Peak State Theory: Biden May Be Gaga, But He’s Still In Charge

From the front page of the New York Times:

On Capitol Hill, Democrats Panic About Biden but Do Nothing

The president has yet to do what many Democrats said he must to show he is up to remaining in the race. But so far, they have thrown up their hands, doing nothing to nudge him aside.

By Annie Karni
Reporting from the Capitol

July 9, 2024

… Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a senior member of the Democratic leadership team, put out a statement that passed for fighting words, saying that the president “must do more to demonstrate that he can campaign strong enough to beat Donald Trump.”

So far, Mr. Biden has done none of that.

And yet, Democrats on Capitol Hill are stifling their doubts and falling in line behind him anyway.

Having spent the last week and a half in various stages of private panic and public skepticism about Mr. Biden’s viability as a candidate and whispering among themselves about what the best way to push him aside might be — a strongly worded letter? a White House meeting? a high-level intervention? — top Democrats on Tuesday settled on a strategy many of them conceded could be disastrous: They would do nothing, at least for now. …

Instead, a defiant letter Mr. Biden sent to lawmakers on Monday in which he refused to drop out of the race — coupled with members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus vociferously rallying to his side — appeared to have successfully paralyzed the entire party into a state of uncertainty and inaction during what it had deemed to be the critical week.

My Peak State theory suggests that often the guy nominally at the peak of the publicly disseminated organization chart, such as President Joe Biden, often has a remarkable amount of power to resist everybody not at the top of the org chart, especially if he is a stubborn old fool. What you see is what you get.

Obviously, the Establishment, whoever they are precisely, doesn’t want Trump to win. And they feel that Biden’s knuckleheaded refusal to now gracefully bow out is going to get Trump elected.

But, whaddaya whaddaya? Sure, we are the shadowy cabal of handlers, shot callers, insiders, and global powerbrokers. We are the people that Donald Sutherland warned you about in JFK (along with far more that he didn’t know about yet).

But Dr. Jill doesn’t want Joe to quit, Hunter doesn’t want Joe to quit, and Joe doesn’t want Joe to quit. Against the combined might of Dr. Jill, Hunter, and Joe, we are stumped.

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