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Joe Biden is slated to be the Democratic candidate for president of the United States. So, at least, I last heard. But for reasons unclear, since the unofficial end of his campaign for the nomination, Biden has effectively disappeared.

OK, he’s not entirely disappeared. Yesterday, for example, he gave CNN’s Jake Tapper an interview. But Biden’s presentation of self was listless beyond belief. He had nothing whatsoever to say that was new and different. And whatever he did say he droned on in dreary monotone. The highlight of the exchange was when Biden coughed into his hands – which left Tapper reminding the former vice president that for now anyway we never cough into our hands and always into our elbow.

The incumbent president is everyday an embarrassment – arguably even a dangerous one. This provides his putative challenger with a perfect opportunity to step into the breach. To show us what he’s made of. To provide the American people with the strongest possible alternative to Donald Trump. But so far anyway, for the last couple of weeks at least, Biden has been inexplicably passive.

No one is stopping Joe Biden from doing anything. So why on a regular basis doesn’t he speak up forcefully and persuasively? Why on a regular basis doesn’t he generate a raft of pertinent policy proposals? Why on a regular basis doesn’t he take direct issue with the president? Why on a regular basis doesn’t he reach out to those individuals, groups, and organizations most directly affected by the virus crisis – such as health care professionals? Why on a regular basis doesn’t he perform visible acts of community kindness?

Where have you gone, Joe Biden?

We always want strong leaders. Freud wrote that our “thirst for authority” is natural, even in times of stasis. But in times of crisis this thirst becomes near desperate. In times of crisis we are near desperate to find someone who can lead us out of the dark and into the light.

This more than anything else explains why in recent weeks our usual fixation on leaders has morphed into an aberrant obsession. We are smack in the middle not of one crisis but of two. They are related – the health crisis and the financial crisis – but they are not one and the same. It could reasonably be argued, in fact, that the skill set required to lead us out of one crisis is quite different from the skill set required to lead us out of the other.

To be sure, there are certain commonalities. Indeed, great leaders are so well endowed, and so amply equipped, that they are leaders for all seasons. They have the capacity to bring to all situations characteristics of character and patterns of behavior that serve them, serve everyone, well. But even leaders who are good though not great have a hard time coping with two crises simultaneously. And, even leaders who are good though not great can be overwhelmed by desperate demands coming at them from different directions.   

Hence the current onslaught of information and ideas about leadership in times of crisis. Pointing out the numberless deficits of President Donald Trump long ago became ritual. Is there anything even left to be said about his bad leadership? Just yesterday New York Times columnist David Leonhardt wrote a column titled, “How Trump is Worsening the Crisis.” As usual, Leonhardt was smart and on point. But, did he say anything new? Did he bring to the never-ending discussion about Trump anything we have not heard before?

Similarly, the spate of articles about leaders in the private sector. The Wall Street Journal points out the obvious, that the “radical new landscape” is forcing CEOs to make “tough management calls.” It cites Cisco’s CEO, Chuck Robbins, who aims to offer reassurance. And it references Marriott’s CEO, Arne Sorenson’s, emotional response to being forced to announce layoffs. And it describes how Testio’s CEO, Kieran Snyder, spends time at meetings getting employees to describe how they’re feeling. The Financial Times asked CEO’s directly: “What are your insights on the unprecedented challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic.” (Though again, the virus crisis is just one of two current crises.) Accenture’s CEO, Julie Sweet, replied she thought three things especially important: transparency, calm, and keeping close to her constituents.  Mars CEO, Grant Reid, said he was relying on his company’s five principles: quality, responsibility, efficiency, mutuality, and freedom. And Novartis’s CEO, Vas Narasimhan, talked about the importance of keeping himself well, including getting enough sleep, holding to healthy habits, and taking the long view.        

People like me, ostensible experts on the subject, are constitutionally unable right now to resist the impulse to address leadership and management in this moment of crises. All well and all good.  But before we open our mouths or put pen to paper we should ask ourselves, do we have anything to say or write that is genuinely new and demonstrably different? If we do, great. If we do not, back to the drawing board. Or, back to basics, from Lao to Plato, from Shakespeare to Stanton, from Weber to Drucker.       

