As I write this, one week after his shockingly poor performance in his debate against former President Trump, it seems increasingly clear that President Biden will be forced to abandon his re-election efforts and allow the convention to pick a new nominee.

Biden would become the first president in 56 years to choose not to run for re-election.

The last president who did so – Democrat Lyndon Johnson – bowed out at the end of March 1968. It was three and a half years after he won a decisive landslide against Republican Barry Goldwater. 

Early in his term, the high points of Johnson’s "Great Society" – the introduction of Medicare, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the launch of the "War on Poverty" – made people think he was going to be as important a president as Franklin D. Roosevelt – but opposition to his conduct of the Vietnam War and the 1967 riots across many large American cities had significantly weakened him politically.

POLLSTER NATE SILVER URGES BIDEN TO RESIGN AFTER ‘INCOHERENT COMMENTS’ IN ABC INTERVIEW

At the time of his announcement, two weeks after a disappointing showing in the New Hampshire primary, (anti-war Sen. Eugene McCarthy had won over 40% of the vote – and held Johnson to just under 50%) – and shortly after Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (brother of the late president) had entered the race, polls still suggested that Johnson had a fighting chance win the nomination and that the November race was likely to be close.

LBJ made his announcement at the end of a speech seeking a settlement in the Vietnam War. He unilaterally halted the bombing of the communist-led North Vietnam – and called on the North to move to peace talks.

The words he spoke were not in the "check against delivery" advance release provided to media organizations so the audience was shocked by his closing words:

TRUMP-HATING WHITE HOUSE MEDIA BETRAYED VOTERS BY HIDING BIDEN'S ALARMING CONDITION, AND NOW IT COULD BACKFIRE

"With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office – the presidency of your country

"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

While he couched his decision to avoid a divisive fight for the nomination – and a hard general election race against a Republican (as well as George Wallace, who was to run – and win Electoral College votes as an independent) – in a desire to achieve an end to the war in Vietnam, most folks believed he did it out of political weakness.

TOP DEMS PLANNING MEETING ABOUT BIDEN'S FUTURE DESPITE PRESIDENT'S VOWS TO CONTINUE CAMPAIGN

Of course, he wasn’t able to achieve a deal with the North Vietnamese – and the Democratic Party went on to a divisive convention – complete with riots in Chicago.

As Joe Biden struggles to figure out how to respond to his disastrous performance in his June debate with former President Trump, the current incumbent finds himself in almost the exact position as LBJ in 1968. Many in his party – including donors and leaders – are (either publicly or privately) pushing him to abandon his race. And, should he remain in it, many believe – and polling underscores – that he faces an uphill battle against Trump. 

Meanwhile, Biden is pushing for a cease-fire deal in Israel’s war in Gaza, and trying to help the Ukrainians turn the tide of battle against the Russians. Like Johnson, he has passed a long list of domestic legislation, and like Johnson, it doesn’t seem to be helping him in terms of public support. The economy may be growing in terms of jobs – but all people talk about is high prices.

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Reporting suggests that most Democratic "elites" – the same elite pols, donors and media who shut down the 2020 race and essentially handed the nomination to Biden after he won the South Carolina and subsequent Super Tuesday primaries – have decided that the best way to defeat Donald Trump is for Biden to drop out of the race. 

If Biden continues to insist on running, he may think he’ll win on the convention floor, given the number of pledged" delegates he has, but he should worry about the likelihood of significant protests outside the Chicago convention hall – from young people motivated by his decision to run as well as by their opposition to his handling of the Israel-Gaza war. They may not be the kind of riots that significantly damaged Hubert Humphrey’s campaign – but unhelpful in November, nonetheless.

If he decides to drop his campaign – and the pressure to do so grows by the hour – he will likely take a page from LBJ and focus on the challenges overseas as well as the need to focus on continuing to manage the economy.

Then the question for America will be: Will a lame duck president have an even harder time achieving his goals – and allow the Republicans to make their case that Biden and the Democrats have left the world in a chaotic mess and mismanaged the economy? The candidate the Democrats wind up nominating may be more linguistically fluid than Biden and would likely do better in a debate, but they will still be forced to defend the Biden/Democratic record.

Indeed, the unanswerable question about LBJ’s decision is – given that he came close to getting a deal with Vietnam, could he have done better if he hadn’t been a lame duck? And, similarly, could he have done better than Humphrey in 1968?

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An Israeli minister has endorsed Marine Le Pen for French president, saying she would make an "excellent" leader for the country as her right-wing party seeks significant gains in the current election. 

"It is excellent for Israel that she will be the president of France, with 10 exclamation marks," Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said Tuesday, later indicating that his view may be shared by other members of Israel's leadership. 

"I think I and Netanyahu are of the same opinion," he said when asked whether the Israeli prime minister shared his view, according to The Times of Israel. The outlet stressed that it remains unclear what had prompted Chikli to discuss Le Pen. 

Le Pen’s National Rally outperformed expectations in the European parliamentary elections, trouncing French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party and prompting him to call a snap election as he felt it created tension in the country if the electorate no longer believed in his party and their policies. 

FRANCE'S RIGHT-WING NATIONAL RALLY LOOKS TO SEIZE ON RECENT ELECTORAL GAINS

The gamble has thus far played into National Rally’s hands, and it has continued to perform well in the domestic election, just as it did in the European elections. 

Le Pen has unsuccessfully run for president three times – in 2012, 2017 and 2022, improving her rank and share of the vote each time during that decade. Her most recent run saw her win 41.5% of the vote against Macron. 

Some speculate that the cultural issues at the heart of the election will propel National Rally – and potentially, in the 2027 presidential election, Le Pen – to control of the country. Immigration has proven a strong issue for right-wing parties across Europe, as well as the pushback those parties have shown to recent antisemitic protests and attacks.

RIVALS MOVE TO BLOCK FRANCE'S RIGHT-WING NATIONAL PARTY'S ELECTION MOMENTUM

Serge Klarsfeld, a renowned Nazi hunter, last week announced that he would throw his weight behind National Rally, telling French outlet LCI that if choosing between "an antisemitic party and a pro-Jewish party, I would vote for a pro-Jewish party," referring to National Rally, according to Le Monde. 

Antisemitism has taken sharp focus in the election after the alleged gang rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl that many have cast as a hate crime. Two adolescent boys arrested in a Paris suburb were hit with preliminary charges in relation to the crime, with prosecutors alleging that the rape had been religiously motivated, ABC News reported. 

Rabbi Moshe Sebbag of the Grande Synagogue in Paris said that the election has indicated to him that French Jews have "no future" in France, telling The Jerusalem Post that he urges "everyone who is young to go to Israel or a more secure country." 

MACRON ON EDGE AS FRANCE'S RIGHT-WING NATIONAL RALLY PARTY GAINS MOMENTUM IN FIRST ROUND OF ELECTIONS

Sebbeg argued that even if the far-right National Rally has voiced support for Israel’s defense against Hamas following the Oct. 7 attack, the party’s roots come from a place of antisemitism that continues to trouble him. 

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Jean-Marie Le Pen has repeatedly been convicted of antisemitic hate speech and made statements downplaying the Holocaust, according to The Guardian, which prompted Marine Le Pen to distance herself and the party from its founder – her father. 

"Many Ashkenazi Jewish families here since before World War II couldn’t think to vote for National Rally, yet the Left has been antisemitic in recent times," said Sebbag. "The Jews are in the middle, because they don’t know who hates them more."