David Von Drehle: By stepping aside, Joe Biden would earn admiration and gratitude from US voters

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President Joe Biden speaks in the Cross Hall of the White House (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

David Von Drehle
© Washington Post

Joe Biden’s alarming failures during his debate last Thursday with former president Donald Trump confirmed what a majority of Americans already held to be true: At 81, the incumbent is too old for a second four-year term. But some overcautious commentators have drawn a lesson from 1968 to suggest that the US president would sow chaos were he to drop out now.

But that’s a misreading of that admittedly chaotic year. The late decision by an incumbent president to stand aside was actually the most popular, most unifying moment in an ugly series of divisive events.