Meyerson on TAP: Has Biden Become Our King Canute?

Now that the Supreme Court has granted American presidents the uncheckable power of kings, which kings, I’m presently pondering, do Donald Trump and Joe Biden most remind me of? Trump calls to mind any number: There’s Henry VII, who executed the people closest to him who’d failed or flouted him. There’s Richard III, at least as depicted by Shakespeare. By torturing his enemies, both real and imagined, there’s Caligula (who also made his horse a proconsul, which means that all communications between Caligula and his horse were official and legally unchallengeable, according to John Roberts).

As of today, though, the king whom Joe Biden most reminds me of is Canute, who ordered the tide to stay out, and yet, it came in.

The Biden campaign has been doing its damnedest to dismiss as “bedwetters” those Democrats who are dismayed and disheartened by his debate performance and the age-driven decline that it displayed for all to see. But the percentage of Democrats concerned over that age-driven decline is stratospherically high; the share of the Democratic rank-and-file who’d like the party to nominate somebody else constitutes a clear majority; and the number of Democratic officials who privately wish Biden to step down is high and growing.

And earlier this afternoon, one of them went public. Lloyd Doggett, a House member for 30 years, a respected legislator and a mainstream liberal from Austin, broke the ice—noting that the Court’s decision yesterday to allow Trump, if elected, to run completely amok raised the stakes of the coming election even higher and thereby made it imperative for the Democrats to find a more electable standard bearer.

"Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang,” Doggett wrote. “This week, with the Supreme Court creating ‘a law-free zone around the President,’ Trump, newly-empowered with immunity, could usher America into a long, dark, authoritarian era unchecked by either the courts or a submissive Republican Congress.”

“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson,” Doggett continued.

Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same. While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional. He has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process.

Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden's first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.

I suspect Doggett was speaking for a large number of his colleagues, who believed that the call for Biden to step down was best begun by a mainstream member of long standing. But Doggett’s declaration comes amid a rising chorus of Biden misgivings from prominent party leaders.

On MSNBC today, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “it is a legitimate question” whether Biden’s halting performance is just “an episode or is this a condition.” And yesterday, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch took Biden’s campaign to task for its criticism of those Democrats expressing concern that Biden’s performance raises questions as to whether he can prevail over Trump.

“I really do criticize the campaign for a dismissive attitude towards people who are raising questions for discussion,” Welch said. “That’s just facing the reality that we’re in.” He then sounded a note ostensibly addressed to all of us, but clearly really addressed to Biden: “We all have to be acutely aware that our obligation is to the country, even more than the party.”

The Democratic Governors Association has requested a meeting with Biden, possibly as early as tomorrow. The tide is beginning to rise. Whether our own Canute—good leader though he’s been, albatross that he’s become—can successfully command it to stop has yet to be determined.