It’s not unreasonable. He did poorly. Really poorly. He looked like the tired old man we’ve all been told he is. It’s entirely reasonable to entertain doubts as to his fitness to run and, by extension, to be President another four years. Gawd knows enough virtual ink has been spilled on the subject to float an aircraft carrier and all its support vessels.
And there’s your first warning, far as I’m concerned: the cabal or at least loose but extensive confederacy of unelected elites leading the ‘Step down, Joe’ charge. Every one’s got their wish-list of candidates (curiously few of whom mention Vice President Kamala Harris, whose literal job, besides casting tie-breaker votes in the Senate, is to be the spare President). Everyone alludes to some ‘process’ at the convention whereby other unelected elites choose a candidate in what once upon a time would have been the proverbial smoke-filled room without any actual voters being consulted.
It’s bullshit. A collective fantasy of editors and other elites who don’t think much of democracy and see a chance to sell a lot of ad clicks. Don’t believe the hype.
The fact of the matter is, for both practical and ethical reasons, that if Joe Biden steps down as candidate, the only alternative is Vice President Kamala Harris. She inherits the war chest, the campaign organization, the legitimacy of having her name on the millions of actual votes that were cast. That remains true whether you think she can win or not. And I’ll tell you something else. If the black woman chosen to be second in line, and elected to same, somehow gets passed over in some yet-to-be proposed much less negotiated and accepted ‘process’ it will tear the Democratic party and the coalition that makes it up apart. Black people, particularly black women, are the heart, soul, and backbone of the party, and anyone who forgets or fails to acknowledge that is guaranteeing electoral failure.
So if it’s not Biden, it’s Harris, for practical, ethical, and electoral reasons. So to me, the question becomes this: what is the rationale for Joe stepping down and putting Harris top of ticket? It puts an end to questions about whether Joe’s up to the job (which he’s been doing exceptionally, even historically well), and opens up whole new vistas for fuckery on the part of Republicans and the cabal or loose confederation of journalists and other elites looking for easy headlines. Maybe you think that’s a good tradeoff. I call it a wash at best.
The way I see it, it comes down to a simple calculation. Harris is already the spare President, ready to step in and take over. Joe picked her, we all confirmed it with our votes. So the thing that changes is Harris has to pick her own VP candidate. Someone who presumably brings some electoral or at least narrative strength to the ticket. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of anyone at all, who brings enough to that slot to justify the chaos and upheaval that must ensue when a major party candidate for President steps down four months before the general election. In a regular election–whatever that might mean in this time of fascism and the finding out part of climate change in ascendance–it would be wild. In this, the election that decides are we still gonna be a democracy like the Founders intended, it would be catastrophic.
The conclusion is simple. Since Harris is already the spare, ready to step in at a moment’s notice and fulfill the duties of the Presidency, Joe stays, and we all understand Kamala’s ready. And we take our anger and anxiety and point them where they should have been pointed all along, at the Republicans and the white nationalists and fascists who have taken over the party.
They are the real enemy, after all.
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