Democrats need Biden to run

OPINION:

There are many theories about how the looming presidential election might unfold.

One of the more pervasive is that President Biden, clearly diminished physically and mentally, will either not be nominated by his fellow Democrats or will be exchanged for a different nominee if he has already been nominated. This theory is a natural offspring of the notion that some shadowy force, rather than Mr. Biden, is in charge of the administration.

Both are nonsense.

Mr. Biden is the president of the United States and retains the ability to hire and fire personnel in the Executive Office of the President. He is actually in charge of the administration and has been since Jan. 20, 2021. Are there lots of Obama retreads in this administration? Of course there are. If people involved in politics could get real jobs, we would.

But there is a solid core of Biden loyalists running the White House, and to pretend otherwise is to release the president from responsibility for the actions of his regime.

With respect to the election, however deteriorated Mr. Biden has become, if he remains alive for the duration of the campaign, he will be the Democratic Party nominee in the presidential election being held in about 8½ months.

This is in large measure because no one in the United States wants to and is able to prevent Mr. Biden from becoming the nominee.

Those who think that the Democratic National Committee will put a stop to this circus don’t understand political parties. Political parties are not in charge of anything. They are and have been for some time merely fundraising operations adjunct to presidential campaigns.

They are not autonomous from the presidential effort; they are cogs in the very machine. The DNC is not going to prevent or revoke Mr. Biden’s nomination.

Nor is Mr. Biden going to be replaced at the Democratic National Convention.There hasn’t been a truly open convention since 1952, before the pervasiveness of television. That’s because the political parties can’t afford to look any more confused, chaotic and disorganized on national television than they already do. A brokered convention on TV would make clear that party leaders are not really in charge of the partisans and the apparatus of the party.

How did the 1968 convention in Chicago turn out for the Democrats?

Nor does any person or collection of people wield sufficient authority and power outside the party structure to determine who should be president. Those expecting a deus ex machina are going to be disappointed to learn that there are no wise and powerful men coming to save the Democrats or the nation.

It is important to recognize that beyond all of these considerations, and more important than all of these considerations, is that Mr. Biden’s removal would make the situation worse for the Democrats.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has had a dismal three years, would almost certainly fare much worse in a general election than Mr. Biden.

Nor can the Democrats select a White man — looking at you, California Gov. Gavin Newsom — in lieu of Ms. Harris without severely damaging the Democratic coalition for at least the next generation.

And no one can possibly be serious about nominating former first lady Michelle Obama.

The simple, terrible truth facing the Democrats is that our senescent, fading incumbent president is probably their best chance to win this election. Mr. Biden is the only person who can keep together what has become the most awkward collection of groups — suburbanites, true radicals, “woke” warriors, the no-borders crowd, business elites, etc. — ever assembled. If someone else could do it better than Mr. Biden, he or she would have already appeared.

This election cycle is likely the last for which this shaky coalition of Democrats manages to stay together. Once Mr. Biden and former President Donald Trump exit, the coalition will dissolve.

Forget about “defending democracy” or “Bidenomics” or any of that other nonsense. The Biden campaign’s slogan should be — to borrow from King Louis XV of France in a similar moment — “apres moi, le deluge.”

Which roughly translates as “you’re going to miss me when I’m gone.”

• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and a co-host of the podcast “The Unregulated.”