Sidney Blumenthal: “It is the Democrats who pull Biden underwater. They see his physical faults and shudder at his political fall. He is 80, his hair thinned, his gait slower and more careful. He is not eloquent. The slight hesitation of the stutter he overcame as a child seems occasionally to return. He is not Mick Jagger strutting at 80. The intensity of concern among Democrats about Biden is in direct proportion to their panic about Trump. They see in his fragility their own predicament. He is the screen on which they project their anxiety, insecurity and fear. They suffer from a crisis of bad nerves.”
“The Democrats’ withholding creates a self-fulfilling prophesy. Spooked by the shadow of Trump, they react with disapproval of Biden, whose numbers are stagnant, flashing the sign that makes them more frightened. They do not censure Biden or dislike him. But they hope for a counter-factual scenario. There is none.”
