My surprise at yesterday’s Substack response
Friends,
I was going to write something else for today, but I was so surprised by the response to my Office Hours Substack letter and poll yesterday that I felt the question needed more airing.
It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot recently: Should Joe Biden step aside and allow Democrats to have an open convention to choose their candidate?
I summarized the argument for this (the clearest articulation from a recent essay by Ezra Klein), but I didn’t take a position.
The argument is as follows:
Although Biden may be sharp and capable, he doesn’t seem like he is, and voters don’t believe he is.
This is why his poll numbers remain low — and why he’s not getting credit for an increasingly good economy and everything else he’s accomplished. He’s giving the impression of slowness and frailty. And it’s getting worse.
Yes, Trump is also old and mixes up names. But that’s not a reason to nominate Biden. It’s a reason to nominate a candidate who can exploit the fact that Trump is old and confused. The point is not to give Trump an even match. The point is to beat Trump.
Yes, Democrats have been winning, because there’s an anti-MAGA majority in this country. But because of public concerns about Biden’s age, there’s a very good chance he will lose. Trump has been ahead of Biden on every recent poll, despite Trump’s indictments. America needs better odds. Trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy, the Constitution, and the world.
Ageism is beside the point. Age discrimination is illegal in the workplace, but it’s not illegal in the electorate. If the voters are ageist and Biden loses because of it, there’s no recourse. Voters cannot be sued for age discrimination.
It’s not too late for Biden to step aside. If he did, he’d be a hero. The party should help him find his way to being what he said he’d be in 2020: the bridge to the next generation of Democrats.
If he steps aside, Democrats could then do something that used to be common in politics but hasn’t been in decades: Pick their nominee at the convention. This is how parties chose their nominees for most of American history.
If Kamala Harris can convince delegates that she has the best shot at victory, fine. But there’s a ton of other talent in the Democratic Party right now: Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore, Jared Polis, Gavin Newsom, Raphael Warnock, Josh Shapiro, Cory Booker, Ro Khanna, Pete Buttigieg, Sherrod Brown, Gina Raimondo, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chris Murphy, Andy Beshear, J.B. Pritzker — the list goes on.
If there were an open convention, some of this talent would make a run at the nomination. They would give speeches at the convention, and people would pay attention. The whole country would be watching the Democratic convention and probably quite a bit happening in the run-up to it, and seeing what this political talent could actually do. And then a ticket would be chosen based on how those people did. It could make the Democrats’ convention the most exciting political show on earth.
On the other side will be Trump getting nominated by a who’s who of MAGA types slavering over his leadership. The contrast would pit the best of the Democratic Party against the worst of the Republican Party — a party that actually listened to the voters against a party that denies the outcome of the elections. A party that did something different over a party that has again nominated a threat to democracy who has never — not once — won the popular vote in a general election.
I did not — and do not — endorse this view. This is a summary of the argument I’m increasingly hearing, including Ezra Klein’s recent essay. I offered it because I felt it needed to be debated.
Since not all of you had access to the ensuing discussion on this page, let me report that the vast majority of those who commented were strongly opposed.
Amy Swanson Salmon’s response was representative: “NO NO NO HE SHOULD NOT STEP ASIDE. THIS WOULD BE DISASTROUS FOR AMERICANS AND OUR DEMOCRACY. COME ON !!!! Wake up please. 🙏 how ‘bout next election if there will be one.”
What surprised me were the results of the poll I included at the end of yesterday’s Substack, asking whether Biden should step aside and allow Democrats to have an open convention to choose a candidate. 3,645 voted.
26 percent said “no, he’s still the best candidate.”
10 percent said “no, an open convention is too risky.”
57 percent said “yes, for all the reasons mentioned above.”
(7 percent said “other.”)
This outcome prompted Kate Engberg to write, “I’m astonished at all the idiots that think Biden stepping down is a viable alternative. His age does not fucking matter — keeping the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship is what is important. It’s another form of ‘both sidsing’ the two candidates. If Biden loses in November, the blame will lie, in part, at the feet of the idiot Democrats that think that there is a chance anyone else can beat Herr Pumpkinfuhrer.”
Because this is such an important debate, and not all of you had access to it yesterday, I want to open it to your comments as well as your poll preferences.
I also recommend you watch Lawrence O’Donnell’s rebuttal of Ezra Klein and others urging Biden to step aside: here.
Kate Engberg should have the sense and humility to understand that just because some people disagree with her, they are not automatically "idiots". In fact, there is huge unhappiness with Biden, for many reasons, on the part of the American public -- not just feelings about his elderliness -- and this fact should be taken seriously. Second, there are examples in recent history of candidates suddenly emerging, capturing the imagination and approval of the public, and going on to win. Amongst them were Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. A dynamic, younger candidate on the Democratic side would certainly have a good chance of winning against Trump, whose infirmities and absurdities become more obvious every day.
Robert, it sounds like you’re intending to sweep aside the results of primaries which will overwhelmingly nominate the only viable candidate. Why should a few hundred people at conventions have the choice over the voters? By repeating Karin’s ageist summation, you are feeding the fire of dissent against one of the most important presidents of our time.