To the Editor:
Re “To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race” (editorial, June 30):
Joe Biden is an extraordinary person, with a track record of service to this country he loves so much to prove it. Being its president has clearly been the pinnacle of that service.
But it is time for Mr. Biden to have a heart-to-heart with his ego and recognize that the same altruism and passion that brought him to the White House must now guide him to the sidelines of this election. The stakes are too high, and his candidacy is too risky.
To stay is to repeat the tragic miscalculation of another soldier for the good, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Don’t lose your faith now, Joe. Do the right thing for democracy.
Alison Daley Stevenson
Waldoboro, Maine
To the Editor:
To paraphrase the great Mark Twain, your report of President Biden’s cognitive demise is greatly exaggerated. Not to mention premature.
The president is probably one of the worst extemporaneous public speakers to hold his office. Age has made his lack of skill in this area worse, but that does not mean it has impaired his intellectual capacity.
To the extent that your rationale for urging him to step aside is that Donald Trump must be beaten, your call seems still more unwarranted. There is no alternative Democratic candidate whom polls show convincingly beating the presumptive Republican nominee.
If President Biden remains the candidate and loses, The Times can say I told you so. But others will say that the most viable Democratic alternative to Mr. Trump was materially hobbled by an ill-considered rush to judgment.
Alan R. Glickman
New York
To the Editor:
For endless months we have listened to commentators bellow about the Republican Party being utterly, indisputably broken. It is. But from the first moments of the Biden-Trump debate, it’s been clear to me that my Democratic Party is also pitifully broken.
To all of President Biden’s close friends, allies, aides, operatives and advisers, I ask this: If your loved one or dear friend were engaging in seriously destructive behavior — and you did absolutely nothing to name that destruction and challenge the loved one to deal with it — you would be termed an “enabler.” That is exactly what all of you are. And if the enabling continues, our country’s future will be on your consciences as surely as it should be on the conscience of our current president. It is time for you to engage in some tough love.
If Mr. Biden refuses to step aside, I will vote for him. There is no choice. But this will be the last time I vote as a Democrat. Many of us who are sick at heart over these enablers and their apologists will begin looking at third-party candidates rather than entrusting this beloved country to our once-beloved party any longer.
Lynn Anderson
Moab, Utah
To the Editor:
So let me get this straight. A presidential candidate who is a convicted felon gives a debate performance that is often incoherent, consists primarily of obvious lies, and includes a refusal to unconditionally commit to accepting the results of the presidential election, and your editorial is filled with histrionic calls to remove the other guy who’s run the country ably and ethically for almost four years because he had an off night on the stage?
You really should have consulted with your theater critics, who can school you in the many ways the run of the show ultimately matters more than the blips in previews. Your failure to focus your outrage on Donald Trump’s truly bizarre and bewildering statements in favor of such an overwrought and shortsighted response to Mr. Biden lets the real danger to our democracy off the hook.
Judith Hamera
Pennington, N.J.
To the Editor:
I’ve been a Democrat my whole life, and there is no doubt that I will vote in November for the Democratic nominee. I just hope that it is not Joe Biden. I couldn’t agree more that it is time for Mr. Biden to announce that he will not run for a second term.
The country needs a more youthful, energetic, quick-thinking president to lead this country over the next four years. Yes, Mr. Biden did give a great forceful, well-thought-out speech at a rally on Friday in North Carolina after his devastating performance in the debate.
It was like night and day, but of course in North Carolina, the president was reading a speech prepared by a speechwriter from a teleprompter, and at the debate he had to rely on his memory and find the words himself unaided. That is apparently something that he is no longer able to do.
President Biden has done a magnificent job these past three and a half years, and I thank and applaud him for it. But it’s OK for him to admit to himself and the nation that he is no longer that able, fit, strong leader he once was, and pass the mantle on to someone else who can not only defeat Donald Trump but also go on to lead this country as it needs to be led forward in 2025 and beyond.
Robert Kunikoff
New York
To the Editor:
Those who live in a retirement complex with dozens of retired scholars, administrators and researchers in their late 80s and 90s as I do are not panicked about President Biden’s “performance” on Thursday night. Stuttering and losing one’s train of thought are hardly signs of incompetence. They are signs of loss of verbal dexterity. Period.
Younger people who are brash and opinionated and bloviate find slow word-finding horrifying. However, there is nothing more horrifying to me than impulsively judging a statesman after one bad performance.
This is the most competent and experienced leader our country has had in decades. Look at this in perspective and stop fear-mongering.
Judy Wagener
Madison, Wis.
To the Editor:
President Biden’s supporters argue that he had a bad day. What if Vladimir Putin invades Estonia on a bad day? Good day clips of Mr. Biden reading from a teleprompter will be overshadowed by saturation of the media with Donald Trump campaign videos of Mr. Biden being unable to complete a sentence.
There comes a time with elderly parents when a child has to take away the car keys. Failure to take that painful step could be contributing to catastrophic consequences.
The hierarchy of the Democratic Party and its major donors must have the courage to take that difficult step.
Mitchell Zuckerman
Katonah, N.Y.
To the Editor:
The editorial board makes a forceful case that President Biden, for the good of the country, should drop out of the race. The unaddressed elephant in the room, however, is that given the infirmities we all observed, how can he be trusted to serve as leader of the free world today, tomorrow and until the end of his current term?
After all, the whole world — including, most likely, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and other malefactors — was watching the debate.
Kenneth A. Margolis
Chappaqua, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Thursday’s debate confirmed what many already knew: Joe Biden is no longer reliably up to the job as president. I will still vote for him. The presidency is a corporation. We may vote for a single candidate, but we get a corporate board, the president’s cabinet.
Mr. Biden surrounds himself with experienced adults committed to the interests of the country. Donald Trump, on the other hand, surrounds himself with sycophants committed to their personal, and sometimes criminal, interests.
Yes, Mr. Biden is a doddering old man, but he has integrity and a track record of producing sound public policy. Mr. Trump also has a track record. It is a train wreck. I will vote for integrity.
David Robinson
Bethlehem, N.H.
The writer is a retired ambassador and had a 32-year career in the Senior Foreign Service.
To the Editor:
After the presidential debate, President Biden must step aside. As a good Roman Catholic, Mr. Biden knows that the greatest sin of all is hubris. Hubris distorts the perception of reality: It makes us believe that we are more important than we are.
At this moment, the consequences of Mr. Biden’s hubris will be four more years of Donald Trump. Hubris will be his legacy.
(Very Rev.) Ian Markham
Alexandria, Va.
The writer is the dean and president of Virginia Theological Seminary and president of the General Theological Seminary in New York.