Joe Biden Should Step Aside

Loyalty to our Values, Not Our Leader: We are Not Republicans

One Last Act of Patriotic Service

President Joe Biden should step aside from the coming election.

When Ezra Klein called for him to do so earlier this year, I disagreed, thinking the suggestion represented a political reporter’s fantasyland run amok.

While it was clear at that time that Biden’s age was an electoral liability, I thought this was probably overstated. After all, early polls aren’t particularly predictive, inflation and crime still stung but were ebbing, deceptive aging memes were running amuck on social media, and age seemed like mostly a placeholder on which people could hang their frustrations. Plus polarized voters tend to “come home” during the last few months of an election cycle anyway.  

I also noted that polls and other evidence seemed to suggest that most progressives like me who were angry that Biden failed to use his leverage to push for a ceasefire were still not going to vote for Trump and were still almost certain to vote for Biden when facing Trump as the alternative, especially in swing states. I certainly planned to!

And the downside was that this kind of brokered convention is pretty darn risky. We haven’t done it in decades, and when it has involved a President opting out of a second term in the past, it hasn’t gone well at all. Trump poses an unusual threat and it seemed that kind of gamble was likely to backfire.

Klein’s strategy would make for great TV drama, and I did give it thought–mostly because I respect his perspective a great deal–but it seemed like a gauzy fantasy at the time. 

The Risk Has Become Too High

But after the disastrous debate and the fallout within the party and among swing voters, it has become painfully apparent that Biden is increasingly unlikely to run a successful campaign. 

And it is clearly the case that the corrupt and now criminally-immune Trump and his horrendous Project 2025 plan represent an existential threat to our freedom, our ability to govern ourselves, and the safety of tens of millions of Americans. 

Biden has served his country dutifully for decades, and it is time for him to do so one last time–by stepping aside.

Least Bad Option

I don’t mean to suggest this will drastically improve our chances. Brokered conventions are still just the least-bad option.

And the likeliest choice–Kamala Harris–may be brilliant and capable, but for reasons of both form (not the soaring speech-at-a-rally-type) and substance (aggressively prosecuting cannabis use, anyone?), has never managed to unite the Democratic coalition. Furthermore, she also hasn’t been set up by the Biden administration to succeed. But passing her over would probably entail even more risk.

In truth, everything about a post-Biden summer is fraught and complicated and scary. But I still think we should do it. 

We do have to be clear-eyed that the starting odds don’t look great, and this may not be enough. But we have to do all we can to maximize our chances. Anti-incumbency sentiments seems to be a serious global trend right now, after years of pandemic and painful social malaise and inflationary shocks.

While there are a few encouraging domestic signs–kooky stop-the-steal candidates did poorly in 2022 compared to normie-ish Republicans, which means American voters might pay just enough to attention to save the Republic, and polls are closer than you would expect in an anti-incumbent environment–it’s still very rough going out there.  

Courage over Craven Careerism

None of this should obscure that it is the great moral failure of the Republican Party failing to police itself that threatens to upend the 248 year old American experiment.

This failure caused Republican politicians and voters to treat their own claims of deep religious belief as a contemptuous farce in favor of their craven careerism, crass tribalism or ambitions for judicial decisions. It has caused rich cosmopolitans to value tax cuts over women’s right to decide if they want to be moms or get emergency care when they are bleeding out in parking lots, or LGBTQ people’s rights to have families.

Now the Trumpist personality cult has supplanted an actual policy platform in favor of a fever dream of a forever culture war. 

So much of this was because of an idiotic commitment to party loyalty and careerism by its leaders. This has resulted in the treasonous choice to put party over country and the rule of law and the basic freedoms that underscore it. 

But we Democrats face our own moral choice. After the practically pro-monarchy immunity case by the Supreme Court, electoral politics is one of the last bulwarks protecting our freedom from Presidents who don’t regulate their own behaviors.

And while Democratic politicians aren’t sleepwalking into idolatrously elevating a malevolent charlatan as our leader for careerist reasons–we are sleepwalking into not-doing-everything-we-can to stop that same malevolent charlatan from getting into office–for careerist reasons. 

So no, it’s not the moral equivalent. But it rhymes in disturbing ways. And anyway I don’t care whether it is the equivalent—we need to not elect Donald Trump, and we need politicians who will show some spine and admit this in front of the cameras!

It is time for Democratic leaders–Governors, Senators, and House Members to step up and call for Joe Biden to do his patriotic duty and step aside. Could this be career-ending for some big-time politicians? That risk is real. And you know what–people with that kind of courage are exactly the kind of leaders we need–and that many of us would like to vote for.