If anyone were to doubt the menace of Donald Trump, they had only to watch his performance in Thursday night’s debate.
His bullying lies were not just lies – they were frightening opposites of the truth, uttered with the vigor and certainty of someone who has now mastered the dark art of demagoguery.
Joe Biden had good and often detailed answers to the questions put to him, but the debate was never going to be about the president’s answers. It was always going to be about his age.
Sadly, Biden’s stiff, halting, withered delivery, coupled with his slack-jawed expression and frozen stare when not trying to form sentences, made him seem not just old but on the decline.
In the wake of Biden’s performance, many Democrats are in a panic. Some believe it’s urgently necessary to replace Biden with another candidate.
But there are many problems with trying to replace Biden at this point.
For one, Biden would have to willingly give up the nomination in order to release delegates already pledged to him.
I have a hard time seeing how this could happen, unless Jill Biden, along with others of his closest and most trusted advisors, and Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries, all teamed up and told him he must exit the race.
A second problem is the public doesn’t know any other Democrat nearly as well as they know Biden, and it would be difficult to introduce someone to the public at this late date without them being defined by Donald Trump, the Republicans and Fox News in the worst possible ways.
The only people I can think of as possible nominees are Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Gavin Newsom and (my personal favorite) Sherrod Brown.
Out of all of them, Harris is obviously best known because she’s vice-president, but if the criterion is who can beat the former president, it’s far from clear she’s the best choice. Yet, if it’s not Biden, a failure to nominate Harris might upset lots of Black people, women and younger voters.
The Democratic national convention is only seven weeks away. An open convention, in which potential candidates duke it out, would be a chaotic mess (anyone remember 1968?), particularly in comparison to what’s expected to be Trump’s seamless and worshipful inauguration by the Republicans.
There are also not-so-pesky details about money and organization. All of the money now lodged in Super PACs dedicated to Biden would have to be redirected. All of the national, state and local party machinery, advertising, and internet capacity now designed to get out the vote for Biden would have to be totally redesigned.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to replace Biden at this juncture, only that it would require extraordinary deftness and collaboration on the part of the leaders of the Democratic party, who are not always known for their deftness and collaboration.
I give it ten days. By then, we’ll know whether Biden will be replaced.
In the meantime, you can bet that his campaign, his advisors and Jill Biden are doing whatever damage control they can – which centers on showing Biden to be vigorous, energetic and on top of his game.
On Friday, at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, surrounded by cheering supporters, Biden nearly shouted:
I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious. I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.
Watch the clip, if you can. In it, Biden shows the kind of energy and vitality he lacked in the debate. These are not the words or actions of a candidate contemplating an emergency exit from the race.
But nor does Biden’s behavior in Raleigh explain what the hell happened in the debate. And frankly that’s what troubles me more than almost anything else.
Biden is smart. He can show energy and vitality, as he did in Raleigh and at the State of the Union.
But he can also reveal something else, as he did at the debate – a man who in many respects seems older than 81 years, who has trouble walking and speaking, and who, at least in those times and moments, doesn’t seem to stand much chance of being re-elected president of the United States – even when his opponent is a twice-impeached convicted felon, pathological liar and dangerous sociopath.
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Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com