President Joe Biden has accomplished something I thought nearly impossible: He's made the 2024 election less about former President Donald Trump and more about himself.
Presidential elections are usually either a national referendum on the incumbent president or a choice between two candidates.
If a president is popular and successful in the national polls, he and his party generally fare well. If the incumbent president is unpopular (for whatever reason), voters usually send a message of dissatisfaction by either ousting him or punishing the incumbent party with their votes.
When an election is a choice between two very different candidates or two different policies, an unpopular president can win reelection by making his opponent even more unpopular than he is.
Biden's best chance of winning a second term and improving his party's support in Congress is to frame the election as a choice between a narcissistic, spiteful authoritarian who would threaten American democracy if re-elected (Trump) and an older president who walks with a limp and looks awkward, but is kind and compassionate and can still run the country (Biden).
Unfortunately for Democrats and anti-Trump advocates, questions about Biden's mental capacity and age have led political commentators and journalists to focus on Biden's shortcomings and mistakes, rather than Trump's lies and insanity.
Indeed, Trump has largely disappeared over the past 10 days as the national media has become fixated on Biden's health, electability and political future as vice president. The only way Democrats can regain momentum in the race is to bring attention back to Trump, and the only way to do that is to thoroughly investigate him.
Initially, I wondered whether Biden could weather this damage: His campaign responded too late, but his plan to hold multiple public events seemed like a reasonable strategy.
But Biden's poor performance in the June 27 debate and his not-so-good July 5 interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos clearly didn't bode well for him or his party.
Biden insisted he was seeking reelection, ignored national and state polls that strongly suggested he was trailing compared to Trump, and in his final exchanges appeared to say he was more interested in his own achievements than the country's future.
Smart Democrats worry that unless the incumbent president drops out of the 2024 presidential race, most future media coverage will focus on Biden, not Trump.
Biden supporters continue to complain that the media should compare him to Trump rather than to God Almighty, a clever phrasing that doesn't address Biden's problems or answer questions about his intellectual acuity.
The president simply does not acknowledge his weakness and accept the fact that he has no guarantee of another four years as commander in chief.
It doesn't matter how many “good” events Biden puts on over the next few months: he is unlikely to give a perfect speech, and any instances of anything less than perfection will likely lead to further scrutiny and concern about his electability and his party's performance in congressional elections — and, of course, it will take attention away from Trump.
If Biden's performance shifts the focus of 2024, from a referendum on Trump to a choice between Biden and Trump, the only way to change the trajectory of the election is to change the Democratic nominee.
And if stopping Trump is as important to Biden as he says it is, then dropping out of the race is exactly the step he should take.
With Biden no longer the Democratic standard-bearer in November's presidential election, Democrats can again try to make the election the choice they had originally hoped it would be.
Vice President Kamala Harris is certainly a likely Democratic nominee, and she is not without her political problems, but she is not unpopular with many voters like the older Biden, and she has some strengths, including her age and her appeal to the Democratic base.
Biden dropping out of the race would be no guarantee for his party — Harris could lose — but a Harris-Trump match would at least give Democrats a chance to focus 2024 on Trump's weaknesses and flaws, something that's impossible as long as Biden remains the Democratic nominee.
