Biden and the 25th amendment

To me an interesting possibility is what would have happened if Biden's condition had gotten so bad that his cabinet invoked the 25th amendment before the Democratic convention. Would they have found a way to oust him without his consent? When that amendment is invoked, as long as he holds his ground and insists he is able to serve, the only way to remove him is by two-thirds vote of both House and Senate -- a more difficult requirement to meet that impeachment, which requires only a simple majority in the House. We can very well wonder what the Republicans in control of the U.S. House (or the minority in the Senate large enough to block removal) would have done. Might they have seen a political advantage to retaining as President a man demented to an embarrassing degree?

This could still happen even though Biden has dropped out of the race for re-election. There are still nearly 3 months until election day. Even after the election they could feel that action of a demented president of the opposite party would hurt their case, whoever is to take office in January. The Republicans are infamous for putting their own hold on power above the welfare of the nation.

The nation has at times been led by Presidents who were essentially non-functional -- both Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge for significant chunks of time at the end of their terms. Cabinet officials kept things running. But they were both out of sight and silent. A demented Biden might very well not be out of sight and not deferring to his Cabinet.

Another intriguing possibility is that Biden will resign before the election. It could happen if his mental decline accelerates and he sees that. Could such a resignation also be a wise strategic move for Democrats? It would certainly claim a great deal of attention in the news cycle.

Biden not seeking re-election

I have seen allegations that Biden's decision not to seek re-election was a coup, treated by partisans like Jon Stewart as not even worth a reply. It took at least 30 seconds of Google search for me to find this, actually making the case.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/23/bidens-withdrawal-from-the-presidential-race-is-not-anti-democratic/

Had he stayed in the race, I assume that his lawyers could have seen to it that he was in fact nominated by the convention, since delgates reneging on their pledges would be out of line with the contractual arrangements they made with the Democratic Party. The military was not going to oust him. The Supreme Court would have found no reason to do that. Joe Biden decided to step down and not run. Many pundits viciously attacked him for not stepping down sooner and insisting he would still run and could still beat Trump.

This I think is very unfair. As of today, no one know whether Kamala Harris will beat Trump. If Trump had had a serious decline in his own health, no one knows whether Biden might have beaten Trump. What just about everyone could see in his debate performance -- and his inability in follow-up interviews to show that that had been one bad evening -- was that this guy was not functioning very well, would likely get worse, and that most American voters would not have voted for him. (I would have, even if he were comatose. The 25th Amendment would see to his replacement by the Vice-President, though keep reading.)

Biden could eventually see that with so little support within his party, he could not win, and he decided not to run again. The critics seem to think it's inexcusable that he didn't see it right away. They wanted him to diagnose his own mental decline, and judge it as so much worse than Trump's that it would preclude his election because of what voters could see. I think a man can be forgiven for not seeing that about himself clearly, especially when there is so much at stake and he has wanted something very badly. My main hope was that he could view the tapes of the debate and see how it would look to the voters, but apparently that didn't happen. The delay may actually have worked to the advantage of Democrats, as there was no time for a leadership fight in which competing Democrats would tear each other down. I hope Biden can eventually see that Nancy Pelosi and others did the right thing, though I do not know whether the details of how they urged him to not seek re-election were more excessive or even cruel than necessary.

I have no certainty that Kamala Harris will be a good President if elected. She could make serious mistakes. But one thing of which I am dead certain is this: If she runs for re-election, there will be no concerted effort to disenfranchise voters opposed to her, and if she loses, to concoct slates of fake electors, or for her to stay in office beyond the end of her term. With Donald Trump we had serious reason to worry about all those things. Even if he had been unable to circumvent the 22nd amendment prohibition on more than two terms, we can imagine him putting up his son Donald, Junior for election, winking, and making clear to his follower that he, Donald, would actually be calling all the shots. And having his loyal henchmen make sure the ballots were counted to ensure a victory.