An opportunity for Biden to demonstrate to his voters and allies that he is capable of being a world leader

An opportunity for Biden to demonstrate to his voters and allies that he is capable of being a world leader

One week, just one week. This is what President Joe Biden says must resist to consolidate his candidacy and once again be the Democrats’ option against Donald Trump in November. After the resounding disaster in the CNN debate, an aggressive attack by the progressive press, led by The New York Timesspeculation about senility or Parkinson’s disease, public petitions from half a dozen Democratic congressmen and private or anonymous requests from party bigwigs, his administration and some major donors to withdraw, Biden’s entourage believes. That, If next Monday arrivesBe very difficult of yours find an alternative.

Not impossible, because in the August convention there remains the hypothesis of an earthquake, of a coup d’état, of a maneuver to make it «open» and alternatives can be proposed. But almost unthinkable if it is not something coordinated and agreed upon. It has a certain margin, but what is not so clear is that the Democratic Party has it, because This year, it’s not just the presidency that is being decidedBut all seats in the House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate AND a good number of governors.

The 2022 elections, known as middle termturned out to be much better than expected for the Democrats, given the talk of a “red wave,” in reference to the Republican colors. And now it seemed that they would continue to control the House, but pessimism and defeatism spread very quickly and are contagious, and right now they fear losing between 10 and 20 essential positions. Because if Trump wins, and moreover controls Congress, with a predominantly conservative Supreme Court, the steamroller would be total.

All this, however, is half suspended. In what is an anomaly, the election campaign It looks like the president did it temporarily detained in the United States. Donald Trump is missing, leaving all the attention on the civil war of his rivals. Except for a few messages on social networks and a video from a golf cart insulting Biden («a bunch of old garbage») and Kamala Harris («pathetic, fucking bad»), there is no trace. And the president, more than attracting the undecided, is trying to plug internal leaks. Their actions, their interviews, are not to get votes, but to do it avoid an internal revolutionto convince that he has no neurological problems. And when your entire message is to reaffirm that you are not wrong, what is clear is that politically you are not right.

The last 10 days have been a nightmare for the president, who does not control the narrative, and all eyes are on this Monday and Tuesday. The New York Timesin the midst of an already open war, he insinuated in the White House visitors’ logs that the president he might have Parkinson’s and there would be a campaign to hide it. The government had to leave hours later, with a sworn statement from the doctors, to deny that the president had had the slightest problem or even been subjected to some tests. But the damage, once again, was done.

Congress closed last week and will close next week for the celebration of the Republican National Convention, where Trump will be officially declared as the nominee and where the identity of his vice president will also be known. That is why last Tuesday the Democratic representatives met in Washington in the early morning and shortly after the senators for a traditional lunch.

The feeling they left could not have been more gray. Biden has lukewarm support from someincluding popular left-wingers like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez («the debate is over, he is our candidate»), and centrists. But the image was one of absolute pessimism.. No enthusiasm, no joy. At best, just resignation. «Saying it feels like a funeral is an insult to funerals,» one of them told the outlet. Traffic light. That’s the way it is and there seems to be no way out, but according to Axios some of those running for the seat are helplessly complaining through tears that the president’s position will drag them down.

A divided party

The Democratic Party is divided and no one is clear on how to act. The numbers put Biden behind Trump and are distancing him. It looks bad in general and in the so-called battlefield statesthe five or six in which strategists believe everything will be decided mainly by the undecided. One example is Wisconsin. Polls say that Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin is up five points and comfortably leads her Republican rival by 10 points, but that same state, those same voters, give Trump a six-point lead, when before the debate they were tied.

This week will be the week of numbers. Without a great Democratic leader asking the president to sacrifice himself, without a joint letter from all the senators, as was hypothesized, all that remains is the pressure of the polls to do the rest. Biden loses, in everything, but in most exercises the rest of the alternatives are not better. According to Emmerson, on a national scale, President loses 46%-43% to Trumpwith a 11% undecided. But the rest is the same (Kamala Harris, the vice president) or worse, including desperate options like Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and important progressive senators and governors.

THE NATO Summit held in Washington is the great opportunity for Biden to improve his damaged reputation. His party asked him after the CNN debate debacle to multiply his presence, to see his face everywhere at all hours to heal, but he did the opposite, perhaps for fear of a new mistake, which could be definitive. Only one real interview, on ABC, and there he underlined the nomination of the Atlantic Alliance. He said he did not need to take cognitive tests because «At every step you rule the world». There, surrounded by executives and cameras for three days, is where he will take his next exam. Whether it will be his last depends, to a large extent, on himself and no one else.