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— OPINION —
In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s debate cataclysm, the headlines (and our inboxes) are full of efforts by Biden’s team to force their way through this existential moment.
It’s understandable why they still choose to ignore a growing reality. It’s only partly because they somehow believe he continues to offer the best chance of beating Donald Trump. It’s only partly because they have worked with him and know him to be a good man. It’s only partly because they believe loyalty is important.
Simply put, they all have skin in the game. Putting country above your self-interest becomes more difficult the more is at stake for you personally.
In other words, by convincing the president to drop out of this race, the people surrounding Biden would talk themselves out of a job, power, and money. That takes extraordinary selflessness and commitment to the larger public interest.
The odds aren’t good of them stepping up now. The people we would be counting on to talk some sense into the president are the very same people who kept his decline from the American people, and who ignored the advice and the worries back when there was plenty of time to do something about it.
They are the ones who have created the current crisis.
Letting them make that decision — when the entire nation needs to be part of it — is a really bad idea.
Yes, it’s possible that opening up the Democratic convention could foster chaos or an electoral drubbing, but it’s hard to see how the Biden option is any better.
Also, if “the people” who don’t want Trump to win were to force Biden out, it would actually show strength — passion, activism, conviction — of the sort members of the MAGA cult claim for their own. It would make Democrats people of action. And that might excite young people, people on the fence, people who felt that Biden and Company lacked the energy, vigor, decisiveness — let’s say it, courage — needed to tackle the huge issues before the country.
