There has certainly been a lot of ink spilled over the question of whether Joe Biden should be running for office. The issue has been so heavily covered that many on the progressive left now see continued discussion of the question as a kind of plot by the media. Case in point:

I'm getting pretty sick and fucking tired of the media playing this stupid game asking why is President Biden running for reelection.

1. He's the sitting President.
2. He's having a VERY successful first term.
3. Presidents usually run for reelection.
4. He handily beat the GOP… pic.twitter.com/l9zvZRgAKa

— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) December 6, 2023

I’m using that as an example because he has a lot of followers but there are many more people on the left making some version of this argument. But what if the doubts about Biden running again aren’t coming from media speculation but from Biden himself? Who is to blame in this case?

The presumptive Democratic nominee for president made the comments during a fundraiser in Boston.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” the president said. “But we cannot let him win.”

No television cameras or microphones were allowed inside the event, but reporters traveling with the president were able to report on his comments.

Biden walked that back, telling reporters he’d be running even if Trump dropped out. But by the next day he stepped in the same mess all over again. After a speech Wednesday, reporters yelled questions at him and he chose to responded to one. The question was whether other Democratic candidates could defeat Trump.

“Probably 50” Democrats could beat Mr. Trump, he said. Then, seeming to laugh off his remark with a wry smile, he added, “I’m not the only one who could defeat him, but I will defeat him.”

Whether Mr. Biden was joking, or again accidentally saying all that he meant, is for him to know. But his perhaps-too-candid moments, combined with many voters’ dissatisfaction about his performance, have worked to undercut his rationale for running — that he is the indispensable Democrat best positioned to keep Mr. Trump out of the White House, protect democracy and retain the “soul of America.”

If he’s not indispensable, it opens the door to an uncomfortable question from skeptics in his party: Why not let some other Democrat have a chance to run for president?

If you’re a regular reader than you know we’ve been over this question before. Biden won’t let “some other Democrat” run for office because the person next in line who he would be all but bound to endorse is Kamala Harris. And everyone knows Kamala Harris is in no position to win an election. And yet, the institutional forces would probably feel obligated to array behind her if Biden refused to run. No one on the left can survive telling the first Black Vice President she’s not fit for office. So Democrats have a choice between aging, unpopular Biden and hapless, unpopular Harris. Given that choice they are sticking with Biden even though all of the warning lights on the dashboard are flashing right now.

As for the original question raised in the headline. It seems to me Biden keeps saying this stuff because at some level even he must know he’s getting too old for this. Whether he’s being excessively honest because that’s who he is or because he can’t remember why he shouldn’t be saying this stuff out loud is open to interpretation.

The comments are full of stuff like this:

I really, really, really wish he would honor his promise to be a one term president who would support a younger candidate.

And this:

It is probably too late, but, I do not and did not think he should run again. Just because Biden beat Trump once, does not mean he is the one and only. In fact, Biden said so himself. It is a huge risk. I say this as someone who voted for President Biden in 2020 and certainly will again. I just wish that was a choice I did not have to make. I constantly think of what happed with Justice Ginsburg. Tom Friedman wrote awhile ago that Biden loves being Commander in Chief. Seems once somebody tastes that power, they don’t want to give it up. Maybe just a bit selfish, too.

And so on:

Justice Ginsberg wouldn’t depart when the time was right. I think the same can be said for Biden. He has effectively foreclosed the possibility of any one else in the Party from taking on Trump. There’s a stubbornness in old people (I’m one) that is sometimes admirable and other times maddening. Here it’s the latter.

Again, I appreciate the desperation of these Democrats but I think the moment you replace the generic idea of “someone else” with Kamala Harris the problem becomes obvious.