Most sensible people were heavily questioning why he wouldn’t drop out and even suggesting he should. The Democratic Party elites buried their heads in the sand for some weird reason and tried to drown this out but I wouldn’t mistake that for most people.
The reason is fairly obvious: due to the circumstances of the moment back in the summer of 2020, Biden had no other choice than to pick a black, female VP - and Kamala was pretty much the only one with the sufficient stature as a sitting senator. So now they were stuck with a VP and heir-apparent who was an awful politician. The calculus was that Biden, as a milquetoast old white man, would not trigger and energize Trump's (in their eyes) racist and sexist base as much and would, with the benefit of incumbency, stand a better chance at winning the 2024 election than her, even if he was at 90 or 80% of his powers.
The hope was that if they streamline the primaries to make sure that nobody calls the emperor out for having no clothes, Biden could limp across the finish line. Past that point, they didn't care anymore, he could drop out in favor of Kamala anytime and she would become POTUS without having to face the voters.
Unfortunately for them, Biden's mental decline began to accelerate around the same time, so that their whole strategy became increasingly untenable. After his disaster debate, the DNC decided to cut their losses and try their luck with Kamala, which was definitely the right move. Yes, she lost, but with her as their standard bearer, they were at least able to reduce the damage and come out of 2024 within striking distance.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 20 2025 09:41am