Democrats Are Panicking. Why Aren’t Their Leaders Doing Anything?

But reading The Moralist, Patricia O’Toole’s 2018 biography of Wilson, I found another, far more relevant, historical lesson. On the eve of the 1920 convention in San Francisco, the ailing Wilson had convinced himself that only he could save the League of Nations, by running for a third term. Cary Grayson—Wilson’s doctor who had played a major role in the cover-up of the president’s health—and top aide Joseph Tumulty hovered around Union Station in Washington begging top Democrats en route to the convention to resist a Wilson boomlet. As Grayson confided to a leading party official, “No matter what others may tell you … I will tell you that [Wilson] is permanently ill physically, and is gradually weakening mentally, and can’t recover.”

Less than seven weeks before the opening of the Chicago convention, the Democrats are running out of time for dithering and denial. Maybe Biden can convince skeptics that he is truly up for a brutal campaign and a difficult second term. But that requires a level of candor and non-teleprompter competence that has been lacking since Atlanta. With the president’s first on-camera interview scheduled for Friday, there are few signs that either the president or his closest confidants are ready to face the scrutiny that this unprecedented moment demands. 

If Biden has the good judgment to bow out, the Democrats need all the time they can get to come up with a fair, inclusive, and orderly way of choosing an alternative nominee. An open convention would not be 1968 revisited—in large measure because the Democrats are united on the major issues: democracy, women’s reproductive rights, civil rights, and America’s engagement with the world. When Trump is the alternative, forging party unity is easy.