There are 267 days left until the 2024 election, and 343 until the presidential inauguration.
Let me begin this Monday by expressing my absolutely deepest level of worry and concern over the growing likelihood that Donald Trump could be elected and cause a national catastrophe.
I want to make clear the ethos of The Warning. I will not bullshit you. Ever.
There are multitudes of platforms to choose from where the bullshit oozes freely. I won’t do it. I won’t say things I don’t believe to be true. I won’t pull punches, gaslight, or get in line to remain in good standing with either the powers that be, or an amorphous Twitter/X mob.
Some months ago, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said something incredible and extremely important that was widely ignored because the ‘quiet part’ isn’t supposed to be said ‘out loud.’ You aren’t supposed to know. The truth is reserved for a rarefied space. What he said was this:
People say, ‘Man, he’s too old to run, isn’t he? I mean, he’s not going to. He’s not really going to run.’ When I say every discussion, I don’t mean 99% of the discussion. Every discussion.
Here is what that means. It means the overwhelming majority of Democratic Party elected officials would rather get in line, stay in line and smile in line than tell you the truth about what they know and see. Sound familiar? Does it remind you of another major political party in America?
It also means that there is an issue that takes precedence above defeating Trump. The notion that President Biden is the strongest Democrat to win is absurd.
Here is how Nate Silver expressed the point:
Here is how sportscaster and journalist Bob Costas talked about it in on ‘Real Time with Bill Maher:’
Just because Republicans and FOX News and all of the tributaries that come off of that will overstate it, turn a blind eye to the fact that Trump, who has always been an unprincipled and reprehensible person, is now a ranting lunatic that has mental gaps of his own. So it's a selective group but that doesn't mean that it isn't true. And when it comes to Biden this is like the truth that no one until very recently wants to say out loud, but my friends will tell you and I've been saying it for four years. This is Emperor's New Clothes stuff. Joe Biden should have run on a firm promise that he would be a one-term president. The only reason that he is president is that is not Donald Trump. Then the Dems could have gotten a lot of people up in the bullpen and they could have sorted through those people.
If Biden's hubris is such that he doesn't understand the best interest of his party, and more important, his country, then he has to be shown the door, period.
Because, if Trump is a threat to democracy, and in many ways he is, so too are the Dems who are in danger of being as feckless as the Republicans have long been shameless. If they're going to send this guy out there, if Trump is a monster, and in many ways he is, you’re going send this guy out to slay the dragon? I don’t think so.
These comments are reflections of reality. They are warnings, and must be heeded.
The reality is that the Biden campaign is entering this week in a death spiral. This is as serious a moment an incumbent president has faced this far from an election since Lyndon Johnson in 1968, who announced his intention to withdraw from the race in March of 1968.
There can be no issue and no ego that supersedes the existential threat of Trump returning to the White House. Nothing is more important.
The response to the special counsel report from the White House has been shocking. Inept, lost and utterly incompetent don’t begin to describe it. It has gotten worse since the news conference. The White House staff is belligerent and angry at the overwhelming majority of the country that has a worry about the president’s age. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released yesterday, and conducted following the release of the special counsel’s report, found that 86 percent of Americans think that Biden is too old to serve a second term. Yet, they have decided to embrace arrogance as a virtue, and stifle reality with defiance of it with an embrace of delusions as grand as those of a malignant narcissist who can’t believe he lost an election.
What is it that we the people are witnessing? Are we not seeing a titanic act of egotism at the expense of the country? Are we not seeing the ambition of a small group of people who are hell bent on clinging to power no matter what? No matter what the risk? What the cost? What the danger?
Why did the White House staff refuse a presidential interview to CBS News before the biggest television audience of the year with an advertising value approaching $100,000,000.00? I think that was a big mistake.
Instead, this was released:
When I first saw it I thought it was an AI-generated smear. It is awful. It has the production quality of a promo for an assisted living facility with meager amenities.
Four years ago, I shut down my business, gave up a TV contract and stepped off a corporate board in order to found and lead the Lincoln Project, which devastated Donald Trump and accumulated $3 billion worth of advertising impact on behalf of Democrats. My life has been threatened repeatedly, and I have been smeared relentlessly. In the end, I was one of a miniscule group of Republicans who never got in line with Donald Trump, never voted for him, and have opposed him non-stop in meaningful ways. Personally, I did not do any of that to trade one cult for another, one line for another.
There is a danger moving closer. Can you see it?
I believe that I see it clearly.
Five hundred and eighty days ago I wrote the following about President Biden’s choice:
President Biden should seize the moment and announce that he will be a one-term president.
In an instant, he would transform the political moment, create a profound opportunity to instigate a long overdue debate about the future of the United States, cripple the energy of the extremist cause and position himself to become a great president. The abandonment of politics, in favor of statecraft, straight talk and a message aimed at separating a growling and extremely diverse majority from a belligerent minority that is corrupt, maliced and politically ascendant is urgently needed.
