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Knowing when to call it quits takes courage and confidence – 3 case studies
After President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance at the June 27, 2024, debate, many Democrats have raced to ring the alarm bell, proclaiming that it’s time for him to step aside, time to let someone else take the reins in hopes of defeating Donald Trump in November.
With that in mind, as political scientists with a side interest in sports, we recount three moments from history when men and women faced the difficult decision to stay or go. We hope they will help inform the current discussion.
We begin with two who worked at the highest levels of power in the U.S.:
President Lyndon Johnson, 1968
On the final night of March 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson, known universally as “LBJ,” spoke to the nation from the Oval Office to say that the United States would unilaterally halt nearly all its bombing in North Vietnam.
But as his address came to a close, he had something more to say:
Shocking his audience, LBJ added: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
Johnson was 59 years old. Three-and-a-half years earlier, he had scored one of the greatest landslides in American history, winning 61% of the vote and 44 states in the 1964 presidential election.
A scant few individuals so aptly defined the term “political animal” as LBJ. He had come to Washington as a young man bursting with ambition and succeeded like few others.
Indeed, since becoming president after John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, Johnson had ushered through Congress an avalanche of progressive legislation, including the historic 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights acts. With the possible exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt, no other president had achieved so much legislatively.
But on that March day in 1968, at a time of growing antiwar protests and the accelerating pull of rival candidates for the Democratic nomination, he understood that he now led a country coming apart at the seams. Despite having declared his candidacy for reelection, seeking another term might make things worse.
It was time for someone else to have a turn.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2013
As one of us recounts in his book, “A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People,” President Barack Obama invited Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for a private lunch at the White House in the summer of 2013.
Obama wanted to nudge Ginsburg into retirement. The 80-year-old justice was a two-time survivor of pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest of all cancers. She had already served on the high court for two decades and had carved out a legacy as a staunch liberal and champion of women’s equality.
Additionally, Obama was concerned about the upcoming midterm elections. If the Democrats lost the Senate, he would not be able to replace her with a like-minded justice, because a GOP-run Senate would not confirm such a nominee.
Ginsburg didn’t take Obama’s hint.
Soon after the lunch, she noted, “I think one should stay as long as she can do the job.” She added shortly after, “There will be a president after this one, and I’m hopeful that that president will be a fine president.”
That next president was Donald Trump.
Ginsburg died in mid-September 2020, just weeks before Joe Biden would oust Trump from the White House. But significantly, Trump had sufficient time to fill Ginsburg’s seat with the conservative Amy Coney Barrett.
In 2022, Barrett provided the fifth and decisive vote in the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade’s federal protection of abortion rights.
Deciding when to step away or stay may have deep consequences in the political world.
The consequences are big in sports, as well, but at a more personal level.
Philadelphia Eagle Jason Kelce, 2024
Skeptics said he was too small to play among the giants on an offensive line in the NFL. Not strong enough. Not tough enough. A former walk-on who had been drafted in 2011 in the sixth round.
But in a short space of time, Jason Kelce redefined the position of center and helped guide his team to its first-ever Super Bowl win.
In 2024, Kelce’s team, the Philadelphia Eagles, was still one of the best in the NFL. It had been to the Super Bowl just a year earlier, and Kelce was still considered to be playing near the top of his game.
But Kelce had had enough. It was time for him to end his playing days.
Sitting before a packed room of reporters and family members, the bare-armed and burly-chested 36-year-old Kelce set out to say goodbye.
But before he could even get a sentence out, his emotions took over, forcing him to pause for several moments. He held his head in his hands, sobbing, sniffling, snorting, taking deep breaths. Tears streamed down his face throughout the news conference. Repeatedly, he had to stop and wipe them away with a washcloth someone tossed to him.
As he struggled to get through his statement, listeners could hear him motivate himself several times with the phrase, “Come on.”
The ‘courage to call it quits’
Kelce’s retirement announcement is both difficult and extraordinarily captivating to watch. During those 40 minutes, he displays the courage it takes to call it quits when there is still something to be gained.
The picture was of a man coming to terms with his fate. Not because of injury or lack of skill, but because he believed it was necessary to take this step before those things forced him out.
