What seemed, mere days ago, like escalating and even unstoppable momentum to convince or force President Biden to make way for an alternate Democratic presidential candidate appears to have transformed into a messy, muddled impasse. Critically, Democratic Party leaders, including Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, have endorsed the president’s continued quest for a second term, following conclaves of elected officials on Capitol Hill. These meetings and statements followed unambiguous declarations by Biden himself that he would not be bowing out of the race, including in an interview with George Stephanopoulos last Friday and in a letter to House Democrats.
Biden’s decision to defy the post-debate escalation of worries among Democratic elected officials and the 70% or more of the public who think he’s too old to run again has placed his campaign and the presidential race in uncharted territory. In a best-case scenario, even if the Democratic Party and most of the Democratic base stick with him, it would be naive to think that coverage of his age and every bit of evidence of debility won’t be a major media theme for the next four months. And this, in turn, will inevitably sap his support through direct damage to his popularity, and indirectly by sucking valuable coverage and energy from Donald Trump’s wild unfitness for office.
Likewise, as others have pointed out, Biden has set himself a trap — if he conducts an energetic campaign as advised by those looking for reassurance, it’s inevitable that he’ll provide more demonstrations of disability akin to those that astounded the nation at the debate. One indirect proof of this is that the president has utterly failed to conduct such a round of appearances in the last 10 days, which would have been the clear and obvious way to dispel or assuage doubts. On the other hand, if Biden continues a lackluster pace of scripted events and minimal opportunities for spontaneous speech and thought, he will confirm fears about his limited abilities. If the debate had been the only evidence of health issues, that would be one thing; but in the week and a half since, we’ve had plenty of coverage of prior similar episodes. In continuing to maintain that the debate catastrophe was a one-off, Joe Biden is attempting to defy reality.
So now that we are at this impasse, what might happen? Before we try to answer that, we should take note of how the nature of the discussion over Biden’s fitness for office and continued candidacy have changed in the last couple days. To my mind, the biggest development resulting from Biden’s pushback and the Democratic leadership’s at-least temporary decision not to call on him to step down is that this story is now as much about the Democratic Party as it is about Joe Biden. The first layer is the potential damage to the Democrats’ electoral prospects. Much of the concern among senators and representatives seems to be flowing from their realization that Biden’s weakened candidacy threatens their elections as well. On a mass scale, whether Biden continues as a candidate, and continues to lose public support, means that he could be setting up the Democrats for larger losses beyond just the presidency.
The other way this is about the Democratic Party is that Biden’s intransigence requires Democrats to make an existential choice: Having failed thus far to convince Biden to step aside, are major elements of the party willing to match their concerns with their actions, and seek to force Biden off the ticket? If they do, they obviously risk losing the fight, in which case they would probably inflict irreparable damage on Biden’s prospects (i.e. their efforts would validate Republican accusations and voter concerns regarding the president). But if they don’t challenge Biden, what will that do to the public’s idea of the Democratic Party? What will citizens think of politicians who knew that their candidate was unfit, but backed him anyway? At a minimum, this seems like a formula for weakening the party over the coming months. But beyond that, if Biden then loses, what will the public conclude about the values of the Democratic Party, when it spent the critical final months of the 2024 election expending vast resources in trying to convince Americans that they shouldn’t believe the evidence of their own senses?
One thing seems clear: without a massive Democratic outcry against Biden’s candidacy at both the party and voter level, he appears set on his present fatal course, having proven impervious to piecemeal complaints. At this point, it feels like any hope for changing Biden’s mind lies less in the realm of politics and more in the realm of psychology. With the president ignoring significant swathes of reality (polls, his own clear deterioration, his catastrophic debate performance) that might actually persuade him to step aside, he has responded to criticism with declarations of his unique ability to defeat Trump and his incomparable handling of the presidency. In contrast to such recent remarks, I was struck by Brian Beutler’s reminder that back in December, Biden told reporters that there were probably 50 Democrats capable of beating Trump. Now he says that he alone can do it. Something has changed in Biden’s thinking, and not in a way that I’d call either good or reassuring.
At The Atlantic, Franklin Foer suggests a model for understanding Biden’s behavior, writing that, “Since childhood, Biden has suffered recurrent episodes of brutal humiliation, when the world has mocked and dismissed him. On each occasion, Biden has stubbornly set out to prove his worth. Persistence became his coping mechanism, his effective antidote to humiliation. Triumph was always just a matter of summoning sufficient grit.” But now, this otherwise resilient approach to life has created a “psychological prison” for Biden, as he’s in a situation where no matter how hard he tries, he will not be able to overcome the age-related failings of his body and mind.
But you don’t have to accept Foer’s theorizing to see the persuasiveness of his prescription for handling Biden at this point:
If his aides and fellow politicians want to help him back away from this disaster, they need to understand his temperament. When they have conversations with Biden about his future, they must respect his dignity, and acknowledge his extraordinary achievements. But the truth can’t be painted over. A man who will do whatever it takes to escape humiliation needs to understand that suffering the near-term indignity of stepping down will allow him to avoid the long-term indignity of being remembered as one of history’s great fools.
So far, what we’ve seen of Biden’s reaction to doubts about his capabilities confirms the advantages of such an approach. His reaction to the threat of mass defections was to thrown down the gauntlet and challenge doubters to try to oust him at the Democratic convention, a sure sign that attempts to confront him are feeding into a narrative of his own rightness and need to double down. In the absence of such a challenge, or of a total breakdown in support, it seems that a softer, behind-the-scenes touch holds the greatest possibility — at least at present — for convincing Biden to stand down. Let’s hope that something of this insight is guiding the widespread attitude among House and Senate members to stand pat for now, and that we’re not looking at an irrevocable collective fatalism that will likely drive the Democratic Party into defeat, and the nation into the arms of GOP fascism.