In the past, I wrote rather regularly about women and leadership. In the recent past, I focused especially on how being a mother impacts being a leader.* Specifically, I proposed that pregnancy and lactation are major explicators of why the large gender gap between leaders at high levels persists. Why the gender gap in leadership persists despite twenty-five years of constant and considered efforts to close it.  

My primary point remains still politically incorrect – even taboo: the significant sociobiological differences between men and women, again, especially as they emerge during and after the period a woman is pregnant.  In brief, first I highlighted the certainty that women are primates. Second, I highlighted the probability that primate parenting bears on why, in 2019, only 6.6 percent of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were women. (This figure is an all-time high.)  

The subject came to mind again this week, when I read an article by Sarah Menkedick in Time, titled, “Postpartum Anxiety Goes Undiagnosed.” Seems that approximately 6 percent of new mothers have postpartum depression. But, additionally, approximately 17 percent of new mothers have postpartum anxiety. In other words, almost one quarter of new mothers are affected by being pregnant in ways much more likely to hinder their leadership journeys than to help them. Given that approximately 85% of American women between the ages of 40 and 44 are mothers, we are talking here about a very large number of American women for whom becoming a mother could well handicap forever their chances of becoming a leader.

The point I make does not, nor should it imply paralysis. It is what it is – women bear babies and breastfeed them, not men.  But it does imply redirecting our attempts to support equity between women and men at the highest levels. It implies the emphasis should be less on redesigning organizations and more on reconsidering those who people them.      ——————————

*See, for example:

Leadership and Lactation

Women and Leadership – Redux

Being a Mother, Being a Leader

Women and Leadership – Redux

Also see, Barbara Kellerman, “Leadership and Lactation” in Sherylle Tan and Lisa DeFrank-Cole, eds, Women’s Leadership Journeys, Routledge, 2029.

Leaders at the national level are not usually expected to be leaders at the international level. There are several reasons for this, most obvious among them are the nations they lead, which generally are not large or strong enough to provide them with a platform for exercising power or influence worldwide. There are occasional exceptions to this general rule, but they are just that, exceptions.

At the same time there are a few national leaders who are expected, virtually as a matter of course, to lead at the international level. These are leaders of countries of such obvious heft – especially militarily and economically – that neither their policies or preferences can possibly be ignored. The most obvious example is, of course, the United States, which at least since the end of the Second World War has played a dominant or, better, the dominant role in world affairs. Not for nothing was the U.S. long tagged, “leader of the free world.”

Presidents at least from Franklin Delano Roosevelt through Barack Obama have generally welcomed this role – though some more, of course, and some less. They assumed the mantle of world leader and did what they thought their level best to wear it responsibly. Easy enough to take issue with some of the decisions they made, but at least they did not fixate on what was happening at home while ignoring effectively entirely what was happening abroad.

Until President Donald Trump. It is by now a conventional wisdom that his interest in and knowledge of the world, and world affairs, is low, very, very low. He is entirely uninformed and, worse, completely incurious about anything anyplace except in so far as it affects his own fortunes. Moreover, he is outright antipathetic to countries and cultures other than his own, especially if they seem to him to be alien – that is, other than Scandinavian.

For most of Trump’s presidency this has been yet another of his numberless deficits. Now though, given the world is caught simultaneously in two different (though related) crises, a virus crisis and a financial crisis, Trump’s America-First fixation poses an unfamiliar threat of unknown scope.       

Every single one of Trump’s mid-to-late twentieth century predecessors, and every single one of his twenty-first century predecessors, would have been better equipped than he to forge the global alliance necessary to combat COVID-19. Similarly, every single one would have been better equipped than he to forge the global alliance necessary to steer us through the roiling financial markets.

