Reporting on Special Counsel Robert Hur’s conclusions about President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents has created a perception that, if not for his age and memory issues, Biden would be facing criminal prosecution. But that’s not what the Special Counsel determined. Hur, instead, acknowledged that there are “innocent explanations” for Biden’s actions that he “cannot refute.”
Unfortunately for Biden, discussion of the report has focused on Hur’s remark that the President is a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” Several commentators viewed Hur’s comment as an unnecessary and inappropriate smear.
They’re not wrong. But Biden’s angry response to Hur’s report did nothing to clear the air, especially when the president made yet another gaffe, this time when referring to Egypt’s leader.
Biden has significant political vulnerabilities, including his age. And the stakes for U.S. democracy are as high as can be—Donald Trump is demonstrably unfit to serve and has made clear that he intends to govern as a dictator. As I observed in The Progressive recently, defending democracy cannot just be about one person. Biden is not the strongest candidate the Democrats can put forward, and he should step aside to allow someone else to take up the banner for democracy and against Trump.
Polling shows that 62 percent of voters have major concerns about Biden’s mental and physical fitness, with another 14 percent expressing moderate concerns. Biden’s approval ratings have been stuck around 40 percent for more than a year. Although Trump is unpopular, his ratings are better than Biden’s.
What’s more, Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has created significant trouble with Arab American, Muslim American and young voters. In Michigan, Arab American and Muslim American voters have started an “Abandon Biden” campaign. Biden won Michigan by less than 3 percent in 2020; he can hardly afford to lose votes there or in other closely contested swing states. Fairly or not, Biden also draws dangerously low marks for his handling of the economy and immigration.
Progressives have seen this movie before. The last three losing Democratic presidential candidates were unable to overcome memes that Republicans used to undermine their campaigns. Al Gore was marked as a serial exaggerator, John Kerry was smeared over his military record and an unrelenting focus on Hillary Clinton’s emails likely doomed her campaign.
Fortunately, it’s not too late this time to change course. The election is more than eight months away. Democrats have held primaries in just three states so far. The next primary election is in Michigan on February 27, with sixteen “Super Tuesday” primaries following on March 5. Biden should announce that he will not accept the party’s nomination.
Since filing deadlines have passed for most of the primary states, it is not likely feasible for new candidates to be placed on the ballots, although The Washington Post suggested a precedent in that sixteen states changed their primary dates in 2020. The nomination process, however, is controlled by the Democratic party. If Biden declined the nomination, the party could develop another way to democratically select the nominee. Article Three of the party’s bylaws provides the authority to “fill vacancies in the nominations for the office of President and Vice President.”
I do not mean to suggest this would be anything less than a “herculean” task, as one observer puts it. The alternative, however, is to choose to go down with what increasingly looks like a sinking ship, accepting the danger of ceding the presidency to a man who has made clear that he intends to crush American democracy. If we are unable to make a change, more than eight months before an election, then those who mock the ineffectiveness of democracy—including authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—would feel vindicated.
Trump has his own immense political vulnerabilities. He is deeply unpopular, faces criminal prosecutions in four jurisdictions and, like Biden, has faced questions about his age and mental ability. But Biden, with his own political obstacles, cannot effectively exploit Trump’s many weaknesses. Democrats—and anyone concerned about protecting U.S. democracy against the authoritarian threat Trump poses—deserve a better option. There is time to change course. The first step will depend on Biden deciding to place the national interest ahead of his own.
This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.