Is Joe Biden 'Brave' for Dropping Out?

Stepping aside was commendable; spending months clinging desperately to power as voters lost faith in him, not so much.

On Sunday, President Joe Biden made history when he ended his reelection bid, becoming the first sitting president in over 50 years to decline his party's nomination while still eligible for another term.

Over the last 48 hours, many liberal and progressive voices have praised Biden's decision to stand down and the courage it demonstrates. But did Biden really perform a courageous act?

Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern posted on X that he was "feeling overwhelmed with gratitude toward Joe Biden for making this sacrifice."

"An actual hero," wrote New York Times columnist Ezra Klein.

Biden "has placed the national interest above his own pride and ambition," wrote the Times editorial board.

In a Times editorial of his own, presidential historian and Biden adviser Jon Meacham was most fawning of all, calling Biden's decision "one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history" and comparing the current president to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.

"President Biden has decided that this campaign is not about him but about us," Meacham later told MSNBC's Katy Tur. "I think the country should take a moment and realize the magnitude of the decision," that Biden "put the life of the nation above his own political individual ambition."

But before we recommend Biden for sainthood, let's consider what led to his decision in the first place.

Biden's exit came three weeks after a disastrously poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump. While Biden's advanced age was always a consideration, his halting and disjointed performance sparked a crisis of confidence within the party. Days later, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D–Texas) became the first Democratic member of Congress to call on Biden to drop out, a call which soon became a chorus.

But for weeks, Biden insisted that he would not drop out, telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos that only a plea from "the Lord Almighty" would make him consider exiting the race. Even just hours before Biden's announcement, his campaign Co-Chair Cedric Richmond told Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, "I want to be crystal clear. He's made a decision and that decision is to accept the nomination and run for reelection."

It appears Biden had only just decided to end his campaign the night before, after meeting with two of his longest-tenured advisers. "In addition to presenting new concerns from lawmakers and updates on a fundraising operation that had slowed considerably, they carried the campaign's own polls, which came back this week and showed his path to victory in November was gone," according to Politico.

Biden said earlier this month that he may drop out if polls showed there was no way he could win against Trump, before adding, "No one's saying that. No poll says that." Politico reports that Biden may not even have known what polls were saying: "When the campaign commissioned new battleground polling over the last week, it was the first time they had done surveys in some key states in more than two months, according to two people familiar with the surveys."

Not only were the polls turning sour, but donations were drying up as well. Along with Democratic lawmakers calling on Biden to drop out, liberal celebrity megadonors like George Clooney, Damon Lindelof, and Abigail Disney publicly called for the president to step aside and threatened to suspend all donations unless he did. (All three are apparently back onboard since Biden dropped out.) Indeed, after Biden's debate performance, a number of wealthy Democratic donors stopped giving unless he exited the race.

Many of the commentators praising Biden's selflessness note that dropping out is the best way to beat Trump in November. But wouldn't the better move have been to drop out even earlier—ideally by never running for reelection in the first place?

During the 2020 campaign, Biden gave repeated indications that he saw himself as "a transition candidate," who could serve as a "bridge" to the next generation of Democratic politicians. Many took this as an implicit assurance that he would only serve one term and step aside. But once in office, he insisted that his plan was to run for reelection, saying so as early as March 2021, just two months into his tenure.

When he officially launched his reelection bid in April 2023, his approval numbers had been underwater for more than a year. But few dared to challenge a sitting president from their own party, and Biden's only Democratic primary opponents were also-rans like self-help author Marianne Williamson, long shots like Rep. Dean Phillips (D–Minn.), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who left the party and is now running as an Independent.

If, instead, Biden had announced in early 2023 that he would not run for reelection—months after Trump announced his own reelection bid and Republican challengers had started to enter the race—then Democrats would have had an extra year to vet their own candidates.

But Biden did not do that. Rather, he clung desperately to power for as long as possible, as aging politicians are wont to do.

Then, with barely a month until the Democratic National Convention, the party could only scramble to line up behind Vice President Kamala Harris. As vice president, Harris is the heir apparent, but it's far from clear that she is the party's strongest candidate. And instead of having an extra year to hash out any concerns and test that theory, the party had no choice but to slot her into place. Harris secured enough delegates to win the party's nomination within 48 hours of Biden's announcement.

"Biden has done what he said he would," Joe Klein wrote last year. "He's been a solid 'transitional' President, but transition requires transit, a second act. We need to transition to something, a new Democratic vision of America—or to someone who can plausibly promise a creative way out of this molasses stasis."

Indeed, Biden's act is not heroic; it is not brave for someone to belatedly heed the writing on the wall. After all, they don't give medals for clinging desperately to power until the donations dry up.