IN NOVEMBER 2022 The Economist said that, after a lifetime of public service, Joe Biden should not seek re-election as president. In January this year we put our concerns on the cover. But even those worried about his age were not prepared for Thursday’s debate against Donald Trump. Over 90 agonising minutes, Mr Biden was befuddled and incoherent—too infirm, frankly, to cope with another four years in the world’s hardest job.

Mr Biden says he is standing again to help ordinary Americans and to save democracy from Mr Trump’s vengeful demagoguery. And the former president’s scowling, evasive and truth-defying appearance on the debate stage did nothing to diminish the urgency of those two aims. Yet if Mr Biden really cares about his mission, then his last and greatest public service should be to stand aside for another Democratic nominee.

There are a lot of arguments for resisting such a drastic step, but the main one is that the election is barely four months away. That may be enough time for Mr Biden to recover in the polls. But with the Democratic convention in August, it would be too brief for the party to find another candidate who could campaign and win. Replacing him could divide Democrats at a time when they need to stay united. Those assertions may have been convincing once. Not any more.

Mr Biden’s chances of winning in November have taken a savage knock. His team sought to debate Mr Trump because their man was trailing. Our forecast model has consistently given him a chance of victory of roughly one in three—worrying, but not hopeless. His staff had been limiting his exposure to interviews, even as they insisted that in private he remains sharp, vigorous and in total control.

To the shame of the White House and congressional Democrats, that assertion has now been exposed as a falsehood. The Republicans have long said that Mr Biden’s powers are fading. The debate was his great chance to prove them wrong. Alas, in front of many millions of people, he did not just fail to rebut his opponents, he presented irrefutable evidence to back them up.

Mr Biden will struggle to undo the damage. If, as is likely, Mr Trump declines to take part in a second debate in September—what has he got to lose?—the sitting president may never again have such a good opportunity to change voters’ minds. Nobody can speak on his behalf. Only a blitz of interviews and rallies could begin to blunt the distressing impression he created. You have only to say it to know that it will not happen.

Furthermore, even if Mr Biden were somehow to win in November, there are doubts that he could govern as he should over a full four-year term. Certainly, he now looks as if he will be less able to fulfil his self-appointed duty as democracy’s champion. He will struggle to master the many issues that will confront the next occupant of the Oval Office, whoever it is. He will have staff, obviously, but as a bewildered figurehead led by his unelected minions, he will erode Americans’ faith in their system of government, not restore it.

For many voters (albeit fewer than before the debate), Mr Biden may still be preferable to the alternative. Two men on that stage were unfit to be president, but only one of them was morally unfit. Given the threat Mr Trump poses to decency and democracy, it is reckless to entrust a man as frail as Mr Biden with the task of keeping him out of the Oval Office. Is there time for Mr Biden to give way to a better candidate?

That depends on the man himself. Because he has already won the Democratic primary, only he can choose to stand aside. Perhaps he can be persuaded by his wife, Jill, that doing so would best cement his legacy. Party grandees, including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, should beseech her to do so. They have every reason to. The danger—the likelihood even—is not just of Mr Trump retaking the White House but of unified MAGA control of the White House and Congress, with a sympathetic Supreme Court. In the face of his very public failure, Mr Biden’s bullheaded refusal to step aside for the good of his party and his country would undermine the claim that his candidacy is an act of selfless, high-minded sacrifice.

Should Mr Biden make way, mechanisms exist for the party to change candidates. Best would be for Mr Biden to stand aside right away and give the party time to arrange a hasty talent contest before the convention. Such a contest could be messy, so the party would need to show discipline. The delegates Mr Biden won in the primary would become unpledged and could vote for their preferred candidate in Chicago, making the outcome unpredictable. This could be divisive, but the threat posed by Mr Trump ought to concentrate the minds of elected officials and party grandees.

The party also has talent. The obvious choice to replace Mr Biden is his vice-president, Kamala Harris. Unfortunately, she does not inspire confidence and voters sense it. There are better options, including cabinet members such as Pete Buttigieg and Gina Raimondo and swing-state and red-state governors such as Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, and Andy Beshear in Kentucky. Blue-state governors, including Gavin Newsom of California and Jared Polis in Colorado, may fancy their chances. Raphael Warnock, a senator from Georgia, also deserves a look. If Mr Biden can summon the grace to invite this contest within his party, such candidates would at last be free to put themselves forward not as an act of treachery, but of patriotism.

Whoever wins would be able to make a strong pitch against Mr Trump. The new candidate would have just over ten weeks after the convention to do so. They would be helped by having all the attention of America’s media upon them. And (if the party went for someone other than Ms Harris) they would take Mr Trump’s best issues away from him. A new candidate would not have to make excuses for high inflation, or the porous southern border, or why Mr Biden’s Justice Department has put his opponent on trial. Whom would Mr Trump rather face: Mr Biden or someone 30 years younger than him, with a clean record, who can look to the future?

Thursday’s debate was designed to answer the question of whether Mr Biden was fit to be president—and in this it succeeded. It has brought clarity to a race that currently offers Americans a choice between two candidates they do not want. Mr Biden and his party have been given the chance to avoid a dire fate for their country and the world. They should seize it. ■

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