No matter what our opinions are, we have to be fact-based here. [View all]

[BlueCheeseAgain]

I took a break from posting a while ago due to too much infighting about Israel-Palestine. But I haven't stopped reading, and this latest sparring over whether President Biden should be the party's nominee feels even worse.

I'm personally undecided about this issue. In the end, only Biden himself can make the decision to step down-- it would be way too difficult to change the ticket against his will. I hope he and his advisors can make a clear, rational decision about what the best course of action is. Defeating Trump is the only objective in November, no matter who the Democratic candidate is.

Having said that, I'm very dismayed at what seems to be a developing orthodoxy at DU that is veering towards conspiracy theories and shutting out inconvenient facts. We all know today's GOP has turned itself into an alternate-reality echo chamber where fiction becomes fact and reality is ignored. We don't want to start down the same path.

If our view of the world requires believing that

* the NYT, CNN, WaPo, and basically every other mainstream news sources is out to get Trump elected,
* polls commissioned by these outlets and done by reputable pollsters are conspiracies designed in advance to attack Biden,
* editorials saying that Trump is a serious threat to our country and that Biden may not be the best person to run against him are in fact pro-Trump,
* the debate format was a trick and the CNN moderators in the bag,
* Democratic leaders such as Pelosi, Clyburn, Whitehouse, and various governors are stupid in being concerned,
* DU members who have been here for over a decade are trolls and saboteurs, or bedwetters or pearl-clutchers, and
* anything posted to the contrary of the above should be ignored or banned

it just might be that it's us whose viewpoint is clouded by bias and what we want to see. (Those aren't even the most fanciful things I've read. Some have suggested that Biden was deliberately drugged by Trump or a CNN staffer.)

Like I said, I don't know what the right path forward is. But I think the following is a pretty accurate description of the current situation:

* Biden was at best tied with Trump going into the debate, and quite possibly trailing slightly
* A large percentage of the population, including a sizable percentage of Democrats, were worried beforehand about Biden's age.
* Biden's performance at the debate was alarming in that respect.
* Post-debate polling by reputable firms is not yet conclusive, but is beginning to show a shift away from Biden. NYT, WSJ, internal Dem pollsters, etc.
* Many Democrats who love Joe Biden and desperately want to defeat Trump are worried that Biden may not be the right person to do it. This includes a lot of elected leaders. It is not the sole province of trolls and scaremongers.

I'm not going to try to explain what I personally think is the right choice-- I don't know. I don't think anybody does. But I do think we should at least agree on the same set of facts before we talk about what's next.