Joe Biden is going nowhere of his own volition.
If the extent to which the president was dug in was not clear over the holiday weekend, the president sure made it clear Monday in a stunner of a letter to congressional Democrats paired with a call-in to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” thus firing his cannon of defiance at both the insiders and the vox populi, or so he and his defenders hoped.
The rhetoric of the letter left no room whatsoever for a graceful departure or change of mind due to evolving personal circumstances. It allowed for no caveats. It suggested nary a hint of doubt in (Team) Biden’s mind. There was some minor sop to having “heard” concerns, but then the letter illegitimized them and blasted them away, even going so far as to imply said concerns were really about the high stakes in the overall election itself rather than the mental health and aptitude of Biden, which we all know to be the actual reality.
“I feel a deep obligation to the faith and trust voters have placed in me to run this year. It was their decision to make,” Biden wrote, referencing his selection in what passed for a Democratic primary. “Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well intentioned. The voters — and the voters alone — decide the nominee of the Democratic Party. How can we stand for Democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party? I cannot do that. I will not do that.”
So, in Biden land, that’s an end to that. If Biden ends up at the conclusion of this crisis not running for reelection as president, it will not be of his own choosing. Given the above verbiage, along with far more besides but entirely of a piece, there will also be no way to spin it otherwise.
No way at all. Not after, “I will not do that.”
The problem the Democrats face, of course, and of which Biden makes no mention, is that many Americans with older parents or grandparents suffering from palpable mental decline have been on the other end of such defiant conversations, desperately trying to get a loved one to face up to reality and maybe not get behind the wheel of a car on a given morning, or to move to a more suitable dwelling. They’ve heard a stern “I will not do that” in their own lives, and it has caused them stress and worry. This is not a matter of age but of health.
Biden has stated repeatedly that those pressuring him not to run represent the “elite” and that ordinary Democratic voters are unwavering. Witnessing many anxious conversations over the past 10 days between Democrats, both progressive and moderate, has convinced us otherwise.
That’s one problem. The second, of course, is the drip, drip, drip of editorials, columns and even news stories with headlines implying that Biden should not remain the nominee: The New York Times, to note one prominent example, has been refreshing its website with another one (or two, or four) almost every hour, it has seemed since the debate. At this moment, that’s a more formidable opponent for Biden than rival candidate Donald Trump, to whom some smart strategist clearly has imparted the political wisdom that when the other team is in disarray, keeping quiet is the best policy.
It is as if someone with a zipper has arrived at Trump’s mouth along with a 24-hour guard, so limited have been the loquacious self-promoter’s pronouncements. By his standards.
When Article III federal judges start to struggle to fulfill their vital role, the standard practice is that a trusted colleague, other than the chief judge of a district, schedules a lunch and quietly but firmly suggests to the reluctant jurist that the time has come to stand down. Often this is accompanied by the unveiling of a portrait in a ceremonial courtroom. Assuming the message is received, no public mention is ever made of this intervention; rather, a willing retirement is announced, accompanied by many grand words about all the retiree’s accomplishments.
After the disastrous debate with Trump, we anticipated that would be how things went with Biden. Indeed, there clearly are those still working in that direction, which would involve an acknowledgement of changed personal circumstances on the part of the nominee (no shame there), perhaps (or perhaps not) a crowning of Vice President Kamala Harris as successor, and a surely graceful exit accompanied by an entire library’s worth of pronouncements of admiration by pretty much every Democratic head ever to talk. Then, of a sudden and as if by magic, the editorials and opinion columns would tend to legacy burnishing, to admiration and praise, with any sense of relief banished to the subtext. It would have been a sight to behold in left-leaning media, large and small.
But how now can that come to pass? How, after, “the question of how to move forward has been aired for over a week now, it is time for it to end”? That renders it impossible.
So Democrats, for whom each passing hour only adds to their problems, are faced with two stark choices with a deadline of yesterday when it comes to making them.
Either they decide to pull together behind Biden as the nominee and pack away the leaks, the columns, the quiet meetings trying to figure out what to do, or they summon up their collective courage and demand Biden hand them the keys.
Sad to say, he has left them with no other choice.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
