Democrats Ask: Who Can Make Biden Step Aside?

A few minutes into Thursday night’s presidential debate in Atlanta, after Joe Biden’s startlingly unconvincing opening answers trailed off into inexplicable silence, I got a text from a Democratic congressman close to the president’s campaign. “I’m drinking to compensate,” he wrote.

This was grim but not surprising. There had been some hope that Biden would do well, but the evening was never going to be uplifting. Still, the wry shtick got old, quickly. Biden’s raspy voice and pale, wandering affect hardly changed, and the congressman’s tone jolted from resignation to alarm. This official had always defended the president, whom he liked personally and whose politics he loved. He was still disgusted by Donald Trump’s dishonesty and incompetence. Soon enough, he was having the same sort of conversations that permeated donor hotspots from Manhattan to Brentwood and emanated from watch parties spiraling into panic.  Democratic lawmakers, donors, and strategists across Atlanta and Washington were demanding to know: What do we do with Biden now?

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