President Biden, when you told George Stephanopoulos that you would withdraw from the race “if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells [you]” to do that, serious fans of Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” knew exactly how to respond.
In the episode entitled “Take This Sabbath Day,” President Bartlet is faced with a request to commute the death sentence of a prisoner. Everything we know about President Bartlet tells us he knows it is the morally right thing to do and that he wants to do it, but he is struggling with the decision because it would be politically unpopular. During the episode, he talks to Joey Lucas, a friendly pollster who explains her opposition to the death penalty drawing on her Quaker background. Then his communications director Toby Ziegler hears a sermon from his rabbi condemning capital punishment after the rabbi was recruited by the lawyer representing the prisoner. Finally, President Bartlet’s boyhood priest, Father Cavanaugh (played impeccably by Karl Malden), comes to the White House at the president’s invitation. Cavanaugh arrives moments before the midnight deadline. As they talk, the deadline passes and the prisoner is executed.
During their discussion, President Bartlet said he had prayed for wisdom, but none came and he was “a little pissed off about that.” Father Cavanaugh responds by speaking truth to power with a parable. He says that the president reminds him of the man who lived by the river. The man heard a radio report telling residents to evacuate their homes because of a forthcoming flood. The man stays, saying, “God will save me.” When the waters rise, a guy in a rowboat offers to take him to safety. The man refuses, saying, “God will save me.” A helicopter overhead makes the same offer. Again: “God will save me.”
The man drowned. At the gates of St. Peter, the man beseeches the Lord: “I’m a religious man. I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?”
God responds: “I sent you a radio report, a helicopter, and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?”
Father Cavanaugh then brings the parable home. He tells President Bartlet: “He sent you a priest, a rabbi, and a Quaker, not to mention his son Jesus Christ. What do you want from Him?”
President Biden, the “Lord Almighty” has come down to tell you what to do. You have been sent Tom Friedman, Ezra Klein, James Carville, and many others who know you, admire you, would like nothing better than for you to defeat Donald Trump—but know you are no longer a viable candidate. The waters around you are rising fast. You have a choice: Withdraw or drown.
Withdrawal would be an act of faith. It would show your faith in the Democratic Party, which has several next-generation leaders who could make formidable candidates even in what would be extraordinary circumstances. And it would show your faith in the American people that they would respect your exercise of patriotism while recognizing the merits of another Democratic nominee versus the entirely unacceptable prospect of another Trump presidency.
You have said it yourself, repeatedly: Democracy is on the line. Time is short. Act now to give the party a chance to nominate a candidate with the best chance to win. Withdraw, or you and the many millions of your supporters will wake up on Wednesday, November 6 asking: What the hell are we doing here?
