The spinmeisters are twirling away trying to convince us that President Biden only had a bad night. It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? But last Thursday he looked old and spoke even older in front of 51 million viewers. Honestly, if you had a relative who was that bewildered and lost, wouldn’t you seriously be considering assisted living?
But Biden’s “just one bad night” did us all a big favor. There now is a possibility, still slight but getting greater every day, that he will bow out of the race.
On November 20, 2023, I wrote a piece that asked Biden to not run again. I took heat for that, even from my friends and colleagues. I heard all kinds of arguments, ranging from “He’s a great president and deserves another term,” to “It’s too late to do anything about it.” I was also accused of being a defeatist and some said that I was undercutting Biden and helping Trump win.
Biden’s energetic State of the Union address led to more finger wagging: “See, Biden clearly has the wherewithal to crush Trump,” friends said. I was not convinced. But, after Biden’s pathetic debate performance, a lot more people have become unconvinced.
It is past time to listen to what the Democratic rank and file have been saying all along. They want someone younger to do combat with Trump. Biden’s approval numbers are pathetic – 37 percent as of June 24, and 72 percent now believe that he does not have “the mental and cognitive health to serve as president,” according to a post-debate CBS poll.
Unfortunately, the primaries have been completed and no significant Democrat has showed the nerve to oppose him. That leaves it up to Biden to decide, and in the aftermath of the debate debacle he and his team say they’re running harder than ever. Like lemmings, I’m afraid, following each other over the cliff!
But that could change as his poll numbers further deteriorate, making Democratic leaders worry they will go down with Biden in the fall.
The Misreading of 1968
Pundits have encouraged the Democrat’s cowardice by claiming that when a sitting president is challenged by one of his own party defeat always follows . The poster child for this story is 1968, when Senator Eugene McCarthy (D, MN) took on President Lyndon Johnson in the primaries. McCarthy’s strength led Johnson to withdraw. Party regulars then engineered the nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who lost to Richard Nixon in the general election.
Does history teach us that McCarthy, by challenging Johnson, caused the Democrats to lose, and is this a sufficient reason for why Biden should continue to lead the ticket?
No, the pundits have it wrong.
In 1968, there were 536,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam killing and being killed in large numbers. The massive Tet Offensive, launched on January 31st by the communist forces, showed the American public that the Johnson administration had been lying about our battle successes. Even the esteemed CBS anchor Walter Cronkite reportedly said, “What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning the war!”
Senator Eugene McCarthy, defying his party leaders, challenged the sitting president with a strong anti-war message, appealing to the support of young people in the growing anti-war movement. (About one million men were drafted into the armed forces from 1965 to 1968.) Thousands flocked to his campaign, going door-to-door in New Hampshire where McCarthy gained 42 percent of the Democratic primary vote. The next primary was to take place in Wisconsin, and following the close New Hampshire race, Johnson knew he would lose. On March 30, LBJ dropped out of the race, and on April 2 McCarthy won Wisconsin by 57 to 35 percent.
With Johnson out, Humphrey became the Democratic Party establishment candidate, but then Robert Kennedy jumped in, making it a three-man race. On April 4, Dr. Martin King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis and riots broke out in 100 cities across the country, leading to 43 deaths and the military occupation of several US cities. In the June 4 California primary, Kennedy defeated McCarthy and become the candidate best able to defeat Humphrey on behalf of the anti-war Democrats. Sadly, he was assassinated that night in Los Angeles, turning 1968 into a unmitigated nightmare.
To add to the chaos, the August 26-29 Democratic convention, held in Chicago, turned into a riot, a police riot, as the Chicago police—under the control of Mayor Richard Daley— viciously attacked the generally peaceful anti-war demonstrators. Anti-war convention delegates, and even CBS’s Dan Rather, were beaten live on TV as Daley turned his political machine into a ramrod for the Humphrey campaign.
