Over the past few years, many people have told me I should stop making Biden-is-old jokes because “it just helps Trump” — as if voters wouldn’t have noticed his age otherwise. I can’t ignore the obvious; none of us can. And I’m not going to mindlessly echo mendacious talking points like, “He has a cold.” If he had a cold, why was he out campaigning the next morning instead of putting his 81-year-old body to bed?
As Joe Biden himself would say, “Here’s the deal”: What happened at the debate last week wasn’t a tragedy, it was a blessing in disguise. I called on Mr. Biden to step aside almost a year ago, warning that he would be forever known as “Ruth Bader Biden” if he didn’t. Since then, each time I would bring up that idea, publicly or privately, people would dismiss it out of hand: Get on board, they’d say, the Democrats will never replace him, it’s off the table.
Well, now it’s on the table, where it always should have been. And far from being some kind of disaster for the Democratic Party, it plays right into what works best in 21-century American culture. Americans like new.
When Barack Obama announced he was running for president in 2007, many said he hadn’t been around long enough, not realizing that his youth and inexperience was one of the best things he had going for him. He was new, and we weren’t tired of him. And he didn’t have an endlessly long record to pick over.
If our presidential politics were a TV show, it would be a series past its prime in desperate need of new characters. The term “jumping the shark” derives from an infamous episode of “Happy Days,” when the Fonz literally jumped over a shark while water-skiing in his leather jacket. The show had been on so long, and the storylines had grown so tired, that the producers found themselves stretching the limits of reality to drum up interest.
Donald Trump talks about sharks a lot. I see this as an omen. Democrats can no longer afford to suspend disbelief.
You can take away Americans’ democracy, but you can’t bore them. I’m already bored reading about both of these candidates. “Trump is a con man and used car salesman”? Yeah, I did that bit in 2017. “He acts like a mafia chieftain”? Yeah, 2018. And please don’t make me tell the orangutan-lawsuit story again.
Let’s move the plotline forward. Democrats could not buy, with all of George Soros’s money, the enthusiasm, engagement and interest they would get from having an open convention — and in Chicago no less, famous for Democratic convention drama.
Suddenly, instead of rehashing the debate from hell — worst episode of “The Golden Bachelor” ever — they would be hosting a competition, something Americans love. Who will get the rose this August in Chicago? Gavin or Gretchen? Suddenly, Stacey Abrams might say she’s in! And so might Tim Ryan, and Josh Shapiro! And Amy Klobuchar and Ruben Gallego! And Mayor Pete and Raphael Warnock! And Wes Moore, and who knows, maybe Andrew Yang says he’s a Democrat again! And that dude from Kentucky, I hear he’s great!
This may sound like I’m doing a bit here, but I’m deadly serious that this would be good for the Democrats, and give them a better chance of winning.
My pick would be Gavin Newsom. Watching him make the case against Mr. Trump in the pre-debate interviews, and defend Mr. Biden post-debate, reminded me: This guy is good at this. Yes, he has too much “California baggage” — some of which I myself don’t love — but the contrast to how he prosecutes the case against Mr. Trump and how Mr. Biden did couldn’t be clearer. He’s forceful, never at a loss for words or stats, never stumbles, never intimidated. He’s un-bullyable, and that’s important against Mr. Trump. People are attracted to what looks like strength, much more than specific policies. And he looks great on TV.
And there’s this bonus: Thanks to the 12th Amendment, if he’s the candidate, Kamala Harris — for whatever reason, not a popular figure — would have to either drop off the ticket or move her residence if Democrats wanted California’s 54 electors to vote for both its candidates for president and vice president, potentially freeing the Democrats of their other political problem, and freeing the slate for another new, fresh face.
But whether it’s Mr. Newsom or someone else, we need to start talking about who the Democrats should put on the ballot in November. Anyone with a “D” by their name basically makes this race a tie. Being a fresh face who has spent less time in the spotlight equals “America’s less tired of you,” equals that extra percentage that will make for a winning ticket. In 2016, Mr. Trump was the fresh, new thing, and it’s high time liberals harness the power of novelty.
The electorate in this country is not particularly fond of studying up on the issues — a lot of the disappointment they feel in Mr. Biden stems from the fact that they just don’t have the facts. But what Americans are big on is: Screw it, let’s give that new thing a try … how much worse could it be?
In his “all the world’s a stage” speech from “As You Like It,” Shakespeare pointed out that in old age we return in many ways to infancy — but I think we’ve babied Joe Biden enough. After all, none of this can happen until he says he’s stepping aside. At some point, not doing so becomes an act of supreme selfishness.
A group of the most respected senior statesmen from Mr. Biden’s own party must make the pilgrimage to the White House to tell him so. Fifty years ago next month, a small group of the most respected Republican members of Congress went to see Richard Nixon as the denouement to the Watergate fiasco. They told him, sorry, it’s time to go, and you really don’t have a choice anymore — because this is coming from your own people.
I like Joe Biden, as many of us do. And I have been a full-throated critic of ageism for a long time, calling it out for being the last acceptable prejudice. We all age differently, it’s a true case-by-case, and the debate illustrated that vividly. Mr. Trump, whatever you think of him, was vigorous; Mr. Biden was vigor-less.
But the critique of ageism only has credibility if we admit that there is some time when age inevitably catches up to all of us. Thank you for your service, Joe, but that time, for you, is now.