As the damage caused by Trump, the question for American Democrats: When will you learn it? |Timothy Garton Ash

nOthing is more unbearable than someone saying “I told you.” So, please forgive me for being unable to bear it. September 29, 2023, after spending a few months in the United States, I A column published This is summed up well in the title of its Guardian: “Unless Joe Biden puts aside, the world must prepare for President Trump 2.0.” We can never say “if…?” but it’s very likely that Biden has cleared the way for the Democratic primary in the fall of 2023, with the most powerful candidate likely defeating Trump. The whole world would have been detrimental to the disaster that is happening now.

You might say, “It’s useless on spilled milk.” Yes, but for the future it’s always worth learning the course. I’m back in the United States now, Recent polls The Wall Street Journal found that 63% of voters had negative views on the Democratic Party. Frankly speaking, Democrats still have a way to go.

So what about the right course considering everything that is happening and everything we know now? The purpose of mentioning my old column is not to boast about some special internal insights into Washington’s high politics. The point is that I don’t. Obviously, a obviously old and vulnerable candidate is obviously crazy, and by the end of his second term, he will be at least 86 years old. For comparison, we believe that the Soviet leaders who we consider to be the microcosm of the declining elderly officials at their respective moments of destruction were 75 (Leonid Breznev), 69 (Yuri Andropov) and 73 (Konstantin Chernenko).

It doesn’t require special knowledge to see this and most Americans have done it. When I was writing a column, a poll found 77% of Americans It is believed that Biden is too old to be president for another four years. Only political insiders, liberal commentators, democratic entrepreneurship, he continues to work with the president, his family and his closest advisor, who is actually informally called the “Politburo”, and he is his only worker.

In their recent compelling books, original sintwo leading Washington journalists, CNN Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson In Axios, as their subtitles suggest, there is a cover-up. Biden’s family and the Politburo tried to cover up his cognitive decline, limiting most of his meetings to between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Even cabinet members haven’t seen him approaching for months, and in-depth media interviews are as rare as the Vatican’s pride parade.

The author generously attributes the president, his wife, other family members and his closest adviser to blame, but they have a group of people they are curious about: themselves and their Washington Insider reporters. Now, I haven’t replied to all the reports from CNN and Axios, of course there are Some fragments It should be quoted to defend their news records. But there is no doubt that American political journalists, especially those who comment on liberalism, are late to speak out what most “ordinary” Americans have seen long ago.

Why? New York Times writer Ezra Klein One episode His excellent podcast. Frankly, Klein explored his own February 2024 call for Biden to stand aside in a conversation with Tapper, which is “late” and why most others are even later. The answer seems to be a mix of ingredients: news fears of losing access; fighting tribalism in democratic institutions; respect for the imperial president; fear of Donald Trump; fear of Kamala Harris as the presumptive alternative candidate.

Worrying about losing access is a disease of journalism. “You feel like you’re destroying all your relationship with the White House at once,” Klein said. Tapper added, “Yes, not only the White House, but with the Democrats.” My own September 2023 notebook summarizes a private conversation with a Washington-based columnist: “Yes, Biden should put it aside. [the columnist] That can’t be said. ” (My notes continue: “Jill Biden can, but she likes it.”)

I also know, from other sources, how threatening the democratic institutions can be when trying to shut down any questions about Biden’s fit for the second term. Even in key articles that do appear in the American media, there is a residual respect for the presidency, as if they are demanding the king’s abdication, not just another politician on the side. This stems in part from pushing the 237-year-old U.S. Constitutional equipment toward your prime minister and monarch. In Britain, we limit the remaining respect to the monarch, and the Prime Minister bakes on the Prime Minister’s question every Wednesday. Biden’s 2023 raucous state of someone in Westminster will not survive for two weeks.

Then there is the fact that people are already panicking about Trump, and that’s a way of thinking, especially after the democratic success in the 2022 midterm elections, Biden is the only one to beat him. Since the presumptive alternative, Harris has been seen as a relatively weak candidate. So, for fear of getting Harris and Trump, they got Harris and then got Trump.

So some courses are clear. Tapper and Thompson opened the book in the words of George Orwell: “Looking at what’s in front of the nose requires constant struggle.” But Orwell also calls on us to always say what we see, even if – no, especially – it’s uncomfortable for our own side. There is a double test for journalists: look and say it out.

For democracy: Don’t try to intimidate the media with their arguments that they are fueling against the enemy. Just in Orwell’s spirit, journalists will serve you better. Then: Replace your old guard. Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democratic caucus, was older than Chernenko and quickly caught up with Brezhnev. Oh, yes, just listen to the person you want to represent.

The tragedy of the whole story is that Democrats have a wealth of talent among the younger generation Pete Buttigieg,,,,, Josh Shapiro,,,,, Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom New York’s new star, Zohran Mamdani. They don’t have a shared platform to win the presidential election, but co-authors of thinkers like Klein and Derek Thompson Rich,,,,, Another book now is already making some good ideas. In next year’s midterm elections, Democrats may swing the House in a few new faces and by focusing on Trump’s negative impact on workers and middle-class Americans. But by 2027, in the advancement of the next presidential election, they will need everything they can’t make in 2023.