To pick up a bit on where my co-blogger, James Joyner, left off, I am of the view that Biden is not going to step down and that there is almost certainly an insufficient coalition to push him out. As such, our instincts are at odds.
Note, as I have before, that this observation is separate from the question of whether he should go or not. Indeed, I think a lot of the media buzz and general conversation on this topic conflate the question of “Will he drop out?” with “Should he drop out?” Those are related, but very different questions. Indeed, the conversation then further hand-waves a lot of the details that are relevant to the consequences of his dropping out.
If he had made a series of major errors that mirrored his terrible debate performance yesterday, then I might be writing a different post. Yes, he said “Trump” when he meant “Harris.” As James noted, this is the kind of error we all make daily, and let’s not forget that even young Joe Biden was known as a gaffe machine who frequently misspoke. This is not disqualifying and only matters because of the heightened scrutiny we are giving to every word he utters (not to mention how he utters them). More importantly, however, the performance yesterday is hardly going to be enough to convince Biden to step down, or even to embolden enough new political allies to ask him to do so.
I will remind everyone again that the party organizations are weak and that the party is presidentialized, meaning, among other things, that the entire structure and purpose of the party is substantially focused on the office of the presidency and that fact empowers the nominee (or presumptive nominee) and especially does so when that person is the sitting president.
I would note that if the tactics to get him to go include columns from celebrities and coded messages from Nancy Pelosi, that underscores how weak the actual party apparatus is. And, indeed, if anyone thinks these maneuvers, to include, yes, a handful of elected Democrats calling for him to step down, is a show of party strength, I would revert to the trope of saying, demonstrate to me that you don’t understand what a weak party looks like without telling me you don’t understand what a weak party looks like. And note, I know that sounds snarky, and it is, but since the attempts at being all political science-y on the subject seem not to work, sometimes you have to go to the snark and hope people take it for being lighthearted and not too mean.
Put another way: if the only way to get Biden to step down is to stage an intervention, that is not a sign of a strong party apparatus.
(A caveat: if he is much, much worse in private, then an intervention may be necessary–but while there have been leaks about his agedness, I don’t see enough evidence to suggest it is bad enough for such an intervention to take place).
And, by the way, pointing to money drying up (such as references to “Hollywood money”) are likewise signs of party weakness. Yes, loss of contributions is important, and if the money does dry up, that’s a problem for Biden. But if we are talking about a series of individual choices by wealthy persons, that’s not the party in any formal sense. If everyone is “the party” then no one is “the party.”
Indeed, I would note that the current dilemma we face as a country, Trump as the GOP nominee and Biden as the Democratic nominee, is the direct result of weak parties that do not have any real control over who will represent them because that power was farmed out to a sub-section of the electorate about 50 years ago.
This returns me to a simple fact that seems to be continually ignored in these conversations. Yes, Joe Biden is old. Yes, there are legitimate concerns about how his age may be affecting his ability to do his job. But, he is the President of the United States. He is one of the most powerful people in the world. To get that job required a preternatural amount of ego and self-confidence. Getting a person like that to give it all up is going to be monumentally hard. And he clearly does not want to give it up. Moreover, if he is in decline, that often makes it all the harder to convince men to step down.
And, again, let’s not forget that the argument here is really less about his fitness (although I think that that is a fully legitimate discussion), but the real anxiety is not about Old Joe as POTUS. The anxiety is Trump winning. If Biden were up in the polls and that debate had happened as it did, we would not be having this conversation and the news this morning would not have led with “Biden said ‘Trump’ when he meant ‘Harris’!”
Let’s also note that the replacement conversation focuses an awful lot on fantasies that a switch would be easy. I remain unclear on how easy it would be.
Could Harris assume control over the campaign, its finances, and ballot access without any legal challenges coming to the fore to delay her access to resources? This alone is a major question I have not seen adequately answered.
Regardless, I am not going to go down that rabbit hole at the moment, but note it point out that the switcheroo thesis has risks as well.
(And note, I have not actually expressed any preferences here about whether he should stay or go, but am trying to underscore what the likely outcome is and why).
