As President Joe Biden faces calls to drop out of the presidential race from fellow Democrats, liberal outlets are now beginning to urge the president to withdraw his candidacy and allow Vice President Kamala Harris to run.
A piece from leftist outlet The Atlantic called on the president to end his reelection bid to the White House and resign from the presidency to save the country from former President Donald Trump emerging victorious in November.
The article, written by Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer on Wednesday, urges the president to depart the Oval Office and allow Harris to become president. The piece comes as questions emerge over Biden’s weakening cognitive health.
“Biden must resign … to give American democracy its best chance of surviving,” Serwer said.
Serwer then echoed the criticisms of many other left-leaning outlets over Biden’s poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump, arguing that it “confirmed that he has aged dramatically over the past four years.”
“Biden was very old to begin with, and at the debate he appeared far more visibly diminished than he has in the past,” he said.
Although Serwer said Biden could just have been having a bad night, he pointed out that the president’s team hasn’t dismissed such concerns.
“Now, perhaps it really was just a bad night, and Biden remains as sharp as he was in 2020,” Serwer added.
“If that’s the case, then he should be able to make the kind of public appearances necessary to quell these complaints. If he proves himself capable of doing so, I’ll happily acknowledge error,” he continued.
“But after a week of disastrous coverage about his mental fitness, he has not. That is unavoidably ominous,” he said.
Serwer noted that the debate was the president’s chance to calm “fears about his age rather than confirming then,” more so since he’s trailed Trump in the polls.
The writer argued that Biden should leave the race to lower the prospects of the former president winning the election. Serwer didn’t stop there, however. He said the president should just resign from the presidency.
“If Biden is incapable of campaigning because of his deterioration, he is also not capable of being president. And if he is incapable of being president, then he should resign and allow Vice President Kamala Harris to take the oath of office,” he wrote.
Serwer then argued why Harris would effectively replace Biden and how she could help Democrats defeat Trump in November.
“The earlier Biden resigns, the faster the Democratic Party can move to reunite behind the new nominee and concentrate its efforts on keeping Trump from returning to the White House. Harris would become the party’s presumptive nominee, enjoying the prestige and advantages of incumbency,” he said.
“She is also the only candidate who can legally access the financial war chest the Biden campaign has amassed,” he added.
Although Serwer acknowledged that Republicans would label Harris as the DEI president, he said that the faster she becomes president, the faster she could prove such criticisms wrong.
