Dems, bid Biden farewell

Nation facing two poor choices for president

Although I prefer to write about issues, today’s essay will be about politics. Given that we will probably have two unacceptable choices for president, we need this discussion.

I hasten to add that the two likely candidates are not equally unacceptable. President Biden would be a poor choice, but America would survive. President Trump would be a disaster that America might not survive.

Biden’s approval ratings are ominous. An ABC News poll in January reported Biden’s approval rating at 33%, with disapproval at 58% (up from 56% in September).

Head-to-head matchups are also gloomy for Biden. Summarizing recent polls, the Economist magazine claims that a likely 45% (with a range of 41-49%) of voters support Trump over Biden, while 42% (with a range of 38-46%) support Biden over Trump.

Democrats are beginning to suggest that Biden drop out of the race, especially following the recent statement from the Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Hur that “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Although Hur, a Republican, may have political motivations, many Democrats will recognize that he spoke the truth.

A Feb. 13 article in the liberal Atlantic magazine is titled “Democrats should pick a new presidential candidate now.” The article argues that “The party needs to wake up and stop sleepwalking toward disaster with Biden as its nominee.”

This newspaper’s fine liberal columnist John Brummett, while continuing to support Biden, opines, “Still, make no mistake: Biden’s halting nature and an official government declaration of his cognitive weakness is a crisis for Democrats and the country. He is all that stands between Trump and the presidency.”

The Progressive Magazine, a left-leaning journal, published an article on Feb. 17 with the title “For democracy’s sake, Biden must drop out. There’s too much at stake for him to stay on the ballot.”

According to a Gallup Poll published Jan. 12, 27% of U.S. adults consider themselves Democrats, 27% consider themselves Republicans, and a whopping 43% consider themselves independents. One would expect that in a matchup between a reasonable Democratic candidate and the unhinged Donald Trump these independent voters would lean strongly toward the Democrat. But this isn’t happening. According to a new Messenger/Harris poll, Trump leads Biden by 11% points among independent voters.

America has many experienced Democrats who would be more credible presidential candidates than Biden. For example, in December CNN suggested six good candidates: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Ro Khanna of Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

A presidential race by any of these against Trump should result in a landslide Democratic victory not only for the presidency but across the board. Americans, including old people like me, are thirsting for a president who is rational and who can compromise reasonably (i.e., not Trump) and who is healthy and vigorous and likely to remain so for four more years (i.e., not Biden). Electing Biden could easily mean nearly four years of President Kamala Harris, for whom nobody cast a presidential ballot.

There are messages in this year’s uninspiring presidential offerings. One is that, as politicians age, they need to retire.

Another is that the American system of electoral politics is far from the democratic choice that we imagine it to be. The two major political parties, and therefore the politicians and others within these parties, including the rich people and the organizations who furnish most of the campaign funding, are the final arbiters of who shall be president. This sad circumstance is partly due to the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 Citizens United decision, which ruled that the longstanding prohibition on political expenditures by corporations violates the First Amendment.

It’s a sad commentary on so-called American “democracy” that, in this nation of 332 million, our system has brought forth two such unacceptable candidates.

If the presidential race turns out to be Biden versus Trump, I will certainly vote for Biden.

But the primary elections, for which early voting is already under way in Arkansas, are a different matter. I will not vote for Biden or any other presidential candidate in the primary election, in hopes that, if enough people do this, it might send him a message: Thanks for your service, Mr. President, but it’s time to go.