Today We Are All Joe Biden

The president reportedly is considering whether he can still win

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Joe Biden, then vice president — because I figured it’d probably sting a bit to remember him in his political prime — marking the 16th anniversary of his Violence Against Women Act on Sept. 22, 2010. (David Lienamann / Obama White House archives.)

The New York Times reported (gift link) last night that people close to Pres. Joe Biden say he’s starting to accept the idea that he may have little choice but to drop out of the race. The Washington Post reported (gift link) last night that three Democratic officials say former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is telling House Democrats that she expects fairly soon Biden will be convinced to step aside.¹

The way we know this is not a coup is that these reports, and the reporting generally, all acknowledge that the decision remains Biden’s. He’s free to stay in. No one can make him go. If Biden leaves the race it will not be an affront to democracy, it will be democracy.

And whether or not you want him to, Biden stepping aside could also, in the right light, be seen as profoundly beautiful.

Even now, in equipoise, Biden’s position represents something poignant about things much bigger than just the individual human being at the center of all our speculation and futile debate. For all his speech issues, Biden and his quandary are together far more eloquent about our country than former Pres. Donald Trump ever has been.

By all accounts, Biden and the country are in tremendous shape, certainly for their age.

Like the nation he has served, his vital signs are strong. But something’s off.

He’s functioning. But something’s missing.

The body politic is chugging along, but our chart looks ominous and the actuaries bite their nails.

Biden has accomplished things few would have expected of a president decades younger, let alone Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose policies represent a better prescription for the country, but who arguably lacked the political infrastructure to accomplish much of what Biden has. (A polite way of saying he’d’ve been undercut by establishment Dems.)

As a nation, America did things that nations younger and older couldn’t manage. Under Biden, America’s COVID economic rebound was the envy of the world (even if Biden’s COVID policies weren’t).

By all metrics, both Biden and the nation are in great shape. So what, as they say, the fuck?

The fuck is that Biden hasn’t accurately gauged his own decline. Or ours.

Just as Biden and those around him have been slow to recognize that he’s slow, he and most of those with a view from the top have failed to see the rest of us declining. Perhaps these spirals are in such parallel that there’s no Doppler shift to reveal the relative motion.

His own decline — uncaptured by standard metrics, unseen for so long from the highest altitudes, unacknowledged by the subject himself — may be the most eloquent parable of America right now.

We, too, are losing the faculties that served (most of) us well for decades and served (some of) us well for centuries. 

As with human aging, our national decline has happened slowly, imperceptibly. We mistake our present state for the way we’ve always been.

It’s more profound than just the big metrics like dwindling union membership or declining reproductive rates. As our body politic has aged, its immune systems have been degraded. Internal organs falter and fail.

The global economic heart attack of 2008 didn’t just happen. In the 1990s our Big Brains decided to get high on capitalism and jettison protective regulatory gear we’d worn for decades. In our self-delusion, we ignored or mocked the warning signs that flashed briefly from vestigial sources such as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who accurately predicted the catastrophic shock to the system that would result.

State regulators and attorneys general, too, saw it coming, tried to respond. But the Big Brains of the 2000s shut them down, which they could do because we had vested so much power in our head of state. Neglecting our holistic well-being.

In the 1970s, you could still have the life depicted in The Simpsons a decade later. A family with three kids lived in a nice house with an overnice neighbor. They took vacations. They set up Grandpa in rudimentarily drawn but otherwise fine assisted living. All on one (1) salary earned by one (1) parent working one (1) non-managerial job and doing it half-assed (½-assed).

There were so many different companies to work for, rather than the consolidated corporate Borg we’ve allowed to consume so many employers, that pretty much everyone who aspired to hold a leadership position could discern a reasonable path to getting there. Options for success were broader and more spiritually rewarding than becoming the next Hawk Tuah Girl.

And so many jobs were about making things rather than marketing things. As an unemployed job-seeker I gaze in wonder on the endless field of job listings seeking people who are passionate about building brands.

It was not always thus. But then, in the 1970s, limited liability corporations were born. So were 401(k)s. Hedge funds had existed quietly and discreetly but started to mutate and multiply in the 1980s. Derivatives, too, mutated from boring species that hedged risk into exciting gambles to boost your cocaine money a hundredfold. The Fairness Doctrine succumbed to a viral infection. High marginal tax rates atrophied and were amputated.

It used to be you’d get a pension: A set amount your long-term employer paid you that you could live on. Not a wildly fluctuating fund that pins your quality of life to the vicissitudes of Wall Street bro fee-fees.

It used to be that tax rates made it pointless to pursue short-term financial bonanzas by strip-mining the company you were running. Shareholders, subject to the same financial incentives, certainly wouldn’t reward you for it if you tried. And still had the power to stop you if you did.

