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bobby kennedy
On the Question: Should Biden Run Again?
Which is not really one question, but several.
Jan 23, 2023
Reports that Justice Department investigators on Friday seized more than a half-dozen documents, some of them classified, from President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware — including documents from his time as a senator and others from his time as vice president — have shaken Washington, worrying some Democrats about Biden’s viability as a candidate in 2024.
The imminent departure of Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, is also being read as a sign that Biden and his administration are turning a corner — reviving questions about whether our 80-year-old president should run again.
But the discussion about Biden’s reelection conflates five different questions. Reporters, pollsters, and pundits continue to confuse them. A clear-eyed view requires that the five be addressed separately. Herewith:
(1) Has Biden done a good job so far? My answer is by and large, yes. He wasn’t able to achieve nearly everything he aimed for when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, but Democrats held only a razor’s edge majority against an increasingly rabid GOP, and Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema put up additional roadblocks. Biden’s accomplishments on the economy, climate, infrastructure, and defending democracy have been significant nonetheless — far more significant than his lapses on withdrawing from Afghanistan and mistakenly keeping some classified documents. While not a stirring speaker or a charismatic public presence, he has shown steadiness and resolve. And he has staffed his administration with highly capable and dedicated people.
(2) Should he run again if he wants to? Almost certainly. Unless a president commits such heinous acts in the first term that their party can’t possibly support their reelection, an incumbent president always has the prerogative of running for a second term. Of course, there’s no guarantee that they’ll get a free pass for the nomination (recall Senators Eugene McCarthy’s and Bobby Kennedy’s assaults on LBJ and Teddy Kennedy’s bid against Jimmy Carter). But I don’t see a serious Democratic opponent on the horizon. Biden should have a straight shot.
(3) If not Biden, who else? This is a trick question, because as long as Biden says he’ll be the Democratic nominee, other highly qualified Democrats are unlikely to identify themselves. There’s still time for them to do so if Biden steps aside. Two years before they were elected president, few people had heard of Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter. But unless Biden announces within the next six months or so that he won’t be running again, it will be difficult for potentially attractive Democratic candidates to gain enough traction to have a good chance in 2024.
(4) Will Biden be the best candidate to beat Trump or whomever else Republicans are likely to nominate, given his age? This is a very tough call. Last year a New York Times/Siena College poll showed nearly two-thirds of Democrats didn’t want Biden to run again, and concerns about his age ranked at the top of the list. Younger people were even more adamant that Biden is too old. To be sure, he’s beaten Trump once, which would suggest he can do it again. And a sitting president has many advantages over a non-incumbent. But Trump will almost certainly frame the election just as Trump frames everything else — strength versus weakness — and will use Biden’s age against him (even though Trump is only four years younger). If the Republicans put up a younger candidate, the age issue will loom even larger.
(5) Would he be a capable leader of the United States when he’s in his mid-80s? I’ve had the privilege of working with four presidents, and I can tell you from my experience and observation that the job of the American presidency is physically and mentally grueling, even for people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. If reelected, Biden would be 86 at the end of his second term (assuming he made it through to the end). That’s deeply worrying, given what we know about the natural decline of the human brain and body. This isn’t an “ageist” prejudice against those who have reached such withering heights so much as an understanding that people in their mid-80s do wither.
My bottom line: (1), yes. (2), yes. (3), we can’t know. (4), doubtful. (5), almost certainly no.
But don’t take my word for it. In the months ahead, each of these five questions needs to be thoroughly debated.
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2020 Is Not 1968, But It Could Be
If we are to reach another new frontier, we may have to rely on each other—a remarkable 'ask' in the time of Covid-19, but one that many people, young and old, seem to be answering.
Jun 14, 2020
Opinion pieces recently have been comparing and contrasting what is going on in the year 2020 with what Americans went through in 1968. One such piece in the Washington Post focused on riots, pandemics, and the law-and-order theme in presidential campaigns. Others have focused on causally unrelated events: each year had a viral health crisis, influenza in 1968, Covid-19 in 2020; and each had a landmark space mission.
We want to focus on events relating to the continuing racial problems in our country. 2020 and 1968 look alike, but they are not. The extreme racial violence leading into 1968 was different in at least three ways.
Although most of the victims of racist violence in 1968 were African Americans, some were young white men and women. They risked and gave their lives working for racial justice.
First, although most of the victims of racist violence in 1968 were African Americans, some were young white men and women. They risked and gave their lives working for racial justice. Their deaths horrified, shamed, and disturbed the consciences of white Americans, old and young, except in places where deeply rooted racism was the longstanding way of life for white citizens.
Andrew Goodman (20 years old) and Michael Schwerner (24) from New York City worked alongside African American James Chaney (21) of Meridian, Mississippi for the Congress of Racial Equality. They were abducted, shot point-blank, and buried like animals in an earthen dam (June 21, 1964) near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Thirty-eight-year-old James Reeb was a white protestant minister with a wife and four children. He was committed to the idea that "you cannot make a difference for African-Americans while living comfortable in a white community." In early March, 1965, as a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he left his family at home in predominantly African American Roxbury, Massachusetts and went to Selma, Alabama in order to join the protest marches. He was clubbed to death while walking with two other white clergymen back to their lodgings outside the 'negro' area of Selma (March 9, 1965). Rev. Clark Olsen, who survived this brutal attack, recalls hearing the three of them called "n- lovers" and then the sickening thud of the wooden club smashing Reeb's skull.
