The arguments about fame and power in this piece are all correct, I think and go a long way to explaining why Biden is unlikely to yield. But I don't see why a cloud of embarrassment is inevitable. Sure, it's not the most graceful way to go, but if he did it with a finely written speech about realizing he can't communicate his message the best and that the time had come to step aside, I think he'd immediately get a flood of good will from press and voters. They'd compare him to George Washington, James K. Polk, and Lou Gehrig. He'd get an epic standing ovation at the convention.
From my perspective (old fashioned liberal Democrat) I'll obviously still vote for him if he continues, but it feels deeply irresponsible, immoral, and hypocritical for Dems to push a candidate who manifestly unfit. The best nonideological argument against Trump was that he was unfit for office. We lose that argument by sticking with Biden. I don't think he's at the 25th amendment stage right now, but no honest person can say that Biden will be able to perform the job by 2028. The trajectory from 2020 to 2024 is obvious.
And, there, sir, is the problem. You would vote for a man who could destroy this country and/or the world solely because you are a Democrat...and not because you are doing what you believe is best for this country. It is better that you don't vote at all...but your decision will be on your conscience for some time.
If I've got his politics figured out, he thinks Trump would destroy the country, and Biden would be managed by his handlers as before in case of a victory.
"Biden doesn’t even have the spend time with grandkids option, as he’s so old that they’re adults already, except for the one that he only recently acknowledged."
Not true, his namesake Joseph Robinette Biden IV was born in 2020 and is two years younger than Navy. And his oldest granddaughter is probably going to have kids soon, so there is that.
It should not be up to Joe Biden to resign. A legitimate representative republic would not produce two possible candidates, one of whom is senile, for the highest office in the country. This whole situation is the biggest blow to the prestige of our electoral system I have ever seen. We need a new government, plain and simple.
Political systems don't get redesigned with this much polarization. You actually need to come together to achieve things like that. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
The dynamics that produced this aren't structural, they're social. The Democrats who have been afraid to speak out all did so out of personal ambitions, fear of retribution, and canny self-interest and this column explains some of the psychological aspects causing Biden to hold on for too long. This really has nothing to do with our system in particular: this could easily happen in a lot of other non-Westminster style democracies.
In a "non-Westminster style democrac[y]", a threat to leave and found a third party would be real rather than laughable, so someone like, say, Bernie Sanders or whoever would actually go and do that rather than hold onto such a coalition.
The number of parties doesn't matter. What matters is if the guy who wants to win understands how the levers of power work within the current system. If you haven't already, iam1776 has a good piece on how Bukele rose to power.
> The Democrats who have been afraid to speak out all did so out of personal ambitions, fear of retribution, and canny self-interest
They should be a part of an electoral system that rewards them for selecting good candidates instead of bad ones, rather than relying on them being selfless actors
It was similar with Fetterman. Everyone was saying he should quit the race to take care of his health. But it’s much worse to be unemployed and recovering from a stroke than to be a Senator recovering from it.
With any luck, the stress of the presidency could shorten Biden's residual lifespan to a perfect 4.5 years, which would probably be the optimal outcome for him (provided that he pulls off a miraculous win in November).
I suppose. The other variable is if he really does take some kind of cocktail before off-script public events. I imagine even a bi-monthly regimen of that does a number on your brain and organs.
He will get progressively more confused and forgetful, his brain will just stop operating lower functions. 3-4 years tops. Basically he’s headed for memory care. If he leaves the presidency it’s to die.
It must take a tremendous effort to appear even as good as he does. His family were probably saying six months ago that his father lived to almost 90 and the vitamin shots seem to be working etc.
I’m depressed he’s not better, he must have access to the best drugs and baby juice or whatever these rich people are taking.
While being old, decaying and dying all suck I believe you missed the second place prize, having your family and friends around you as you do that. He has actually put in a lot of work in having relationships with his grandchildren and calls them EVERY DAY. What grandparent does that? Someone with dark personality traits would never put in that amount of effort for such little reward therefore I think he genuinely has positive relationships with his family. This will sustain him as he enters the last breathe of his life.
