Senator Mark Warner commented, “With so much at stake in the upcoming election, now is the time for conversations about the strongest path forward.” Herewith is a desperate, last-ditch pitch from a die-hard Democrat for a change at the top of the ticket:
As I watched the presidential debate, I was horrified to see President Biden lost in a fog. As he stared ahead, dazed, with mouth agape, I thought of the last years of parents and grandparents (some younger than Biden, some older) of family and friends who have suffered from dementia in their final years. That debate was not just a “bad night” on TV. There is now ample evidence, post-debate, that it reflected the sporadic cognitive incapacity of an 81-year old man.
The Supreme Court’s appalling 6-3 decision, Trump v. United States, horribly magnifies the threat that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans pose to our country’s democratic institutions. A Democratic presidential candidate who drifts in and out of cogency only strengthens an off-the-rails Republican Party. Democrats will back our nominee, but other critical groups — independent, occasional, and low-information voters, as well as Republicans put off by Trump — will resist voting for the declining Joe Biden. Many will, at best, stay at home or cast their ballots for a third party candidate. Those are votes we can’t afford to lose.
If Democratic leaders persuade Mr. Biden to relinquish the nomination within the next few weeks, it will be possible to put forward another nominee. After the convention, there will be practically and politically speaking, no going back. Mr. Biden, with an approval rating consistently south of 40-percent and longstanding concerns among Americans about his age, is likely to lose to an unstable autocratic liar.
During the debate, the president was unable to make a case for himself or to respond to Donald Trump’s gobsmacking, voluminous torrent of lies and bunkum. Trump’s performance should have riveted media attention; instead, the story has been all about Joe Biden’s evident incapacity. This attention on our nominee will inevitably continue throughout the 2024 campaign unless Democrats select another leader to head the ticket.
It is irresponsible of the Democratic Party to ask the country to vote for someone with obvious, undeniable declining mental faculties. We can’t pretend, without self-deception, that this is not a significant problem in the critical months leading to the 2024 election.
For a full week after his disastrous debate, Mr. Biden failed to appear in any unscripted events (or without the aid of a teleprompter), whether at rallies or fundraising receptions. Last Friday’s interview with George Stephanopoulos hardly put the matter to rest. At times the president was sharp. But if you watched the interview, you heard several muddled responses, when he didn’t complete a thought and it wasn’t possible to discern the point Mr. Biden intended to convey. (Exactly the same thing happened on this week’s “Morning Joe” interview. On target in one sentence; incoherence in another. Count on this to continue throughout the campaign.)
By last Friday, of course, there were a number of credible reports (not just on Murdock’s Fox News or in his Wall St. Journal) that Congressional leaders, European officials and diplomats, big money donors, and others with access to the president had witnessed “lapses” by Mr. Biden.
Reports convey a president who reliably has his wits about him from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. He himself has said that he probably shouldn’t schedule events after 8:30 p.m. to ensure that he gets enough rest.
In March 2020 Joe Biden, nodding to the “next generation of leaders” as “the future of the country,” declared: “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else.” It was widely assumed that he would choose to serve only a single term. Then he decided he wanted something else: two terms in the White House.
Mr. Biden has deteriorated markedly in 3 ½ years and, based on reports (since the debate), folks who have been close to the president have observed pronounced deterioration in the past six months. Absent a cure for old age and the infirmities of aging, this mental decline will continue apace. For anyone who has witnessed a loved one on this slippery slope, it is hard to deny that Mr. Biden’s mental confusion, incoherence, and episodes of freezing will be markedly worse by 2029.
The Biden White House, his most loyal associates, and his family continue to deny any age-related infirmities, but (post-debate) a look back — at his skipping unscripted activities, from dinners with world leaders in 2022 and 2023 (at summits in Indonesia, Japan, and Lithuania) to a reliably softball Superbowl interview in February — reveals a pattern that American voters could ignore before. No longer.
We now have reason to doubt the veracity of the Biden inner circle who deny what we can see with our own eyes. His handlers and stage-managers are doing the country a disservice through subterfuge. President Biden is incapable of running a vigorous, all-out campaign – but that’s what we desperately need in 2024.
It's good that Joe Biden is surrounded by smart people (as Dianne Feinstein was). But that’s not enough. The country deserves a president who is sharp and cogent 24-7; a candidate who can campaign during long hours, days on end; and a leader who can be expected to serve ably for the next four years. The Democratic Party is poised to shrug off these imperatives.
And now we learn that the president has brought Hunter Biden into the White House to act as a gatekeeper and sit in on meetings. This is a scandal.
President Biden’s judgment is impaired. It’s foolish to believe his condition won’t deteriorate further month by month. His family has rallied around him. Democratic leaders should do whatever is possible to prompt him to relinquish the nomination quickly. Kamala Harris or another Democratic leader should head the ticket.
This issue will not disappear between now and November 5. It will do grievous damage to the Democratic campaign: much more so than Hillary Clinton’s emails or John Kerry’s service on a swift boat. Age-related infirmity is legit. Many voters have observed it in their families. That’s the reason there have been longstanding concerns about Biden’s age.
I have voted for every Democratic candidate for president since 1972 (my first vote). I voted for Biden in 2020. I did so again in the March 2024 California primary, because I had no viable alternative and because the White House had successfully suppressed evidence of Biden’s diminished cogency. Like millions of Biden voters during the primaries, I now know better.
I’m afraid Democratic leaders, who might persuade Joe Biden to drop out, will fail to do so. Ed Kilgore described Biden’s taunting remarks to his critics:
He’s playing chicken with critics who want him to go but don’t want to say so publicly, suggesting they don’t have the guts to take him on. In their defense, most of the critics are staying anonymous because they don’t want to fatally wound Biden if he does insist on plunging ahead come hell or high water, which seems to be the case. So the president is throwing down a gauntlet no one credible is likely to pick up.
I wish I were confident that Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Congressional leaders, and Biden’s former allies from his many years in the Senate, would persuade him to step aside. That would strengthen the Democratic campaign and the push against Trump and his MAGA followers. But time is running out.