Joe Biden's leadership test: An American legacy in jeopardy

Joe Biden is still the president of the United States. Americans do not have a king or queen, but they do have a president. The presidency is much bigger and more important than the person who occupies it.

As president, Biden has stood as a type of national father figure; the embodiment of the country’s idealized values and ideals. These feelings of respect for President Biden are felt deeply by his supporters and others who admire and respect him, and what he has accomplished in the horrible aftermath of his predecessor, the convicted felon, coup plotter, and aspiring tyrant Donald Trump. So Biden’s defeat in the CNN debate, and the cascading siege from all sides he's faced since, is a type of emotional and psychic injury not just to Biden but millions of Democrats who believe in his quest to protect democracy. The president has now been made fully mortal and vulnerable.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Biden has COVID. On Thursday, Republicans held their coronation for aspiring dictator Trump at their convention in Milwaukee, where he delivered the longest acceptance speech in history. In contrast, Biden's illness is one more reminder of how it feels as though fate is conspiring against him. 

After surviving an attempted assassination attempt at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump is now viewed by his MAGA followers as singularly protected by “god”, in essence anointed, and some type of immortal martyr. That horrific event and what it means for a nation where political violence is becoming normalized has served as a trauma bond between Donald Trump and his MAGA devotees. The loss of personal identity to the Great Leader and movement is so extreme that Trump's MAGA people are now wearing bandages on their ears in an act of hero worship, and as an expression of a desire to be similarly "anointed" by fate and destiny.

On this, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains in her newsletter how, “Trump had always told his devoted followers that the “enemies” were not going after him, but rather going after them, and he was ‘just standing in the way.’ This awful assassination attempt will seem to validate that claim, especially since a person attending the rally was killed by the shooter.”

Trump's fighting spirit is likely entrancing to many other Americans outside of the Republican Party and the MAGAverse as well. As David Sirota compellingly argues in a new essay at The Lever, "Crazed and Howard Beale-ish as they may be, Republicans’ primal screams at least seem like proof of life in a dying world. Democrats, by contrast, don’t seem alive at all, and not just because they have been led by an octogenarian who drifts in and out of consciousness....The Democrats’ current brand contrast could not be more tone deaf to the times. Where Trump fist pumps after getting shot and his minions instantly blame their opponents for the violence, Democrats reflexively stand down and apologize."

For many people, the concerns about President Biden’s age and what it means for his capacity to function effectively—and for his overall health and mortality—are deeply personal if not immediate. Most, if not all human beings, will experience physical and mental decline as they age. This is perfectly normal and a fundamental part of the human experience. Such public discussions about President Biden’s frailty trigger the anxieties (what experts describe as mortality salience) that many people have about their own aging and independence, and of loved ones and other people they care for who will also be weathered and eventually defeated by time.

In a recent essay at the Washington Post, Maura Judkis deploys the analogy of taking away a beloved elder’s car keys because it was becoming dangerous for him to drive:

Say you have a beloved elder relative — a proud patriarch used to calling the shots — who is showing signs of decline. He’s slower, frailer than he used to be. Your relative might lose his train of thought; another person’s relative might get stuck in verbal cul-de-sacs of nonsense. (Again with the loopy rant about dying by electrocution versus dying by shark, Grandpa?)

Say you’re in the car with him — this is a hypothetical, of course — and he’s not really noticing the speed bumps. He blew through a stop sign. On one particular trip late last month he drove through a red light into a fender bender. No one was hurt. Maybe he was just tired, and this was a one-off? But he’s a little bruised up, and so is his ego, because afterward, the family had the Big Talk, to ask: Is it time to take the car keys away from Grandpa?

Some relatives think so. Others disagree. Grandpa has, historically, been a really good driver. He has been driving for, say, 54 years — big, cross-country trips, sometimes on challenging roads. He’s driven ancient Hondas and fancy Porsches. He insists he is still capable of driving. Just maybe not at night?

But so much is at stake: his safety, our peace of mind, the greater good. It’s a tough spot, for anyone. For everyone. Some families ignore their relative’s decline; some families obsess over it. How should we, as a countr — er, a family — have this conversation?

