President Biden's high-stakes press conference at this week's NATO summit was a triumph—for his challenger, former president Trump.
Why? Because Biden's performance did nothing to resolve the Democratic Party's dilemma over his status as its 2024 presidential candidate. The press conference supplied Biden's internal critics with ammunition against his candidacy, such as when he misidentified Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." But Biden's answers on foreign-policy questions were also strong enough to reassure, at least for the moment, his allies within the party. The result is that Biden lives to fight another day as the Democrats' presumptive nominee.
Which is exactly what Trump wants. Since Biden's terrible debate performance on June 27, the former president has basked in the best of both worlds: Biden has struggled to put down the revolt within his party, while sinking in popularity and trailing Trump in national polling averages as well as in swing states.
Prolonging the agony, with liberal media and Hollywood celebrities as well as Democratic congressmen calling for Biden's withdrawal from the ticket or abdication from office, as the president engages in a high-stakes campaign to show he is up to the job, only helps Trump's situation. Democratic divisions will remain in public view. The media's attention will be on the incumbent. And Biden is liable to commit another gaffe, misstep, or brain freeze at any moment.
It's hard to see any way out for the Democrats. Stick with Biden, and he is likely to go down in defeat to Donald Trump, perhaps in an Electoral College landslide. Move against him, and then… Well, what? Expect Biden to remain silent as Vice President Harris becomes the nominee? Assume the Democratic Party, already divided by Israel and leery of Biden's age and Harris's unpopularity, will accept the change peaceably and without protest? Organize a "blitz primary" in the space of a month that will find a dream ticket capable of defeating Trump?
How will Biden's supporters, the men and women and two-spirits who voted for him in the primary, react when the Axis of Arrogance, Barack Obama, George Clooney, and Nancy Pelosi, throw him overboard? Will Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar be fine with an untested Democratic nominee who hasn't committed to the "unity platform" Biden endorsed four years ago? Will swing voters rally behind Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro or J.B. Pritzker?
There's no guarantee. Far from it: The Democrats must choose between going to November with an unpopular incumbent the public believes is too old for the job, or an unknown and untested candidate who will no doubt have her or his own scandals, challenges, and liabilities.
The party is responsible for this mess. Its officials, donors, and spokesmen waited to move against Biden until after his decline was impossible to ignore. The Biden inner circle, from key aides to family members, have hid his condition from the public and fed his illusion that he is ahead of or neck and neck with Trump. And Biden assumed he could outwit time. At one point during his press conference Thursday, Biden said that one function of age is that it makes you wiser. Maybe for some people. Not for him.
Biden's fundamental problem is that we age in one direction alone. He's no Benjamin Button, and by the time you read these words, Brad Pitt may have called on him to withdraw from the race, as well. The days pass arithmetically, while Biden's condition seems to have worsened geometrically, from March to June and now July. Sure, he has good days, good moments. That's the issue. We shouldn't have to count on Biden having a good day or good moment. And America's enemies will act as soon as they believe he's absent or weak.
In Star Trek they talk about the Kobayashi Maru, the no-win scenario. The ship is under attack, defeat is certain, and there are no good options. How does the captain respond? Look at what Biden has done: He's denied reality. He's refused to change course. He won't give up the bridge. And this ship is going down.