Joe Biden’s chances do not look good. The Democrats have no plan B

SITTING PRESIDENTS do not tend to abandon bids for re-election. The most recent to do so was Lyndon Johnson, in 1968. And that is a year that his party, the Democrats, would rather forget. Johnson was unpopular. The country and the party were divided by the Vietnam war and the civil-rights movement. After a surprisingly strong challenge in the first primary, he stood aside, only to unleash chaos. One of the leading candidates to replace him, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated. The nomination was eventually awarded by party grandees to a man who had not won a single primary, Hubert Humphrey. In the end the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, who had been widely considered unelectable at the beginning of the year, won convincingly. He went on to do more damage to the presidency than anyone bar the Republicans’ likely candidate this year, Donald Trump.Mr Trump, too, should be unelectable, owing to the 91 felonies with which he has been charged in different parts of America. Yet Joe Biden, the incumbent president, is so unpopular he may well lose to Mr Trump. There have been occasional calls for Mr Biden to step aside, like Johnson. But there is no sign that he is willing to do so and no guarantee that the Democrats would end up with a stronger candidate if he did. For that reason, although many Democratic operatives have grave misgivings about his candidacy, most are keeping quiet. As one puts it, if you’re all stuck on a boat of questionable seaworthiness, it is natural to wish for a finer vessel, but unproductive to poke holes in the hull or stoke a mutiny.