National Review Online
Wednesday, July 03, 2024
We hope that Donald Trump and his party are watching
what is happening now with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and drawing the right
lessons about choosing a running mate. The seriousness and consequences of that
decision are now on full display.
The 81-year-old Biden’s age-related decline, which
was laid bare before the world in Thursday’s debate, has
provoked a series of crises. It is a political crisis for Biden, his campaign,
and his party. It is a national-security crisis for a country whose commander
in chief is plainly not up to the full-time job of the presidency, especially
outside the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays. And it
threatens to become a constitutional crisis if Harris and Biden’s cabinet need
to contemplate invoking the 25th Amendment over Biden’s objections.
At every turn, the presence of Harris in the
second-highest office exacerbates the crises. Biden’s party could coalesce
around a movement to pressure him to step aside — but Harris is so unpopular
and so plainly unsuited to the presidency that Democrats blanch at putting
their fate in her hands. Voters could more easily accept a caretaker figurehead
as president if they had confidence that a trustworthy No. 2 was increasingly
running things and ready to step in at a moment’s notice. Instead, Harris has hemorrhaged
staff, become a figure of mirth for the rambling platitudes of her public
remarks, and found herself conspicuously assigned only tasks that were already
doomed to failure. Nobody in this administration treats her as if they respect
her.
Worse, because Harris was chosen in large part for her
demographic profile as a black woman — certainly not for her accomplishments,
her political success, or her talents, none of which recommend her for any
serious job — it is politically painful for Democrats either to replace her on
the ticket or pass her over if they replace Biden. Live by identity politics,
die by it slowly.
Trump and Republicans could take three lessons from this
spectacle, two of them wise and one of them crassly self-interested. For the
nation, a stronger, more capable vice president would make it easier and less
painful to replace the president. For Democrats, Harris has left them
handcuffed to a man who is unfit for the job. But for Biden, Harris has proven
a personal insurance policy in the last extremity, stunting thus far the
momentum of efforts to get him to step aside.
In 2016, Trump took the wise path and chose Mike Pence.
While he offered Trump short-term advantages with particular constituencies,
those advantages were secondary to his main qualifications: He was a good man
and one obviously capable and prepared to step in if needed. Pence helped Trump
win and helped him govern. Trump, for reasons that do him no credit, wants no
further part of Pence and is leery of anyone too much like him. Indeed, he has
induced vice-presidential hopefuls to excuse and defend his campaign to
overturn the 2020 election.
Pence remains, however, a better model than Harris.
Like Biden, the 78-year-old Trump could benefit from
reassuring an electorate uneasy about his age. He needs to appeal to voters who
do not trust him but are ready to be done with Biden or Harris if they can get
comfortable with the alternative. Unlike Biden, Trump’s intraparty position is
nearly unchallengeable. Having survived two impeachments, four indictments, a
conviction, and vigorous primary challenges, he knows that no running mate
could rally the party against him. Being term-limited by the 22nd Amendment if
he wins, he — unlike Biden — could govern without concern for reelection.
There are reasons to be concerned by a Trump so
unconstrained, but this also means that he can — if he chooses to — run and
govern with confidence that he need not focus narrowly on preserving his own
position. He can afford to take a broader view, one that aids him in this
election and benefits the country.
We hope that Trump chooses wisely.
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