Warnings Against Biden Alternatives Are Mostly Meritless

Brian Beutler: “Biden will not get his footing back, and he has no one else left to introduce himself to. That’s why it’s becoming so hard to imagine him turning his poll numbers around. But almost nobody waiting in the wings has these liabilities. If it comes to it, we shouldn’t fear their viability just because they aren’t yet famous, and haven’t yet been wrung through the GOP smear machine. Those supposed limitations can actually be assets. If Hillary Clinton had somehow accumulated less baggage over the years she would’ve won the election in 2016, and we’d have been spared most of the horrors that have befallen us since.”

“I of course understand that assessing politics in this way will cut against people’s sense of fairness. Unlike when the slightly younger Trump was president, I don’t lose sleep worrying that Biden will make fateful errors, because he’s less diminished with age than Trump, and, unlike Trump, he’s an experienced, publicly spirited man, not an insouciant narcissist. Biden’s presidency has been successful, and I think in some sense he doesn’t ‘deserve’ to be as unpopular as he is. Harris’s unpopularity isn’t entirely self-imposed. Clinton’s weaknesses stemmed from over two decades of right wing smears. It sucks. But when has the world ever been fair?”