I have been somewhat taken aback by Democrats’ hemming and hawing about whether President Joe Biden should continue his candidacy against former President Donald Trump in the wake of what, by all accounts, was a disastrous debate performance on June 27. For those who believe both that the President’s campaign has sprung a fatal leak and that the fate of our democracy depends upon defeating Mr. Trump, such dilly-dallying is inexplicable. I’ve been considering a number of maxims I accept in reflecting whether I was too hasty when I declared in these pages after the debate that he should step aside. Let’s review them.
If they’re talking about Biden, Trump is winning. If they’re talking about Trump, Biden is winning. Right now, they’re talking about Mr. Biden’s age, frailty, and acuity. They’re not talking about Mr. Trump. Progressive pundits keep declaring that attention should not be centered on Mr. Biden but instead upon Mr. Trump’s evident authoritarian and aberrant inclinations. Such assertions ignore reality. Mr. Trump has said and done so many outrageous things over the last nine years that the public is inured to them. To think that the former president will say something between now and Election Day that will materially affect the trajectory of the race is simply Woke naiveté.
The first party to break out of the “Double Hater” (a media description for the majority of Americans who polls indicate don’t want either man for the next four years) Paradigm will win the White House. By rejecting former SC Gov. and U.N. U.S. Amb. Nikki Haley, the Republicans have already blundered away (or were bullied out of) their opportunity to present voters a fresh face. Now, it’s the Democrats’ turn – one way or the other. We’re conditioned by our commercial culture to be attracted to the new. The public interest and excitement that would be generated by a different Democratic nominee cannot be overstated. The day before he went to prison 🙂 , the Washington Post quoted Trump advisor Steve Bannon: “Trump’s [presidential debate victory] was a Pyrrhic victory. … [If Mr. Biden withdraws] [y]ou’re going to take out a guy [we] know [we] can beat … and we’re going to have a wild card.”
A vote for anyone except Biden is a vote for Trump. The election will not be decided by the bases of either party. It will be determined by the votes of swing state undecideds. If those who detest Mr. Trump but consider Mr. Biden physically unable to serve another four years decide to either vote for a third party candidate or stay home, Mr. Trump wins.
Democrats have the more popular side in most of the substantive issues now facing the country. Apparently true; in the abortion issue, Mr. Trump’s offhand comments about revising Social Security and Medicare, his obvious past kowtowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his obvious incitement of the January 6th insurrection seem to provide Democrats an extremely strong hand to persuade decisive swing state swing voters that the former president is morally, substantively, and intellectually unfit to serve another term. (Democrats arguably even have the means to blunt Republicans’ potent immigration thrusts by noting that Mr. Trump publicly took credit for scuttling a bipartisan immigration bill.) But this only underscores the President’s weakness as a standard bearer because polls uniformly indicate that he is losing.
The most important last: former President Bill Clinton’s oft-stated observation: Elections are about the future. Mr. Biden keeps talking about what a good job he has done. Even so, those who appreciate what he’s done are understandably focused on where we go from here. (Recall that less than three months after the Allies defeated the Nazis, the British people voted out Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his Conservative Party, believing the Labor Party could better lead the United Kingdom in the postwar era.) Even before the debate, virtually all Biden supporters whom I spoke to expressed severe reservations about his age. (“He’s so old,” with a shrug or shudder.) They truly doubt his ability to effectively conduct the presidency until he’s 86. This is unlike the misgivings spawned by former President Ronald Reagan’s feeble first debate performance in 1984; in that contest, the majority of public didn’t tune in with the preconceived notion that Mr. Reagan was too old to serve another term. Mr. Biden’s performance merely confirmed and reinforced doubts that were already there; his ability to reassure the public through subsequent appearances is accordingly significantly less than Mr. Reagan had. I’m personally appalled by Mr. Biden’s excuses that on the most important night of the 2024 presidential campaign, he maybe had a cold, or was exhausted, or had jet lag (a week after his last trip), or didn’t follow his instincts, or whatever. I don’t think his performance can be dismissed as one bad night – as one might a poorly-delivered stump speech among dozens of others. The Debate was the night. And he bombed. It is not unreasonable for voters to want a leader who’s able to respond best when most challenged. While Mr. Trump is also obviously slipping physically and mentally, his animated manner makes his decline less apparent to the casual observer.
