For most of this year, the US presidential election looked like it would be a slow-motion clash between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. By the midpoint of 2023, Trump had surged to an unassailable lead among Republican primary voters. Despite his low approval ratings, Joe Biden has never faced a significant primary challenger.
But last month, the long-awaited rematch between Trump and Biden fell apart. Biden finally announced that he would drop out of the race for reelection — the first sitting president since 1968 to forgo a chance at reelection.
Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate with Trump dealt a brutal blow to his reelection campaign. It stoked fears that Biden would not be able to fundamentally change the dynamics of the race and launched a growing offensive from the progressive coalition: Editorials called for him to drop out, and behind-the-scenes complaints from elected Democrats escalated into public demands that he “pass the baton.” Donations dried up, and the Democratic establishment sent signals that it was willing to inflict more political pain on Biden if he didn’t do their bidding.
Biden knew he couldn’t fight a two-front war against his fellow Democrats and a Republican Party unified around Donald Trump. Biden’s Democratic critics had already given Trump considerable ammunition that he could use against the president in the general election. For example, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton wrote a article opinion for the newspaper Boston Globe raising doubts about Biden’s memory.
Such allegations could serve not only as fodder for campaign ads in the fall, but also as substance to question Biden’s fitness to remain president. Unlike Trump after the video of Access Hollywood, [Nota da tradução: o vídeo do site Access Hollywood, gravado em 2005 e divulgado em outubro de 2016, revelou comentários vulgares e degradantes feitos por Donald Trump sobre mulheres. No vídeo, Trump, que estava em um ônibus com o apresentador Billy Bush, descreveu seu comportamento sexualmente agressivo e se gabou de beijar e apalpar mulheres sem consentimento] Biden faced several more months in the general election campaign. And although the video of Access Hollywood was damaging, it was a one-time leak. Every appearance Biden made after the first debate was scrutinized for his age and fitness to serve; the verdict was not positive. It would have been another brutal three and a half months of this, with a lot at stake.
Still, it would be a mistake to attribute Biden’s downfall solely to that debate. His reelection challenges were more structural. He has a negative net approval rating since September 2021, just after the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Inflation, the proliferation of international crises, and his leftward shift on identity issues have fundamentally undermined his presidency. Biden’s age was both a symbol and a cause for voters’ doubts about him; his increasingly disjointed public appearances only confirmed the sense that he was not up to the job of the presidency.
In his X withdrawal announcement, Biden also endorsed Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee, sparking a wave of support for her from other Democrats. Virginia Senator Mark Warner; South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn (whose endorsement was decisive in 2020); and Bill and Hillary Clinton are among the many high-profile Democrats who have endorsed the vice president.
Other prominent Democratic figures were more circumspect. Barack Obama simply endorsed “a process from which an exceptional candidate emerges.” Biden can’t simply hand the nomination to Harris, of course; she would likely have to win it through this “process,” whatever that turns out to be. Regardless of whether Harris is the party’s final nominee, Biden’s decision to drop out ends a period of paralysis that has gripped the Democratic Party over the past month.
In this historic showdown between the progressive establishment and the sitting president of the United States, the progressive establishment has won. Since the beginning of his career in Washington in 1972, Joe Biden has always been a party man. Now the party has decided it is time for him to go.
©2024 City Journal. Published with permission. Original in English: Bowing to Reality
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