President Truman stepped aside for the good of the nation. So should President Biden | Opinion

You would have to be a Neanderthal confined to the family cave not to hear the din of voices calling for Joe Biden’s presidential scalp and a replacement candidate not dealing with similar age and cognitive decline factors. I concluded months ago that Biden should step aside so the Democrats could find a new standard bearer, but as he failed to do so and with the campaign cycle in full swing, I then concluded Biden was apparently the last man standing who could beat Trump.

With Biden demonstrating more serious cognitive and physical decline recently, it is now apparent that he is not the person to challenge Trump in November, and it’s Vice President Kamala Harris who happens to be polling close enough to Trump that she could defeat him in November.

Biden will pay a heavy price in history if he loses this election. He would forever be the guy who put his own and his family’s comfort with the presidential perks of office ahead of beating down an autocrat who has already proven in his previous term of office that he has little regard for constitutional democracy. Perhaps the best example of the supposed blue collar, union-backed Biden family losing touch with the boys at the local tavern in Delaware is First Lady Jill Biden showing up on the cover of Vogue recently wearing a Ralph Lauren dress that retails for almost $5,000. Then comes a politically dense headline quoting Jill Biden that “we will decide our future” as calls for Biden to do what is good for the country ring out. It is the voters who decide a candidate’s future, after all.

Don’t get me wrong. I would vote for Mickey Mouse to keep Trump out of the White House so Biden has my vote, mindful as I am of Benjamin Franklin’s comment when asked after the Constitutional Convention of 1787 whether we had a republic or a monarchy. He responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” No doubt, Biden will keep the republic if he can get elected, while Trump will tear it apart. But there are now more legitimate concerns that Biden cannot get elected.

I grew up in Missouri, the son of Truman Democrats, and Biden’s refusal to step aside reminded me of Truman’s low approval rating of 22% in 1952 and his decision not to run for his own second term. The two-term limitation on the presidency could not apply to Truman so he had to decide whether to run again or quit and return home to Independence, Missouri, which was his choice.

Truman also reminds us how difficult it is to predict the eventual effectiveness of a presidential candidate. According to David Roll, author of “Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World,” who I recently interviewed for Readers Corner, Truman was kept in the dark about FDR’s decision-making and that if Truman had been schooled by FDR, he would have avoided a couple of gaffs early in his presidency. More importantly, Truman had only three months as VP to prepare for the presidency and this unprepared Harry Truman was eventually ranked as the sixth greatest president in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project and the 2021 Presidential Historians Survey by C-Span. Meanwhile, Harris has had three years of experience to prepare for the presidency.

That is important to keep in mind with so much chatter about Harris’ unpopularity despite recent CNN polling that shows her within one point of Trump. The Biden team did Harris no favors with few quality assignments at the start of her term, but with Biden on the ropes more recently, he has given her assignments in foreign policy and as an advocate for women’s reproductive rights, and she has handled them well.

To the doubters who have not thought of Harris as the presidential candidate to take on Trump, it would be an unforgiveable affront to African-American voters to pass her up for someone else. Also, let’s not forget her deftly critical role in exposing Justice Kavanaugh’s mediocrity for a Supreme Court appointment in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Now imagine how she would do the same in a Trump debate. And her work as California Attorney General with a tough on crime agenda is not a bad resume when she is running against a convicted felon running on crime in America.

What is it that keeps Biden in the campaign for re-election when so many political strategists and key Democrats fear he cannot win with the age issue, rightly or wrongly, so amplified in the media. How could it be that the Democratic Party has been so listless in simply acquiescing to Biden’s decision to seek another term? The one- word answer could be “family.” Thus far, the Democratic Party has not been interested in taking on the collective judgment of Jill Biden, Hunter Biden and sister Valerie Biden Owens who are identified as Joe’s closest political and personal allies although that seems to be softening now with the whirlwind of calls for Biden to step aside.

A younger candidate would flip the age issue and land it directly on Trump who spends at least as much time talking nonsense that we might ordinarily attribute to cognitive decline. He is only a few years younger, but not as limited physically as Biden is, so thus far he gets a pass from the media as he appears at his rallies with nonsensical, bizarre and usually false assertions that his MAGA crowd cheers. Doesn’t that change when a much younger candidate like Harris faces off as his challenger?

If there was ever a president who comes off as the common man getting to the U.S. Senate, it’s Harry Truman. Without earning a college degree and no impressive Ivy League credentials to burnish in the Senate, Harry told it like it is, the plainspoken Senator who used his common sense and good judgment to serve him both as a U.S. senator and president. And, most importantly, he knew when to give up the office.

I thought of Biden as the same kind of plain-spoken man of the people as Truman when he was campaigning for the presidency. For years he hopped a train back to Delaware after Senate sessions so he could tuck in his boys since an auto accident claimed the lives of his wife and daughter. It was the stuff of legends and used successfully to cast him like the guys down at the bar in Wilmington, Delaware. However, reports of old political cronies — emphasis on old — and family telling him what he wants to hear about his reelection chances have dulled my enthusiasm for the man and the president. Even if he is reelected, this American president will be challenged by cognitive and physical issues that will preoccupy the media and detract from the presidential image of a confident America assuring its rightful place in the world.

There is some irony in the fact that Trump is accused regularly of blowing up the Republican Party and turning it into his own MAGA fiefdom, yet the Biden family so far acts similarly by defending the indefensible and ignoring those moments in the last debate when he simply looked lost.

The time is now for Biden to step aside as Truman did in 1952 and allow the Democratic Party to nominate someone who would not have to approach the 2024 election with increasing concerns about fitness for office.