So I think the real reason he is staying in is because he has a Hero Complex. He couldn't save his young family or his older son but by hook or crook he will save this nation from the Orange Devil. Jill is the one with the dark personality or else she would have convinced him to pass the torch. At this point that would have been easy enough with her social skill level and his level of exhaustion. It wouldn't take much to weave a story where he is the Hero and saved us all, now let's get a warm blanket around those skinny legs.
If you're referring to Biden's first wife and daughter dying in a car accident in 1972, you're missing the part where he decided to make up a story about the other driver having "drank his lunch instead of eating it". He started doing so after the truck driver died in 1999; decades after the accident occurred. On top of that, the truck driver was never found to be at fault, let alone having been intoxicated. You don't throw baseless accusations against a dead man in order to make a family tragedy sound more compelling unless you DO have dark personality traits, of which Biden has no shortage.
You can have both dark and light personality traits.
I think it's as Richard describes, he doesn't really have anything left to live for if he steps down. Grandkids, yeah, but being ex-president is a huge step down, even if it's a huge step up from where most people are.
Or maybe he felt the ends justified the means to make a better story up that gets him into power so he can "do the most good". People will make up ridiculous things to justify bad behavior, that doesn't mean he has a dark personality type. That actually makes him pretty normal. Think of honor killings of young girls who have lost their virginity to rape. That is crazy to an outsider looking in but normal people DO behave in awful ways to make their life have purpose and meaning in some sort of narrative. Whether that's a narrative of a religion or a gang or your own personal hero story.
Anyway it's not like I personally know the guy so I could be missing something for sure and you are right that he stays in power because he is simply a sociopath or whatever. I just think his story has more nuance than that. Jill's story, on the other hand, has more explaining to do because it looks pretty dark from where I sit.
Yes, need to give a wide range. The fact is at any given moment, he could start spiraling rapidly towards death over the course of a few weeks or months. But without some diagnosis overhanging him, there's just no reason that moment has to come soon, just as there's no reason it couldn't be soon.
Pretty sure this isn't what people who live to 106 look like at 81 though.
From an actuarial perspective, 10-15 years is a pretty likely estimate. His cognitive function aside, he's a lifelong nondrinker, nonsmoker, maintains a healthy weight and exercises regularly, has no past cancers, cardiovascular episodes, or other common geriatric illness. He's got a bad foot, formerly high cholesterol under control with a statin, heartburn, and sleep apnea. That's about as clean a bill of health as an 80 year old can get. I think he'll be alive for at least another decade, barring an accident or fast-moving cancer.
No, but "years left on this earth" is a low bar to pass. Carter has been feeble for a while and continues to hang on. Wealth and direct access to premium healthcare are variables that lead to outsized life spans.
Does Biden stand to gain anything personally if he were to bow out? (As noted, there are plenty of perks to the gig to serve as justifications for why he would give it a shot, for purely personal reasons).
He would spare himself the ignominy of losing to a convicted felon.
He would be undefeated in presidential elections.
But there remains the knock-on question: if not him, then who?
Richard, you say --- To put a number on it, I’d say 85% chance he’s still the Democratic nominee on election day.
I hope so...because the Democrats will have to cheat...again.....to win. Then all of America [maybe even those that don't follow politics]...will know......elections are not on the up-and-up in this or any country. Maybe then we will tighten things up.....
You really don't get it, do you? Biden has dementia and it appears to be entering the early stages of Alzheimer's. No, I'm not a doctor. I don't need to be because i lived through that journey into hell with my father for 8-years before he died from Alzheimer's complications. and Biden shows all the symptoms and behaviors.
Biden took the entire week off from his full-time job of running America into the ground to prep for the debate with Trump. They had all week to get his drug cocktail right so that he could redo his hopped-up State of the Union performance again, but I can tell you from experience that the drugs stop working when dementia reaches early Alzheimer's.
If these people had any honor or compassion, they’d let Joe step away with what’s left of his dignity intact. They’ve ridden on his back to power, and now they’re riding him into the ground. Let the man do the right thing for once in his narcissistic life. Let him have his LBJ moment and make that speech that will go something like “I shall not seek, and I’m too mentally incompetent to accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president”, or something along those lines.
