President Biden is selling his decision to ignore primary voters and choose a new Democratic nominee as sacrificing “personal ambition” for the nation. A politician’s politician, his pitch boils down to partisanship: Democracy is “preserved” only if his handpicked replacement, Vice President Harris, wins.

“I’ve decided the best way forward,” Mr. Biden told the nation from the Oval Office, “is to pass the torch to a new generation … to unite our nation.” That unity, in his telling, can only be achieved if Republicans and independents join the victorious opposition.

Mr. Biden spoke of previous men who sat behind the Resolute Desk, noting that President Franklin Roosevelt “inspired us to reject fear.” Yet Mr. Biden all but said, “We have nothing to fear but” President Trump himself.

“We can see those we disagree with,” Mr. Biden said, “not as enemies but as — as fellow Americans.” He started to say, “friends,” but the word caught in his throat. Gone are anecdotes about GOP pals like the late Senator McCain.

“In recent weeks,” Mr. Biden said, “it’s become clear to me I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor” to “protect … American democracy.” He made no allowance that opponents see the election in opposite terms and did nothing to persuade them.

“Success is not final,” Winston Churchill said, “failure is not fatal.” FDR struck a similar theme in his first inaugural address. “This great nation,” he said in 1933, “will endure as it has endured.” Mr. Biden might have echoed them. Instead, he chose to divide.

Mr. Biden invoked “democracy” seven times in 11 minutes. He also presumed to say that in America, “kings and dictators do not rule,” as if this is news to the peasantry. It was one of many allusions to Trump, whom he did not name.

All the doomsday talk hid an inconvenient truth. Anointing an heir from the throne and ignoring the people is how monarchs handle succession. Infringing on the independent judiciary, which Mr. Biden twice called “Supreme Court reform,” also smacks of the crown.

Mr. Biden listed his accomplishments and said he finds “joy in working for the American people.” Why, then, is he no longer willing to lay out his record — which he said “merited a second term” — and trust the people to judge it? Well, because they might make what he has decreed is the wrong choice.

“If Mr. Trump wins,” as I wrote in January for the Sun, “what will Mr. Biden do if he believes it means the end of ‘democracy’?” He’ll have two choices: “Repudiate” all the Adolf “Hitler barbs as “‘malarky,’” or refuse to “surrender the White House to a man he believes to be a dictator.”

Saving democracy is a tremendous and unfair burden to put on Ms. Harris, one that seeks to scare Americans to the polls. As for unifying his party, his rout in all 50 primaries — where Ms. Harris didn’t compete — was just that.

On Truth Social, Trump called the speech “barely understandable, and sooo bad!” But it would’ve fit last summer. Instead, Mr. Biden insisted on running and drove his strongest challenger, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., out of the race and the party.

Mr. Biden’s roundtable condemned the run by a Minnesotan, Congressman Dean Phillips, as insolent. Using brute force, they tried to ensure that only one name appeared on ballots. That’s not democracy, nor is concealing a candidate’s limitations and running an avatar rather than an honest representation.

The coverup succeeded until the mask slipped off and shattered on the debate stage. Only now, after being pushed by donors and powerbrokers, did Mr. Biden relent. The Democratic hoi polloi were never given their say.

Those hoping to hear Mr. Biden’s reasons were disappointed, as were his primary voters, who deserved words of thanks and apology. The speech reminded me of the one he gave as vice president in 2016, which sounded like a campaign launch.

Only at the end did Mr. Biden say he was stepping aside in favor of Secretary Clinton. Another coronation resulted. The Democratic royal court performed it while lecturing voters that Trump threatened democracy, even as they made clear that Senator Sanders wouldn’t be allowed to win the scepter.

Watching the culmination of Mr. Biden’s long goodbye recalled an assessment President Reagan made in his diary. Mr. Biden was, Reagan said during the then-senator’s 1988 White House run, a “smooth but pure demagogue out to save America” from Republicans.

The epithet “demagogue” is common but few bother to define it. The term, according to Merriam-Websters, is “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.” After Wednesday night, those who oppose Mr. Biden may surmise that the slipper fits.

Mr. Biden undercut his apocalyptic talk in his interview with ABC News. He was asked, “If you stay in and Trump is elected — and everything you’re warning about comes to pass — how will you feel in January?”

“I’ll feel,” Mr. Biden said, “as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.” It was in the tradition of great leaders, who remind us that the latest “most important election of our lifetime” is never make-or-break.

For those of Hellenic ancestry like me, inventing democracy is a source of pride. The system has lasted for thousands of years, proving its superiority. No one candidate can destroy it and no one candidate ought to shoulder the burden of saving it.

The republic is not the delicate Fabergé egg Mr. Biden described. It’s built on the rock of the Constitution which, in its wisdom, defuses power. It will endure past November, regardless of whether Americans embrace doomsday prophesies or, as FDR urged them, vote on issues and reject fear itself.