Many pundits and editorialists said that President Biden should withdraw from the presidential race because of his poor performance.
The Philadelphia Inquirer does not agree. Its editorial board says that Donald Trump should drop out of the race! Trump is a liar, a danger to democracy, and unfit for office. I’m with them.
Hurrah for the editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer! Every newspaper and media outlet in the nation should read this editorial, published on June 29.
President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.
But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.
In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.
Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that?
To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.
Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.”
“People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”
Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.
Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”
After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.
The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.
Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.
Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.
Trump spent chunks of time watching TV, tweeting, and hanging out at his country clubs. Over his four-year term, Trump played roughly 261 rounds of golf.
As president, Trump didn’t read the daily intelligence briefs. He continued to use his personal cell phone, allowing Chinese spies to listen to his calls. During one Oval Office meeting, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.
Trump’s term did plenty of damage and had few accomplishments. The much-hyped wall didn’t get built. Infrastructure week was a recurring joke. Giant tax cuts made the rich richer, while fueling massive deficits for others to pay for years. His support for coal, oil drilling and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement worsened the growing impact of climate change.
Trump stacked the judiciary with extreme judges consisting mainly of white males, including a number who the American Bar Association rated as not qualified. A record number of cabinet officials were fired or left the office. The West Wing was in constant chaos and infighting.
Many Trump appointees exited under a cloud of corruption, grifting and ethical scandals. Trump’s children made millions off the White House. His dilettante son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudi government for his fledgling investment firm even though he never managed money before.
Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. He boasts about stacking the Supreme Court with extreme right-wingers who are stripping away individual rights, upending legal precedents, and making the country less safe. If elected, Trump may add to the court’s conservative majority.
Of course, there were the unprecedented two impeachments. Now, Trump is a convicted felon who is staring at three more criminal indictments. He is running for president to stay out of prison.
If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?
Trump allegedly stole classified information and tried to overturn an election. His plans for a second term are worse than the last one. We cannot be serious about letting such a crooked clown back in the White House.
If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?
Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best.
Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.
Biden has surrounded himself with experienced people who take public service seriously. He has passed major bipartisan legislation despite a dysfunctional Republican House majority.
Biden believes in the best of America. He has rebuilt relationships with allies around the world and stood up to foes like Russia and China.
There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.
Trump is a rapist/felon and people think Biden should leave????
Thank you for this excellent article. I agree 100%!
Well, this is a pick-me-up. A mechaye, my grandparents would say. Diane, you are an angel of rational mercy.
If Trump pulled out, that would be POTUS interruptus, except for the fact that he’s not the president.
Hakeem Jeffries just appeared on MSNBC and gave a superb, unflinching defense of Joe Biden and the Dems. A brilliant summation of what his party stands for and what the president has done.
The Times and all the pundits should do a quick retraction of their replacement arguments. How many of them will admit they were wrong in their rush to judgemnt?
Fred Smith,
I too wonder whether The NY Times editorial board can admit they were wrong. If it’s Biden v Trump in November, how will the Times backtrack?
It won’t be a backtrack and it doesn’t have to be. They will endorse Biden and say it’s an easy choice, given the litany of horrible things about Trump, and the editorial will read exactly like the Inquirer’s editorial. I also would endorse Biden for all those reasons, and I agree with the Times that Biden should step down.
Although every time I type that Biden should step aside, I realize my heart isn’t in it. It’s too late. This conversation should have happened a year ago. And the Dem party is such a circular firing squad, and so factional, that it’s hard to imagine an open convention being anything but an utter disaster.
I can’t deny that I am angry about this. I’m angry at Biden for not seeing this problem, for the hubris of thinking he was the only one who could beat Trump (assuming he actually did think that), for the failure to distinguish between his interests and the interests of the country. I’m angry at the people close to Biden for not dissuading him from this path. And I’m angry at the mass of people who repeated the talking point that all footage of Biden looking his age was selectively edited misinformation, or who dismissed the public polling showing the vast majority of even Democrats thought he was too old to run and to handle the demands of the presidency.
It’s not just Biden. Bernie Sanders and AOC gave Biden some of the earliest endorsements for re-election. They did so long before there was any pressure for them to endorse Biden, and it surprised me they did not do what other politicians did and wait longer to endorse Biden.
There is only one plausible reason for that — they believed Biden was doing a good job and they wanted him to continue on and they both thought Biden could beat Trump. Biden didn’t stay in the race because of hubris. He stayed in the race because the country needed someone who could withstand the anti-Trump propaganda machine that has destroyed all other opponents.
Biden has always been Trump’s worst nightmare – Trump committed an impeachable offense for no reason other than to make voters believe Biden was a criminal BEFORE Biden was even a candidate! Because even the idea that Biden MIGHT be a candidate instead of one of the many other folks who had already declared frightened Trump. The right wing Trump machine wasn’t working propaganda campaigns to smear any of the other candidates — they were working propaganda campaigns to destroy a candidate who had not even said he was running!! Because Biden was the candidate who was immune to the dirt that they knew would destroy other candidates. They were right. None of the Trump “Burisma/Hunter Biden” attacks stuck to Biden. Bernie and AOC understood this.
The only thing the Republicans had left was Biden’s age. No one can deny that Biden is old and slowing down but since “very old” Biden is RIGHT NOW the president having one of the most successful presidencies in decades, it seemed ridiculous that the Republicans would get any traction in changing “Biden is old” (which NO ONE disputes) into “Biden is too old to be in office.”