But they won’t, will they. It’s all about power and once tyrants seize power, they don’t want to give it up. It’s like a drug to them.
Good take. Self-delusion is one of the most powerful psychological forces in the world; the reason we forget that so much is probably because we're so oblivious to our own self-delusions that we don't look for them in others.
There is nothing in Biden’s history that would suggest he has the kind of character that would compel him to drop out “for the good of the country” or any other altruistic reason. This is a selfish, corrupt old man who, even in his younger days, was a mediocrity at best. Having somehow, by dumb luck, found himself sitting in the Oval Office he’s going to hold on to the bitter end.
No one mentions Alan Lichtman and his keys to the White House in the context of this argument. He thinks it's a terrible idea because incumbency is a huge advantage. Then again, we have never had a situation where the incumbent was this old so we're in uncharted territory. He may well be wrong this time.
I'd like to remind you that it's unclear whether incumbency that's the advantage or merely running for reelection is the advantage. Roosevelt beat Taft, both were running for reelection (and both lost to Wilson). Arguably, because Roosevelt was running for a third term, he had more name recognition, etc. Incumbency also didn't work for Harisson versus Cleveland.
I agree, but Alan seems quite rigid in his interpretation of the criteria. IIRC he said something after the debate about Trump being a former president doesn’t factor in. I think he might be making a mistake but who knows.
Who's going to "stab him in the rotunda"? As an old Wayne and Shuster skit on Julius Caesar once put it -- "I told him, 'Jully, don't go'." Something that Jill should have told Joe.
But the question might also be who, in the Republican Party, is going to do likewise for Trump?
Nobody in the Republican Party will do so for Trump. His primary goal since winning the presidency in '16 has been to purge the party of anyone who would do such a thing for any reason. He'd have to be catatonic before he'd be replaced.
The prime Dem election talking point of how there were supposed to be some things that were above politics has shown itself a hollow lie. Neither party has any sense of civic resposibility.
Even if Biden could exit and nominate an alternative I question his judgement if he thinks that people can change sex and that butchering autistic and dysphoric children is a justified social policy.
But moot whether the Republican side is any better -- some reason to argue it's much worse:
"Why Trump Resonates With The Working Class - Batya Ungar-Sargon"
Ordinary Democrats are demonstrating how to reject a bad candidate. It appears to be working.
Unlike the R’s, the D’s appear NOT to be falling in line (or falling in love), despite what the candidate and his campaign employees are doing. The R’s totally failed this basic test.
If the D’s ultimately reject their leader, particularly without even an obvious replacement, they’ll have demonstrated a skill critical to modern humanity that many of us thought had been lost.
Conspicuously supporting an awful leader simply because he’s on our team is a terrible character flaw.
The byden family crime syndicate will hang on much like the Corleone family with Punter becoming the new Godfather. Getting old sucks? Better hope that you never make it to oldsterism.
It doesn't really suck because we all are on this planet for a very short time, unless you believe in incarnation.
Joey will buy votes by providing free ice cream cones and it will all work out in the end. Someone will be running the government and the government will be running the country into the ground, as it always has with endless deficits, wars and stupid laws.
The arguments about fame and power in this piece are all correct, I think and go a long way to explaining why Biden is unlikely to yield. But I don't see why a cloud of embarrassment is inevitable. Sure, it's not the most graceful way to go, but if he did it with a finely written speech about realizing he can't communicate his message the best and that the time had come to step aside, I think he'd immediately get a flood of good will from press and voters. They'd compare him to George Washington, James K. Polk, and Lou Gehrig. He'd get an epic standing ovation at the convention.
From my perspective (old fashioned liberal Democrat) I'll obviously still vote for him if he continues, but it feels deeply irresponsible, immoral, and hypocritical for Dems to push a candidate who manifestly unfit. The best nonideological argument against Trump was that he was unfit for office. We lose that argument by sticking with Biden. I don't think he's at the 25th amendment stage right now, but no honest person can say that Biden will be able to perform the job by 2028. The trajectory from 2020 to 2024 is obvious.
The least embarrassing thing is for him to step aside. Continuing on is what will likely entail antipathy and further embarrassment.
