The Debate To End All Debates: President Biden Should Have Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

One miscalculated move to debate Donald Trump Cost Biden everything

This has been the total opposite of a slow news week in the United States. Well, the last three weeks have been the total opposite of a slow news week in the United States. In all the craziness, there are some wisdom nuggets to take away. One in particular is a phrase that President George W. Bush likes to use: let sleeping dogs lie.

This idiom could have come in handy for President Joe Biden twenty-eight days ago, for it was twenty-eight days ago that forever changed his life. Now, I have to give it to President Biden, there was no ounce of disappointment on his face when he addressed the nation and world last night, finally showing face, and sharing his decision to step out of the race for the White House in the 2024 election. If he is hurt by the heads of his party strong-arming him to drop out of the race, because the world was finally taking notice of his cognitive decline, it wasn’t palpable on his face.

But, what is palpable is that he made a grossly erroneous move on the chess board of politics twenty-eight days ago. He simply didn’t let the sleeping dog of debating Donald Trump lie. It was the CNN Presidential Debate on June 27th where things swiftly unraveled for Biden. To say that he came off as weak, not able to hold his own with Trump, and cognitively not with it at times during the debate would be putting it lightly. Biden called that debate, a debate that he didn’t have to engage in just yet, as he felt he could take on Trump and show America that he was the stronger candidate.

Now, it is true that Trump had been egging Biden on in a way, as pointed out in a BBC article written by Anthony Zurcher, months prior to the June debate, saying he’d debate him “anytime, anywhere.” And Biden relented but wanted to be in charge of the where, when, and how they’d debate, like for instance, choosing to not debate in front of a live audience. But again, Biden didn’t have to do the first presidential debate as early as he did, and it all cost him.

Debating in June had some upsides for Biden like, painting Trump as weak (if Trump wouldn’t have done so well, but Trump did do well); and the June debate would give Biden recovery time from June to September in the event that he wouldn’t do well (but he didn’t and it cost him).

Only Biden knows why he called that debate so early in the 2024 election, but I surmise it was from pressure and a little bit of ego that was behind it. Now this could have been his [Biden’s] ego or the ego of his political advisors. If the latter, they grossly miscalculated how strong Trump would come off and the ramifications of being pushed out of the race. And any pressure would have stemmed from, if Biden would have turned down the invite to debate Trump “anytime, anywhere.” He would have looked weak in front of Americans, who were already beginning to see his cognitive decline more clearly. All of these ties back into Biden’s ego to not look old and feeble, and his haughtiness to believe he could take an energized Trump on.

If Biden would have let that dog lie still and sleep until September, until after the Democratic National Convention, he would have secured his party’s nomination, not someone else, in this case, Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee. His party has long been covering up his cognitive decline, and unless pressure would have arisen for him to drop out of the race in another form, they would have continued protecting him and lying to the American people.

The lesson for us watching this all play out is to not let ego, assumptions, and haughtiness lead our emotions. For any big decision in life, we need to make sure we are Holy Spirit led and not senses led, and we need to make sure we are sober minded in our decisions, not pressured by them. More often than not, our emotions always mislead us. Ego stands for: Edging God Out, and when we allow our ego to take over we can make gross miscalculations that can lead to humility, pain, and disappointment.