The opposing views

Ezra Klein, regretfully yes. Josh Marshall, hell no.

Ambiguity Tolerance

Ambiguity tolerance refers to how well you cope with uncertainty:

• Degree to which accepting of vagueness, unpredictability, inconsistencies, conflicting directions, and a lack of information, comfortable with uncertainty.
• Related to adaptability, flexibility and openness to change.
• No one knows where along the spectrum of strong intolerance to unfazed gazing the sweet spot is found.
• Stressors, information overload and cultural norms shape tolerance.

Opposing Ideas

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise. F. Scott Fitzgerald (attrib.)

The Double Header

My opposed ideas

1. Nothing is more important than keeping Donald Trump out of office.
2. Joe Biden has an unparalleled record of achievement unlike anything since LBJ's before Vietnam, and he has earned a second term.

The double whammy

Both propositions are axiomatically true but in tension until the voting decisions of perhaps 100,000 voters in a handful of electoral college swing states are known. The uncertainty of the outcome requires confronting the possibility that the two axioms are not only in tension but might be mutually exclusive.

Entirely too much cognitive dissonance. Way too much. What to do?

Option 1: Throw overboard both ideas

Why is this even a question? No way am I letting go of the urgency of keeping Trump away from the White House.

Option 2: Entertain the possibility of replacing President Biden as the Democratic Party nominee with someone younger who could overcome the optics of Joe Biden's age on the campaign trail.

Wait! Throw away the advantage of the incumbency? Turn away the only President to be able to put a bipartisan coalition together for anything in how long?

And who else has the national security chops for these serious times?

• Hillary Clinton: As former Secretary of State from 2009-2013, Clinton gained significant foreign policy experience working closely with President Obama. Before that, she served 8 years in the Senate with stints on committees like Armed Services and Foreign Relations. She also traveled extensively as First Lady. But she's turning 77 before the election, she's been out of office for over 10 years and she has lost to Trump before.
• John Kerry: Kerry served over 28 years in the Senate, including four years as Chairman of the influential Foreign Relations Committee. He also served as Secretary of State under President Obama from 2013-2017, giving him extensive foreign policy leadership. But he's turning 81 shortly after the election and he lost to George W. Bush.
• Chuck Hagel: Hagel was a Republican Senator who later served as Secretary of Defense under President Obama from 2013-2015. Prior to that he had foreign policy experience from serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But he's turning 78 before the election, he's been out of office for nine years. And he is not actually a Democrat.
• Chris Dodd: Dodd spent over 30 years as a Democratic Senator serving on the Foreign Relations Committee, including several years as Chairman or Ranking Member. He had broad foreign policy involvement ranging from Latin America to Iran negotiations. But he's turning 80 before the election, he's been out of office for 13 years, made no impression in the 2008 contest, dropping out before he started, and has some residual stench from the 2008 mortgage mess.
• Sam Nunn: Nunn spent 24 years as a Democratic Senator and served as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, gaining him deep expertise in foreign policy, national security, and military affairs. But he will be 86 before the election, he's been out of office 38 years, he passed on a 2008 run for the nomination and speculation about being named veep petered out. He has taken positions on social issues that have since been abandoned by every member of the Democratic Party with the possible exception of Joe Manchin.
• Sherrod Brown: Brown has served as a Democratic Senator from Ohio since 2007. He currently sits on the Foreign Relations Committee and has advocated for a worker-centered trade policy, caution on foreign interventions, and steel policy reform. But he'll be 72 just after the election, his 2020 exploratory phase lasted less than a quarter, and he is the only Democrat with a shot at keeping the Ohio Senate. He is also low on the charisma scale
• Amy Klobuchar: As a Senator since 2007, Klobuchar has developed foreign policy credentials from serving on committees like Commerce and Judiciary. She has advocated for pursuing international agreements, restoring America's global leadership, and targeted use of military force abroad. She's a Boomer, but still pre-Medicare. In 2020 she peaked at third place in New Hampshire before dropping out right after South Carolina.
• Chris Murphy: Murphy has quickly built foreign policy expertise in his 10 years as a Connecticut Senator, focusing heavily on issues like relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia, reducing military interventions abroad, and investigation of Russian election interference. He's a solid Gen Xer. He has been in elected office half of his life and maintained a mix of positions that would make him a good consensus choice of the Establishment and Progressive wings of the Democratic party. He can speak with fire in the belly. But he's not widely known nationally.

The youngest of the older generation, Brown, would end a hypothetical second term at age 80. He does not do anything to address the call for "a new generation of leaders" call to action of JFK in his Inaugural speech. Everyone older than Brown is either also a leading edge Boomer or a surviving Silent. Looking over this field of elected political figures with foreign policy credibility, only Klobuchar and Murphy do much to address the age perception issue.

Even younger:

Tammy Duckworth, a Gen Xer and decorated Army combat veteran, was in the hunt for Biden's Veep, but lost out to Kamala Harris has first tier Senate committee assignments.

Seth Moulton, Gen Xer and decorated Marine combat veteran has House committee assignments on point; his political acumen is cast in doubt by his attempt to keep Nancy Pelosi from the Speakership and an ill-considered trip to Kabul at the time of its evacuation.

Pete Buttigieg: a millennial and Naval Intelligence veteran, had a serious run in 2020 before the Biden candidacy became inevitable, but hasn't held a foreign policy/defense portfolio.

