It’s time for Biden to pass the torch

At a passionate campaign rally Friday, President Joe Biden tried to convince American voters that his alarming onstage performance during a debate here in Atlanta the night before was an aberration.

“I don’t speak as easily as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I know. I know how to tell the truth. I know good from bad. The 81-year-old president has demonstrated a greater ability to tell the truth than his opponent, former President Donald Trump.

But the sad truth is that Biden should withdraw from the race, for the sake of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century.

There is precedent where a president, duly elected by the American people, has gracefully stepped aside in the national interest. Fed up with constant attacks from his adversaries and wanting to avoid being seen as an American dictatorship, George Washington, with the help of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, wrote what is one of the most important documents of our nation’s history. Washington, who decided not to seek a third term, never delivered what is known as his farewell speech; it was written in September 1796 and first published in the country’s newspapers two months later.

Not one to lie, our first president, then 64, recognized that the time had come to step down. “Every day the increasing weight of years warns me more and more that the shadow of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome,” Washington wrote.

The shadow of retirement now looms over President Biden.

During Thursday night’s plodding 90-minute forum, the president failed to convey a competent, coherent vision of America’s future. He failed to emphasize the most fundamental aspects of his program. He failed to take credit for the significant achievements of his three and a half years in office. And he failed to counter the prevarications of an opponent who, according to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, lied 30 times during the debate, about once every 90 seconds of his allotted time .

President Biden’s surrogates tried to downplay the debate performance. Aides claimed he had a cold. Vice President Kamala Harris argued that the leader of the free world should be evaluated over his entire presidency, not just one night. Former President Barack Obama took to social media and said, “Bad debate nights are coming. »

These responses are insulting to the American people.

It wasn’t a bad evening; it was confirmation of the worst fears of some of Biden’s most ardent supporters: After 36 years in the U.S. Senate, eight more as vice president, and a term in the White House, age has finally caught up with him.

This moment was contemplated by Democrats and Biden’s advisers as he sought the party’s presidential nomination in 2020. There was serious and public debate about Biden, then 77, committing to serve only one term. That discussion acknowledged the obvious. If reelected, Biden would be 86 when his presidency ends in January 2029. There is no historical precedent for this. And now there are signs of decline, which were evident Thursday.

President Biden’s ability to withstand the mental and physical rigors of another four-year term would be a concern regardless of his opponent. The fact that he is the very thing standing in the way of Trump’s return to the Oval Office raises the stakes considerably.

Trump has already hinted at what his second term might look like. He has spoken of his desire to get “revenge” on his political opponents and told Fox News host Sean Hannity at a town hall last year that he would be a dictator from day one of his presidency (but only day one).

Trump’s campaign team tried to dismiss the comments as hyperbole. This might have been easier to accept if Trump hadn’t tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election here in Georgia and if he hadn’t repeatedly and falsely claimed the election was against him. stolen.

This position alone should have disqualified Trump in the eyes of voters. The former president’s personal and professional conduct was egregious enough that his former vice president, his chief of staff, and many Cabinet members disavowed him. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, himself a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said he cast a blank vote in the state’s Republican primary, refusing to vote for the man who tried to subvert the electoral process in our state.

The fact that Trump remains in the lead of the Republican field speaks to the deep divisions and tribalism that have come to define 21st-century American politics.

When George Washington informed the nation of his decision not to seek a third term, he sounded a warning about the insidious nature of political parties, then in their infancy. “They are likely, as time and things pass, to become powerful engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be able to overthrow the power of the people and usurp for themselves the reins of government.”

Trump’s performance Thursday night should have prompted his party’s leaders to repudiate his lies.

But this is not the case.

Biden has pledged to do everything possible to prevent Trump from returning to the White House. The elections are still four months away. If he truly hopes to defeat Trump, he must pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders and urge the party to nominate another candidate at its convention in Chicago in August.

To achieve this, it will take a series of massive and unprecedented legal and regulatory actions to get Biden’s successor nominated and on the ballot in every state. This is difficult and necessary work that must begin immediately.

Democrats have a number of talented, principled leaders who could advance the president’s agenda and offer the nation a viable alternative to Trump. The right candidate should make attracting Republican and Democratic voters a priority.

Biden’s candidacy was based on his status as president and the belief of Democratic leaders and pollsters that he had the best chance of beating Trump in November. That is no longer the case.

This reality may be difficult to accept for a man whose personal and political life has been defined by resilience, but it is the truth.

Biden deserves a better exit from public life than the one he endured when he left the stage Thursday night.

If he demonstrates the courage and dignity that characterized his political career, he could follow in the footsteps of the nation’s first president and welcome his retirement, secure in the knowledge that he has once again served his country with honor.

— The editorial board

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