Are there moments when we can judge for another when it is time to bow out? Most assuredly, there are. Hopefully, we do so with compassion and gratitude, but there are simply times when conscience demands an honest reckoning and unflinching truth-telling.
Nikki Haley says GOP should prepare for ‘younger,’ more ‘vibrant’ Biden replacement
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump primary challenger, warned Republicans should prepare for Democrats to replace President Biden with a candidate who is “younger” and more “vibrant,” while repeating her push for cognitive tests for all candidates for federal office.
“They are going to be smart about it. They’re going to bring somebody younger. They’re going to bring somebody vibrant. They’re going to bring somebody tested,” Haley told the Wall Street Journal Saturday.
“This is a time for Republicans to prepare and get ready for what’s to come because there is no way that there will be a surviving Democratic Party if they allow Joe Biden to continue to be the candidate.”
Some Democrats have also called on Biden to drop out of the race after his debate performance against former President Trump.
In reference to Biden’s performance, Haley said, “Our enemies just saw that they have between now and Jan. 20 to do whatever it is they want to do.”
Haley said in May that despite their contentious primary contest in which both candidates threw personal insults at each other, she planned to vote for Trump in November.
She also told the Journal she had reached out to the former president recently and had a “good conversation.”
Trump previously said he believes Haley will be “on our team in some form.”
Haley previously served as Trump’s United Nations ambassador.
“America deserves the strongest leader possible,” Haley said on X Saturday. “Thursday night was shocking. It’s exactly why I have been calling for mental competency tests for anyone running for office. Joe Biden owes the American people transparency about his cognitive abilities.”
She added that Washington, D.C. is “full of older people,” and voters need to know “who is up to the challenge and who is not.”
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“To the millions of Nikki Haley supporters who are tired of Donald Trump and his MAGA allies constantly attacking them, running moderates and independents out of the party and repeatedly refusing to commit to accepting the 2024 election results, you have a home in President Biden’s coalition,” Biden spokesperson Ammar Moussa told Fox News Digital of Haley’s comments.
Haley also questioned Trump’s cognitive abilities during the Republican primary, noting that he seemingly confused her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
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Haley, 52, told the Journal Democrats could suffer down-ballot losses if they keep Biden as the nominee.
“If they continue down this path, and they have Biden as their nominee, they are committed to hurting America,” she said.
Jill Biden’s ex-husband calls her out for defending ‘struggling’ Joe Biden, ‘keeping him in the race’
The first lady’s steadfast support of President Biden after his heavily criticized debate performance Thursday may seem admirable to some Americans, but not all of them.
Bill Stevenson, who was married to Jill Biden from 1970 to 1975, candidly discussed his ex-wife in an interview with the New York Post Saturday.
“The Dr. Jill Biden who I’ve seen on TV in the last five years is not the same person I married or that I recognize in any way,” Stevenson lamented. “She’s matriculated into a completely different woman.”
On Thursday, the first lady gushed about her husband’s debate performance despite immediate calls for Biden to drop out of the race.
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“Joe, you did such a great job,” she told him at a debate after-party. “You answered every question. You knew all the facts.”
According to Stevenson, Jill Biden’s support of her husband is far from helpful.
“I just don’t understand why she is so adamant about defending him and keeping him in the race since it appears that he’s struggling,” Stevenson said. “It appears that he’s struggling with everybody these days.
“I’ve been proud of her at certain moments. I have no hard feelings. … I’m just surprised to see her front and center in the middle of this battle after flying under the radar for so many years. She’s always been very driven. People say she’s the one who wants to be president now.”
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Stevenson, a staunch supporter of former President Trump, also accused the sitting president of lying habitually.
“It makes me cringe every time he calls Trump a liar because I’m telling you right now, there is no better liar than President Biden,” Stevenson said.
“He’s just a bad person. I’m probably one of the few people outside his family who has known him for 50 years.”
Biden is facing increased public scrutiny after his appearance at the presidential debate Thursday, where he appeared frail and stumbled numerous times. On Friday, The New York Times editorial board called for the 81-year-old politician to drop out of the race.
