Democrats Are Panicking. Why Aren’t Their Leaders Doing Anything?

Over the past eight years, Democrats and pundits were first puzzled and then distraught over the gutlessness of Republican elected officials in the face of Donald Trump’s reign of error. Before the final MAGA takeover of the shards of the once Grand Old Party, many elected officials on Capitol Hill would wail to reporters about the latest examples of Trump’s unfitness for office. These cowardly conversations would always be on a not-for-attribution basis because almost no Republicans cared enough about American democracy to risk their careers with truth-telling.

There were glorious exceptions, ranging from Arizona Senator Jeff Flake to the heroes of the January 6 committee, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. But virtually without exception, their political careers in elected office were over the moment they stood up to Trump. Other factors also contributed to the silence of the lambs—fear of vicious tweets from Trump that could put family members in physical jeopardy, panic over being shut out of lucrative lobbying jobs if they left Congress, and existential dread over being exiles on the political high seas like the Never Trump Republican consultants. (For the most part, these GOP defectors who have held onto their political integrity have done so by regularly producing anti-Trump statements, articles, and comments aimed at the already converted.) 

How smug Democrats have been for eight years knowing that they would do the right thing if ever given the choice between saving the country and saving their careers. But less than a week after the most devastating political face-off in the two centuries since Alexander Hamilton squared off against Aaron Burr, Democratic elected officials have been all profile and no courage. It is telling that it took five days after the debate for Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett to become the first Democrat on Capitol Hill to urge Biden to step aside for the good of the party and the nation. As of this writing, he is the only congressional Democrat or governor to call for Biden to voluntarily step down.

What are prominent Democrats afraid of?

Biden World does not unleash mobs of fanatics out for vengeance, as is now the norm in the Trump Republican Party. With Biden’s reelection in serious trouble, it is not as if dissenting Democrats would be missing invitations to White House state dinners in 2025. Nothing is more chilling than a CBS News poll in which 72 percent of registered voters said they doubt that Biden possesses the mental and cognitive health to serve as president.

Does party loyalty really trump independent judgment when most Democrats postdebate see through the charade?

It would be one thing if top Democrats believed that the debate was a weird blip and Biden would be at the top of his game in every public event until November. But this certainly isn’t what they are saying in not-for-attribution interviews with reporters and pundits. I have never seen anything like this level of panic on the part of Democrats in four decades of covering presidential politics. 

Since Thursday night, Democratic elected officials have been turning to friendly pundits and commentators with the cheering-squad words, “You go first.” In World War II terms, top Democrats are implicitly suggesting that, of course, they want to storm the beaches at Normandy, but they are inclined to wait until the sixth wave of invasion boats when the seas grow calmer and the fusillades of bullets have diminished.

When Biden family members are not trashing the debate prep, with some justice, they are hanging tough as if stubbornness can protect the president from reality. The emblematic Jill Biden quote was delivered at a Manhattan fundraiser, the day after the debacle in Atlanta. She said that after the debate the president told her, “You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.” In full St. Crispin’s Day mode, Jill followed up by saying, “Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.”

Five days later, we do not have a glimmer of medical information as to why the 81-year-old Biden felt blah. Five days later, we have not seen a single glimpse of Biden speaking without the aid of a teleprompter. Nothing about the handling of Biden since the debate inspires confidence. And an impaired president losing the most important election in history to an unchained guttersnipe demagogue out for retribution will not enhance Biden’s historical reputation. 

More than anyone, Jill Biden has the power to convince her husband that bowing out with honor after a glorious first term beats four years in exile in Wilmington dreaming about might-have-beens. There have been glib parallels likening Jill Biden to Edith Wilson, the first lady who protected Woodrow Wilson from the outside world after his devasting 1919 stroke. 

But reading The Moralist, Patricia O’Toole’s 2018 biography of Wilson, I found another, far more relevant, historical lesson. On the eve of the 1920 convention in San Francisco, the ailing Wilson had convinced himself that only he could save the League of Nations, by running for a third term. Cary Grayson—Wilson’s doctor who had played a major role in the cover-up of the president’s health—and top aide Joseph Tumulty hovered around Union Station in Washington begging top Democrats en route to the convention to resist a Wilson boomlet. As Grayson confided to a leading party official, “No matter what others may tell you … I will tell you that [Wilson] is permanently ill physically, and is gradually weakening mentally, and can’t recover.”

Less than seven weeks before the opening of the Chicago convention, the Democrats are running out of time for dithering and denial. Maybe Biden can convince skeptics that he is truly up for a brutal campaign and a difficult second term. But that requires a level of candor and non-teleprompter competence that has been lacking since Atlanta. With the president’s first on-camera interview scheduled for Friday, there are few signs that either the president or his closest confidants are ready to face the scrutiny that this unprecedented moment demands. 

If Biden has the good judgment to bow out, the Democrats need all the time they can get to come up with a fair, inclusive, and orderly way of choosing an alternative nominee. An open convention would not be 1968 revisited—in large measure because the Democrats are united on the major issues: democracy, women’s reproductive rights, civil rights, and America’s engagement with the world. When Trump is the alternative, forging party unity is easy. 

But time waits for no president, especially one shrouded in bubble wrap. This is the week for choosing, for further delay only empowers Trump. I pray that Biden will make the right decision for the country and the party.