Shallow bench: The Democratic Party is thin on the ground as far as prime age politicians with national security credentials. None of Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, Samantha Power or Eric Fanning, the rising stars of the Obama Administrations, have gone into politics. Current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is another pre-Medicare Boomer who has never been elected.

In relief: Vice President Harris, a pre-Medicare Boomer, sat on the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee during her four years there and is said to be in the room when important steps are taken. She's been getting more public exposure in the role of national security player, which is unusual for a vice president. She started with the traditional role of fall guy with her assignment to fix the immigration problem at its origin. Mission Impossible if there ever was one. Among vice presidents in modern times only Nixon ever gained a national security reputation before becoming president. And that was on the basis of cheerleading Team America against The Forces of Godless Communism™️. George H.W. Bush was CIA Director. Based on what can be seen externally the weight to give her natural security abilities is unclear. My hope is that she has passed swiftly through the knows enough to be dangerous phase well into the territory of really listen carefully to people who have seen more on her way to mastery.

Why it matters: President Obama was a novice in national security and he made some bad calls

• The ill-considered doubling down with the Afghanistan surges
• The grave underestimation of the destabilizing effects of the Arab Spring
  • Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt—the democratic will of the people in free and fair elections doesn't always lead to what we hope
  • Throwing in with Libyans who united solely by hatred of Gaddafi and, once they got rid of him with our help have been fighting each other ever since
  • The failed Syrian red line warning on chemical weapons
• Getting caught flatfooted by Putin's invasion of Ukraine and seizing of Crimea
• Talking up a pivot toward meeting the strategic threats of China but failing to accomplish much concrete
• Failing to get Transpacific Partnership trade agreement ratified by waiting until it was to late to consider it after both Clinton and Trump came out against it

The next four years geopolitically will be as perilous or more than the past four.

Bottom line on natural security: If none of the names above gains traction, we lose more by replacing Biden on the campaign trail while sacrificing his capabilities in office.

Who said this would be easy?

National Security Aside

Bipartisanship skills will be less important in the next four years, as the RINOs continue to fall by the wayside. A fictional President Thomas Whitmore faced a similar problem in Independence Day when seeking common ground with alien invaders.

Alien: Release me. Now!
President Whitmore: I know there is much we can learn from each other. IF we can negotiate a truce, we can find a way to coexist. Can there be a peace between us?
Alien: Peace… No peace.
President Whitmore: What is it you want us to do?
Alien: Die!

The problem that Mitch McConnell introduced in 2009 has only gotten worse. It's very hard to negotiate with someone who doesn't want anything but for you to vanish and isn't willing to take yes for an answer in any negotiation that does take place.

With that a given, however, the next four years will determine the long-term fate of the Democratic Party, which rebuilt its Northern Labor/Southern Segregationist coalition after 1968 to create a party mostly capable of bridging the differences lying between Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders that come in many shades. The coalition started showing signs of wear with the resistance to Nancy Pelosi's last run as Speaker, fortunately. The permanently insoluble Israeli/Palestinian is here with pressures to choose up sides. If there is a path to bridging over our traditional guilt driven support of Israel to our new guilt driven repulsion of the war it is raging, I wish it were clear.

Generationally, will Gen Z settle for even Millennials? How to overcome the immediate inconvenience and expense of dealing with a migrant surge? Can someone take a moment to discuss how to get the Red Dawn states off the culture wars and onto something that preserves any notion of shared national values?

Lincoln could do this sort of brokering, and under difficult circumstances. FDR was a King Solomon to Lincoln's Moses, but no mean slouch at maintaining a shaky equilibrium of interests. Clinton was a master of distracting attention away from the nominal party values to pragmatics of the possible, even if some of what was possible, like ending welfare as we knew it, was cynical. Obama was unsurpassed as a mage summoning hope to extract yet more patience. For this round, we need the top of the batting order. It might not be ultimately bad for the United States to move away from the two-party system, but not while we remain stuck with the Electoral College.

The 2024 Senate election calendar may change control if there is only a single net gain for the Republican Party.

Potentially competitive

• Arizona (Sinema) Defense
• Montana (Tester) Defense
• West Virginia (Manchin) Defense (nominally, because Manchin has to be bought off on so many votes to keep him counting as Democrat)
• Maryland (Van Hollen) Defense
• New Jersey (Menendez) Open (in effect)
• Ohio (Brown) Defense
• Pennsylvania (Casey) Defense

West Virginia will likely flip if Manchin doesn't run, Montana is likely to flip if Tester doesn't run, but if he does he may benefit from Republican internecine war. Hogan could make Maryland close, and Christy could have enough residual popularity to take the seat Menendez is leaving by ballot or handcuffs. If Sinema drops out of her third-party bid and Lake keeps her lead, Gallego has a better than even chance of keeping Arizona for the Democrats. The fates of Brown and Casey probably rest with the relative turnouts for President.

If that assessment turns out to be accurate (who knows?), it's down to the King of Coal, Joe Manchin as to whether control of the Senate remains if the Democratic Party wins the Presidency. Continuing to manage that dynamic will be a challenge for anyone. It will be impossible without solid party discipline.

So, my remaining anguish is to assess whether anyone can do as well as President Biden at keeping at least one wheel on the track at all times to maintain an effective coalition party. I'm not sure who to look toward.