I haven’t been the biggest fan of your analysis lately (just being honest - I think it’s drifted more towards punditry and a bit away from data. You were the one that got me into Statistics as a teenager and eventually towards my PhD.
With that said… this article is fantastic. Because you are one of the rare few being honest about what we can all see. Biden is senile, and he’s not capable of handling this job now or especially over the next 5 years.
And like you said: if we are wrong, prove it. But they won’t, because they can’t. Or if they try to prove it, it’ll end up being something scripted again that they try to pass off as evidence of mental acuity.
Reporting this post for misinformation. Biden is not senile, he is one of the best presidents in history. Open borders, inflation, and escalating towards world war 3 are good. Orange man bad. We need to keep him and Dean Phillips off the ballot in order to protect our sacred Democracy.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
I think these three points are pretty complimentary:
a) Biden has been very good at the actual job of being president. Public communication aside (and that's a big caveat) there's nothing to indicate that his age has detrimentally affected this.
b) It's unclear whether this would continue throughout the entirety of a second term.
c) The fact that his age is negative affecting his ability to do public communication is *the* major handicap of his re-election campaign.
The problem is that he's locked in because of the choice of VP he made in 2020. Kamala Harris either cannot do what is necessary to appeal to the median American voter or she is unwilling to do so (maybe because her only competitive elections have been against other Democrats). If Biden steps down, even in Klein's brokered convention scenario, the institutional pressure behind Harris (or the damage to the coalition from defeating her) would be incredibly difficult to resist.
I agree with Nate's trial-by-media recommendation but the WH's calculations surely are:
1. Is Kamala Harris more likely to beat Trump than Biden is?
2. If 1=no, is there a strong chance of someone other than Harris being the nominee if Biden steps down?
If both questions=no then Biden stays and I think both questions are "no" at the moment.
Any suggestion for Biden to step aside naturally suggests Harris will step up, unless you say otherwise. Do you think Kamala Harris is an above replacement level Democrat candidate? I'm even more skeptical about her than I am Biden
Jon Stewart said it best when he played a bunch of clips of democratic leaders and White House officials all saying Biden is extremely sharp behind closed doors discussing strategy on how to deal with global conflicts and domestic issues.
"If he's so sharp in these conversations, film them!"
You proposed an easy challenge. Trump could do it, most elderly celebrities could as well. There's no excuses anymore. The Democrats aren't allowed to play the "everything will be horrible under Trump" card if they're not willing to play ball and put up a candidate that can easily beat him.
Now do the same one for why Trump should drop out.
Oh that's right. We're only allowed to trash "our" side and keep feeding the narrative that we're going to lose; "constructive criticism" and all that. Comes from a place of earnest concern and support.
Whereas Trump is the Other and an implacable force of nature, so no need to address his supporters and tell them why they're making such a terrible decision.
Or maybe just stop telling each candidate what to do.
I think the point made on Ezra Klein's podcast is the best one: At this point, Biden may be capable of being president, but he's not capable of *campaigning* for president. And he has to be able to campaign to win the job. As you pointed out, the economy's improving, he's passed some meaningful bills, yet the polls haven't budged in his favor. So clearly, people think these good things are happening *despite* Biden instead of *because* of him. HIs approval on inflation, Gaza, the border, and everything else has worries about his age baked into them. Biden needs to make a strong argument that (1) he is sharp, energetic, and capable of being President for another four years, and (2) his policies are the reason things are improving now. But he's simply not doing either in a persuasive way. And what's worse, he's passing up opportunities to do so.
Unless Biden can be persuaded to step down (or if he suffers a health crisis, God forbid), Trump will be elected president this November.
There are good candidates (D Governors and Senators) with little baggage. And a “late” entry could be an advantage - there’s little time for the Fox machine to manufacture baggage, so Ds could control the narrative (and maybe we’re in a new campaigning era altogether).
