They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Reflections on the debate debacle

I seem to have a knack for writing posts that become instantly obsolete. On Wednesday, I posted a piece laying out my view of the state of the race between Biden and Trump, and made only glancing mention of concerns about Biden’s age. I think there’s only one sentence from that whole piece that has endured: “Surprises from ‘events’ are far more likely to redound to Biden’s detriment rather than his favor.”

Well, we had a humdinger of an “event” last night. It is hard to overstate how catastrophic the president’s performance was, both in and of itself and in comparison to the version of Donald Trump who showed up. Biden looked frail and confused, and was incapable of responding to Trump’s arguments or pressing his own effectively. And Trump had arguments, and in pressing them he sounded vigorous, on-message and non-deranged. Biden is an old racehorse running to win one last derby, and he broke his leg at the start of his last lap.

At this point, the analogy breaks down, because the race goes on. Biden could keep running, but also could drop out and be replaced. Technically, that choice is entirely his; nobody can force him not to run. But if long-time, trusted aides refused to work for his campaign, donors refused to give money, would-be presidents and other party leaders (not pundits) began demanding he step aside—these sorts of things would make it impossible for him to continue out of anything but spite and the determination to destroy his party if he can’t lead it. That’s the kind of behavior I associate with Donald Trump, not Joe Biden. There’s a collective action problem is getting such a ball rolling, but last night’s performance has to a considerable extent solved that collective action problem. Everyone is undoubtedly talking about the same thing right now, and they are talking with each other. The Democrats have been given another off-ramp, just before the cliff. If they don’t take it, I really don’t know what to say other than that they must be far more comfortable with a Trump presidency than they let on.

So let’s assume they take it. What then?

By far the most likely scenario is that President Biden tells the nation something like: I’m capable of doing my job, but I’m too old to do two jobs (running for president and being president). Furthermore, my conscience and the actuarial tables tell me that if I were reelected the odds are good that I wouldn’t fill out my term. I’ve always been confident that Vice President Harris could take over, which is why I picked her as my running mate, and she’s more capable today than she was then. So I’m dropping out of the race and letting her take the reins.

If Biden did something like that, the party would unify behind Harris, and the campaign would go on with the least disruption. The decision would be the least obnoxious from the perspective of democratic norms, since everyone assumes Harris would have been Biden’s running mate again, and she was elected in 2020 to succeed Biden if he had died or been incapacitated in office. To a greater extent than anyone else, she already has the vote of the people. As well, by going with Harris the Democrats would avoid a possible bidding war by the various ideological groups who dominated the 2020 primary season with their demands, and who might well make similar demands in any kind of free-for-all at the convention. I don’t know anyone who thinks Harris is the best nominee the Democrats could pick, but surely she’s better than a nominee who has not been blessed by the party’s voters in any way and has been boxed in by promises to an untenably left-wing agenda.

Those are all convincing arguments . . . except that they sound an awful lot like the arguments from earlier in Biden’s term for why he should run for reelection despite his age and unpopularity. Back then, smart people said that Harris was even more unpopular, and that allowing an open primary would both divide the party and drag it to the left. The best bet was to stay the course. And now here we are.

The Biden campaign is behind. If Biden doesn’t step aside, his poll numbers will drop sharply after last night. If he steps aside in favor of Harris, her poll numbers will drop too, both because of the circumstances of her accession and the fact that she has not to date demonstrated a knack for gleaming in the spotlight. And whoever might emerge from an open convention will start from a deep hole, no matter how popular they seem to be on paper. Whoever the nominee is, that somebody has to be able to shake things up and turn things around, has to be willing to take risks to win, because that’s what campaigns that are behind have to do. If your process for selecting a nominee is designed around minimizing risk, you are not going to pick that person.

I take the point that there is no other process—that there is no “party leadership” capable of getting together to pick the best nominee, and no smoke-filled room in which they could congregate. The party is hollow, I am told. But if that’s the case, then the Democrats are more similar than they would likely want to admit to the Republicans on the eve of the Trump phenomenon, and are awaiting their own monster to descend his or her golden escalator, and seize the crown now lying in the gutter.

Meanwhile, we had all better recalibrate our models, and start planning for a second Trump presidency. I’m sure that’s what they are doing in Brussels and in Tokyo, in Kyiv and in Taipei, in Moscow and in Tehran, in New Delhi, and of course in Beijing.