“Denial” isn’t just a river which runs through Egypt — its banks also surround the Biden White House, submerging it in a pool of fantasy.
For the better part of two years, a number of people — myself included — have speculated that President Joe Biden shouldn’t be, or won’t be, the eventual Democratic nominee for president in November. Included in that number were prominent liberals and Democrats who felt that maybe Biden’s time had come and gone — David Axelrod and Ezra Klein being two.
Last November, Axelrod —a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and now an analyst for CNN — suggested that Biden may want to drop out of the race. Said Axelrod, in part, on X: “Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s … there is a lot of leadership talent in the Democratic Party, poised to emerge.”
Over at the New York Times on Feb. 16, Klein — before taking it back after being subject to massive criticism from the left and after Biden’s State of the Union Address — released an audio opinion essay titled “Democrats Have a Better Option than Biden.” It’s a very logical and powerful piece. Klein was not speaking out because he dislikes Biden, but rather because he was trying to save the White House for the Democrats come November.
Said Klein, in part: “I think one reason Democrats react so defensively to critiques of Biden is they’ve come to a kind of fatalism. They believe it is too late to do anything else. And if it is too late to do anything else, then to talk about Biden’s age is to contribute to Donald Trump’s victory. But that’s absurd.”
He then closed his thoughtful and pragmatic argument with this: “So yes, I think Biden, as painful as this is, should find his way to stepping down as a hero. That the party should help him find his way to that … And then I think Democrats should meet in August at the convention to do what political parties have done there before: organize victory.”
Despite the growing speculation that Biden is no longer up to task, the White House has held firm, denied all and has categorically stated that Biden will be the nominee. To be sure, almost all the arguments — Alexrod’s and Klein’s included — were folded around the joint worries about Biden’s advanced age as well as his perceived cognitive issues.
But beyond those arguments, three major vulnerabilities have crested the Biden reelection horizon: A new, improved and highly focused Trump campaign; the populist independent campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and possibly the greatest threat to Biden’s reelection chances — he has become radioactive to the far-left wing of his party.
To be sure, the Democrats who do feel Biden is now a liability to holding the White House are deeply concerned about Trump’s poll numbers, his massive base, his increased fundraising and his more locked-down, disciplined campaign. If one reads between the lines of pieces put out by the Democrat-supporting mainstream media, it’s clear that many are now being written with the assumption that Trump will be the winner.
Next comes the growing problem of RFK Jr. He is a populist, he speaks to every demographic of voter and, with Nicole Shanahan now his announced vice-presidential choice, it’s all but guaranteed that he will get on a majority of state ballots. The DNC has made it clear that it sees Kennedy as a direct threat to Biden’s reelection. Unfortunately for them, RFK Jr. is proving to be the most powerful and resilient third-party candidate in three decades.
But the threats posed to Biden from Trump and Kennedy may pale next to the last one: Biden is seen as yesterday’s news to far-left and young liberal voters.
While almost no one is paying attention anymore, there were still primaries held last week. And within the vote counts of those primaries, hid the most ominous news — and threat — to Biden. In Wisconsin, Connecticut and Rhode Island, collectively, over 10 percent of Democrats voted “uncommitted” or for another candidate.
These “uncommitted” results came after far-left activists pushed voters to refrain from voting for Biden in protest over a host of issues — most especially his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. In Wisconsin, 48,000 Democrats voted “uninstructed.” Another 17,000-plus voted for Dean Phillips … who is no longer even in the race.
Wisconsin is a critical swing state, and those numbers have to be setting off alarm bells for Democrats. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, the same horror movie played across the screen. Nearly 12 percent of Democrats in Connecticut voted “uncommitted”; in Rhode Island, it was 14.9 percent.
The Biden and Democratic Party cheerleaders in the media and elsewhere love to chirp out that in 2020, Biden got 306 electoral votes and won by over 7,000,000 votes. While that may feed their false bravado, the reality was that if 50,000 votes in a few states had flipped, Biden would have lost.
While the Trump and Kennedy campaigns are obviously a threat to Biden’s reelection, it is now this seemingly solid 10 percent of “uncommitted” far-left and young Democratic voters permanently turning their back on the president who make Biden’s campaign unsustainable. A percentage which is likely to grow over the next few months.
That being the case, if the Democrats hope to win in November, Biden will have to be replaced at the convention in Chicago come August.
Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.