Editorial: Joe Biden could serve the US one last time by bowing out of presidential race

The studio lights were not kind to Nixon. He looked old. He perspired. The young challenger went on to narrowly win the 1960 election.

The most recent TV debate last week could prove every bit as decisive in shaping the narrative of the election to come.

Donald Trump was unimpressive. He lied constantly. His answers went walkabout. He was, as ever, a hot mess of self-pity and braggadocio.

None of that mattered. Trump had a triumphant night anyway, because the 81-year-old Joe Biden’s cognitive and physical decline was so pitifully on display from the start.

Biden was a confused shadow of his former self and his worst moments have already been chopped up into car-crash clips that will be replayed ad nauseam between now and November.

Forced to choose between the two men, many Americans will still opt for Biden’s decency over the multiple degeneracies of a convicted felon.

But whether Biden makes it that far has to now be seriously in doubt.

It’s surely just cruel at this stage to keep pretending he can endure a bruising presidential campaign for the next four months, much less govern for the next four years.

That’s why this newspaper, while strongly supporting Joe Biden as president, grasped the nettle around his condition back in February to urge that he “bow out gracefully while there is time”.

The time for doing so gracefully may have passed, but those difficult conversations are now, at least and at last, being had in the open.

It is slightly unedifying to see these powerful financial donors and strategists, who kept silent for so long about Biden’s frailty with the complicity of elements of the media, all suddenly turn on him like wolves on the ailing leader of a pack.

But sentiment has no place in what looks set to be dangerous times ahead for the world.

Removing Biden is not a gimme. There is no mechanism in his party to replace him, risking a damaging standoff should the president’s family and backers defy calls to step in, as they might.

The ticket that’s being talked about is Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer

Even if that hurdle is overcome, who will take his place, given that vice president Kamala ­Harris is grimly unpopular with voters?

The ticket that’s being talked about is Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer, respectively governors of California and Michigan. Both have all the pieces of a putative campaign in place and together could well represent the best hope of stopping a second Trump term.

Biden stepped up to the plate in 2020 because he was convinced he was the only candidate at that time who could beat Donald Trump.

If it turns out he is now the one person who can hand the White House back to Trump, it would be a sad stain on his commendable legacy of public service and personal integrity.

Those who truly respect what Biden has done since coming into office when his country was reeling from the January 6 riots that Trump had disgracefully inflamed are the very ones who should most want to protect him now that he’s so agonisingly vulnerable.

In a way, it’s not even about politics any more, but basic human dignity. Enough is enough.