But the New Trump was a momentary invention that could not survive contact with his natural instincts. Shockingly, he wasn’t even entertaining. His rant-as-acceptance speech revived every doubt and every fear about a Trump presidency with its slew of false attack lines and his penchant for self-involved victimhood.
By the time it was over, Democrats were back in business. Yet rather than seize the moment, they find themselves agonizing, waiting — and stuck. They have to stop dithering. New leases on life are not granted often.
For the more than three weeks since President Biden’s June 27 debate disaster, Democratic leaders have tried to be as gracious as they could be. Truth is, as my own reporting has found, most lawmakers who now see his effort as unsustainable were happy to support the pre-debate Biden. Despite Biden’s suspicions to the contrary, they really do appreciate him. They admire the extraordinary record he and they built together. They thought he could handle the campaign and the next four years.
The debate extinguished that faith, and it’s worth noting that holding an unusually early encounter was not the idea of anyone outside of Biden’s campaign. The debate reflected a desire to shake up the race by moving the focus to Trump. The fact that his advisers were eager for it suggested they knew the race did need to be shaken up. Unfortunately for Biden, he shook the contest in an entirely unintended way.
“Going into the debate, Trump was seen as the risk to the country, and that’s still true,” Peter Welch (D-Vt.), the first senator to call on Biden to withdraw, told me. “But coming out of the debate, many voters started seeing Biden’s health as a risk to the country.”
And for all the arguments about what the polls since the debate do or don’t show, it’s clear that Biden — who won five of the key swing states very narrowly in 2020 — is well behind where he stood at this point four years ago. No wonder so many vulnerable Democratic senators and House members are petrified and begging Biden to “pass the torch.” This instant cliché, by the way, was a carefully chosen phrase, one House member told me, aimed precisely at conveying respect. It stresses that the president’s withdrawal would not be a passive act of surrender but an active decision by a man who could burnish his legacy by moving on.
It’s possible to feel sad and empathetic toward Biden about where he now finds himself, yet also frustrated. His candidacy, once a unifying force among Democrats, now badly divides his party. His refusal to budge led two more senators and 10 more House members on Friday to call for him to withdraw. As the days pass, such statements will multiply. Those closest to Biden should avoid stoking his resentments, even if some may be understandable. Instead, they should move him toward the path that promises gratitude, admiration and respect.
Once Biden ends his candidacy, as now seems inevitable, Democrats need to settle swiftly on a new nominee — and a process to bring the party together. Being Democrats, they are split on both these questions.
Many in the party, particularly Black leaders but also other Biden loyalists, will be outraged if there is not a quick move to replace Biden with Vice President Harris. But others say that an open, democratic process is required to build confidence in the party and its ultimate choice.
They both have a point. Choosing someone other than Harris, who has already been well vetted, would invite turmoil the party can’t afford. Dumping your entire ticket three months before an election is not a good look. But Democrats need to get to a Harris nomination through a process the whole party will see as fair.
Doing so would only strengthen Harris’s candidacy. So would a strong running mate. Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania are among the many good options she would have.
It’s not a matter of psychology but of politics that the president must find a way of being at peace with this outcome. None of this is about the past and the many moments when others underestimated him. None of it reflects badly on his record as president. He didn’t fail in that debate. His age failed him.
Saving his legacy of achievement requires beating Trump. The Republican nominee has shown that this outcome is well within reach. It’s not the way Biden hoped to do it, but it’s within his power to stop Trump a second time.
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