Democrats woke up Friday morning in chaos, still reeling from a disastrous presidential debate that was hard to watch.

It’s not just that President Joe Biden had an awful performance, and he did. It was more than a raspy voice. Some of his answers were so mixed up and incoherent that it seemed valid to question whether he is well enough to be president now, let alone another four years.

“We finally beat Medicare,” Biden said early in the debate, one of many times he struggled through a sentence.

There was a looming fear of what would happen if he continued to run and lost. What would America be left with? An unrepentant former President Donald Trump, who has vowed retribution against his political enemies in a second term and mostly dodged a question about whether he would uphold this country’s Constitution. The potential consequences are dire.

Biden in 2020 said he was running to save the soul of the nation. He might have done that most effectively in 2024 if he had decided not to run for reelection.

If Democrats were truly worried about a second Trump presidency, they owed it to their voters and this nation to run a candidate with the vigor and unquestionable mental acuity to put this country in a good position for decades to come. The party has a vice president and a full bench of popular governors who have been stocking their campaign coffers and could’ve made a solid run to defeat Trump.

And if another Republican, such as Nikki Haley, were the presumptive nominee instead of Trump, this race would already likely be over for Biden. Independents and some Democrats across the country have told me they would like to vote for a Republican again but find Trump to be too unstable.

But right now, it’s between Trump and Biden, and that’s a big risk — too big of a risk. Democracy could lose.

It’s not that the debate is insurmountable. Democrat John Fetterman had a rough debate in the 2022 midterms while dealing with the side effects of a stroke, and battleground Pennsylvania still sent him to the U.S. Senate over Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz.

But this is not the Senate. This is the most powerful position in the world. Our allies and enemies are watching this unfold.

Only one candidate in this race has demonstrated that he has America’s best interest at heart. Biden’s best act of public service could have been stepping aside and giving other Democrats a chance to compete for the nomination and win the general election.

Some analysts say it’s too late for that, with the Democratic National Convention about seven weeks away. It will certainly be too late on Nov. 5 if Trump wins the election.

Voters deserve the best candidates, and they don’t have that at the top of the ticket in either party. Democrats are the only ones discussing an alternative, and the debate isn’t the first thing to prompt that. Analysts and lawmakers across the country have been questioning whether Biden should run again since before the primary. His debate performance, which was depressing to watch, answered that question.

Neither guy on stage Thursday night is best suited to lead the country for the next four years. The country faces so much more than debates over abortion rights, inflation, immigration, and foreign policy. There are major challenges facing the U.S. that could have long-term consequences and don’t have easy, black-or-white solutions, such as the rise of artificial intelligence, a declining birth rate, and fewer Americans going to college.

We won’t be able to solve our biggest problems as long as we’re focusing on Biden’s age. His age is the biggest story out of the debate, and that means we’re not talking about things like Trump’s myriad lies or who has the best economic plan. How Biden performed in the first five minutes of the presidential debate, unfortunately, overshadows everything else.

Candy Woodall is the opinion editor at The Baltimore Sun. She wants to know if you think President Joe Biden should leave the 2024 race or fight through to the end. She can be reached at cwoodall@baltsun.com.