Note: This was written before Biden decided to drop his reelection campaign.
After the first presidential debate, many asked, “Should Biden drop out of the race?” In my opinion, there is no easy answer to this question as both sides have many serious pros and cons.
One camp believes that Biden should stay in the race and continue his fight against Donald Trump. Attributing Biden's poor debate performance to illness and just a “bad debate night” doesn’t seem too far-fetched when compared to his energetic speech in North Carolina just a day later. Biden’s age also comes hand in hand with his lengthy experience in the U.S. political scene, having first held federal office in 1973 and served in numerous committees over his 36 years in the Senate. He is undeniably an experienced politician who has created and maintained important relationships with other world leaders, CEOs and other important politicians.
It’s also not just solely the president you're voting for if you choose Biden, it's his cabinet, possible Supreme Court appointees and the administration as a whole. The most crucial argument Biden supporters push is that he is not Trump. Biden is not a convicted felon who most Democrats view as a threat to civil rights and democracy like Trump is. He won the 2020 election and claims he can do it again.
Forcing out Biden is also an option the Democrats are considering as they struggle against donors withholding large monetary donations on the condition that Biden is not the party's nominee. While Biden has not “officially” been named as the Democratic Party’s nominee since none is declared until the Democratic convention in mid-August, he won the primaries and has the delegates to back him. Forcing him out would send a bad signal since he made his way to the top through an open, democratic process. In our modern political era, a major national party has never attempted a hostile takeover of their presidential nomination and thus could reflect badly on the already beaten-down Democratic Party.
At this point, Biden is still holding tight to his position: staying in the race. If he chooses to drop out at a later date, it could invite even more disorder in the party, requiring them to redo their media materials, come up with new strategies and ultimately decide on a new candidate only months before the actual election. The most obvious replacement candidate for Biden would be Vice President Kamala Harris. She makes the most logistical sense as a replacement as she is already a name on the ticket, and would likely be able to use a huge campaign fund amassed by the Biden reelection and supported by many democrats. She is an engaging debater due to her time as a prosecutor, is battle-tested in the public eye and has a high likelihood of motivating women, Black voters and Black women in particular, to vote in her favor, a demographic that has been up and down in their of support for Biden.
With Harris comes the historical firsts she would make through her gender and race. She has already been labeled as a “DEI” president in an awfully sexist and racist article published by the New York Post and in an era of Right-leaning opposition to wokeness and the values of diversity, equity and inclusion, the assaults against Harris could be unprecedentedly horrible. While she could try to run on a platform similar to Biden’s in 2020 of being a “moderate, generic democrat” able to swing undecided and moderate voters, in an election where the very stability of the country is in question the risk may not be worth the possibility of the reward for democrats.
I, like so many younger Americans, just want a candidate who isn’t a convicted felon, an old man, or a guy missing part of his brain because of a worm.
Acknowledgment: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author.
Comments