Neither of the two crises threatening our well-being are national – they are international. They are international in their origins and they will be international in their solutions. But Trump’s relationships with leaders of countries that historically have been America’s allies – such as Canada and Germany, Mexico and France – are fraught at best and frayed at worst. And his relationships with leaders of countries that historically have been America’s adversaries – North Korea, Russia, and most importantly now, China – careen from being unctuous and obsequious to antipathetic and antagonistic.  

The public health and financial crises equally testify that globalization cannot, will not be undone. Further, addressing the first as well as the second mandates medical, scientific, political, and economic collaboration and cooperation at the international level. Because Trump is constitutionally unable to provide this transnational, multinational leadership, his subordinates in each of these domains are morally obligated to transcend their superior.      

Ever tried to lead a swan? They typically have fierce temperaments and they are prone to aggressive behaviors, which is why telling them to fall in line is an exercise in futility. Additionally, when the swan in question is not white, as is usual, but black, as is highly unusual, the complexities of leading and managing these rare birds are compounded.

The conceit of the black swan, that is, a black swan event, was popularized around the time of the 2008 financial crisis by finance professor and former Wall Street trader, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Broadly defined a black swan is 1) an event that is virtually entirely unanticipated; 2) an event that is likely to have severe, even dire consequences (especially financially); and 3) an event that people claim with the benefit of hindsight should have been foretold.   

Though by definition black swan events are unforeseen, one could reasonably argue that we should prepare for them, just in case. But, of course, that’s not how we work. We don’t generally plan for futures we don’t generally expect – a rule to which leaders are no exception. This explains how we got to where we are now – ensnared not in one but in two simultaneous crises that we did not foresee and for which we did not, therefore, prepare.

Until just a few weeks ago most of us had never heard of coronavirus. Until just a few weeks ago most of us could not distinguish between an epidemic and a pandemic. And, until just a few weeks ago the idea of being told by the authorities to “shelter in place” was not just unthinkable but unimaginable.

And yet here we are – in the vortex of two crises, both of which are black swan events. The first is the public health crisis brought on by the coronavirus. The second is the financial crisis, which was triggered by the coronavirus, but which is now separate and distinguishable. Therefore, the leadership class – in government and business and, for that matter, everywhere else – is responsible for shepherding us through two crises at the same time, crises which, though they are related, require experience and expertise in two entirely different domains.

Leadership experts should seize the day. Take at least an initial crack at drawing some lessons from this experience.  Ordinarily I am against generalizations. I’m the one who claims the importance of context – and the importance not just of leaders but of followers. But even I maintain that all crises have certain things in common, and that leaders can learn lessons from black swan events.  These include these twelve:

1. The importance of imagination. Leaders and leadership teams should conjure various scenarios, even those that seem highly unlikely.
2. The importance of preparation. Leaders and leadership teams should be ready to cope even with events that history would suggest are highly improbable.
3. The importance of communication. Leaders and leadership teams should communicate with their constituents openly, frequently, and fully.
4. The importance of prioritization. Leaders and leadership teams should be aware they cannot reasonably address too many issues all at the same time; problems should be sequenced in order of their importance.
5. The importance of expertise. Leaders and leadership teams should shed so far as possible their various biases, instead drawing on experts to obtain information and ideas, facts and figures.   
6. The importance of decision making. Leaders and leadership teams should follow the rules of good decision making by, for example, deliberately exposing themselves to different points of view.
7. The importance of education. Leaders and leadership teams should be prepared fully to inform their followers, so they go along with a maximum of cooperation and a minimum of dissent.
8. The importance of persuasion. Leaders and leadership teams should know to rely on sources of influence, as opposed to those of power and authority.
9. The importance of integration. Leaders and leadership teams should be inclusive to bring into the fold different groups and organizations, individuals and institutions.   
10. The importance of mobilization. Leaders and leadership teams should have the capacity to rally their followers, so that whatever the tasks that lie ahead, they are carried out readily and willingly.
11. The importance of inspiration. Leaders and leadership teams should transcend the stresses and strains that black swan events inevitably induce by looking from the uncertain present to safe, secure future.
12. The importance of reassurance. Leaders and leadership teams should calm the roiling waters by assuring their followers they are being led by people of good character and demonstrable competence.

