#WTH Joe Won't Go

Here's why

© AP

Let’s be honest: We love the drama. How many of you have been watching the reactions to Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, reading the innumerable JOE MUST GO editorials and op-eds, and gulping at the firehose-like stream of DEMOCRATS PANIC stories? Yeah, me too. So I’m sorry to tell you, Joe won’t go.

I won’t be the first to tell you — Erick Erickson has a fine piece right here — and I might be making a terrible mistake. It happens. But here we go:

1. He doesn’t want to, and in our political system, when a person has all the delegates necessary to secure his party’s nomination, only he can make the call. Biden likes being president. This is what he feels is the apotheosis of his brilliant career, and he’s not going to let a bunch of scaredy-cat whiners steal his glory. That is his character, and barring severe mental illness, most people’s characters don’t change as they age.

2. Mrs. Dr. Biden doesn’t want him to. Not to be a witch or anything, but, she likes being Mrs. Dr. President. She gets nice clothes, people pay attention to her, she gets free flights, she makes decisions that affect the world in her husband’s name (or so I am told by irritated White House and Congressional staff), and she is the decision maker most important to the President. Absent her encouragement, he’s not dropping out.

3. “Democracy is on the ballot.” No, I don’t think that, and most of the American people don’t either, but it’s what the Bidens and the upper echelons Ds think. And in the Biden-logic that has come to dominate White House West Wing thinking, Joe Biden was the only one who could beat evil Mr. Trump, and therefore he must do so again “to save democracy.” Facts don’t matter here, nor do arguments about the obvious symbiotic relationship between Biden and Trump. This is what Biden believes. (PS Great piece here from my colleague Ruy Texeira on why the democracy-is-on-the-ballot argument is a loser.)

4. It’s actually more complicated than it seems. If Joe goes, who gets the nomination? You’ve all heard that they can’t pass over Kamala Harris, who has no special privileges when it comes to succeeding Biden. I think that’s rubbish with a capital R, but more importantly, it’s not what the identity politics-obsessed Democratic Party honchos think. Ask yourself whether hordes of angry black voters will really march on the White House demanding “we want Kamala,” and you’ll see what I mean about this being an illusion. No one wants Kamala. But this is the trap the Democratic Party has built for itself. (And stop harping on the magical Michelle Obama option. How many times does she need to say no?)

5. Biden-world grifters don’t want to lose the golden goose. Now, I think the Biden crime family meme that the GOP is selling is too much. Yes, Hunter is a crook, and, it seems he may not be the only Biden who has gotten rich off of connections with Joe. Then again, that’s true of almost every single political leader we’ve had in recent years. It’s gross, but it’s not as unusual as the screaming mimis would have you believe. Nonetheless, there are few men in Washington as devoted to their family as Joe Biden, and that goes double for his weird ruminations about what his late son Beau “wants” him to do. In short, the Biden family isn’t going to do the right thing for the man, the party, or the country. As Woody Allen might say, they need the eggs.

6. It’s not clear anyone else will beat Trump. Not Kamala. Not Gavin Newsom. Finding a winner — and remember, Biden has already beaten Trump once — is not as simple as waving a magic wand. Lots of people like Gretchen Whitmer, but what matters is not whether we like her. Can she beat Trump?

There are probably lots of other excellent reasons Grandpa Joe is not going to step aside, but these are the ones that stand out to me. You may argue (as has the New York Times, Tom Friedman, Nick Kristof, James Carville and 9000 others) that Biden is on track to lose, that having a diminished president is nuts, that effectively voting for Kamala is a terrible idea, etcetera. But your arguments (and the New York Times’) aren’t what matters. Biden gets to decide. And right now, my money is on him being on the ballot on November 5.