own party?
It’s an obvious weakness that is easy to exploit.
The question now is whether the Democrats can turn that weakness into a strength. Names of candidates to take over – like Californian Governor Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan – are still being bandied about.
But there is a lot of loyalty to President Joe Biden inside the party – he is seen as a respected elder statesman who has survived political defeats and personal tragedies over the course of his half a century in politics.
He gets the credit from his supporters for saving America from Trump in 2020.
And his loyalists do not want their man’s illustrious career to come to an ignominious end, especially at the hands of Donald Trump.
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But Democratic strategists are also not blind to the fact that a vast swathe of America is crying out for a better choice.
A rematch between these two elderly men is not an exciting prospect, especially for younger voters.
Of course, Republicans have their own divisions to contend with.
The never-Trumpers are working against him, and some have even gone so far as to back Biden for president.
Former Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said on Wednesday that he never thought he would endorse a Democrat but that he will “always protect the very thing that makes America the best country in the world: our democracy”.
Trump, whom he voted for in 2020, would “hurt anyone or anything in pursuit of power,” he said.
But that was before Thursday’s debate and, today, the Democrats seem far more divided than the Republicans.
Ousting your candidate at this late stage is a risky move. A fresh face would have to have the confidence of the Biden-faithful as well as the charisma to draw in undecideds – whose numbers have no doubt swelled since Thursday.
But whether Biden chooses to stay or go, what matters is the perception of weakness and at this point, Democrats have their work cut out trying to look strong.
