• June 28, 2024


By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Readers, today’s Water Cooler is a post, but I included the bird song and the plant, because I knew you’d ding me if I didn’t! –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Eastern Meadowlark, Brazoria NWR–Auto Tour Loop and Discovery Center, Brazoria, Texas, United States.
.

* * *

Today’s chaos in the Democrat party is perhaps best understood as a succession crisis, not merely personally, but generationally (Biden’s replacement, if any, is unlikely to be 81, and even less likely to be a member of the Senate class of 1973).

Moreover, it’s a crisis that needs to be solved by deadline: The physical Chicago convention is August 19-22, but the Democrat National Committee (DNC) has decided to hold a virtual nomination on Zoom, because Republican Ohio required an August 7 filing date to get the Democrat nominee on their ballot. (Ohio has since moved the filing date to September 1, but Democrats don’t trust them.) The date of the Zoom nomination is, however, as yet unrevealed. Let’s say the date is August 6. This is June 28, making the deadline 39 days away. If the date turns out to be August 19 after all, the crisis must be resolved in 52 days. That’s not a lot of time.

Whether the Democrat succession crisis is of historical significance is as yet unknown (asked the same question of the French Revolution, Chou En-Lai is said to have said “It’s too early to say”). Certainly it’s significant in the history of the party, though it’s hard to think of a precedent: When Democrats split in 1860, it was over an important principle — slavery — and not over the party’s aging star and weak bench. Certainly the debate is significant, though whether on the order of Bush v. Gore 2000 (which Gore was thought to have won for a news cycle or so, until the press decided the debate was really about Gore sighing obnoxiously) or Kennedy v. Nixon 1960 (a poor analogy with no Camelot in the offing) is also unknown.

I spent a few hours after the debate trawling the Twitter, and a few hours after that reading up on the bigfootery and hot-take-ish-ness, and in what follows I’m going to empty out my haul into the following buckets, which correspond roughly to opinion-havers in the Democrat Party structure (ignoring the spooks, press assets, and NGOs):

1) Tragedians

2) The Wizard of Kalorama™

3) Party Grandees

4) Bedwetters

5) Non-Bedwetters

6) Party Members and Activists

7) Outsiders

8) Fanciful Scenarists

My object is not to predict the future — though I do recall asserting that “volatility” was to be this year’s theme — but to try to reduce the mass of material to some sort of order. (Readers will observe that there’s one further category I’ve left out: Funders. That’s because squillionaires and even local gentry are few in number, have ideological crotchets, must be serviced, and cover their tracks, which is why Ferguson and his associates need to take time to figure out — in granular and not class terms — who the string-pullers really are (I say “string-pullers” rather than “puppet masters” because the members of every bucket have their own relative autonomy)).

I’m going to structure the buckets rather like the club sandwich I had for lunch: The bacon, lettuce, and so forth will be the Tweets I collected; the slices of bread will be links to the opinion-havers. Because this is Water Cooler, the sandwich will be large at first, and assume Dagwoodian proportions once orts and scraps are added. (Adding, slices of bread to come shortly. There’s a lot to process.)

But before I start filling up buckets, let me have some fun and do a Wordle for each candidate. I’m using the CNN transcript.

Biden:

Trump:

Make of them what you will. (These are simple frequency-based Wordles. I’m frankly surprised “horrible” doesn’t assume greater salience in Trump’s Wordle; the way he pronounced it really sticks in the mind.)

Tragedians

But still evoking pity and terror:

Time to take the car keys away (1):

Trump, amazingly, stays controlled, gives a slight shrug, and does what he has to do.

Time to take the car keys away (2):

Time to take the car keys away (3):

Time to take the car keys away (4):

The Democrats have form on elder abuse:

Carefully uncommitted:

The after-party, poor Jill (1):

Poor Jill (2):

The Wizard of Kalorama™

Obama’s speechwriter (coined “The Blob”) takes a view:

Party Grandees

[to come]

Bedwetters

That escalated quickly:

“Very aggressive panic”:

“Multiple lists” (flex nets):

“Zero constituency”?

Non-Bedwetters

Saying what she has to say:

Newsom selling hard (1):

Newsom selling hard (2):

Hillary Clinton’s press secretary:

(She could be right, of course.)

Former Biden Press Secretary:

Admirably committed to the bit, but still cope:

Elias is the Democrat go-to on election law, and a conduit for Steele Dossier money.

More cope, decoped:

Party Members and Activists

Refusual to cope:

Replacing the votes of those who voted for Biden, too:

“Our democracy”….

Outsiders

Thanks, Obama!

Silicon Valley, but not a tech bro, scam artist, or libertarian (sorry for the redundancy):

Fanciful Scenarists

I believe Biden could also release his delegates:

Of the Trillbillies:

Memory hole? What memory hole?

Twenty Fifth Amendment:

Too many moving parts in Twenty Fifth Amendment, I think.

A faithless elector:

To Tim Mellon, $10M is a gratuity!

“It was a set-up”:

As I’ve said before, I think all parties thought an early debate would bring clarity.

* * *

And about Biden’s hoarseness:

What nobody’s saying:

Conclusion

If the Democrats are to replace Biden, they have 52 days at the outside to choose his successor, introduce them to the public, and turn the tanker of the campaign (besides replacing all of Biden’s staff). That’s a heavy lift.

Introduced to the public and build campaign by deadline.

So might Biden’s successor be? We have two virtually useless data points as of this writing. First, prediction markets:

Quite the price swing. Second, this poll at Drudge:

Who the heck is “Other”? Oprah? Arnold? Michelle? Taylor Swift?

Then of course there are larger crises that the Biden Administration has on its plate:

(Note that one may regard the Israel Lobby as a proxy for the military-industrial complex while still accepting Mearsheimer’s bottom line.) Busy, busy, busy!

* * *

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From EM:

EM write: “How we doing? I can’t wait to inject this into my arm.” You and me both.

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!

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