Our country faces an existential threat this November.
On the one hand, we have Joe Biden. A man who passed the biggest climate and infrastructure bills in our nation’s history; expanded NATO; has overseen record-breaking economic growth and job growth; and has protected union members’ pensions, veterans’ benefits and seniors’ access to affordable drugs. And, it should be noted, is a fundamentally kind, empathetic and decent human being.
On the other hand, we have Donald Trump. A twice-impeached convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who has promised to be a “dictator on day one.” A man whose singular talent is the shameless, narcissistic meanness innate to all the world’s most successful con artists.
In the conversations I’ve had with the folks it is my privilege to represent, there is tremendous fear about this moment. People wonder whether our nation — and indeed, our world — can survive another Trump administration. They watched women’s rights get stripped away by the Supreme Court; saw our enemies praised and our allies alienated; and saw children separated from families, Muslims banned from entering our country and neo-Nazis praised as “very fine people.” They have not forgotten the fear we all felt as — for the first time since the War of 1812 — the Capitol was attacked and the peaceful transfer of power was disrupted on Jan. 6. And that was before the Supreme Court ruled that presidents cannot be held to account for their actions in the White House.
They also wonder what happens if Trump acolytes control the House and the Senate in January 2025. They know that Speaker Mike Johnson wrote the legal document that outlined the plan to overturn the election. They watched the majority of the House Republican conference walk over broken glass in the Capitol to carry out those instructions. They saw Mitch McConnell force woefully underqualified judges like Aileen Cannon through the Senate. They wonder how many decades of progress will be undone if there are no checks on a government led by the morals of Trump and the acquiescence of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
In other words, they fear for the future of American democracy.
As Benjamin Franklin said, we have “a Republic if we can keep it.” Will we still have one when we celebrate our 250th birthday in 2026?
Which brings us to the 2024 election.
If the upcoming election is a referendum on past performance, future promises and character, I have every confidence Biden would win.
But politics, like life, isn’t fair. And as long as this election is instead litigated over which candidate is more likely to be held accountable for public gaffes and “senior moments,” I believe that Biden is not only going to lose but is also uniquely incapable of shifting that conversation.
It is with a heavy heart and much personal reflection that I am therefore calling on Biden to pass the torch to a new generation. To manage an exit with all the dignity and decency that has guided his half-century of public service. To cement his legacy as the president who saved our democracy in 2020 and handed it off to trusted hands in 2024 who could carry his legacy forward.
At the end of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln said that he never doubted the Union would prevail because “there was always just enough virtue in the republic to save it; sometimes none to spare but still enough to meet the emergency.” I have every confidence that informed voters who understand the stakes of this election will prove Lincoln to be right once again. But we need a messenger at the top of the ticket who can make that case.
It breaks my heart to say it, but Biden is no longer up for that job.
U.S. Rep. Sean Casten represents Illinois’ 6th Congressional District.
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