I have no doubt that a vote for Joe Biden against Donald Trump is necessary to keep liberal democracy and the Constitutional system going. We know who Trump is. We saw and heard him incite the insurrectionist assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, continuation of the coup attempt that began with Trump’s refusal in 2020 to accept the legal results of the Presidential vote.
We also have a detailed roadmap in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 as to what Trump team intends to do in a new Trump term. And the Supreme Court in their recent immunity decision basically declared that the accept Richard Nixon’s notorious 1977 declaration, "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
Biden's health situation is such that he shouldn’t be continuing to serve as President for another 4 ½ years. Trump’s scrambled and obviously bizarre and disturbed mental state, his previous record, and his explicit statements he himself has made about what he intends to do as President all thoroughly disqualify him to be President. His statement late last year, "We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country," (1) should alone be enough for anyone who actually cares about democratic government and rule of law to realize he does not belong in the White House.
It's a sad situation for the US political system to be facing. And even though we’re currently looking at the same choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden as we had in 2020, Biden’s health situation was clearly better then. Trump also seems notably less mentally sharp, and he also engaged a blatant coup attempt.
Saager Enjeti and Krystal Ball talked about the current state of the politics of Biden staying on the Democratic ticket: (2)
Saager and Krystal are careful about their facts. But their Breaking Points show is based on a liberal-conservative duo (and sometimes quartet) discussing various political issues. So this gives a flavor of the evolving state of the debate over Biden staying. The safe bet at the moment seems to be Biden would stay because he has the delegates from the Democratic primaries. But he could wind up stepping down if his public performance continues to be subpar.
Here's a for-and-against presentation from Democracy Now! (3)
Regular Democratic voters are exceptionally unlikely to vote for Trump. But among the relatively few swing voters and discouraged Democrats, Biden's state of health could very well discourage turnout. Biden has been known for a long time for his “gaffes.” Like getting caught on a hot mike telling Barack Obama that passing the Obamacare plan was “a big f*****g deal.” But his signature “gaffes” were actually a positive for him, because they were usually dorky and kind of charming and made him seem more relatable.
But repeatedly slurring his words and making genuinely scrambled statements like “we finally beat Medicare” (in his June debate with Trump) aren’t endearing. They are jarring and disturbing.
The Biden team's pitch to Democrats that the choice this year is democracy or authoritarianism/autocracy. That’s real. Some of Biden’s critics like Saager and Krystal accuse the Democrats are fear-mongering. But the normal use of “fear-mongering” means that someone is exaggerating what we have to fear.
And that's plainly true and necessary to emphasize. In Sunday's French election, everyone from the center-right to the far left managed to cooperate enough to reject Le Pen's authoritarian, anti-democracy party. And they also did it by generating high turnout.
The challenge in the Presidential election this year is that Democracy vs. Authoritarianism has to be converted into specific issues, e.g., defending reproductive rights. Biden in the debate botched that about as badly as he could have.
And the Republicans like other rightwing populist parties in liberal democracies don't explicitly reject democracy when they are trying to come to power. (I mean, unless they are "republic-not-a-democracy" Birchers!) Trump's false accusations of stolen elections and the crazy accusation that the Democrats are bringing 20 million Latino immigrants to the US illegally and registering them to vote lets him pose as the defender of democracy for the true People, i.e., white and Christian nationalist. The meta-stake of Democracy has to be translated into messages like: the Republicans are banning abortion and trying to ban birth control and are blocking pregnant women from getting emergency health care in life-or-death situations!
Also, if the entire democratic Constitutional system is at stake in the election - and it really is - that puts a premium on having the most effective feasible candidate heading the pro-democracy side. And it's true that (a much healthier) Biden actually did beat Trump in 2020. It's a tough situation for the Democrats to be in.
Notes:
(1) Kurtzleben, Daanielle (2023): Why Trump's authoritarian language about 'vermin' matters. NPR 11/17/2023. <https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213746885/trump-vermin-hitler-immigration-authoritarian-republican-primary> (Accessed: 07/10/2024).
(2) Biden INCOHERENT Rant On Morning Joe DESPITE Script. Breaking Points YouTube channel 07/09/2024. <https://youtu.be/0wJceL9goEc?si=XLoWeAjjqsRGvu2O> (Accessed: 07/10/2024).
(3) Should Biden Step Aside? Wajahat Ali & Norman Solomon Debate Democratic Options for 2024 Race. Democracy Now! YouTube channel 07/11/2024. <https://youtu.be/cQFU1ctWrlU?si=9SG9xcMvfUCXlEk3> (Accessed: 07/11/2024).
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