And, there, sir, is the problem. You would vote for a man who could destroy this country and/or the world solely because you are a Democrat...and not because you are doing what you believe is best for this country. It is better that you don't vote at all...but your decision will be on your conscience for some time.
If I've got his politics figured out, he thinks Trump would destroy the country, and Biden would be managed by his handlers as before in case of a victory.
"Biden doesn’t even have the spend time with grandkids option, as he’s so old that they’re adults already, except for the one that he only recently acknowledged."
Not true, his namesake Joseph Robinette Biden IV was born in 2020 and is two years younger than Navy. And his oldest granddaughter is probably going to have kids soon, so there is that.
Thanks I fixed it.
It should not be up to Joe Biden to resign. A legitimate representative republic would not produce two possible candidates, one of whom is senile, for the highest office in the country. This whole situation is the biggest blow to the prestige of our electoral system I have ever seen. We need a new government, plain and simple.
Political systems don't get redesigned with this much polarization. You actually need to come together to achieve things like that. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
The dynamics that produced this aren't structural, they're social. The Democrats who have been afraid to speak out all did so out of personal ambitions, fear of retribution, and canny self-interest and this column explains some of the psychological aspects causing Biden to hold on for too long. This really has nothing to do with our system in particular: this could easily happen in a lot of other non-Westminster style democracies.
In a "non-Westminster style democrac[y]", a threat to leave and found a third party would be real rather than laughable, so someone like, say, Bernie Sanders or whoever would actually go and do that rather than hold onto such a coalition.
The number of parties doesn't matter. What matters is if the guy who wants to win understands how the levers of power work within the current system. If you haven't already, iam1776 has a good piece on how Bukele rose to power.
The number of parties doesn't matter when it's constant, but the _ability to rearrange the pie_ (and thus break the coalition) does matter.
> The Democrats who have been afraid to speak out all did so out of personal ambitions, fear of retribution, and canny self-interest
They should be a part of an electoral system that rewards them for selecting good candidates instead of bad ones, rather than relying on them being selfless actors
The problem IS government. We need to get rid of it all together as the master-slave thing ain't working after 248 years of trial and always error.
Simply get rid of the primary system and nominate candidates like we used to.
There’s too much corruption in the system to allow for anything else.
This is completely independent of corruption.
It was similar with Fetterman. Everyone was saying he should quit the race to take care of his health. But it’s much worse to be unemployed and recovering from a stroke than to be a Senator recovering from it.
All the same, I really hope Biden bows out.
Seriously. Richard's estimate of 15-20 years is outrageous. More like 15 to 20 months.
With any luck, the stress of the presidency could shorten Biden's residual lifespan to a perfect 4.5 years, which would probably be the optimal outcome for him (provided that he pulls off a miraculous win in November).
I suppose. The other variable is if he really does take some kind of cocktail before off-script public events. I imagine even a bi-monthly regimen of that does a number on your brain and organs.
He will get progressively more confused and forgetful, his brain will just stop operating lower functions. 3-4 years tops. Basically he’s headed for memory care. If he leaves the presidency it’s to die.
It must take a tremendous effort to appear even as good as he does. His family were probably saying six months ago that his father lived to almost 90 and the vitamin shots seem to be working etc.
I’m depressed he’s not better, he must have access to the best drugs and baby juice or whatever these rich people are taking.
While being old, decaying and dying all suck I believe you missed the second place prize, having your family and friends around you as you do that. He has actually put in a lot of work in having relationships with his grandchildren and calls them EVERY DAY. What grandparent does that? Someone with dark personality traits would never put in that amount of effort for such little reward therefore I think he genuinely has positive relationships with his family. This will sustain him as he enters the last breathe of his life.
So I think the real reason he is staying in is because he has a Hero Complex. He couldn't save his young family or his older son but by hook or crook he will save this nation from the Orange Devil. Jill is the one with the dark personality or else she would have convinced him to pass the torch. At this point that would have been easy enough with her social skill level and his level of exhaustion. It wouldn't take much to weave a story where he is the Hero and saved us all, now let's get a warm blanket around those skinny legs.
