Nate Silver is legitimately a very good modeler/forecaster but he has some really out-there takes sometimes.
Will Tom Homan put a piss chart in the White House bathrooms?
I've been kind of wishy washy throughout this whole saga but I think I am landing on these. It's clear form where AOC and other progressive lawmakers have stood that this push is more about self preservation and/or placating donors for centrist candidates. And AOC is correct in pointing out Biden's electoral strengths; the part of the Biden coalition that has held up is overrepresented in the most critical EC states. You can go a long way with black voters and educated/older white voters in the Rust Belt.
Too be fair, AOC and most progressives occupy comfortably safe seats; the incentives are different. I get it. It does feel a little dirty, though. Biden does not necessarily deserve this - although if he and his team have been making such comprehensive efforts to conceal Biden's ability to be present in the job, the blame is ultimately in the mirror. I believe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy now. The Biden campaign is mortally wounded. I don't see a path; fair or not, the age thing and fractures within the party are going to sink him if he is on the ballot in November.
Harris cannot be bypassed though. I don't even say that as a particularly strong supporter of hers. Black leaders - and the black voters that make up a very large portion of the Democratic primary electorate - have made it cleat they stand behind Biden; and that if he is to step aside, Harris needs to be the alternative. The black community is simply too important to the Democratic Party and has contributed too much to the current Democratic control of the White House and Senate to ratfuck them like that, let alone the obvious, warranted implication of institutional racism that would come from forcing both the black community's preferred candidate and the actual black candidate out for whatever other less qualified candidate emerges from a largely white consensus. Not to mention the Democratic Party's ability to execute that without further self-harming is questionable at best.