Neither perspective fully grasps the depth of the mess the Democratic Party and the country find themselves in. Biden’s defenders underestimate the potential long-term damage of his performance in the presidential debate, which was designed to show the 81-year-old Biden was up to the task but has had the opposite effect. But those who want to push full speed ahead toward an open convention underestimate how hard it will be to pull that off.
Some of the most convinced voices that Biden should drop out of the race include those who said long ago that Biden should not run again. They feel they were right. Unfortunately for Biden, they have their reasons. The people who were most shocked Thursday (and I was one of them) were those who felt Biden was willing to run one more time, that he had proven himself in the State of the Union and other engagements.
Debates proved different from prepared speeches or the occasional interview. Biden struggled to land even simple punches or to execute well-prepared lines of attack coherently. Heck, he sometimes struggled to finish sentences. This was different from when former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush lost debates.
So it’s inevitable that calls for Biden to resign will come in droves, and it would be foolish for his team to resort to heckling those who are idiot-proof or nervous. People never forget what they’ve seen. Biden needs to acknowledge how damaging that performance was.
But it would also be a mistake to romanticize some magical solution to the problems the party faces. If Biden withdraws, the party will face two crucial decisions: first, whether to nominate Harris as VP, and if not, who to choose from a list of potential candidates that could easily number 12.
Unless Harris decides to remain the running mate, any decision over her future will be deeply divisive, and a tightly condensed free-for-all could limit the amount of scrutiny the candidates receive and reignite the ideological divide that Biden has largely managed to quell (they are Democrats, after all). It could be inflammatory, yes, but it could also be chaotic.
It also doesn’t help that Democrats are saying that it’s Republicans who are going to look at Trump’s debate performance — a string of blatant lies, refusal to answer questions, and a clear lack of patriotism — and call for him to back down. Of course they should. But they won’t. The point is to beat Trump.
So what to do? I agree with those who say Biden now needs to make a tough decision with himself about whether he can best contribute to history by continuing to fight or by helping to see the next generation of leaders fight for the soul of America. Biden has a great legacy, rooted in a presidency marked by responsibility, decency, and real achievement. Biden would destroy that legacy if he continues to campaign and allows Trump to return to power.
But Biden seems determined to hang on. His campaign released a list of politicians who reaffirmed their support on Saturday afternoon. The president’s future will be decided by the polls. If the debate shows that Biden was truly damaged, the pressure on him to back out will shift from personal anxiety to public demand. If the numbers don’t change much, he’ll probably get through this.
If he does, Trump will owe it to his supporters to lay out a clear strategy for repairing the damage done Thursday. He will need to give a series of television interviews, some in less-than-friendly environments. He will likely have to get more active on the campaign trail and deliver more speeches similar to his energetic performance in North Carolina on Friday.
Trump should make a strong commitment to do everything he can to bolster the Democratic candidates for the House and Senate. The most vulnerable candidates have more reason to worry than anyone about the impact of a weakened Biden on the election. Trump should use last week’s exposure of the Supreme Court’s radical right-wing activism to underscore the long-term implications of the choice voters will make in November. If Democrats lose both the Senate and the White House, the damage to the judiciary would be devastating for a generation.
Above all, Biden and those around him need to understand that this is not about them, this is not about their nerves about who has underestimated the president in the past, who is loyal and who is disloyal. Every decision he makes from now on, including whether he continues to run, must prove that he means what he says about the grave danger that Trump poses to our democracy. His legacy depends on it, and the country must be able to count on him.
