If many of the country’s top political pundits have their way, President Joe Biden would be working on the details of his retirement plan all day long. I began compiling a list over the weekend of the prominent media voices calling for the incumbent Democrat to pass the torch, but eventually gave up — because it was hard to keep up with the deluge.
The editorial board of The New York Times was perhaps the most prominent voice urging Biden to resign, and the editorial board of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quickly followed suit with its own front-page argument. The Atlantic published six pieces in the aftermath of last week’s debate, calling on Biden to end his candidacy. They were joined by Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, David Remnick, David Ignatius and many, many others.
Complicating matters further, concerns among many leading Democratic donors have grown so high that some are looking not only for alternatives to the sitting president, but also for paybacks.
There’s no reason to think this chatter will stop anytime soon. In fact, once this conversation starts, it’s hard to stop it. It’s reminiscent of the moment in the presidential primaries when candidates are asked questions at every appearance and in every interview about what it would take to drop out of the race. The lines of inquiry themselves signal to voters that these candidates face a bleak future.
Every hour Team Biden spends reassuring party officials, insiders, donors, voters and pundits that its reelection plans remain on track is an hour in which it doesn’t build a case against Trump and draw attention to the incumbent Democrat’s performance. and present a vision for the future.
And yet the total number of Democratic officials—in the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and governors’ offices across the country—who have publicly called on Biden to step aside is zero. The Washington Post reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries “told concerned members to hold fire for a few days and see how things play out,” and so far, that has happened.
This is no small detail: The more Biden can keep leading Democratic officials on his side, the more he can focus on the general election. If those officials were to turn on him, the political challenge would go from bad to worse.
So maybe the president can breathe a little easier, confident that officials in his own party haven’t called on him to step aside? It’s not that simple. NBC News reported on a key interview:
“We’re having a serious conversation about what we need to do,” the Maryland Democrat told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. Raskin, an influential voice in Democratic politics, added: “One thing I can tell you is that no matter what President Biden decides, our party will be united. …Whether he’s the candidate or someone else is the candidate, he’ll be the keynote speaker at our convention. He will be the figure we rally around to move forward and defeat the forces of authoritarianism and reaction in the country.”
These were not the words of a congressman who is convinced that the underlying issue has been resolved.
So what should the public expect from this serious conversation between the parties? As unsatisfactory as it may seem, polls are likely to have a huge impact. If, for example, surveys in the coming days show the race relatively unchanged, Biden and his political operation will find it much easier to address Democratic concerns. If, on the other hand, polls in the near future show Trump’s lead reaching new heights, that will lead to a qualitatively different Democratic conversation.
Remember, Democrats have nothing but affection for Biden. Those who want him replaced on the ballot are not doing so because they don’t like or disapprove of him; they are motivated solely by electoral considerations. If the president doesn’t win in November, the argument goes, he will have to step aside.
The democratic conversation will almost certainly be data-driven, and to the frustration of the impatient, that data is not yet available.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
