Political analysts and the media are in a feeding frenzy over President Biden’s candidacy for reelection and the prospects of an alternate nominee at the forthcoming Democratic National Convention. I want to offer some historical perspectives and put the relevant questions in a logical order.
The most important issue for voters is whether Biden is preferable to Trump. The most important immediate question for Democrats is whether Biden is more likely than some other person to defeat Trump. The media are raising the legitimate question of whether Biden is physically and mentally capable of serving another term. (They have paid little attention to whether Trump is capable because they can’t get detailed and authoritative information on that topic from the Trump campaign.)
The most dramatic data point on Biden is his dismal performance in the June 27 debate. His strategy seemed to be to use facts about accomplishments during his presidency as rebuttals to Trump’s incorrect or wildly exaggerated claims (“worst in history” etc.). But he stumbled in remembering and explaining some of his points and had no overarching arguments on Trump’s lies. “Malarkey” isn’t enough.
On the other hand, of course, Biden has been energetic and knowledgeable in other public fora, and many U.S. and foreign officials who regularly meet with him have attested to his acuity. The broader proof is in his leadership in policy meetings and his successes in persuading foreign leaders to support American policies. Running an effective team should count as some proof of his capabilities.
People in their 50s can forget where they put the keys. People in their 60s can start announcing a list and forget the last item. People in their 70s, especially in acronym-dominated DC, can confuse one agency with another. And people in their 80s can be hoarse with a cold and tired after a long day. Politicians of any age can garble their words under the pressure of live television cameras. I haven’t seen any credible reports of abnormal mental decline by Biden, and his physical ailments have been acknowledged by his doctors.
Can he serve a full second term? The actuarial tables say yes, but who knows? Earlier presidents, like Ronald Reagan, took daily naps and limited their formal hours on the job. President Trump used to claim “Executive Time” when in fact he was just watching television. Eisenhower had a serious heart attack but served five more years competently.
We’ve come a long way from 1944, when a sick president concealed his illnesses and conducted important international diplomacy only to die a few months later. During the war Franklin Roosevelt visited the Bethesda naval hospital at least 29 times under false names and the records later vanished. Only in the 1970s did we learn the truth:
Just the year before [ his death in1945], unknown to the electorate looking ahead to the 1944 elections, Roosevelt had been forced to absent himself from the White House for weeks at a time, to reduce his workload drastically, even take to bed, because of ill health. Suffering from extremely high blood pressure which resisted treatment, from congestive heart failure and concomitant hypertensive heart disease, Roosevelt was an alarmingly ill man even then, more than a year before his final visit to Warm Springs, Georgia, in April 1945.
Despite expressions of concerns from various people who saw FDR in 1944.
…doubters were continually assured by Admiral Ross McIntire, the President's medical adviser, that his patient was 'in better physical condition than the average man of his age', that his health was 'good, very good', that he was in 'splendid shape' .
Despite his condition, which he may not have appreciated or been willing to believe, Franklin Roosevelt ran for a fourth term and won. We don’t know whether the outcome would have been different if voters knew the truth. Would America have been better off if he had stepped down?
Winston Churchill had an apparent heart attack during his White House visit right after Pearl Harbor, and numerous other ailments during the war.
[In early 1943] Churchill flew from London to North Africa to meet Roosevelt and their military advisers. In mid-December 1943 at Tunis, he developed a fever. Wilson, now Lord Moran, suspecting trouble, sent for nurses, a pathologist and x-ray equipment. Pneumonia was diagnosed and treatment was promptly started. One of the sulfa drugs (May and Baker or “M&B”) was administered. It took a little more than a week for the inflammation of his lungs to begin subsiding. However, there were several episodes of cardiac fibrillation, which sometimes accompanies pneumonia. To combat this and strengthen the heart action, Moran briefly administered digitalis. This illness seriously debilitated Churchill.
After the war, Churchill had more problems.
Systematic cover-ups followed after this first in a series of strokes which ultimately ended Churchill’s life. Despite apparent recovery, Churchill’s blood vessels had become “old” and later strokes progressed to the severely debilitating syndrome known as multi-infarct “vascular” dementia.
In early 1950, just five months later, Churchill had a sensation of hazy vision and experienced difficulty reading: a transient episode, but consistent with poor circulation in the blood vessels that reach the posterior brain. Churchill later complained of stiffness in his shoulders and neck, which suggests a partial or total occlusion of these vessels. If there is truth to the old canard that a man is “as old as his arteries,” then Winston Churchill was an “old man” as he began to write his wartime memoirs.
Victory in the General Election of 26 October 1951 meant no respite for Churchill, who was again Prime Minister with an apparent new lease on life. Yet on 21 February 1952, he told Moran he was having difficulty remembering words he wanted to express. This aphasia was transitory but is evidence of a more generalized insufficiency of the blood supplying a large area of the lateral portion of the left brain. These episodes were not true strokes but transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) where the circulation is briefly reduced and then returns.
Should he have resigned as prime minister, or dropped out of politics altogether? Ailing men can still be effective leaders.
In recent years, presidential campaigns have been forced to make some disclosures of candidates’ medical conditions, never as complete as we might wish but far more than in earlier decades. We know much more about their physical health than their mental and emotional health.
Cognitive decline is to be expected, but it’s hard to assess when it becomes disabling. That’s what we should be asking of both candidates, and we need far more evidence than 20 question tests.
Democrats also have to weigh the alternatives to Biden if he or they want to change course. They had open, contentious conventions in 1952, and the winner lost to the GOP candidate. They did again in 1968, and the winner lost in November. Ted Kennedy mounted a strong challenge to Jimmy Carter in 1980, weakening the president against Ronald Reagan. Democrats like to brawl, and the prospect of a six week fight for a substitute would likely weaken all of the contenders, as they try desperately to prove themselves and diminish the others. So if beating Trump is the higher goal, they stand a better chance with Biden.
Dan Drezner has an interesting idea. If Biden is willing to step down, he writes, he should resign from the presidency, immediately elevating Vice President Harris, and thus giving her standing as a president.
Biden resigning this summer would generate three political advantages. First, Kamala Harris being sworn in as the first lady president would be, to quote Biden, a big fucking deal. It would be a suitable final act in Biden’s distinguished political biography. Second, it would make the November election a choice between former president Trump and President Harris. The move would put Harris at Trump’s level and eliminate experience as a Trump argument during the campaign. Finally, Harris being president would remove the inherent awkwardness that sitting vice presidents have faced when running for the top job: being unable to disagree or disavow the sitting president’s policies. Anything that makes it easier for Kamala Harris to not resemble Al Gore is a good thing.
Biden’s debate performance may lead enough voters to lose confidence in him that he loses in November. He may lose anyway. But an open convention would surely make it harder for a new Democratic candidate to prevail over Trump. And if defeating Trump is their highest priority, Democrats should stick with Biden. There’s still a chance — and four months — that Trump’s flaws and dangers will be understood.