The One Reason Biden Can’t Continue as the Democratic Nominee.
It always unnerves me when some person or group acts in a way they are not expected to, even myself. For example, when I find myself acting like the Pope. It’s just weird, not being Catholic and all. And I often cut my homilies short.
Recently, I have experienced this same disconcerted feeling as I watch many Democrats act like the Republicans they’ve been condemning for years.
Ever since the tawny tyrant came down his gold escalator in 2015, Democrats, myself included, have been saying to any Republican we find ourselves in proximity to “WTF?” “Why won’t you acknowledge what is obviously visible for all to see?” We find ourselves baffled and pulling our hair (or, in my case, pulling my scalp) at their silence regarding Trump’s rather uncanny Mussolini impersonation.
We would never be like that. We are the party of truth. If there was a glaring problem with our presidential candidate, we wouldn’t deny the obvious or pretend we didn’t see what we saw.
And yet…
First, let me restate my Biden bona fides…I love Joe Biden, I have always supported Joe Biden. I spent much of this year defending Joe Biden, I would still vote for Joe Biden’s taxidermied head on my wall over Donald Trump…OK, that got a little dark.
All of that said, I find myself screaming at the TV, sometimes even when it’s on, as some of my fellow Dems say that Biden’s stamina and mental acuity are not legitimate and deeply troubling issues that we have to face after last week’s disasterous debate.
I’ve heard people say that he was tired, or that he was overprepared. I saw one commentator saying that all Biden needed in his debate against Trump was a lozenge, as if a raspy voice was the only problem. But as anyone who watched that debate, or anyone who has observed Biden over the past few months knows, he is dealing with issues that a lozenge is unlikely to solve.
These are, what we like to remind our Republican friends, facts. And facts don’t become unfacts because we pretend they don’t exist. Just like “unfacts” doesn’t become an actual word just because I’m too lazy to grab a thesaurus. And since Democrats love facts, I think we should face a few.
First, if Biden as a Republican, or if he were not the sitting president, but rather a candidate for office we were seeing for the first time, last week’s debate performance would have been decisive. No further evidence would be necessary to conclude that this man is not on a physical or mental trajectory to win a competitive presidential election and then lead the free world for the next four years.
Second, Biden’s debate presentation was simply not an aberration. The lapses, the confusion, the physical appearance were all too far of a deviation from normal to be the result of anything more benign than a chronic and deteriorating, in the words of Nancy Pelosi, “condition”.
Add that to the frequency with which we’ve seen similar displays over the past few months and failure of the White House to immediately send Biden out to stop the bleeding by holding a full-length press conference, and you have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden, who again, I adore, is deteriorating.
Third, you can’t unring the bell. Or, as I say, you can’t unfry the schnitzel. I made that up! I hope it catches on!
Tens of millions of people have seen the debate, and seen the commentary about the debate. And if polls are to be believed, millions of them have decided they are no longer comfortable voting for Biden. Some may come home, but many will not, and in an already close election, we can’t afford to lose that many voters.
This leads to the final fact we have to face, which is the fact that requires we choose another nominee ASAP. Conditions such as these are typically progressive (not in the good, AOC-Bernie kind of way), and accelerating. Put plainly, this means that we are almost certain to see more debate-like displays from Biden, only more frequent and worse.
Imagine if we keep Biden on the ticket now, and then he has a full-blown freeze or melt-down in October. What are our options then?
What does the second debate with Trump potentially look like? What do we do if it’s more disturbing than the last one? Suppose he becomes too mentally or physically infirm to campaign at all. Then, it will be too late to do anything about it. And Trump will waltz into the White House to begin destroying democracy essentially unopposed. We cannot let that happen.
Sure, there are risks to picking a new candidate. But if there is a wildfire and your house is ablaze, it may be risky to run down the mountain, but you simply can’t stay in the house that’s burning. One options leads to possible disaster, but possible redemption, the other leads to near certain disaster. The choice is clear.
Restated: Biden didn’t do something wrong or commit a gaffe that we are hoping that with time he can recover from. This is something that’s going to keep happening. However, our window to fix the problem closes when we formally nominate Biden in early August, or certainly when most states have printed their ballots by early September. We have one chance to flee the burning building, and that chance is now.
