Dear Gina,
There was much to be concerned about with Biden's debate with Trump, as well as with his interview with George Stephanopoulos.
But nothing that happened in those two events has been as damaging as the way the Democratic party has been handling the crisis since then. Every day we delay dealing effectively with the scandal surrounding the President’s debate performance is a day we’re ceding ground to Donald Trump. Americans want to think the government knows how to handle a crisis, yet the party is failing at the basics of crisis management.
It’s been deeply dispiriting watching Democratic politicians running to and fro like children, asking us not to see what we saw, wringing their hands, sounding “concerned,” saying they “have questions,” describing their feelings as “sad,” formulating their viewpoints based on the most cynical calculations concerning their own ambitions, rather than immediately getting tough and putting this crisis behind them.
We keep hearing “There’s nothing we can do if the President doesn’t wish to step down.” But that’s not necessarily true; sometimes in life you need to stage an intervention. The President needs to be pressured to stand down, to face what a risk he is posing to a Democratic victory, and to release his delegates right away. There are people who could do that. They know it, and so do we.
If ever there was a case for new energy and a repudiation of the status quo, it’s right now — and that’s why I’m in this race. Is there enough time for a mini primary leading up to an open convention? Absolutely there is! Look at the French, and the British, and how they mounted major elections recently. But this is not a time to dither.
Those who say we don’t have enough time to mount a new mini primary are only making that argument because they fear a loss of control of the process. Yet what to them is a loss of control should be seen by the rest of us as the practice of democracy.
I’m doing a lot of press interviews right now such as the one above on ABC, continuing to make my case for a campaign that will truly excite the electorate, defeat Donald Trump in November, and put America on the track to a season of repair.
The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. TIMOTHY SNYDER, ON TYRANNY
