Word is that President Biden may surrender the Democratic nomination, rendering the primary process a farce. He’ll do so not because he cannot serve, but because the truth his party concealed is now laid bare, harming their chances of beating President Trump and Republicans down-ballot.

On Monday, Mr. Biden told an NBC anchor, Lester Holt, he’d “gotten more done than any president has in a long, long time” and was “willing to be judged on that.” He stressed that 14 million people voted for him “to be the nominee” and “I listen to them.”

Now Mr. Biden may turn a deaf ear. Note that no Democrats are telling him to resign or invoking the 25th Amendment. They just want to swap him out because he’s trailing, neutralizing millions of dollars and years of effort President Trump has spent to contrast his record with Mr. Biden’s.

“You can’t love your country,” Mr. Biden said in his 2024 State of the Union address, “only when you win.” He has responded to concerns about his faculties by saying, “Watch me.” Yet he doesn’t love that he may lose because of what voters see.

Speculation is that replacements will be offered from on high, like the Democratic “sachems” of New York City’s notorious Tammany Hall. With just 30 days before the convention at Chicago, voters will have no say.

Democrats, who have spent years warning that Trump threatens democracy, will simply refuse to accept the primary election results. A menu of candidates will be presented to a select few and, unable to kick the tires, delegates may buy another lemon.

“This is what democracy looks like,” is a popular Democratic line. Now, that tune has changed. They’ve decided that goofs and fabrications of the sort Mr. Biden has been making for 50 years can no longer be hidden from the public.

It was insulating Mr. Biden from view that Democrats had in mind when they drove challengers like the independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., out of their primaries. Had Mr. Biden not refused to engage or debate, the ballot box might have delivered a stronger nominee.

Instead, any time someone raised concerns, Democrats responded with denials. Just six weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal was savaged by the White House and its allies in the press for reporting that “behind closed doors” Mr. Biden was “showing signs of slipping.”

Officeholders worked to hide the decline, too. On Wednesday, the Democratic candidate for Senate in California, Congressman Adam Schiff, called for Mr. Biden to withdraw. What’s changed since March when Mr. Schiff confronted the special counsel, Robert Hur?

Mr. Schiff objected to Mr. Hur’s report, in which he declined to prosecute Mr. Biden over mishandling classified documents. The president, Mr. Hur wrote, would come across as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” to a jury.

“You say it wasn’t political,” Mr. Schiff said of Mr. Hur’s report, “and yet you must have understood … the impact.” He alleged that the special counsel knew his words “would be amplified” by Trump and “influence a political campaign.”

Either Democrats like Mr. Schiff had no idea that Mr. Biden would be unable to compete until his blundering hit prime time or they masterminded a coverup and want a mulligan now that they got caught. Democracy will let the voters decide.

Presidential nominees have faced defeat before. Neither party has ever suggested setting the people’s votes aside at this late date. In 2002, one New Jersey Democrat, Senator Torricelli — embattled by scandal — was replaced with another, Senator Lautenberg, a month before the election.

Democrats held that seat, convincing the state supreme court to overrule a law banning the late ballot change. The party suffered a black eye, and now they propose to pull the same switch with Mr. Biden, an act sure to invite litigation.

Some of the Democratic base will embrace a new candidate, others will rebel at having their votes cast aside, and the sachems will have split the party. To replace Mr. Biden means favoring power over the people and exposing them as loving democracy only when they win.