Saturday’s assassination attempt in Pennsylvania has upended what has already been a chaotic presidential race. We are living in a firehose of events for which there is no pause button. But we can’t afford to let one existential issue distract us from another. They all need to be dealt with.
The assassination attempt was pure evil. Worse, it was profoundly un-American. Every decent person will condemn it wholeheartedly. That’s not the way we do things here.
In response to the shooting, there have been multiple calls, including from the president, to turn down the temperature in American politics. Many Republicans argue that claims that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy are inflammatory and caused the shooting itself. They want such rhetoric stopped.
We have to be able to walk and chew gum here. It is perfectly possible both to condemn political violence and dangerous rhetoric while also pointing out that Donald Trump’s disregard for democratic norms is exactly why he must never be allowed in the Oval Office ever again.
Dangerous rhetoric is Trump’s stock-in-trade. He’s based his entire campaign around it. He calls people vermin. Fascists. Communists. Enemies of the people. He’s also responsible for fomenting more political violence in America than anyone since Jefferson Davis. Remember Cesar Sayoc? Do you remember him laughing at a violent assault on the spouse of one of his political adversaries. Telling lies about a “stolen election” and then launching a mob at the Capitol on January 6th. That’s just a partial list.
Condemning violence and pointing out that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy isn’t just logically consistent. It’s a logical necessity.
But it is true that those arguments now need to be made with more finesse, which is a good segue to the next critical issue that must be sorted out in the coming days.
President Biden has challenged people to bring him analysis showing that he is going to lose if he stays in the race, so here it is. First, let’s dispense with Biden’s big argument that he has a record of great achievement and that he deserves another four years in the White House.
Yes. Biden has done a lot of great things as president. No one cares. If they did care, he would have a 60 percent approval rating and he’d be running 15 points ahead of Trump. He is not and that’s completely on him. That Biden does have such an impressive record of achievement but has been totally incapable of communicating that record to voters is Exhibit A in the case against him.
It’s not just me saying this. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, makes that point and lays out the case for replacing Biden with perfect clarity.
That fact is, Joe Biden was losing the race before the debate. His approval rating hasn’t been above 45 percent since October 2021. The debate was supposed to put the age issue to bed and reverse the trend. Instead, Biden’s performance made the age issue unfixable.
This is not an esoteric policy question. Many tens of millions of Americans have direct experience in dealing with an aging relative. They know what they saw. Because these people know that their parents and grandparents can have good days and bad days, there is no number of teleprompter speeches or news conferences that can fix Biden’s problem.
As an aside, Biden’s inability to accept that his approval rating is at 38 percent is not a reason for him to stay — it’s the biggest reason that he needs to go. Biden’s plan for winning in November is to keep on doing what he’s doing and hope that Americans will finally recognize what a great job he’s done. But that’s not a plan. It’s the worst kind of magical thinking.
The assassination attempt on Donald Trump has complicated matters. Biden did an excellent job over the weekend speaking as president and calling us to our better natures. As we get closer to November, that role will become more and more critical.
But calming President Biden is incompatible with angry candidate Biden, who looks for every opportunity to tear into Donald Trump. Democrats need to make the same forceful arguments, but they need to do it in a different voice, a voice that invites agreement instead of passion. Watch this clip of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and decide for yourself whether she nails it.
Because Whitmer has, herself, been a target of domestic terrorism, she can speak about the threat of violence in America with an authenticity few politicians can match.
But whether it’s Vice President Kamala Harris, Whitmer or someone else, we can’t let the events of the last few days cause us to lose sight of the fact that Biden needs to be replaced — and the sooner the better. Unless the trajectory of the race changes, Trump will win the election. That’s what all the data shows. The attempted assassination has only widened the enthusiasm chasm between energized MAGA Republicans and demoralized Democrats.
Keep your eye on the prize. Biden deserves immense respect for everything he has done. But the facts are the facts. If Democrats are to have any hope of keeping Donald Trump away from the Oval Office, they need to shake up this race. And the only way Democrats can do that now is to replace Biden.
Chris Truax is an appellate attorney and a registered Republican who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008.