Democrats may need the courage of a Hugh Scott moment

Hours after President Joe Biden delivered a lackluster debate performance Thursday night that stunned voters across the country, two of Pennsylvania’s most powerful Democrats, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), resisted calls for Biden to step down from his reelection campaign.

Shapiro appeared on MSNBC and CNN and was repeatedly asked whether he thought Biden should step aside. He acknowledged that Biden had a poor debate, but given the possibility of a second term for former President Donald Trump, Shapiro said the stakes are too high for Biden to step aside.

Fetterman was even more blunt in his admonishment of Democrats on X, telling them to “calm down” and saying he “refused to join the Democratic vultures on Biden’s shoulder after the debate.” Also: “No one knows better than I that a rough debate is not the sum of the person and his or her record.”

Both Shapiro and Fetterman, known individually for their straight talk and not dodging punches, are not following the admirable example of a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, Republican Hugh Scott, a former Senate minority leader. In 1974, Scott and two other Republican leaders had the courage to visit beleaguered President Richard Nixon to tell him that the Watergate scandal had made impeachment imminent and that he must resign.

Nixon announced his resignation the next day.

David Urban, a former adviser to the Trump campaign in 2016 and a native of Western Pennsylvania, said you can’t tell voters to deny what they saw with their own eyes last night.

“People can’t undo what happened right before their eyes,” said Urban, a CNN contributor who attended Thursday night’s debate in Atlanta.

“I don’t think there’s anyone with the political courage that Hugh Scott had to step forward and tell Biden it’s time to go,” he said, adding: “I would imagine if it was someone like that, it would have to be someone in his family.”

Jill Biden, the president’s wife, gave no indication of her actions when she took the stage before her supporters after the debate with the president and exclaimed enthusiastically, “Joe, you did a great job. You answered every question.”

Paul Sracic, a political science professor at Youngstown State University, said Hugh Scott did not stand up because Nixon at least had someone acceptable to both the president’s party and the general public.

“The difference here is that there is no (Vice President) Gerald Ford,” Sracic explained. “There is no one. They don’t know who is waiting in the wings to actually defeat Trump.”