
Laying down the gauntlet in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, The New Yorker magazine has targeted President Joe Biden for preventing young Democrats running from seeking his endorsement.
Harris, the magazine wrote, “embodies both the necessary basic values and political skills,” to take on and defeat former President Trump, but used her ascension as a flashpoint to openly blast Biden’s leadership and performance.
“It was hardly a secret that Biden has aged, growing markedly less robust, particularly in the past eighteen months or so. If he got through an interview or a (rare) press conference without incident, staff and supporters exhaled and treated it as a victory,” the editors wrote.
Biden and his team were attacked for not getting out of the way rather than making room for younger Democratic voices, and instead potentially blocking challengers to a Clinton restoration.
“But, rather than open the gate to a younger generation of Democratic candidates, Biden, his advisers, and the Party leadership stood in the way. They made it plain that a challenger would inevitably be defeated. Meanwhile, through spin and deft scheduling, the White House staff protected the President and hoped for the best. Tens of millions of voters, fearing another Trump Presidency, had little choice but to close their eyes and think of America,” the endorsement reads.
The New Yorker said the tipping point was Biden’s debate performance. The debate, once considered a cringing moment, was later called “The Gift” by the magazine. Had it been after the Conventions, when a reboot might have come too late to force a reassessment, they mused.
“Viewed more coldly, it was a gift. Had it taken place, say, after the Conventions, it might have been too late to force a reassessment,” the article reads.
In that debate, Trump said, “‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.’”
Although most of the editorial was critical of Biden, The New Yorker did not pass up an opportunity to assail Trump in their endorsement — describing him as a “menacing presence in American life. They cautioned that the danger of a second term for Mr. Trump is much greater than his behavior so far, underscoring the showdown nature of this election.
And while Harris has in some sense got the “vibes,” with most of the VF editors rating her highest, they exercised a modicum of caution: Thanks to Trump’s consistent outperforming polls despite trailing in our final tracker results from both 2016 and 2020, this is still anybody’s race. While every serious evaluation of the race cannot ignore what a Harris Administration would need to deal with, any glide past what yet another Trump Administration would mean is facile and irresponsible.
Finally, The New Yorker ended with the reminder of its pleas early on for Biden to get out after he tanked in the debates. Watching Thursday night’s debate, seeing Biden stagger around incoherently on stage was a harrowing vision, what editor David Remnick called “a disaster” for both the Democratic Party and the country.
In the end, wrote Remnick, “You watched it, and, on the most basic human level, you could only feel pity for the man and, more, fear for the country.”