Worse, the president has failed to address the ongoing threats to American elections with sufficient force and focus. Republicans around the country are promoting the crazed notion that the 2020 presidential election (but only the presidential election!) was stolen, while seeking to rewrite laws and intimidate officials with the aim of ensuring that a Democrat will not be inaugurated in 2025, whatever the votes say. Ten months after an insurrectionist mob attacked the U.S. Capitol, the most influential figure discussing threats to free and fair elections isn’t the president of the United States but Tucker Carlson.

Perhaps President Biden doesn’t want to wade more deeply into the fight over voting rights and election administration for fear of appearing to serve only his own electoral interests rather than those of the country. That’s malarkey. He could point to the strong Republican showing in Congress and in the states in 2020 and insist that those elections are as legitimate as the presidential contest. He could point to elected Republicans, including election officials, around the country who have already shown real political courage by continuing to confirm the truth that Biden won last year. He could emphasize that the people who do the actual counting of votes aren’t Washington politicians or even election administrators, but volunteers—disproportionately little old ladies from down the street.

But President Biden isn’t doing any of that. Instead, he’s ceding the field to the conspiracy theorists who have done so much to harm American democracy.