"He couldn't save his young family"
If you're referring to Biden's first wife and daughter dying in a car accident in 1972, you're missing the part where he decided to make up a story about the other driver having "drank his lunch instead of eating it". He started doing so after the truck driver died in 1999; decades after the accident occurred. On top of that, the truck driver was never found to be at fault, let alone having been intoxicated. You don't throw baseless accusations against a dead man in order to make a family tragedy sound more compelling unless you DO have dark personality traits, of which Biden has no shortage.
You can have both dark and light personality traits.
I think it's as Richard describes, he doesn't really have anything left to live for if he steps down. Grandkids, yeah, but being ex-president is a huge step down, even if it's a huge step up from where most people are.
Or maybe he felt the ends justified the means to make a better story up that gets him into power so he can "do the most good". People will make up ridiculous things to justify bad behavior, that doesn't mean he has a dark personality type. That actually makes him pretty normal. Think of honor killings of young girls who have lost their virginity to rape. That is crazy to an outsider looking in but normal people DO behave in awful ways to make their life have purpose and meaning in some sort of narrative. Whether that's a narrative of a religion or a gang or your own personal hero story.
Anyway it's not like I personally know the guy so I could be missing something for sure and you are right that he stays in power because he is simply a sociopath or whatever. I just think his story has more nuance than that. Jill's story, on the other hand, has more explaining to do because it looks pretty dark from where I sit.
I agree with Greg. 15-25 years is too optimistic. Probably more like 5-15.
Yes, need to give a wide range. The fact is at any given moment, he could start spiraling rapidly towards death over the course of a few weeks or months. But without some diagnosis overhanging him, there's just no reason that moment has to come soon, just as there's no reason it couldn't be soon.
Pretty sure this isn't what people who live to 106 look like at 81 though.
Depends how fast life extension accelerates. If AGI happens late 2020s and doesn't kill us then could be here within the decade.
The idea of Trump presiding over this world-historical event is a nightmare.
I’d say Biden has at most two or three years left on this earth, definitely not 15-20.
From an actuarial perspective, 10-15 years is a pretty likely estimate. His cognitive function aside, he's a lifelong nondrinker, nonsmoker, maintains a healthy weight and exercises regularly, has no past cancers, cardiovascular episodes, or other common geriatric illness. He's got a bad foot, formerly high cholesterol under control with a statin, heartburn, and sleep apnea. That's about as clean a bill of health as an 80 year old can get. I think he'll be alive for at least another decade, barring an accident or fast-moving cancer.
Two aneurisms are not nothing.
I agree.
Happy to bet 100 dollars that Biden will be alive in 3 years.
Carter is 99
Did he seem as feeble as Biden when he was Biden's current age 18 years ago?
No, but "years left on this earth" is a low bar to pass. Carter has been feeble for a while and continues to hang on. Wealth and direct access to premium healthcare are variables that lead to outsized life spans.
Hey, there you go...the Dems new candidate!
You never know what 10 mRNA injections can do.
This is an interesting take.
Does Biden stand to gain anything personally if he were to bow out? (As noted, there are plenty of perks to the gig to serve as justifications for why he would give it a shot, for purely personal reasons).
He would spare himself the ignominy of losing to a convicted felon.
He would be undefeated in presidential elections.
But there remains the knock-on question: if not him, then who?
Richard, you say --- To put a number on it, I’d say 85% chance he’s still the Democratic nominee on election day.
I hope so...because the Democrats will have to cheat...again.....to win. Then all of America [maybe even those that don't follow politics]...will know......elections are not on the up-and-up in this or any country. Maybe then we will tighten things up.....
You really don't get it, do you? Biden has dementia and it appears to be entering the early stages of Alzheimer's. No, I'm not a doctor. I don't need to be because i lived through that journey into hell with my father for 8-years before he died from Alzheimer's complications. and Biden shows all the symptoms and behaviors.
Biden took the entire week off from his full-time job of running America into the ground to prep for the debate with Trump. They had all week to get his drug cocktail right so that he could redo his hopped-up State of the Union performance again, but I can tell you from experience that the drugs stop working when dementia reaches early Alzheimer's.
