Democrats Dumping Biden Would Be a Gift to Trump

I wish the intelligentsia would stop clamoring for President Biden to stand aside or have Democrats shove him aside.

In this case, the offender is journalist A.B. Stoddard who wrote an article in The Bulwark suggesting Democrats dump President Biden and Vice-President Harris in favor of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock:

In a recent Marist poll, Trump is up 8 points over Biden with independent voters. In a recent Fox News poll, 76 percent of independents are dissatisfied with the direction of the country and 56 percent of them said Biden has made the economy worse. Biden’s approval overall on the economy is at 37 percent in the Fox poll. In the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, that number was 36 percent.

Stoddard claims the thought of Biden defeating Trump again "is a hope, not a plan." Yet one could make the same argument of nominating Whitmer and Warnock:

Whitmer, 52, is one of the most experienced, exciting, and winning Democrats in the country. She is as tough a candidate, and leader, as the Democrats can find, and she was vetted as a potential VP pick in 2020. Warnock, who has won pluralities or majorities in five elections in three years, is the cerebral 54-year-old senior pastor at Martin Luther King Jr.’s church. He grew up in public housing, went through a messy divorce—no longer disqualifying in the age of Trump—has small children, and was the top small donor fundraiser from either party in 2022. The dramatic stakes of his election gave him national name recognition: Less than 10 percent of Warnock’s individual donations came from within his state.

Young. Dynamic. Diverse. Competent and experienced. Broadly appealing. Can mobilize core voters. Would deliver two battleground states. Those are seven big boxes already checked. 

There are other benefits: Such a ticket would take away the core self-justification of the No Labels project, would seriously dent West’s vanity run, and would circumvent the ever-expanding Hunter Biden issue. 

So, let's see if I get this straight. Voters have more of an issue with President Biden's son than they do with Trump's 91 indictments (and counting)? What kind of message would it send if Democrats were to dump the law-abiding Biden while Republicans stick with Trump even if he were to go to prison?

Dumping Biden would be a gift to Trump that would keep on giving and giving. Trump would make sure we would never hear the end of it claiming he had been vindicated. His apologists would claim that it was proof that Trump is a moral person while Biden is an immoral person. 

Now, I like Whitmer and Warnock. Indeed, I voted for Warnock when I lived in Georgia despite some reservations. But where is the polling data which would suggest that Whitmer and Warnock would fare better against Trump and whoever he chooses as his running mate than Biden and Harris? Choosing them or any other Democrat is hardly any guarantee they'll defeat Trump. 

And if Democrats did go along with such a scheme is there any guarantee that Michigan voters would elect another Democratic Governor or Georgia voters would keep the Senate in Democratic hands?

Of course, I don't underestimate Trump nor the possibility we could see fit to return him to the White House even if he is serving time in the Big House. But if that comes to pass then it says more about us than it does about President Biden who Stoddard grudgingly admits is doing a good job. 

Unfortunately, doing a good job isn't good enough anymore. At least not for Stoddard. She complains about inflation and Biden's age. Last month the inflation rate was 3.2%. When Ronald Reagan carried 49 out of 50 states in 1984, the inflation rate was 4.3%. 

This was the same election in which Reagan famously said he would not hold Walter Mondale's youth and inexperience against him. If we are so concerned about the age of the President of the United States, then let's pass a constitutional amendment stating that no one above the age of 75 can serve in the Oval Office. But the polling suggests while people are concerned about Biden's age, they show no such concern for Trump even though he is only three years younger. 

If we don't know what Trump is and what he is prepared to do by now up to and including locking up those who hold views contrary to his own while discarding President Biden's achievements, then it will show that we are determined to learn the hard way or not at all. Either way we will get what is coming to us and it will be too late to do anything about it.