If Biden’s staff, the media and Democrats really worried about Donald Trump as a threat to democracy, they would have told the American people the truth about Biden’s health. It’s not as if we would have been shocked. In 2022 it was already clear most Americans worried Biden would be too old for a second term:
Political affiliation aside, 68% of people surveyed think Biden may not be up for the challenge two years from now, and 49% say the same about Trump. Some 86% of Americans said they believe the cutoff for serving as president should be age 75 or younger, the poll found.
It would have been easy to justify a new candidate with a real political future to lead the country. “Being president takes a lot out of me personally and I want to spend my remaining years with family.” Trump is profoundly unpopular and he would have lost to a replacement-level Democrat. Instead, he ran against a man who seemed far older than Trump (chronologically only 4 years younger).
When Biden dropped out, his Vice President seemed unwilling or unable to distance herself from Biden or the conspiracy to hide his mental and physical health. It’s weird when Americans already thought he was too old and were confronted with a horrific debate performance, Democrats reflexively spun the story that it was “one bad night”.
Of course this is also happening with Republicans who suddenly think it’s no big deal for the president to accept a bribe from an Arab state or throw the economy in disarray by promising onerous tariffs. But this is because people don’t want to deal with painful truth. The sad reality is that lying to yourself comes with a much larger cost than confronting truth before it confronts you.