The prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second time is as alarming as appalling. Which is precisely why the division right now among Democrats – should President Joe Biden stay or go? – is so unsettling.
Memories are short, and this too shall pass. Whoever leads the Democratic ticket will have a unified party around him, or her. But… the fact that Biden’s refusal to exit the political stage has brought Americans to this point is lamentable. If the Democrats win big in November – with whoever is at the top of the ticket – all will be semi-forgotten and semi-forgiven. But if they do not, and if, worst case scenario, the Republicans win big in November, Biden’s name will forever be blackened.
So far as I am concerned, his disasrous performance in the recent “debate” is not relevant.
So far as I am concerned, what today’s polls say or don’t say is not relevant.
So far as I am concerned, how he performs later today in that NATO press conference is not relevant.
So far as I am concerned, the fact that his administration gets high marks on different subjects is not relevant.
What is relevant is that a critical part of Biden’s job – of any leader’s job – is to prepare for his succession.
Given his age, and given that Trump never got off the political stage, and given that this left the American experiment singularly vulnerable, President Biden should have planned from day one of his presidency for who would succeed him. Specifically, he would have promised the American people that his would be a one term presidency – and meant it. He would have chosen a vice president who by wide agreement would have been a worthy successor. He would have mentored the woman he did choose as his vice president, preparing Kamala Harris to succeed him, either should it be suddenly necessary or for when his single term was over. He would have fostered other possible successors, especially promising younger Democrats with visibility on the national stage. He would’ve spoken to senior Democratic leaders such as Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and James Clyburn, asking for their input on who might someday succeed him. He would have long ago been listening to the American people who long ago worried that for a second term Biden’s age alone was a disqualifier.
But Biden did none of these. To the contrary, he is still digging in, refusing to quit his day job unless and until he is, almost literally, pushed.
Some two weeks before that disastrous debate I posted to this site a piece titled, “Biden Shakespearean.” I’ve thought for some time that whatever his virtues, and they are many, he had what could become a fatal flaw. I wrote this:
Shakespeare’s tragedies – such as Hamlet, Henry V, and Julius Caesar – all have heroes with tragic flaws…. They are leaders with followers over whom they rule. But there is nevertheless a chink in their armor, a flaw that is not, simply, a defect. It is a flaw that is fatal, that leads ultimately to disaster, even to death. Is Biden so afflicted? …. Has his unquenchable ambition been his fatal flaw?
There is a reason George Washington has been called the “Father of His Country.” It is because a great leader is like a great parent. One of their tasks is to prepare, and gracefully usher in the next, younger generation. And then there is the other, subsequent task. To do as Washington did – to leave when the time comes.
Neither is a lesson that Biden learned.