Should Biden step aside?

Should Biden drop out from Presidential race at this late stage of the campaign?  An uncomfortable question which most progressives don't wanna comment upon. Yet, several sensible people; centrists like Paul Krugman and Dean Baker, have given their opinion. That is: it's time for Biden to go. And now i tend to agree. 

We are not enthralled by propaganda of Trump lies about America, American economy and big lies that everything has been ruined by Biden. On the contrary, the American economy and American society under Biden are doing pretty well. US economy is the best in decades and Biden's policies have produced great results. 

There are two points which merits Biden to retire. First, i have already pointed out in last article that politics is about performative display of President. The President should not just deliver the goods, he should also be presentable, astute and powerful in public appearance. Biden delivers the goods in governance and policy making. Biden is good in substantive side of politics. But Biden at his age is not a match in performative aspect compared to Trump. Donald Trump is a reality TV star, a psychopath, a manipulator of masses that hypnotize people with his charisma, big lies and super inflated confidence. Trump's performative aspect is actually a result of his pathologically dangerous personality.  But nevertheless he has captured the psyche of large section of American society. (Author Dr. Bandy Lee has written extensively about it)

This is unfortunate reality of today's politics. Populism, populist sentiments and emotional appeal of crowd drives Democracies today rather than rational thought and logical thinking (recall Le Bon's book). Trump has the mastery in capturing populist sentiments. Objective reality, intellect, rationality, facts and scientific thinking matter very little in today's politics. That's the reason behind rise of Trump.

Keeping this in mind, it would make sense for replacement of Biden with a younger healthier competent leader who would continue and expand Biden's economic policies and reforms while at the same time will be able to demonstrate and excel in performative aspect of today's politics. 

Now i come to second critical point. This is based on foresight of American politics and where it's headed. American politics is headed towards a great upheaval.  Biden has made good economic policies but overall his operating principle is incremental reforms. But this is not a time for reactive incremental reformist politics when MAGA is at the gates and Fascist takeover is imminent. Think of it in this extreme way. In a coup, a civil war or some kind of illegal takeover of America (backed by Supreme court), will Biden be the best man for defense?  

The leadership qualities of President are about to undergo extreme stress test which US cannot afford to fail. Recently, Barbara F Walter wrote a book on political headwinds in America and predicted that US may be heading to a civil war. Now this i think is an exaggeration but US is certainly heading towards a major political destabilization and breakdown crisis. The signs are in the air. SCOTUS itself has created a major crisis of anarchy in America's Justice system by flurry of illegal and unconstitutional judgments. Repealing Roe vs Wade, Giving immunity to Trump, Chevron case and SCOTUS nowadays acting as a parallel Govt / super legislature is breaking down institutional legitimacy of America.

Jan 6 wasn't a one off event. More audacious attack on American democracy may be coming, backed by Plutocrats and a rogue supreme court. Project 2025 is blueprint for dictatorial takeover of America.

Biden's approach to crisis is incremental reform and reactive decision making, and based on entrusting justice system of America that however is deeply dysfunctional. In last four years, Biden didn't present any major reform or created a dialogue about reforming American court system. Biden has been too scared to expand Supreme court while Trump will have no qualms about doing it and installing more reactionary judges. Biden seldom talks about high corruption in American courts (lack of enforceable code of ethics, idiocy of lifetime appointments etc). Biden's response to Jan 6 coup was delegating all responsibility to his Attorney General and leaving AG and a special counsel (Jack Smith) to figure out how to deal with insurrection. Justice department itself is broken which under the veneer of "independence" has shown great leeway to brazen criminality of Trump and GOP. 

There are times when policies have to be changed drastically and urgently according to circumstances. Incremental reactive approach doesn't work in some cases. Bungled middle east policy is another example of failure of Biden's reactive approach. US needed to resolutely change its middle east policy in response to Israel's war crimes that started in October last year. Here again, Biden continued to delegate responsibility to Blinken and state department to figure things out. Meanwhile Biden continue to procrastinate urgent policy shift that was needed. He preferred to continue longstanding policy with Israel; acting friendly with Bibi; giving him all the financial and military aid and nudging him to be gentle on civilian casualties. 

There's another critical area which Biden has largely evaded to deal with. This i will explain in more detail in future article. A big problem in US political system is that it's being taken over by Plutocracy, reactionary adventurist billionaires. These billionaires are running wild with impunity. One obvious example is Elon Musk : Owner of Tesla industry, Starlink & other ventures including social media giant X (which he's extensively using in service of right wing politics). These billionaires have been created by subsidies and state contracts of US Govt, and have become leviathan like creatures with great power. They finance Trump & other Fascistic politicians, they own SCOTUS judges (who owns Clarence Thomas?), they pour dark money in SuperPACs, they control the appointments and revolving doors. 

The monopolistic and parasitical behavior of these plutocrats (and their conglomerates) in US economy is well known. Biden administration, as a part of its economic policy, is trying to tame the monopolies of some of these giants (see what Lina Khan is doing with anti-trust laws). This approach to tame power of giant conglomerates is good but it's an incremental reform; too slow & too weak. There's no broad based effort to restore the political independence of US government and cut the legs of billionaire adventurers, especially those leviathans which are openly meddling in US politics. Take example of audacious Musk who openly gloats about his political extremism.

But there's a risk in ousting Biden too. That is Wall Street Democrats, the Clintonites and Neoliberal forces (Larry Summers coterie) reclaiming power center of Dem party. Biden's domestic policies (especially economic policy) are guided by competent advisers. In all the hustle of changing party ticket at this late stage of Presidential campaign is risky and will invite all kinds of interference from financier donors who wanna inject their candidate (it's possible that Kamala Harris may be ousted too). The anti-trust laws enforcement, environmental regulations, crackdown on tax evasion and ending of tax cuts are thorns in side of donors who want to reverse course on these things.

The worse thing that can happen at this critical juncture is destabilization of Dem party in a rush to change Presidential ticket, and ending up with selecting some lame duck candidate on preference of party donors. The lame duck candidates without mass appeal will then be steamrolled by Trump and MAGA in November elections. 

In my last article three weeks ago, i acknowledged the problems with Biden but was of the opinion that the process of changing candidate at this late stage is risky, complicated and impractical. But there's a grave threat of coming political upheaval which frankly Biden, at his age and fitness, won't be able to manage. I recognized early signs of this upheaval with Supreme court decision to grant immunity to Trump. US needs a competent healthy President who can lead America into a civil war type of scenario.