The Thursday evening debate between president Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump was one of the most painful two hours of television in living memory. It was so bad, especially for the sitting president, that an idea that was largely marginal as late as last week is now coming into the mainstream: Maybe the Democratic Party needs to replace Joe Biden on the 2024 ticket.

Whether Biden would actually agree to step aside, especially this late in the game, is a separate question; so is the wisdom of such a plan, which would be hugely disruptive and almost certainly result in mass Democratic infighting. But whatever happens in public, this debate was a pivotal moment, almost surely, for Biden and his campaign, in private. He is, by nearly all accounts, a thoroughly honest, decent person who like any politician doesn’t always make the right policy calls but moves through the world with empathy and treats those around him with kindness. One has to imagine that he walked off that debate stage devastated and disappointed in himself—or perhaps, that will be his reaction in the coming days.

The debate was so catastrophic that it’s hard to pinpoint one worst moment, but Biden’s answer on abortion rights—which should have been an easy win for him, given that it’s one issue where Democrats have a huge advantage—may have been his most egregious. Trump told a series of outright lies, including that the Supreme Court “approved the abortion pill” (they did not), that........

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