Irrational belief in rationality: Democrats believing in a rational world head toward a presidential defeat
President Joe Biden appears increasingly unlikely to win the November 2024 election running against former President Donald Trump.
With poll results showing that Biden would lose five of the six states needed for electoral victory if the election were held today,1 Democrats continue to support, even if passively, Joe Biden’s death-grip on the Democratic nomination and the future of democracy and the rule of law in the United States.2
Biden seems to be an emotional and stubborn old man with an iron will to hang on to power, no matter what the risks to the Democrats and to the future of the country may be.
He could go down in history as a man who saved America from the authoritarianism of Donald Trump while achieving major legislative victories and managing the economy with excellent results. Or he could go down in history as a man who out of personal hubris and hunger for power risked both his own fate and that of the country, and lost.
From any rational point of view, there are few considerations that might justify risking it all when other, younger, Democratic candidates might have a much better chance of beating the presumptive or any other Republican candidate.
The extraordinary paradox is that this rational analysis runs counter to the almost religious belief of Democratic leaders that the outcome of the 2024 presidential election will be determined by voters acting in a world of reason.
Unfortunately, it is this unquestioned, bedrock belief that constitutes the Democrats’ greatest weakness, and the greatest risk for the future of the country.
Democrats today, by and large, live in a world in which they believe that voters are rational and that the presidential election in 2024 will be determined by reason. This belief is in their DNA. In this world, the great achievements of the Biden administration on the domestic front will, when voters finally focus on the bread-and-butter issues that matter most to them, necessarily lead them to vote for Joe Biden, for the Democrats, and for the policies they support.3 The fact that this did not occur in 2016 is simply dismissed. In this world, Biden’s foreign policy record, which upon close examination is questionable at best, is assumed to have no bearing on the outcome of the election.
Democrats ignore the fact that the polls show that half the voters voice a preference for Trump, and that Republican representatives in the House and the Senate express support for Trump and even for the crazy belief that Trump won the 2020 election.
Democrats answer critiques based on Biden’s (and Harris’s) extremely low (and sinking?) standing in the polls with rational arguments. These low ratings, however, have been a constant since Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021.
They ignore the fact that politics in the U.S. is not taking place in a rational world. Consider the following analysis by Thomas B. Edsall which summarizes the negatives against Trump, who nonetheless enjoys the support of half the electorate and more than that in five of the key battleground states according to the latest polls.
“Thomas B. Edsall, “The Roots of Trump’s Rage,” New York Times, November 22, 2022.
Edsall quotes Brian Klass of the University College of London, who in an October 1, 2023 article wrote the following:4
There are now two leading candidates for the American presidency.
One of them is a 77 year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him, and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power.
The other is 80 years old with mainstream Democratic party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips. (There may be other reasons to criticize Joe Biden, but the main one discussed in the press is his age).
One of those two candidates faces relentless newspaper columns and TV pundit “takes” arguing that he should drop out of the race. (Spoiler alert: it’s somehow *not* the racist authoritarian sexual abuse fraudster facing 91 felony charges).
Considering the above, it appears that reason is clearly not determining the preferences of half or more of voters in states which are of decisive importance for the electoral college vote.
One is hard-pressed to avoid the conclusion that the belief of the Democrats in a rational world and that in that rational world Joe Biden can win reelection in 2024 is itself irrational.
It is irrational in that it ignores obvious facts, and assumes a Biden and Democratic victory essentially on the basis of an irrational belief that voters will vote rationally in the presidential election in November 2024.
This faith in a rational world in which voters make rational choices is contradicted by abundant present and historical evidence.
Mass political emotions are sweeping through the American body politic. Democrats and all small “d” democrats need to open their eyes, grasp current realities, and act accordingly.
A rational response to the irrational world in which America currently exists would be to wrest the Democratic nomination from the death-grip of an old and stubborn man who, despite his achievements and current abilities, is widely perceived as being too old (he will be 82 weeks after the 2024 election) and lacking the abilities to be an effective president, and who is detested–irrationally–by a very large portion of the electorate.
In this irrational world of politics in America today, a Democratic candidate such as Governor Gavin Newson of California or Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan would probably have a much greater chance of defeating Donald Trump or another Republican than would Joe Biden.
This fact is not rational. This fact is not fair.
But it is very real, and the nomination of Newsom or Whitmer would represent a very rational response to the irrational world in which the next president (and House and Senate) will be elected in November 2024.
James Rowles )is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.
Shane Goldmacher, “Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds; Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying,” New York Times, November 5, 2023.
A notable exception is David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s campaign adviser, who while granting that the decision is Biden’s to make has issued a thinly-veiled call for Biden to withdraw from the race. See,
1)Hanna Panteck (Fox News), ”David Axelrod doubles down on Biden criticism after president reportedly called him a ‘prick’,” New York Post, November 19, 2023 (2:03 p.m. ET);
2)Maureen Dowd, “The Axe Is Sharp,” New York Times, November 18, 2023,
See, e.g., Ronald Brownstein, “How Biden Might Recover; The former president just revealed his plan to win a second term,” The Atlantic, November 24, 2023 (6:00 am ET);
Brian Klaas, “The Case for Amplifying Trump's Insanity; The ‘Banality of Crazy’ has warped American politics, as few voters recognize just how deranged, delusional, and dangerous Donald Trump is...because the press rarely reports on his routine insanity,” The Garden of Forking Paths, October 1, 2023.
See also
1)James Rowles, ”REVISED AND UPDATED: The decline of truth and respect for expertise: The foreign policy ignorance of the American electorate and its portents; Civil ignorance is not new, but the abandonment of truth by part of the political class may be.,” Trenchant Observations, August 31, 2023.
2)James Rowles, “When reason is swept aside: Remembering Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany,” Trenchant Observations, August 3, 2023.
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