A few weeks ago, one of France's most celebrated public intellectuals, Bernard-Henri Lévy, gave an interview to The Times about his new documentary, “Ukrainian Slavs” and he said something that helped me understand why, nearing my 70th birthday, I still wanted to be a journalist.
Asked why, at the age of 74, he dodged a rocket over Ukraine to bring home the savagery of the Russian invasion, Lévy said, “In Ukraine, for the first time I felt that the world I know, the world I grew up in. , the world that I want to leave for my posterity, might collapse.”
I have the exact same fear.
That's why the focus of my column has been so tight lately. There are three things that absolutely cannot be allowed to happen: Israel cannot be allowed to turn into an autocracy like Viktor Orban's Hungary; Ukraine cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of Vladimir Putin; and Donald Trump cannot be allowed to occupy the White House again.
If these three occur, the world that I want to leave my posterity with can truly collapse.
Israel, the only functioning pluralistic democracy in the Middle East, wrought by the rule of law, imperfect though it is, will be lost.
The European Union—the European United States, the world's other major multiethnic free market center, free people, and human rights—will be at Putin's mercy.
And the United States, with a vengeful Trump in the White House, effectively pardoned for his many attacks on our democratic institutions and attacks on the integrity of our elections, will never be the same. Trump will not be in chains – a very terrible thought.
It is through this lens that I want to speak about Joe Biden's announcement on Tuesday that he is seeking re-election, again joined by Kamala Harris. Biden's ability to finish his current term and make it through the next is crucial for all three of the scenarios listed above. Which is why, now that Biden has declared that he's running, he really should win.
But while you might think the 2024 election will most likely be a 2020 re-election, that's not the case for the Democrats. This time, Biden's running mate will be crucial.
We've always been told that in the end, people vote for president, not vice president. But because Biden will be 86 at the end of his second term — and therefore the prospect of declining health is not small — people will be asked to vote for his vice president as many times as he is, perhaps more than any other election in American History.
Latest FiveThirtyEight average of all Biden-Harris consent poll found that 51.9 percent of Americans disapproved of Harris' performance and 40 percent approved, nearly the same number as Biden.
Let me be clear: I voted for Joe Biden, and I don't want my money back. He is a good man, and he has been a good president, better than the polls are praising him. The Western alliance he put together, and has defended together, to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a master class in alliance management and maintaining democratic order in Europe. Ask Putin.
Biden's way of telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he was not fooled by — and will not be indifferent to — Netanyahu's judicial coup masquerading as “judicial reform” has been a source of tremendous encouragement to hundreds of thousands of people. Israelis who took to the streets to defend their democracy.
And it's on the domestic issues I care most about — rebuilding America's infrastructure, ensuring America's leadership in manufacturing the most advanced microchips that will power the era of artificial intelligence, and driving market forces to produce the clean energy at scale we need to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change – Biden has delivered results that exceed my highest expectations.
Joe Biden will be my candidate, regardless of age, as long as he is physically and mentally able, because I see no other Democrat with his blend of political skills, his primary belief in the need and possibility of national unity, his foreign policy. smarts and his ability to disagree with Trump supporters without trying to embarrass them. He authentically wants to get the poison out of our political system.
But… I am acutely aware that many Americans disagree with me. I realize that the roughly 30 percent of Republicans who are Trump supporters are likely out of reach — and anything Biden says will not get them anywhere. However, they will not decide on the next election.
as Axios reported on April 17, a Gallup poll in March “found that a record 49 percent of Americans see themselves as politically independent — the same as the two major parties combined.”
This means that there are plenty of moderate and principled conservatives and independents who will not, or choose not to vote for, Trump again. Enough of them demonstrated in the 2022 midterms to prevent nearly all of Trump's election major dissidents from running for state and national office to gain power. Their voices helped save our democracy.
If the 2024 battle comes down to Biden vs. Trump again, we're going to need those independents and moderate Republicans to show up again. But this time, because of his age and the possibility that he may not complete a second term, Biden's vice president will be far more influential in their minds.
It's no secret that Vice President Harris hasn't upgraded his stature in the last two-plus years. I don't know what her problem is — whether she's facing a series of issues that are impossible to deal with, or is in over her head, or contending with a mix of sexism and racism as the first woman of color to represent. President. What I do know is that doubts among voters about his ability to serve as president, significant enough for him to quit as a presidential nominee even before the Iowa caucuses in 2020, have not dissipated.
Given the stakes, Biden needs to make a case to his party—and, more importantly, to moderate independents and Republicans—why Harris is the best choice to succeed him, if he can't complete his term. He cannot ignore this issue, as it will be on the minds of many voters in the run-up to the election.
At the same time, Harris has to prove himself, ideally by showing more power what he can do. One thing Biden might consider is tasking Harris with ensuring that America's transition to the era of artificial intelligence serves to strengthen communities and the middle class. It was a big theme that could carry it across the country.
I wrote a column more than two years ago suggesting that Biden should make Harris his “de facto rural development secretary, tasked with closing the opportunity gap, the connectivity gap, the learning gap, the start-up gap — and the anger and alienation. gap — between rural America and the rest of the country.” That would have been a substantive challenge and would have allowed him and the administration to build bridges to rural Republicans. It never happened.
I fear going into this election on a Democratic ticket that gives moderate Republicans and independents – who desperately need an alternative to Trump – any reason to come back to him.
And be careful. Trump is not stupid. If he's the GOP nominee, I can easily see him asking a more moderate Republican woman, like Nikki Haley, to be his running mate, knowing that her presence on the ticket could be an incentive that gives at least some of the Republicans and independents asking Trump a reason to stuff their noses. and choose it at a later time.
Make no mistake, the vice president really matters in elections that really matter. Because I don't want Biden to win this election by 50.1 percent. I want it to be a resounding rejection of Trumpism and the politics of division. I want to send a strong message around the world – to Putin and Netanyahu and Orbans – that there are more of us Americans on the center-right and center-left, far more people who are ready to work together for the common good, than there are haters and splitter.
That is an America worth leaving to our posterity.