If Joe Biden is a patriot

Now is the time to test Joe Biden’s patriotic convictions.

If it really is “country first,” as he says, it must be “Biden out.” He must fire himself as quickly as possible to give his party a chance to win the presidency, not to mention several close local contests.

Will he do it? Or will he once again want to defy fate and all his detractors, by sweeping the country from state to state to show that Thursday’s debate was just a “bad time”?

Friday, as if he had changed his type of coffee, he was in North Carolina, with the energy of sunny days. “I know I’m not a young man,” he said. My walk is less easy, my speech too, and I no longer debate as well. But, he added, “I know how to tell the truth, how to know right from wrong, how to do this job. I know how to make things happen. I know, like millions of Americans, that when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

He had his fist in the air and the taste of fighting in his eyes.

But these well-felt words will not erase the failure of Thursday evening.

In 2020, Joe Biden justified his late candidacy for the presidency by the need to block Donald Trump. Again Thursday, he spoke about this neo-Nazi parade in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a young demonstrator was killed. And these famous words from Donald Trump, who minimized the events by saying that there were “good people on both sides”.

This was, moreover, one of the most serious problems in preparing for the 2024 debate: his entourage thought they would repeat the trick of 2020. Bring out the angry Trump who flirts with white supremacists.

But we don’t do the same show twice, and four years later, the theme is worn out, the attacks smell reheated.

If the president’s convictions have remained the same, he still thinks he must block the path of Donald Trump. He still sees it as a threat to American democracy and the country’s social peace. More than in 2020, even, because he never recognized the result of the election and he incited or at least allowed the insurrection of January 6, 2021. From Joe Biden’s point of view, the “danger” of Donald Trump’s return should be even more obvious. Especially since Trump plans to take control of the Department of Justice and several independent bodies of the federal government to exercise unfettered power, including against his political adversaries. He talks about it openly.

If Biden in 2020 was worried about Trump’s return, he should be even more so in 2024.

There would then be only one thing left for him to do: realize that his candidacy is the surest way to restore Trump to power.

The disaster of the debate seems impossible to overcome politically. The president gives the impression of coming out of hospitalization or of needing one. The vivid exposure of his physical and cognitive decline reminds the voter a little too much of his mortality.

This does not make Trump a champion, it does not assure him of a landslide victory. But it does make unlikely the necessary comeback in the few key states that make the difference, and where Trump is ahead of the president. Either because it does not convince the undecided. Or because it discourages Democrats who might not vote.

It is not too late to leave, as almost everyone in his party asks him more or less kindly, or wishes more or less ardently.

The rest would not be easy. The Democratic convention begins in 51 days, on August 19. That is a short time to organize a new race with uncertain rules, and a selection on the convention floor in Chicago. All of this carries risks and prevents campaigning during the summer.

But a candidate of good stature would still have two and a half months to campaign, when it matters most.

That wouldn’t mean Trump wouldn’t win. More than ever, he’s the favorite.

But to continue as if nothing had happened on Thursday would be foolish. It would be to cling to his position while the country and the whole world have seen how he is no longer fit. Remaining a candidate would be more than pride; this would be another sign of cognitive decline.

We will see in the coming days if the President of the United States really believes in “country first”. Or if he continues to prove that he is still capable, when everyone knows that he is only intermittently capable, as he wanted to prove on Friday.

In this kind of job, you have to be 100% seven days and nights a week, or convince the majority that you can be.

To cede the candidacy would be a spectacular, historic gesture in fact – like Lyndon Johnson in 1968. It carries its share of risk. But less than doing nothing. He could retire elegantly by finishing his presidency, whose record, in the end, is quite rich.

Unless, of course, he believes himself to be irreplaceable. He wouldn’t be the first politician to suffer from this eternity syndrome.

It happens even to the nicest people.