Presidential Election of 2024

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      This Isn’t All Joe Biden’s Fault

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      What Is the Democratic Party For?Top Democrats have closed ranks around Joe Biden since the debate. Should they?On Thursday night, after the first presidential debate, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner interviewed Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. “You were out there getting a chorus of questions about whether Biden should step down,” she said. “There is a panic that has set in.”Newsom’s reply was dismissive. “We gotta have the back of this president,” he said. “You don’t turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”Perhaps a party that wants to win? Or a party that wants to nominate a candidate that the American people believe is up to the job? Maybe the better question is: What kind of party would do nothing right now?In February, I argued that President Biden should step aside in the 2024 election and Democrats should do what political parties did in presidential elections until the 1970s: choose a ticket at their convention. In public, the backlash I got from top Democrats was fierce. I was a bed-wetter living in an Aaron Sorkin fantasyland.In private, the feedback was more thoughtful and frightened. No one tried to convince me that Biden was a strong candidate. They argued instead that he couldn’t be persuaded to step aside, that even if he could, Vice President Kamala Harris would lose the election and that if a convention didn’t choose Harris, passing her over would fracture the party. They argued not that Biden was strong but that the Democratic Party was weak.I think Democrats should give themselves a little bit more credit. Biden’s presidency is proof of the Democratic Party’s ability to act strategically. He didn’t win the Democratic nomination in 2020 because he set the hearts of party activists aflame. Support for him always lacked the passion of support for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or even Andrew Yang. Biden won because the party made a cold decision to unite around the candidate it thought was best suited to beating Donald Trump. Biden won because Democrats did what they had to do, not what they wanted to do.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Trump’s Post-Debate Rally, Unease Among the Faithful

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      The day after President Biden melted down in Thursday’s prime-time debate, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia stood beside former President Donald J. Trump on a farm in Chesapeake, gushing.“This is the best Trump rally ever!”In the past, when it suited him, Mr. Youngkin kept his distance from Mr. Trump and his unpredictable behavior.Not now. Not with all this winning afoot.“Hello, Virginia,” Mr. Trump cooed as he took the stage before thousands of his supporters in what Republicans increasingly see as a winnable state. “Did anybody watch a thing called the debate?” He roared: “That was a big one.”On the surface, the rally in Chesapeake was a quick-turn victory lap after the debate and before the 2024 race hits a higher gear.“Democrats are in a lot of trouble, so I feel pretty good today,” said Jason Alter, 35, a dentist from Miami.But beneath the jubilation, there was a low-grade panic stirring. It was the kind of panic that one sometimes feels when everything in life seems to be going … a little too well.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Forget Defeating Trump. Biden Needs to Spare the Country Four More Years of Himself.

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      Now that the first general-election debate of 2024 has removed any doubt about the necessity of removing President Biden from the Democratic ticket, you will hear a lot of serious liberals make the case for Biden’s removal primarily as a means to defeat Donald Trump. Biden must step aside, the argument will go, because he’s going to lose the election and only a different Democrat can save the country from Trumpian misrule.This is a necessary argument for its intended audiences: Americans who fear Trump above all else and a Democratic Party motivated by partisan self-interest. It is emphatically the case that sticking with Biden now gives Trump his best chance at an easy victory — a better chance even than nominating Kamala Harris, who might be a terrible candidate but would still be better than her boss at this point. It is definitely true that if you believe America needs to be saved from Trumpism 2.0, continuing with Biden is a grave dereliction.But it’s also important, especially for those of us who are not Democratic partisans, to emphasize that declining to nominate Biden is essential not just if you hope to avert a second Trump term. It’s essential if you want to protect the country from a second Biden term — from the ways that his obvious deterioration endangers the country that he nominally leads.That is to say, if a genie or fairy godmother appeared to Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Jill Biden and granted them the foreknowledge that Biden would somehow eke out a victory over Trump, the prospect of Biden being president for four more years should be enough to compel some kind of serious action now.Here, the frequent analogy to a figure like Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn’t go quite far enough. Ginsburg’s staying too long in office was a sin against her own liberal principles, which suffered a great setback when a Republican president appointed her replacement. But the decline of a Supreme Court justice is more manageable and less perilous, for the court and for the country, than the decline of a U.S. president.Yes, presidential aides and cabinet members can manage some aspects of the job for a fading chief executive. But they aren’t law clerks drafting opinions on a leisurely timeline. Their boss sits at the heart of a global network of alliances; commands the world’s most powerful military, which includes a vast nuclear deterrent; and is charged with maintaining a Pax Americana that’s currently under threat from an alliance of revisionist powers. The entire global order will be endangered if there is an empty vessel in the Oval Office, a headless superpower in a destabilizing world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With Macron and Biden Vulnerable, So Is Europe

