By Nicholas Kristof / The New York Times
Before I get to President Joe Biden, let me tell you about my love for a different presidential candidate.
In 1972, when I was 13 years old, I knocked on doors to canvass for George McGovern, the Democratic senator who wanted to end the Vietnam War. McGovern was an honorable man but was regarded by much of the public as too leftist.
We dismissed skeptics. How could voters instead reelect a crook like President Richard Nixon? When more sober-minded Democrats pushed to nominate former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had the virtue of being electable, the McGovern faithful fought back, and Humphrey’s bid collapsed.
At the time of the 1972 Democratic National Convention, McGovern was down 20 points in a Harris Poll. But we cheered McGovern and believed in him; until Nixon won that November by a 23-point landslide, carrying 49 states.
So in 2024 will Democrats again be loyal to a flawed candidate who is likely to lose — and whose nomination might well lead to GOP control of both houses of Congress — or will they be loyal to the goals they believe in?
We can’t be sure that Biden will lose just because polls show him behind nationally and in most or all of the battleground states. The betting markets give Biden almost a 1-in-5 chance of being elected. But they give Trump a 2-in-3 chance of being elected, and is that a risk that Biden wishes to accept as his legacy?
Polling and election history suggest that Trump is a weak candidate but that the Democrats are on course to nominate one who is even weaker. There is a surprising subservience within the Democratic Party to the person of Biden over the goals that Democrats say they are committed to achieve.
In part, I fear, that’s cowardice.
It’s hard to buck a system and challenge a president; it’s easier to flatter power and bask in its glow, so the tendency is to avert one’s eyes and let someone else speak up. Democratic officeholders understand that the party is probably on a trajectory toward disaster; Rep. Adam Schiff of California reportedly told donors in a private meeting over the weekend that the party was on course for a wipeout. Yet most officeholders are passive, waiting for the avalanche rather than helping the party escape it.
This is a failure of leadership in the Democratic Party. For a party that insists that Trump poses a fundamental threat, how is such loyalty to a losing candidate in the national interest?
In 2020, Biden was chosen as the Democratic nominee not because he was the most beloved of candidates but because he was the one most likely to beat Trump; and that is no longer true.
We’ve seen this before, this deference to a president of one’s own party, the pretense that the emperor is clothed; but previously we saw it in the Republican Party, and Democrats rightly excoriated this deference.
Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and many other Democrats scolded the Republican Party for becoming a personality cult, elevating one person above issues, goals and common sense. But there were a few Republicans brave enough to resist, and their words should remind Democrats of their duty. “Keeping your head down in capitulation to a rogue president makes you little more than furniture,” former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., wrote in 2021. Ben Sasse, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, said the same year, “Politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude.”
I recognize that Biden may not withdraw, and in that case this debate within the Democratic Party may increase the likelihood of a Trump victory. But it’s worth doing everything possible to encourage Biden to make the right decision for his nation and his legacy, and in any case it’s important for the integrity of the party to have this discussion.
The risk with Biden is not just that he will lose in November but also that he may not be able to perform the job for the next four years. The issue is not just politics but also national security.
The evidence on Biden’s capacity is mixed. None of us can be sure, but it seems clear that Biden is mostly “on” but that the televised catastrophe of a few weeks ago was not just a one-off or simply a bad debate night, as former President Barack Obama put it. Given that Biden’s capacity appears to have diminished since 2020, it’s reasonable to expect further deterioration.
True, I’m confident that Biden and his aides would handle a crisis better on a bad night than Trump would on a good night. But that’s an evasion, not an answer.
For years, the Republican responses to questions about Trump have been diversions such as “What about Hunter Biden?!” It’s sad to see Democrats now engage in similar question-dodging and whataboutism.
Many Republicans know in their hearts that Trump isn’t fit to be elected president in November, and increasingly many Democrats fear the same is true of Biden. Yet too many in both parties are silent, placing comity and ties to power over the national interest. Finally, sadly, we see something in America that is truly bipartisan: leadership failure.
Democrats may be reluctant to acknowledge it, but Trump handled the assassination attempt with courage and aplomb, and it may well make the polling even more skewed. That’s all the more reason for Democrats to press Biden to stand down and make way for Vice President Kamala Harris or (as I have suggested) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. I hope party leaders and elders — Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Pelosi and Obama — are working behind the scenes to save the day.
Families all across America are responsible enough to engage in difficult conversations about taking the car keys from beloved elderly parents who think they can still drive. If the humblest household can manage this conversation, so can Democratic leaders.
Contact Nicholas Kristof at Facebook.com/Kristof, X.com/NickKristof or by mail at The New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
