There’s a scientific theory that says that every time a decision is made, alternate timelines are created for each decision option. The decisions can be quite small, like for example, when there are two parking spots available to you, right next to each other. Maybe your decision in that parking lot has no major consequences and the resulting timelines don't differ aside from the immediate matter of you getting in and out of your car.
On the day of the debate, after all the presidenting President Biden had already done that day, President Biden had a major decision to make. He was feeling a little ill, and not quite ready to deal with Trump’s fire hydrant of lies. The president worried that if he went ahead with the debate, that if he lost his voice during the debate, the next day people would demand that he drop out of the presidential race.
So in one alternate timeline, President Biden decided to postpone the debate to when he was feeling better, to July 5. After all, Trump did say he’d debate President Biden anytime anywhere. And Trump did accept the postponement, gracefully. For a few seconds anyway. Then he launched into a rant about what a coward President Biden is.
By the time the debate was originally scheduled to take place, several prominent Democrats were calling on President Biden to step aside. In which case Democrats might as well concede to Dictator Trump right now.
The major newspapers had articles ready to go about President Biden’s potential replacements. Vice President Kamala Harris was cued up for a racist variation of the Hillary Clinton treatment. Phillip Deans or whatever his name is, well, he’s the right age, the right race and the right gender, but no one can be bothered to check whether his name is spelled with one L or two. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-California) seems to check all the right boxes, but he’s not the incumbent president, and the advantage of incumbency would go to the 2016 popular vote loser.
Yesterday, in the alternate timeline, President Biden showed up for the debate against Trump and turned in a fiery performance that confirmed Republicans’ accusations about “Jacked Up Joe.” And the damage of postponing the debate was already done, and the calls for President Biden to step aside got louder.
Maybe in a few of the timelines in which President Biden steps aside the replacement will win. But in the vast majority of the timelines branching from President Biden stepping aside, Trump will win. And America will lose.
The moral of the story is that President Biden will be criticized savagely no matter what he does. Trump could get convicted of another 34 felonies and recite all of our submarines’ signatures live on Russian television but Republicans have already decided they will support him no matter what.