This article was written as an open letter to the Massachusetts congressional delegation.
Dear friends:
I’M WRITING as a lifelong Democrat, firm in my unwavering support for the Democratic Party and what it stands for. I’m writing as a lifelong Democrat whose family has labored for the state and national party for decades. I’m writing as a former cabinet official in a state Democratic administration.
I’m also writing as a citizen who believes that the future of this country is in peril like never before, and I’m including the Civil War in that assessment. America as we have known it cannot survive another Trump presidency, nor can it survive a Republican national trifecta. The deck is stacked against saving our democracy, as the Supreme Court has handed the keys to authoritarianism to any future unprincipled president, and the unprecedented power of technology to mislead large numbers of people places enormous power in the hands of determined ideologues and self-appointed influencers.
The world has not stabilized since the great disruption of the COVID pandemic. Look at the evidence in France, the Netherlands, and the UK. Incumbent governments are being driven from office, largely because they are incumbent. The trend lines are clear. Voters are desirous of change – any kind of change from the status quo. That spells trouble for America, as the country is sadly not responding to either the forward-looking record of the Biden administration or the doomsday cult surrounding the former president. We are sleepwalking into a dystopian future of our own making.
The only way the Democratic Party can win the upcoming elections is to be perceived as fresh, new, dynamic.
Is this fair? When has politics ever been fair? This is not about fairness but about reality.
The recent presidential debate was a watershed moment in the political dynamics of 2024. What was seen cannot be unseen. We have a president ready to squander what has been the most successful and positively impactful presidency of the past half century on the altar of his ego. His opponent, and those who surround him, will drag the country into chaos, division, and worse. Our very democracy is at stake, and half the country seems unperturbed by this.
It gives me no pleasure to write this. I believe the Biden administration has been exemplary in many ways. It has brought the nation safely out of the pandemic. It has uplifted science and facts over quackery and fear. It has restored American credibility abroad. It has delivered on the largest climate and infrastructure bills in anyone’s lifetime. It has begun the critical task of redirecting our economy toward a more equitable and sustainable future. It has restored integrity to the White House.
It has done all these things and more. But that’s not enough. People need to have confidence that they will be electing a dynamic leader for the next 4 years, and that has largely been lost by the clear evidence of a president sadly diminished by age and the grueling job of the presidency.
In your hands, my friends, lies the ability to save not just the Democratic Party but the country. In your hands lies the power to redirect this campaign quickly, decisively, and with victory in mind. The president and his inner circle need to see with clarity that his candidacy has to end, and end sooner than later. Winning elections is all that counts, all that matters, because in the current moment, empowered by the recent Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, we face an existential crisis that threatens all we hold dear as a democracy. The stakes have never been higher. The current dynamics of the campaign need to change, and change dramatically and rapidly.
I am pretty sure each of you knows this to be true, in your heart of hearts. I understand the need to deal with this in a compassionate and delicate way. But whatever you do, however you do it, you cannot passively let this critical moment pass without acting to change the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket.
If the president remains at the top of the ticket and loses (as it appears he surely will), and if the Congress is lost with him (it seems certain that the Senate will flip, but the House remains in play) people will rightly say that our party leadership has let us down. Worse, they will look elsewhere for leadership, as the party failed to rise to the occasion at a time when it most urgently needed to do so.
We need President Biden to make an enormous personal sacrifice for his country. We need him to see the political landscape with clarity. You are, by virtue of your high office, in a position to set a process in motion to help get him there. We look to you and your House and Senate colleagues for leadership at a time when political courage is needed as never before.
With respect and gratitude for your public service.
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