If Democrats want to save their future, it's time to cut Joe Biden loose

Facing mounting crises, feckless leadership, and a midterm meat grinder, Democrats need to make a decision. It will not be an easy one.

It’s time to cut Biden loose.

The 2020 version of Joe Biden was an ideal antidote to Trumpism. The former vice president was portrayed as a kindly grandpa, slightly goofy, but an old, reliable hand in the center of the Democratic Party. Pull the lever for Joe and you can get back to ignoring politics. No scandal-of-the-day or late-night Tweetstorms, just the bland guy you’ve seen in the news for 50 years.

Independents and moderate Republicans voted for Biden and awaited the promised return to normalcy. That’s not what they got.

Biden's Middle East trip was a disaster

Scandals were replaced with crises.

Everything from the deadly Afghanistan pullout to soaring immigration to a broken supply chain to Ukraine, not to mention the worst inflation in four decades. Every time a voter fills her tank or heads out for groceries, she’s reminded of Biden’s failure.

Mean tweets were replaced by an increasing number of gaffes, misstatements and troubling behavior by America’s oldest president. During the campaign, it was passed off as “Joe being Joe,” but it keeps getting worse.

Consider the last week alone. On his recent trip to Israel, Biden promised to “keep alive the truth and honor of the Holocaust.” He apparently meant “horror of the Holocaust,” but was a dark opening to a doomed visit.

When visiting East Jerusalem, he clumsily bashed allies in Israel and the UK. Noting his Irish ancestry, Biden said, “we have a long history not fundamentally unlike the Palestinian people, with Great Britain and their attitude toward Irish Catholics over the years.”

He then jetted to Jeddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a man Biden promised to treat as a “pariah.” Instead, the two leaders fist-bumped and the President begged for more oil. The Saudis shrugged.

This made even late-night talk shows crack jokes at Biden’s failures.

Even Democrats wonder 'what the hell is going on?'

Back home on Wednesday, the president flew in his jumbo jet to Massachusetts to complain about climate change. In the speech, he incorrectly claimed to have cancer due to childhood exposure to oil.

“You had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer and why for the longest time, Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation,” he said.

The White House quickly corrected the bizarre statement – he does not have cancer, thankfully – but not before Americans again asked what on earth was wrong with Joe. These errors aren’t due to a “stutter” but something far more serious.

These complaints used to come from the right, but in the past month, more and more Democrats are speaking out.

Obama campaign chief David Axelrod warned against a reelection run. “The presidency is a monstrously taxing job, and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” he told The New York Times.

Ex-Clinton and Obama adviser Robert Reich also pointed to Biden’s age and reduced faculties. “I don’t think this reflects an ‘ageist’ prejudice against those who have reached such withering heights,” Reich wrote in The Guardian, “so much as an understanding that people in their late 70s and 80s wither.”

Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat running for Congress, got right to the point. “Democrats are like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ ” she said. “Our country is completely falling apart.”

If Democrats want to preserve their future, have to cut their party leader loose. Sooner rather than later. Two more years like this and voters won’t send them back to D.C. for a decade.

Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Republic and azcentral.com. On Twitter: @exjon.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Joe Biden is a disaster. Democrats must cut him loose, and soon