Leaders and Followers

“Leaders” and “followers” are defined in literally hundreds of different ways. Therefore, when we use one of these words, in speaking or writing, it’s our job to make clear how we, at least on this occasion, are defining them.  

For the purposes of this essay I will use them in keeping with the thinking of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In their classic pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto, they claimed that humankind always divided into two groups, the powerful and the powerless. They wrote about, “the freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman” – in short, the “oppressor and the oppressed.” As they viewed human history, these two groups were always “in constant opposition to one another,” sometimes even engaging in a struggle that ended “either in revolutionary reconstruction of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”

,Given the clarity of Marx and Engels’s distinctions between the haves and have-nots, it requires no great leap for a student of leadership to wade into their waters. It is easy enough to equate leaders with lords, and followers with serfs; and, or, leaders with patricians, and followers with plebeians. The overarching point remains the same: that societies fracture. That they are so riven with competition between the two groups, between the powerful and powerless, that it can lead, and sometimes does, to “common ruin.”

History though did not turn out quite as Marx and Engels foresaw. While the fractions remained, capitalism did not simply give way to communism because it, capitalism, was more pliable than they anticipated. Frequently, such as in the United States and in West Europe, capitalism was able to adapt, to provide the relatively powerless with enough goods and services to preclude them from taking on and tearing down the relatively powerful. This does not, however, mean that balance invariably is a given. Sometimes, between “oppressor and oppressed,” between leaders and followers, is imbalance.

The Communist Manifesto

Marx and Engels published their manifesto in 1848, hard on the heels of, and in response to, the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution that, as they viewed it, had divided Europe into two new, though still deeply divided camps: the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. On the one side owners (or capitalists) with power, position, and money; on the other side workers without power, position, or money.

The overarching sentiment of The Communist Manifesto is struggle. A never-ending struggle between haves and have-nots, between leaders who have everything and followers who have little or nothing. Marx and Engels’s assault on the bourgeoisie – those dastardly instruments of industrialization – was relentless. Owners, leaders, were responsible for, among a host of other sins, “stripping of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe.” They were responsible for tearing “away from the family its sentimental veil” and reducing it to a “mere money relation.” And they were responsible for “creating more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together” – all in their self-interest, all at the expense of proletarians who toiled for a pittance for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.

No wonder then that The Communist Manifesto concluded with a cry for revolution. A cry for revolt by followers against their leaders. “Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!”

Never in a million years would Marx and Engels have imagined themselves part of a conversation about “leadership” and “followership” as we in the 21^st century conceive of these concepts. Among other distinctions, their conception of leaders, of capitalists, owners, and employers, was all bad, while our contemporary conception of leaders, especially as they are configured in the leadership industry, is all good. People aim to be leaders, they want to be leaders, because the leadership industry depicts them not as instruments of destruction, but as instruments of construction.  

However, to imagine that leaders are pure as the driven snow, that they bear no relationship whatsoever to their forebearers, the bourgeoisie, even as Marx and Engels conceived of them, is to imagine wrong. One could argue, in fact, that to deprive leaders and followers of class distinctions is to deprive the entire leadership industry of consequence. For in the 21^st century, as in the 19^th century, leaders tend to have power, position, and a pile of money, while followers tend to have no power, no position, and no pile of money. In sum, Marx and Engels live. The class distinctions they made then apply now. And they apply to any discussion we might have about leaders and followers – always implicitly even if never explicitly.  

The United States in 2020

Our natural proclivity is to focus if not fixate on individuals. Sometimes these people are celebrities, known for something they did or achieved; other times these people are in high places, known for the positions they hold, which connote power and authority. Our fixation on individuals comes to a climax every four years, during presidential campaigns, when our prolonged obsession with who will be elected president reaches near hysterical proportions.  

