I am not a political wonk – I watch a few political shows regularly, I listen to a few podcasts, and of course I watch Bill Maher weekly. It gives me no pleasure, as an amateur, to say that I could have predicted the current crisis the Democrats are currently experiencing as it relates to Joe Biden’s age and his debate performance.
I am not alone in saying that I have been worried about Biden’s advanced age for some time – I much preferred Elizabeth Warren or any number of other Democrats, and I assumed that Biden would only serve one term back in 2020. He has done a decent job as president – but let’s not forget that he will be 85 when his second term theoretically ends. It is usually the exception, and not the rule, that someone in their mid 80’s isn’t somewhat infirm, with varying degrees of senility or dementia. If he isn’t senile now, he could become so at any time within the next 4 years. Being president is a tough job, and while he was up to the challenge for his first term, and performed well, it does not appear so this second time around.
Watching Biden’s recent blunders is painful – because the stakes have never been higher, and I am still committed to vote for anyone but Trump. Joe Biden is a good man – he has a good heart, he cares about the average American, he has worked tirelessly to deliver tangible results. I truly fear that his legacy will be forever tarnished if he continues as the Democratic candidate – it will overshadow everything else he’s done. If he remains on the ballot, I will still vote for him with reservations – reserving hope that if he becomes unable to serve at any time during the next 4 years, he will honorably pass the torch on to Vice President Harris.
The one thing that really baffles me about the Biden campaign is that there seems to be no contingency plan for the possibility that he might be unable to continue as the candidate – how in hell did they create a campaign strategy without this being rehearsed or considered? This possibility is very real, and could have happened at any stage of the campaign, as well as the 4 potential years he might serve a second term. Has anyone thought this through?
That being said, Biden’s campaign was stuck in neutral before this debate, and if I were a betting man, even back in March I would have said that Trump is going to win. When your team is running behind, you don’t do more of the same – or simply nothing, which is what it feels like has happened in the past week. While there are many of us who will vote for anyone but Trump, the swing voters, the independents, the tepid, the marginally committed, I can easily see them staying home on Election Day. If enough of them stay home, it will be an electoral college win for Trump. I just don’t have enough faith in the voters of Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, and other swing states, to bring it home for Biden. Trump is also pretty old, and his sanity is questionable, but he is winnig the optics narrative – he is a bully, but he’s also more agile and limber when it comes to verbal gymnastics that a heated debate features. The optics and the propaganda from the Republicans have managed to make him look slightly less senile, but they’re winning that P.R. angle, whether it’s true or not. Republicans should also be worried about contingencies in the event that Trump is unable to serve.
Going forward, there is only one scenario that I envision where the Democrats will win in November:
The first step – Biden is convinced to step down. I am not sure who can deliver this message effectively, since I think Obama had already expressed simlar concerns to no avail back in 2020. He needs to step down soon.
The second step – Biden passes the torch with full faith and endorsement, to his vice president Kamala Harris. This is, after all, the Biden/Harris campaign, and she has been vice president for 3 and a half years. She appears ready to serve on Day 1. The campaign money that has been raised will be legitimately hers to spend, and the convention delegates would have somewhat of a moral imperative to select Harris over Biden, but only if Biden explicitly bows out and directly states that Harris is his preferred successor. Why wouldn’t she be? If she wasn’t, then why is she on his ticket?
The third step – Kamala Harris, over 20 years younger than Biden, will hit the ground running, and will campaign tirelessly over the summer with the full force of the DNC and with all Democrats with any kind of national audience making sure that they let everyone know that Harris is the woman for the job. The convention will go relatively smoothly if most delegates vote for Harris. There will be minimal fallout or bad optics from a “contested convention”.
The fourth step – Harris will challenge Trump to a debate, and even if she doesn’t do extremely well, she will be perceived as competent, willing to stand up to Trump, and might negate the fallout from Biden’s bad debate. She has a record she can run on, and she can attribute the successses to Biden. His bowing out will be seen as honorable.
The final step – Kamala Harris will win the election by retaining some of the swing states that Biden did in 2020, but most likely not all of them. It will likely be a popular vote majority but a narrow win in the Electoral College. I don’t see many people who wouldn’t vote for Harris that would vote for Biden. In fact, if she’s the nominee, it will re-energize the black vote, and it will excite the people who really were eager to elect a first female president. Harris is not perfect, and she does suffer from a negative perception amongst certain people, but overall I think she can pull it off.
I hope to God that Joe Biden realizes that his fate is better served by bowing out, and bowing out soon. Our democracy and its future is indeed at stake. The stakes are so high that it is not about one single man or woman, and hopefully Joe Biden will have the humility to see the writing on the wall.
