Mes Dépêches

He stepped on the stage mumbling something.

I think we all knew what to expect, maybe hoped against hope that our commander in chief, the leader of the free world, might not be losing it. But he was. He is.

And for the first sixty minutes of the debate, he left little to mystery, left little room for the viewer to argue whether he was up for perhaps the hardest task in the known world.

The Fox crowd cheered while the President’s staff scrambled for excuses – party over country, just as the Fathers envisioned – but the vast majority of us cringed. Over 330 million people in the United States, and the one man tasked with running it all is unequivocally limited.

Let’s be clear, though. This race ended long before Thursday’s night debacle. The only reason it continued to be viewed as a race was the fact that Republicans caved to their populist wing; had Nikki Haley been the opposing nominee, polling may have pushed Mr. Biden to drop himself off the ticket.

But why? The President has objectively been impactful in his three-plus years, with a rapid vaccination program moving America back to post-pandemic “normal” faster than peers, and heavy government investment driving a strong economic recovery that left Europe and Asia wringing their hands.

That same investment, however, contributed to the inflation that offset most of the pandemic’s wage gains, and left American workers again feeling worse off, just as they did after the post-financial crisis recovery a decade earlier. And as middle America struggled through grocery prices climbing over 20%, they saw their President focus on arbitrarily forgiving student loans while leaving medical debt and maxed-out credit cards intact, understandably driving a touch of resentment.

The fact is that Mr. Biden came to office with a narrow mandate – 10,000 votes in Georgia, plus or minus – to return the country to normalcy after Mr. Trump’s tumultuous term. And he did that, and then did some more. Perhaps the mandate did not include perpetually poking business with an aggressive regulatory agenda, piling on the nation’s exploding debt with a steady stream of multi billion-dollar pledges or solving the country’s broken immigration system by opening her doors.

This President dreamed of being one in his prime and worked for over 35 years to finally get his turn. His list of must-dos climbed over those years, far higher than his small win and a divided Congress would cleanly allow.

Voters may benefit from – or even like – his accomplishments, but how they are being accomplished matters. Could anyone say the American political system feels more functional today than it did in 2020?

Little that Mr. Trump said on Thursday night made sense, but he was confident and controlled. Would confidence help to corral the bucking, bleating sheep in his wing of the Congress? Would confidence have stopped Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine?

Back when Covid was still a Chinese problem, there were a few hairy days when it seemed Mr. Trump might push the proverbial button in a spat with Iran. The notion that Mr. Biden would exercise restraint was seen as a positive, but today would we expect restraint? A nap? Or, worse, confusion?

Every American, red or blue, was thinking these questions at least subconsciously on Thursday night.

There is a large and growing body of conservative voices criticizing the rapid turn against the President after the debate, given the healthy evidence of mental decline summarily dismissed over the past two-plus years. And that’s fair, as we all held our breath while he began to choke early in the State of the Union, but in that speech he quickly recovered and easily held serve with an obnoxious Marjorie Taylor Greene. He was alive.

The debate was different. Like playing board games with my nephew, the rules were specifically tailored to his strengths. His team telegraphed extensive preparations and focus. This was set up to be a slam dunk. And then it wasn’t.

But the election was over before Thursday. The American public stopped buying the argument that Mr. Trump represents an existential threat to democracy, at least in part because Mr. Biden’s extensive, partisan agenda never opened the door to cooperation, and didn’t prioritize a cooling of the rhetoric or an understanding of the actual, on-the-ground reality of the American people.

This President has been consequential, his accomplishments will surely long outlive him. But those accomplishments reflected his individual vision rather than the extent of the people’s mandate, and for that, along with his clear health issues, November will be the end of his road.