One could argue, however, that closing the American divide – between those who have and those who do not – has less to do with individuals than with institutions. That what we need more than good leaders are good institutions. Institutions that will contract rather than expand the schisms among classes against which Marx and Engels railed over a century and a half ago. Institutional changes would include among others reforming the Senate; eliminating the Electoral College; revising the electoral system (above all to ensure voting rights); and a taking another look at the Supreme Court, for example, eliminating lifelong tenure for justices in an era in which people live forever. In the last few decades several of our most important institutions have become less rather than more democratic, thereby exacerbating the natural antipathies between leaders and followers. Time for change, lest we find ourselves overtaken by the class antagonisms with which Marx and Engels were deeply familiar.  

It happens that President Donald Trump’s base consists mostly of angry Americans, angry at being relegated to second class status. It similarly happens that Bernie Sanders’s base consists mostly of angry Americans, angry at being relegated to second class status. To be sure, these are two different peas, but without doubt they are part of the same pod.

Both Trump supporters and Sanders supporters tend to feel screwed – tend to think of themselves, many times justifiably, as have nots. The oppressed as opposed to the oppressors. Not leaders, but followers. Americans worried about health care.  Americans saddled with debt. Americans not knowing whether their paychecks, presuming they even have one, will cover their basic expenses. Mostly their stories are similar. Stories of hard luck and hard times, in which the overriding feeling is that the American dream has betrayed them – or that the American dream is dead.

Two recent book drive home the point. The first is by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, titled Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. It documents in grim, irrefutable detail how over the last three decades the rates of deaths of despair – deaths in consequence of suicide, alcoholism, and drug use – have soared. These deaths underscore, as the New York Times’s David Leonhardt points out, that “inequality has risen more in the United States – and middle-class incomes have stagnated more severely – than in France, Germany, Japan or elsewhere.” Whites without a college degree have been especially hard hit, but many of the problems afflicting the working class span racial groups. Moreover, these problems are not only financial. Case and Deaton document that “life for many middle-and low-income Americans can lack structure, status and meaning.” Marx and Engels saw the syndrome.   

The second book is by Nelson Schwartz, titled The Velvet Rope Economy: How Inequality Became Big Business. It displays the other side of the coin, the side that depicts how the rich have benefited from their power, their position, and their money. Schwartz: “There has always been a gap between the haves and have-nots, but what was a tiered system in America is morphing into a caste system. As the rich get richer and more businesses focus exclusively on serving them, there is less attention and shabbier service for everybody who’s not at the pinnacle. This trend does not merely delight the wealthy – it also exacerbates the isolation and abandonment of everyone else.”

Is it reasonable to argue as I have, that the divide between the classes pertains now as it did then, when Marx and Engels penned The Communist Manifesto? Is it reasonable to argue as I have, that the antagonisms, the fierce and even ferocious antagonisms that Marx and Engels so vividly and enduringly described relate at least somewhat to the situation in which Americans now find themselves, one riven by class distinctions? And is it reasonable to argue as I have, that to cut from our conversations about leadership and followership the subject of class distinctions is as misguided as misleading?  

In the past I have written about what I called the leadership class. Here, for the first time, I use the word “class” as Marx and Engels did – literally. For the leadership class and the upper class are usually, or at least frequently, one and the same. An inconvenient truth that those of us in the leadership industry would do well to consider – lest one day not far into the future we get hoisted by our own petard.

Jack Welch, for two decades head of General Electric, was one of America’s best-known chief executive officers ever. When he retired, in 2001, he was anointed by Fortune magazine, the “Manager of the Century,” which, given his reputation at the time, was a plausible plaudit. For the twenty years during which Welch reigned were a time of seemingly unbounded success for the company into which he poured his extravagant energies.  

But whatever his triumphs during his tenure at the top, once it was over, it was game over. Few great companies anywhere in the world have fallen so far so fast as did General Electric in the two decades after Welch’s departure. In a soaring market its stock price is a fraction of what it was. The company has been kicked out of the Dow. Its current assets are puny compared to its former assets. And its failed leadership cadre has been an unarticulated rebuke to the man who invented, or at least popularized, routinized in-house corporate leadership trainings.       

