In the heated discussion following Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, Biden’s supporters and surrogates have frequently invoked weakness to discredit those who voice doubts about the continued viability of Biden as a candidate for the upcoming presidential election.
For instance, Biden campaign deputy manager Rob Flaherty wrote a sharply worded memo two days after the debate, arguing “the bedwetting brigade is calling for Joe Biden to ‘drop out.” Similarly, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a strong backer of the incumbent president, insisted that Democrats who oppose Biden “need to get a spine or grow a set—one or the other. Joe Biden is our guy.” Consequently, a belief has become widespread that Democrats concerned about Biden’s electoral viability or want him to step aside are weak and lack backbone when they should be obediently falling in line to project maximum party strength and unity.
Stuart Stevens recently exemplified this view when he argued this was an important “opportunity to project more self-assurance than Trump’s Republicans [but] these Dump Biden Democrats would ensure that their party once again slips back into the quicksand of doubt and second-guessing.” Given that Democrats are now split and tormented by self-doubt about the right way forward, I think it is opportune to ask whether those with doubts about Biden are strong or weak when they express their concerns or press him to step aside from the race.
Prima facie, based on cross-national experience, it is clear that some governing parties have accumulated consecutive election victories precisely by replacing unpopular leaders before a feared electoral defeat. Though significant differences exist between presidential and parliamentary systems, Stuart Stevens’ assertion—that Democrats are being weak by moving to replace their candidate—at best lacks empirical support because leadership replacement does not always lead to electoral defeat.
While only three incumbent presidents have abandoned their re-election campaigns (the last to do so was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 and before that, Truman in 1952), in the UK, the Conservative Party has garnered a reputation as a party willing to purge leaders while in office to retain political power. Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were all pressured to resign by their own party when their popularity seemed to be in free fall. The resignations of David Cameron and Theresa May could be seen as pre-emptive responses to policy failure and future anticipated leadership challenges. This ability to be cruel to win has empowered Tories to dominate British electoral politics since 1979, having governed for all but thirteen of the last forty-five years.
It is true that Democrats do have a reputation as being pushovers in the rough and tumble of politics, but I think the crucible of this year’s critically important election is forcing some Democrats to consider the ultimate act of political cruelty, calling on a beloved leader to step aside to avoid electoral defeat—an act that requires significant political strength and courage.
What does it mean for a political party to be strong or weak in a situation such as the intractable one Democrats find themselves in? While strength or weakness cannot be judged by looking at future outcomes (as the future cannot be known), it is imperative that we nonetheless be able to distinguish between strength and weakness in the midst of an electoral battle because otherwise, it would be impossible to evaluate, critique and improve our strategies.
I think that, in essence, a political party is strong when it deliberately attempts to evade electoral defeat by self-consciously choosing a particular course of action from an array of options. It is weak when it prioritises other considerations (such as loyalty to a leader, party unity, or custom) above the brute need to ensure electoral victory. Self evidently, a political party is cowardly when it knows what evasive measures it must take to avoid defeat but cannot muster the courage to act on this knowledge. True strength, in a realpolitik sense, is built on a ground of vision unencumbered by loyalty, morality and political precedent. Upon this ground, a path forward is sought that, according to convention and morality, is unafraid to travel just within the boundaries of the same.
Courage is the power to carry previously unimagined courses of action through to completion and is the vehicle upon which political strength travels. What greater strength could there be for a political party than to dethrone its leader for the sake of continued political success? This is akin to the last political taboo, as the force of social custom and primordial species memory reinforces the deeply felt belief that leaders should be obeyed and trusted.
Anti-Biden Democrats, when compared to those inclined to keep Biden as the nominee, are more deliberate and self-conscious in their aims and arguments. Their main line of thinking is that Biden is now a profoundly damaged candidate due to his advanced age and voter concerns about this fact, which leads to a vicious cycle of negative consequences—lagging poll numbers, a decline in rhetorical ability, and a truncated ability to campaign vigorously—all of which render him incapable of overcoming his polling deficit. They argue that despite the flaws of alternative candidates—such as Kamala Harris—someone younger will be able to campaign more vigorously and articulately to better bridge the approval gap with Trump. They argue that as long as Biden remains the candidate, the election will remain a referendum on Biden’s age rather than a referendum on Trump.
