He is not thinking straight. He has had a pretty successful term (I don't agree w/his objectives but as a Democrat he has done well). He is not Carter leaving amid the humiliating hostage crisis.
If he stays in the race he will have to step down pretty quick after being elected, he won't make it another year and is vulnerable to an Article 25 challenge. Doing all that though might be a legit plan to secure another 4 years for the D's.
But I betcha he is going to leave the race.
For starters Obama doesn't support him staying in. Obama is a polite human being but if he doesn't see the outcome he approves of happening he is going to subtly work in a low-key way to generate more pressure. That's just one reason.
Agree, though, Democrats don't have much going in the way of other candidates.
Great analysis, but my bet is that he will drop out. I think we have an opportunity to see who wields the real power in this government, and I'm betting it's not the current president. I think someone like David Axelrod, or another power player representing the donor class will let him know it's time to go. Very interesting! Place your bets and let's see how this turns out.
Biden’s best way of avoiding further humiliation is to drop out. It isn’t humiliating to say, “I need to retire now, I have health issues.“ What is humiliating is to have to keep failing in public and to be blamed for Trump winning. If Biden loses, his legacy and reputation will be ruined. The thing though is that Biden probably doesn’t care about being humiliated.
> if Biden were going to drop out, he’d have done it by now.
I don’t think this is correct. You can model the situation as pressure mounting on someone to do something and this person having a certain capacity to resist pressure. Biden has shown that he has the capacity to resist the pressure that has been applied so far, but we have not nearly reached the limits of all the pressure that can be applied. Silver lists a bunch of things Democrats could to to further pressure Biden, which they haven’t done yet.
> if Biden bows out now, that’s disastrous for his career
Sure, but you have to consider the expected career disaster from a decision not to bow out, i.e. the weighted average of a very high chance to be remembered by posterity as the man who made another Trump term possible, and a very small chance of reelection with a reasonable chance of resignation due to incapacity before completion of the second term.
Overall, I think you have listed some relevant considerations but the case is not as solid as you make it to be and my credence that Biden will drop out is higher than 15%
Got curious what horrible thing have Newsom done and followed the link.
So apparently he had an affair with the wife of a friend, dated a girl half his age, and ignored his own COVID advice about public gatherings. Which is not a good look, but surely not deserving the title of demon from Hell, unless the standards of the underworld has severely dropped.
Interestingly, after the debate, being on the side of dropping out, I predicted July 21-23 as my idea of when. (Hm, I should check my Manifold bets on which date I chose...)
I would have disagreed with you yesterday morning but since the assassination attempt with trump I'm thinking it's less likely than ever that Biden drops out. It's looking less and less likely that Trump would be beaten by any Biden alternative.
But that's not the whole point, is it? His dropping out is not only the question of who wins in 2024, it's also whether Democratic party retains credibility for _future_ elections.
Because they have a lot to organize if he is going to drop out and you want Trump to make his VP choice based on the current ticket. Why would you give Trump the chance to adjust to you when you can force him to make a decision without the most important information? This is true whether he stays in or gets out because it forces Trump to speculate and take a risk. Biden has the information advantage in that sense.
Like if the entire MAGA convention is about Biden and he drops out after it was a huge was of resources and free media and it will hurt Trump. This could be entirely tactics now rather than grand strategy because like I said in the first comment Obama and his people like Rahm Emanuel are gonna take over behind the scenes when/if the time comes, if it hasn’t already. In fact the Emanuel brothers are among the most vocal calling for Biden to retire immediately.
Love your work, but you get a lot wrong in this post. First of all, the focus on the election as the important event misses the point that it is irrelevant if he can win, or even if he does win, because the real danger is having him serve from 2025 to 2028. I doubt very much your base rate for him serving out his second term is far lower than 85%, which is itself far too low to justify voting for him. To say he has no incentive is to completely ignore the fact that there is ANOTHER DEBATE in September and he will not be able to even talk about what he would do during a second term anymore because the only questions he will be asked will be about his fitness and he has shown the last couple weeks that his instinct is to regurgitate his past accomplishments when challenged and he hasn't talked about anything he will do other than protect us from Trump, which is no longer a compelling argument.
President's do in fact drop out, LBJ did so in May of 1968. He didn't end up living through what would have been his third term.
The choice as you frame it is between Biden and Trump, but you are neglecting to account for people who were going to vote for Biden who now couldn't bring themselves to vote for either so will sit it out. There are no Trump voters at this point weighing this choice because they would have made it years ago.
