Joe Biden is refusing to withdraw from the presidential race, despite continued pressure from some liberals spooked by the incumbent’s dreadful performance in last week’s debate.
Who would be surprised by that?
The inertia of a presidential campaign is one of the most powerful forces in politics. Ending a campaign after a party’s nomination is sealed is almost unthinkable: the candidate is already strapped to the rocket.
Moreover, all major presidential candidates, especially those who are or have been incumbents (and there are both this year), have a God complex. They must. And before God, there is no doubt. Biden has a whole host of advisors, backers and confidants around him to keep that doubt at bay. To even raise doubt is blasphemy.
Biden can’t be forced out of the race, he needs to be persuaded to withdraw, and while that’s not impossible, it’s borderline unlikely!
And it may be best for Biden to stay the course.
Alan Lichtman, a historian at American University who has presciently predicted presidential election outcomes, told me on Sunday that kicking Biden out of the race would be a “tragic mistake for the Democratic Party” because he believes the president still represents Democrats’ best chance of winning the election.
As for the alternative, Lichtman added, “You know, we’re not waiting for some JFK-type guy to jump on a white horse and save the Democratic Party.”
I agree with him: No other successor is more likely to defeat Donald Trump than Biden.
Yes, a CNN-SSRS poll conducted a few days after the debate found that Vice President Kamala Harris performed slightly better against Trump than Biden. Within the margin of error, but still lagging behind. (Note, however, that only a third of Democrats think Biden should step aside in the latest Reuters-Ipsos poll.)
Certainly, Harris would be the safest option for Democrats if Biden were to replace her, but her poll numbers and rankings before she is the actual candidate may be a bit of an illusion.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed high approval ratings during her time as a senator and Secretary of State, but her approval ratings gradually declined after she ran for president against President Trump.
There are many reasons for this, but I believe one is the patriarchal nature of our society, which will likely be repeated in Harris’ case, but this time amplified by patriarchy’s twin evil: racism.
Whatever her critics may say, Harris is competent and capable, but unfortunately, under current circumstances, I don’t believe she has a better chance of winning than Biden.
But if Biden were to step down and Harris were to be replaced by another candidate, there would likely be strong protests from her many Democratic supporters, many of whom are black women, a voting bloc that is crucial to a Democratic victory.
In addition, an open-ended selection process would be complete chaos: fierce factional competition, hurt pride, and having delegates select candidates at a convention that would effectively avoid direct participation by Democratic voters.
All this happens just months before Election Day, and opposition scholars will be busy sifting through a Democratic slate that includes several governors with little-known names, raising the possibility of a devastating surprise in October.
To be clear, I’m not saying Biden should continue to run because he’s sure to ultimately win. No. He was struggling before the debate fiasco and will continue to struggle even if he survives it.
While Trump’s support is solidifying, Biden’s is weakening: Many Americans aren’t seeing the benefits of Biden’s structurally sound economy, and a younger, more dynamic part of the Democratic base is outraged by his handling of the Gaza war.
Like many others, I wish Biden had never sought a second term, I wish the Democratic nominee had been a young, dynamic visionary, but there’s no point wishing for hindsight.
Biden is the Democratic nominee. He is the only thing standing between Trump’s destructive and retaliatory impulses and the ever-expanding discretionary powers the Supreme Court has given him.
The fact that an 81-year-old man is increasingly showing signs of being 81 doesn’t alarm me. What does alarm me is what Trump is hinting at in his next term.
Here’s another way Biden’s call for withdrawal could backfire on liberals. One of my favorite TV lines, paraphrased by Omar from “The Wire,” is from Emerson: “If you challenge a king, it’s best not to fail.” When attempts to seize power from a powerful person fail, you risk retaliation.
But I’ve been thinking of the word differently in relation to Biden: By asserting Biden’s incompetence and the need to cave (without convincing Biden), liberals are further undermining their standard-bearer and risking the thing they most want to avoid: increasing Trump’s chances of reelection.
And if Biden decides to drop out of the race, as The New York Times reported on Wednesday, his withdrawal would only lend credence to the idea that some Democrats conspired to cover up disqualifying obstacles and only changed course when forced to do so — a stain that will likely linger on the party and any alternative candidate.
Rather than paving the way to victory, liberals may be paving the way to defeat.
This article was originally published on The New York Times.