But, for me, it all comes down to this question: if this is the “most important election of our time” then why are fielding the lowest-rated, highest-risk candidate?
While I appreciate Nate's points, its conclusion (a generic Democrat would do better vs. Trump than Biden) makes a critical assumption (there is such a thing as a generic Democrat) that warrants examination.
As far as I can tell, there really isn't a Democrat either willing or able to run right now who would be able to feasibly make up for the lost incumbent advantage.
Nate, I'd be happy to hear if there are any alternatives you think are actually viable here.
The unspoken premise of this piece is worth stating explicitly: Biden has no more “right” to be his party’s nominee than the winning quarterback of the 2020 super bowl has to keep his starting position in 2024. He’s like a quarterback who won the 2020 super bowl at age 39. He pulled it out! Good for him. That doesn’t make him a good starter in 2024.
The same arrogance that the Democratic Party and the media (but I repeat myself) have shown in the last several years, secure in the knowledge that they control the narrative, is going to continue to drive them toward a precipice. The bubble they exist in is simply too strong, and the individual urge to go along with everyone else inside it will not allow an acceptance that maybe, this time, they should do the right thing. The "right thing" is no more or less that what maintains the narrative.
If there was a functioning Republican Party, that was interested in shining a light on the ridiculousness of much of the narrative, or if Trump was actually a skilled politician, rather than a clownish cult leader, the process leading to a relaxing of the hold the Dems/media have on politics might be sped up, but that is not the case. So instead we get people shrieking about how if you're not a neurologist, you can't possibly judge whether Biden is dealing with cognitive decline or not - which, just stop and think for a second how crazy that is - and like in 2020, many low-information voters probably still do not know how badly he is doing. I expect that the White House simply does not feel a need to do anything.
If they did, the first hint might be a kindly disposal of Ms. Harris, because she is probably not bright enough to be trusted not to run off script, and may want to run her own show, though they've been handling Biden for four years, so maybe they think they can do anything. Maybe they're right, at least for a while longer.
Nate, I don’t know why you keep beating this drum. It’s getting to “but her emails” levels at this point.
Is it optimal that Biden is old? No, but he was old four years ago and it was fine. What’s most important is that we have not seen a single shred of evidence that Biden has made any bad decisions as a result of mental decline or even fatigue owing to his age. In fact, Kevin McCarthy privately called Biden sharp in their conversations.
Until any such evidence emerges, I really don’t understand your (and other parts of the media’s) fixation on this.
Maybe instead of article billion in the "Biden old" category, journalists and commentators kept writing about how absurdly abnormal it is to have a rapist fraudster who attempted a coup run for a third time, Biden wouldn't be losing. This isn't normal. Biden is old, but is otherwise an off the shelf politician. Trump is a criminal who rapes women, commits frauds, and can't be trusted with state secrets. The story is a broken Republican party and Trump, not Biden.
Nate, I've read nearly every word you've written in the last 15 years, and your opinions are among the most valuable to me on the whole wide Internet. But you've lost the plot in so many ways here:
1. Your assessment that Bidens numbers don't look good is fair enough. But the leap to "worse than replacement candidate" crosses a wide chasm. Every poll I've seen that tested Trump against a non-Biden candidate has come out the same or worse for the Democrat.
2. Step back from that just a bit and you can see that the root problem here is that Trump really consistently gets 45% in polls, regardless of opponent. Nearly half the country actually wants what he's selling. It's a sad state of affairs, but it's not obviously because of a candidate-quality problem on the other side.
3. Should Biden "step aside" the party has to choose a nominee. There are zero scenarios where that happens painlessly, to say nothing of fairly or democratically. In particular any scenario where Harris is passed over would totally tear the party in two...but Harris doesn't look great approval-wise.
