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Yup. It is a coup. The way the everyone got reprogrammed in an instant points towards coordinated action. But it is a very dangerous game - if you shoot at the king you better not miss. And I am far from certain that that big part of the party is on board - there are a lot of people willing to risk a lot on a senile biden second term - so they can be the real power. A protracted democrat civil war will be most welcome - and in this world lately - all blitzkriegs seems to end eventually into meatgrinders. I am more and more convinced that Trump will be sentenced to jail. And with the other candidate removed against his will in extremely undemocratic matter to preserve and spread democracy - well let's just say I will see what is the going rate for Helldivers jumpsuit.
This is just the Age of Twitter working. The consensus emerges very rapidly and takes hold.
My experience is that it doesn't emerge quite immediately, but happens by, oh, hour 72. As of hour 24, maybe even 48, there's still confusion and disagreement, but, after more than a day but less than half a week, an ironclad consensus emerges.
(This is at least how I recall things evolving around George Floyd. In the immediate aftermath, things were just "wow, that's really bad" - took a couple days for "BURN IT ALL DOWN" to fully blaze.)
Right now, the question "should Biden step aside" doesn't have an ironclad answer, but I expect one side or the other to effectively drop out of the argument as of early next week.
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It was deeply weird seeing all the CNN analysts saying the same thing, except for David Axelrod who at least stated factually that Biden is the nominee unless he voluntarily steps down.
But, in practice, how does this reprogramming happen? If you're in that CNN studio, who is making the call to throw Biden under the bus? Because I just don't see how it can happen from a top-down level. I really doubt they "got the call from the DNC" to deliver a narrative. Instead I think the narrative spreads through group think.
It does seem to happen awfully quickly though. Very few people within the Democratic memeplex were calling for Biden to step down until last night. The ones that were (such as Nate Silver) were heavily picked on. Then, on a dime, the narrative shifts. It's weird. Everyone who is paying attention knows that this is what Biden's face looks like now. No one should have been surprised.
I think it’s what you suggested in your first post, and why ‘we’ thought it wasn’t all that bad but mainstream Dem media and political figures did. They had spent years telling themselves that there were no cognitive issues and it was all a bullshit conservative media Fox News Tucker psy-op. Then they were unambiguously forced to confront it. Meanwhile people on the right or in places like this were largely unsurprised and perhaps even felt Biden did OK because they weren’t deluding himself about this decline.
For a lot of TV pundits I think being forced to spend an hour with no (other) distractions directly and uncomfortably confronting the President’s condition was a shock.
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I think no one makes the call. This is flocking behavior, not central decision making.
One unusually brave or reckless person announces some latent opinion respectable people didn't previously announce. That gives cover for slightly meeker people to say it. That bold group gives cover for much meeker to say it. At this point if you don't follow the group then you've been left behind.
From our point of view all Democratic beltway pundits suddenly are repeating the same new phrase or have a sudden new opinion.
And also this small group all texts each other, so there's some regular coordination. But not centralized I'd suppose.
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Agreed, it seemed like on the CNN panel Axelrod and Van Jones were the only ones flailing like I'd expect if they were actually blindsided. If you're a loyal Democrat I'd expect some grasping at straws, making excuses, and outright denial.
On Kamala's post-debate interviews, the most she'd say is that Biden had a "slow start." I'm guessing she was left out because whoever's running the show knows she can't be the nominee, so they can't let her know the plan and try to position herself.
Everyone else got the memo that if Biden can't hack it they're free to call for him to step down, so they were prepared to see him fail.
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They probably have a literal groupchat and are able to peek at how the chat is feeling and adjust own opinion in real time.
This is exactly what John King said on TV. "I've been getting texts non-stop."
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