The scheduled June 27 debate between President Biden and former President Trump is a godsend for the country. Choosing the most capable leader for the nation and the free world is more urgent at this moment in history given the coordinated threats to the United States and its allies from Russia, China and Iran with North Korea poised to spring its next round of troublemaking.
Increasing the peril, the two major candidates are perhaps the least qualified men to serve as commander in chief in modern American history. Whether Trump or Biden is reelected, their records on foreign policy and national security will be welcomed by U.S. adversaries, though ever-paranoid communist China will be unhappy with some of the candidates’ shared policies on trade and Taiwan.
The candidates are to be commended for agreeing to the earliest presidential debate in the television era, since it will occur before early voting begins. It would be even more beneficial for voters — and for a healthy democracy — if all debates were completed prior to any balloting.
Significantly, the debate will also occur prior to the Republican and Democratic conventions, giving both parties a last chance to reconsider, and hopefully reverse, their ill-fated choices of nominees. Both party establishments manipulated their normal primary rules for 2024 to tilt the scales in favor of their preferred candidates, the two most unpopular politicians in the country, denying their respective voters a true choice.
Democratic leaders could have persuaded Biden to step aside gracefully rather than risk a third rejection by the voters, and to open the door to a younger, more........