EDITORIAL: Mr. President, save the voters from the rematch they dreaded

The two-party system has thrown American voters under the political bus. Democratic and Republican party fixers ignored repeated pleas from the public, as expressed in a succession of opinion polls, to avoid a Biden-Trump rematch in the 2024 presidential election. The party elites did exactly what a majority of voters did not want and left them with a choice between two candidates who are unfit to be president.

Donald Trump took over the Republican Party to pave his way to reclaim the power of the presidency. Joe Biden relied on Democratic Party professionals to fend off any challengers who might deign to oppose him in his determination to extend his run as president.

The results were on disturbing display in the June 11 presidential debate. Trump lied repeatedly between assertions of his autocratic intentions and potential refusal to accept the outcome of the election if he didn’t win. Biden appeared as a deer in the headlights waiting to be run over, which happened almost every time Trump’s microphone was turned on.

Biden’s appalling performance—a string of weakly articulated and unintelligible statements that hardly qualified as responses—was gut-wrenching for his supporters, off-putting for independents and, in what it revealed about the state of the current commander in chief, perhaps even discomfiting for some Trump supporters.

As awful as it was to watch, the debate served a useful purpose in telling voters more about the president than his staff and the political operators who surround him allowed the public to know. Energized by what the debate revealed, the press dug in and reported on the efforts to hide the effects of aging on the 81-year-old president.

That reporting has now illuminated the shield that was deployed by limiting presidential news conferences to a rare few, avoiding situations where the president was expected to make unscripted remarks, keeping the press at a distance and aggressively responding to any suggestion that Biden was too old to serve as president for four more years.

When Robert Hur, the special prosecutor investigating Biden’s handling of official documents, described the president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” he was targeted by a barrage of vitriol from Biden’s protectors.

The impact of the debate that seemed to prove the comment true is so profound that it should save voters from the rematch they dreaded.

The president and his defenders attempted to dismiss the debate fiasco as merely “a bad night” for a man who otherwise is fully capable of leading the country. Even if that were true, it doesn’t matter. Presidents are judged as much by the public’s perception as by their accomplishments. No one, whether an American voter or a foreign ally or enemy, who saw Biden’s struggles in the debate could have been left with the perception that he would be a fit leader of the world’s most powerful nation for the next four years.

In a Wall Street Journal poll of registered Democratic and Republican voters of following the debate, 73% said Biden was too old to be president.

Biden took office saying his presidency would be “a bridge” to new leadership, and now he must honor that commitment by gathering the American people in front of their television and computer screens and giving the speech he should have delivered two years ago.

In that address, he should recount the worthy achievements of his administration, express confidence that the initiatives and policies he put in place will benefit the nation going forward and convey to his listeners his deep and abiding love for America and its democracy.

And then, to demonstrate his dedication to his country’s ideals, he should announce that he is not seeking re-election.

There is reason to believe history will take a favorable view of Biden’s presidency, concluding that he left the nation and its economy better than when he took office. Withdrawing from the presidential race for the benefit of his country would only enhance that judgment.

If he refuses to acknowledge the overwhelming sentiment against his candidacy and remains a candidate in the election that could end in an epic landslide giving the Trump party control of all branches of government, history’s view will be harsh.

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Ozaukee Press

Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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