If you want a different candidate than Joe Biden, here's what you need to do [View all]

[EarlG]

Last edited Sat Jun 29, 2024, 05:56 PM - Edit history (1)

First, build a time machine and travel back in time to 2022. Find and recruit a legitimate candidate who can attract major support, and who is willing to run against the incumbent president for the Democratic nomination. Then, raise hundreds of millions of dollars and attract solid grassroots support from a significant chunk of the Democratic electorate. Next, get your candidate on Democratic primary ballots in all 50 states. Finally, defeat Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries.

Congratulations! You did it.

If you can't do that, here's some straight talk:

This decision is Biden's to make, and there's no indication at this time that he is interested in dropping out. So consider this. If you're Gavin Newsom, or Gretchen Whitmer, or some other high-profile Dem who is highly likely to take a shot at the presidency in 2028, you have ABSOLUTELY NO INCENTIVE right now to try and force him out. Setting aside for a moment the tremendous threat to democracy that Trump represents, your safest political play is to let Biden win or lose on his own.

If Biden wins, then great -- you were a good foot soldier and a loyal Democrat who stood up and defended him during his darkest hour. You've gotten off to a strong start making the argument that you should be his successor when he finishes his second term in four years.

But if Biden loses the election, then there will be nobody to blame but Biden. It wasn't your fault -- you did nothing to harm him. You stood by him and did everything you could to help him win, but the electorate wasn't having it, and he lost. When everything shakes out, you've done nothing at all to damage your chances with Democrats going into the 2028 primaries.

Stepping up and challenging him right now, just months before the election, would throw the party into total chaos. You would be seen by many as a disloyal backstabber. It would be a disaster. Not just for the party, but if you failed to take Biden out -- or succeeded in taking him out, and then failed to win the presidency -- you would have split the party in two and be seen by one half as a traitor.

I don't believe there is a chance in hell that any high profile Democrat is willing to take that gamble right now when all they need to do is stay the course and set themselves up for 2028. I think you can certainly make the argument that if Trump wins, all bets are off on whether there will even be an election in 2028 -- but that is part of an unknown future, and wouldn't change the political calculation that these politicians have to make right now.

Which is why the current talk on DU of replacing Biden seems to me like a purely academic exercise born out of panic (not to mention, ahem, a violation of DU rules, since we declared an official end to Primary Season months ago).

If you are worried about the upcoming election, I don't blame you. The consequences are significant. But I'd like you to bear something in mind. We are all Biden fans here. We're the members of the party who think he's done a solid job as President, and we love him for his character. I think this even describes the vast majority of folks calling for him to be replaced.

However, the upcoming election is more a battle of differing ideas and concepts for the future of America than it is about the personalities involved, and that is why I think that staying the course is a no-brainer. The choices in this election are a Putin-style dictatorship run by a criminal, racist, rapist psychopath, or, you know -- not that. And to that end, I think pretty much every Democrat in America would vote for Joe Biden's corpse before they voted for Donald Trump. I know I would.

Is it an ideal situation? Nope. But is there a realistic alternative to this situation? Also nope. And does the last debate really change the dynamics of the race, given that, once again, the two choices in this election are Joe Biden or the destruction of America as we know it? Thrice, I say nope.

President Biden still has plenty of time to redeem himself following the debate performance, not least of which will be his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Given the factors in play, it seems the party is going to stay the course. The stakes are too high, and we are not going to have a repeat of the disarray on display at the 2016 convention. We'll get a solid four days of Democratic unity on national TV capped off by a strong speech, all of which will remind America of the stakes in this election.

So bottom line: Things don't look as rosy right now as we'd hoped going into the debate. But calls to replace Biden at this stage are nothing more than a fantasy -- a pointless academic exercise which will do nothing but create disunity, when we need the opposite.

At least, that's my opinion. You're welcome!