If you’re an elected Democrat, speak up now

(L-R) Governors Kathy Hochul of New York, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Wes Moore of Maryland speak to reporters after a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on July 03, 2024 in Washington, DC. Biden met with all of the nation's Democratic governors, virtually or in person, in an effort to shore up support following his performance in the first presidential debate against Donald Trump. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

About a year ago, I wrote a column warning Democrats that they were “walking toward a cliff with their eyes closed.”

“What happens,” I asked, “if Joe Biden is incapacitated a year or 15 months from now? What then?”

Biden isn’t incapacitated, but his fumbling performance during the first presidential debate — and then a flurry of leaks about his diminished capacity — has cemented the perception of the majority of Americans that he’s too old and should not be running.

Last year, I quoted a DFL operative who noted the lack of a Plan B, and the resemblance to 2016:

“(Hillary Clinton) was a historically unpopular nominee and there wasn’t much conversation about whether it would work out. Lo and behold, it didn’t work out.”

U.S. Rep. Scholten calls for Biden to step aside ‘for the good of our democracy’

And here we are.

Setting aside the crucial question of whether Biden can do the job properly both now and four years from now, Democrats must grapple with the current trendline, which shows him losing in November to a grave threat to our democratic republic.

Elections expert Dave Wasserman laid out the current situation on X: “Biden’s current numbers with Black (71%-21%), Hispanic (48%-41%) and young (46%-41%) voters are incompatible with any plausible Democratic win scenario.”

Worse yet, Biden’s collapsing support could cascade down the ballot and hand Republicans full control of the federal government, at the very moment we need a check on a wannabe despot.

This isn’t about Biden’s presidency. In just a single term, he may be the most important Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson. His refusal to step aside is disappointing, but to be expected. The man is a walking Shakespearean tragedy, and we’re now in the Lear-ish phase. Biden proved the naysayers wrong before, and he surely feels betrayed at his most vulnerable moment, despite a lifetime of grinning favors for his fellow Democrats from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.

The people who deserve our scorn are those who have an opportunity to do something about this fiasco, but stay silent, at least publicly. I’m talking about the elected officials and power brokers who could have prevented this crisis, and still can if they find the will to act and start a stampede that will focus the president’s family on the risks to his legacy should he lose badly to Trump.

I can respect the position of Democrats like Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Attorney General Keith Ellison and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who have said he’s our guy, we support him, end of discussion.

But many Democratic pols seem more focused on their own ambitions — and the risk of speaking out publicly against the still-powerful president.

Among them: Democratic governors who gave a defense of Biden on the White House driveway after meeting with him last week.

As Jonathan Martin noted in Politico, “Few of the governors have to run for reelection this year, but more than a handful of them are eager to seek the presidency in 2028. And there’s no path for any of them then if Vice President Kamala Harris by then is President Harris seeking reelection.”

And who is the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, standing in front of the microphone on the White House driveway? That’s Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. 

Walz has been upping his national profile in the past year or so, stumping for Biden with a cabinet position as the potential endgame. Or maybe something in 2028.

Let’s give Walz the benefit of the doubt — he’s not in Washington and maybe hasn’t seen much of Biden, whose decline seems to have accelerated in just the past few months.

Walz is certainly not alone in his reluctance to say what needs saying. Many House Democrats seem to have folded. (U.S. Rep. Angie Craig is an exception in the Minnesota delegation. But the true Cassandra here is U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, who was so convinced he was right he ran against Biden, only to face scorn and mockery from the Democratic establishment, while winning very few votes from Democratic primary voters.)

What’s become clear since the national media’s suddenly robust coverage of Biden’s age and mental acuity is that a lot of people have seen the decline in recent months, but they haven’t said anything publicly.

Here’s what George Clooney wrote this week after hosting a June fundraiser before the debate: “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

According to Clooney, Biden’s decline “isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

On the one hand, democracy is on the line, they tell us.

But their actions say something else: It’s not worth risking my career.

In politics — as in business and organized religion, heck the PTA  — people stay quiet because they don’t want to upset the boss and risk their status. In the normal course of human affairs, this is understandable, sociable behavior.

But in this case, with so much at stake, it’s cowardice.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.

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