Sadly, President Joe Biden’s 22-minute ABC news interview with George Stephanopoulos is not going to reassure those who are concerned about Biden’s mental acuity and physical health. He did better than he did in the June 27 Atlanta debate, but he was largely reciting talking points; he did not answer the question about whether he had taken a cognitive test. He did not show that he has the physical vigor to “beat Donald Trump like a drum,” as he boasted in 2019, or show he could successfully serve out another four-year term.
Successful American politicians must be tenacious. Competitive national campaigns are a grueling mix of intensive fundraising and strategic direction setting combined with the demands of continual public performance. Candidates frequently have to soldier through moments of serious crisis. Then if they survive this, they are expected to master one of the most complex and difficult negotiations in the world: the American legislative process, which also demands enormous stamina and patience to prevail.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
But though tenacity is often a virtue, it can become a catastrophic liability. The United States is now pinned between two tenacious old men: one who will subvert democracy itself to attain and retain power; the other who will deny his own mortality to keep going. As Biden said Friday, only the “Lord Almighty” can tell him not to run.
Over the July Fourth holiday, I spent time with some family friends who had just made the agonizing decision to put their 82-year-old matriarch into a nursing home. She didn’t want to go, but she suffered from short-term memory loss and instability when walking. I went to go check in on her, and we had a great conversation about past Independence Days. There were gaps in the conversation where she struggled to connect concepts and events. Her daughter would gently fill in. The daughter, like many others who have had to care for a declining family member, saw echoes of their experience in Biden’s debate performance in Atlanta.
As I walked out of the nursing home, I walked past successful businessmen, journalists, teachers, homemakers. All these people were accomplished and smart. They lived good lives, but it did not predict their future — the future we all face of inevitable decline. And it is disingenuous for Democrats to insist that three and half years of past success will predict another four given Biden’s likely increasing age-related limitations.
I’m not saying that Biden is as far gone as these people, at all — but so many of us recognize the moment when the family starts to gather nervously and consider how much more time they have. That was what we saw at the debate on last month. I have hard time thinking of something — anything — that would reassure voters that Biden is somehow capable of serving four more years in one of the most demanding jobs in the world. It certainly was not a 22-minute interview more than a week after the debate. Most candidates would have spent that week appearing on news programs and taking tough questions to reassure their supporters that the debate was just a one-off occurrence.
Biden is at a 36% approval rating; he is underperforming Democratic Senate candidates in swing states — in some places significantly. This suggests the problem is not Democrats in general; it is Biden.
Yes, former President Donald Trump should also step aside, and if there were any lever on this Earth that I could pull to help my Republican friends remove him at the convention, I would pull it. But Trump is leading in the polls. The Republicans had an expansive primary, and Trump won handily.
The only lever left to us to defeat Trump now is to find someone else to run against him, and it is irresponsible of the Democratic Party to ask voters to support a candidate who might not be able to govern even if he were to win.
I see Democratic Party leaders dithering, wondering if “it is really their place to say anything,” wondering if they really have agency to make a change, or if it looks disloyal to Biden to say something. After the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Democrats were quick to remind Republicans that their primary loyalty is to the country, not to a political party or to one person. And they were right. Now, for different reasons, but to the same end, it’s time for Democrats to look in the mirror and say the same thing to themselves.
I have confidence that Biden is a patriot who will not wait for the Almighty but will pass the torch to a new generation. But he has to hear from people that he needs to stand down, that there is a hopeful path forward and that he can help lead it. Already, party leaders have laid out the path to a brokered convention. Biden himself can help guide the process to help select a leader for a new generation. Republicans are stuck in the past. As Democrats, let’s have the courage to step into the future.
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