There’s a great passage in Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes—which covers the 1988 presidential race and remains one of the great books on American politics—in which Joe Biden’s advisors desperately attempt to convince him not to buy a million-dollar house (which he can’t actually afford) on the eve of his first run at the White House.
Two things stand out in retrospect. First, one glimpses the same obstreperousness that since led him to hold onto his present office, in spite of his diminished faculties, and to commit to running for re-election against the advice of many around him before unexpectedly dropping out last weekend under what remain obscure circumstances.
Second, it presents a memorable picture of a man who could steamroll real estate agents and talk his staffers into exhaustion—a picture that his administration, in conjunction with a friendly media establishment were at pains to efface, given how strongly it contrasted with the present reality. That reality became inescapably obvious following Biden’s disastrous debate last month against Donald Trump. Up to that point, they emphasized his history of stuttering and downplayed his recent public reticence. Of course, the narrative that he had always been a shy or impaired public speaker was convincing mainly to those with no recollection of the man in his prime (see him here in full fettle).
Answering the call
The truth is that late in life, Biden was pressed into service under highly specific circumstances—namely, the fact that he was seen as the candidate with the widest appeal at a time when the Democratic Party’s had two overriding imperatives: blocking Bernie Sanders’ rise and denying Donald Trump’s re-election.
A similar dynamic is now at work with Biden’s vice president and apparent successor, Kamala Harris. For, the Harris candidacy’s raison d’être has less to do with her own virtues and more with the necessity of defeating Trump, given the short runway remaining. It should not be controversial to note that Kamala is not an inherently inspiring candidate. Her political record is not marked by any great accomplishments, and seemingly no one regards her tenure as V.P. as particularly successful. Outside of a limited and highly online contingent of superfans, she commands something less than widespread public loyalty, and her public speeches are known to rely upon repeated phrases that can sound like verbal tics.
Fixing cracks Nonetheless, her candidacy sheds light on the present and recent status of the Democratic Party. For some time now, the Democratic machine has generally proven more organized and efficient than its Republican rival. Thanks to leaked emails, it is known that the Democratic National Committee arranged to back Hillary Clinton in 2016 prior to her official coronation, fending off Bernie Sanders’ challenge from the left flank and, more significantly, sidelining Biden despite his status as Barack Obama’s V.P. In 2020, the party dealt with yet another Bernie challenge, this time lining up early behind Biden with greater electoral success. Yet, superior organization cannot make up for everything. Despite the strength of her faction within the party, Hillary was a wildly unpopular candidate who is generally regarded as having run a poorly managed campaign. Meanwhile, Biden was a veteran—as noted, his first attempt at the White House was back in 1988—but there’s a reason he had to wait so long for this moment. And now, future historians will be poring over the evidence of his abilities to execute the functions of the office by the time that moment came. That the party is now mobilizing (with the help of a relatively pliable media) to support Kamala Harris is indicative of its organizational capabilities, but not necessarily of the quality of its selection process. More fundamentally, Harris personifies certain ideological dissonances presently at work within her party. For, this is a party that has simultaneously embraced and distanced itself from identity politics, depending on the audience. It was, for example, widely understood at the time that Harris’ selection as Biden’s running mate was largely due to identity politics, which intensified in the months after George Floyd was killed, critically coinciding with the primary races. Yet after years of DEI initiatives across multiple institutions, identity politics is proving increasingly unpopular among the broader electorate. Thus, we are likely to see a kind of political code-switching, in which Harris’ background will be emphasized among certain constituencies but not others. Beyond this, there is the ideological problem of the Democratic Party’s relationship with the radical elements of the political Left in America. Within Congress itself, its leaders have generally managed to exert control over its members. Thus, the supposedly radical members of “the Squad” reliably fell in line behind Biden before he announced his withdrawal and are now doing so for Harris. But outside of Congress, various radical organizations, many of whom share the same financial backers, are under no such compulsion. They are not sufficiently organized to mount a true political challenge, but they can act as spoilers when their demands are not met—as they did this week in Washington, D.C., burning American flags and flaunting Hamas’ colours. The solution thus far has been for Democratic politicians to distance themselves rhetorically from the uglier demonstrations while allowing their participants a good deal of latitude in practice (as we already saw over the months of campus protests). If next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago features similar displays, however, the party may yet have to decide if it wants to appease the further Left and thus alienate its more conventional supporters—particularly Jewish ones. All that said, it is conceivable that the unifying power of a common Trump enemy and the concept that American democracy is on the ballot will yet prove sufficient to seal up these ideological and coalitional cracks for the time being. It has already contributed the propagandistic quality of the commentary that we’ve seen; more reminiscent of “Baghdad Bob” than an independent press in some cases. Biden and Trump: more alike than you think Meanwhile, looking both backwards and ahead, two ironies still stand out. The first is that while Biden was held up by both supporters and an anxious media as a paragon of decency in contrast to the sybaritic Trump, the truth is that there are few living American politicians more similar to Trump than Joe Biden. They share a certain garrulous confidence, combined with a highly digressive rhetorical style (both being prone to launching into anecdotal tangents the relevance of which only they seem to understand). And it must be said that both have a somewhat loose relationship with honesty (plagiarism accusations helped sink Biden’s first presidential run), although Trump’s admittedly being much looser. The other is that, while their coalitions differ in many ways, the contemporary G.O.P faces a similar loss of common purpose. What they have that the Democrats don’t is a single charismatic figure who manages to command a sizable degree of popular support. This was on full display at this month’s Republican National Convention, where the former president, who had just recently dodged an assassin’s bullet, was given a hero’s welcome. Indeed, part of Trump’s political strength seems to rest upon his refusal to resolve inconsistencies in his party’s messaging. This is why all attempts to identify anything that might meaningfully be called “Trumpism” in the absence of Trump have failed. Trump remains a unique and probably non-replicable figure. The various attempts at imitation by other Republican politicians like Ron DeSantis and Josh Hawley have called to mind the desperate attention-seeking of Poochie—the hip, consumer-tested dog character introduced on The Simpsons’ “Itchy and Scratchy Show,” much to the irritation of Bart and Lisa. The truth is that, though more vigorous than Biden, Trump himself is 78 years old. Even if he manages to eke out an electoral majority, this only forestalls the problems of the G.O.P. As it stands, Donald Trump’s original ascendancy in 2016 laid bare the incoherence of the modern G.O.P. It remains to be seen whether his return will do the same for the Democrats.
David Polansky is a Toronto-based writer. His work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. Follow him on X, and read him at Strange Frequencies.
