Joe Biden must break free of his bubble of denial

This is an adapted excerpt from the July 19 episode of “Morning Joe.”

Donald Trump’s speech during the final night of the Republican National Convention was a missed opportunity. Despite branding it as a call for national unity, the former president failed to change his divisive tone — seemingly tacking on a somber 20 minutes to what was otherwise a standard rally speech. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that from the Republican Party’s point of view, this was a successful convention.

This is a very united Republican Party — united behind Trump. They’ve made it clear they’re not going to stand against his extreme agenda. That makes the former president more dangerous than ever before. Right now, Donald Trump has never been stronger, and President Joe Biden has never been weaker. 

As the election quickly approaches, we need to take a deep breath and ask ourselves: What’s at stake here? I understand that the president and his folks are feeling angry and betrayed. But ultimately, it’s not about him. It’s about the country. All the signals are blinking, all the alarm bells are ringing, alerting us to the danger we face if Trump retakes the White House. What we’re seeing on the Democratic side, with the effort to replace Biden at the top of the ticket, is a response to that danger.  

It’s a reality check, not a betrayal. The problem is not the people saying, “Oh, my God, there’s an iceberg there. We need to avoid the iceberg. Let’s not hit the iceberg.” The problem is the iceberg.

It’s crucial that at some point Biden — who, unfortunately, is in a sort of bubble of denial — gets out of that bubble and understands how important it is for his legacy that he be gracious about this. If he steps back, he would do so with the gratitude of a nation, and we could move on to the future.

The way this plays out over the coming days and weeks is very important: Will it be embittered? Will Democrats point fingers at one another? Or will they accept that it’s time to move on because the threat of Trump is just so great? Democrats have to resolve this one way or another, and they have to do it very, very quickly.