Five hundred and eighty-six days ago, I wrote this:
American politics has become a proving ground for the proposition that malice, incompetence, corruption, dishonesty, extremism and weirdness are the rocket fuel for success. What were once disqualifying vices have become the golden gate to power, fame and fortune within a broken society where conflict and contempt are billion dollar industries.
There is little talk about the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship from political leaders who lack the imagination, vision and conviction to break the country free from this dreadful moment.
During the early months of his presidency, the dutiful scribers who take stenography and trade tidbits of gossip in a commodities market of inanity and nonsense that is called political journalism were comparing Biden to FDR.
The man who sought the presidency as the only Democrat who could defeat Trump has become the fuel for Trump’s resurrection.
The Biden candidacy was always a modest proposition.
He positioned himself as the only Democratic candidate who could defeat Trump, moderate the growing political insanity and serve as a stable bridge to the future. According to candidate Biden, President Biden was going to be a transitional figure that led a national recovery from four years of division and dishonesty.
There is much speculation in the media about a Biden-Trump rematch. This rematch is neither fated, predestined or inevitable. If it occurs it will be a national catastrophe and Donald Trump will be the likely winner. This must not happen. More than anything else, it is a Washington, DC, delusion wrapped in a greater delusion that America will tolerate an 82-year-old incumbent president who has lost control and has been outmatched by events running against a twice-impeached, disgraced and violent insurrectionist.
After the 2022 midterms I wrote the following, hoping to temper the arrogance that exploded after a narrow victory that delusional Washington, DC, politicians tried to claim as a mandate:
I hope that The Warning community will be a place of respectful and civil debate that helps start necessary and reality-based conversations. There is a strain of fandom that has taken root in our politics that has turned dialogue into whatever passes for screaming between Red Sox and Yankees fans in a mixed bar in the ninth inning of a playoff game. American politics is real life. It is a business full of nuance that requires the ability to hold contradictory thoughts on multiple subjects simultaneously, and understand how people unlike you might see the world
Despite the proclamation by the Associated Press that this is “the year of Chuck Schumer,” I beg to differ.
In my view, this headline is a pristine example of the access journalism mindset that has warped political coverage into a funhouse of deceptive mirrors and delusions.
The election wasn’t about Schumer’s strategic acumen. He deserves little praise for election outcomes he had little to do with shaping.
A more gracious man might approach this moment with humility and worry, given the Democrats’ razor-thin win. I also believe that the single greatest outside contributors to the results on Tuesday night were Oprah Winfrey and Tim Ryan.
Senator-elect Fetterman would not have survived his debate miscalculation against David McCormack. The power of Oprah Winfrey essentially condemning Dr. Oz as untrustworthy was a decisive event in the final days before the election. Some in Washington, DC, can believe it was a wave of “Schumercrats” coming home, but that is a world of fairies, dragons and floating cities. That world doesn’t exist.
There was a moment in time in August, during which a few million dollars of investment from Chuck Schumer could have finished JD Vance off in Ohio. It was one of those moments where decisiveness and audaciousness would have paid off. Ryan ultimately helped to save three Democratic House seats in Ohio. He also drew more than $60 million dollars in total Republican spending away from Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania where the Democratic Senate majority held narrowly.
There are 267 days left until election day. Pretending that everything is fine and ignoring what is clear is not okay. The danger is too great.
The chances of an open Democratic convention may grow dramatically over the next weeks. There is a name you should know: Governor Wes Moore. These have every potential to be exciting days for the Democratic Party, which must win in order for both America and the party to survive. There is no other way.
Writing this makes me sad, but it is necessary. Donald Trump’s defeat is more important than any other factor. I am absolutely prepared to be cold-blooded in analyzing the status of that effort.
I was sitting on a network news election set in 2016 when Trump shocked the world. Everyone was surprised. There will be no excuse for surprises this time. We have all been warned. What is coming is looking the whole country in the eye. Let’s not lie to one another.
Sounds like Steve is saying we should kick Biden to the curb because of his age less than nine months from the election.
Steve Schmidt; can you do one post about how effective Joe Biden has been as President? Just one. Pretty please? Seems fair to me.
One of our best presidents, FDR died in office early in his fourth term and the country still thrived.
Last week it was all about the border “crisis”. It turned out it was a political game the republicans were playing and that was pretty obvious. Now it’s the age “crises” again.
Come on! Isn’t there plenty to focus with Trump’s fascist movement? He wants to dissolve NATO for Gods sake! Why are you focusing on the age thing and not giving an interview during the Super Bowl? Is that more of a problem than trashing NATO? I don’t think so!
You said you would never bullshit us or gaslight us. Seems I am smelling a gas leak here.
"The reality is that the Biden campaign is entering this week in a death spiral".
Really? Again, I 100% disagree with you Steve.