A rapidly growing chorus of Democratic lawmakers is calling for President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid, even as the president insists he’s ready to return to the campaign trail to counter what he calls a “dark vision” laid out by Republican Donald Trump.
As someone that’s mostly been an outsider, this playing out has given me more faith in the Democratic Party than I’ve ever had. For as long as I can remember, they’ve been the feckless, controlled opposition party that might occasionally throw some rights and economic opportunity my way by accident. When they lose a presidential election, it’s always “aw, shucks, we’ll get 'em next time.”
This isn’t that. This is the party publicly airing no confidence in their president in July in an election year. This is an emergency and they’ve broken the glass because there’s a real threat to the country.
The glass can’t be unbroken at this point. If somehow Biden still became the nominee, all Trump’s campaign has to do is point out how his party doesn’t even believe he should be president again. The senior party officials knew that going in, and it’s why they must continue to mount private, public, and donor pressure on Biden until he gives it up.