Today in the NYR Online, Fintan O’Toole writes about last week’s presidential debate, a demonstration of “mutual fatuity” by both Joe Biden and Donald Trump in which the president nonetheless came off the worse, alarming “viewers with his weak, raspy voice, his looks of stricken confusion, his fragmentary or unintelligible answers.”

Yet despite mounting calls for Biden to step down from the campaign, he is committed to staying in the race. Facing a Republican candidate who believes himself to be “unique, unparalleled, irreplaceable,” Biden seems to believe that he alone can win. His tragedy, observes O’Toole,

is that he has come to take on this same conviction, to feel that he alone can save America. In mirroring his archenemy, he has created an equal and opposite belief in his own indispensability.

Below, alongside O’Toole’s essay, we have compiled a selection of writing from the archives about Joseph R. Biden.

Fintan O’Toole
Savior Complex

Biden’s tragedy is that he has come to feel that he alone can rescue America.

Fintan O’Toole
The Memory Hole

“[The special counsel’s] commentary on Biden’s cognitive abilities may be irrelevant to the job he was supposed to be doing. But it is not, alas, irrelevant to a presidential election that could shape American history for decades to come…. Biden’s age is a gaping vulnerability that the Democrats have pretended not to see.”

—February 11, 2024

Joseph O’Neill
Embracing Defeat

“Preserving constitutional democracy from Republican extremism, ensuring access to affordable health care, defending the autonomy of women—these are part of the Democratic Party’s raison d’être. How have its leaders responded? With passivity that borders on surrender.”

—April 23, 2023

Jessica T. Mathews
Losing No Time

In his first hundred days President Biden has been bold, decisive, and willing to take risks in his foreign policy judgments, but his early mistakes on Iran and Taiwan may have dangerous consequences.

—May 27, 2021

Michael Tomasky
Biden’s Journey Left

He now sees himself in the mold of FDR, a leader who would rise to the vast challenge history has thrust upon him and introduce sweeping change.

—July 2, 2020

Fintan O’Toole
The Designated Mourner

Joe Biden is the most gothic figure in American politics. He is haunted by death, not just by the private tragedies his family has endured, but by a larger and more public sense of loss.

—January 16, 2020

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