4. Your demand for Biden to sit for interviews to prove his coherence of thought to the public is blissfully ignorant of reality. There are plenty of Biden interviews, press conferences, and other unscripted interactions. He regularly goes deep on policy issues and discusses details that make it clear that he's generally quite knowledgeable about everything that's going on. But the press will ignore 3hr of that detailed discussion in favor of the 5 seconds of it where he mixed something up. This article is a great example of that: plenty of harping about public perception, absolutely no acknowledgement that in real life the typical Biden remarks make perfect sense and the typical Trump remarks are unintelligible word salad. It's not obvious that providing more material, even of impeccable quality, will change this equation at all.
5. What's your actual point anyway? You demand that "Democrats pay attention" but what exactly are any of us supposed to do? If "Biden should step aside" is your actual point, then your audience is one person and this article seems poorly tuned to sway his thinking. If you were trying to make some recommendation to the rest of us, I'm not seeing it.
So ultimately I just don't know what you're trying to accomplish here. If you have no larger point than "Biden is not a favorite for reelection" I think I narrowly disagree, but I don't have any strong quarrel. But if you're honestly thinking that Biden just waving goodbye tomorrow meaningfully improves Democratic odds, I find that dubious...and if you think there's something Democrats writ large are supposed to be doing differently, please be more explicit about what that is.
For my part I'm well past the moaning about whether the nominee is my Panglossian ideal, and much more interested in how we improve his odds of winning. Biden and Trump are the nominees.
TL;DR: If Biden's really senile, it's weird that there aren't any leaked anecdotes from behind the scenes of genuine serious lapses. An alternative explanation for Biden's limited public appearances is that his staff, who are further to the left than he is, incorrectly believe that his genuine moderation is a liability and don't want him making unscripted appearances that don't give them the opportunity to make him sound more progressive. If they stopped doing that then he'd look better.
I certainly *hope* it's this, and if it's not then I remain curious about the aforementioned absence of damaging leaks.
I haven’t been the biggest fan of your analysis lately (just being honest - I think it’s drifted more towards punditry and a bit away from data. You were the one that got me into Statistics as a teenager and eventually towards my PhD.
With that said… this article is fantastic. Because you are one of the rare few being honest about what we can all see. Biden is senile, and he’s not capable of handling this job now or especially over the next 5 years.
And like you said: if we are wrong, prove it. But they won’t, because they can’t. Or if they try to prove it, it’ll end up being something scripted again that they try to pass off as evidence of mental acuity.
Thank you for writing this up
Reporting this post for misinformation. Biden is not senile, he is one of the best presidents in history. Open borders, inflation, and escalating towards world war 3 are good. Orange man bad. We need to keep him and Dean Phillips off the ballot in order to protect our sacred Democracy.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/nina-jankowicz-ministry-of-truth-scary-poppins-
I think these three points are pretty complimentary:
a) Biden has been very good at the actual job of being president. Public communication aside (and that's a big caveat) there's nothing to indicate that his age has detrimentally affected this.
b) It's unclear whether this would continue throughout the entirety of a second term.
c) The fact that his age is negative affecting his ability to do public communication is *the* major handicap of his re-election campaign.
The problem is that he's locked in because of the choice of VP he made in 2020. Kamala Harris either cannot do what is necessary to appeal to the median American voter or she is unwilling to do so (maybe because her only competitive elections have been against other Democrats). If Biden steps down, even in Klein's brokered convention scenario, the institutional pressure behind Harris (or the damage to the coalition from defeating her) would be incredibly difficult to resist.
I agree with Nate's trial-by-media recommendation but the WH's calculations surely are:
1. Is Kamala Harris more likely to beat Trump than Biden is?
2. If 1=no, is there a strong chance of someone other than Harris being the nominee if Biden steps down?
If both questions=no then Biden stays and I think both questions are "no" at the moment.
Any suggestion for Biden to step aside naturally suggests Harris will step up, unless you say otherwise. Do you think Kamala Harris is an above replacement level Democrat candidate? I'm even more skeptical about her than I am Biden
The Democrats essentially erased the primary. That was bad. There WAS a candidate for the primaries...RFKjr.
