Know Your Enemy - Trump Survives, Biden Doesn't. Where Are We? [Teaser]

Trump got shot, Vance got the spotlight, and Biden dropped out. We are unburdened by what has been. We are living in the context. It's coconut time.

Duration: 5m
Broadcast on: 23 Jul 2024
Audio Format: other

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy

In the week-and-a-half since we last offered you, our beloved subscribers, the highest quality election punditry around, a lot has happened: on the Democratic side of the ledger, "The Podcasters' Coup" succeeded and Joe Biden has stepped down as the party's presidential candidate; at least for now, the nomination appears to be Kamala Harris's to lose. Republicans, meanwhile, just wrapped up their carnivalesque Convention, where Ohio senator J.D. Vance was unveiled as Donald Trump's running mate. And, of course, looming over it all was the assassination attempt on Trump in western Pennsylvania only days before the GOP gathered in Milwaukee.

Did Vance impress, and Trump charm? Did the assassination attempt change the race, or—as some credulous journalists ludicrously asserted—Trump himself? Where does the presidential race stand? Are Democrats in disarray? It doesn't seem that way, now, but does Harris have a real chance? Your hosts take up these questions and more!

Read:

Josh Boak, "Biden’s legacy: Far-reaching Accomplishments That Didn’t Translate into Political Support," Associated Press, July 22, 2024.

Ruth Igielnik, "How Kamala Harris Performs Against Donald Trump in the Polls," New York Times, July 21, 2024.

Tim Alberta, "This Is Exactly What the Trump Team Feared," The Atlantic, July 21, 2024.

Ian Ward, "The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview," Politico, July 18, 2024.

Matthew Sitman, "Will Be Wild," Dissent, April 18, 2023.

Susan Sontag, Against Interpretations and Other Essays(1966).

Listen:

The Ezra Klein Show, "The Trump Campaign's Theory of Victory" (w/ Tim Alberta), July 18, 2024

Yes, as many people pointed out, the voters, the electorate polling on Biden's age had been bad for some time. It's not a talking point. It's true that this was democratic elected officials, elites, fundraisers, the press catching up with where people were, where voters were for quite some time. And I'm glad you mentioned too, once again, the Biden dead enders and bedwetters, because I really found the flat out lies that they told people to try to scare them into not backing Biden, stepping away. Like the most disgusting and rearranged example was Jamie Harrison, right? The DNC chair. I mean, just going totally all in on the lies that there were significant ballot access problems, like in places like Ohio, right? The DNC chair having these deranged Twitter exchanges with like Nate Silver about this. And Nate being like, actually, no, like Ohio changed the law. And like I found myself smiling with Nate Silver. And Jamie Harrison just saying, like, pour up a chair, I'm going to take you to school. And just admitting then some nonsense. Yeah, like a blue and non lawyer account, but it's the DNC chair. Like it was so it felt so unprofessional. And it felt so personal and weird. And they also made, I mean, made identity politics arguments, like that the black voters had made Biden, you know, the nominee and undermining their popular will was going to be a huge disaster and totally unjustified as an argument against giving the candidacy to the 59 year old black woman who would be the natural, his natural successor. It was one of the most cynical things I've seen in politics recently. Yes, it was so cynical that I don't actually think anyone bought it. No, of course not. Like, like it didn't change like it wasn't, and it wasn't interesting kind of inflection point, because I think it showed that deploying identity in such an utterly cynical way. It's just not like it kind of worked sometimes for team Hillary against Bernie in 2016, maybe, like these, these kind of cynical deployments of identity. They've been around for a while, of course, and it just seemed like, yeah, they got no traction this time. But I just wanted to say a couple other things about that until because I think it will transition us to the Republican side of the ledger. Now, it's true that Harris is not yet formally the nominee. Technically, I think, you know, the DNC called for some kind of open process, you know, maybe not very well defined yet. But there's two things to say about that. One is it does seem like people are coalescing around Harris. Oh, yeah. Right. She's being endorsed by a lot of, you know, prominent elected officials in the Democratic Party. It seems like she will be the nominee, including basically all the people who were plausible alternatives to her. Yes, like Pritzker, even Gavin Newsom, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer. Right. Exactly. So I wanted to say that the predictions of chaos, right, that like we couldn't get rid of Biden because it was just going to take the lid off some insane scenario, right, where people just going crazy and it's utter chaos and disarray. That does not seem to be the case yet. It seems like people are coalescing around Harris pretty quickly. The Biden kind of campaign operation, I think has been like formally signed over to her, so to speak. So all the predictions, first of all, of chaos didn't happen. The fundraising numbers are great. People are coalescing around Harris. And it doesn't seem like what prediction of the Biden dead enters has come true. The ballot access stories, bullshit, fundraising numbers are great. The party seems to be coalescing around her. Yeah. Nothing they predicted would happen has happened. Yeah. She still could lose in November. Yeah. Obviously. But one thing I feel certain of, like this should be clear, but my the number one factor by every single thing I've thought and said about the Biden situation and him needing to step aside from the top of the ticket has been based on my basically total certainty that he simply could not win at this point in November. Yeah. So the alternative, sure, it's not a guarantee. But I really was certain that Biden was guaranteed to lose. That was the one guarantee in this whole scenario for me. Yeah. And so even if it had been a little more chaotic, and it still might get a little more chaotic, we'll see. But to me, all those things were prices worth paying, right, to get buying off the top of the ticket. And I just want to say all the people who were just going to the mat for Biden, they both lied to us often. And nothing they predicted has come true so far. So fuck them. Yeah. My mother used to she would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us,

Transcription truncated.

Trump got shot, Vance got the spotlight, and Biden dropped out. We are unburdened by what has been. We are living in the context. It's coconut time.