There are two things to understand about our politics right now.

First, it’s time to start looking ahead. The Washington drama is just another in-house performance of the big circus. It’s over.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Joe Biden will withdraw from the presidential campaign sometime soon. He may deny it until the bitter end, but the prevailing sentiment among those in power is that it’s inevitable. I agree.

The opposition will stick those debate videos right up his butt every day of the campaign; there is no talking them away. There is no recovery from that kind of disaster. Joe Biden is not Donald Trump. He doesn’t know how to lie well or convincingly; he seems increasingly pathetic by the day. For his followers, that matters.

There is no Supreme Court to bail him out and safeguard our democracy.

Every one of the people claiming loyalty to the President knows it as well.

It’s time for some political theater before the blood flows. It’s time for politicians to stop lying and for journalists to tell more truth.

As a 1950s politician, President Biden plays it like a high school football coach. Can’t you hear it? “Guys, we’ve taken an awful beating, but let’s get back out there and show them what we are made of. “

But this isn’t a 1950s movie. It’s all too real.

This is 2024, and his opposition is Donald Trump, using up every one of his nine lives times three. Many people believe our democracy stands or falls in this election. They are paying attention.

President Biden is making things worse daily by saying it was just jet lag. He adds that they will now put him to bed at 8 p.m. every night like I did my daughter when she was seven. Is this supposed to comfort us?

Biden’s I-can-still-be-a-hero fantasy isn’t working; it’s losing support by the hour, especially within his party. He is hemorrhaging voters in the polls, and they are the very voters he needs to win in a divided nation.

Yesterday, sleep didn’t help. He fumbled and was confused in two radio interviews and political appearances, which were also supposed to make everyone feel better about him.

I will be 77 next week, and my heart goes to him. But sleep doesn’t help me remember names I used to know. I hope to age in grace, something our President can’t yet seem to do.

Every time he speaks, he stumbles. He sounds like me when someone approaches me on the street and asks if I remember the fun we had that night in Boston many years ago.

A George Stephanopoulos interview tomorrow will not save him, nor should it. He is unfit to be president or conduct this brutal campaign. That is the truth; even I know better than pretending otherwise.

We aren’t seeing it, but the influential people behind the scenes are always the deciders and are already busy planning a Harris administration, campaign, and platform.

We’ll see if Kamala Harris can excite voters. She has yet to do so but can do better in a debate. She was a respected San Francisco prosecutor. She can get started faster than any of the other candidates could. And Biden would almost certainly support her taking over from him.

She also knows the big players and donors well, and they know her.

Politics is the least emotional and loyal business in the world.

I don’t write as an ideologist on either side but as a former political writer who loved writing about politics.

I’m not part of any campaign, and I don’t pass along conspiracies. I am not a pundit; this is all about me.

And I don’t think we are facing an apocalypse either way. Even Trump needs to be more innovative and robust to dismantle the federal bureaucracy, which is nearly three centuries old and going strong.  He loves golf too much.

The point is that it doesn’t matter what the literal truth is about Biden or Trump. It matters what the people think the truth is.

The Biden campaign is now an official disaster, the thing politicians fear the most.

The people vigorously defending him are doing the same thing the Republican leaders did on behalf of Trump. They are just telling us more lies and hiding what they actually believe. This is why people don’t trust politicians and why, at the core, Democrats often seem just like Republicans and vice versa.

The key to understanding American politics is to ignore what the politicians say and pay attention to what they do.

This is a crucial insight that might empower citizens and voters. Most people are disappointed in journalism, especially since corporations and billionaires have taken over the old media, which they regret.

They have done what corporations do—they are focused on money, not truth. Truth draws enemies, and profits can decline.

The Democratic party is stung by the growing perception that it is weak and indecisive. Here is their chance; I can’t imagine them blowing it. It’s a matter of cutting their throats—their voters, not just Mr. Biden’s. Their supporters seem to have caught the disease. All I hear is, “I hope you’re right,” “I’m not sure,” and “I’m afraid to hope.”

That is not what Trumpists say. The right thing and rhetoric are not obtuse or fuzzy for them. It has never been clearer.

Every Washington reporter knew in 2016 that Donald Trump had a mental illness and was an almost obvious sociopath with entertainment skills; he couldn’t distinguish right from wrong, then or now, and lying was and is truth to him.

During the debate, he lied repeatedly, and President Biden didn’t even mention it. That would certainly not happen with Kamala Harris.

This has worked for him for many years, surviving things that would bring down a giant whale. The reporters just told us once it was too late. This is their pattern. But this debate has changed everything.

Donald Trump is now the fumbling, embittered older man; a younger, more vital, knowledgeable candidate could eat him up.

This isn’t 2016. Even the people who love him don’t like him. And every moderate voter in the country will be thrilled to vote for someone closer to reality and less interested in chaos.

When you think about it, how can any voter trust someone they love for their enthusiastic and shameless lying? An alternative would rock the boat big time. That Joe Biden makes Trump’s re-election seem almost inevitable is why he must step aside. And unless his brain is fading more than we know, he will figure that out for himself.

Every Washington reporter has known for months, if not years, that Joe Biden is losing focus, energy, and memory and is almost certainly not up to the strains and pressures of the American presidency, one of the most challenging and consequential jobs on earth.

They didn’t tell us that either; we had to watch that heart-fluttering debate on television to sit it. The Genie is out of the bottle; this damage is not repairable, certainly not with so much at stake.

So here’s where we are. The next candidate needs to speak the truth strongly without equivocating or rationalizing.

Because I’m not working for the media, I can share what I believe openly and not worry about upsetting a boss. This is the freedom I’ve been crowing about; this is why I have a blog and not a job in a newspaper, political show, or podcast on TikTok.

I’m not saying what I believe is the inevitable truth; there is no certain truth in politics, as the last few years have taught us. But I can write my thoughts, and it’s up to my readers to draw their own conclusions.

Jay messaged me last week to say that Joe Biden would never step in, and he couldn’t wait to laugh at me when he was proven wrong.  He doesn’t know me; the weakest minds I know are those who won’t dare to be wrong. If so, I’ll be smiling along with him, proud that I didn’t hide because I might be wrong.

The old media, the one most progressives grew up on, is gone as I knew it, weakened by greedy corporatists and the rise of the digital world. Media power is scattered into many different pieces. TikTok has more followers than all of the major American newspapers combined.

The people who say there is no time for a campaign challenge to Trump still need to do their homework.

Almost every democratic country has leadership campaigns lasting three or four to six months. Given the power and omnipresence of our media, this campaign has plenty of time to reach anyone in the country who cares.

It’s still time to get off the field. And he can stay up as long as he likes.

As to you, Mr. Trump, I believe this shocking turn will seal your fate. The spirits have spoken.

That’s the problem with lying too much.  Sooner or later, nobody will believe you.

There is such a thing as truth and such a thing as justice. I’m thinking of the police officers in Washington who gave their lives to protect your right to lie.