Time to Leave

Not If, When

I believe President Biden will announce he is withdrawing from the 2024 race imminently. Just as anybody who’s seen a commercial or a logo believes they’re an expert in advertising and design, I’ve convinced myself I have insights into the inner workings of the Beltway. I don’t. However, I do understand the male ego, family dynamics, and scenario planning.

The story the Biden camp has been telling is: “Things are better than they feel, and Joe is the best available option. It’s him or chaos.”

Any narrative has a life of its own, and last week the narrative rear-ended reality so violently that, after the airbags deflated, there was a stunned pause that crisply turned to panic. And panic was the correct emotion. Laid bare in front of us were our worst fears — plus a feeling of embarrassment, having let the media and handlers manipulate us.

But communication is with the listener, and, despite evidence everywhere, we Democrats had entered a self-imposed exile from the truth.

Biden has engaged in fewer media appearances and press conferences than any president in recent history. The fewest since Reagan, who, at 74, began to show signs of Alzheimer’s. The last three presidents to win reelection (Clinton, Bush, Obama) were an average age of 52 at the beginning of their second terms. Three decades younger than Biden, should he return to Pennsylvania Avenue. Democrats and the media wrote indignant open letters to biology re: ageism. Biology’s response: Hold my beer.

How could we be this fucking stupid?

Current Narrative

The narrative now stands at “I am an old man and, worse, another malignant narcissist who won’t get out of the way.”

It’s the political equivalent of turning on the radio and hearing John Legend’s “All of Me” again. And again and again. The result? In the last week, Trump’s lead among likely voters has increased from 3% to 6% — a substantial shift in a race where the majority have already made up their minds.

Democrats have been saying for years (correctly) that Trump is not fit to be president. “OK, now do Biden,” said the universe. Yes, an impaired Biden would still make a better second-term president, but we’ll probably never know. The polls now say moderates and young voters will opt for criminality over senility. The real tell is how quiet Trump has been about Biden’s debate performance. Trump desperately wants Biden to stay in the race. If/when Biden is nominated, and there is no turning back, the Trump media machine will turn him into a vegetable.

Ambition

Ambition is not in itself a bad thing. It’s where innovation, wealth creation, and a lot of the other good things in life come from. It can turn pathological, though, when it overwhelms our (feeble) ability to make decisions and act in accordance with facts and not emotion.

Estes Kefauver, a senator best remembered now for his Mafia probes, famously quipped, “Presidential ambition is a disease which can only be cured by embalming fluid.” Joe Biden has had a bad case for a long time.

In What It Takes, his classic account of the 1988 presidential race, journalist Richard Ben Cramer quoted an aide warning a 46-year-old Biden that running meant sacrificing friends, family, his entire life: “You’re going to want this worse than anything, and it’s going to take over.” Biden’s answer, essentially, was, “I am willing to take that gamble.”

At a campaign stop in 2020, Biden said, “I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw standing behind me. They are the future of this country.” But since then, he’s convinced himself that he, at age 81, is the future. The actuarial charts suggest he doesn’t have much of it (future) left. Let’s ignore cognitive decline — something else makes it even harder to govern: death. According to actuarial tables, there is a greater than 1 in 3 chance he’d die in office before the end of his second term. Note: It’s not much better for Trump, but (cue the indignant/denial machine) he appears much more robust.

Having the grace to leave is a gift, and many otherwise superb people don’t have it. Ruth Bader Ginsburg set back women’s rights by her refusal, in the face of all the medical and political evidence, to retire from the Supreme Court when a Democrat could name her successor. Despite all the good she did, her ultimate legacy is that she enabled the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Likewise, if Biden loses to Trump this November, that is the only thing anyone will remember about him.

Too Soon

An underrated superpower socially and professionally — and something great brands do — is creating a sense of scarcity. The easiest way to achieve this is to leave too soon instead of too late.

Why do smart people ignore such common sense advice? There is a great deal of research on humans’ capacity for self-deception. William S. Burroughs, who divided humanity into hustlers and marks, put it bluntly: “Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.”

Imagine

We can’t imagine our own end. Try to picture what it’s like to be dead. You can’t, not really. You might think of darkness or sleep, things you’ve actually experienced in this life, but your brain has no meaningful point of reference for the real thing. As a result, we believe decline and death are things reserved for other people.

If we’re badly designed for the task of conceiving of and accepting our cosmic sell-by dates, we’re even less apt to recognize the smaller endings that come along the way.

