Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Best Biden Option: Leave with Dignity
Given Joe and Jill Biden’s obsession with power and their irrational desire for Joe to stay in office, most of us can’t begin to imagine that he will voluntarily step down.
But he is meeting with his family this weekend, and if there is anyone who is sane in that collection of people, that person has to lead the pack. Somehow, he or she must convince not just Joe, but the entire family, that stepping down is his best option.
What will that person tell him?
Joe, you have had a long and distinguished role in the U.S. government. You have seen the country through upheavals, wars, protests. You have done your very best to protect this country, enacted policies that will lead us forward, and maintained your connection to our adversaries in spite of the difficulties you have encountered. You have even argued with our ally Israel, insisting that they must bring their war to an end. Although they have resisted complying, they have experienced the force of your actions.
You’ve looked at the video of your performance last Thursday night. It surprised you. It surprised all of us. Life has robbed you of a vibrant and positive outcome for a second term. But it doesn’t have to rob you of your dignity.
Joe, this will be the hardest decision you will ever have to make. Harder than whether to kill bin Laden. Harder than leaving Afghanistan. Harder than keeping Putin in his place. Life is calling you to acknowledge the cards you have been dealt and retire in dignity. No one will fault you for this decision. In fact, they will honor you and praise you for seeing the truth of your situation. This acknowledgment takes nothing away from your many years of service and your love of this country. It shows, instead, your courage to deal with reality for the benefit of the country.
We think, then, it is time for you to step down. You will have a key role in deciding who will replace you; whether you wish Kamala to step down or move on to brighter horizons. But it’s time.
I didn’t say it had to be an honest plea.
Published in Politics
Oh @susanquinn I really doubt there will be any discussion of dignity. Or the good of the country.
But he thinks of himself in dignified terms. He thinks he’s an exemplar of a great presidency. I think he really believes all the lies his handlers have fed him–that he’s doing an awesome job; that he’s a fine statesman; but life simply caught up with him and robbed him of the future. He’s lived one long life of delusion. Can’t you see it?
I think they’re too exposed criminally if he’s out.
Some of you are not going to believe the level of delusion his family will use to take care of business. I guess I have too much darkness in my history.
The man never had any dignity. The choir is worst than the choir leader. No Democrat will act for the good of the country. Everything is calculated on what wins in November. His dementia has been obvious to us. If they seem shocked at his health, they are just acting.
But if they go after them, I’m pretty sure they’ll wait until after the election. He’s not going to be re-elected anyway, so he’ll be “out” at that point.
Of course they’re just acting! That’s the point. It’s all one big stage play, and it has been since he came into office. He doesn’t have any dignity, but he thinks he does! My goodness, he’s met with world leaders (he doesn’t know they despise him) cowed Netanyahu (who keeps pretty much ignoring him) and attacked the Iranians when they went after Israel (although Iran probably figured it was a small price to pay).
Some of you just aren’t devious enough to see the whole picture. It’s all a farce, a delusion, and all the dems participated, some more than others. And they won’t mind flattering Joe in one big lie to get him out.
It’s too late for Biden to leave with dignity. Except maybe in his own deluded mind.
[Edit: corrected typo.]
You’re assuming that–even if a consequential family member could bring himself or herself to frame an appeal in such a lovely frou-frou way–Biden will respond to reason and altruism.
I don’t think he can. The delusions and narrow vision that live loudly in the mind of someone in Biden’s state aren’t susceptible to reason. Pile that on top of all the other things are regularly mentioned in the context of the Bidens–greed, hunger for power, venality, dishonesty, corruption, etc. –all of which still live loudly in the bits that are left of him–and the chances of Biden agreeing–for he has to agree–to step aside voluntarily are vanishingly small. (Personally, I think he’d be more likely to respond in the affirmative if faced with something more like a threat closer to home, namely that if he doesn’t step aside, his own legacy, and the Biden name down all the generations–including Beau’s and Hunter’s, will be tarnished forever, and mud for all time. He might do it to prevent that. I don’t think doing it to prevent WWIII, at a time when he obviously still thinks he’s doing a marvelous job, would weigh with him at all.)
I’d be willing to bet quite a lot that “for the benefit of the country,” doesn’t resonate with Joe Biden in any way these days (if it ever did). The only thing that will resonate with him is what matters most to him, that is–himself, and–possibly–his family reputation.
If the family wants him to quit the race (which I don’t think is a given), they’ll have to find a way to put the argument for his doing so in very stark terms, and make him want to do it for his own benefit.
Need to go after the perps of this fraud.
That’s the only place he needs to believe he can do it.
This works for me, too, She. You’re probably right–he’d probably be much more concerned about how his family comes out of all this than his concern for the nation. But remember how bothered he was when people didn’t understand the economy or inflation? He took it personally. So in some respects, he does care about what the public thinks of his policies.
Dems have the perfect threat. Hunter. Step down or he goes down.
