There’s a Name for the Trap Biden Faces

Adam Grant

After his shockingly poor performance in last week’s debate, President Biden is facing mounting pressure to drop out of the 2024 election. Influential voices in his own party have called for him to step aside. Polls indicate that many voters hope he will. Yet so far he is staying the course.

There’s a formal name for this trap: escalation of commitment to a losing course of action. In the face of impending failure, extensive evidence shows that instead of rethinking our plans, we often double down on our decisions. It feels better to be a fighter than a quitter.

One of the tragedies of the human condition is that we use our big brains not to make rational decisions, but rather to rationalize the decisions we’ve already made. We stick around too long in dead-end jobs. We stay in unhappy marriages even after friends have counseled us to leave. We stand by candidates even after they violate our principles.

Some of the worst leadership decisions of our time can be traced to escalation of commitment. Many people lost their lives because American presidents pursued a futile war in Vietnam — and continued searching for weapons of mass destruction that weren’t in Iraq. As George Ball warned in a 1965 letter to President Lyndon Johnson: “Once we suffer large casualties, we will have started a well-nigh irreversible process. Our involvement will be so great that we cannot — without national humiliation — stop short of achieving our complete objectives. Of the two possibilities I think humiliation will be more likely.”

It happens in business, too: Blockbuster went bust because instead of buying Netflix, leaders escalated their commitment to renting physical videos. Kodak made the same mistake by doubling down on selling film instead of pivoting to digital cameras.

Escalation of commitment helps to explain why leaders are often so reluctant to loosen their grip on power. Losing a high-status position can make them feel as if they’re losing their place in the world. It leaves them with bruised egos and wounded pride.

Of course, we can’t know for sure which decisions will turn out to be good. But decades of research led by the organizational psychologist Barry Staw have identified a few conditions that make people especially likely to persist on ill-fated paths. Escalation is likely when people are directly responsible for and publicly attached to a decision, when it has been a long journey and the end is in sight, and when they have reasons to be confident that they can succeed.

It’s striking that President Biden’s current situation checks all those boxes. He announced his re-election bid to the world back in April 2023. He’s poured 14 months of energy into his campaign and has only four more to go. And he’s beaten the odds before: Many voters told pollsters he was too old before the 2020 election, and in hindsight it’s unlikely that any other Democratic candidate would have won.

So what should the president be doing to navigate this enormously consequential decision? So far, we know that he gathered his family and top aides. (According to reports, they all encouraged him to stay in the race.) That’s a natural enough impulse, but it doesn’t necessarily help, since the people closest to a leader are precisely the ones who are most susceptible to confirmation bias. They’re too personally invested in his success and too likely to dismiss warning signs.

What Mr. Biden needs is not a support network but a challenge network — people who have the will to put the country’s interests ahead of his and the skill to coldly assess his chances. That’s a task for someone who is not affiliated with the campaign in any way, someone whose judgment has proved to be impeccable and most of all, impartial, and someone who is not worried about the possible cost to their own career. (An ideal candidate for this role might be professional forecaster, since forecasters — unlike pollsters, who tell us what voters think today — excel at anticipating how views are likely to change tomorrow.)

According to news reports, insiders worry that pressuring Mr. Biden to back out will backfire. That’s a valid concern. Pressure can make people defensive. A more promising approach might start with praising his flexibility, which research shows can make people more willing to rethink bad decisions. Second, ask what he sees as the pros and cons of staying in the race. The best way to open a stubborn mind isn’t to argue; it’s to listen. When people feel heard, they become less defensive and more reflective. Third, ask him what would shift his thinking.

“President Biden, I admire your ability to build bridges across the aisle. That shows a willingness to have tough conversations, and you certainly have a tough choice in front of you. What advice would you give to others facing this dilemma? You obviously have a long list of reasons to stay in the race — what would be your top three reasons to walk away? What information would convince you that it would be best not to run?”

When I’ve had discussions like this with leaders in government and business, my biggest struggle has been getting them to acknowledge that failure is a real possibility. They’ve asked me: What if I let go and wish I hadn’t? Along with the regret of dropping out, we also need to weigh the regret of staying in.

For Mr. Biden, that might mean asking him to imagine that it’s January 2025 and he lost the election in a landslide. President Trump is announcing mass deportations, expanding executive power and working to repeal the 22nd Amendment so he can serve a third term.

This exercise could help Mr. Biden see for himself how losing could rewrite his legacy. He would go down in history as a man who couldn’t see his own decline until it was too late.

I hope some dedicated group — people who deserve Mr. Biden’s trust but aren’t members of his team or his family — can help him think these questions through. And I hope he has the humility and integrity to take them seriously, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. In a rally last week, he told the crowd, “I know how to tell the truth!” The more vital question is whether he knows how to hear the truth.

Refusing to quit is not always a heroic act of resilience. It’s often stubborn rigidity. President Biden, service is not only about stepping up to lead. It’s also about having the courage to step aside.