Auditions are now possible. Which Democrat is up for victory in November?

In America, it can be easy to forget what liberal democracy sounds like. But it used to sound something like this:

Whilst he has been my political opponent, Sir Keir Starmer will shortly become our prime minister. In this job, his successes will be all of our successes and I wish him and his family well. Whatever our disagreements in this campaign, he is a decent public-spirited man who I respect. He and his family deserve the very best of our understanding as they make the huge transition to their new lives behind this door, and as he grapples with this most demanding of jobs in this increasingly unstable world.

Those are the words of former British prime minister Rishi Sunak in his farewell speech last week outside Number 10, Downing Street. This is how Keir Starmer responded:

I want to thank the outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, his achievement as the first British-Asian prime minister of our country. The extra effort that that will have required should not be underestimated by anyone, and we pay tribute to that today. And we also recognize the dedication and hard work he brought to his leadership.

He went on:

If you voted Labour yesterday, we will carry the responsibility of your trust as we rebuild our country. But whether you voted Labour or not, in fact, especially if you did not, I say to you directly, my government will serve you.

And, if you listen to them say these words, they even seemed to mean it. That’s what it takes to put a toxically divided country back on track toward liberal democracy, after a woundingly divisive period centered on Brexit.

No one claimed fraud. No one derided the lopsided unfairness of the parliamentary results, where Labour got 34 percent of the vote and a whopping 63 percent of the seats, and where the new rightist Reform Party won 14 percent of the vote and got only 5 seats. Those were the rules ahead of the game, and they were the rules everyone had agreed to.

There is one reason and one reason only why this kind of conciliatory exchange cannot happen any time soon in America, and that is Donald J. Trump. With a mind warped by pathological and malignant narcissism, incapable of generosity or grace or fairness, Trump has dominated this country’s politics for almost a decade now. He has systematically corroded every democratic norm and institution: the rule of law, the process of elections, the integrity of the Supreme Court, the independence of the Justice Department, the peaceful nature of the transfer of power, and the reliability of our alliances around the world. And none of this damage has been done to advance any broad policy or meaningful agenda, but merely and solely to advance the narcissism and corruption of the president himself.

No, Trump is not going to become a dictator. It’s far too much work. The system held for four years; it can hold for another four (even with presidential immunity powers). And it’s worth noting in this respect that even when the president of the United States has the entire Congress in his camp, and the Supreme Court on his side, he still doesn’t have the equivalent power of a British prime minister with a super-majority in parliament that my old classmate Keir Starmer now has. That’s an elected dictatorship.

But we do know for a fact that Trump is criminally inclined, driven by vengeance and rage, and has now been granted vague and unprecedented immunity powers by SCOTUS whose limits he will doubtless exploit. We know he will delegitimize any institution that gets in his way; and we know that electing a convicted felon who has already once tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power will be a watershed for a purported republic.

And we also know that, right now, Trump is almost certain to win an Electoral College landslide in November, for the simple reason that he doesn’t have a credible or capable opponent. Last night’s press conference scraped the bottom of acceptability for a POTUS: coherent enough to finish out his term, patently disqualifying for four more years. Two weeks ago, I wrote that the Biden campaign is over. It still is. The attempt these last two weeks to insist that the parrot is not, in fact, dead is Monty Python material. Even Barro, Chait, and Yglesias have reluctantly jumped ship! So let us remind ourselves. The Biden campaign is no more; it has ceased to be; it is bereft of life; it has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed its last. Now what?

An American Starmer. Keir is no longer the woolly-haired lefty I knew as a teenager. He has packaged himself as the un-populist bank manager who will bring back “stability and moderation” — and has gotten himself a massive majority for it. He has wrapped himself in patriotism and the flag; he has not re-opened the question of Brexit; he has scaled back many of his earlier, more ambitiously statist plans; he is a white, middle-aged executive type who will not scare the horses. After years of Tory radicalism, instability, rotating premierships, and performance art, Keir is the small-c conservative of the left. And he’s leaning into the role.

Like Biden in 2020, he won because a majority wanted the incumbent out, not because he had inspired them to an Obama revolution or Blair-style transformation. But what has struck me most about my old sparring partner in these past few years has been his absolute determination to put winning power at the core of his project. He threw the previous Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, out of the party entirely; he picked a chief-of-staff, Sue Gray, largely known for grinding competence, and a chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who will reassure the markets. In his first week, Starmer has appeared at the NATO summit and his government has vowed to ban puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria.

And the way to win against Trump is, it seems to me, similar: get a generic centrist Dem from a critical swing state, make sure he or she is competent and can make a good case and seems normal, and make them 20 years younger than Trump. Bingo. There’s a reason, I suspect, why many on the Democratic left have oddly rallied behind Biden: they know their interest groups control the addled dotard’s entire social and cultural agenda; and they know that a re-elected Trump would give their extremism more legitimacy. A more moderate Democratic governor or senator would not be so pliable, and might even help to de-polarize the country. God knows and the polls all show that the American public want someone — anyone — who isn’t Trump or Biden. Why not listen to them for a change?

Beshear. Fetterman — partly because he has been so vocal in supporting Biden thus far, partly because he has seemed to master a populist style, and partly because he could carry Pennsylvania, which is looking increasingly essential. Whitmer. Shapiro. Brown. Klobuchar. Manchin. Polis. Buttigieg. I could go on. The talent has been building up as the entitled dinosaurs of Hillary and Joe kept the next generation from power for decades. Of course, Harris should compete too — and be given a shot to prove her mettle, unburdened, as it were, by her cringe-inducing past. (She’s a worse politician than Hillary, though. If selected, I have no doubt she’d lose in a landslide.)

