No. of Recommendations: 9
The way to get Joe to retire is to convince party loyalists there are several stronger alternatives. 2/3s of the Dem party get it, you will too by months end, I hope.
How does convincing party loyalists that there are stronger alternatives get Joe to retire?
Biden's the gosh-darn President of the United States. He doesn't have to listen to "party loyalists" and step aside if he doesn't want to. Even if he thinks he's going to lose, why does he want to set the last year of his Presidency on fire by becoming a lame duck now?
He also can respond to those party loyalists that even if there exist several stronger alternatives, there is no mechanism to replace him with any specific stronger alternative. If he steps down, you don't get to just swap in "Candidate X." What you get is a free for all, where every potential candidate (stronger or weaker, viable or not) throws their hat in the ring for a last-minute scramble to try to seize a suddenly-open nomination.
The result would be chaos, a bitter internecine fight among all the factions of the party....and the end result would be a nominee that received no more than a plurality of votes, have virtually no financial resources left for the general, and isn't necessarily one of the "stronger" alternatives (Kamala Harris is perhaps the most likely nominee if Biden retires).
Even if there exist stronger alternatives to Biden, there is no way that the Democrats can be in a better position to win 2024 than if Biden remains the candidate. While another person might theoretically have emerged as a stronger candidate than Biden if he had announced he wasn't running for re-election back in January, such a person will inevitably be a much weaker candidate if Biden were announce today that he wasn't running for re-election. Because none of the potential alternatives have been spending the last year doing what they would need to do to run for President, and their isn't time now.
