Stuart Stevens at home in Morristown on Feb. 12, 2019. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and citizens who are making a difference. Listen below, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify to hear more. Democrats, stop freaking out. That is the message — or plea — of veteran campaign consultant Stuart Stevens following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week. Numerous pundits on cable news, some Democratic donors and the editorial board of the New York Times have called for Biden to drop out and let a younger candidate take on Trump. Stevens says dumping Biden is “insane.” “Is Joe Biden up to being president? I find it sort of an absurd question because he is president,” Stevens said. “And he’s probably the most successful first term president since World War Two.” Stevens is among the most experienced and successful campaign consultants in the country. He was a top adviser on five Republican presidential campaigns, including for Mitt Romney, George W. Bush and John McCain, and he has been a consultant on dozens of GOP campaigns for governor, Congress and the U.S. Senate. Stuart Stevens has now abandoned the Republican Party, contending that it has become an authoritarian movement. He was one of the most prominent Republicans to come out against Donald Trump in 2016. Stevens has written several bestselling books about his political conversion, including his latest, “The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party is Driving Our Democracy To Autocracy.” Stuart Stevens is now a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, which is working to defeat Trump in the 2024 election. He grew up in Mississippi but has lived for many years in Stowe. Stevens says the talk of changing candidates is “fantasy.” Replacing Biden and sidelining Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to hold the position, would “shatter the Democratic Party for at least a generation, maybe permanently,” he argued, adding that it was “extraordinarily sexist and racist and offensive.” Stevens said that Democrats have a history of doubting and undermining their candidates, which he believes has cost them winnable elections in the past. “This sense of doubt, of timidity, of not being willing to rally around your candidate… has been disastrous,” Stevens observed. Stevens noted that presidential debates have historically made no difference in the outcome of a race. He pointed out that “Hillary Clinton won every debate and lost” the 2016 election. The presidential race is “going to be about the future of democracy and about stability and about what kind of country do we think we are. And I think Trump loses all those,” argued Stevens. He said the campaign’s outcome will be determined in its final weeks, not in July. He ventured that Biden would win and “the race isn’t going to be particularly close.” Stevens summarized his advice to Democrats in a recent New York Times op-ed, “Suck it up and fight. It’s not supposed to be easy.” Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Conversation: Stop panicking and fight, Stuart Stevens tells Democrats.