Sports presents trite (in this context) yet perhaps apt allegories. Jackie Smith is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his performance as a tight end over the 1960s and 1970s; yet all the casual football fan remembers of Mr. Smith is that he dropped an easy pass that cost the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl XIII. Bill Buckner had an outstanding career, with over 2,700 career hits and records for most assists by a first baseman in a season; yet all the casual fan recalls is that he let a ball roll through his legs that cost the Boston Red Sox the 1986 World Series. Sometimes, one big event outweighs all else. Cruel? Certainly. Reality? Without doubt.
The upcoming presidential election will be decided not by diehards but by casual fans.
Now, to the realities.
Mr. Biden has a hammerlock on the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. While I put little credence in the President’s claims to Congressional Democrats that during the primaries, Democratic voters spoke “clearly and decisively” on his behalf – in the wake of his debate performance, I’d like to see how the President would now fare against a credible Democratic opponent – it cannot be denied, as the President also noted in his communication, that he is the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. He will be the nominee unless he voluntarily chooses to withdraw.
You can’t replace somebody with nobody. The best argument I have heard for the President continuing in the race is that Democrats are most likely to turn to Vice President Harris if he withdraws. While I’m ready to be convinced otherwise, I’ve heard of no polls indicating that Ms. Harris would fare better against Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden in the swing states (her ability to run up bigger totals than Mr. Biden in deep blue states – which will show up in national polling numbers – is irrelevant.) While I understand that any attempt to bypass Ms. Harris might trigger a revolt by the Democratic Party’s powerful constituency of color, if former President Barack Obama shares my concerns about Ms. Harris’ electability, Mr. Obama is going to have to take a hand here. (This note is long enough without my spouting about the pros and cons of other potential Democratic nominees. I can name at least two that I think could beat Mr. Trump in Wisconsin; for each of them, MD Gov. Wes Moore would be an excellent running mate.)
Mr. Biden is apparently choosing to pass the buck to the Lord Almighty. During an interview with George Stephanopoulos following the debate, Mr. Biden declared, “I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race. The Lord Almighty’s not coming down.” While the President is by all accounts a man of deep faith, the rather flip nature of his comment invites a response which I – and I suspect he – heard in our youth: “The Lord helps those who help themselves” – which I would suggest that in this context, means He expects the President to use his power of discernment to determine and take the steps which will best enable America to preserve its democracy. In retrospect, the Biden Team’s decision to hold a debate before the Democratic Convention has unwittingly provided Democrats the opportunity to change course that would not have been evident or available otherwise.
I prefer to post on either Friday or Monday, and targeted this note for today for much of the week; I concede that I now feel a bit caddish about its timing, like I’m piling on when it is reported that quite a number of Democrats are going to call for the Mr. Biden to step aside in the near future. That’s as may be. I continue to believe that the President should end his candidacy.
If Mr. Biden persists, the fate of our democracy will rest on his ability to fulfill his now-shaky pledge to defeat Donald Trump this November. In the end, he might be right; recall that the specter of Donald Trump stilled what all forecast to be a “Red Wave” in the 2022 federal election cycle. Although I believe that the President is a genuinely good man who means well, if he loses, the consequences of his decision to stay in the race – a decision that a close friend described to me as “pure hubris” last weekend – will fall upon all of us; but among those opposing the authoritarian impulses of Mr. Trump and his MAGA cultists, the responsibility for the destruction of our democracy will ultimately rest with Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and with him alone.
We’ll see what happens.
McCoy's Noise 