Set up a classic old-school convention — functioning as the national primary the Democrats should have had — and out-Trump Trump in live reality-TV. If they have the balls to do this, the Democrats could enter the race on Labor Day with a fresh message of going forward into the future with a new, younger messenger, rather than returning to the melodrama of the Trump past, or the misery of continuing with Biden. That’s a theme with deep resonance — combined with a relentless exposure of Trump’s danger to the very fabric of our society.

Two weeks ago, I assumed it would be done by now. It truly is the only option available if the Democrats really do want to stop a Trump landslide. The question reverberating in my mind right now is therefore a simple one: Do they?

Stephen Fry is a legendary British actor, comedian, director, writer, and narrator. His TV shows include “A Bit of Fry & Laurie,” “Jeeves and Wooster,” and “Blackadder,” and his films include Wilde, Gosford Park, and Love & Friendship. His Broadway career includes “Me and My Girl” and “Twelfth Night.” He’s produced several documentary series, including “Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive,” and he’s the president of Mind, a mental health charity. He has written 17 books, including three autobiographies, and he narrated all seven of the Harry Potter books. You can find him on Substack at The Fry Corner — subscribe!

Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on the profound pain of bipolar depression, and whether the EU diminishes Englishness. That link also takes you to commentary on last week’s episode with Erick Erickson. We also run emails on Biden and Harris, readers relating to my mother’s death, and a final batch of stories for the IVF thread, with my responses throughout.

“If Biden loses to Trump, the nation Biden believed in does not outlive him,” – David Frum, who previously foresaw a Biden “blowout”.

“I wish I was more brave,” – an anonymous Democratic state party chair, who wants Biden to withdraw.

“[Calling for Biden to step aside] is more around ageism and ableism, and not what President Biden has done,” – Steven Horsford, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“That the sheep are still on the air, dispensing undiminished certitudes, is evidence of two things. That — outside of a few bastions of meritocracy and accountability, such as professional sports — there is no penalty for failure in contemporary America. And that many prominent people have the scary strength that comes from being incapable of embarrassment,” – George Will on the Dem/MSM bunker.

“When they discussed what they knew, what they had seen, what they had heard, they literally whispered. They were scared and horrified … Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine,” – Olivia Nuzzi, doing her job.

“[Biden’s] sharpest before 8:00 PM. So say that the Pentagon at some point picks up an incoming nuke. It’s 11:00 PM. Who do you call? The first lady?” – Peter Doocy questioning the White House press secretary.

“Viewers of Fox News understood the president’s condition better than our [MSM] audiences, which ought to be a huge wake-up call for us,” – Megan McArdle, the WaPo.

“The politically advantageous move is an open convention to seek a better nominee. The civic-minded move is a Biden resignation and President Harris right now. The most likely move, Biden bows out but stays in office and Harris as the default nominee, is the worst of both worlds,” – Ross Douthat.

“If Trump is elected again, Dems should get over it and try to do more deals with him like they did on the USMCA and First Step Act. Trump isn’t an ideologue and just has an enormous ego anyone can exploit,” – Zaid Jilani.

“Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian Nation. So I am. And some will say that I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do,” – Josh Hawley.

King Salmon, Alaska, 12 pm

“Weaving together autoethnographic vignettes of our lived experiences with the writings of QTBIPOC thinkers and pedagogues and their anti-racist white comrades, we reflect on themes of liminality, loneliness, hope, grieving, and love in mothering, kin, and community building and theorize, as queer trans (m)othering mother-ers, about the trans potentialities of being/becoming-with-longing queerly,” – a new academic paper.

“The most basic part of gender identity is what I call our transcendent sense of gender. In a way that goes beyond language, people often just feel male or female, and some more strongly than others … As is the case with many emotions, it’s hard to describe this transcendent feeling in words. But it is the foundation of our gender identity, the scaffolding we’re born with,” – Jack Turban, who routinely conducts medical experiments on children based on this theology.

We didn’t have a column last week, because I was with my mum in her final days, and the dissents for the previous column — “For God’s Sake, Withdraw” — are on last week’s pod page, if you missed them. If you have a dissent for this week’s edition, please send it our way: dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Syncing a dance track to Minecraft:

• Alex Massie has a ton of observations on the UK election — “immensely entertaining.” He also talks to Starmer’s biographer.


• Eric Kaufmann is convinced that Labour will go woke. Konstantin contends that the UK is moving right. Mass immigration could sink Starmer.


• Luke Hallam sees the UK electorate fracturing like Europe’s.


• After the snap election in France, “the far left is king,” says Quico Toro. More reax is assembled by Ed West.


• Nate Silver has 12 reasons why the Biden-Trump debate remains “the biggest story in the world.”


• Joe Klein agonizes over Biden’s presser. The Stephanopoulos sit-down was filled with “alternative facts.” Is Biden turning into Trump?


• How much do the Biden and Obama teams hate each other right now?


• Nicholas Grossman makes the case that Harris could beat Trump.


• Her record on the sex-abuse crisis isn’t pretty.


• Dan Drezner envisions world politics after a second Trump term.


• Sasha Ingber was on the scene when Russia struck the largest children’s hospital in Ukraine.


• The ad industry has gotten into the censorship business.


• Ted Gioia’s humanities course is off to a smashing start.


• Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim ditch The Intercept to form Drop Site — “a non-aligned, investigative news organization.” Welcome!


• “Traditional media and Substack can grow together,” insists Hamish McKenzie. Indeed!

Where do you think? (The cartoon beagle is hiding a key clue.) Email your entry to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. Proximity counts. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a View From Your Window book or two annual Dish subscriptions.

See you next Friday.