People who were trashing Joe Biden two days ago will be singing his praises today.
On Saturday the U.S. president he was an aging, doddering, selfish man, an obstinate 81-year-old who’d chosen to put his own ego above the interests of the country, a fading figure whose refusal to face the reality of his declining abilities was about to deliver the country into the malignant clutches of Donald Trump.
Today he’s a hero — a selfless patriot willing to sacrifice self-interest for the betterment of the nation, a fine and noble man who has devoted his life to working for others and can now leave the scene with his head held high.
It’s going to be a long time before history can make a fair and impartial judgement as to which of these two conflicting portraits is more accurate. It’s dangerous to make hasty judgements when it comes to politics in any case — even if that’s what some of us do for a living — but it’s probably especially the case when sorting out anything to do with the many mysteries of Donald Trump. It’s safe to say the U.S. has never produced a figure like Trump before, nor has it experienced the confluence of national mood, configuration of events and emergence of chance and circumstance that has conspired to elevate him to the position he has come to occupy.
Biden is said to be resentful at being treated as he has. To some degree he has a right to be. He was dissuaded from seeking the Democratic nomination in 2016 because the party and then-President Barack Obama thought Hillary Clinton more deserving of the honour. Clinton then ran an inept campaign and somehow fumbled away an election she should have won, leaving Biden to pick up the pieces four years later when he was already deep into his seventies and proved just barely able to pull off the victory.
Now here he is, ready and willing to have another go at it, and the walls of his party are coming down around him. One-time allies and alleged admirers are telling him he’s too old and feeble to continue, and has a duty to step aside in favour of someone else, even if they’re not sure who else to choose or whether they’ll do any better.
Loyal servant that he is, he’s giving in. He’s quitting, stepping aside, putting his pride behind him and, once again, taking a hit for the party. Can anyone imagine Donald Trump doing the same? Ever? For anyone?
Biden has reason to be upset, though he has no one but himself to blame for the blow that sealed his fate. He demanded an early debate to prove he could easily handle Trump, and knocked himself out instead. He thought he could survive nonetheless and for weeks has insisted he wouldn’t be pushed aside, but too many people have seen the debate and it was never reasonable to believe they could unsee it.
Which leaves them in chaos. Whoever said disruption is good for politics should proceed to give thanks to the Democratic party.
We won’t know until November whether Biden’s departure was the right move to make, but given events of the past several weeks it’s easy to argue the party had little alternative, even this late in the game. Biden seemed all but certain to lose. His support was crumbling, donors were fleeing, the media was howling. Long-time supporters were telling him the game was up.
What happens next is anybody’s guess. Biden won the nomination in 2020 because — despite four years of Trump in the White House — Democrats couldn’t come up with anyone better. Into the final months of the Biden presidency they’re pretty much in the same position. For all the whispers and warnings, no real plans were in place to prepare for the possibility Biden might not be the nominee, so now party leaders have to make it up as they go along.
The obvious first decision is how to choose a replacement; default to Vice President Kamala Harris or pull together a hurried convention in which other ambitious figures would have the chance to make a case for themselves? The ideal scenario would be to unite behind a strong alternative candidate, but unity is a distinction Democrats do not enjoy. While Republicans have abandoned themselves to whatever Donald Trump wants to make of their party, Democrats are a divided body split between a moderate old guard and a loud and fractious leftist insurgency to which the moderates have never understood how to respond. All the signs — Trumpism itself being the most obvious — show Americans aren’t enamoured of the radicals with their gender wars and wokeist agendas, but “progressive” protocol requires paying lip service anyway even if the result is to chase away votes.
An effort to rescue Harris from her own reputation has been underway since the disaster of the debate, but while Americans love a comeback, Harris has the distinction over the past three years of being even less popular than Biden, suggesting her room for resurrection may be limited. Given the short timelines, the situation may argue for an old-fashioned convention, with all its pomp, circumstance and opportunities to rally the troops. If nothing else it might at least distract party members from their differences.
It’s entirely possible the Democrats are doomed, and will lose in November anyway. But under Biden defeat looked like a certainty. Now, who knows, maybe not.
National Post