It's Time to Take Biden's Keys Away
An uncomfortable conversation that the Democrats must have
Before President Joe Biden’s impromptu interview on Morning Joe where he declared “I am not going anywhere,” and pledged to stay in the race, I had already started to feel that the anxiety around Biden’s re-election campaign had begun to look like a conversation that all of us have had, or will have, with an elderly loved one.
Eventually, we are going to have to inform them that they are too old to drive and that we have to take their car keys away.
It is a sad state of affairs that the future of America’s democracy has devolved into this conversation, but it frankly should not come as any surprise. We all want to imagine that our elderly relatives will responsibly acknowledge that they should relinquish some control and pass the baton to the younger generation, but far too often this scenario devolves into an ugly, contentious battle. Once people reach their 80s, most conversations take on this tone in one form or another, but the conversation and ensuing battle about driving is often one of the toughest.
Driving, like democracy, has long been an embodiment of American freedom, and being unable to drive can feel like taking away someone’s freedom.
In the 20th century, the United States was rebuilt around the automobile. Suburbs were erected outside of major cities and the suburban sprawl became an American norm. The interstate was built and now Americans could easily drive from coast to coast. Major cities were completely redesigned to support the automobile. Robert Moses, the influential Secretary of State of New York, practically rebuilt New York City to make room for the automobile, and to do so, he frequently displaced communities of color by building freeways through their neighborhoods.
The American automobile became romanticized. Hollywood movies depicted the beauty of driving on Route 66 and teenagers would often spend Friday nights cruising around their suburban towns in their cars. The American automobile industry was supposedly more than just a capitalistic, profit-driven enterprise. Instead, the automobile industry existed to manufacture Americana and show Americans and the rest of the world that you could buy a slice of the American Dream and American freedom.
In America, automobiles have always represented our society’s distinct brand of individualistic freedom. The individual is behind the wheel and they are free to pursue their dreams. The speed and power of the automobile embolden our yearning to pursue freedom, happiness, wealth, power, and status. Since the Declaration of Independence, America has celebrated the “pursuit of happiness” and we have been taught that pursuing happiness and possessing happiness are the same.
Automobiles fuel our pursuit and being able to get into a car and pursue something that you believe will make you happy has for a very long time equated to an iteration of American freedom. This concept of American freedom and the freedom to pursue is why it is so difficult and painful to inform an elderly loved one that they can no longer drive a car. In reality, the conversation is just about taking a car away, but emotionally, they feel that it takes their freedom away. And this is the conversation we are now having with Biden.
Thus far Biden’s argument for why he should remain the nominee has mirrored the argument elderly people have when they want to keep driving. They get defiant and dismiss the legitimacy of the conversation, they ridicule the idea that they should retake their driving exam, they proclaim that their vision and reflexes are fine, and most significantly, they talk about their long track record of being a great driver.
They talk about how they taught their children how to drive, how they rarely get tickets and never get in accidents. They talk about how people have always described them as a great driver. All of this may be true, but the conversation that their younger family member is trying to have with them is not about the past. It is about the present. It is about how their reflexes and movements have slowed and how their vision has diminished. The elderly person can still move around and see; their faculties have not gone away entirely, but their faculties just are not good enough to keep on driving.
The younger family member is not concerned with the past but with the present and the future. The prospect of their elderly relative driving off a cliff or into another car grows more likely by the day because the battle against time is not a fight that we can win. Yet despite not being able to win the battle against time, no one wants to lose the battle by driving their car off of a cliff or into a wall because they could not see the looming catastrophe ahead and were unable to react quickly enough.
The conversation about relinquishing the keys is not just about the safety of the elderly individual, but also the safety of their passengers and anyone else impacted by an accident. Cars can only have one driver and everyone else is forced to be a passenger. Each car has a hierarchy and our society openly ridicules the “backseat driver,” yet in this moment, the backseat driver needs to be able to take the wheel.
When you are in someone else’s car, you are usually supposed to remain quiet and let the driver drive. This dynamic can be okay if you trust the driver’s capacity, but if you no longer think that they are a safe and responsible driver and you agree to be their passenger, you are essentially signing up for your funeral so that you can preserve their aging ego.
No one should be placed in this position, but this is the position that Biden has placed the Democratic Party and America’s democracy by refusing to leave the race.
Biden has argued that he should be the nominee because he beat Trump in 2020. He has described how he is still vibrant and actively campaigning. He has talked about how he was the youngest person elected to the Senate. He has talked about the successes of his presidency. His agenda is to convince enough people that he should be judged based on his past and not the present. He aspires to convince enough people that the present and future no longer matter, and that only the past is relevant. If he can do that then everyone will agree that he still deserves to hold the keys to the Democratic Party and America’s Democracy. He’ll still get to drive the car, but we will have neither present nor future.
Countless Americans have had this same conversation with an elderly loved one, and we all know that the path that Biden is taking does not end well. We know that he perceives the relinquishing of the keys as taking his freedom and autonomy away. But we also know that giving the keys to the next generation and allowing for a smooth transition of power is how we preserve our freedoms and democracy for generations to come.
A couple of years ago at the beginning of Biden’s presidency, I met with a friend of mine who worked in the White House press corps, and this journalist told me that Biden saw himself as the bridge to the next generation. Thus far he has built a bridge to nowhere and it looks like he might drive the Democratic Party and American democracy off of it.
If he cannot see the unfortunate road ahead, it should become clear to all of his loved ones and the Americans who love our democracy that it is time to take the keys away.