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      The U.S. presidential debate and Sunday’s snap election in France have emboldened nationalist forces that could challenge NATO and undo the defense of Ukraine.This month, President Biden, flanked by President Emmanuel Macron of France, stood on the Normandy bluffs to commemorate the young men who clambered ashore 80 years ago into a hail of Nazi gunfire because “they knew beyond any doubt there are things worth fighting and dying for.”Among those things, Mr. Biden said, were freedom, democracy, America and the world, “then, now and always.” It was a moving moment as Mr. Macron spoke of the “bond of blood” between France and America, but just a few weeks later, the ability of either leader to hold the line in defense of their values appears more fragile.The United States and France — pillars of the NATO alliance, of the defense of Ukraine’s freedom against Russia and of the postwar construction of a united Europe — face nationalist forces that could undo those international commitments and pitch the world into uncharted territory.A wobbly, wavering debate performance by Mr. Biden, in which he struggled to counter the dishonest bluster of former President Donald J. Trump, has spread panic among Democrats and raised doubts about whether he should even be on the ticket for the Nov. 5 election.Uncertainty is at a new high in the United States, as well as in a shaken, startled France.The country votes on Sunday in the first round of parliamentary elections called by Mr. Macron to the widespread astonishment of his compatriots. He had no obligation to do so at a time when the far-right National Rally, triumphant in recent European Parliament elections, seems likely to repeat that performance and so perhaps attain the once unthinkable: control of the French prime minister’s office and with it, cabinet seats.Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of the National Rally in Marseille in March. Mr. Bardella is likely to become prime minister if National Rally wins the election. Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden? Trump? The Politics of Talking About It at the Office.

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      Some companies have banned political discussions at work, but that might be easier said than done.Offices across the nation — and Slack channels, the modern water cooler — were abuzz Friday morning with voluble opinions about the presidential debate from the night before. How bad was Biden’s performance? Should Biden step aside? Who should replace him? Can that even happen? Are voters more focused on performance than substance? How many times did Trump lie? Did Biden lie, too?For most chief executives, presidential elections are a nightmare — they create division inside teams, take up valuable time and can turn into a big distraction.Kim Scott, a former Google executive and the author of “Radical Candor,” described the sentiment of human resources executives who were at a recent gathering: “They are dreading this election because it’s going to kill productivity for months.”So what’s the solution? The C-suite may want to just hit the off button. But that may be easier said than done.Around the time of the 2020 election, a couple of small companies, Coinbase and Basecamp, made big news when they introduced policies that banned political conversations at work, prompting dozens of employees resign. But much bigger firms have since introduced similar policies without inciting the same mass departure or public backlash.In 2022, Meta asked employees not to discuss the Supreme Court ruling on the constitutional right to abortion, and shortly after that added other topics, including elections. Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, followed protests by employees over the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government with an announcement that noted, “This is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts co-workers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Is This Seriously the Best We Have?’: Readers Discuss the Debate

