Should Biden Step Aside?

NY Times writer Ezra Klein recently posted a powerful episode on his podcast called Democrats Have a Better Option than Biden. He makes a strong case that Biden should step aside and require the Democratic convention in August select someone else to run against Trump. Faced with major pushback this week Klein has himself pushed back. Klein argues that it is not that Biden is too old to be President but that he is too old to be the candidate; that there is a very serious chance he won’t beat Trump. He asks us to compare Biden’s YouTube appearance in 2020 and today to convince ourselves that crucial voters have already begun making the judgement that he is too old, fair or not, and Klein believes those who have observed Biden in action over the past four years including in recent months, that Biden in office is fit, decisive and competent. Klein says however that Biden is unable to present himself persuasively that he is in fact fit for office. There is a very serious risk that this will grow and that any one of a number of good options are available. It is the duty of the Democratic Party, especially when the alternative is Trump, to nominate the strongest possible candidate – and that isn’t likely to be Joe Biden. Klein concedes that in the next few months, Biden and his team might be able to turn this around. He won’t have to make a decision to step aside until May or June. The Democratic convention is not until late August. I concede that Klein may be right. The problem is that he could well be wrong. A circle of people including Joe Biden himself have a tough decision to make.

In the first part of his argument Klein suggests that Biden has been a very good President, listing his impressive accomplishments. Klein outlines his own research into Biden’s actual fitness to be President going forward and pronounces him fit. It’s just that Biden isn’t fit to be a strong enough candidate to defeat the defeatable Donald Trump. The next generation of Democrats would be better. The consequences of Trump defeating Biden are so catastrophic that the risk of losing should not be taken.

Klein is excited by the prospects of a delegate convention in August. It could be a gripping event that would draw the intense attention of millions of Americans thirsting for a new candidate and who, in the majority, are against the prospects of a Trump presidency.

Partisans on both sides of this issue have different though often somewhat similar assessments of the current state of play. Klein is of the view that Biden is seriously behind and it could get worse. Every time Biden makes a slip or walks slowly or stumbles the Republicans, Trump and the media will make an issue of it. In Klein’s opinion, Biden may be an irredeemably unfit candidate.

First, I read the polls a bit differently. Biden and Trump are virtually tied or at least very close. It is impossible to tell what the next nine months will bring. Current polls are not very accurate predictors of how people will vote in nine months. It could go either way, based on current polling information. Particularly in a political context such as the U.S. has this year.  Go to the Wikipedia site on Polling for United States presidential elections. You will find that in virtually every election since 1936 during elections voting intentions have swung back and forth, often by wiping out more than 10% points leads between candidates.

Secondly Democrats will have to take a risk either way. The question is not whether Biden is a candidate without weakness. The issue is whether the risk of replacing him with another candidate is a greater risk. And that depends on factors not all of which are predictable, not the least of which is what weaknesses will a new candidate bring to the election. The current climate is already unprecedented. Trump has been found guilty of fraud in one case and of rape in another. He has a fair chance of being found guilty of stealing classified documents and refusing to give them back. He may also be guilty of selling state secrets to agents of other “hostile” countries. And he faces plausible criminal charges of leading a bloody insurrection against the United States.  In cases involving a total of 91 charges, a number of different officially independent and experienced prosecutors have certified they believe that there is a reasonable chance that on the evidence they have seen a jury will find Trump guilty. Trump has articulated policy positions that are contrary to the views of a majority of prospective voters, some of which border on treason and, in the view of many serious people, are clearly contrary to the interests of the USA. Trump is probably the worst and weakest candidate ever contemplated for nomination for the Presidency of the United States. He has already been picked for the honour of being the third worst president in U.S. history by a group of distinguished historians. And there have been some bad Presidents.

If one accepts the conventional wisdom that roughly 40% of likely voters are solidly for Biden and 40% are for Trump, the election will be decided in a few swing states by the remaining 20% who could go either way. We could get into an analysis of which way they will break when the campaign is done. My hunch is that they will go substantially for Biden and he will win by a reasonably comfortable margin. Especially if events move even slightly in Biden’s favour. For example the impact of the criminal trials and the weight of the arguments about fitness for the office and the next Presidential term seem on balance to favour Biden with those who make up the swing voters.

The swing voters are made up of three components: life-long Republicans who are programmed not to imagine voting Democratic but who with various degree of intensity don’t like Trump; secondly, in a demographic group that typically votes Democrat such the youngest voters many of whom haven’t cast their first vote yet and people of colour and people who in 2024 are politicized by reproductive rights and related issues, including suburban women. One can treat those who presently are telling pollsters that they are intending to stay home or vote for third party candidates such as Robert Kennedy Jr. as another key component of decisive voters.

My assessment is that in the end Trump’s weaknesses as a candidate are more vote-determinative than Biden’s weaknesses. But I also have lost confidence in my capacity to accurately grasp the currents of today’s American politics. There is evidence that they have become unmoored from previous loyalties. Past behaviours are not necessarily guides to accurately point to future voting patterns, though people who are “cross-pressured” in that they are torn between the past and the present, usually return home to their usual voting pattern.

The anger of so many Americans at how their lives are governed is a wild card. Something has to explain not only the rise of Trump, but his continuing hold on the public’s imagination for good or evil. How come it's so mind-numbingly locked-in. That he’s outrageous is just the start of the analysis. Will it last criminal trials and possible convictions and imprisonment? Can the polls tell us anything (that 40% of registered Republicans say they won’t vote for him, for example. Or will that attitude last through the actual reality when it happens?)

Which attitude of those we can identify at this point will last through to voting day: outrage at the anti-abortion drive for control, the fear of the Margaret Atwood picture of the world, the sense of hopelessness about action on the obvious climate crisis, the writing off of Joe Biden?

Where does this leave us on Ezra Klein’s advice to the Democratic Party and Joe Biden? Actually I'd say it is moot. Even if Biden gets the advice from the solons of the Party that he should step aside, he won’t likely accept it. Past practice tells us that those in high office don’t find it easy to buy the arguments that they quit rather than hang on. They usually are quick to persuade themselves that they can and will turn things around.

Will the Biden team shut down Ezra Klein and this conversation? Will the polls begin to tell a different story than the one we've heard so far? We should have some answers in the next few weeks and well before the convention this summer.