If these people had any honor or compassion, they’d let Joe step away with what’s left of his dignity intact. They’ve ridden on his back to power, and now they’re riding him into the ground. Let the man do the right thing for once in his narcissistic life. Let him have his LBJ moment and make that speech that will go something like “I shall not seek, and I’m too mentally incompetent to accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president”, or something along those lines.
But they won’t, will they. It’s all about power and once tyrants seize power, they don’t want to give it up. It’s like a drug to them.
Good take. Self-delusion is one of the most powerful psychological forces in the world; the reason we forget that so much is probably because we're so oblivious to our own self-delusions that we don't look for them in others.
There is nothing in Biden’s history that would suggest he has the kind of character that would compel him to drop out “for the good of the country” or any other altruistic reason. This is a selfish, corrupt old man who, even in his younger days, was a mediocrity at best. Having somehow, by dumb luck, found himself sitting in the Oval Office he’s going to hold on to the bitter end.
He’s never going to quit, we need to fire him.
No one mentions Alan Lichtman and his keys to the White House in the context of this argument. He thinks it's a terrible idea because incumbency is a huge advantage. Then again, we have never had a situation where the incumbent was this old so we're in uncharted territory. He may well be wrong this time.
I'd like to remind you that it's unclear whether incumbency that's the advantage or merely running for reelection is the advantage. Roosevelt beat Taft, both were running for reelection (and both lost to Wilson). Arguably, because Roosevelt was running for a third term, he had more name recognition, etc. Incumbency also didn't work for Harisson versus Cleveland.
I agree, but Alan seems quite rigid in his interpretation of the criteria. IIRC he said something after the debate about Trump being a former president doesn’t factor in. I think he might be making a mistake but who knows.
Who's going to "stab him in the rotunda"? As an old Wayne and Shuster skit on Julius Caesar once put it -- "I told him, 'Jully, don't go'." Something that Jill should have told Joe.
But the question might also be who, in the Republican Party, is going to do likewise for Trump?
Nobody in the Republican Party will do so for Trump. His primary goal since winning the presidency in '16 has been to purge the party of anyone who would do such a thing for any reason. He'd have to be catatonic before he'd be replaced.
The prime Dem election talking point of how there were supposed to be some things that were above politics has shown itself a hollow lie. Neither party has any sense of civic resposibility.
Indeed -- the rot on both sides goes rather deep.
Interesting post from Nate Silver on the Democrat side:
"Picking a new nominee via superdelegates at the convention would be like attending a shitshow at a plumbers’ convention."
https://www.natesilver.net/p/joe-biden-should-drop-out
Some further evidence of the rot on the Democrat side:
"Biden Officials Pushed to Remove Age Limits for Trans Surgery, Documents Show":
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/health/transgender-minors-surgeries.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3E0.-zQm.BvrDccx1s-Bp&smid=url-share
Even if Biden could exit and nominate an alternative I question his judgement if he thinks that people can change sex and that butchering autistic and dysphoric children is a justified social policy.
But moot whether the Republican side is any better -- some reason to argue it's much worse:
"Why Trump Resonates With The Working Class - Batya Ungar-Sargon"
https://www.phetasy.com/p/walk-ins-welcome-episode-291/comment/60345359
As I asked there:
Quote: "Why Hitler resonates with the working class?" ???
Don't think that "resonance" is necessarily a good thing. Unquote
Ordinary Democrats are demonstrating how to reject a bad candidate. It appears to be working.
Unlike the R’s, the D’s appear NOT to be falling in line (or falling in love), despite what the candidate and his campaign employees are doing. The R’s totally failed this basic test.
If the D’s ultimately reject their leader, particularly without even an obvious replacement, they’ll have demonstrated a skill critical to modern humanity that many of us thought had been lost.
Conspicuously supporting an awful leader simply because he’s on our team is a terrible character flaw.
The byden family crime syndicate will hang on much like the Corleone family with Punter becoming the new Godfather. Getting old sucks? Better hope that you never make it to oldsterism.
It doesn't really suck because we all are on this planet for a very short time, unless you believe in incarnation.
Joey will buy votes by providing free ice cream cones and it will all work out in the end. Someone will be running the government and the government will be running the country into the ground, as it always has with endless deficits, wars and stupid laws.
Getting old will seem like Heaven.