After Kennedy’s murder it was a foregone conclusion that Humphrey would become the Democratic nominee. But the key political event at the tumultuous convention turned out to be the vote on a rather mild peace plank for the Democratic Party platform, something that the Kennedy and McCarthy delegates hoped would help end the war. But LBJ, pulling the strings behind the scenes, refused to compromise and the plank was narrowly defeated.
That fall, Vice President Humphrey ran against the former Vice President Nixon, who based his campaign on law and order by pointing to the riots and anti-war demonstrations that were tearing the country apart. Nixon also claimed to have a plan to end the war in Vietnam that he would reveal at his inauguration, which turned out to be an appealing lie. Humphrey, an organization man nearly to the end, stayed loyal to the unpopular LBJ positions and fell behind by 44 to 27 percent in a September 27 Gallop poll.
On September 30, 1968, Humphrey finally broke ranks with LBJ in a nationwide speech. He announced that he would put an end to the bombing in Vietnam and would call for a ceasefire. This brought McCarthy and many of his supporters, as well the Kennedy faithful, into the Humphrey campaign, narrowing the gap. But with only a month to go Humphrey didn’t quite get there: Nixon won 43.4 percent to Humphrey’s 42.7 percent, with segregationist George Wallace netting 15.5 percent.
There is little doubt that had Democrats supported the peace plank at the convention, or had Humphrey offered his peace plan sooner, he would have won. So please don’t use 1968 to tell us that if Biden withdraws, the Democrats are sure to lose, which is what Kaitlan Collins said on CNN the night after the debate.
I try to avoid the prediction game, but I am willing to go out on a limb on this one: If Biden stays in, we get Trump. If a younger Democrat becomes the nominee, Trump gets crushed.
It’s now up to Biden and the leaders of the Democratic Party. Do they have the guts to tell Biden not to run? Do any of the younger presidential hopefuls have the nerve to speak out? Does Biden have the good sense to withdraw?
It’s also up to us. Do we have the energy to flood social media and our political leaders with a clear demand for Biden to step down?
Usually, pieces like this end by saying that a Trump victory threatens democracy. But by refusing to listen to the vast majority of their own rank and file, Democratic Party leaders are also defying the will of the people.
For years I've been asking for an explanation why we working people should believe the Dems are the good guys when they're neolibs. I ask those who write comments on the D supporting news sites if they're fine with an econ system that considers human and natural resources as things to use and defines away the damage as irrelevant externalities.
If they answer at all, it's almost always deflection, whataboutism, ad hominem, straw man. I have yet to read a coherent answer, let alone a persuasive one. There are probably many reasons for the D party leadership to avoid difficult topics. Their corporate donors. Their certainty that as products of an Ivy League "meritocracy" they are this era's Best and Brightest. (Never mind the cautionary tale of Halberstam's book.) But why the odd or inadequate responses of the D faithful?
I'm convinced they don't want to see--D for denial. Their iconic animal should be the ostrich. It reminds me of when progressives think racism isn't about them, the contrary well explored in Robin Diangelo's book //White Fragility.// And when Native Americans point out that 'progressive' is related to an assumed cultural superiority and to endless econ growth, attitudes asserted as universally true by Western cultures. From long and bitter personal experience, I'd add classism.
I realize that anyone born after 1970 has never lived with government committed to the common good nor ever known a truly New Deal Dem party. But that doesn't excuse never wondering why so many Americans feel excluded from and alienated by politics or considering that "lesser or two evils" may not be a great selling point. To me, the D supporters don't want to see past the thin veneer of the current D party because a frightening reality would then become all too visible. A reality that isn't a simple either/or, with us/against us, good guy/bad guy. It means acknowledging a complex reality requiring deep assessment of one's self, then conscientious responsibility, along with the very difficult work of building coalitions while respecting the Other.
Biden should’ve moved aside and let Bernie run. Alexander Ocasio Cortez would also be a formidable candidate. But will the neoliberals allow actual progress to happen? The reality is America have two very very lousy choices. So either way it will suck. Trump will screw up America from within, Biden will screwing things up around the world by kicking off WWIII.
We’re foolish to allow either of those two criminals to run.