The Democrats Are Having a False Reckoning Over Joe Biden

Or, at least it should have. Biden’s campaign sputtered on for weeks after the debate, during which many of the voices that whispered their regrets to Tapper and Thompson⁠—or are crying out publicly for a reckoning now⁠—either said nothing or actively defended Biden’s capacity to run. Why? Biden, they contend, held the party hostage. “It is a long tradition for Washington bigwigs to use books to place the blame squarely on someone else,” Epstein wrote. “What’s unusual about this book is that just about all players who agreed to be interviewed—200, the authors wrote—pointed the finger at Mr. Biden and his small circle of senior aides.”

But this is both an oversimplification and a misdirection. Democratic leaders, insiders, and pundits did, ultimately, succeed in pushing Biden out of the race and clearly could have done so earlier⁠—Biden and his circle were no match for most of the apparatus of the Democratic Party acting in concert. It was that apparatus, actually, that carried Biden to the White House as the Democratic nominee in the first place, as party leaders ⁠and candidates—again, belatedly⁠—coalesced to put Biden, the unsatisfying but safe choice in their eyes, firmly ahead of Bernie Sanders during the 2020 primary. They swallowed the risk of Biden’s age to do so, assuming a second run was out of the picture.

That collective decision to rescue and elevate Biden has to be among the reasons they were hesitant to call him to step aside early on, even as it became clearer that he was serious about reelection⁠—a movement to discard Biden early in his term would have underscored the cynicism of propping him up temporarily as a placeholder. There were other reasons—the fear of a chaotic change-up or primary damaging the party’s chances against Trump, yes⁠—but also the fear, among Democrats looking out for themselves, of having made an enemy of Biden in the event that he actually won reelection.