Op/Ed

Editorial: Of doomsday thinking, and a red line in the sand for Biden

It’s shocking how much news can happen in a few days.

Since last Saturday, July 13, ex-President Trump was fortunate to dodge an assassination attempt with a bullet apparently grazing his ear. Another inch and the story would have been catastrophic and tragic, sending the Republican Convention into convulsions without a VP candidate chosen and Trump the sole brand of what remains of the GOP. Instead, the opposite has transpired: the GOP is more united than ever, Trump is ascendant in all ways, and his VP choice, JD Vance, is a pick meant to solidify Trump’s vision of the party for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, President Biden’s NBC interview on Monday demonstrated yet again why he should step aside. It’s not that the president doesn’t have command of the facts or understand the issues and the best steps forward for the common good, rather it’s that he is incapable of articulating a vision of the country’s future. He stumbles, he drops thoughts mid-sentence, he abruptly and sometimes inexplicitly shifts topics, he is often difficult to follow — even for sympathetic supporters who are listening intently.

One wonders how Democratic Party leaders can fool themselves into believing Biden is the party’s best candidate to challenge Trump.

Mounting facts are saying otherwise: In five of the battleground states which also have a Senate race, Biden is trailing Trump by a growing margin even as the Democratic candidate for Senate is leading the Republican candidate in those same states. Polls show the following: Biden down 5.7% to Trump in Arizona, while the Democratic candidate leads his opponent by 3%; Biden down 1.3% in Michigan, while the Democratic senate candidate leads by 5%; Biden down 5% in Nevada, while the Dem candidate is up by 5%; Biden down 4.5% in Pennsylvania, while the Dem candidate is up by 6.2%; and in Wisconsin, Biden is down 3.4 % while the Democratic candidate is up by 4.8%. (Polling by RealClearPolling by The New York Times.)

Following the GOP convention, and if Biden continues to ignore the reality that his presence at the top of the ticket may jeopardize many of the policies he has put into place these past four years, the poll numbers are likely to favor Trump in even starker terms. Democrats sense this and are increasingly demoralized.

Taking this serious topic and making light of it is a specialty of Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri, who penned a column titled “Is the party doomed.”

Petri asks two fellow columnists (Shadi Hamid and Perry Bacon) if they were resigned to defeat and a second Trump presidency? Perry hedged this way and that, but Hamid’s responses were insightful and seemed reflective of the 66% of Democrats who think Biden should step aside, and of the 70% of Democrats who are not confident (“very or extremely” but who cares about those qualifiers if you can’t answer that question 100%) Biden has the mental acuity to handle the presidency well if he were to win another term.

“I’m resigned,” Hamid says. “If Biden refuses to step aside, I just don’t see any plausible path to victory… I’m angry that it’s come to this. I feel betrayed and gaslighted by the Democratic Party. We were fed a fictional Joe Biden and, once we realized the truth, we were expected to just go along with it and not ask too many questions…

“If we think that Trump will end democracy as we know it, then we’d presumably run someone who can prosecute that case. Biden can’t make that case; it’s unclear he can make any case in a cogent enough manner to convince anyone who has real doubts.

“I’d also note the profound enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats now. I watched Day 1 of the Republican National Convention with envy. They have a candidate and now a VP that they’re excited about.

“On the Democratic side, we’re all depressed about the future. I’m thinking to myself: What would it feel like to be excited about our own candidate? I forgot how that feels.”

Hamid is spot on, which makes us wonder what it would take for Biden and his shrinking band of loyalists to realize the odds of winning are going in the wrong direction and put, as many supporters have been hoping, self above party? If the polls show these crucial battleground states slipping past the 7% mark, is that enough?

Here’s a suggestion: If the Democratic Party is to show it’s more than a single nominee (a criticism Democrats have made of the GOP under Trump’s thumb), then it should do two things now: first, reject early nomination procedures that are no longer warranted and hold the nomination at the party’s August convention per usual; and, second, draw a red line in the sand asking Biden to immediately step aside if four of the six battleground states show Trump leading by more than 7 points after the next polling cycle.

The biggest mistake the Democratic party — and this is directed at Biden loyalists — can make is sticking by a candidate that a large majority of Democratic voters don’t think is capable of governing another four years, and, equally important, show very little enthusiasm for. If Democrats are to stand a chance in the upcoming election, they need to match voter enthusiasm at the top of the ticket with that of the GOP.

— Angelo Lynn

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