Welch’s obituaries took note of his different levels of skill as they applied to two different skill sets. Skill set number one was successfully to lead a large organization in the present. Skill set number two was successfully to lead a large organization into the future – to leave a strong legacy by smart succession planning. Welch did wonderfully well at the first. He failed badly at the second.

The Financial Times noted that “Welch’s departure as chief executive marked the high point of his – and arguably GE’s – reputation.” The New York Times’s obituary cited James Stewart, who commented a few years ago that, “hardly anyone considers Mr. Welch a role model anymore.” And the Wall Street Journal concluded that GE’s troubles during the decades after his exit “raised questions about Mr. Welch’s management methods.” Again, each of these obituaries paid their respects, citing Welch’s accomplishments. But, at the same time, each made clear that though he had been tagged manager of the twentieth century, by the second decade of the twenty-first century his previously stellar reputation was visibly tarnished.    

For students of leadership the trajectory of Jack Welch career raises important questions. These include:

1. What were the traits and behaviors that allowed him for so long so spectacularly to succeed?
2. Why did these same traits and behaviors lead him astray when they involved his own succession planning?
3. Exactly why did his team serve him outstandingly well for twenty years – but then badly let down not just him but his company?
4. How did GE’s corporate culture – a culture that Welch created – contribute to GE’s steep descent?
5. What was it about the context within which GE itself was embedded that contributed to its success for two decades – and then for the next two decades contributed to its decline?

Exceptional is the leader for all seasons. Whatever Welch’s strengths, turned out he was not exceptional. As a leader he was the rule – excellent at executing some tasks in some situations but far from excellent at executing other tasks in other situations.   

It’s a trick difficult to pull off. Very difficult. Not many can do it. Only a few even try. Only a few even try to follow and to lead simultaneously because not only is it difficult, it’s distasteful. Dreadfully distasteful.

Most people who want to lead want only to lead. Nothing else – as they see it, nothing less – will do. They do not want to follow, have no intention of following, not even for a moment, especially when that moment is hard on the heels of them trying hard, desperately hard, to be a leader not a follower.

The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, is, then, an exception in more ways than one.

• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was relatively young while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were relatively old.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was from the Midwest while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were from the East.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign his political experience was limited and at the local level while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination had extensive experience at the national level.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign his background was relatively broad – he was, for example, a Rhodes Scholar and Navy Officer – while the backgrounds of most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were relatively narrow.    
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he at every turn had a first-class temperament while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination clearly thought they had to scream to be heard.
•  In the 2020 presidential campaign he was demonstrably a man of faith while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination eschewed all displays of faith.   
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was an openly gay man, happily married to another gay man while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were presumed to be straight. In fact, in this Pete Buttigieg deviated from every other presidential contender ever. He is gay and proud of it.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign he was able to act in his own self-interest and in the national interest simultaneously, while most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination were reduced to seeming narcissists.
• In the 2020 presidential campaign Buttigieg got that in order to lead he had to follow. He had to follow – to all appearances Joe Biden who in the wake of his blowout win in South Carolina emerged the only viable alternative for the Democratic nomination for president to Bernie Sanders.

Buttigieg claimed that all he did was the math. That he calculated that after his loss in South Carolina there was no path to his becoming president. That’s true. But if math were the only calculus the rest of the field would also drop out – now. So, obviously, this is about much more than math. Obviously, folks like Bloomberg and Klobuchar and Warren still feel driven to lead not because they do not know that two plus two equals four.* But because they cannot bear the idea of being a follower. They cannot bear the idea of following one or the other party leader until they are forced by circumstance into compliance.

Mayor Pete on the other hand – by proving it’s possible to follow and to lead simultaneously – has positioned himself supremely well for his political future. Whether sooner or later the remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination for president – that is, those other than Biden and Sanders – will follow his lead and drop out. Whether sooner or later Buttigieg, still only in his thirties, will leave them all in the proverbial dust.    

*Technically Tulsi Gabbard also remains still in the race.

I rarely revisit one of my own blogs. Today is an exception.

