Let’s start with the obvious: No one actually knows the best path forward for the Democratic Party in 2024, and all options in front of us are bad. A second Biden term is seeming less and less likely, and Democratic voters and pundits like seem increasingly nervous that we’re marching to our own funeral. But the prospect of challenging an incumbent president just a few months before an election also seems hubristic and dangerous, especially when the Democratic Party is deeply divided, the vice president is unpopular and has been largely marginalized, and there is no obvious Plan B. The worst of all worlds seems to be a scenario in which Biden continues his campaign but the party mutinies and an ugly replacement battle fails at everything except mortally injuring an already-weak candidate.
It is hard to overstate the stakes of this election. Joe Biden surely understands them as well. Which is why I hope that, in the aftermath of this debate, he is doing some serious soul-searching with his advisors, his colleagues, and the person he seems to trust most: His wife Jill.
