The News: That debate…oof.

Biden's performance was very rough, and Trump is a lying fascist who refuses to accept election results. It is what it is.

By Ezra Levin

(Editor's note: Ezra Levin is an American political activist and co-founder of the progressive non-profit organization, Indivisible. He is co-author of We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump, published in 2019.)

June 28, 2024

Here’s my personal opinion on the debate: Biden turned in a terrible performance and Trump was an unhinged, nonsensical, lie-spewing, convicted felon who refused to accept the last election results or the next one. It was painful to watch.

But here’s the thing: Ultimately my personal opinion on this doesn’t matter. I know who I’m voting for. You know who you’re voting for. We don’t need convincing. The question is what impact this had on the voters who aren’t already with us -- the folks who don’t like politics, who find elites of both parties untrustworthy, and who aren’t currently thinking about the stakes of this election.

In the days to come, we're going to get a ton of data on how these voters reacted to the debate. Frankly, there's no reason to think Biden won people to our side. I also don't think there's much reason to think Trump won them over, either.

But let's not skip over the damage Trump did to himself. He refused not once, not twice, but three times to accept the results of this election. He refused again to accept the results of the last election. And he bragged about killing Roe and opening the floodgates to attacks on reproductive rights around the country. You don’t have to be a Democratic campaigner in the spin room to recognize all that is deeply unpopular and bad for Trump.

You’re going to hear me repeat this a lot in the months to come: When voters focus on the personalities, we struggle. When voters focus on the stakes, we win. And what all the data so far tells us is that many, many voters do not yet understand the stakes. 

I wish Biden had done better in this debate. But there is no world where Biden could carry this message on his own regardless of how well he landed his lines. He’s an elected politician and a member of one of our two national, unpopular political parties. Our target audience -- those folks who legitimately are torn between voting for Biden, voting third party, or not voting at all -- view him and others in his class with skepticism. Mathematically speaking, most of them did not even tune into the debate.  

You and I know these stakes -- it’s what makes us so engaged in this fight. And we need to blast it out again and again and again, in as many creative ways as possible, in the hope that eventually it will break through with the voters we need. Not the first or second time, but maybe the eighth or ninth. 

So here’s my real take on the debate: Ask not what Biden can do to win the election; ask what you can do to help defeat Trump. And that brings us the brag: 

The Brag: But what can we do? Lots.

I’ve been writing about the two-year anniversary of the Republicans overturning Roe for a couple months. When nearly a third of voters blame Biden or aren’t sure who to blame for killing Roe, we know we have to correct the record or risk losing in November. But far more important than what I write here is what Indivisible movement leaders do to take narrative advantage of this moment. Here’s the strategic logic of this work:

The problem: Many voters who support reproductive rights aren’t paying close enough attention to assign blame to Trump and Republicans for attacking reproductive rights.

The message: Republicans stacked the court with right-wingers to kill Roe, enacted state abortion bans across the country, and are actively blocking the Right to IVF Act and the Right to Contraception Act. 

The messenger: Biden and other elected Democrats can carry the right message, but for that message to get through to the voters we need to reach, we need the right messengers. And there’s no better messenger than friendly fellow community members.  

That's where we can play a critical role in saving democracy.  Each and every one of us.  Each and every day. 

Images from the debate.