HOW DID DEMOCRATS LET THIS HAPPEN? How long did it take Democrats to panic after President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump walked onstage for their debate in Atlanta? One minute? Two? Three max? Whatever the exact time, it was quick. Biden’s weak, raspy voice, his stiffness, slow uptakes, and weird, vacant expression confirmed in a few awful seconds what Democrats had denied for the last three years: that there is no way the 81-year-old president is physically or mentally fit to serve for four more years. 

But you knew that, didn’t you? Was there anything in Biden’s demeanor on Thursday night that would have surprised anyone who watched his performance in dozens of public events? Of course he is not up to being president until he is 86 years old. He’s not up to being president right now. The question is, why didn’t everybody already know that?

Groupthink spread through the commentariat like a prairie fire. Democratic-leaning reporters and pundits were unanimous: This is a crisis, “DEFCON 1,” as one senior Democrat called it on MSNBC. They were hearing from party activists, officeholders, donors, and they reported that everybody was stunned by how bad Biden looked and sounded. What now? Will some respected Democrat publicly call for Biden to step down? Will some of the party’s wise men and women go to the White House to tell Biden he needs to go? Will Biden listen to any of them?

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None of that is clear now. But it is clear that for years, Democrats at all levels of the party have looked the other way, buried their heads in the sand, and lied to themselves about Biden’s condition. Just in recent weeks, they have nodded their heads in approval when sympathetic journalists attributed troubling video of Biden to Republican “cheapfakes.” They have told themselves the GOP was spreading lies about the president’s condition. This month they looked at Biden standing frozen for two minutes amid a joyous concert and explained it by saying he was never much of a dancer. They deceived themselves.

Then, at about 9:01 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, the self-deception stopped. The CNN debate presented a brutal picture of the president’s condition. Until now, everyone’s comparison of Biden’s vs. Trump’s mental and physical abilities rested on comparing videos of the two men in different situations and at different events. In the debate, they were side by side in real time on a TV split screen. The contrast was unavoidable. Biden looked out of it. Trump looked with it.

Now, of course, Democrats face a problem made much more difficult by their denial of Biden’s condition. If they had faced reality a year ago, the party could have moved forward with an orderly selection of a 2024 candidate. Maybe it would have been Vice President Kamala Harris, and maybe it would have been someone else. But the party could have made the choice in a way that gave Democrats a voice in choosing their new candidate. No, Biden did not want to leave, nor did his wife, the first lady. But a unified Democratic Party could have changed their minds. 

That did not happen. Now it is nearly July. The Democratic convention is in August. The primaries are long gone. There is no new candidate. And Biden appears to have chained himself to the Resolute Desk. Many Democrats feel powerless.

Of course it is not clear what will happen now. But at some point, if they can solve the terrible problem they face at this moment, Democrats should look at themselves. They should look back to 2020 and to the first three years of the Biden presidency, years in which the president was in observable decline, and ask themselves: Why didn’t we do something?