OPTICS bad:
Denying RFK Secret Service protection while granting it to Haley.
RFKjr now independent and pulling voters from Biden.
Jon Stewart said it best when he played a bunch of clips of democratic leaders and White House officials all saying Biden is extremely sharp behind closed doors discussing strategy on how to deal with global conflicts and domestic issues.
"If he's so sharp in these conversations, film them!"
You proposed an easy challenge. Trump could do it, most elderly celebrities could as well. There's no excuses anymore. The Democrats aren't allowed to play the "everything will be horrible under Trump" card if they're not willing to play ball and put up a candidate that can easily beat him.
Great post!
Now do the same one for why Trump should drop out.
Oh that's right. We're only allowed to trash "our" side and keep feeding the narrative that we're going to lose; "constructive criticism" and all that. Comes from a place of earnest concern and support.
Whereas Trump is the Other and an implacable force of nature, so no need to address his supporters and tell them why they're making such a terrible decision.
Or maybe just stop telling each candidate what to do.
I think the point made on Ezra Klein's podcast is the best one: At this point, Biden may be capable of being president, but he's not capable of *campaigning* for president. And he has to be able to campaign to win the job. As you pointed out, the economy's improving, he's passed some meaningful bills, yet the polls haven't budged in his favor. So clearly, people think these good things are happening *despite* Biden instead of *because* of him. HIs approval on inflation, Gaza, the border, and everything else has worries about his age baked into them. Biden needs to make a strong argument that (1) he is sharp, energetic, and capable of being President for another four years, and (2) his policies are the reason things are improving now. But he's simply not doing either in a persuasive way. And what's worse, he's passing up opportunities to do so.
Unless Biden can be persuaded to step down (or if he suffers a health crisis, God forbid), Trump will be elected president this November.
There are good candidates (D Governors and Senators) with little baggage. And a “late” entry could be an advantage - there’s little time for the Fox machine to manufacture baggage, so Ds could control the narrative (and maybe we’re in a new campaigning era altogether).
But, for me, it all comes down to this question: if this is the “most important election of our time” then why are fielding the lowest-rated, highest-risk candidate?
While I appreciate Nate's points, its conclusion (a generic Democrat would do better vs. Trump than Biden) makes a critical assumption (there is such a thing as a generic Democrat) that warrants examination.
As far as I can tell, there really isn't a Democrat either willing or able to run right now who would be able to feasibly make up for the lost incumbent advantage.
Nate, I'd be happy to hear if there are any alternatives you think are actually viable here.
The unspoken premise of this piece is worth stating explicitly: Biden has no more “right” to be his party’s nominee than the winning quarterback of the 2020 super bowl has to keep his starting position in 2024. He’s like a quarterback who won the 2020 super bowl at age 39. He pulled it out! Good for him. That doesn’t make him a good starter in 2024.
The same arrogance that the Democratic Party and the media (but I repeat myself) have shown in the last several years, secure in the knowledge that they control the narrative, is going to continue to drive them toward a precipice. The bubble they exist in is simply too strong, and the individual urge to go along with everyone else inside it will not allow an acceptance that maybe, this time, they should do the right thing. The "right thing" is no more or less that what maintains the narrative.
If there was a functioning Republican Party, that was interested in shining a light on the ridiculousness of much of the narrative, or if Trump was actually a skilled politician, rather than a clownish cult leader, the process leading to a relaxing of the hold the Dems/media have on politics might be sped up, but that is not the case. So instead we get people shrieking about how if you're not a neurologist, you can't possibly judge whether Biden is dealing with cognitive decline or not - which, just stop and think for a second how crazy that is - and like in 2020, many low-information voters probably still do not know how badly he is doing. I expect that the White House simply does not feel a need to do anything.
If they did, the first hint might be a kindly disposal of Ms. Harris, because she is probably not bright enough to be trusted not to run off script, and may want to run her own show, though they've been handling Biden for four years, so maybe they think they can do anything. Maybe they're right, at least for a while longer.
