A Time of Anxiety

No one can predict the future. No one knows for sure the best path forward. But President Biden's expression of democratic values at the NATO Summit this week was inspiring.

President Joe Biden faces a skeptical press corps yesterday after the NATO Summit. (Photo by Kent Nishimura via Getty Images)

For everyone who cares about the survival of American democracy and worries about the dangers of fascism, this is a particularly fraught moment. Whether you are totally committed to President Biden or beginning to think another candidate would be better able to beat Donald Trump, whether you worry there’s not enough time to make a change at this stage in the race or are convinced victory depends on a new nominee—this is a time of anxiety. And, honestly, the extreme uncertainty won’t end anytime soon.

If only that wasn’t true. If only President Biden was at the top of his game. If only there was an obvious path forward that ensured a Democratic victory and the overwhelming defeat of Trump and his MAGA Republicans. If only there were a reliable historical precedent or determinative data that would tell us how to proceed and calm our nerves. If only we could reliably predict the future.

But none of this is possible.

Don’t rely on anyone who tells you they know what to do. Because no one knows. We have never been in a moment like this with an 81-year-old president constantly observed under the microscope by people who are only looking for new reasons to doubt him. We have never faced a 78-year-old ex-president who is a convicted felon and con man, a pathological liar and wannabe dictator who will say anything at any moment if he thinks it will increase his chances to get back in office.

And perhaps no president has faced such a constant barrage of piling on by the press corps. In Biden’s hour-long press conference yesterday at the conclusion of the NATO Summit this week, nearly every question focused on whether he was still able to handle the job. “I’ve got to finish the job, because there’s so much at stake,” he declared, iterating and reiterating his many achievements. The only thing that could convince him to drop out would be a poll that says there is “no way I can win,” he said in response to the last question.

But we can be sure there will be no letting up by the media or the doubters now. Every pause, every mis-stated word, any halting or moment of losing his train of thought—any and every stutter—will be dissected, scrutinized and hung around his neck.

No matter how fluent his policy thinking—no matter how his values and judgement align with what’s best for America and the world—he will continue to be questioned about his verbal performance. How many articles will be written about Biden accidentally calling Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump” yesterday? How many will focus on his knowledgable foreign policy observations?

This is a tough spot to do what he does best, which is govern, and a precarious one for all of us who care so deeply about a winning campaign.

Does anyone think Trump—skating along with far too little media scrutiny—doesn’t know how perilous Biden’s situation is and how free he is to say and do whatever he wants? I don’t think there’s ever been a period when Trump has been as uncharacteristically quiet as he has been since the debate on June 27. Why should he speak out when all the Democratic infighting and media frenzy is doing the job of undermining the nominee and communicating chaos? You can be sure this hateful man is relishing the conflict while getting ready to spread a firehose of lies during the four-day Republican Party convention this week.

Of course, a real president doesn’t have the option to just take the day off. Earlier this week, Biden vividly reminded us what it means to have a president who is committed to democratic values, the 75-year-old NATO alliance and securing a democratic future.

(Trump, meanwhile, came out of his golfing hiatus for a Florida rally where he proudly ranted to his cult followers about how little he knew about NATO and how committed he remains to letting Vladimir Putin do whatever he wants to NATO members who don’t pay enough. As if NATO was a protection racket. “I didn’t know what the hell NATO was too much before,” he told his cheering crowd. “But it didn’t take me long to figure it out, like about two minutes.”)

Tuesday evening President Biden began his speech by recalling how NATO launched in 1949, with 12 countries forging an alliance in the wake of “the most devastating world war the world had ever, ever known.” That happened in the same federal hall the leaders of today’s NATO, grown to 32 members now including Finland and Sweden, met this week. Biden explained:

Here, these 12 leaders gathered to make a sacred pledge to defend each other against aggression, provide their collective security, and to answer threats as one, because they knew to prevent future wars, to protect democracies, to lay the groundwork for a lasting peace and prosperity, they needed a new approach. They needed to combine their strengths. They needed an alliance.

Biden called NATO “the single greatest, most effective defensive alliance in the history of the world.” But he wasn’t just looking back. “My friends, it’s good that we’re stronger than ever, because this moment in history calls for our collective strength,” he said. “Autocrats want to overturn global order, which has by and large kept for nearly 80 years and counting. Terrorist groups continue to plot evil schemes to cause mayhem and chaos and suffering.” And Putin’s “war of aggression” is committed “to wipe Ukraine off the map.”

Promising that Russia will not prevail, Biden said that “this is a pivotal moment for Europe, for the transatlantic community, and, I might add, for the world.” He offered a forward-looking, optimistic vision:

The fact that NATO remains the bulwark of global security did not happen by accident. It wasn’t inevitable. Again and again, at critical moments, we chose unity over disunion, progress over retreat, freedom over tyranny, and hope over fear. Again and again, we stood behind our shared vision of a peaceful and prosperous transatlantic community. Here at this summit, we gather to proclaim NATO is ready and able to secure that vision today and well into the future.

There will be the cynics among us who dismiss President Biden’s remarks because he was reading from a teleprompter, as if these words do not represent him and his values or are somehow diminished if they weren’t simply off the cuff. Is he really up to the job? Are his handlers deceiving us?

But count me among those who are grateful that this president—this statesman, this devoted American with a long and honorable history of speaking and acting on behalf of democracy around the world—was on stage this week. I was nourished by his remarks and uplifted by the way he ended them, giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to NATO’s retiring Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg.

Take note of how Biden described Stoltenberg, words that remind us not only the reasons he admires this diplomat, but of what manner of man, what character, matters to our president: “He’s a man of integrity and intellectual rigor, a calm temperament in a moment of crisis, a consummate diplomat who works with leaders across the political spectrum and always finds a way to keep us moving forward.”

There will be plenty of days of high anxiety ahead. Over this weekend, we can expect more Democrats to speak out about the need for Biden to exit the race, even if yesterday’s press conference offered no definitive proof of the right course of action for the president to take. Should he or shouldn’t he? Only time will tell.

And more unsettling to think about, would his replacement by VP Harris or any other candidate lead to victory in November? The truth is no one knows. But what I do know is the need to vigorously argue the case against Trump—who was meeting with Hungary’s dictator Viktor Orban yesterday—must intensify. And soon.

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