There’s no spinning it — Thursday night’s presidential debate was just plain painful to watch.
Donald Trump spouted a firehouse of lies that President Joe Biden, plagued with a cough, was too frail and feeble to properly fend off. Too many clips saw Biden mumbling meandering non-sequiturs in a near-whisper or trailing off as he repeatedly lost his train of thought.
Both candidates were cringe-inducing when faced with the task of discussing issues like abortion or immigration, and both also spent a disturbing and reckless amount of time talking about war. Incredibly, at one point, they even argued about who has the better golf game.
Unsurprisingly, many Democrats are reportedly now freaking out with fresh concerns over Biden’s fitness for office, even though pundits like Ezra Klein and Jon Stewart were lampooned for raising this very issue months ago, in February. At 81, Biden is the oldest U.S. President ever.
As soon as the debate ended, nearly the entire panel of anchors at host news organization CNN seemed to be in agreement that Biden’s performance was poor, with many suggesting he should drop out of the race for the good of the nation. It was a similar situation even at the typically Democrat-friendly MSNBC. We didn’t tune in, but we’re sure Fox News had an absolute field day with the clips.
Other outlets joined the pile on, with The New York Times opinion section churning out at least four columns urging Biden to step down in the ensuing hours. (Sample headlines: “Biden Cannot Go On Like This”; “The Best President of My Adult Life Needs to Withdraw”; “Is Biden Too Old? America Got Its Answer.”; and “Joe Biden Is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race.”, in which the columnist confessed to weeping while watching the debate.)
There’s no debate over the fact that Biden is vulnerable against Trump, 78, who the President and other Democrats maintain poses an urgent threat to democracy due to his role in the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021. Polls have found the candidates to be neck and neck, with Trump having an edge in swing states like Michigan.
Of course, it’s too late for another Democratic candidate to formally run against Biden since the primary election is over (though we’ll save for another day a discussion about how more Democrats should have stepped up to respectfully challenge the incumbent; voters deserve choices based on merit, not a system that defers to seniority). There is, however, an alternative option, albeit a somewhat far-fetched one.
As many pundits have pointed out, the party could choose to run an open convention at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. But Biden would have to first willingly step aside, something he has not yet indicated he would do. If he did, however, the delegates who have pledged to nominate him at the convention could vote for someone else. This would likely kick off a free-for-all of candidates scrambling for the nomination and could get messy. There would likely be large protests from anti-war activists opposed to continuing to support Israel’s attacks on Gaza, for example. Plus, the idea of delegates choosing a candidate and not the American voters feels undemocratic.
This hypothetical scenario echoes the infamous 1968 DNC, which descended into chaos after incumbent Lyndon Johnson dropped out due to the unpopular war in Vietnam. That convention was also held in Chicago, and sparked seven days of protests and a police crackdown that resulted in one death and hundreds of injuries. The eventual Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, would go on to lose to Richard Nixon in November.
If Biden were to drop out, a number of names have been floated as possible alternatives. Vice President Kamala Harris is the obvious choice from a succession of powers perspective, but Democratic governors like California’s Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer have all also been floated as strong contenders for the Oval Office.
As Biden struggled to answer a question about abortion on Thursday night — which should have been a slam dunk considering the widespread backlash to Trump’s Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 — it was hard not to imagine how much better it would have been if someone like Whitmer was up there on stage instead. An articulate, energetic orator, Whitmer has made reproductive rights one of her signature issues, dramatically revealing her own experience with sexual assault to oppose a controversial “rape insurance” bill as a state senator in 2013 and repealing Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade in 2023. And Whitmer, 52, who has a propensity for hopping on viral social media trends like last summer’s Barbie-mania, would likely have a much better time connecting with the ever-elusive bloc of young voters, who we can’t imagine are excited to cast their ballots in November.
For now, though, it seems such a scenario is unlikely. The Biden campaign says he’s not dropping out, and on Friday, the President doubled down on his reelection effort while also acknowledging his poor performance.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said. “I don’t walk as smoothly 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 how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. And I know how to get things done. When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
And Whitmer, a co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign and staunch supporter of the President, has also said she stands by him. On Friday, she released a statement in defense of Biden’s campaign:
“For hardworking people in Michigan and across the country, this election is about which candidate can do the most to make life easier for them and their families, stand up for our rights and freedoms, and leave a better country for our kids and grandkids. On these questions, the difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump as people, and as presidents, could not be clearer.
President Biden’s focus is on lowering families’ costs, building an economy that works for working people, and restoring the reproductive freedom women lost the last time Donald Trump was in the White House.
Donald Trump is a convicted felon whose focus is on Donald Trump. And he’s told us what he will do if he gets back into the White House. He will take his attacks on women’s reproductive rights even further, try to get rid of the Affordable Care Act and spike families’ health costs, and send auto jobs to China.
Joe Biden is running to serve the American people. Donald Trump is running to serve Donald Trump. The difference between Joe Biden’s vision for making sure everyone in America has a fair shot and Donald Trump’s dangerous, self-serving plans will only get sharper as we head toward November.”
Whitmer has also been hailed as a serious contender for the White House in 2028, so maybe we just have to wait until next time. Still, we hope that Biden and those closest to him give serious consideration to what’s at stake in November. We deserve better than what we got on Thursday evening.
