President Trump shooting: Is Biden’s nomination a certainty?

The rebellion against President Biden that has been brewing among some Democrats since his debate performance has faded from the headlines, leading some to speculate whether it may be over for good.

Just a few days ago, Biden’s chances of retaining the nomination were in serious jeopardy. Last Wednesday and Thursday, Biden was hit with a series of scathing reports about a steep drop in fundraising, a lack of confidence among some of his closest aides, and party leaders privately signaling a willingness to remove him from office. Anonymous sources told reporters that dozens more House Democrats will soon publicly call for Biden’s resignation.

But after Biden held a press conference Thursday night where he answered reporters’ questions for nearly an hour — the expected surge of defections never materialized, but rather a trickle — Biden’s competent performance seemed to lock things in, leaving Democrats in a stalemate heading into the weekend.

Then, on Saturday evening, a shooting occurred at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, leaving one rally attendee dead and Trump injured — and that has some implications for Biden.

First, the topic has changed. Ever since the June 27 presidential debate, the media has been obsessed with Biden and the president’s age of 81. The debate was by far the biggest news story in the country. The constant coverage put a lot of pressure on Biden and the Democratic Party, but now, with Trump’s gunfire, Biden’s fate has disappeared from the headlines.

Second, it is generally beneficial for a president in a crisis to act presidential: to project the dignity and prestige of the presidency and to appear greater than the petty politics of the moment. That’s why, after Trump’s shooting, Biden called for national unity and not to get sucked into the fray. Moreover, the weekend’s violence may suggest something. Right now, the country is in chaos. Do Democrats really want to add to the chaos by effectively toppling the president?

Third, and most controversial, the instinctive reaction of some Democrats to Trump’s shooting is to assume that Trump will win the election and conclude that the tiresome and difficult effort to replace Biden is not worth it because Biden’s replacement is likely to lose as well. “We’re all resigned to the idea of ​​Trump having a second term,” a top House Democratic leader told Axios on Sunday, in an already infamous line.

This chain of logic is patently flawed — it’s too early to give up on an election that’s months away — and it may be primarily an attempt to justify the inertia and inaction to which leading Democrats were already leaning — but the conclusion is clear: it helps Biden stay in office.

The Democratic National Convention is just over a month away, so Biden will simply have to wait until then. That could happen even sooner if the DNC chooses to ask delegates to make Biden’s nomination official sooner with a virtual roll call, a proposal that is currently under consideration.

So Biden’s chances of being renominated suddenly look higher.

But nothing is certain yet: Trump must weather the next few weeks without developing any symptoms that would raise concerns about his age or health, and more Democrats could choose to revive the insurrection.

The turmoil in American politics over the past few weeks should remind us that the unexpected awaits, and nothing is certain until it happens.