So companies were run for the benefit, the long-term benefit, of the company itself, not of its richest stakeholders. “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” used to be non-ironic.

Colleges and hospitals and medical care were (mostly) manageable costs because they hadn’t succumbed to the metastasis of commodification. Doctors would come to your fucking house that you fucking owned.

This isn’t nostalgia. Things weren’t magically better because the past is always awesome. We didn’t have all of those things because of luck, or because people were better then. We fought for generations to erect systems that would benefit us. Hell, Richard Milhous Fucking Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Over decades we methodically built systems to give ourselves nice things. We shut down company towns. We fed organized labor. We kept the titans of industry in check. Ish. 

And then we forgot to take care of ourselves. We started to believe ourselves immortal by dint of American exceptionalism or … something. We neglected self-care. Defenses down, we succumbed to the dementia pushed on us by the bamboozlers peddling fictions about free markets and liberty and the evils of a robust immune system Big Government.

Today we produce more things and generate more money for every hour of human labor than ever before. But instead of those gains being shared equitably by all of us divvying up the bounty of robots and AI, the fruits of our joint labors are being hoarded by a tiny handful. Who then tell us we can no longer have pensions because they’re unaffordable in a time of greater prosperity than the eras when pensions were a given.

For all of Biden’s successes, he and his party aren’t talking about reversing any of these effects of America’s declining mental state. They’re not even diagnosing us correctly. We had a Glass-Steagall-ectomy as elective surgery and the Dodd-Frank implant we got has only managed to keep us alive because Wall Street has largely chosen not to commit suicide again.

Meanwhile, Biden and (most) Democrats prescribe panaceas or remedies meant solely to relieve our symptoms. So we can scrape by in our degraded system rather than fix it. Refusing to recognize our diminishing state.

So, Biden’s problems are to some extent self-inflicted. Some flock to Trump because he’s the closest thing to an avenue for profound change. They might not recognize his prescriptions as putting our decline on steroids, but at least they agree with the diagnosis: Things are fucked.

It’s true and fair to note that Biden at no point had any path for radical, systemic overhaul. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t fight for it or at least articulate it.

But critiques along those lines were seen as disloyal. Any critique was interpreted, at least in some quarters, as an endorsement of Trump, rather than a desperate cry to fend him off.

That same dynamic played out regarding Biden’s health. It didn’t help to shield him from robust primaries, from debates that might have caught his cognitive and communication issues early enough for the party and the ticket to receive non-emergency treatment.

Instead, we have competing theories today for why Biden finds himself in intensive political care. It’s centrismosis! Elitismitis! Rich donors! The media! Bernie Bros! (It’s not Bernie Bros.)

But here’s the thing; whatever external force you blame for Biden’s ailments, that, too, is an indictment of Biden.

It is the job of a party’s political leader to lead the party. It doesn’t matter if it’s centrists, elitists, rich assholes, the media, or Bernie Bros…because it was Biden’s and the party’s job to wrangle them all. If they rebelled against him, that’s a prima facie indictment of Biden’s political performance.

If Biden can’t lead his party, then he can’t lead his party. To defend him by blaming others is implicitly blaming him.

And, yes, this all may genuinely feel like a coup. People understandably characterize it that way: His own allies are pushing him out! Except they’re not. They’re asking him to leave. He has the power to refuse.

If he agrees to step aside, that’s not a coup; that’s Biden accepting the results of a no-confidence vote.

And that’s what makes this, potentially, so beautiful.

Democracy isn’t just voting. It’s the movement of the machinery of democracy. It’s constituencies pushing their levers. The ultimate checks and balances are hundreds of millions of people. Not just Election Day. Every day. Democracy isn’t a quadrennial event.

If Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were pushing Biden to step down and voters disagreed with that we’d be seeing it. Protests. Flooded switchboards. Outraged quotes and vows of vengeance in the media.

Now, are we seeing some of that? Yes.

Progressive Democrats are issuing warning signs about the perils of replacing Biden. Here’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) with an hour-long dissertation last night.

Black Democrats in particular appear more than any other constituency to oppose the efforts to replace Biden. More than 1,400 Black women leaders and allies released a letter yesterday supporting Biden.

The letter says replacing Biden would “circumvent the will of millions of voters who participated in a democratic process.” Which is true! But however democratic the primaries may have been (and there are strong arguments to the contrary), democracy is more than primaries.

It’s about maintaining allies and building consensus and politics. Casting Biden aside due to perceived weaknesses of his ticket at this point in time is, the letter says, “disrespectful to the voters, unjust and undemocratic.” And, arguably, that’s true! But if it’s true, then democracy in its Newtonian way will produce a sufficient countervailing force.

