Dems must confront Biden debate debacle

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

•••

Democrats must directly confront the implications of President Joe Biden’s extraordinarily poor performance at Thursday’s debate. Many are panicked by the thought that former President Donald Trump not only won the night but will win November’s election.

On other occasions, such as this year’s State of the Union address, Biden has been clear and forceful, but voters are right to be concerned when they see such variability in an 81-year-old incumbent seeking four more years in office. Biden and those who advise him must give this due consideration and make an honest appraisal. It’s late in the campaign cycle, but not too late to make a change atop the ticket if that would be best for the country the president has so resolutely served.

While fact checks show that Trump made misleading statements or spoke outright lies at least 30 times Thursday evening, compared with Biden’s nine, presidential debates move the needle on campaigns and historically have been won on style, not substance. And stylistically it was a disastrous debate for Biden, whose raspy, rambling responses reflected the earlier fears of Dean Phillips, the Democrat from Minnesota‘s Third Congressional District who made a quixotic but prescient presidential primary run. Phillips’ campaign was based in part on Biden’s age being a political liability — an alarm unheard or unheeded by ostensible party leaders.

Biden’s performance Thursday may have been partly the result of a cold, as flacks from the White House whispered. But democracy may catch pneumonia if Trump wins, a claim Biden has repeatedly made himself.

Biden was right to counter Trump’s talk of risking World War III by emphasizing that it’s Trump’s likely acquiescence to Russian President Vladimir Putin that would cause catastrophe. And Trump’s economic proposals — particularly tariffs, which act as an added tax to U.S. consumers, and mass deportations, which would exacerbate an already acute labor shortage — would only heighten the inflationary and interest-rate spiral that has many Americans reeling.

There are scores more examples of ill-advised policies from Trump, including his vow to drain the Washington “swamp” of dedicated federal workers. (He’d make replacements based on loyalty, not competency, which would produce a true mire.) Additionally, there are his promises of “retribution,” a point he tried to obfuscate during the debate.

All of this would make a fractured country even more riven.

Biden tried to make some of these arguments Thursday, particularly as he steadied during the second half of the debate, but by then the damage was done. (It should be clear who was losing the debate when it was Trump who was compelled to scold “Let’s not act like children” during a back-and-forth about golf handicaps that should have made the whole country cringe.)

America must remain a beacon of democracy. That’s an existential imperative, and it should spur Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, the Biden family and Democratic leaders to reckon with the optics of this debate debacle. While voters may have difficulty discerning truth in a campaign during which both candidates constantly accuse each other of lying, they will well understand that the Biden they see in 2024 only foreshadows the one they could see in 2026 or 2028.

During his first run against Trump, Biden said he was in the race for the “soul of this nation.” He now needs to look inside his own soul and answer whether he can deliver what America needs.