Viola Luizzo, age 39, had grown up in extreme poverty in Georgia and Tennessee and felt profound sympathies for African Americans living as 'slaves by another name' in the Jim Crow South. She felt called to leave her husband and five children to travel from Detroit, Michigan to Selma, Alabama in March 1965. She was shot twice in the head by members of the Ku Klux Klan while shuttling marchers and volunteers by car from Montgomery to Selma.
Second, prominent leaders in the national government and civil rights organizations were themselves relatively young and deeply committed to ending racism. In fact, we are writing this piece on the anniversary (June 11, 1963) of President John F. Kennedy's televised address to the nation explaining what civil rights are and why southern universities needed to be integrated.
Those who led us as a people had experience, real and vicarious, of the brutality of war and the inhumanity of poverty and prejudice. Martin Luther King, Jr. who had begun working for civil rights when he was 25, was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 in the prime of his life. Medgar Evers, a WWII veteran, a lawyer and tireless state field secretary of the NAACP, was murdered in his driveway by rifle fire by a member of the White Citizens' Council in Jackson, Mississippi on June 12, 1963. Evers was 37.
John F. Kennedy, a war veteran with an understanding of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice, and his brother Robert F. Kennedy were 46 and 43 respectively when they were murdered by gunfire. The Kennedys were children of privilege and elite education, but they came to know, as James Brown would put it, "what it is and what it is."
JFK had introduced civil rights legislation in Congress in April 1963 and RFK, as attorney general, had sent 400 federal marshals to Montgomery, Alabama in May 1961 to protect MLK and other civil rights activists. On May 24, 1963, RFK, while attorney general, held a small informal gathering on race relations with a dozen prominent African Americans including author James Baldwin and singers Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne. Jerome Smith, a Freedom Rider who had been jailed and beaten in Mississippi, came along. Smith did not mince words. He described being arrested and beaten while Justice Department officials stood by and took notes. RFK's conversion was not instantaneous like Saul's on the road to Damascus. But he eventually grasped the day-to-day realities of racism and acted to stop racism.
With Vietnam a constant public issue, RFK could declare, "How long can we say to a Negro in Jackson, 'When war comes you will be an American citizen, but in the meantime you're a citizen of Mississippi--and we can't help you'?"
The third major difference was the Vietnam War and the draft. Phase 1 of the Tet Offensive and the prolonged siege of U.S. Marines at Khe Sanh from January to July 1968 were determining factors in turning public opinion against the war. With Vietnam a constant public issue, RFK could declare, "How long can we say to a Negro in Jackson, 'When war comes you will be an American citizen, but in the meantime you're a citizen of Mississippi--and we can't help you'?" The universal draft exposed every young American coming of age to mortal danger. It made many families think about Saigon and Khe Sanh and about Jackson and Selma and Montgomery at the same time.
The contrast with 2020 is clear. Right now, we have neither a critical mass of mainstream Americans nor young dedicated leaders in political office who feel deeply enough about what is going on to do more than debate the acceptable boundaries of police use of force and how to keep targeted minorities from responding to acts of violence with violence. On the positive side, Rev. Al Sharpton sees reason for hope in the racial and gender diversity of the protesters at recent peaceful demonstrations. If we are to reach another new frontier, we may have to rely on each other--a remarkable 'ask' in the time of Covid-19, but one that many people, young and old, seem to be answering. We can draw upon models of moral courage and moral leadership in the 1960s.
We have martyred victims in 2020 who are calling us to do more than demonstrate. 2020 is not 1968, but it could be.
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Remembering Slain Peace and Justice Activists on This--and Every--Memorial Day
Let us remember those who died fighting for human rights and a better world.
May 25, 2020
The Progressive Editor's note: This commentary first appeared on the website of The Progressive on May 27, 2013. This year on Memorial Day, we repost it in memory of all people working for change in our world--some are honored and remembered, others lesser known. Some are quiet essential workers, risking their lives while helping individuals day-to-day in this time of global pandemic.
For Memorial Day, it is customary to remember the soldiers who died for our country.
But I'm not one for custom, so, on this day, I'd like to remember the peace and justice activists who died for our country.
I remember, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and Bobby Kennedy.
I remember Medgar Evers, an organizer with the NAACP, who was gunned down in Mississippi in 1963 while wearing a t-shirt that said, "Jim Crow Must Go."
I remember James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, murdered in 1964 for trying to register black citizens to vote in Mississippi.
I remember Mark Clark and Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers, murdered by Chicago cops in 1969.
I remember Jeff Miller, Allison Krause, William Knox Schroeder, and Sandra Lee Scheuer, slain at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970.
I remember Phillip Gibbs and James Green, slain by police at Jackson State just 11 days later.
I remember Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, murdered by Pinochet's thugs in Chile in 1973.
I remember Karen Silkwood, anti-nuclear activist, killed in a highly suspicious car crash in 1974.
I remember Ben Linder, killed by the contras in Nicaragua in 1987.
I remember Judi Bari, one of the leaders of Earth First!, killed by a bomb in her car in 1999.
I remember Rachel Corrie, crushed to death ten years ago by an Israeli armored bulldozer in Gaza.
They all deserve a Memorial Day salute.
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