In late June, Democrats across the country realized in unison that their presidential nominee could no longer reliably speak in complete sentences.
Joe Biden’s age was no secret, but the extent of his cognitive and rhetorical decline was was closely guarded. The president speaks much less in public than his predecessors. He repeatedly Denied Super Bowl interviewA rare opportunity to deliver his message to a large national audience.
Set off this limited calendar alarm hour Among some scholars. Still, it was possible to imagine that the White House team was unduly risk-averse. Biden’s age was undoubtedly a liability, and his rhetorical chops had diminished significantly, but perhaps he was still right. Widely given Doubts about his choice of vice presidentUniting behind Biden was probably the party’s best bet.
Until it wasn’t.
The president’s disastrous debate performance broke amid a collective disapproval of Democrats. The simplest explanation was correct: The White House hid Biden from the public because he had something to hide.
There was no precedent for this challenge before the Democratic Party and no simple process for solving it.
For weeks, Democratic leaders scrambled to find a consensus path. Some blindly followed Biden into the desert.
After some delay, however, party leaders prioritized their electoral interests for victory over their own desire to avoid blame or interpersonal conflicts. In the last 24 hours, it has become clear that the Democrats are aligned.
ABC News on Wednesday published That Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer personally told Biden last Saturday that he could best serve the party by dropping out of the race. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Said the same to him. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, to say The president’s polling shows he can’t beat Donald Trump and will destroy the chances of Democrats in the race to regain control of the House.
While the president refused to take this suggestion, the three Democratic leaders apparently let their views be expressed. When confronted with reports of their private conversations with Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and Jeffries, they flatly refused to deny the accuracy of such news.
Also Wednesday, film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg — who has served as a campaign adviser to Biden and a conduit for deep-pocketed Democrats in Hollywood and finance — Told the President Donors are withdrawing their support out of the belief that he will not win, a development that will make it difficult to maintain an adequate presence on the swing-state airwaves through November.
At the same time, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Canceled plans A virtual roll call vote next week to officially confirm Biden as the party’s nominee. That event was initially scheduled after it appeared that waiting to formally nominate a candidate until the Democratic National Convention in late August would deny Ohio’s Democratic nominee access to the ballot. But the DNC persisted with plans for a roll call even after Ohio passed a law addressing the issue. So the virtual nomination process was seen as a tool for Biden to run out the clock and lock himself onto an insurgent party.
Schumer and other top Democrats urged the DNC to postpone the roll call, which is now scheduled for the first week of August.
Finally Thursday’s Washington Post Report That Barack Obama “has told allies in recent days that President Biden’s path to victory has narrowed and that he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy.” Asked about the revelation, an Obama spokesman declined to deny it.
This concerted pressure campaign on America’s most powerful political and economic actors appears to be paying dividends.
The Times Report Wednesday that Biden “has become more receptive in the past several days to hearing arguments about why he should drop his re-election bid,” and is “willing to hear rundowns of new and troubling polling data and questions about how Vice President Kamala Harris can win.” .”
Thursday, Axios reported that several “top Democrats have privately told us that mounting pressure from party congressional leaders and close friends will convince President Biden to make a decision to step down from the presidency as soon as this weekend.”
Whether Biden, in fact, steps aside remains to be seen. But whatever the president does from here on out, the Democratic Party as an institution has done its part. Congressional leaders can’t drag Biden kicking and screaming off the campaign trail, but they’re doing everything in their power to oust him and give their party a better chance of keeping Trump and his allies out of power.
I’ve criticized the apparent complacency of the Democratic leadership in recent weeks, but there’s no question that Biden’s downfall has put them in a really tough spot. America’s political parties are weak and disorganized. Power is much less concentrated in the national leadership than in most parliamentary democracies. And unlike congressional parties, Democratic congressional caucuses cannot remove politically vulnerable presidents through votes of no confidence.
Removing a presidential nominee — against their will, after they’ve already won an overwhelming majority of the primary vote — is a task for which American parties have no manual.
Thus, in order to mount a concerted campaign to push Biden to the sidelines, Democratic leaders had to be willing to stick their necks out without the protection of legitimate precedent. It was entirely plausible that they might have lacked the will to do so.
After all, the president did not bow to the skepticism of his fellow Democrats and attacked those calling for his departure.”bedwetters“and anti-democratic”elite” Meanwhile, the party had high confidence in the electability of Kamala Harris, the Democrat best positioned to inherit the nomination should Biden move. And although Biden lost support in national public polls after his debate performance, Trump’s advantage Stayed below 3 points The poll averages Harris doing slightly better than Biden in the polls against Trump, but the difference is fairly marginal.
So, for self-interested, risk-averse politicians, it would be tempting to conclude that the party is going to lose no matter what they do, and that it would be better to let Biden take the blame than to claim ownership of Harris’ inevitable loss. .
Rejecting such fatalism requires both commitment to the party’s best interests and sophistication in political analysis.
Harris appears likely to inherit the Democratic nomination, should Biden step down. And it’s true that he doesn’t look like a particularly strong candidate right now. But his Disagreement rating Less than Biden. Voters’ opinion of him is less settled. He offers so high upside. And when you’re headed for near-certain defeat with a candidate who’s been losing swing-state votes for months — and is physically unable to communicate effectively with the public — it’s better to roll the dice on a candidate with a high ceiling, even if he has a potentially low floor.
That said, if Democratic leaders believe the party can unify around a strong standard-bearer — perhaps, with a proven record of winning office in a swing state — they should work toward achieving that outcome.
In any case, sticking with Biden would be deeply damaging to the Democratic Party. This will force many Democrats to lie over and over again, and a Majority of voters Recognize this: That Biden is clearly fit to serve another four years as president.
According to times, a recent internal Democratic poll indicated that “voters are deeply distrustful of elected officials who favor and support the president’s mental capacity.” Regardless of Harris’s differences, avoiding tarnishing the perceived integrity of down-ballot Democrats in the eyes of swing voters is reason enough to make the switch.
It’s still conceivable — if doubtful — that Biden will refuse to resign. At this point, his persistence will say more about his personal pathology than his team.
Faced with an unprecedented political crisis, Democratic leaders rallied behind a coherent strategy to advance the party’s best interests, defying a president who struggled to acknowledge the stability of his position. With Biden’s delayed help and more strategic ruthlessness, they will give their coalition a fighting chance to win in November. Democrats are aligned.
