How Much Is Enough, Democrats?

They say that the rote function of reading aloud is one of the last things to go. That, some maintained, explains why Joe Biden turned in a decent performance at his February State of the Union address but bombed the first presidential debate. The thing is, they were saying that just two weeks ago. It seems that what was supposed to be the last faculty to go already went.

“The idea — the idea — that corporate-owned housing is able to raise your rent three, four hundred bucks a month or something,” Biden told an audience at the annual NAACP convention. Here, he paused, leaned toward the teleprompter, and squinted. “What I’m about to announce,” Biden strained, “you can’t raise it more than” — he paused again before whispering with palpable insecurity — “$55 dollars.”

Biden stared blankly, mouth agape, as the crowd erupted into applause. Just imagine their crushing disappointment when they realize, if they couldn’t at the time, that such a cap would be economically calamitous, crushing the housing market and dramatically truncating existing inventory. It didn’t seem to occur to anyone in the room that Congress would be extremely unlikely to lend its imprimatur to such a disastrous scheme. It dawned on precisely no one that Biden had just mangled the details of a plan he only revealed last Thursday and which his White House has spent the better part of this week promoting.

It’s obvious what happened here. Because the percent sign looks to weakened eyes like the Arabic numeral “5,” Biden misread his plan to cap rent hikes at 5 percent annually as a proposal to limit the absolute value of all rent hikes at this ludicrously low figure. This is not an “it can happen to anyone” moment. It was a terrible lapse, not just of Biden’s capacity to read aloud but also to apply critical faculties to what it was he was trying to read. And it seemed like a breaking point — at least, in the press, whose sympathy for Biden’s condition is all but spent. The manifestations of the president’s age-related infirmities no longer elicit pity for him or their own evaporating political prospects. Now, it’s a joke.

For weeks now, the mainstream press has been plastered with quotes attributable to anxious Democrats who had convinced themselves that their party would be better served if Biden had another humiliating performance akin to the first presidential debate. Maybe then, Democratic elders and elites could summon the courage to push Biden off the ballot. Maybe then, Biden and his insular, self-interested inner circle could finally see the writing on the wall. But it’s entirely unclear what criteria Democrats are using to evaluate Biden’s stumbles. If this objective debacle doesn’t suffice for a moment mortifying that it merits a public intervention, the benchmarks Democrats apply to gauge Biden’s acuity are entirely subjective.

It’s not like the president turned in an otherwise stellar performance but for this one hiccup. In interviews, on the trail, and even in this very address to the NAACP, Biden’s halting, mumbling, and generally ungainly presentation hasn’t improved from the first debate. If anything, his execution as a campaigner has gotten worse. Maybe Democrats’ standards will decline to the point that they meet their diminished expectations for Biden, but the shock of this particular episode should be sufficient to convince all who still can be convinced that this cannot go on.

Biden’s rapid deterioration has become even more visible amid his efforts to prove his critics wrong about his infirmity. It’s not going to get better. We can, therefore, assume that the Democrats who cannot bring themselves to bring the hammer down on Biden have developed an insatiable appetite for public humiliation. If this isn’t enough, it will never be enough.