The Biden campaign drove the Democratic Party into a ditch and speculation is rampant about grim prospects for the election. But little scrutiny has gone into examining how such a dire situation developed in the first place.

Joe Biden was on a collision course with reality long before his abysmal debate performance led to his withdrawal from the race. “Several current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed that he increasingly appeared confused or listless, or would lose the thread of conversations,” the New York Times reported five days after the debate. Some had noticed the glaring problem months earlier but kept quiet.

A culture of dubious loyalty festered far beyond the Biden White House. It encompassed Democratic leaders at the Capitol and across the country, as well as countless allied organizations and individuals.

But following Biden’s June debate with Donald Trump, some notable Democratic dissenters in Congress stepped up to oppose his renomination. But for weeks, relatively few colleagues followed the lead of Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett, who broke the congressional ice by calling for Biden to “make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw.”

Acuity came from Julián Castro, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, who kept up a barrage of cogent tweets. One message referred to Biden’s “unique political liability” and warned: “It’s not going to get any better — and has a high risk of scrambling the race again, sealing Dems fate. Burying our heads in the sand won’t assuage voters concerns, which have been painfully obvious for years.”

A literal heads-in-the-sand photo was at the top of a full-page print ad that the Don’t Run Joe team at RootsAction.org (where I’m national director) placed in The Hill a year and a half ago. Headlined “An Open Letter to Democrats in the House and Senate,” it said: “Many of your colleagues, and maybe you, are expressing public enthusiasm for another Biden presidential campaign in on-the-record quotes to journalists — while privately voicing trepidation. This widespread gap ill serves the party or the nation… There are ample indications that having Joe Biden at the top of ballots across the country in autumn 2024 would bring enormous political vulnerabilities for the ticket and for down-ballot races. No amount of spin can change key realities.”

But the spin never stopped and, in fact, went into high gear this summer with Biden trying to make his candidacy a fait accompli. Meanwhile, the culture of loyalty kept a grip on the delegates who’ll be heading to Chicago in mid-August for the Democratic National Convention. As the second week of July began, CNN reported that “a host of party leaders and rank-and-file members selected to formally nominate Biden said they were loath to consider any other option.” A delegate from Florida put it this way: “There is no plan B. The president is the nominee. And that’s where I and everyone that I’ve been talking to stands — until and unless he says otherwise.”

The lure of going along to get along with high-ranking officials is part of the Democratic Party’s dominant political culture. I saw such dynamics up close, countless times, during my 10 years as a member of the California Democratic Party’s state central committee, and as a delegate to three Democratic National Conventions. I viewed such conformist attitudes with alarm at meetings of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Larry Cohen, former president of the........

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