Most of us thought it was ridiculous that “too old” – when applied to a president who has spent the last 3 1/2 years showing how good of a president he is – could possibly be turned into “too old to be president” based on a single debate performance against a gaslighter who has made every debate opponent look incompetent. But we discounted the so-called liberal media and how fast the Dems always conduct their circular firing squads. Just ask Al Franken.
We underestimated the “fair and balanced” so-called liberal media that destroyed Dukakis and Gore and Kerry and HRC in their eagerness to prove their “fair and balanced” bona fides. One debate performance is more important than 3 1/2 years of successful governance because Biden “looked very old”. Biden must go, the “fair and balanced” liberal media tells us, because Biden looks too old to do the job he is currently doing more successfully than any president in the last few decades.
Isn’t that what all this ridiculous narrative boils down to? Biden looks too old to be doing the job he IS doing very successfully, so you shouldn’t trust him based on job performance, you should DIStrust Biden because he looks old. Biden must resign so someone else can replace him. I’m just shocked that anyone else believes the new candidate will withstand the right wing smear machine.
If Biden is replaced, the new narrative will be “That Dem’s job performance is terrible, you can’t trust them in office just because they are smooth talking at a debate. It’s job performance that matters!”
Orwellian times.
@NYC public school parent: Thank you for the lengthy post. Spot on, every word.
^^just wanted to correct a fact error above. Trump feared Biden and committed an impeachable offense because Biden was the Dem he did NOT want to face. The timeline is:
Beginning in late 2018 (possibly earlier) Giuliani was setting up meetings with Ukraine officials pressuring them to investigate Biden. This “shadow Ukraine agenda” was being facilitated by help from Trump state department officials.
April 2019 Biden declares himself a candidate.
Giuliani began his pressure campaign to get Ukraine officials to help them smear Biden BEFORE Biden was even a candidate. But the “smear Biden” pressure campaign turned into a Trump extortion campaign right after Biden declared his candidacy, with legally mandated foreign aid withheld, and Trump’s July 25, 2019 “perfect” phone call in which he extorted Zelensky to work with upright and honorable truth seekers Giuliani and William Barr to inform the public that Biden was dirty.
Trump was so terrified of Biden as an opponent that he was willing to commit impeachable offenses soon after Biden declared, and the only purpose of those impeachable offensives was to destroy Biden, the opponent he didn’t want to run against.
Biden stepping down is exactly what Trump wants. He’s not afraid of any other Democrat, just like he wasn’t afraid of any of the Republicans running against him.
The jerkiest of the knee‑jerky medio‑critiques I’ve read in the mainscream media over the last couple of days — What is the heck is going on there!? — their writers review the two‑man show like like it was a Broadway play, with kudos for the portrayal of a psychopathic bunko artist, that was really right on target and true‑to‑life, while the actor playing the bumbling detective was far less spectacular. They are evidently oblivious to the fact we’ll all be living on that stage for the long run into oblivion.
yup
That’s one thing I wish someone would say. Trump blathered that he “had to fire” cabinet members because “they were very bad,” BUT TRUMP HIRED most of those people!!! What kind of decision making abilities does he have??? (Rhetorical question, I know).
Methinks Biden can get 55% of the popular vote four months from today, as follows.
1 – Immediately go into “Give ‘Em Hell” mode (without wearing himself out).
2- Emphasize the excellence of the staff he has surrounded himself with.
3- Have surrogates saturate every state with facts about what his administration has accomplished thus far.
4- Emphasize the “Big Tent” nature of the Democratic party.
5- Keep hitting the point that the choice in November is simple: It’s Trump vs the Truth.
I don’t hear people saying they will vote for Trump now. If anything, they can’t stand him even more. The danger now is that they aren’t going to vote at all. They don’t feel Biden is a choice anymore.
Then the fate of the country and the world depends on our relentlessly confronting them with the fact that one of Biden and T***p is going to be elected, and that not voting is effectively a half-vote for T***p.
The Biden Crime family has taken millions from Ukraine and China. How is that standing up 🙂 ?That’s in the laptop debunked by 51 “experts” including Dana Bash’s husband and referenced in court by defense and prosecution.
Besides the billions Obama/Biden gave outright to Iran to build nukes and kill Jews, Biden shut down our energy production and now buys oil from Russia (to fight Ukraine) and Iran (to fund Hamas and Hezbollah).
Oil production in the U.S. today is at its highest point in history.
We had an all of the above energy policy under Trump who didn’t shut down even one pipeline, actually so much surplus o
You are so confused, Ms. Beiley. If you listen to “news” within the Reichwing bubble, you are going to end up with a head full of these falsehoods. This has happened to you, and it’s really, really sad.
Insults and generalities are not facts to refute an argument. But since we’re doing th
How, exactly, did Biden give billions to Iran? When did he say, here’s some money for building nuclear facilities and killing Jews? How is it possible that Biden “shut down our energy production” when our production is, in fact, at its all-time historical high? Given that it is now illegal to purchase oil from Russia because of the sanctions imposed on that country, how is it possible that we now buy our oil from Russia? (Yes, a tiny portion of our oil-derived products is coming from Russia via a loophole that allows for sale to the US of stuff refined elsewhere, but it’s a negligible amount.) Where is your evidence that Joe Biden received money from Ukraine?
In each case, what you have asserted is simply factually false or completely unsubstantiated. Is that clear enough?
That’s better. Sillier but better. So you don’t think Iran is building up its nuclear facilities? And you don’t think Iran uses the Biden-Obama loot to arm Hezbollah and Hamas whose goal it is to wipe Israel off the map?
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div>And you don’t suspect Biden was the “big guy” Hunter resentfully complains about
And where, exactly, did you present anything resembling “an argument”?