Rooks: Biden's dilemma goes to the heart of democracy

As dismay among Democrats began to spread after Joe Biden’s lackluster debate performance, things fell into a familiar pattern.

Despite manifest lawbreaking and felony convictions by an ex-president who continues to lie regularly about his loss to Biden in 2020, Republicans wrap themselves ever more tightly around Donald Trump. The peaceful transfer of power is at the heart of any democratic system, and Trump absolutely refuses to accept this.

Democrats, meanwhile, are all over the map. It didn’t help that at the nation’s premier newspaper, the once reliably liberal New York Times editorial page, instantly called for Biden to withdraw.

And it wasn’t just the editorial, but all the senior columnists. Veteran foreign affairs expert Thomas Friedman, Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman and old-line liberal Nicholas Kristof all chorused: Joe must go.

As a journalist, I find it dismaying that the Times ­– which published the Pentagon papers over government objections, and sent journalists at grave personal risk into the deep South amid the 1960s civil rights movement – would presume to prescribe the course of a presidential election, especially when the policies it favors are represented by Biden, not Trump.

To be defensible, commentary would call for both candidates to drop out, since both are equally unpopular.

Even if there were a presidential “disability” – one debate performance doesn’t qualify – the succession would be to Vice President Kamala Harris, who like Biden is slated to be the near-unanimous choice at the August convention.

But the Times, like many others, recommends an “open convention” – in other words, chaos. There hasn’t been a second convention ballot since 1952, and under 1972 Democratic Party reforms, later emulated by Republicans, all delegates must vote for their state’s primary or caucus winner.

What new candidate might emerge is anyone’s guess; half a dozen Democratic governors are mentioned, but how could any selection process be legitimate when all primary voting has already taken place?

This isn’t like Lyndon Johnson in 1968 or Harry Truman in 1952, both withdrawing in the face of unpopular wars that came to seem unwinnable. This time, voters have already decided.

However attractive an open convention might seem, it fails the reality test, and makes it no more likely a Democratic nominee could prevail in November.

Instead of obsessing about the personal qualities of the candidates, dominating what little there’s been of an actual campaign, we might ask some deeper questions.

One is whose policies would most benefit the American people, and the world for which the United States is still a leading force.

Biden has been a steady hand, supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russian tyranny, and maintaining some balance amid the impossible position in which Benjamin Netanyahu has placed Israel’s supporters.

Unlike presidents from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, Biden hasn’t dragged us into unnecessary and indefensible wars, and has shored up alliances tattered by Trump.

At home, the post-pandemic economy has produced major wage gains for non-college-educated workers for the first time in two generations, reducing inequality. We’ve avoided a predicted recession, with inflation moderating enough for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

It’s a Goldilocks combination of robust growth, low unemployment, with new opportunities for young workers who haven’t had many. And Biden is the first truly pro-labor president since Truman.

It’s far from clear a second Trump term would guarantee all, or even any of those desirable outcomes.

In the television/social media/instant news era, one can’t divorce political perceptions from merely personal qualities of candidates. But we must try.

One presumptive nominee supports obeying the law, constitutional norms and pledges to abide by election outcomes. The other does not.

It’s hard in our democratic republic – in place for 248 years this Fourth of July – to make our choice on the basis of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but we must.

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court in its craven Trump immunity decision gave the ex-president a “stay out of jail” card and denied the nation the speedy trial on Jan. 6 charges it should have had. There’s no help there.

Other candidates have faced this dilemma. Most famously, Abraham Lincoln wrote a never-delivered note in 1864 amid dire war news, predicting his failure to win reelection; fortunately, he was wrong.

Our greatest president also made a profound observation about democratic decision-making. He said, “We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.” Then he added, “The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”

It’s up to us – all of us.

Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter since 1984. He is the author of four books, most recently a biography of U.S. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, and welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net