In February 2023, I stood outside the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting handing out flyers. It was a bright, sunny day in downtown Philadelphia, but bone-chillingly cold; within just ten minutes I had lost feeling in my toes and fingers. I, along with a handful of other volunteers, was there to spread a heterodox and unpopular message: that Joe Biden, then cruising to his party’s renomination, should not seek another term in 2024.
Our flyers pointed to Biden’s shortcomings in his first term and how they would affect his candidacy in 2024 — how a lack of progressive policy achievements had damaged his reputation with critical constituencies that propelled him to victory in 2020, including young people, people of color, and grassroots activists. We highlighted his cratering popularity within his own party, how many Democrats already said that they preferred a different nominee at the top of the ticket in 2024. We implored DNC members to take seriously the acute threat a second Trump term posed to our country’s democracy and earnestly reconsider whether Joe Biden was as well-positioned to defeat Trump as he had been in 2020. As we flyered in front of the hotel where DNC meetings were being held, a mobile billboard truck circled the block bearing our campaign slogan — “Don’t Run, Joe!”
How did DNC members, staffers, and media attendees react to our open display of dissent? About how you would expect — most ignored us, a few others mocked us, one or two even angrily confronted our ragtag group. U.S. media, when they grudgingly agreed to hear us out, wanted to know why, if our stance was truly held by a majority of Democrats, no one within the party agreed with us. Most of the U.S. journalists I spoke to that weekend approached me with a mix of bemusement and mild derision. None of our interviews made it into their coverage of the Winter Meeting.
There is, of course, still time for the Democrats to find someone else who can take up the party’s mantle and avert a likely electoral catastrophe, but it will require a concerted effort from voters, party leaders, elected officials, and media figures
In contrast, the international press wanted to speak with us about our campaign. They asked thoughtful questions that revealed their honest impressions on the precarity of Biden’s position.
Meanwhile, something notable kept happening that weekend. Convention attendees would approach us, most looking over their shoulders, to express their quiet agreement with our position. “Who else is with you?” they wanted to know. Journalists told me that DNC members, even Democratic members of Congress, had privately expressed their concerns about Biden’s candidacy, but that none would go on the record. One DNC member approached me to say that he agreed completely with us, but that there was no way of changing the party’s approach at this late stage (never mind that the election was still nearly two years away). There was palpable anxiety bubbling under the surface of an apparently sober and pro forma party convening, but no one was willing to say the quiet part out loud.
Now, of course, the Step Aside Joe campaign is no longer the lone dissenting voice. Since Biden’s disastrous debate appearance on Thursday night, what was a long-simmering conversation has erupted into a full boil, with a growing chorus of voices, from across the political spectrum, in agreement that Biden is, as one commentator put it, past his “sell-by date.”
There is, of........