Most importantly, they argue that the incredible dangers of a second Trump term justify the unprecedented step of calling for their presidential standard-bearer to step aside. At the same time, there is still time for a stronger candidate to finish the race despite the huge risk involved. Once the Democratic National Convention is over on the 22nd of August, it will become very difficult to change candidates. For anti-Biden Democrats, this narrow window of time compels an urgent reconsideration of Biden’s candidacy.
On the other hand, the case for sticking with Biden relies more on primordial sentiments and logical deductions than empirical calculations. Biden supporters argue that his opponents are driven by momentary panic and risk dividing their party. They claim Biden should be supported because he has been a great president with many social and foreign policy accomplishments and a strong economy, giving Biden a strong incumbent advantage.
They argue that the state of the race is not fixed, and given the ample time remaining and polarised electorate, a narrowing of the race is virtually guaranteed. They also argue that other replacement options are untested—they often repeat that Biden is the only person who has ever beaten Trump in an election—and that the political damage resulting from switching to another candidate this late in the race would fatally weaken the eventual replacement. Finally, they argue that Trump’s negatives are so immense (and the danger he poses so great) that voters will be easily persuaded to vote for Biden, regardless of age. However, when we parse these competing arguments, it is clear that those wanting to replace Biden are more clear-eyed about the current state of the race, more self-aware of the possible dangers of their own preferred alternative, less encumbered by non-empirical considerations, and more risk-acceptant (whereas Biden supporters are risk-averse) insofar as they are willing to consider unprecedented remedies to improve their position.
Anti-Biden Democrats are more clear-eyed about the state of the race because they are more accepting of the empirical evidence of Biden’s weakness as expressed through opinion polls and other sources of public opinion, such as the media, political punditry, and the views of elected officials. The average of polls in swing states paints an alarming picture for Biden’s chances of victory, as the Sun Belt swing states seem to be increasingly moving out of reach, and Biden is increasingly left with only a narrow path to win by sweeping the must-win Blue Wall battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. On top of this, 67 per cent of voters now think Biden should step aside from his candidacy, and even a majority of Democrats believe the same. In contrast, his approval rating—at around an average of 37 per cent—is worryingly low for an incumbent. Moreover, most Democrat pollsters, strategists and donors believe that Biden can no longer recover to win; 19 House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to step aside from the race, 30 House Democrats have expressed concern, 1 Senate Democrat has called on Biden to step aside from the race, and reportedly at most four Democrat senators think Biden can win at this point.
On the other hand, Biden supporters tend to be dismissive of polls, both because (so the argument goes) they were wrong in the past and because it is too early to tell how the race will change in the coming months. Biden has dismissed polling by saying it is not as accurate as it used to be and has stated he thinks the race is a ‘toss-up,’ while some of his surrogates have pointed to internal polling, which suggests the electoral landscape is not as negative as many believe.
The Biden team asserts that the Sun Belt swing states are not completely out of reach and that they can win the three Blue Wall states (though no evidence is provided for this view except that Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania thinks Biden will win his state). Ron Klain, Biden’s former Chief of Staff, notes that Biden’s high ratings in metrics such as ‘he cares for me’ and ‘he shares my values’ are favourable to Biden and believes this positive effect on him will ultimately outweigh age-related concerns when voters are in the voting booth.
The tendency of Biden supporters to dismiss what to other observers are flashing red warning signs of a race that is turning decisively to their disadvantage is extremely concerning and suggests a level of denial and magical thinking clouding their strategic judgment. It is easy to dismiss polls when they show you losing, but self-awareness and self-criticism are minimal prerequisites to turning around a losing campaign. There is always some disagreement about interpreting statistical data. However, indicators across different polls suggest that Joe Biden is decisively trailing Trump, which cannot be explained away by interpretive divergence.
Anti-Biden Democrats are not in denial about the incredible risks of changing candidates this late into the election cycle. Only Kamala Harris (as Biden’s running mate) would be able to access all of the funds of the Biden campaign. Moreover, they know the untested nature of all the possible replacements for Biden.
Kamala Harris ran a weak and widely panned primary campaign in 2020, and her race and gender could prove an obstacle to swing state voters. Pete Buttigieg is a powerful speaker, as are governors Newsom, Whitmer, and Shapiro, but none have a strong national profile. It is a testament to how pessimistic some Democrats are about their current position that, cognisant of the risks, they are nonetheless willing to throw the dice with an untested replacement for Biden.
