President Joe Biden’s letter to Democrats in Congress on Monday was everything his debate performance should have been: a forceful, articulate defense of what he has achieved as president and a warning about the existential threat to our democracy posed by Donald Trump.
“I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,” the president wrote. “We have a historic record of success to run on. From creating over 15 million jobs (including 200,000 just last month), reaching historic lows on unemployment, to revitalizing American manufacturing with 800,000 jobs, to protecting and expanding affordable health care, to rebuilding America’s roads, bridges, highways, ports and airports … to beating Big Pharma and lowering the cost of prescription drugs, including $35 a month insulin for seniors, to providing student debt relief for nearly 5 million Americans to an historic investment in combatting climate change.”
The problem, of course, is that a written statement, however passionate, cannot dispel the bonfire of despair lit by Biden’s weak debate performance and his subsequent uneven interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
I take Biden at his word: He intends to stay in the race. But if he bows out under pressure, I also believe the political scientists and pundits who say there is not enough time for Democrats to thoroughly vet a new candidate — with one glaringly obvious exception: Vice President Kamala Harris.
Despite right-wing caricatures portraying her as a lightweight, any scrutiny of her record as a big-city district attorney and U.S. senator will puncture the perceptions of those who think her laugh or her syntax disqualifies her from running for president.
I would vote for Harris in a hot second. So, I wager, would many of the Black women who rescued Biden’s candidacy in 2020 and are often described as the backbone of the Democratic Party.
Overcoming the deeply embedded, often unconscious sexism and racism that afflicts a portion of the American electorate, however, would certainly be her biggest challenge.
And yet the electorate has grown accustomed to presidential candidates who are not white men.
If something terrible were to befall Biden, Harris — who now has almost four years of White House experience — is more than capable of stepping into the Oval Office. Biden could proudly, if reluctantly, pass her the torch to lead the ticket; after all, at 59, she would represent the generational change that so many Americans keep telling pollsters they yearn for.
The former prosecutor can be tough. In 2018, when Harris was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, her grilling of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh prompted Trump to call her “nasty.” I would love to see her debate Trump.
In a second term, Trump would do metaphorically what he tried to do literally at the end of his first: overthrow the government.
The evidence includes Project 2025, a 900-page MAGA wish list written by Trump allies under the aegis of the Heritage Foundation. Though Trump has disingenuously tried to distance himself from the plan, it would be his governing blueprint: severely weakening federal agencies’ authority, undercutting LGBTQ+ rights, abolishing entities such as the Department of Education, abandoning the fight against climate change and much more.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said on a far-right podcast, “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
These people are sick.
It’s plain that Biden is no longer the man he once was, and running for president is probably more grueling than being president. But I would rather have a president who works from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and needs to be in bed early than a 78-year-old convicted felon who lies, cheats, sexually assaults women, tries to steal elections and will not hesitate to demonstrate just how far above the law he is if Americans give him the chance.
Robin Abcarian is an opinion columnist at the Los Angeles Times.
