As Biden Digs in His Heels, Calls For Him to Step Aside Approach Critical Mass

If you ask Joe Biden, Joe Biden isn't going anywhere. Another dozen Democratic lawmakers have called on Joe Biden to step aside from the campaign and what do Biden and his campaign strategists do? They are trying to speed up the "virtual nomination" of Biden to be the Democratic nominee.

Before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Biden allies were looking to fast-track his nomination by holding a "virtual roll call" at the end of July. At that time, calls for Biden to step aside were a mere trickle.

After the attempt on Trump's life and the successful GOP convention energized Republicans, the trickle has become a flood. On Friday, 12 more Democratic lawmakers asked Biden to give up his campaign. According to the Washington Post, that makes a total of 35 Democratic members of Congress who want Biden to step aside.

The polls are also getting grimmer and grimmer. A new CBS poll showed Trump up by 5 points nationally. And the swing state polls show Biden's support in several states — Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania — to be cratering.

So the calls for Biden to step aside are not being made in a vacuum. There is genuine panic in the party, hence, the increased number of calls for him to give up the race.

But there's perception, and then there's reality. The number of Democrats who have publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race is still far less than 10% of all the Democrats in Congress. No doubt Biden has heard from dozens of others privately or through his staff.

Biden is going to make them all go public with their calls for his head. And that means the Democratic Convention in August is not going to be a love-fest.

What will constitute a "critical mass" of Democrats who might tip the balance and convince Biden to give it up? We're not there yet, not even close. Other factors, such as fundraising drying up and more brutal polls, might send Biden over the edge and convince him to give up the race. But it may already be too late to salvage the 2024 election for his party.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right in saying that if the Democrats dump Biden, the party would put itself in "enormous peril." In a late-night livestream on Instagram, AOC pointed out the obvious.

She added bluntly: “I have not seen an alternative scenario that I feel will not set us up for enormous peril.”

New York Times:

The friction between the sitting president and leaders of his own party so close to an election is unlike anything seen in Washington in generations — especially because the Democrats now working to ease him out were some of the allies most critical to his success over the last dozen years. It was Mr. Obama who elevated Mr. Biden from a presidential also-ran to the vice presidency, setting him up to win the White House in 2020, and it was Ms. Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, who pushed through his landmark legislative achievements.

Betrayed by his allies, and abandoned by a growing number of his party members, Biden is now refusing to drop out because he is not going to be pushed aside by anyone. 

There are now some in Biden's inner circle, including family members, who want to ease the old man out of the race without it appearing that he's been kicked to the curb. At this point, saving Biden's pride and dignity is about all he has left. He will go but in his own good time.

Washington Post:

The tense standoff between the president and his party set up a pivotal clash that is expected to intensify this weekend and could reach its culmination next week. The increasingly intense impasse between supporters and skeptics of the president suggests there is no end in sight to the Democratic infighting that has surrounded Biden’s candidacy as both sides have grown more dug-in and willing to allow the standoff to play out in public.

I'm getting an eerie sense of deja vu with what's happening to Biden. In August 1973, it was obvious that Richard Nixon had to go. He was going to be impeached and after the revelation of the damning coverup tape, he was told by Senator Barry Goldwater that he might have no more than half a dozen Republicans who would vote against conviction.

But Nixon's closest aides, including Alexander Haig, knew that the harder they pushed to get Nixon to resign, the more he would resist. Eventually, it was Pat Nixon, his personal friend Bebe Rebozo, and Haig who carefully guided him to a decision to resign but not without a lot of backing and filling by the president on the decision. 

Something similar seems to be playing out with Biden. Biden is blowing hot and cold about whether he should drop out. This is an intensely personal decision and how Biden comes to it will depend on the quality of the people he has surrounded himself with.