I was in karate class, sparring, when the debate began. I was, as usual, going up against people mostly about 40 years younger than me, and doing decently well. When I turned on the radio driving home, I heard Joe Biden stuttering and speaking in a halting tone, which disturbed me a little, though what he was saying was cogent. This was about 20 minutes in. Watching the remainder on TV at home, I thought Biden was doing reasonably well, then less well, then that his ending was bad. Rewinding, I watched the beginning, in which he also was bad. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Democrats were in a “panic.”
A few months ago, I wrote that Biden might be a “cognitive super-ager.” I can practically hear readers scoffing at that, especially now, but I still think he’s cognitively sound, particularly in the ability to size up people and situations, a capacity that, as described by neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg, can grow in later life, especially among gregarious types. But what has declined for Biden—largely physical things such as voice, walk and facial expressions, but also undeniably a degree of verbal agility and quick-wittedness—was enough to make a dismal debate performance and throw his campaign into crisis.
Donald Trump was spouting lies, as expected, deploying the Gish gallop, the firehose of falsehood. He lied massively at the debate, as he has throughout the campaign. His scapegoating attacks on “migrants” (a term now synonymous with “immigrants” but that once meant people moving around within a country) on false claims of a crime wave or impact on Social Security are vile demagoguery. His lies about January 6 and the 2020 election are more dangerous yet, as they give every reason to believe that he, and the Republicans echoing his lies, will try to steal future elections, getting better with practice.
I’ve been a Democrat for three-and-a-half years, an ex-Republican for eight. I’ll take the flawed party I joined over the repugnant one I abandoned. That Democrats are now arguing about whether Biden should drop out of the race speaks well of the party. There seems to be no level of evidence of Trump’s mendacity, criminality, immorality or psychopathology that would spur a similar Republican debate about the merits of their candidate. On Route 17 in North Jersey, I passed people standing at roadside with signs saying, “Trump Won,” a deranged view that GOP voters and elites have effectively endorsed.
If Biden stays in the race, there seems a better-than-even chance he’ll lose. If he steps aside, all bets are off. I’m hoping for the latter. There’s nothing undemocratic about a candidate releasing his delegates to vote for other candidates; the party’s rules allow for this, with wording suggesting a replacement have similar ideology and priorities: “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.” Kamala Harris would be the least-disruptive choice. I expect her approval ratings would rise as voters contemplate the choice between a career prosecutor in her late-50s and a career criminal in his late-70s.
If Biden remains the candidate, I’ll vote for him without hesitation, given the alternative. This would also entail voting for a prospective Harris administration, as notwithstanding actuarial analyses suggesting that both Biden and Trump are likely to survive a possible second term, the possibility that Biden will die in office, or forced to step down by failing health, strikes me as significant, especially given the stresses of current national and international politics.
Trump may well win in any case, and if so I expect a deterioration of democratic institutions along lines political scientist Nicholas Grossman has warned about: “The U.S. won’t cross into authoritarianism all at once, and won’t feature a dramatic seizure of power, like Mussolini’s March on Rome. It’ll happen via democratic backsliding, where a leader who gains power by election abuses it in office—corrupting law enforcement, degrading checks and balances, and ensuring that future elections are not free or fair.”
In such a situation, misinformation will become even more rife than it is at present. A challenge for would-be defenders of democracy will be distinguishing genuine from exaggerated institutional abuses and deterioration. As with global warming, a major problem for which solutions are hindered by both denialism and doomsaying, democratic backsliding will spur hysterical as well as rational reactions. The best solution, though, is prevention: not electing a person who seeks power to avoid a prison sentence.
—Follow Kenneth Silber on X: @kennethsilber
