In 1972, Joe Biden was on top of the world. He was a young lawyer looking forward to a successful legal career and, as the newly elected United States Senator from Delaware, had a promising future in politics. Joe was married to Neilia, the love of his life. They had three beautiful young children under the age of three. On December 18, 1972, that world was shattered in an instant when Joe’s wife and his infant daughter were killed in a violent collision with a semi-trailer truck. Joe’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, were hospitalized with serious injuries.
Somehow, with a great deal of support and help from family and friends as well as personal strength and determination, Joe Biden recovered from that tragedy. Years later, Joe would bury his oldest son Beau who died at the relatively young age of 45 after a battle with brain cancer resulting from his military service in Iraq. As we all know too well, Joe’s younger son has struggled with addiction and other issues which have plagued the Biden family for years.
Despite all the tragedy, loss, and heartbreak, Joe Biden has persevered and lived a life of more than five decades of exemplary and distinguished public service as a Senator, as Vice-president, and now as President. To be sure, during those many years, there have been some events and days that would have destroyed most individuals, but there have also been mostly days of joy and happiness and success. Yesterday on the debate stage in Atlanta was not one of those good days. In fact, although it does not compare with other days of personal tragedy in his long life and career, yesterday was a really dismal day for Joe Biden and for all the rest of us and for America.
That said, Joe is one tough and resilient son of a bitch. As he has quoted his father on so many occasions, including earlier today at a rally in North Carolina, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.” Joe Biden has survived many blows that would have been the end of most men. He has been knocked down over and over again during his life. As we all know, he recovered and got back up each and every time. Even after January 6, 2021, when America itself was on the brink of being knocked down by Donald Trump, Joe Biden righted the ship and got the country back up on its feet. After more than a million Americans died during the Covid-19 pandemic and those of us who survived suffered from a national PTSD and a disastrous economic downturn, Joe Biden dusted us all off and pulled us in off the ledge.
We all witnessed last night’s debate debacle. We all experienced some degree of shock and disappointment while watching the President’s performance. Most of us felt the tightness in our chest as the anxiety increased to full blown panic. Many of us, either silently or publicly asked ourselves or others whether Joe should end his campaign and withdraw from the race. That is the wrong question to ask.
We have all also seen Joe Biden get up after being knocked down time after time. He has never yet disappointed us and failed to muster the strength and the will to get back on his feet. The right questions to ask are, “Can he do it one more time? Can we count on him to do so — not just for himself but for us and for the country?” He has had our back during this years-long nightmare of Donald Trump. Is he able to and capable of having our back one last time? Only Joe can answer those questions, and he should not even try to answer without first engaging in some serious and brutally honest introspection. He has said he ran in 2020 and is running again in 2024 to help save the soul of the nation. We need Joe to do some serious soul searching himself before giving us an answer to each of those questions. Then and only then, he can ask the rest of us if we are up to and willing to give him a hand up and have his back from now until November and for four more years beyond then.
In the meantime, it is not helpful to engage in a public and premature autopsy of Joe Biden or to minimize the chaos scenario that would absolutely and certainly accompany an open convention. Already today, I have heard any number of presumably intelligent individuals speculate and fantasize about the process of reaching a consensus around a new Presidential candidate as though it would be “challenging” and “risky” but entirely doable. What rock have these people been living under? Are they not at all familiar with the Democratic Party and the infinite number of hand wringers and egos that would inevitably be competing for primacy in such an effort? Have they deliberately considered and analyzed the extent of the challenge and the risk? Really?
Come on, folks. Get a grip. Yesterday was not a good day for Joe Biden, for any of the rest of us, for the United States (or the world for that matter), or for democracy. It will no doubt be a fraught time for a while and may well end up with a different person at the top of the Democratic ticket. Just keep in mind that Joe Biden is no stranger to challenges or crises. Don’t forget that Donald Trump is a serial liar, a con man, an adjudicated sexual predator of women, a businessman guilty of multiple frauds, and a convicted felon who may well be sentenced to prison on July 11. Remember that he is still facing multiple criminal charges and trials and is an existential threat to America and our democracy.
On a slightly more positive note, there was a small silver lining among the many negatives of last night. After the conclusion of the debate, MSNBC aired an interview with a mini focus group of four Arizona voters about their initial impressions of what they had just witnessed. Not one of those individuals was a Democrat. Several if not all of them may well have been Trump voters in 2016 or 2020 or both. Despite what they had just seen and heard, not a single one of them was willing to vote for Donald Trump again. At least three of them indicated they will either not vote at all for President or may well cast a reluctant vote for Joe Biden because the alternative is so repugnant and dangerous. So, only an anecdote but an encouraging one in any event.
All is not lost.