New York Times partial front page, June 29, 2024.
To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race
by The Editorial Board | Friday, June 28, 2024
President Biden has repeatedly and rightfully described the stakes in this November’s presidential election as nothing less than the future of American democracy.
This is a common theme among the left, that re-election of President Trump is some sort of threat to American democracy. Yet, during his first term, while he tried every legal means to overturn an election result he saw as the result of cheating, he did leave office peacefully when his term was over. If he wins this November, it will be his last term, because the Constitution prohibits presidents from serving more than two four-year terms.
Donald Trump has proved himself to be a significant jeopardy to that democracy — an erratic and self-interested figure unworthy of the public trust. He systematically attempted to undermine the integrity of elections. His supporters have described, publicly, a 2025 agenda that would give him the power to carry out the most extreme of his promises and threats. If he is returned to office, he has vowed to be a different kind of president, unrestrained by the checks on power built into the American political system.
Mr. Biden has said that he is the candidate with the best chance of taking on this threat of tyranny and defeating it. His argument rests largely on the fact that he beat Mr. Trump in 2020. That is no longer a sufficient rationale for why Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee this year.
At Thursday’s debate, the president needed to convince the American public that he was equal to the formidable demands of the office he is seeking to hold for another term. Voters, however, cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago.
Actually, Mr Biden wasn’t in great shape four years ago. His staff and he carefully limited his exposure to the public in 2020, ending his scheduled days early on frequent occasions. Unfortunately, a public which seriously disliked Mr Trump, let that slide, and the actions of many states to push mail-in voting led to many people who were normally too lazy to go to the polls to vote by mail, in their handily provided, postage prepaid mail-in ballots, thanks to the idiotic responses to COVID-19. I knew that the election was lost the minute those mail-in ballots were sent out to the lazy and the slothful.
The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence.
Mr. Biden has been an admirable president. Under his leadership, the nation has prospered and begun to address a range of long-term challenges, and the wounds ripped open by Mr. Trump have begun to heal. But the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.
As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency. There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.
Even The Editorial Board recognized that the Party cannot force people to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. Even The Editorial Board realize that people can see the difference between heavily scripted and designed-to-reduce-stress on a man clearly declining in dementia, hoping that he can make a short, stand-up routine which requires him to perform, but not necessarily to think, and a debate under stress, where he had to think on his feet, and simply couldn’t. If re-elected, what would President Biden be in 2026 or 2027?
We all know the answer: despite what his wife might want — and Jill Biden has to know in what serious decline her own husband is in — Mr Biden could not survive another four years as President. At some point, he would have to resign, or be 25th Amendmented out of office, which would turn the presidency over to Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff[1]Simply because Mrs Emhoff does not respect her husband enough to have taken his name does not mean that I will show Douglas Emhoff similar disrespect..
And that’s the problem for the Democrats. How could they push Mr Biden out of the campaign, and not nominate the Vice President to take his place? The Democrats have been dependent upon their around 90% support from black voters, and not choosing Mrs Emhoff, given the ‘list’ of alternative candidates the Times suggested:
what would black voters do if the Dems dropped a black woman in favor of someone on a mostly white list? Among the possibilities, only Senator Booker is black.
The Washington Post added a few more names to the list. The Editorial Board of the Post did not call on Mr Biden to withdraw the way the Times did, but saw how fragile a candidate he is.
But, in the end, there’s only one real truth which needs to be told: no matter which Democrat heads the ticket in November, they are all bad for the country! All would continue the open borders that President Biden has given us, all would support the continued social policies which have torn the country apart, and all would lead us down the wrong path.
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| ↑1 | Simply because Mrs Emhoff does not respect her husband enough to have taken his name does not mean that I will show Douglas Emhoff similar disrespect. |
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