Nate, I don’t know why you keep beating this drum. It’s getting to “but her emails” levels at this point.
Is it optimal that Biden is old? No, but he was old four years ago and it was fine. What’s most important is that we have not seen a single shred of evidence that Biden has made any bad decisions as a result of mental decline or even fatigue owing to his age. In fact, Kevin McCarthy privately called Biden sharp in their conversations.
Until any such evidence emerges, I really don’t understand your (and other parts of the media’s) fixation on this.
Maybe instead of article billion in the "Biden old" category, journalists and commentators kept writing about how absurdly abnormal it is to have a rapist fraudster who attempted a coup run for a third time, Biden wouldn't be losing. This isn't normal. Biden is old, but is otherwise an off the shelf politician. Trump is a criminal who rapes women, commits frauds, and can't be trusted with state secrets. The story is a broken Republican party and Trump, not Biden.
Nate, I've read nearly every word you've written in the last 15 years, and your opinions are among the most valuable to me on the whole wide Internet. But you've lost the plot in so many ways here:
1. Your assessment that Bidens numbers don't look good is fair enough. But the leap to "worse than replacement candidate" crosses a wide chasm. Every poll I've seen that tested Trump against a non-Biden candidate has come out the same or worse for the Democrat.
2. Step back from that just a bit and you can see that the root problem here is that Trump really consistently gets 45% in polls, regardless of opponent. Nearly half the country actually wants what he's selling. It's a sad state of affairs, but it's not obviously because of a candidate-quality problem on the other side.
3. Should Biden "step aside" the party has to choose a nominee. There are zero scenarios where that happens painlessly, to say nothing of fairly or democratically. In particular any scenario where Harris is passed over would totally tear the party in two...but Harris doesn't look great approval-wise.
4. Your demand for Biden to sit for interviews to prove his coherence of thought to the public is blissfully ignorant of reality. There are plenty of Biden interviews, press conferences, and other unscripted interactions. He regularly goes deep on policy issues and discusses details that make it clear that he's generally quite knowledgeable about everything that's going on. But the press will ignore 3hr of that detailed discussion in favor of the 5 seconds of it where he mixed something up. This article is a great example of that: plenty of harping about public perception, absolutely no acknowledgement that in real life the typical Biden remarks make perfect sense and the typical Trump remarks are unintelligible word salad. It's not obvious that providing more material, even of impeccable quality, will change this equation at all.
5. What's your actual point anyway? You demand that "Democrats pay attention" but what exactly are any of us supposed to do? If "Biden should step aside" is your actual point, then your audience is one person and this article seems poorly tuned to sway his thinking. If you were trying to make some recommendation to the rest of us, I'm not seeing it.
So ultimately I just don't know what you're trying to accomplish here. If you have no larger point than "Biden is not a favorite for reelection" I think I narrowly disagree, but I don't have any strong quarrel. But if you're honestly thinking that Biden just waving goodbye tomorrow meaningfully improves Democratic odds, I find that dubious...and if you think there's something Democrats writ large are supposed to be doing differently, please be more explicit about what that is.
For my part I'm well past the moaning about whether the nominee is my Panglossian ideal, and much more interested in how we improve his odds of winning. Biden and Trump are the nominees.
I'm curious what people thought of Matt Y's alternative theory: https://www.slowboring.com/p/we-need-to-see-more-joe-biden
TL;DR: If Biden's really senile, it's weird that there aren't any leaked anecdotes from behind the scenes of genuine serious lapses. An alternative explanation for Biden's limited public appearances is that his staff, who are further to the left than he is, incorrectly believe that his genuine moderation is a liability and don't want him making unscripted appearances that don't give them the opportunity to make him sound more progressive. If they stopped doing that then he'd look better.
I certainly *hope* it's this, and if it's not then I remain curious about the aforementioned absence of damaging leaks.