Biden followed up his disastrous debate performance with a lackluster interview on ABC last week—and now Democratic politicians, operatives, and voters are panicking. People inside and outside the White House are questioning Biden’s fitness, but the president says he isn’t ready to give up on the race.

As Chris Lehmann wrote this week, Biden’s tactic for defending himself is to go on the “warpath against party ‘elites.’” Nevermind that he’s the president and that as senator he was known for the “extreme solicitude he showed for moneyed interests.” Just recently, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Lehmann recapped, Biden posed a challenge to his party counterparts: “Run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president. Challenge me at the convention.”

Meanwhile, many pundits think there’s already a natural successor to Biden in Kamala Harris. After an exclusive conversation with the vice president, Joan Walsh argued that after “Biden’s catastrophic debate performance, he and the Democratic Party need Harris more than ever.” Her polling numbers have been improving, and as Walsh explained, she has “solidified a role as an emissary to crucial voting blocs.”

It’s not like Biden’s economic policies have failed. As Jeet Heer put it, “if elections were decided by simple factual measures of whether the public is better off due to an incumbent’s policies, Joe Biden would be sailing smoothly into a landslide.” But that’s not the case.

Amid the anxiety of an election that Trump appears on track to win, we lost a hero of the labor movement, Jane McAlevey. In an obituary for McAlevey, our strikes correspondent, Katie Miles wrote how the organizer inspired and taught her—as well as thousands of others—to keep fighting. Miles keeps a text from McAlevey with a message we should all remember: “Class struggle is not easy. It is, however, urgent and ongoing.”

-Alana Pockros

Engagement Editor, The Nation