On Friday, New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein published an audio essay in which he praises the accomplishments of President Joe Biden while simultaneously arguing that he should end his 2024 reelection campaign. You can listen to (or read) the full piece here, but the gist of Klein’s argument is that, no matter how much one might like Joe Biden, he consistently polls behind former President (and likely Republican nominee) Donald Trump both nationally and in key swing states, presumably because many voters think that, at 81, he is too old to competently execute his duties. Considering that Trump, who still refuses to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, represents a unique and dire threat to American democracy, Klein endorses a process by which Biden would be persuaded by other high ranking Democrats to suspend his campaign, thereby freeing up the delegates he has already won in the primary and allowing the party to select a new nominee at their upcoming convention. 

Concerns regarding Biden’s age and his ability to win reelection against Trump – ostensibly separate issues, but ones that are understandably intertwined – have only intensified in the wake of special counsel Robert Hur’s report recommending that the Department of Justice not prosecute Biden for mishandling classified materials. In the report, Hur claims that Biden could not remember when he was vice president or when his son Beau died, and that a jury would likely conclude that he is a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden refuted Hur’s characterizations in a press conference shortly after the report was released, but only threw more fuel onto the fire when, while answering a question about the war in Gaza, he mistakenly referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the President of Mexico. It was, perhaps, the worst day for Biden’s 2024 campaign thus far, and one that spawned many takes similar to Klein’s. 

Whether one agrees with Klein’s assessment or not, he at least deserves credit for discussing the issue in a thoughtful and measured way – at least much more so than FiveThirtyEight mastermind turned professional poster Nate Silver, who accused Democrats of not taking the threat of Trump seriously in a recent tweet, claiming that the party is “going through the motions to renominate an 81-year-old with a 38% approval rating who 75% of voters think is too old without giving anyone a choice because that’s just how things are done.” But regardless of the tenor with which one argues that Democrats should find an alternative to Biden, I remain unconvinced that it’s a realistic or even desirable option. 

Rather than write an irritable tweet about it like Silver, I decided to take Klein’s approach and voice my skepticism in what I hope is also a measured and thoughtful column that lays out not only why I think it’s unlikely the president drops out of the 2024 race, but also why I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea. I’m not writing this to endorse Biden, per se. Rather, I’m writing it to try and steer the conversation away from fantasy and back to reality – something we’ve attempted to do repeatedly regarding Biden’s reelection. This is because, for as reckless as it may feel to run an 81-year old for president, I’d argue it’s just as reckless to bandy about borderline impossible solutions bandied about by columnists and commentators who should probably know better.

Klein’s Invitation to Chaos

Let’s focus first on the process by which Biden would supposedly be replaced. According to Klein, the first step is to convince Biden not to run again, a task that he assigns to the some of the president’s past and former advisors (Ron Klain, Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn), congressional allies (Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), as well as his old boss (former President Barack Obama). Klein correctly identifies this as the most difficult part of the process, citing Biden’s desire to finish the job he started and the fact that “[r]etirement can be, often is, a trauma.” But what I think Klein underestimates is that there is for this to play out cleanly or gracefully. 

The Biden White House may not be the media’s best friend, but if stories about infighting among the president’s border team can find their way to the press, surely his own friends and advisors telling him that he is too old to win reelection would as well. And if it comes out that the people closest to Biden are worried about his ability to run for president, then the people not so close to Biden will be able to use this doubt to sow new ones about whether or not he’s even capable of being president, raising a myriad of uncomfortable questions that would have to be answered by both Biden himself or whichever Democrat would be nominated in his stead, making Biden look like a lame duck for the last 11 months of his term. In other words, calls for Biden to forego a second run at the White House would soon be joined by calls for him to resign entirely, and undercut his efforts to work with and around a historically obstinate, Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Klein takes a similarly naive approach to the next step in his Biden replacement process, which is an open convention at which Democrats will select their presidential nominee, made necessary because any would-be Biden replacements would not have time to officially enter state primary elections. In Klein’s view, an open 2024 Democratic National Convention would allow the “murder’s row of political talent” within the party – Vice President Kamala Harris, Michigan Governor Gretcher Whitmer, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, to name a few – to shine via impassioned campaign speeches, creating “the most exciting political show on earth” and providing viewers with a stark contrast between “the who’s who of MAGA types slavering” over Trump and “the best of the Democratic Party.” Sure, the last truly contested Democratic convention led to riots in the streets and the election of Richard Nixon, but not to worry, says Klein – for some reason, this time it will be different.

I’ll concede that, yes, it is entirely possible that an open Democratic convention could act as a showcase for some of the party’s leading lights and end with the coronation of the next great American leader. But I don’t think that’s a particularly likely outcome, primarily because, by Klein’s own admission, one of Biden’s most impressive feats has been keeping the traditionally factional Democratic Party in line. It may seem like common sense for a member of the president’s party to voice their unconditional support for the chief executive, but in an era where the demands of the Freedom Caucus plunge the Republican Party into weekly crises, it’s remarkable that a self-identified democratic socialist like New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would refer to the famously centrist Biden as “one of the most successful presidents in modern history,” or that a finicky “independent” like Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema would vote with the president’s position on 94% of legislation. For perhaps the first time in my life, the Dems are, somehow, in array. 

