Some honest advice for the American president

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/06/2024 (469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election.” — Thomas Friedman, New York Times, June 28.

A commercial being aired by the Trump campaign contains brutal scenes of Joe Biden trying and failing to walk up a flight of stairs, trying and failing to stay on a bicycle, and finally, trying and failing to remove a jacket from his body.

The commercial asks the question that is on everyone’s mind, especially after this week’s CNN debate from hell. Do you think Joe Biden can stay alive during four more years in the White House?

Many Canadians and Americans may think the message is crude. They aren’t wrong. It is crude, raw and real.

After the Thursday-night debate, the idea of Joe Biden being fit for four more years as president, is preposterous. Professionals who create campaign advertising for Donald Trump know that people will give this message their undivided attention because it goes to their central concern about Biden.

While Trump told them in the debate this week that four more years of Biden in the White House means World War III and a global recession, that’s not what’s keeping most voters awake at night.

They’re simply worried that at some point in the next four years, Joe Biden goes to bed at night, and by the time the country wakes up in the morning, a new president will have to be sworn in.

At the top of the column, I quoted New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman. He has written far more books than Donald Trump has read. He is a self-described moderate Democrat, and good friend of Joe Biden’s. They got to know each other very well, more than 20 years ago in the aftermath of 9/11. Friedman he says he watched the debate, from a Lisbon hotel room — and that “it made me weep.”

You don’t need to be Thomas Friedman to know that the words: “Biden Campaign” are now an oxymoron. Joe Biden wasn’t debating on Thursday. He was writing a political obituary. It’s now time for the American president to say publicly what his body language on the debate stage was screaming for 90 minutes.

Look, I am not a moderate American. I am a moderate Canadian. And I am not a personal friend of Joe Biden’s. But if I were, I would level with him just as Thomas Friedman has.

I would personally tell the president that on U.S. Independence Day, July 4, he must give his delegates the independence to vote for someone else at the August convention of the Democratic Party. He must acknowledge that his party’s No. 1 goal, which is defeating Donald Trump, can only be achieved with a different Democrat.

If I were Joe Biden’s friend, and he was resisting my message, I would give him a stark and dark look at his legacy if he doesn’t do a course correction now. Joe, I know you’re concerned — like anyone at the end of a long trail — how you will be remembered. If you leave us tonight, you’ll always be thought of as the American patriot who stopped Donald Trump from having two terms in the White House.

But if you continue to run for president, history will show that you’re the Democrat who stubbornly resisted honest advice and ran a losing campaign in 2024, reopening the White House doors to Donald Trump.

I am writing this column only hours after the Thursday night debate. It is 4 a.m. on June 28 as I gulp down a mug of Kicking Horse coffee while trying to kick away personal emotions about democracy and our next-door neighbour.

I could write a thousand columns on why Joe Biden’s decision in the coming days is critically important to democracy worldwide. It’s impossible for this writer’s heart not to have powerful feelings about the history of the U.S. presidency and it’s impact on my family’s life.

If an American president named Franklin Roosevelt had chosen not to join Canada and our allies in fighting fascism in the 1940s, millions of families including my own would have disappeared.

I’m Charles Adler and I endorse Thomas Friedman’s message to Joe Biden.

charles@charlesadler.com