Opinion | Crisis counselor advice for Biden on dropping out -

Dan McGinn is chief executive of McGinn and Co.

For the past 40 years, I have been a crisis counselor, advising chief executives, celebrities and senior government officials facing complicated, sensitive and all-consuming predicaments. My job is telling these successful and often brilliant people things they don’t want to hear and recommending things that they don’t want to do.

Most of them have fallen into a few basic traps, and I see President Biden falling into them, too. This is what I would tell him.

President Biden, you need to widen your circle of advisers.

The most valuable commodity in a crisis is clear, objective and fearlessly honest counsel. That’s why the first thing I tell every client is this: Do not rely on family and close friends for advice. As smart and caring as they may be, they cannot be dispassionate, and they inevitably advocate what they believe the client wants.

In this case, the president appears to be relying on advice from those who love him and desperately want for him what they believe he wants and deserves. It’s the wrong path. He needs to listen to new voices.

The crisis isn’t going to be over because you say it’s over.

I’ve told countless CEOs, “The decision is yours … until it isn’t.” It’s hard for ultrasuccessful people to understand — and even harder to accept — that they can lose control of a situation. Biden obviously still has a lot of influence in this crisis, but he doesn’t hold all the cards. With respected analysts, celebrity supporters and a growing chorus of elected officials urging him to step aside, his hardball approach of running out the clock and forcing the convention to nominate him has enormous risks.

Demonizing your critics is a dangerous game to play.

Being caught in a firestorm is a test of emotions as well as brainpower and judgment. The natural human reaction is to lash out. Highly accomplished people, in particular, always feel misunderstood and unfairly treated. And they want to attack the media, their critics, and what they see as disloyal friends and inept staff.

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What’s required is not just a thick skin but generosity of spirit. When Biden attacks or dismisses the media, the so-called elites, and even the numerous well-meaning supporters who question his mental and physical fitness, he looks small, out of touch and selfish. This is not who Joe Biden is. He has his faults and blind spots, but he has always been a decent, regular, likable guy. He needs to draw on that basic element of his character and realize that anger is not a strategy. Boasting is not a message. And demonizing your critics almost always backfires — especially when those critics have been longtime allies who have no motive to say anything but the truth as they see it.

You can’t succeed by telling the public to ignore what they know or sincerely believe.

At the center of the controversy is Biden’s frailty at age 81. This is not an arcane political issue involving NATO or the jobless report. Americans across every category and every part of the country have cared for a parent, a grandparent, an elderly neighbor. They have seen the people they love and admire slow down. And they know from hard experience that time does not reverse itself.

Since the debate, the president, his family and campaign team have made several comments that fail to accept that reality. First lady Jill Biden praised his performance with “You answered every question.” His staff’s initial assessment after the debate was that “nothing fundamentally changed.” As reality set in, they told us he had a cold and was jet-lagged. The president himself said, “I almost fell asleep onstage,” and that he had told his staff to avoid scheduling events for him after 8 p.m. None of these attempts at glossing over the very real concerns of millions of Americans is helpful.

Don’t forget your core values.

Biden first won national office at age 29, and he has devoted his life to public service. Certainly, he has ambition and a large ego — nobody runs for president without those — but his deep sense of family, community, sacrifice and patriotism has been the driving force of his career.

Now, in the defining moment of his long and extraordinary public life — and facing what he has credibly argued is the most consequential election in our history — I would advise the president to step back and slow down. He should listen with deep respect to those who have expressed their heartfelt concerns. And he should ask himself what the 29-year-old version of himself would recommend for the 81-year-old president of the United States.

If he listens to the young Joe Biden, I believe he would do as he has always done and put country first and step aside. It would be deeply painful, yes. But at a time when Americans have lost faith in our leaders, it would also be the act that secures his place in history and demonstrates to the nation and the world the essence of selfless leadership.

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