It was obvious nearly a year ago that President Biden shouldn’t run for a second term. In an August poll by the Associated Press, 77 percent of the public and 69 percent of Democrats said he was too old to be effective for four more years.
Yet Biden and his inner circle persisted, driving on toward Thursday’s disastrous televised debate, which vividly portrayed the failings the country had already detected.
How did this happen? What was the combination of moral conviction, personal confidence and selfishness that propelled Biden, despite the risks, toward his decision to seek another term?
I have an unusual window on Biden’s march toward the precipice. In September, I wrote a column headlined “President Biden should not run again in 2024.” It shouldn’t have gotten as much attention as it did, because it said no more than what many Democrats were mulling through last summer. But perhaps because I have been a strong supporter of most of Biden’s foreign and domestic policies, this call for him to step aside created a stir.
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In the months since, I have talked regularly with people close to Biden about why he stayed in the race. Their comments help explain the path to Thursday night — and illustrate too how Biden’s inner circle will be crucial now in encouraging him to step aside and let someone else take on former president Donald Trump.
Biden’s main reason for running again was that he felt, in his gut, that he could win. He loathes Trump — you could see the contempt animating that otherwise-frail demeanor Thursday — and it’s been his political mission to stop Trump and his MAGA rebellion. He did it twice, in the 2020 election and the 2022 midterms, and he thought he could do it again. Most important, he believed there was no one who could do it better.
Biden might have considered withdrawing if Vice President Harris was more popular than he was — running 10 points ahead of him in polls, say. But Harris hasn’t gained traction as vice president, and Biden knows it. Some say Biden deliberately sidelined Harris; I think her shortcomings reflect her own political weakness. But the fact is that Biden had no obvious heir.
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Perhaps paradoxically, Biden might also have stepped aside if Trump hadn’t run. He could have said he had achieved his political quest of vanquishing Trump — and opened the way for a younger generation of leaders. But Trump’s successful primary campaign almost guaranteed that Biden would stay in.
Biden’s family has played a central role, especially his wife, Jill. When my column appeared last September, I was told by people who know the Bidens well that the president was angry but that the first lady was irate. She’s his protector and advocate — always. His children, Hunter and Ashley, would probably have been comfortable with him stepping aside. But even after Thursday night’s performance, you could see Jill Biden onstage at a “victory” party clapping and leading a chant, “Four more years!”
Loyalty is admirable, except when it disserves people we love. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, knew the strains he was suffering in office and his fragile health. She talked with him about not seeking another term as he was being inaugurated in 1965, and he confided to her in 1967 that he had decided against running the next year, though he kept waffling until his announcement in March 1968.
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Biden’s inner circle of aides has also been protective — to a fault. Biden is a stubborn and sometimes-irascible man. He has maintained a remarkably disciplined White House, with few leaks and minimal backbiting. But loyalty and discipline can come at a cost. In the days after my column argued that he should step away, I heard rumblings of agreement among insiders, but they were quickly squelched. Discipline prevailed.
What’s especially painful about the Biden story is that he has been in most ways a very good president. The biggest lie Trump told Thursday was his portrait of the country as a ruined mess. The economy is strong, the United States is working seamlessly with an ever-closer set of allies in Europe and Asia, and our global financial, military and intelligence dominance has rarely been clearer. Biden has been effective despite the obvious signs of stress. He has also remained a decent man.
That’s his valedictory, if he could accept it. I noted in September that Biden should understand that he has achieved what he described in his 2021 inaugural speech: “When our days are through, our children and our children’s children will say of us: They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.” Biden did just that.
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Biden’s closest counselors — political adviser Mike Donilon, former chief of staff Ron Klain, the first lady — have an obligation to be honest with him now. If he has the strength and wisdom to step aside, the Democrats will have two months to choose another candidate. It will be a wide-open and noisy race, but that will be invigorating for the country. It’s never too late to do the right thing.
Thursday night had the sense of an ending. There was something Shakespearean about the gaunt, haunted face of Biden on stage squinting as if to see in a dwindling light, struggling for words even as the nobility of his purpose remained. I was reminded of a passage in “King Lear,” when Edgar advises his struggling father, the Duke of Gloucester, “Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither; Ripeness is all.”
But an ending is also a new beginning. That’s what Biden, with the wisdom of his age, can give to the country.
