The outcome of the debate
was a huge win for former president and convicted felon Donald Trump’s blindly
loyal base—the Trump or die cult. But it left independents twisting in the wind
and Democrats in a state of shock. Joe Biden, the savvy career politician with
a half-century trajectory, twelve years in the vice-presidency and presidency,
and a well-earned level of respect in Washington, appeared frail, confused, and
at times at a complete loss. It was clear that his train of thought was
consistently broken and he appeared uncomfortable and ill.
The lame excuse of
President Biden’s closest collaborators was that he “had a cold”. It was also
later reported that he had been tested for COVID. But the responsible response
to this is that, if the president was sick enough to be weak, fevered and
disoriented, then the debate should have been postponed or called off. He,
octogenarian that he is, should have been home in bed. Failing that, if he was “good
to go”, then a cold is no excuse for the horrifying performance that he put in.
He is, after all, the president of the United States, and it is utterly
ludicrous and disingenuous to cite “a cold” as justification for what was, by
all accounts, the political train wreck that was his delivery during the
ninety-minute debate.
Former President Trump,
meanwhile, appeared well-coached, and physically strong. But there were no
pleasant surprises in his performance either. He was as unrepentant as ever
about the January Sixth Insurrection. He failed to commit to accepting the
results of a free and fair election. He repeated lies about widespread fraud in
the 2020 election that he lost, and contended that felony convictions and criminal
charges remaining against him were part of a political witch-hunt orchestrated
by Biden’s administration to keep him from running.
Overall, fact-checkers
were able to demonstrate that Trump told thirty lies over the course of the
event, which works out to about a lie every minute and a half, since only half
the time was his. In other words, the former president lied just about every
time he opened his mouth.
But what seemed most
alarming was that the current president was incapable of a coherent comeback
against any of those lies. President Biden’s first answers to questions from impeccable
moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash were halting and confused and given in a
hoarse murmur. It was painful to watch, especially for anyone who likes the
president and considers him a decent man and a sound statesman.
The entire debate was, in
fact, a bit like seeing your favorite fighter caught off-guard by a stunning blow
in the first round, kissing the canvas, managing to struggle to his feet before
the count of ten, but never fully recovering for the rest of the twelve rounds.
He might manage to stay on his feet, with knees wobbling, for the entire bout,
but throughout the twelve rounds, you tensely watch him teetering on the brink,
fighting desperately on the defensive, and you know that one well-placed glove
to the head or liver will lay him low for good. Even though, after he struggles
through to go the distance and the other fighter has to win on points, you can’t
feel okay about the outcome. You have to ask yourself if it isn’t time for your
one-time champ to step down from the ring and retire with dignity.
And that was precisely
what happened to even Biden’s most avid fans—like The New York Times editorial board, which advised that “to serve
his country, President Biden should leave the race.” Earlier, one of Biden’s
staunchest supporters, columnist Thomas Friedman, also of The New York Times, told Biden in an opinion piece that it was time
for him to step aside. Said Friedman, “Joe Biden, a good man and a good
president, has no business running for re-election.”
Friedman described
himself as a friend of Joe Biden’s. Indeed, he has long been known as a Biden
confidant. He said he had watched the debate alone, “and it made me weep.” I
too watched the debate alone, and although President Biden doesn’t know me from
Adam, his performance made me feel the same way. Seeing the one-time firebrand
who, back in the day, was criticized in Congress for being too young and too brash,
or the later experienced statesman brokering across-the-aisle deals that led to
some epic legislation, it was heart-rending to watch him mutter, stammer and
struggle to recall what he was talking about.
While Friedman, specifically,
and The New York Times as an
institution couldn’t have been blunter, there is a very real problem with that
advice. It comes extremely late in the game—perhaps too late. So does that of so many Democrat politicians, who flew
into a panic last Thursday after (during) the debate. More irresponsible still
is the inner circle of Biden’s administration and campaign, as well as
Democratic members of Congress who have been dealing with the president for the
past three and a half years, and who also knew him for decades before that as
vice-president and as a high-profile senator. While they might have sought to
convince the public that the president’s mind was as sharp as it had ever been,
they can’t have helped but notice in private government and diplomatic dealings
with him that he had grown elderly and that his health, both mental and physical,
was failing him.
In short, the time to
tell the president that he should refrain from standing for a second term would
have been midway through this one, when it started to become apparent, even to
those of us who tried hard to believe that it wasn’t, that the president’s
capacity to continue to lead the country for another four years was fading
fast. This is especially true because the possible need to replace the
president should have been obvious to his inner circle from the outset,
considering his advanced age, and contingency plans should have been quietly
created. That would have been an act of political realism considering that the
average life expectancy for males in the US is slightly under seventy-five
years, and the stark truth is that those of us who have reached that point in life
are, therefore, living on borrowed time. It is also an awful truth that while
many elderly people remain lucid to the end, a large percentage do not. And
when someone is in a position of worldwide power, as is anyone holding the
office of president of the United States, that is, indeed, something that must
be taken into account.
Does that mean that there
should be a cutoff age for presidential candidates? No. But it does mean that
the inner circle and campaign managers of those who run in their “golden years”
need to be aware of the increased inherent risks and have plans to deal with
them. It’s clear that this has not been the case with the Democratic hierarchy.
Is it too late for something
to be done to save the Democratic election campaign from the aftermath of the
debate debacle? Maybe not, but if not, just barely. For the Democrats, there
are only two choices. One, get the president to immediately say that he will
not be the candidate this November so that another candidate can be chosen and
promoted, or, go on as planned, campaigning hard on the premise of democracy.
Considering his criminally
seditious behavior under his first presidency, it is clear to any realist that
Donald Trump poses an imminent and existential threat to American democracy,
one that would only be heightened in a second term, when he would, literally,
have nothing to lose. And in the post-debate public perception of far too many
Americans, that might be the sole reason to continue to plan to vote for the
incumbent—namely, to deny an autocrat who sought to overthrow democracy a
second bite at the apple.
If the president were to
announce right now that he is stepping down, it could—though not certainly
would, depending on how it’s handled—have an unexpectedly positive influence on
Democratic election results. Clearly, polls tend to show that the vast majority
of Americans are incensed about once again having to choose between Trump and
Biden, neither of whom, they feel, is fit for office—President Biden because of
his age and mental health, Trump because of his immorality, seditious nature
and criminal behavior. The right Democratic candidate could well spark new enthusiasm
and optimism among Democrats and Independents alike.
It’s not like the
Democrats have no choice. They have several, all sound politicians and honest
potential candidates. Vice-President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin
Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar
all spring to mind. But the fact that we are now just four months away from the
general election makes it imperative that any decision to change horses
midstream be made with the greatest of celerity, and that the positive momentum
of doing so be exploited to the maximum.
For that to happen,
President Biden, in the spirit of service to the United States that has carried
him through his half-century of government, should listen to Tom Friedman and
other friends who are wisely encouraging him to step aside. Otherwise, this
November, in perhaps the most consequential election in history, Americans will
be confronted with a disheartening binary choice—between decency or
criminality, between democracy or autocracy, and the end of the traditions that
have set the US apart for the past two and a half centuries.
