In the wake of Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the US presidential debate last week, the national tone shifted from shock and horror to fury. Biden himself, pityingly regarded, was spared the worst of the criticism. Instead, the two people who seem to have incurred the most anger have been his wife, Jill – suddenly thrust into the unhappy mould of the new Nancy Reagan – and, esoterically, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Biden’s refusal to stand aside has thrown everyone back to RBG’s late-in-life vanity that ended in the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Terrible as things are, there was, it has to be said, some relief in finally being able to say the quiet part out loud. With the energy of a cork leaving a bottle, a lot of people came forward this week with more evidence of the president’s “lapses”. In the New York Times, anonymous European officials who met Biden at the recent G7 summit in Italy belatedly registered their alarm; those who attended a recent event at the White House did the same. While big money donors joined the chorus of those freaking out, Biden’s aides pushed back with examples of how “probing and insightful” the president continues to be.
That line of defence feels pointless now. “He’s inquisitive. Focused. He remembers. He’s sharp,” said Neera Tanden, the president’s domestic policy adviser– a remark that set the bar for the president so low it had the same chilling effect as Jill Biden’s kindergarten tone after the debate. “You answered all the questions, you knew all the facts,” she said on stage to her slack-jawed husband, whose improved performance at a campaign rally a day later couldn’t undo what 52 million Americans had just seen. You can flag the garbage that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth until the cows come home, but it doesn’t make Biden’s state any better.
If none of this makes unseating the president for another Democratic candidate either likely or wise, it isn’t purely for reasons of strategy. No presidential candidate has been replaced this late in the race and, of course, throwing open the field at the Democratic convention next month risks making the Democrats look even more vacillating than they already do. There is a sense of frustration that what may, to some degree, be an issue of presentation – the idea that, like his dormant stammer, Biden’s impairment is much worse during stressful public events than behind the scenes – is not the whole picture.
Ezra Klein, speaking to the New Yorker last week, pointed out there is no indication that Biden is “making bad decisions”. He remains up to the job in ways that, of course, Trump isn’t. But if he can’t inspire confidence or speak coherently in public, his competence elsewhere hardly matters.
Which brings us to the question of Biden’s own hubris. This is where, down the line, the real anger will focus. If the president is protected, for now, by sympathy, it will evaporate in November if Trump wins. The risk Biden has taken by standing for re-election is greater than President Emmanuel Macron’s backfiring decision to call a snap election in France. Biden is widely believed to be a good man, but his selfishness in running for a second term when he must know he is slipping will be his only legacy, should Trump prevail.
To his enablers, then, the question: why wasn’t this caught earlier? You have to wonder at Barack Obama, popping up on X to defend and endorse Biden immediately after the debate. Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes – perhaps the former president spent the last year trying to talk Biden into stepping aside. But Obama’s swift defence of his friend and former vice-president certainly felt like an action inspired partly by guilt. Obama has, of late, been so busy making not very good films in Hollywood that his rush to defend Biden seemed like a piece of self-justification in the face of lapsed oversight.
And there are many more in Obama’s position, clearly feeling that it is simply too late to change horses – partly, perhaps, to defend their own inaction, and partly because there’s no obvious replacement. Harris, who as vice-president would be first in line to take over from Biden, is a terrible communicator for entirely different reasons. (If you’re still in doubt about this, watch her at the BET awards this week: it will make you hide your face in embarrassment.) According to recent polls, while Harris is marginally more popular than Biden, she is still behind Trump.
It’s beside the point, but the thing I keep coming back to is this: can you imagine what it’s actually like being Joe Biden right now? What a singular and terrible stress dream that must be? Imagine having to be president when you can’t remember people’s names and keep zoning out? It’s a naive thought experiment, I know; one that separates those who want to be president of the United States from those of us content to cap out at being president of our own living rooms. Still, the question remains: who on earth, in Biden’s position, would want the job?
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
