Biden likes John Wayne quotes. Here’s one.

Fresh off the stage from a bungling and disastrous debate performance, President Biden delivered some brief post-debate remarks to a group of supporters at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. In an apparent dig at former President Trump’s own debate performance and mendacity, Biden regaled the audience by once again recounting a scene from a John Wayne film. As Biden recalls, a group of Native Americans purportedly call members of an advancing Northern Military unit “nothing but lying, dog-faced pony soldiers.”¹ In fact, this quote never actually appears in any John Wayne film.

Despite its spurious origin, the phrase has become a popular retort of the President while facing difficult or sometimes probing questions. He first used it pejoratively in response to a potential voter, during a 2020 campaign event in New Hampshire, after fielding a question about his own viability as a candidate back then.²

After Biden’s horrific debate performance on June 27th, another John Wayne quote (this time an actual one) seems more appropriate. In the 1962 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, director John Ford tells the story of a green yet confident east coast lawyer, Ranse Stoddard, who heads out West to the burgeoning frontier town of Shinbone. Facing the challenges of a territory on the brink of statehood, Stoddard attempts to bring “law and order” to the region and set up institutional structure by establishing a school to teach many of the town’s illiterate population how to read and write. In a manner that anticipates both Stoddard’s own future political career and the region’s future statehood, the reading lessons primarily cover subjects related to basic civics. A quote from one of these lessons is particularly poignant.

During one lesson, the lawyerly protagonist Stoddard quizzes one of his pupils, Nora, by asking “would you tell the class what you learned about the United States?” Excitedly, Nora replies that “The United States is a republic, and a republic is a state in which the people are the boss. That means us. And if the big shots in Washington don’t do like we want, we don’t vote for them, by golly, no more.” Sound familiar?

Amid rapidly plummeting poll numbers, the Biden campaign might be wise to heed Nora’s warning and listen to the voters. A recent NYT/Siena poll showed Trump’s lead over Biden widening to 6 percentage points. Similarly, a full 74% of voters now think that President Biden is too old for the job.³ If a large enough contingent of voters is dissatisfied with Biden’s decision to remain in the race, they may simply decide to stay home in November.

Much like Shinbone, the United States is at an important juncture of enormous political consequence that will define much of its future. The decision of who will occupy the Oval Office next will not only impact the next four years but will also have wide ranging implications for decades to come. Notwithstanding this importance, a defiant Biden continued to reject the idea of dropping out in a recent interview, while simultaneously refusing to participate in an independent neurological exam or cognitive test.⁴ At the end of the day, the American public deserves better, and this will do little to assuage legitimate, mounting fears held by an increasing number of voters that the President is no longer fit to serve. While Biden expressed self- confidence in his own candidacy, he should not forget who ultimately is the boss.

In the final scene of the film, a deeply contemplative Stoddard reflects on his own legacy and future political ambition after serving as governor and senator of his newfound state. Although he could easily become the country’s next Vice President “with the snap of his fingers,” he instead asks his wife, Hallie, how she would feel if they left Washington altogether, and he retired. After taking office amid the height of a global pandemic and economic crisis, much like Stoddard, Biden has “transformed what was once a wilderness into a garden.” However, he should now step aside and let the next generation continue to water it.