“Biden is not the man he was four years ago,” the editorial board wrote. “The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. … [T]he greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.”
The first lady’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial board calls for Biden to drop out ‘for the good of the nation’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) is calling for President Biden to step out of the presidential election after his debate debacle on Thursday night.
The AJC Editorial Board is publishing a front page editorial Sunday arguing that Biden should bow out of the election “for the good” of the country and to defeat former President Trump.
“The shade of retirement is now necessary for President Biden,” the board wrote.
Biden, they argued, failed to convey a “competent and coherent vision for the future of America” at the first presidential debate in Atlanta on Thursday.
“He failed to outline the most fundamental aspects of his platform,” they wrote. “He failed to take credit for the significant accomplishments of his 3½ years in office. And he failed to counter the prevarications of an opponent, who, according to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, lied 30 times during the course of the debate, approximately once every 90 seconds of his allotted time.”
AJC said that responses by Biden surrogates, former President Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris as well as the cover-up attempt by aides that the president had a cold were “insulting to the American people.”
Biden’s age and mental acuity was a concern only heightened by Trump’s resolve, the newspaper argued.
“President Biden’s ability to withstand the mental and physical rigors of another four-year term would be of concern regardless of his opponent,” they wrote. “The fact that he is all that stands in the way of Trump returning to the Oval Office significantly raises the stakes.”
The editorial board pointed to Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s refusal to support the former president as proof of Trump’s “egregious” personal and professional conduct following the 2020 election.
“That Trump remains at the top of the Republican ticket is a testament to the deep divisions and tribalism that has come to define American politics in the 21st century,” they wrote.
The board encouraged Biden to pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders at the convention in August.
“If he truly hopes to defeat Trump, he must pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders and urge the party to nominate another candidate at its convention in Chicago in August,” they wrote. “Doing this will require a massive and unprecedented string of legal and regulatory actions to get a Biden successor named and placed on each state’s ballot. This is difficult and necessary work that must start immediately.”
The right Democratic leader, they argued, would move forward and make a compelling appeal to both Republican and Democratic voters ahead of the election.
“The Democrats have a number of talented and principled leaders who might take the president’s agenda forward and provide the nation with a viable alternative to Trump,” they wrote. “The right candidate would make it a priority to appeal to Republican and Democratic voters.”
The board said that Biden’s very candidacy was “grounded in his incumbency and the belief of Democratic leaders and pollsters that he stood the best chance of defeating Trump in November.”
“This is no longer the case,” they said.
The Atlanta-based newspaper board said that while this may be difficult for some Democrats to swallow, it is the truth.
“Biden deserves a better exit from public life than the one he endured when he shuffled off the stage Thursday night,” they said.
“If he displays the courage and dignity that have defined his political career, he might follow in the footsteps of the nation’s first president and welcome his retirement, secure in the knowledge that he again served his country with honor,” the board ended.
The AJC Editorial Board’s call for Biden to step down comes just one day after The New York Times called for him to drop out of the race.
“Mr. Biden has said that he is the candidate with the best chance of taking on this threat of tyranny and defeating it,” The Times said. “His argument rests largely on the fact that he beat Mr. Trump in 2020. That is no longer a sufficient rationale for why Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee this year.”
“Mr. Biden answered an urgent question on Thursday night. It was not the answer that he and his supporters were hoping for,” the Times concluded. “But if the risk of a second Trump term is as great as he says it is — and we agree with him that the danger is enormous — then his dedication to this country leaves him and his party only one choice.”
Following the debate, Democrats and liberal media figures were reportedly in “panic” after Biden’s performance.
The optics led to a full-on meltdown in Democrat-friendly media, with journalists at various outlets reporting on dozens of Democratic Party officials who said the 81-year-old Biden should consider refusing his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention.
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Biden gave no indication he would step down at his first rally following the debate Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina, insisting he is capable of beating Trump.
“I can do this job, because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high,” Biden energetically said. “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation.”
President Biden also addressed his stumbling performance, saying, “I don’t debate as well as I used to.”
“I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done,” he told a roaring crowd that chanted “Four more years.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
