What should Democrats do now? L.A. Times columnists slug it out

It seems as though we’re at a hinge point in our country’s history.

Or, at the least, living through some very strange and scary times.

A former president who talks about suspending the Constitution and criminally prosecuting his foes is again knocking at the White House door. The current occupant is facing unprecedented calls within his party to end his reelection bid after a historically awful debate performance.

Times columnists Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria both fear a Trump restoration and agree this really is the most important presidential election anyone alive has ever seen — something we hear every four years.

But they differ over whether Joe Biden should stay on or leave the Democratic ticket after his performance in Thursday night’s news-conference-heard-’round the world. Here, they hash it out.

Barabak: Wow. It took just a few cringe-inducing minutes on that debate stage for Biden’s candidacy to go into free fall. But maybe it shouldn’t be surprising. Adam B. Schiff, the Burbank congressman and very likely next U.S. senator from California, aptly summed things up last weekend on “Meet the Press.”

“Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It should not be even close,” Schiff said. “There’s only one reason it is close, and that’s the president’s age.”

The debate was supposed to lay to rest nagging concerns about Biden’s mental and physical vitality. Of course, his performance did exactly the opposite. Biden couldn’t have looked worse if he’d showed up onstage with a blanket, pillow and glass of warm milk and gone to sleep.

Chabria: The No. 1 response that I have heard from average Democrats is that it was brutal to watch Biden falter. Right now we are trapped in a political peat bog, trying to decide if we are looking at disturbing but survivable decay or a campaign in its death throes.

While it seems silly in some ways, a turning point for me was George Clooney’s op-ed in the New York Times on Wednesday calling for Biden to step aside. I’m not being starstruck, but Clooney did what the Democratic Party writ large has been afraid to do — tell us what it’s like to be in Biden’s presence. Clooney made it clear that what we saw on the debate stage was what he found Biden to be like in person.

Not good.

I’m as concerned as anyone about Biden’s mental acuity. But I still think the Democrats are not being honest. If they truly believe, as Clooney does, that Biden is not fit to run, doesn’t that mean he’s not fit to serve? How do you parse that?

Barabak: Hmm. Isn’t Clooney one of those “elites” Biden has scoffed at as he resists calls to stand down — after spending years happily basking in their reflected glow and vacuuming up every last cent his Hollywood benefactors sent his way?

There is a distinction, as you note. Can Biden function as president? He’s done fine and presumably could keep doing so — from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. — with the help of aides and others surrounding him. (Interestingly, that’s an argument I’ve heard time and again from Donald Trump’s supporters. They may express doubts about his judgment and social media nastygrams, but count on him being buffered by smart, capable people.)

I think the more pertinent question is whether Biden can win in November and save the country from the threat of Trump unleashed. Or, scarier still, from complete GOP control of Washington, with Trump in the White House, his supplicants running Congress and a pliant Supreme Court dismantling any guardrails keeping a vengeance-minded president in check.

I’m not convinced at this point that Biden can do it.

You?

Chabria: I’m not sure he can win. But even if he is dementia-adjacent, people like Joe. I’m not sure any other Democrat is positioned to do better.

There’s this untethered buoyancy in the Democratic Party that almost feels hysterical — this idea that the party could hold some nicey-nice pseudo-primary beauty pageant and some shiny winner would emerge as its savior.

Democrats are going to vote for whoever is on the ticket — it could literally be Mayor Max III, the golden retriever who runs Idyllwild. It’s the independent and undecided swing-state voters who’ll decide this race.

Show me a candidate who can reach those voters in under four months — when they have spent years unswayed by Trump’s lies, abuses and convictions, and still don’t see the threat to democracy he embodies. If Biden is really going to be replaced on the Democratic ticket, which I think is still up in the air, Harris is the only choice that makes sense — and it’s a scrambling, desperate sort of sense.

What do you think?

Barabak: I agree. It’s Harris or bust.

I’ve long considered her the front-runner to replace Biden, if it comes to that. It would follow what’s pretty much been the political line of succession for the last several decades, and the idea of passing over the first Black woman in the vice presidency in a party whose backbone is Black women has always struck me as a nonstarter.

Just as fanciful, as you suggest, is this notion of a unity candidate emerging — clouds parting, heavenly choir swelling — to rally Democrats and smite the evil MAGA king. You can fantasize about a high-minded exchange of ideas, and there’s something to be said for that, if it ever comes to pass. But does the party really want to tear itself apart in a fratricidal fight over Gaza, the Green New Deal, immigration and myriad other issues that divide Democrats, followed by just a few short months to lay down their swords and come together?

You’re absolutely correct to say the epoxy binding Democrats is their primal fear and loathing of Trump. Harris would have the advantage of running on the successes of the Biden administration — while, of course, trying to explain away its failings — without that whole gerontocracy thing weighing on her candidacy.

At age 59, she’d flip the age issue. All of a sudden, it would be the 78-year-old Trump who’d have to defend his physical and mental fitness.

Chabria: Yes to all of that, but I am still not sure we’ll get to Harris. Joe is running out the clock. The Democratic National Convention starts in about four weeks. The official nomination is scheduled to take place before that.

And after his NATO news conference, which despite the Trump/Harris gaffe I thought was strong, I don’t think he’ll listen to critics. He had a flash of the Joe that won hearts, with a deep knowledge of foreign affairs and a one-liner that I loved: Control guns, not girls.

But if Harris were to top the ticket, I would worry about the kind of racism and sexism that plagued Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, respectively. In Harris, you’d have those forces combined. Not to mention that Harris didn’t have a successful campaign when she ran in 2020 — showing an awkwardness and inability to connect with voters.

I think we need to prepare for Joe sticking around, even with those worrisome firsthand accounts of his mental fragility. I agree with you about Biden being surrounded by talented people, but I’m also furious they haven’t spoken out if, like Clooney, they‘ve seen on a regular basis that the president is not coherent.

I think the fallout here is beyond Joe losing support. I think the Democratic Party is losing credibility every day that this continues. In that sense, there could be some benefit to just shutting up and backing Biden to stop the party from ceding more of its high ground to Trump. Or if Harris is the solution, maybe wait until after November to hash that out.

Or maybe flip it and run the Harris-Biden ticket?

This is too crazy for me to make a guess. Are you brave enough to make predictions?

Barabak: None beyond this: If they stick with the tottering president, Democrats and other Biden supporters had better brace themselves for four months of unceasing heart-in-the-throat anxiety. He can string together 100-plus perfect days between now and the Nov. 5 election, and hold several more not-terrible news conferences. Virile! Vigorous!But Biden will always be just one ill-timed brain freeze or trip and fall away from ceding the election to Trump.

It’ll be like watching a shaky 81-year-old man pick his way across thin ice balancing a beaker of nitroglycerin atop his head. He might achieve safe passage. But it’s going to be touch and go the entire time.

And woe to us all if he stumbles.