I don’t blame people in the Biden camp for doing everything they can to tamp down an intraparty revolt. That’s their job, and I take some comfort that they’re doing it as well as is possible, since if Biden is the nominee, it’s imperative that he defeats Trump. But as long as there’s time to replace Biden, Democrats should not allow themselves to be bullied into fatalism and complacency.
More than a setback, Biden’s showing at the debate was a revelation, confirming the worst fears of his doubters. Since then, several news reports have made it clear that the Biden we all saw onstage is familiar to those who see him behind the scenes. Axios reported that, according to presidential aides, Biden is alert and engaged from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but not necessarily outside of those hours. The Wall Street Journal reported that European officials were worried about Biden’s “focus and stamina” even before the debate, “with some senior diplomats saying they had tracked a noticeable deterioration in the president’s faculties in meetings since last summer.” This is not a fixable problem.
Since Thursday, there’s been talk among Democrats of a comeback. “When you get knocked down, you get back up,” Biden said at a boisterous rally on Friday in North Carolina, words that are now part of a new campaign ad. The progressive Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, a Biden surrogate, likened the president to the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa. But as should be evident, aging cannot be overcome with grit.
I’ve heard hopeful Democrats enthuse about how much better Biden was in North Carolina than he’d been the day before at the debate, but that’s silly: We all know Biden is usually fine reading from a teleprompter. The question is whether he can think and speak extemporaneously, a low bar for a president, and one that Biden can no longer be relied on to clear. After all, if Thursday were just a bad night, he could reassure doubters by doing a bunch of interviews and unscripted town halls. If he’s not doing that, it’s probably because his campaign doesn’t think he can pull it off.
It should go without saying that Biden in any condition is preferable to Trump, especially after the sinister Supreme Court ruling on Monday granting presidents immunity for their official acts, an act of civic desecration all but ensuring that a second-term Trump would rule as a vengeful dictator. The stakes of this election are existential; it’s a referendum on whether America will continue to be a liberal democracy. Everyone in the anti-Trump coalition is scared, which is why the argument over what to do about Biden is so heated.