That unity, however, would be put to the test, and likely ruptured, at an open convention. We know what Biden’s Democratic Party is: a big tent of moderates, liberals, progressives, and – yes – even some socialists; they are united in their belief in social liberalism and the idea that the government has a role to play in the betterment of people’s lives. But a vacuum at the top of the ticket would reintroduce the question of what the party should be, and Democrats who believe that it has been dragged too far to either the right or the left would use the convention as a platform to voice their grievances and try to seize control. Old arguments about Medicare for All and student debt relief which have gone dormant during the Biden Administration would once again erupt, to say nothing of thornier issues like criminal justice reform and immigration, both of which Biden has pivoted to the right on since 2020. 

Perhaps the biggest fight would be over the war in Gaza. For all of the unrest on college campuses and in city council meetings and the objections of a few administration staffers, Biden has somehow managed to reduce backlash to his broadly pro-Israel position among prominent Democratic officials. But an open convention would throw the power back to the party’s activists, who will be much less cautious in their rhetoric and much more intransigent in their demands than their elected counterparts. If the party’s most progressive members get their way (Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, has endorsed an “uncommitted vote” in her state’s upcoming presidential primary), Democrats could inadvertently come away from the convention looking like the party of Hamas.1I am aware that most of the people calling for a ceasefire in Gaza do not endorse Hamas. Unfortunately, I do not trust that the average American voter will be able to make that distinction. If these same members are stifled, the ensuing backlash could further alienate the party’s youngest, most leftward members. Contrary to Klein’s view that an open convetion would act as a forum for the Democratic Party’s post-Trump bench to introduce themselves to the average American, it’s much more likely to become a battleground where grievances that were once set aside to defeat Trump reemerge as the party’s various factions scramble for the throne, leaving the eventual nominee battered, bruised, and unsure of who they’ll be able to count on for support come November.

There is No Silver Bullet

Speaking of that eventual nominee: one point that Klein conveniently left out of his essay was that every named alternative to Biden polls worse against Trump than the incumbent president – something we stressed just three months ago. This casts doubt on the notion that a different nominee would provide Democrats with a better opportunity to hold onto the White House. In a recent Emerson College survey, Biden outpolled Harris, Whitmer, and California Governor Gavin Newsom in a head to head matchup with the former president; all four candidates finished behind Trump, but neither governor managed to attract over 36% of respondents. Sure, Whitmer and Newsom’s struggles may be a reflection of their relative anonymity to the national electorate, but even that highlights the problem of an open convention: many of these candidates would have to introduce themselves to Americans for the first time, a difficult task with only four months until the election that’s only made more difficult by the fact that they’d be running against a candidate whose name appears in every other headline and television segment. 

What’s more, most Democratic voters don’t even seem particularly interested in replacing Biden at the top of the ticket. Yes, polls show that Democrats are concerned about Biden’s age and don’t want him to run for president, but when given the chance to replace him, they’ve chosen to side with the devil they know. One can argue that the campaigns of Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, both of whom launched insurgent campaigns against Biden, never got a fair shake from the Democratic National Committee, who refused to schedule debates between them and the current president (then again, even if they had, it’s unlikely President Biden would have even attended the debates). But unlike fellow would-be-usurpers like Pat Buchanan in 1992 or Ted Kennedy in 1980, neither Phillips nor Williams were able to generate significant support among the party’s grassroots – even in elections where Biden wasn’t officially running. Mounting a pressure campaign to force Biden to withdraw, and then selecting a new candidate inside of a smoke filled room, isn’t likely to endear the Democratic Party to voters who are choosing to side with Biden when given the chance. Instead, it will feel like a coup d’etat. 

At the end of the day, the question of whether or not to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee is a one of risk. If Democrats roll with Biden through November, they’ll be putting all of their chips on an unpopular president that many voters think is too old for the job. If they take extraordinary measures to find a different candidate, they risk alienating and confusing voters by selecting their nominee through an arcane, undemocratic process that could fracture the party’s base. Klein charges that, if Democrats don’t pick the latter course, it will be because “it was too dangerous to their careers” or because of “their loyalty to Biden”; Silver claims it’s a sign that they don’t take the threat of Trump seriously enough. What both fail to consider is that the party seems to take the threat of Trump so seriously that they’re choosing to throw their weight behind an incumbent president who not only won the last election (and broadened the available Democratic map to states like Arizona, Georgia, and Texas), but helped his party put up a stout defense against Republicans in the 2022 midterms, rather than embark on a path shrouded in uncertainty. In other words, not renominating Biden is a high risk prospect without a clear case for a proportionately high reward; whereas renominating Biden is a low risk prospect with historical precedent as to the potential reward.

I’m sympathetic to Klein and Silver’s concerns. I too believe that a second Trump administration would have a cataclysmic effect on the country, and I too am unsure about Biden’s ability to win a second term. But as conservative commentator Liam Donovan pointed out, the push to replace Biden isn’t rooted in the desire for better or even younger leadership. Instead, it’s a search for certainty, born out of the misguided belief that anyone else would be guaranteed victory against Trump. Unfortunately, no such candidate exists, which is why Democrats are choosing to stick with a flawed but familiar candidate who has already won the presidency once before rather than flirt with chaos. It’s hardly an ideal situation. But it beats smashing nearly 50 years of historical precedent and praying that the pieces all fall in the right place.