You cannot find a more civil, honest, decent, and accomplished politician in America today than Joseph Robinette Biden. He is 81 and his presidential rival, Donald Trump, is 78.

The anxiety that many Americans have, especially young Americans, is that between the two men, they do not have a real choice. The job of being the president of the USA is very demanding of a person’s physical and mental abilities. There is no point trying to skirt the inevitability of one’s mortality or the debility that one’s mortal frame undergoes as one ages. That is why close to 70 per cent would have wished that they had a better choice. Excoriating people for this concern is stupid.

An unbiased assessment of Biden’s presidency to date will reveal that he has been one of the most, if not the most, consequential presidents for the past 50 years. He has presided over far-reaching legislation — the infrastructure and chips Acts, the revolutionary climate change Act, and others in the first two years of his presidency. He presided over the ending of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, which had killed over a million Americans and maimed perhaps even more.

He set the country on a progressive and viable path, with the best economy in the past 50 years. Inflation has been tamed, but its haunting spectre remains for the many Americans who are living from paycheque to paycheque and paying high mortgage and rental rates while seeing their ability to purchase basic food items in the supermarkets dwindling.

But I believe, in the main, he is being unfairly tarred for these persistent trends in the economy. For one, critics fail to reckon with the tremendous economic fallout that accompanied the pandemic or the inflationary pressures occasioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ill-fated and diabolical war with Ukraine. Also, the effects of price gouging by big businesses, that is clearly happening in the economy, must not be brushed aside.

Policies like the chip, infrastructure, and climate initiatives will take time to work their way through the economy. So their immediate effects will not be felt. But the reduction of insulin costs to a basic US$35.00, and the capping of medication costs to Medicare beneficiaries is already having positive effects on people’s lives. The Democratic messaging on these initiatives has been very poor, but those who benefit in the short and long term know the effects of what they are experiencing.

So that is the good part. Here comes the concern that many, including this writer, have after his dismal performance in the first debate against Trump. Let us be fair that one debate is not necessarily a harbinger of doom for Biden’s or even Trump’s candidacy. It may also be true that Biden was not well and so, as he admitted, was not up to his game. However, national polls, with regard to Biden’s age, long before the debate, indicated that close to 70 per cent of the people had concerns and saw it as a disqualifying factor for him in this race. Those who are rigidly loyal to Biden may scoff at this assessment, but that does not make the concern go away.

The concern was cemented in his poor showing in the debate. Unfinished sentences, failure to recall facts, frozen moments as he tried to think through a particular subject, and most important, an abysmal failure to fact-check and push back against the tissues of lies that spewed from Trump’s mouth were among the most critical elements in his failure in the debate. By not pushing back, he made Trump look respectable. Let me be clear. Insofar as debates go, Biden lost, but Trump did not win. Biden’s lapses are characteristics that can be used to impute a loss to him, but the egregious lies told by Trump certainly did not qualify him to win either.

Biden must have a serious conversation with his family, close friends, and advisers and consider whether he is really up to speed, mentally and physically, to do the job of the US presidency in a very volatile and chaotic world. He might think that his body is telling him differently from what we saw last Thursday. But the debility of our mortal frame as we age is not something that can be easily brushed aside, especially when the country you are seeking to lead is at an existential moment.

This applies to Biden as it does Trump, who is just three years his junior. For Biden, he had two aneurysms in 1988 when he was campaigning for the job he now holds. He had surgery to repair the damage. Subsequent CT angiograms up to 2014 have not indicated a recurrence of the disease.

That being said, and I am no doctor, one has to wonder at the effects of age on his cognitive abilities. However much you love him, one has to ask whether at 81 he really has the mental acuity to be president. The physical is more obvious, optically speaking. Does the country want to be tested on this?

Biden would be the first president in history to get a second term at 81 years old. The country needs more independent and transparent particulars on his and Trump’s health. If either man should refuse this level of scrutiny about their health, then there should be no question in the minds of voters where they should stand. The presidential race should not be about personalities but the very survival of America and peace in the world as we have known it over the past 75 years.

So there are serious questions that Biden must ask himself, which only he can answer. Foremost among these must be whether his obduracy in persisting to run may cause the very thing that he is seeking to negate — Trumpism and the death of American democracy. Can his conscience bear the fact that continuing resulted in a Trump second term being a part of his otherwise illustrious legacy? As I am on this, there must be times when former US President Barack Obama has to ask himself whether he did enough to prevent Trump being unleashed on America.

Biden can be the elder statesman who steps up to the plate and do one more for the country. He has done well as a president and has nothing to apologise for if he should bow out at this time and allow for a smooth transition to another Democrat who could carry the day. And there are worthy candidates for this, including four Democratic governors. This must happen before Labour Day on September 2.

But he must have his come-to-Jesus moment now so that whoever will emerge does so in good time. Those who support him, in light of the concerns raised above, and are prepared to wear blinders because of their loyalty to him is doing Biden and the country a disservice.

I can say this one thing to Biden: If he persists in continuing to seek the presidency and loses, he will be singularly blamed for the loss and may well become the most contemptuous president in our collective lifetimes. He will be well advised to bow out while he is still on the mountain top of respectability.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest, social commentator, and author of the books Finding Peace in the Midst of Life’s Storms; Your Self-esteem Guide to a Better Life; and Beyond Petulance: Republican Politics and the Future of America. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or stead6655@aol.com.