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      Did Thursday’s debate change voters’ minds about who should be president? Did it sway the undecided? Times Opinion asked our columnists and contributors to weigh in on who won and lost Thursday night, and we’ve asked our readers to do the same.“If the purpose was to talk policy and answer the moderators’ questions, Biden won. If the goal was to show vigor, energy and the ability to finish the term, then Trump won,” wrote Travis Brodbeck, a reader in Scotia, N.Y. “But America lost in this debate.”While many conceded that Donald Trump came out on top and thought it was time for President Biden to bow out, some said there was no real winner and questioned how we wound up with the choices before us in this election.“Is this seriously the best we have? A convicted felon and an old guy who has a bad cold and looks exhausted?” asked Danielle Aiko Werts of Socorro, N.M. “Who let this go forward? They should have postponed this mess.”More analysis from our readers follows. Their comments have been edited for length and clarity.Who won and whyMike Fietz, Charlottesville, Va.: Trump won the debate. Not on the merits, since everything he says is a nonsensical lie, but by TKO while his opponent was tangled in the ropes. There is a very small chance that America won this debate if Democrats band together in its wake and get Joe Biden off the ticket. I’m not sure how likely that is to happen, but it’s the only way that anything good comes out of this depressing night.Leland Burke, Tiverton, R.I.: Trump won. Mostly because Biden lost. This is a sad and frightening day for our future. There is no do over, Joe. Walk away with dignity, while you still can. Do the right thing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats: Stop Panicking

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      As a former Republican who spent decades pointing out flaws in the Democratic Party, I watch the current Democratic panic over President Biden’s debate performance with a mix of bafflement and nostalgia.It’s baffling that so many Democrats are failing to rally around a wildly successful president after one bad night. But it does remind me of why Republicans defeated Democrats in so many races Republicans should have lost.Donald Trump has won one presidential election. He did so with about 46 percent of the popular vote. (Mitt Romney lost with about 47 percent.) The Republican Party lost its mind and decided that this one victory negated everything we know about politics. But it didn’t.One debate does not change the structure of this presidential campaign. For all the talk of Mr. Biden’s off night, what is lost is that Mr. Trump missed a great opportunity to reset his candidacy and greatly strengthen his position.Mr. Trump lost the popular vote by a margin of seven million and needs new customers. He could have laid out a positive economic plan to appeal to middle-class voters feeling economic pressure. Instead, he celebrated his tax cuts for billionaires.He could have reassured voters who are horrified, in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise, by the stories of young girls who become pregnant by rape and then must endure extremist politicians eager to criminalize what was a constitutional right for two generations. But Mr. Trump bizarrely asserted that a majority pro-abortion-rights country hated Roe v. Wade and celebrated his role in replacing individual choice with the heavy hand of government.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Ghastly vs. the Ghostly

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      He’s being selfish. He’s putting himself ahead of the country. He’s surrounded by opportunistic enablers. He has created a reality distortion field where we’re told not to believe what we’ve plainly seen. His hubris is infuriating. He says he’s doing this for us, but he’s really doing it for himself.I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about the other president.In Washington, people often become what they start out scorning. This has happened to Joe Biden. In his misguided quest for a second term that would end when he’s 86, he has succumbed to behavior redolent of Trump. And he is jeopardizing the democracy he says he wants to save.I got to know Biden in 1987 when he was running for president. He was hailed then as a leading orator of the Democratic Party, even though he could be windy. I knocked him out of that race when I wrote about how he cloaked himself in the life of Neil Kinnock, the British Labour leader who was a soaring speaker, and how he gave speeches that borrowed, probably unwittingly, from Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.I ran into Biden in a Senate stairwell on his way to make a speech dropping out. He was alone, studying his script. We looked at each other in silence — struck by the weight of the moment — then went our separate ways to the same news conference.Biden was a buoyant soul who had been told he should be president since he was elected to the Senate at 29. And he wasn’t going to let the plagiarism scandal, or his pursuant health problems, stop him. He had two aneurysms in 1988 and later said his doctors told him he wouldn’t be alive if his campaign had continued, and he kidded me that I’d saved his life. He also did not let the other tragedies that scarred his life drag him down.I marveled at the fact that Biden forgave me. He told me that it was better that we stay on good terms. He did not get mad, even when I joked that his new hair plugs looked like a field of okra during the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings. He called to chastise me, with good humor, but I hid under my desk, afraid to take the call.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More