Politicians and CEOs are particularly bad at this. Washington is a large assisted living community full of rich people who believe the world can’t get along without them and will never have to. The result has been a disastrous transfer of prosperity from young to old as old people keep voting themselves more money. As I have written before, we need more ageism, specifically churn.

Ranjay Gulati, a professor at Harvard Business School, recently told the New York Times, “Most leaders, left to their own devices, will not recognize the right time to leave. It’s really hard to stay grounded and humble when everyone is telling you you’re right.”

Think

Which brings us back to the possibility that Trump, a genuinely bad person, may be reelected. Biden, a genuinely decent person, has let his ego wager all our futures. His willingness to do so reflects a common, human failing. That doesn’t make it any less wrong or selfish. He, and his family, have put their own hopes/wishes ahead of the country’s. However, I believe his catastrophic performance in the debate has catalyzed a conversation and a reckoning that will, likely this weekend, result in the Biden family deciding he should withdraw.

Why? The dam has broken. Post-debate, the most powerful voices in tech/media/Congress/party (i.e., Reid Hoffman, the NYT, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, Pelosi, Obama) have all — as gently as possible — started suggesting he should withdraw. Like a teen boy or girl who senses they’re about to be dumped and can’t stop sending text messages, the Biden camp has sent me eight emails in the past 24 hours assuring me they’re “in it to win it.” The most fucked-up part is the lame attempt by loyalists to shame people online into sticking their heads back up their asses — “Take a breath, sit down, 90 minutes doesn’t define a presidency,” etc.

Seriously … Wake. The. Fuck. Up.

The Replacements

The two most likely candidates to replace Biden are Vice President Harris and California Governor Newsom. Nobody else has the name recognition.

Either would be up, substantially, in the polls within a week of the baton being passed. Branding is about differentiation, and the contrast with Trump would be stark. Neither has been involved in an insurrection, been found liable for sexual abuse, nor forced 1 in 5 women who needed to terminate a pregnancy to leave their state. And, most distinctly, both were born when Trump had already graduated from college and was working for his father.

Harris would be the most seamless, as the quarter of a billion dollars Biden has raised is technically also hers. In addition, the nation appears to be finally ready for a woman president, and she seems to have found her voice since the deba(te)cle. Finally, though she hasn’t distinguished herself as VP, she was a strong AG and senator. This indicates she’s probably better in an executive role.

Newsom is straight out of central casting, built in a factory with parts from lesser candidates. He’s already the president of a nation larger (economically) than India, France, or the U.K. He’s a great debater. Lastly, he’s hot — and people are more likely to vote, and canvas, for a candidate they’d like to have sex with. Newsom is the candidate who scares Trump.

Scenario Planning

Scenario planning is not an attempt to predict the future, but to imagine several possible futures and determine a course of action that has the best outcomes across several futures. And, in my view, most/all roads lead to President Biden stepping down. The polls suggest that the status quo will lead to a Trump victory – below are three alternate scenarios and speculation on what each would mean for the Biden family:

 1. Biden Withdraws, Trump Defeated

Biden cements his legacy as one of the great presidents and receives a standing ovation upon entering any room. The remainder of his life is the mother of all victory laps. He is on the short list when polls are taken about who should be added to Mount Rushmore.

2. Biden Withdraws, Trump Wins

I don’t see this as a realistic scenario. Or more specifically, I don’t want to think about it. (These are MY scenarios.) Regardless, if this came to pass, nobody would hold Biden responsible for trying to do the right thing.

3. Biden Remains/Wins

This is the one that makes me believe he will withdraw in the coming days. Joseph Biden, and his family, have experienced staggering loss. It’s difficult to know the specific dynamics of a family, but it’s a safe bet his family loves him a great deal. The worst outcome for their husband/dad/brother wouldn’t be losing to Trump — it would be a second term. His life would become an awkwardly choreographed dance, family and aides trying to sequester him from public view. He’d experience an infinite number of small private and public humiliations every day as he succumbs to a foe that cannot be defeated. (See above: biology.)

Staying in may be what he wants, and what the Bidens believe they want. But, with some distance, his loved ones will recognize that remaining in the race presents two outcomes: bad and worse. Seriously, for those of us who’ve cared for a parent in their eighties … imagine his life, should he win, for the next four and a half years. I don’t believe his family will let that happen to him.

I think love wins here.

Life is so rich,