Stumbling Biden, panicking Democrats and why it’s surely time for the torch to pass to a younger generation

Editorial: With the cataclysm of a second Trump presidency looking more probable, the Democrats must find a way to replace Joe Biden after his disastrous TV debate – while they still can

(Dave Brown)

Should Joe go? Even those who love him most have had to admit that his performance in the presidential debate with Donald Trump was concerning, to say the least. Some senior Democrat figures are reportedly of the opinion that it was a disaster.

After many years in which presidential debates have often been stale, enlivened occasionally by that rarest of TV moments, a “zinger”, the 90 minutes that President Biden spent arguing with President Trump turned out to be the most consequential such encounter since 1960, when the tanned, photogenic Jack Kennedy finished off sickly-looking Richard Nixon.

Neither of the 2024 candidates came close to replicating the high-minded and serious exchanges between the future presidents Kennedy and Nixon, but Mr Biden and Mr Trump’s often puerile, superficial and (especially on Mr Trump’s part) fictional contributions must make many Americans wonder afresh what they’ve done to deserve this choice. The low point was a hissy dispute about who is the better golfer.