OK, here we go again. I am more convinced than ever that the future of the country, and the planet, will depend on President Biden withdrawing from the race and passing the mantle/torch/baton to Kamala Harris. I simply do not see any path to 270 for Biden any longer, and worse, if he stays in the race we will lose the House and Senate as well.
First, let me stress that I do not the blame the media for my opinion. I came to this conclusion as I watched the debate live — and I wanted Biden to win, to do well. I watched him pass opportunity after opportunity to take Trump down — and that silly spat of golf handicaps was one of the worst moments: the President of the United States trying to remember what his golf handicap was. (Not to mention that it was a trap Trump had set for him, and he walked right into it.)
Then I watched the White House mumble and stutter for a week as they tried to explain his poor performance away. They blamed it on jet lag — but Biden had been back for 11 days, much of it spent holed up at Camp David. They admitted that he had a summer cold — but he could have said that at the start and we could have made allowances. In recent days, they’ve also played games with reporters over Biden’s health. Yes, Biden is healthy neurologically, and yes, he had an exam back in January whose results — fine — were released in February. But the WH stalling made it look like there was something to hide, even though there wasn’t. Again, it reinforces our doubts rather than relieving them.
Then I watched his interview with Stephanopoulos. Granted, the interviewer was too aggressive and too repetitive, but Biden didn’t help with some of his answers. Again, he drifted off a few times, and when he said he didn’t “think” he had watched his debate performance, I was stunned: It’s a simple yes or no? Didn’t he remember? Didn’t he want to admit it? On top of that, his response to the question of how he feel if he lost to a man he had just called a psychopath, a narcissist, and an existential danger sounded lame, like he was talking about losing a game of stickball, not like his loss would mean the end of democracy. Remember, this was the interview he needed in order to reassure the country after that disastrous debate. I was not reassured.
Biden’s insistence that he is the best candidate to beat Trump sounds uncomfortably close to Trump’s nauseous boast that “I alone can fix it.” It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that he can’t. While the media, especially the Times, have been harping relentlessly on this, the key argument for me was when Nancy Pelosi refused to say that Biden’s decision to stay in the race was final. Pelosi is one of the most respected elders in the Democratic party, is always careful of how she chooses her words, and is justly famous for her ability to count votes. She was sending as clear a signal as she could that it’s time to pass the torch.
President Biden will hold a news conference in a few hours. I will watch it later. But no matter how good a job he may do tonight, it won’t be enough. There will be another test, and another, and another. Sooner or later, he will make a slip. It may be a small one, but that’s all it will take to further raise doubts about his performance.
There was a comment I read recently (by now it’s a blur) that one reason so many people are reacting to Biden’s recent — and, as we are now learning, not so recent — slips is that they recognize the same signs of weakness that they see in their own older relatives. One person said they felt it was watching an aged parent and trying to convince them to give up driving. (I’ve had to do that myself.)
It’s going to have to be Harris. (One sign that people are recognizing that is that we’ve stopped referring to her as “Kamala” and started using her last name as we would with any male politician. Hillary had to be an exception so as to distinguish her from Bill.) I won’t go into all the reasons (again), but I will point out that she not only neutralizes Trump’s argument that Biden is too old and frail, she turns it back on him: She can effectively call him out for his incoherence, his flailing about, his mushy word salad, his disconnected sentences. Biden can’t do that any more. Also, Trump and the GOP are clearly afraid she will run.
We all cheered when France’s far right lost the recent election (though they still won more than they should have). A major reason the left and center won was because those two sides agreed to put their egos aside and consolidate around candidates who could win rather than splitting the vote and letting the RN slip into power. That’s an example Biden needs to emulate.
Coda: The media are finally turning their attention to how bad Trump is, just as a human being, let alone president. There was, as we have all been discussing, this morning’s NYT major editorial blasting Trump and saying in so many words that he is unfit. The Los Angeles Times also has a major editorial out today: One Candidate is Patently Unfit for the White House. It's Not Biden. It’s behind a paywall, so I can’t read it, but I did read the caption under a photo of Trump last month: It says he “has repeatedly proved himself unfit for office on a scale far worse than a shaky debate performance.”
It’s time to make this election about Donald Trump (and abortion, and Project 2025, and the whole GOP plan to seize power forever). President Biden could do that once, but not any more. Kamala Harris can.