Alan Zendell, June 29, 2024

After the horrendous debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, The New York Times editorial board wrote, “To Serve His Country, President Biden should Leave the Race.” The Times wasn’t attacking Biden, it was addressing the greatest fear of the majority Americans – that Biden’s cringeworthy performance at the debate might hand Trump the 2024 election. They and I and hundreds of millions of people in America and nations who have looked to us for leadership since World War 2 believe that would be a disaster for us and the entire world.

What was CNN thinking? Did they imagine the debate would be an airing of serious policies and visions of the future of the United States? We knew from his previous debates that Trump had no interest in such things. He has a unique ability that only a true sociopath could maintain consistently, to twist and distort any forum or attempt to reach a rational conclusion into the sort of chaos he thrives on. The debate proved a number of things, primarily, that it should never have happened. Anyone involved in serious debating knows that debates only work when everyone follows the rules. If the purpose of a debate is to reveal the participants’ ideas and policies, especially when the future of our country depends on them, both parties must take that seriously.

Journalistic media are supposed to disseminate truth, yet they thrive most when someone like Trump is allowed to lie and project his own sick fantasies as reality. Historian Heather Richardson explained that he used a rhetorical technique known as the Gish gallop, “…in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.”

That’s what Trump did last Thursday, and it worked. Trump is masterful at manipulating media and using them to his advantage, because both he and the media are essentially about making money. Trump knows sponsors love him because millions of people find him entertaining in the same way they rubberneck on freeways waiting for a glimpse of the gruesome accident that stopped traffic. Trump is effective because the media have no incentive to stop him, and by including a rule that prohibited the debate moderators from challenging the veracity of what spewed from Trump’s mouth, CNN played into his unscrupulous hands.

Trump was so effective at making the president seem confused and addled that many people failed to notice that everything that came out of Trump’s mouth was a lie, that his only purpose on that stage was to make his opponent look weak. That he did so successfully only reinforced the notion that he is unfit to serve. Nothing he said was supported by facts or vetted data. Nothing he said addressed policies or any vision of the future except Trump’s need for retribution. He worsened our concern that he will never accept the results of the election if he loses, and that the January 6th insurrection was only the opening act of a far more sinister future.

All that said, we must accept the reality of Biden’s profound failure to defend himself against Trump’s vicious attacks. We can rail about how unfair and immoral Trump’s behavior is, but in the real world, Trump’s actions might be taken as surrogates for the tactics used by our most dangerous adversaries. Trump made millions of Americans wonder if Biden can stand up to bad actors like Vladimir Putin who make Trump look like a spoiled child. With just over four months until the election, that is the reality never-Trumpers must deal with.

If The Times is right, where do we go from here? Would Kamala Harris naturally inherit the top spot if Biden withdrew? Would she accept the role as Vice President if the Democratic Convention preferred someone else? What happens if more “independent” candidates emerge to attempt to profit from Trump’s chaos? Most important, would voters put off by Biden’s age and burned out by nine years of Trump-style politics just stay home on Election Day?

Take a step back and remember that our priorities are preserving our democracy and assuring that our country is a place where everyone has a chance to thrive and live without war or conflict. Trump is the antithesis of those things. If voters now believe Biden can’t do the job anymore, even if he thinks he can, individual pride and ambition don’t matter.

Let’s hope the Democrats and centrists who care about America have a Plan B. If they conclude that it’s time to hand the reins of a power to a younger generation, my choice is the same as it has been since 2016. It’s time to look seriously at Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) as the best person to lead our country into the post-Trump years.