On the plus side, one Democrat told NBC News yesterday, “we are no longer talking about Joe Biden’s age.” Talk about seeing the glass half-full! 

But Democrats aren’t swimming in optimism at all, in large part because they know that Biden’s cognitive decline will come up again. For now, though, they realize it’s immaterial in the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. In one fell swoop, the shooting has stripped them of their fear campaign rhetoric while highlighting Trump’s remarkable personal courage.

Democrats now tell NBC News it’s time to cut bait on Biden and focus down-ballot:

At a time when President Joe Biden has been struggling to shore up support with fellow Democrats following a miserable June debate performance and shaky cleanup effort, some professional Democratic political operatives said Saturday’s shooting will end up sealing the incumbent’s electoral fate.

“We’re so beyond f---ed,” one longtime Democratic insider said, noting that the image of Trump thrusting his fist in the air, with blood dramatically smeared across his face, will be indelible.

“The presidential contest ended last night,” said a veteran Democratic consultant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to give a candid assessment of his own party’s standing less than four months before the election.

“Now it’s time to focus on keeping the Senate and trying to pick up the House,” he said. 

NBC’s not the only media outlet hearing this, either. Axios did a deep-ish dive in how the assassination attempt has impacted Democrat strategy ahead of the conventions, and how it has distracted from the efforts to push Biden off the ticket. Readers have to get all the way to the end to learn why they’re no longer focusing on Biden:

What to watch: Most lawmakers who spoke to Axios said it is too early to say whether the cessation in tensions will last until the Democratic National Convention next month.

But the second senior House Democrat offered one reason for why it might: "We've all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency."

As late as Friday, Democrats had considered Biden’s cognitive decline enough of an existential crisis that they reportedly had Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi ready to intervene. After what happened on  Saturday, it’s no longer a crisis, because they apparently no longer see a way to defeat Trump — especially without their “Trump is a danger to democracy” demagoguery, which hit a fever pitch after Biden’s debate collapse.

And they can’t use that campaign now, not after Joe Biden delivered an Oval Office speech last night that demanded a lowered rhetorical temperature in American politics. Of course, this comes from the same Joe Biden that just days earlier told donors that “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye,” a moment that Biden didn’t mention in the speech.

If you missed it, you didn’t really miss much: 

Substantively, the message was all right, but not too impressive. First off, Biden ticked off a list of violent events connected to politics, but never mentioned the assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh, the violent pro-Hamas riots on college campuses, or the “mostly peaceful” riots throughout 2020. Biden offered a scolding message without ever taking ownership for his own contributions to the hysterics in the campaign. Yes, we all need to dial down that hysteria, but Biden had an opportunity to actually demonstrate leadership on that effort, as my friend John Ondrasik pointed out on Twitter:

Imagine if Joe Biden started his speech tonight with "Two days ago I said Donald Trump is a genuine threat to the nation, a threat to our freedom and literally everything America stands for. I apologize. The vitriol needs to stop. And it starts with me". 🇺🇸

— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) July 15, 2024

Whether Biden said that or not, he’s stuck with it. He can’t deliver this Oval Office speech and then go out at start talking again about Trump being a threat to democracy, a dictator in waiting, an enemy to America, and so on. Neither can Democrat Party organs, although the super-PACs may keep using that demagoguery. Biden made that impossible for his campaign and the DNC to continue to use its current messaging, and even then only because he clearly didn’t have any choice, politically.

And this is why Democrats are now despairing — they don’t have any other argument for electing Biden. Before Saturday, they used all that rhetoric to explain why electing a senile man who can’t speak clearly even when on Teleprompter was still preferable to electing Trump. A new candidate would likely still have had to rely on TRUMP IS HITLER messaging to avoid the political consequences of throwing Biden off the ticket after ensuring no one could seriously challenge him in the primaries. Even as late as Saturday afternoon, before the assassination attempt, Bernie Sanders explicitly argued that a near-senile Biden was preferable to Darth Trump.

So is the presidential contest really over? We have almost four months to go, and anything can happen, especially at this level. But Democrats now realize that they no longer have an argument and they no longer have a candidate, while running against a man who just demonstrated extraordinary courage and vitality while literally under fire. Good luck with that, Dems. 

Addendum: Biden’s speech wasn’t really about performance points, but it missed the mark that way, too. Biden got lost a couple of times while reading off the teleprompter, for instance. He called ballot boxes “battle boxes” twice, and called Trump “former Trump” at one point. His voice sounded thin and tired, and he delivered the speech while squinting into the camera for most of the six minute address. Had the debate never happened, these points probably wouldn’t get much mention, but Biden needs to show that the debate was just “one bad night” every time he appears in public. If he can’t even deliver an Oval Office speech of six minutes without fumbling it, that may well be another reason for Democrats to write off the White House for the next four years.

Of course, there’s also this moment. And yes, he did. 

Did Biden almost just say "Make America Great Again"? pic.twitter.com/0ap0sAmF3w

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 15, 2024