Oh how things can change in a week. People had recognized this already over a week ago when Biden dropped out, saying that the Trump assassination attempt already seemed weeks ago, but let's just cast our minds over the timeline here:
- June 27, 2024 -- The first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was held. Biden was already significantly trailing in almost all polls and had a poor approval numbers, but there was hope that he would dispatch Donald Trump in the debate. Not only did this not occur, but Biden had a disastrous debate, leading to major questions over his ability to defeat Trump.
- July 8, 2024 -- Jon Stewart releases this representative video saying that Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9LZXheHddI. It's not so much that this video was a reason for anything that occurred, but mostly captured a common, but not necessarily prevalent, sentiment at the time.
I was already pretty displeased over the way in which the Democratic Party had once again, as in 2016, failed to offer any primary competitors to Biden, and so my fear was that the election result would be the same as 2016. As a result, I found this video convincing, and, scrolling to the YouTube comments, expected to see many like minded perspectives there. Instead, most of the comments blamed Stewart for being out of touch, and insinuated that he's supporting Trump by wanting Biden to withdraw, completely missing the point, which was that Biden was incapable of defeating Trump. Trump's best hope was for Biden to stay in the race. This misunderstanding was, to my shock, the prevailing opinion at the time. Look at this meme, for example https://www.reddit.com/r/simpsonsshitposting/comments/1e1k0gn/meta_more_and_more_biden_posts_posted_by_bad/. Obviously, this is a very anecdotal example, but it reflected a very common opinion at the time -- that the people calling for Biden to drop out were really Trump supporters posing as Democrats. For Biden to stay in the race would have been disastrous, so much so that surely the people with the most interest in Biden staying in were not Democrats, but Republicans.
This was infuriating for me at the time, and I was baffled that so many people had such a complete misunderstanding of political strategy (although it does explain the seemingly lazy mistakes made in 2016). - July 13, 2024 -- Thomas Matthew Crooks attempts to assassinate Donald Trump. For many, this was a death knell for Biden in the election. Voters who were on the fence would be swayed by what they saw as an unacceptable reaction against Trump, and be more inclined to feel some sympathy for him.
- July 21, 2024 -- Joe Biden withdraws his candidacy for president and endorses Kamala Harris. Contrary to expectations, Harris, the new presumptive nominee saw an immediate spike in popularity and excitement, particularly among Democrat voters. Even among neutral voters, her polls quickly trended up.
Now, there are still months to go before the election, but, just to boast and perhaps remember how people actually felt at the time, I have recorded this turn of events. Even if Harris loses, barring the revelation of some major scandal, I feel comfortable stating that she will have done better than Biden would have. That so many people would have had such a complete misunderstanding for the motives of many people in wishing to replace Biden on the ballot is perhaps another case in which my annoyance at Democrats making fools of themselves remains so much greater than my annoyance at Republicans making similar mistakes, not only because I expect it of the latter, and not only because mistakes made by the Republicans benefit me and all Americans, but also because by counting myself as a Democrat and a Leftist, when they make fools of themselves, they make fools of me as well.
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