If a critical mass of people (to switch brands of physics) wants to keep Biden, then they’ll let Pelosi et al know. The letter will draw 14,000 signatories. Fourteen million. If the people want Biden, they can say so in ways other than primary votes.

And if the media don’t carry the message sufficiently to sway Pelosi et al, then that, too, is the political consequence of the political failure to ensure that America has a robust, rigorous media. If a handful of rich donors can write Biden’s epitaph by not writing checks, that’s a political failure to earn the kind of populist autonomy that comes only with massive small-donor support.

The mechanics of all this are part of what’s beautiful about all this, as painful and anxious as it may be to contemplate the stakes. Because it shows us that our political system still works. The gears still move.

The other beautiful part is that the most powerful man in the world is, we are told, considering surrendering his power willingly in service of a cause greater than himself or his people or his party. The human being who leads the richest economy in human history and the most powerful military force in human history is considering whether to not.

One of the great Democratic fears about Trump is that, if he wins, he will simply stay in the White House forever, presumably bequeathing his Presidential Scepter (which will surely exist by then) to Barron from his deathbed.

But Trump wants to be loved and respected and popular. (Loyal Newsfuckers who think Trump does whatever he wants without regard to his image can skip this next part.) If Trump does win, imagine how much more difficult, how much more politically unpalatable it would be even to consider trying to stay in power after his term is over. If Biden had stepped aside.

Biden stepping aside would be so unprecedented, so historic, that it would render beyond the pale even the thought of Trump trying to stay on after his term. Biden’s departure would stand as a towering monument to the principle that no one is greater than the office. Trump would have to govern in that shadow. No, not for most MAGA, but for most of us.

Even if we prioritized Biden personally, person over country, consider what that might do to Biden’s legacy. Not just if he stays in and loses. But if he wins, imagine how he’ll appear to future generations…after further degeneration. What does President Joe Biden look like, sound like, in July 2025? July 2027? How will he be seen, and remembered, further down his precipitous slide?

As the Times’s Ezra Klein Tweeted, “The moment Biden bows out, he will be treated as a hero among Democrats — a statesman who made the kind of country and party-first decision that Trump never would.”

In this event, every living generation of Americans would experience something none has since the departure of our first president: A decision by a president who believes he can win…not to run. Because he accepts the judgment of others. Because he follows the science. Because principle matters more than the man.

This would be a powerful personal moment for Joseph Biden, a man haunted by personal loss choosing defeat, capping a lifetime of service with the greatest political sacrifice of all. It would also be a powerful moment for our system precisely when we need it most.

We live in a time when traditional avenues to success are being closed off. You can’t be the owner/boss of the local drug store if there is none. Your best option is no longer restaurateur but franchise “owner.” Increasingly, success and leadership appear reachable only through individual endeavors — TikTok outrageousness or cursing about the news on Substack. 

Limiting success to individual celebrity is exacerbating the undemocratic hostility toward collectivism.

That’s the context in which we’d experience Biden’s departure.

Deciding to step aside would push back against this growing tendency to worship leaders and individuals. Biden would signal that this election is not merely a choice between two old men, but a referendum on timeless ideals.

If, presumably, Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee, her candidacy would per force be a hybrid of her campaign and Biden’s, her record and Biden’s. It would be defined not solely by who she is, but by the shared DNA of ideas. A DNA we all share.

It's all simultaneously painful and beautiful the way any literal death is; awful in its finality, breathtaking in the physical wonders at work, the revelation of the entirety of a life seen for the first time as a completed work.

But in the case of democracy we get for real what religion can only promise us: Resurrection. New life. The immortality of ideals.

Does my attempt to paint this painful tableau in glorious color on a majestic canvas mean that I think Biden should step aside? I don’t — can’t — know for sure what path leads to the best outcome. I’m kind of leaning that way, but as I’ve said, the point is less about the outcome than it is about the fact that the fight we’re having is worth having because whoever the nominee is will be stronger after the fight because of the fight.

Because fighting is democracy. And to whatever extent democracy really will live or die with this election, you can’t save democracy without embracing it. And in its messy, painful way, that’s beautiful.

Recommended Reading

If you wanted a TFN wrap-up of the 2024 Republican National Convention, I highly recommend this poetic, melancholic tour of the event courtesy of Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir.

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids.

1. As I write this, Bruce Cockburn is singing “Isn’t That What Friends Are For?”

The world is full of seasons; of anguish, of laughter
And it comes to mind to write you this:
Nothing is sure
Nothing is pure
And no matter who we think we are
Everyone gets a chance to be nothing