Stakes are high for Kentucky. President Biden must endorse a new Democratic Party slate.

Thomas Merton, our Kentucky monk and theologian, didn’t know where he was going and couldn’t see the road ahead of him. Yet in his famous and wonderful prayer, he said, “But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.”

President Biden, despite his quip that “The Lord Almighty is not coming down” to take him out of the race, knows he can’t see the road ahead of him. He is a very devout man and we believe deeply that he shares Merton’s insights.

All his adult life, Joe Biden blessedly has desired to do right by trying to make government work better in order to make life a little better for more people. For those who know President Biden, whether they believe he’s succeeded or failed, or think his life has been a wasted effort altogether, his desire, dedication and good faith have never been in serious question… until now. Now, the stakes have never been higher for Kentucky and our entire country.

The stakes are high for Kentucky

The dangers of Trumpism are not hypothetical; they’re realized through Project 2025, a “Christian Nationalist” agenda that would reshape our system of government, our courts, laws, cultural beliefs, and practices to reflect its ideals. Project 2025 is antithetical to traditional Kentucky values. Values of hard work, freedom, fairness, justice, love for our land and neighbors, and the ability for all people to live safe and healthy lives. It has never been more important that we protect our communities, state, and nation from the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 and Trump’s authoritarian principles.

To protect Kentucky and the nation from Trump’s potential authoritarian regime, we must call on President Biden to quickly withdraw and create a new slate.

What a miraculous accomplishment it must be for President Biden to have spent his entire adult life as a highly effective politician serving in the most honorable elected positions while retaining such a stellar reputation.

What an accomplishment it is for him to have helped elect and serve our first Black president of the United States of America as second in command to President Barack Obama.

What an accomplishment it is to have led the defeat of a candidate for President who doesn’t accept the rules, traditions, and customs of American democracy – who drops dynamite blasts into our bedrock of truth every day!

That’s why we who admire and care deeply for President Joe Biden understand how profoundly unsettling these times are for this great man and his wife and rock, Dr. Jill Biden. It is why we, his supporters, desperately believe his legacy must be preserved! With each past accomplishment, President Biden has expressed his desire to please his god with active listening, learning and prayer.

President Biden must step down

Yet, as he has even acknowledged, The President of today is not the same Joe Biden he, of course, has been. Reaching an older age is an eye-opening reality that octogenarians, like many of us who have supported the president until now, know a lot about. So often even though in our 70’s we truly feel younger at heart than ever. A sensation – a gift – that makes us smile, and which we imagine President Biden knows as well. But the mirror, the camera, the many doctor’s visits, the back, joints, and yes, the mind, are not lying to us each day, not to mention the occasional lack of balance and inability often to walk that straight line.

We have been blessed as a country to have had Joe Biden as our President. We are blessed to now have our 81-year-old president alive and caring so deeply. But now we desperately need our 81-year-old President to be proud of those years and immediately collaborate with the leadership of the House and the leadership of the Senate and his major political supporters to create a new Democratic Party slate and to pass the torch with grace. Not doing so will lead to a tragedy of the greatest possible proportions and leave what is an exceptionally hard-earned family legacy in complete shambles. Enabling a path for the most immoral – or likely amoral – American to be elected which would make President Biden and his family absolutely complicit in what could be a fatal blow to democracy in America and freedoms for all in our world.

The Beatitudes, which we believe have inspired President Biden’s guiding political principles, should become his real leadership legacy as he quickly passes this torch!

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…, Blessed are those who mourn…, Blessed are the meek…, Blessed are those who hunger…, Blessed are the merciful…, Blessed are the pure in heart…, Blessed are the peacemakers…, Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness…, Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you…, Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…”

We, together with millions of others pray that President Biden will immediately endorse a new slate. The blitz primary suggestion is a path forward for the Democratic Party.

We pray he will be recognized throughout history as the President who Stopped Donald Trump, in doing so he preserved our country and our world’s freedoms, while preserving President Joe Biden’s own hard-earned legacy based on solid moral societal foundations!

Christina Lee Brown is a longtime Louisville philanthropist and namesake of the U of L Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute. She is a global leader creating new ways to empower "citizen scientists" to lead healthier lives by advocating for a culture of health using nature as the standard, and encouraging all decisions to be made through the lens of health. She believes passionately in the potential of urban and rural communities to effect positive change by working together, at the same time celebrating their commonalities and differences.

Ambassador Tod Sedgwick previously served as U.S. Ambassador to the Slovak Republic from 2010 to 2015. He is a Fellow at the Transatlantic Center at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Study and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, positions he has held since 2015. He is a member of the Ambassadorial Advisory Committee of the Atlantic Council and is on the board of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. He lives in Louisville.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Biden must step down as president to protect his legacy and counrty