Biden supporters, on the other hand, are generally unwilling to acknowledge the reality of the aged and diminished figure that stood on the debate stage in June. They tend to accept Biden’s excuse that he had a cold that night and was exhausted from a heavy international travel schedule the previous week. They say that because the debate was ‘just one bad night’, it will not happen again, and Biden’s campaign will continue to chip away at Trump’s lead.
They also argue that Trump’s odiousness will far outweigh Biden’s age when push comes to shove. This viewpoint defies the evidence plain to see for millions of Americans of Biden’s diminished figure. It is overly credulous of the rhetorical justifications Biden and key supporters offered to explain the horrendous performance. But most damagingly, the viewpoint of Biden supporters does not wrestle with the terrifying hypothetical of what would happen if a Biden meltdown similar to the debate (or more than one) took place in the final stretch of the election campaign. This is the true risk of keeping Biden as a candidate, and for those wanting Biden to step aside constitutes a truly unacceptable risk.
In essence, the argument in favour of Biden is backwards-looking and hyper-logical, working from the misleading premise that he has beaten Trump once and is, therefore, best positioned to beat Trump a second time. It also rebuts concerns about Biden’s age by asserting that he was a great president in his first term and that voters would eventually see his record and the strong economic situation and decide to give him a second term. However, the incumbency argument cannot explain why Biden has been consistently behind in the polls despite the fact that he is the incumbent with strong economic tailwinds and an advertising advantage.
And the fatal weakness of backwards-looking arguments is that past outcomes do not guarantee future results, something voters are keenly aware of when they ask themselves whether Biden will be able to complete his second term given his age. The argument for Biden is also heavily non-empirical as it relies heavily on emotion-based calls to remain loyal to a leader who ‘deserves’ a second term and ‘deserves’ our support because he has done right by us.
The core of the argument against Biden is that he is old and instinctively strikes voters as decisively weak when compared with Trump, who (though also old) still has vitality and strength. It was the horrific presidential debate split screen of an energetic Trump next to a faded Biden that shocked Democrats on a subconscious level and led many of them to conclude instinctively that their candidate could not prevail in this race. No matter how much Biden can try to assert he is up to the job, he will either continue to be bedevilled by an enfeebled rhetorical ability, or if he attempts to hide from the limelight, he will be unable to prosecute the campaign with sufficient vigour to win. As Bill Clinton said in 2002:
when people feel uncertain, they’d rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and right.
After the high-water mark of anti-Biden sentiment, which peaked late last week, it seems—due to the assassination attempt on Trump and other shocking developments—that those wanting to push Biden to step aside have lost their momentum for now. Strength and courage are difficult to sustain, and it is easy to backslide in the face of self-doubt and setbacks. Today, anti-Biden Democrats are in danger of falling into a defensive crouch or, worse, resigning themselves to losing to Trump without a fight because of defeatism vis-à-vis their chances of dislodging Biden. This said, it is not unlikely that Democrats’ panic about Biden will reawaken if there is another disastrous unscripted public appearance similar to the debate, which, if reports are to be believed, is a distinct possibility. And anti-Biden Democrats know in their hearts what is the right thing to do.
Of course, it is eminently possible that Kamala Harris (or, more fancifully, another dark horse replacement) will also lose to Trump. However, given that Biden is already losing and losing handily, Democrats must take desperate measures to minimise their losses and attempt a last-minute Hail Mary pass to give themselves a small chance at stopping Trump.
Courage and strength are independent of the outcome. A party can display strength and courage and still lose an election campaign because defeat may have been inevitable, whatever the choices made. But this does not absolve Democrats from choosing the road of courage as this path, even in defeat, is the only one that allows for moral cleanliness and human dignity.
Democrats must display courage and strength in the face of their current dilemma. Weakness or cowardice in the face of the manifest dangers of an unbound second Trump term is unacceptable. The millions of Americans who would suffer unimaginable deprivation and repression under such a second Trump term, and the millions of people abroad who, without America’s protective security umbrella, may become subject to rapacious and unanswered invasion by autocratic regimes, depend on Democrats to do the right and courageous thing.
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