Just over two weeks ago I posted a blog titled, “Mike Bloomberg – My Hero for Good Reasons.” My reasons were two. First, Bloomberg correctly foresaw that none of the contenders for the Democratic nomination for president were likely to “confidently challenge Trump.” Second, Bloomberg had committed to supporting with his limitless resources whoever became the Democratic nominee – even if the nominee was other than he.

Between then and now the political ground has shifted. Why? Because twice over Bloomberg performed so woefully wretchedly on the debate stage that he effectively removed himself from contention as Democratic standard bearer.

Joe Biden meantime has staged a modest, a very modest, political comeback. But, if he racks up a considerable and therefore convincing win on Saturday in South Carolina, overnight he will be the only Democratic candidate credibly to challenge for the Democratic nomination the Democratic Socialist, Bernie Sanders.   

This then has gone from being a game of checkers to being one of chess. If you are Pete Buttigieg, or Amy Klobuchar, or Tom Steyer, or Mike Bloomberg, and you really care about what you say what you really care about – preventing President Donald Trump from securing a second term – you must, you must, get out of the race. You must get out of the race if in South Carolina Biden racks up some very good numbers – in which case he becomes the only viable alternative to Sanders. And, therefore, possibly if not probably, the only viable alternative to Trump.  

For Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Steyer to imagine themselves elected president in November is delusional. If, therefore, they want really to lead, they must follow. They must follow the candidate they conclude has the best chance of defeating the incumbent president. They must follow – the sooner the better.  

Of the candidates for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States left standing (if precariously) after the caucuses in Iowa and Nevada and the primary in New Hampshire, two were women. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. Klobuchar was at no point in the process a serious contender. Though she had a few good moments, never did she come close to be the Democratic nominee.  Warren is a different matter. She did come close. At least she appeared to. During most of last fall she seemed, along with Joe Biden, to be at or near the head of the pack.

Warren’s strengths were apparent:

• She had energy and integrity.
• She had experience and expertise.
• She was a strong retail politician.
• She had a solid staff and a good ground game.
• She had an enthusiastic band of vocal supporters.
• She had policy positions that were carefully conceived and well crafted.
• She had policy proposals that were clear and cogent.
• She was plausible as the first woman president: neither too young nor too old; neither too diffident nor too strident; neither too ingratiating nor too off-putting; neither too feminine nor too masculine.

What then happened? How did her campaign go from being strong, self-confident, and successful to being weak, unpersuasive, and unsuccessful? (As I write, Warren is projected to get 8 percent of the vote in the primary in South Carolina, five days away.)

In hindsight were several theories, such as one focused on the specifics of her plan on health care, which made clear the high cost. (Bernie Sanders, in contrast, has avoided providing any hard numbers.) This though makes little sense. First, most of us have not the slightest memory of whatever the figures she gave. Second, even if this was a misstep, close observers would be hard-pressed to find another. Another theory focused on strategy: her claim to the lane dangerously close to Sanders’s. But would her becoming more of a centrist have helped – given the too large number of centrists already competing?

It’s a tad early for post-mortems. But only a tad. Though we have heard nearly nothing about the relationship, if any, between Warren’s being a woman and her fading campaign, I suspect that when this is over the issue of sexism will surface. I suspect that it will emerge the most important single explicator of what happened to Elizabeth Warren.

We don’t at this point in the process know much. But we do at this point in the process know this. First, that many if not most Democrats have wanted nothing so much come November as to defeat Donald Trump. Second, that many if not most Democrats who have voted so far remained undecided until almost the last moment. Third, that part of the reason for their indecision was their uncertainty about whether a woman could effectively take on a man – specifically this woman, Warren, this man, Trump.   

No doubt about it: Warren effectively eviscerated Michael Bloomberg in the debate in Nevada. But Bloomberg turned out a pushover. At least on that occasion he was a hapless opponent who seemed nothing so much as visibly to shrink from her tongue-lashing. But I don’t doubt for one moment that in their mind’s eye those who voted so far saw on some distant debate stage the large, looming, and seemingly supremely self-confident Trump versus the inordinately intense and probably excessively professorial Warren.

Does this make me a sexist? Or a realist?