If the president falls significantly behind in polls, the party must intervene and find alternative candidates.

Follow this authorEugene Robinson's opinions

Biden was alarmingly frail and struggled to complete his thoughts, let alone his sentences. And Trump confirmed every fear about what giving him another four years in the White House would mean for the nation and the world.

Before the debate, polls showed the race essentially tied, with Trump narrowly leading in some decisive swing states. If Biden now falls significantly behind, the party must consider alternative candidates.

The window for starting an orderly process to choose a new 2024 candidate was slammed shut roughly 14 months ago, when Biden, then 80, announced he was running again. Changing horses midstream would be chaotic and likely divisive.

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The most relevant precedent in 1968 — when President Lyndon B. Johnson decided against seeking reelection — is not encouraging. At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with rioters battling police in the streets amid clouds of tear gas, delegates gave the nomination to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who hadn’t won a single primary. (Humphrey lost in the general election to Richard M. Nixon, and the rest is history.)

This year’s Democratic convention is in Chicago. History’s sense of humor can be cruel.

But, as we’ve learned in the past decade, nothing is impossible anymore in U.S. politics. Not if Trump could win in 2016. Not if he is a viable candidate now, even after fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection and being convicted of 34 felony charges stemming from a hush money payment to an adult film actress.

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The Biden campaign’s response to the debacle has been unconvincing. Biden’s forceful speech at a rally Friday was good, but, of course, there is a difference between the thrust-and-parry of a debate and scripted remarks. It takes time and repetition to erase the kind of impression Biden made at the debate.

One statement from the Biden campaign described those questioning whether Biden should stay in the race as the “bedwetting brigade.” I’ve never had patience for Democrats looking for reasons to freak out. I’ve always believed that voters, in the end, would find Biden’s diminished vigor and record of........

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