Anand Giridharadas writes:

Today Congressional Democrats met for a caucus meeting, and it was…complicated.

One lawmaker, interviewed while walking out, was asked if the caucus was on the same page about whether President Biden should remain the party’s standard-bearer in 2024. He responded that they weren’t even reading from the same book.

A small but growing number of Democratic lawmakers, along with many in the commentariat (and many voters who have registered their concerns about Biden’s age and health following the debate), have called on Biden to step aside. Others are whispering to each other and to the press but staying publicly uncommitted. A great many others are doubling down on their support for Biden, with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, for example, saying she wouldn’t contend for president even if Biden dropped out and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declaring that “he is in this race” and “the matter is closed.”

What everyone in this intra-party debate agrees on is the importance of defeating Donald Trump, the MAGA Republican Party, and their Project 2025 vision for authoritarianism in America. The disagreement is over how to get there.

With the situation still fluid and the argument still raging, we at The Ink wanted to break down three of the paths forward. They fall into three categories of the human response to a threat: fight, flight, or freeze.

Some of them give American democracy more of a future than others. [Continue reading…]