Bill McKibben — hero of the climate change movement — has sent out an email about the meaning of what happened in Thursday’s debate. He’d expected nothing important to happen, but in fact the debate has caused the “tectonic plates” to “shift.”
Many people have experienced the debate as spelling disaster, and feel pain and shock. With good reason, I would say.
But McKibben is seeing this as a kind of breakthrough, bringing about a kind of moment of truth that allows things to shift in a very positive way: Things have shifted “in ways that open up the possibility not just of decisively defeating Trumpism, but of pulling the country out of the polarized death spiral we’ve fallen into.”
I believe he’s right, too. I can imagine scenarios where Joe Biden takes out of the equation the heavy burden of the Democratic nominee being seen as someone who could have such a night. Not what you want in your President— someone who steps up to meet a major challenge and proves unable to rise to the occasion in the least.
(The major newspapers writing about his performance in ways that conjure up disability, frailty, incoherence, and especially an inability to carry the fight to the would-be Fascist Dictator it’s his job to defeat.)
And I can imagine that the Democrats could field someone else that the public would gladly support in the upcoming election, and who would have the leadership abilities to get the majority of the people to support the kind of national renewal McKibbon thinks now becomes possible.
(My own fantasy is of California Governor Gavin Newsom stepping into that role, and cleaning Trump’s clock the way he reportedly cleaned DeSantis’s clock on FOX News, having shown a willingness and skill to press the battle by getting himself before that audience. He’s young, he’s articulate, but above all he relishes taking a righteous position on a fight, which he has also done aggressively attacking what the Republicans have been doing about abortion and IVF.)
There’s no guarantee of success, but the battle is so important we need to go for the weapons necessary to win it. (And I think the support Biden’s burden costs the Democratic ticket is too great to make it prudent to play out the hand we’re holding now (Biden as standard bearer). In other words, I think there’s too good a chance we will lose because the Democratic standard bearer demonstrated, before fifty million people, that he was not able to meet a most serious challenge.
(If he can’t handle that challenge, people will intuitively wonder, how can we be confident that he’ll handle well other challenging situations he would face as President of the United States?)
McKibben’s hopeful vision of the possible American future — which requires Biden to step down -- accompanied by a hopeful assessment of what Biden will decide. Biden is “at one of those hard, interesting, decisive points that come in the course of a life and of a nation.” We need to grant Biden some time, McKibben tells us — time to get to where he needs to get to make the necessary, right decision for the good of the nation.
This is where I wonder if McKibben reads the situation rightly. I hope he does, i.e. hope that Biden is so well put together that if he sees that he’s served his great purpose, but needs to withdraw now to make sure we win this battle against Fascism. (And against letting so dangerous a man as Donald Trump take hold of the powers of the Presidency to destroy American democracy.)
But there have been reports about Biden’s refusal to acknowledge the issue of his “age,” forbidding his aides to bring up certain things relevant to that issue. Although he seems in general a very well put-together human being — like Lindsey Graham said, God never made a better man — these reports suggest that there’s some place in him that’s not well put-together, and that may signal that Biden will resist acquiescing to his having aged out of the arena of political battle.
I’ve been worried by the reports that the people around Biden are leaning to staying the course, rather than taking the step of withdrawing. (Without that step, none of McKibben’s bright vision is possible.)
So between Biden’s own impediments to dealing appropriately with the issue of what age has taken from him, and the alleged commitment to those around Biden to going with him all the way to the election, I fear that granting Biden time will not be good enough.
I think we should heed McKibben’s vision of national renewal being achieved by Democrats passing the baton to a new champion on the battlefield. To provide that vision is a huge accomplishment: this is indeed, in my view, a moment to be moved by such visions.
(This battle will better be won by people who have seen “the coming of the Glory of the Lord,” who are inspired by a vision of the America that’s possible, that’s pulled itself out of its current “death spiral.” It will be better won with a leader who’s able to inspire a strong majority of Americans to support making things in America more whole.)
But I fear that he may be too sanguine about where Biden may go with the time we grant him. I believe that it may take pushing Biden like hell and not just waiting for him to come to the right decision.
People are doing that. The New York Times and The Economist and other publications have come out with powerful statements telling Biden that he must step down. We need as much of that as possible: if McKibben is right that Biden, left to himself, will come to the right decision, then the voices of support for that decision will have been nothing worse than unnecessary; but if McKibben overestimates Biden’s ability to deal rightly with this life-challenge, then we are obliged to do all we can to lead Biden to that necessary conclusion.
To my fellow Democrats (and others who want to save this nation from Trumpian Fascism), I make this argument:
- There’s too much reason to fear that Biden is now not likely enough to win to justify risking everything on him in the contest with Trump— not with what he showed the nation with more than 50 million Americans watching him, many feeling embarrassed and appalled.
- Admittedly, there are no guarantees that the replacement will be a success. But I expect the Democratic Party would be able to design a process that is pretty sure to get us to a good-enough result — a nominee who can get a majority of Americans to choose over Trump, and to some extent fulfill McKibben’s vision of national renewal — by the end of the Democratic National Convention in August. (That selection process can include speeches, debates, ranked-choice voting— pretty sure to give us someone Americans will choose over Trump.
- If it’s true that our chances of victory are greater if Biden steps down and helps the Democrats find their new champion against Trump and Trumpism, then it would follow that the best thing for those who want that victory to do is not to encourage Biden to stay the course, but to encourage him to help us win by stepping down and doing everything helpful he can to give the Democrats a leader that can fulfill McKibben’s vision.
Yesterday, I was agnostic on whether Biden should step down. I gave my piece here yesterday, “The Only Question for Democrats is What Course is Likeliest to Keep Trump from the Presidency.” But now the picture has become clearer to me: Biden damaged himself on Thursday night too seriously for sticking with him to be the likeliest course. And the work now is to find a nominee that can go up against Trump and score against him in ways that capture the allegiance of a substantial majority of the American people. A nominee that can use that public support to steer our nation’s destiny in a good direction.