The question is whether fading into the background is likely to help. If the root of the problem is centerlessness, then it's hard to see how it could. It's true that an absent president avoids polarizing the country further, but it doesn't exactly bring the country together either. What we have instead is a vacuum at the center of our public life that's being filled with more noise than ever. Many days we feel leaderless, flying apart into a million directions, getting into figurative fist-fights on the deck of the American ship of state, with no one possessing the broad-based legitimacy to jump in, take charge, and restore order and civic comity. The question now is whether anyone at this point could speak for and to the nation as a whole. Maybe the truth is that no one could, at least absent an undeniable external threat to pull us together, because Trump took us beyond the point of no return in our centerlessness. In that case, Biden's invisible presidency may be best that he or anyone else could do in the situation — an enactment, in political terms, of the foundational principle that guides doctors in their treatment of ailing patients: Do no harm.