In all the talk about whether Joe Biden should “step aside,” there hasn’t been enough discussion of the rationale he should present if he does so. So I offered one at New York:
The Democratic Party’s semi-public bickering over what to do with Joe Biden needs to come to an end very soon, lest it turn into a horrific party-rending conflict or a de facto surrender to Donald Trump. While he can technically be pushed out of the nomination, it would be nightmarishly difficult to do so given his virtually unopposed performance in the primaries and the lack of precedent for anything like a forced defenestration of a sitting president. It would also express disloyalty to a brave and dedicated leader. But Biden has already lost the united, confident party he needed to make a comeback. He’s trailing in the polls right now. And even more importantly, his own conduct and fitness for office will command center stage for the rest of the general-election campaign, which is precisely what he cannot afford given his poor job-approval ratings and the sour mood of the electorate.
So Joe needs to go of his own accord, and it needs to happen quickly before Republican and Biden-loyalist claims of a “coup” become all too credible. But it’s obviously a humiliating exercise. So if Biden comes to realize the futility of going forward, what can this proud and stubborn man say that will make him something other than an object of derision or pity?
I have a simple answer: He can tell the truth.
The truth is that Biden’s firm commitment to the pursuit of a second term, despite his advanced age and increased frailty, hardened into inflexible determination when Trump made his own decision to launch an initially unlikely comeback. When Biden took office, Trump was a disgraced insurrectionist whose very defenders in his second impeachment trial mostly denounced his conduct, even as they urged acquittal on technical grounds. The 46th president was in a position to serve one distinguished “transitional” term and retire with a wary eye on his fellow retiree festering in anger and self-righteousness in Mar-a-Lago. But as Trump slowly recovered and eventually reemerged as a more dominant figure than ever in a MAGA-fied Republican Party, Biden became convinced that as the only politician ever to defeat Donald Trump, he had the responsibility to do it again and the ability to remind voters why they rejected the 45th president in 2020.
As this strange election year ripened, Biden had a perfectly plausible strategy for victory based on keeping a steady public focus on Trump’s lawless conduct (including actual crimes), his erratic record, and extremist intentions for a perilous second term. The polls were close and Biden wasn’t very popular, but these surveys also showed a durable majority of the electorate that really didn’t want to return Trump to power, particularly as economic conditions improved and the consequences of Trump’s Supreme Court appointments grew more shockingly apparent each day.
Then came the June 27 debate, and suddenly Biden lost the ability to make the election about Trump. He needs to look into a camera and say just that, and conclude that just as the threat posed by Trump motivated him to run for a second term, the threat posed by Trump now requires that he withdraw so that a successor can make the case he can’t make as he’s become the object of endless speculation about his age and cognitive abilities. Biden does not need to resign the presidency, since his grounds for withdrawing his candidacy are about perceptions and politics rather than any underlying incapacity. Biden would be withdrawing as a weakened candidate, not as a failed president.
For this withdrawal to represent a stabilizing event for his administration and his party, it’s critical that Biden not equivocate or complain, and that he show his mastery of the situation by clearly passing the torch to the vice-president he chose four years ago. For all the talk of an “open convention” being exciting (for pundits) and energizing (for the winner), the last thing Democrats need right now is uncertainty. No matter what the polls show and how badly his old friends want him to succeed, it’s the prospect of 100 days of terror every time Biden makes unscripted remarks that is feeding both elite and rank-and-file sentiment that a change at the top of the ticket is necessary. The fear and confusion needs to end now, and Biden effectively made his choice of a successor when he made Kamala Harris his governing partner. The president needs to reassert his agency now, not look like he is abandoning his party and his country to the winds of fate.
A straightforward and honest admission of why Biden 2024 is coming to an end could go a very long way toward enabling Harris and other Democrats to shift the nation’s gaze back to the ranting old man whose acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention showed that he has not mellowed or moderated at all. Of course Biden wants to solidify and extend his legacy over the next four years. But right now, the clear and present danger is that it will be extinguished altogether. He alone can address that threat, not as a candidate, but as a president and a patriot who recognizes his duty.
Yes it was all very predictable. The Republicans which include Flake and Collins, have all the power and did what they said they were going to do. They performed some “Inconvenienced and Outraged by American Law” Theater in a cloak of GOP perception management Sorcery, and the Media dutifully kept us up to date with how Republicans were personally attacking us.
Arent we shocked and outraged over what they say about Democrats, women and reality? Have you all noticed how no one can stop them? Republicans can say whatever they want and claim it justifies what they were going to do anyway. Sleep well and be sure to check in tomorrow.
How will we get through the day without knowing exactly how the all powerful Republican party is trolling us and egging their followers on to attack us? Thanks for helping that along INformation.
And then with Democrats even though they know that the support Republicans are getting from their game of being cruel and crude when they are given an opportunity to be decent is from people who cant afford an education and looking for a place to channel their rage about life, still arent willing to try to get the information out there on why what happened with Kavanaugh in all of our lives is going to matter to them or with anything Republicans are doing.. Democrats nationally dont talk directly to Americans. Democrats dont make their case to the people and always seem stunned by what Republicans do and say. Its baffling because of how predictable Republicans are.
With all of that Republicans are somehow congratulating themselves like they won some kind of battle with Kavanaugh being confirmed.
Everyone says that democrats dont know how to fight – even democrats will tell you that. Everyone knows that democrats dont have any power in the government, even Lindsey Graham admitted it. So what are they congratulating themselves for? Winning another battle against the United States government? A battle against decency? A battle against Law? A battle against women having a good impression of white men? This is what they’re gloating over?
Perhaps they just like the stories they come up with. The reality they’re creating makes them feel better about how and what they’ve “won” for all of us.
So it is ordinary Susan Collins.