The underplayed point in the Biden plight

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The saga over 81-year-old Joe Biden’s future continues daily. After the president’s poor debate performance last month confirmed a physical and cognitive decline that anyone honest with themselves had already detected, most of the discussion has focused on whether he can still beat 78-year-old Donald Trump, because from a very reasonable point of view, that’s the ballgame.

Well, yes, but.

Assuming Biden can stabilize perceptions and win re-election — your prediction is as good as mine, and mine says no — he would continue to be president, with all that entails.

Those voters who do understand the danger of re-electing Donald Trump — and the importance of their vote in averting that outcome — would have to decide if future Biden would always, reliably, be the one making decisions, or if it would be some other person or group of people within his administration.

That’s a rotten position for voters of integrity to be in.

Barack Obama once wrote the following: “One of the first things I discovered as President of the United States was that no decision that landed on my desk had an easy, tidy answer. The black-and-white questions never made it to me — somebody else on my staff would have already answered them.”

Those ultimate decisions not only require wisdom but sometimes also quick thinking without the benefit of reflection, amid a cacophony of forceful recommendations. And the questions won’t always come during waking hours.

I could spend time here exploring Edith Wilson’s role in the White House after her husband, President Woodrow Wilson, had a stroke. I could talk about what people were saying behind the scenes about President Ronald Reagan’s slippage during his second term.

But there’s no need to belabor the point. The president, in the words of George W. Bush, is the decider. That’s what people are voting for, and they need it to be transparent.

The Star Tribune Editorial Board, the opinions of which properly reflect the consensus of its stakeholders, called after the debate for Democrats to make an honest appraisal of Biden’s situation. It’s not too late, the board argued, for the party to change course if that seemed best for the country.

I personally go a step further. Neither presumptive 2024 nominee is suitable for the office — for Biden, not any longer; for Trump, not ever. Both should step aside, and their parties should show them the way if they can’t see it themselves. We know the Republicans will never stand up to that responsibility. We know the Democrats might, but depending on the hour and the day, it’s fair also to fear that they might fail to rise to this moment.

David Banks is the Star Tribune’s interim opinion editor.