Biden is going to be humiliated EITHER WAY. That is now a given and I see nobody even making the case that the next 4 months are going to be anything other than a struggle for Biden physically and mentally. The decline is snowballing, not progressing gradually. What if he has one or more Mitch McConnell moments between now and the election? That would take it from humiliating to outright pathetic and sad.
Finally, it makes no sense to drop out before the GOP convention next week. We have no idea what is happening behind the scences. Barack Obama is still more influential in the party than Biden ever was so there are definitely people who could unilaterally intervene if it came to someone overruling Biden.
I can't think of a more frightening and pathetic end to Biden's career than watching him give a concession speech from the White House during which he congratulates the new president and says he has no regrets because he tried his best. That would be the end of not just Biden but the entire Democratic Party as we know it today.
To be clear, I think he should drop out. But I think he has too much pride to do so, and doesn't want to risk guaranteed humiliation when he thinks he can do the job.
Sure, candidates drop out but it's pretty rare. Why would Biden drop out after the GOP convention instead of before?
TBH, I'm not even sure that Biden can't do the job. He does have some mental weaknesses, but I'm increasingly wondering whether that first debate wasn't simply *unusually* bad for him. His recent press conference went decently for an hour, after all, other than one verbal slip-up, which I previously privately criticized Biden for but then realized that I have a close relative who is over 15 years younger than Biden and also occasionally makes such slip-ups but is nevertheless extremely smart.
Wilson's stroke wasn't until 1919, three years after he ran for election to his second term (he would have run for a third term otherwise).
Reagan was eight years younger when running for relection in 1984 than Biden is now, and while there were a few possible tell-tale signs, (including a poor debate performance of all things), it took nearly 10 years for things to clearly go amiss.
I think there is a clear distinction between "resign as President" (which is what Reagan or Wilson would have needed to do) and not run for re-election.
Even later in Reagan's term though, it was ambiguous as to whether he had clearly diminished capabilities. (Wilson should certainly have resigned though).
HAH
He is not thinking straight. He has had a pretty successful term (I don't agree w/his objectives but as a Democrat he has done well). He is not Carter leaving amid the humiliating hostage crisis.
If he stays in the race he will have to step down pretty quick after being elected, he won't make it another year and is vulnerable to an Article 25 challenge. Doing all that though might be a legit plan to secure another 4 years for the D's.
But I betcha he is going to leave the race.
For starters Obama doesn't support him staying in. Obama is a polite human being but if he doesn't see the outcome he approves of happening he is going to subtly work in a low-key way to generate more pressure. That's just one reason.
Agree, though, Democrats don't have much going in the way of other candidates.
Great analysis, but my bet is that he will drop out. I think we have an opportunity to see who wields the real power in this government, and I'm betting it's not the current president. I think someone like David Axelrod, or another power player representing the donor class will let him know it's time to go. Very interesting! Place your bets and let's see how this turns out.
“No shot”
O_O
Wow, Nostradamus!
I came for this comment
Biden’s best way of avoiding further humiliation is to drop out. It isn’t humiliating to say, “I need to retire now, I have health issues.“ What is humiliating is to have to keep failing in public and to be blamed for Trump winning. If Biden loses, his legacy and reputation will be ruined. The thing though is that Biden probably doesn’t care about being humiliated.
> if Biden were going to drop out, he’d have done it by now.
I don’t think this is correct. You can model the situation as pressure mounting on someone to do something and this person having a certain capacity to resist pressure. Biden has shown that he has the capacity to resist the pressure that has been applied so far, but we have not nearly reached the limits of all the pressure that can be applied. Silver lists a bunch of things Democrats could to to further pressure Biden, which they haven’t done yet.
> if Biden bows out now, that’s disastrous for his career
Sure, but you have to consider the expected career disaster from a decision not to bow out, i.e. the weighted average of a very high chance to be remembered by posterity as the man who made another Trump term possible, and a very small chance of reelection with a reasonable chance of resignation due to incapacity before completion of the second term.
Overall, I think you have listed some relevant considerations but the case is not as solid as you make it to be and my credence that Biden will drop out is higher than 15%
Got curious what horrible thing have Newsom done and followed the link.
So apparently he had an affair with the wife of a friend, dated a girl half his age, and ignored his own COVID advice about public gatherings. Which is not a good look, but surely not deserving the title of demon from Hell, unless the standards of the underworld has severely dropped.
You doubt he's from hell? He literally comes from California!
Guess you lost your bet.
