Disaster

In the brilliant David Lean film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness gives one the screen’s great performances as an incredibly brave and resolute British colonel, the senior officer in a jungle-bound Japanese POW camp, who, confusing the culture war for the real war, helps build a superbly engineered bridge for the Japanese army, all to show that British training and methodology is superior.   After 3 ½ hours of self-delusion, at the end of which he betrays the British commando unit sent to blow up the bridge, he suddenly, at last, has a moment of clarity.  He stops, takes off his hat in the broiling sun, and says:

“What have I done?”

Guinness then passes out and falls on the plunger that detonates the explosives that had been planted on the bridge pilings by the commandos, who, thanks to him, are now dead. 

The Kwai bridge was thus destroyed.  Democrats and the country may not be so lucky.

After Joe Biden’s utterly abysmal performance in a debate in which he set the rules, there is no evidence that Biden is aware of what he has done, which, alas, is to help build a bridge to the White House for Donald Trump.

And if that were not bad enough, if Trump wins the presidency, the Democrats lose the Senate, even if Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown prevail.

The saddest part is that Trump had a terrible debate.  Some of the lies he told were so outrageous that they provoked guffaws.  Anyone else on the stage with him could have easily made him seem delusional.

It was, therefore, Biden’s contest to lose.

And he lost it.

There are those who are saying Biden can recover.  Even if they are correct, is that a risk he and other Democrats are willing to take when the stakes are so high?  If Trump wins, the damage he can do will be incalculable.  In addition to all the democratic norms that will ring as hollow here as in Putin’s Russia, Aileen Cannon will surely be the next Supreme Court nominee if there is a vacancy.

The comparison of Biden’s obduracy with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s had been in the air before, but will now reach a crescendo.  Despite multiple bouts of cancer, a desperately ill Ginsburg, obviously relishing her media celebrity as the Notorious RBG, rebuffed all entreaties to step down and refused to give up her seat when Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate. As a result, she tarnished, and perhaps destroyed, her legacy by stubbornly remaining on the Court long enough for Donald Trump and the Federalist Society to hand the nation Amy Coney Barrett.

But there is one difference.  Ginsburg was not around to see the results of her hubris, whereas Biden most certainly will be.  Forget how he will feel to see Ukraine abandoned and Putin emboldened—much worse is that he will be forced to fully face up to his disastrous blunder and will then have to formally concede to a man he would happily murder.  (Of course, depending on how the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity, that might turn out to be a viable option.)

Biden will then be reviled by men and women who once adored him and will descend to non-person status.  He will not be asked to speak, to endorse, or to appear at party events.  For a man as social as Biden, it is hard to image a worse fate than being shunned.  Hillary Clinton still remains a party outsider for losing in 2016, but, for all that she was not a great candidate, no one told her not to run.  Party pros are telling Biden that now.

Instead, if he steps down, two things will happen.  The first is that the party and the electorate will be energized, rushing to back the new, younger, more vigorous nominee.  (Which, despite common perception, does not have to be Kamala Harris.)  The second is that Biden will be revered for a selfless act of extreme patriotism.   We can only hope he realizes that is a far favorable alternative.

Until this debate, it was easy to see why Biden was being so bull-headed—he has had a remarkably successful first term. Facing a deeply divided Congress, he marshaled through the Chips Act, an infrastructure bill that Donald Trump had promised but could not deliver, avoided the recession just about every economist predicted, and watched as job growth exploded while inflation eased to manageable levels.

In addition, the electoral map, polls notwithstanding, seemed favorable.  Trump, who is certain to lose votes this time around as well, needs to flip a minimum of three states, a tall order regardless of what some pundits asserted.  Biden has now made that prospect far more likely.

In the end, an outstanding record of achievement will likely all come to naught because of a cardinal rule in politics that Biden knows well but has chosen to ignore.

In elections, appearances have a nasty habit of being more important than reality.

Biden’s debate performance—if it can be called that—just reinforced what much of the country sees; not a vibrant and dynamic leader with encyclopedic knowledge of the issues and the ability to successfully cut hard deals with adversaries both foreign and domestic, but rather a doddering old man who walks with tiny steps, stares at the teleprompter through tiny eyes, and, when speaking off the cuff, almost always puts his foot in it.

The only thing Biden really has going for him…maybe…is Donald Trump.  Trump’s own tragi-comic debate performance is ripe to be exploited to be sure, but there is serious doubt if Biden is the one to do it.  After all, if he let Trump walk all over him in a head-to-head confrontation he had spent a week preparing for, how seriously will swing voters take mere sniping from the sidelines?

As Biden continues on display, which initially he seems determined to do, his every fumble—and there will be many—will be instantly and incessantly posted on right wing media, with his chances of beating even a convicted felon and sex offender decreasing with every one.

Biden speaks often of patriotism and the need to set aside personal interests for the good of the nation.

Here’s his chance.