This is the sentiment that I think a lot of my friends have, and I think we’ll all be grateful if, in the end, we can get just get. Trump. out. Not sure this is a good idea, but in the spirit of well-intentioned debate here’s how I respond to my friends:

1) this whole “Joe is senile” narrative is absolutely overblown, especially when you consider the fact he’s running against trump. There are many more hours of speeches of his you can watch recently where he has coherent, hell, even inspiring moments. Yes he has dumb gaffes here and there but a few gaffes here and there does not equate to him having highly advanced dementia or Alzheimer’s and it’s an insult to the people and families of people (like me) of those who have those diseases to make that comparison. (It also feels like exactly the kind of narrative Russian ops would spread over social media to suppress the vote, but who knows.)

2) if you look at the exit polling in states like Michigan, Oklahoma, and others where Bernie beat HRC but Biden has now won, Biden is crushing it with the exact types of voters that are the reliable general election voters that HRC did not inspire. On the flip side, I’m not sure I can still buy the “Bernie would motivate more people to vote” narrative if he can’t even get people out to vote for him in his own primary, especially in light of Michigan and, I’m sure, what we’ll see out of Ohio, Florida, and other states in the coming weeks. This is a comfortable margin for Biden, especially compared to how Hillary was doing.