But while Trump will certainly spend most of the next ten months—whether or not he is the Republican presidential nominee, which he almost certainly will be—saying inflammatory and fascistic things, I worry that this argument won’t be enough on its own to sustain Biden’s bid. He is currently in need of a positive and proactive argument as well. If Biden is going to assert that democracy must be saved—and that, by extension, he is its savior—he needs to make the case that he is a worthy and capable protector of it. Thus far, he hasn’t explicitly filled in these blanks. Moreover, the pro-democracy message does nothing to address Biden’s biggest vulnerability: That he may not be not up to the task of being president for four more years.
It’s worth remembering that Biden’s core argument in 2020 wasn’t simply that he was a saner and more stable figure than Donald Trump: It was that he could restore a sense of competence and stability to a government that had been rattled by years of turbulence. The Covid-19 pandemic has receded as a political issue—just ask Ron DeSantis—but its prominence was central to Biden’s pitch to voters. In 2020, he successfully argued that Trump’s chaotic approach to governance was making an already devastating pandemic worse and that he could bring back a sense of normalcy. Above all else, however, Biden’s 2020 candidacy was built around a simple pitch: He alone could make America boring again after several years rocked by constant chaos, non-stop tweeting, and a once-in-a-century pandemic. It was a choice between the crazy spectacle of a bull rampaging through a china shop and—well…just the china shop.
It was a good pitch! More importantly, it was one that made Biden’s greatest liability—he became the oldest president-elect ever—into an asset. Biden had experience and, despite his penchant for gaffes, enough gravitas, to make the case that he was a steady, trusted hand. Voters were ready for a break from tweet barrages at every hour of the day and night and ready to settle for a duller, more predictable candidate. No, Biden wasn’t going to be an exciting, electrifying president, but he might be one that you didn’t have to think about several times a day.