Yep
Interestingly, after the debate, being on the side of dropping out, I predicted July 21-23 as my idea of when. (Hm, I should check my Manifold bets on which date I chose...)
I would have disagreed with you yesterday morning but since the assassination attempt with trump I'm thinking it's less likely than ever that Biden drops out. It's looking less and less likely that Trump would be beaten by any Biden alternative.
But that's not the whole point, is it? His dropping out is not only the question of who wins in 2024, it's also whether Democratic party retains credibility for _future_ elections.
Because they have a lot to organize if he is going to drop out and you want Trump to make his VP choice based on the current ticket. Why would you give Trump the chance to adjust to you when you can force him to make a decision without the most important information? This is true whether he stays in or gets out because it forces Trump to speculate and take a risk. Biden has the information advantage in that sense.
Like if the entire MAGA convention is about Biden and he drops out after it was a huge was of resources and free media and it will hurt Trump. This could be entirely tactics now rather than grand strategy because like I said in the first comment Obama and his people like Rahm Emanuel are gonna take over behind the scenes when/if the time comes, if it hasn’t already. In fact the Emanuel brothers are among the most vocal calling for Biden to retire immediately.
Willing to bet more money?
No, sorry.
the principal agent problem strikes again
Love your work, but you get a lot wrong in this post. First of all, the focus on the election as the important event misses the point that it is irrelevant if he can win, or even if he does win, because the real danger is having him serve from 2025 to 2028. I doubt very much your base rate for him serving out his second term is far lower than 85%, which is itself far too low to justify voting for him. To say he has no incentive is to completely ignore the fact that there is ANOTHER DEBATE in September and he will not be able to even talk about what he would do during a second term anymore because the only questions he will be asked will be about his fitness and he has shown the last couple weeks that his instinct is to regurgitate his past accomplishments when challenged and he hasn't talked about anything he will do other than protect us from Trump, which is no longer a compelling argument.
President's do in fact drop out, LBJ did so in May of 1968. He didn't end up living through what would have been his third term.
The choice as you frame it is between Biden and Trump, but you are neglecting to account for people who were going to vote for Biden who now couldn't bring themselves to vote for either so will sit it out. There are no Trump voters at this point weighing this choice because they would have made it years ago.
Biden is going to be humiliated EITHER WAY. That is now a given and I see nobody even making the case that the next 4 months are going to be anything other than a struggle for Biden physically and mentally. The decline is snowballing, not progressing gradually. What if he has one or more Mitch McConnell moments between now and the election? That would take it from humiliating to outright pathetic and sad.
Finally, it makes no sense to drop out before the GOP convention next week. We have no idea what is happening behind the scences. Barack Obama is still more influential in the party than Biden ever was so there are definitely people who could unilaterally intervene if it came to someone overruling Biden.
I can't think of a more frightening and pathetic end to Biden's career than watching him give a concession speech from the White House during which he congratulates the new president and says he has no regrets because he tried his best. That would be the end of not just Biden but the entire Democratic Party as we know it today.
To be clear, I think he should drop out. But I think he has too much pride to do so, and doesn't want to risk guaranteed humiliation when he thinks he can do the job.
Sure, candidates drop out but it's pretty rare. Why would Biden drop out after the GOP convention instead of before?
TBH, I'm not even sure that Biden can't do the job. He does have some mental weaknesses, but I'm increasingly wondering whether that first debate wasn't simply *unusually* bad for him. His recent press conference went decently for an hour, after all, other than one verbal slip-up, which I previously privately criticized Biden for but then realized that I have a close relative who is over 15 years younger than Biden and also occasionally makes such slip-ups but is nevertheless extremely smart.
"He didn't end up living through what would have been his third term."
He did, actually. By just two days.
Wilson's stroke wasn't until 1919, three years after he ran for election to his second term (he would have run for a third term otherwise).
Reagan was eight years younger when running for relection in 1984 than Biden is now, and while there were a few possible tell-tale signs, (including a poor debate performance of all things), it took nearly 10 years for things to clearly go amiss.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-alzheimers-disease/
I was suggesting that Reagan not dropping out in alter years, say 1986 or 7 shows presidents' reluctance to drop out. Same thing with Wilson.
I think there is a clear distinction between "resign as President" (which is what Reagan or Wilson would have needed to do) and not run for re-election.
Even later in Reagan's term though, it was ambiguous as to whether he had clearly diminished capabilities. (Wilson should certainly have resigned though).
Yeah, Reagan was in much better shape in 1984 than Biden is now. And I believe way ahead in the polls.
Did you bet?
Yep