Well, he would certainly have it coming…
I do remember. But because I do believe that he’s been steadily diminishing cognitively for quite some time–while understanding that he didn’t start from a position in the intellectual stratosphere to begin with–I generally just write those sorts of outbursts off to the anger that goes along with his condition, anger which bubbles to the surface when someone dares to disagree with him or says something that he can’t follow. It’s intensely personal to him, but I don’t know if it follows that he’s really cognizant of something called “public opinion,” or the wider implications thereof, or if he remembers them coherently from one minute to the next.
100%. Whoever, and wherever, they are to be found.
Not sure about that. I seem to remember that he had a temper years ago…
BTW, some of you might want him to stay in his role until the election, but there are enough downsides to that possibility that I’d rather have him out.
70% chance we have President Harris by next weekend.
Susan,
There’s a scene in Chaim Potok’s wonderful novel The Chosen that has stuck with me, though it’s been more than thirty years since I read the novel and I may misremember the details. Young Reuven is speaking to his father, and he refers to someone he strongly dislikes as “deplorable,” or perhaps “despicable” — a fair assessment, as I recall.
Reuven’s father, a gentle Talmudic scholar, upbraids Reuven, telling him (as I recall) that Reuven does not know that man — does not know any man — well enough to say that about him. In doing so, the father communicates a laudable standard of humility and basic decency. However imperfectly I remember that moment, it remains the only specific moment in the story that I can recall, as it made a strong impression on me.
It’s a standard I won’t pretend to reach. In the case of Joe Biden, it’s a standard I won’t even pretend to wish to reach.
The advice you offered is what I might say to Biden and his family if I believed it. It’s also the advice I might give them if I thought it would serve the country well, whether or not I believed the things you wrote about Joe’s dignity and service.
But, of course, I think Joe Biden is and always has been in his best moments a fool, in his worst a mean and vicious fool, always dishonest and corrupt, utterly without a moral compass. I think his years of service have been to the detriment of the nation, occasionally in serious and lasting ways, though often merely larcenous and self-serving.
In short, I think he’s despicable. I also think Trump is better off running against Biden than against almost anyone else, so I continue to hope that Biden ignores the advice he and his family are undoubtedly receiving right now from all those who knew perfectly well a week ago that he was incompetent but who were gambling that the under-informed electorate remained bamboozled by our corrupt and partisan lapdog press.
H.
PS I should reread the book.
Dignity confined to his own deluded mind is not dignity in fact.
The debate destroy any possibility of leaving him dignity. He can only leave in disgrace. His delusional belief that he is perfectly okay makes the situation continually worse and worse.
Happily, If Biden is the candidate, Trump seems to be the likely victor.
That would require Biden elevating Hunter’s best interest over his own delusion about how great he (Joe) is. A long shot. I don’t thinks Joe is a likely self-sacrificing parent.
The OP talks about what should happen. What will happen is that Biden will do nothing until his family has consulted with competent legal counsel. Biden needs to pardon his family members. He can only exercise that power when he is president. If he is removed via the 25th Amendment it would raise doubts regarding the legality of action taken just prior to his removal. So his best case scenario short of winning a second term, is to lose and then pardon his family. If he pardons them now, he is basically throwing in the towel for this election and adversely affects other Democrat candidates down ballot. If he resigns he loses the pardon power. So Biden does not leave office until he has either taken an act or obtained legally binding immunities for himself and other family members. There is no “dignity”, there is no “for the good of the country”. There is only calculation.
Just responding to the title: Too late. Now, just leave.
That all sounds sensible, and would be if we were the kind of banana republic country that uses the legal system to persecute out-of-office politicians and their families. But of course we aren’t that kind of country.
Oh, wait.
Biden is only the figurehead for a network of behind the scenes people who are really running things. Look at his recent schedule on any given day and it is often either empty, traveling to and from Delaware or begins with “The President and Mrs. Biden….”
I would guess that some die hard democrats will take a new look at Bobby. He is as hard left as anyone. Why should a committed leftist stay home or cast a ballot for whoever has the D behind their name when the party pulls an Emily Litella on them?
The early debate seemed designed to showcase Biden’s competency. Had they not proposed it, the public might have continued to be gaslit until they suffered a real October surprise. Whether the cleanup on aisle four can be accomplished in a way that still results in a D victory in November (sans fraud) remains to be seen.
Here I was composing a zinger, and you beat me to it.
The “conspiracy theory” is that the Biden team proposed the debate with a whole bunch of rules that they though Trump would never accept, so they could say that Trump was afraid to debate. But he said “sure” and then they were stuck.
I agree completely.
Please, Joe, do the country a favor and don’t resign from office or from the campaign.
I am convinced that Trump will win in a Trump-Biden race, that people who support Trump over Biden will turn out in such huge droves that Trump’s win will be indisputable. People will know it can’t be close. It has to be an overwhelming victory for Trump, and I believe it will be.
And Trump followed all the rules. I read somewhere that the debate stand-in at Camp David was bombastic, and when Trump didn’t interrupt or rise to any bait Biden wasn’t prepared for that.