After last night’s debacle, confident takes from smart individuals have emerged that Biden will be replaced as the Democratic nominee for president. Others claim with similar confidence that he will remain on the ticket. That we are seeing both of these views emerge simultaneously suggests, to me at least, that there is not yet enough information to make a prediction with a high level of certainty.
By all means, have an educated guess about Biden’s future. But that guess should not take the form of “I know with anything approaching certainty who the Democratic nominee for president will be.” I’m a big advocate of thinking in terms of probabilities, and that kind of mind-set is particularly useful in situations that lack clear precedent. The fact is that there is no modern analogous situation to the one the Democratic Party now faces. There is no guidebook for what to do when your nominee is revealed to be nearly senile in front of millions of Americans months before a general election.
Some are quick to assume that statements like the one Barack Obama issued on X are necessarily indicative of the fact that Biden will not be replaced. But it’s been less than 24 hours since the debate. The Democrats were never going to make a decision that quickly, and it makes complete sense for them to prop up the illusion of rallying behind Biden until he can be convinced to drop out. The Democrats themselves do not know with certainty what will happen and must preserve the narrative that they never wavered in case Biden cannot be convinced. But that they support him publicly says nothing of the behind-the-scenes push to guilt him into stepping aside. That push might very well fail. But it could also succeed. And after watching what has transpired last night and today, I am not confident that anyone watching from the outside has enough information to say with confidence that they know what will transpire. Perhaps that most generic essay ending should be pulled out for this anything-but-generic situation: Only time will tell.