At the Atlantic, David Frum offers some powerful writing about President Biden and his and our national dilemma:

The great frustration of Biden’s life must be getting the presidency so late. He sought it in 1988, and again in 2008. He wanted it in 2016. Had he gained the Democratic nomination that year, the country might have been spared the Trump presidency, and Biden might now be completing his second term—uncontroversially aged by the office, but still recognizably himself. Instead, the presidency came to him when he still possessed the vigor and skill to do the job, but while the strength to gain and keep it was ebbing from him. At his press conference, he reminded me of an athlete who still knew where to aim the shots, but who could no longer muster the force to send them home….

If Biden loses to Trump, the nation Biden believed in does not outlive him. A different America replaces it, one where the presidency can be contested by violence, with judicially conferred immunity for an attempted seizure of power. Collective security will be junked, with American military power at risk of being hired by whichever dictators pay bribes to the president and his family.

Biden’s career has been based on the clear-eyed calculus of political risk. But just as the clarity of his presence is fading with the passage of time, so also does the clarity of his perception seem to be degrading. He remembers what he was, and he wants to hold that former being forever. But time has no mercy for human yearning. It takes, and it does not give back.

To my eyes, this reads like it hurt Frum to write these words – or perhaps that is just me projecting.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore spoke with CNN’s Abby Phillip about President Biden and if he should cede the nomination to Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democrat, who presumably would have a better chance of defeating Donald Trump and saving the country’s democracy. Moore, as is his way, told some uncomfortable truths. 

This isn’t about being loyal to Joe Biden. This isn’t about being grateful as I am for his three-and-a-half years of what he’s done. I’ve said he’s probably the most progressive president we have had in my lifetime. He has done so much – so much good that I don’t want to diminish any of that. But you don’t let somebody keep playing anything or doing anything just because they’ve done 30 or 40 or 50 years of great stuff. It’s about how are you doing it now? And can you do it now?

Moore then explained what he believes must happen next to save the country’s democracy:

I will insist, everybody watching me right now, that if Biden is the candidate on the ballot, every single one of us has to get out there and vote and vote for him in November. And you have to bring five people to the polls with you because I’m telling you this is the only way Trump can win Michigan, or, I think, the majority of the swing states. He’s going to have to count on people being so depressed, the depressed vote, staying home, or showing up like Michiganders did in Democratic districts in 2016.

I mostly agree with Michael Moore.

I will support President Biden no matter what. Donald Trump is not an option. Even If President Biden is substantially diminished by his age and other factors, he still believes in America’s democracy and its institutions, and he will have advisors and other people around him who will do that work. If President Biden decides to step down, his replacement would also be someone who would defend democracy and freedom against the neofascist onslaught. 

Public opinion polls and other data show that many millions of Americans feel the same way: Donald Trump and his MAGA movement and the larger antidemocracy movement must be kept away from the White House. President Biden’s age or other health concerns are of secondary concern and importance to achieving that goal. A new poll from the AP-NORC also shows that a majority of Democrats now want President Biden to step aside and let a new candidate lead the party and defeat Donald Trump and the Republicans in the 2024 Election. Are these deeply felt beliefs or a fleeting blip and reflection of how the mainstream news media and other public voices and elites in the Democratic Party have piled on President Biden with the goal of shaping the public mood with the goal of forcing him to step down? And at this point do the causal arrows even matter if Biden's political obituary has already been written—by members of his own party and other supporters?

President Biden and his advisors need to decide, very soon, if not immediately, if they are going to move forward with his candidacy. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump has delayed this decision. The appearance of national unity and Biden’s steady leadership was judged to be more important than deciding what to do about his political future. That moment, a week that feels like much longer, in a society in crisis where time feels broken, has now passed. The Republicans and Donald Trump have not paused. The convention and his coronation will only give them more momentum. Indecision is a path to defeat in a political or any other type of battle.

It is now being widely reported that senior members of the Democratic Party, including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries have counseled President Biden to drop out of the race. Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton also do not support President Biden remaining the party's nominee. As Axios summarized on Thursday, "The private message, distilled to its bluntest form: The top leaders of his party, his friends and key donors believe he can't win, can't change public perceptions of his age and acuity, and can't deliver congressional majorities....Don't underestimate how badly some Democrats simply want a ticket that can win in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Win those, and Democrats likely win the presidency. Lose them, they're toast."  

Time is a luxury that President Biden, the American people and our democracy do not have. There will in all probability not be another opportunity to stop Donald Trump and the Republican fascists after they take power in 2025.