Opinion
Biden couldn’t withstand the friendly fire. But will his self-sacrifice save the Democrats?
Nick Bryant
Journalist and authorAround us an epic history swirls. A president in self-isolation because of COVID, and in political isolation nursing the wounds from his catastrophic debate performance, has decided, with great anguish, to pass on the torch.
A week after his rival, Donald Trump, survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden suffered too much friendly fire from within his own party to remain viable as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Illustration by Marija Ercegovac.Credit:
America’s commander-in-chief became the target of a bloodless onslaught. From his retreat at Rehoboth Beach, he had little choice but to hoist the white flag.
When it became clear that senior party figures, such as the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, were pressuring him to step down, and that his former boss, Barack Obama, was unwilling to defend him publicly, Biden acknowledged his position had become untenable.
His fellow octogenarian Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic House Speaker, was also pivotal. One of her daughters once famously remarked that Pelosi could take off your head without you even noticing any bleeding.
But Biden would have felt the full impact of Pelosi’s appearance on his favourite political talk show, Morning Joe, in the days after his debate with Donald Trump, when she opened the door on him stepping aside by stating that he needed to make a quick decision on whether to run. Pelosi had granted permission to her party to openly discuss the age issue – his inoperable problem – and for Democratic donors to halt the flow of money, the lifeblood of US politics.
Joe Biden boarding Air Force One on July 17 after testing positive to COVID. Credit: NYT
Biden’s internal dialogue, the story he has told himself for decades as a senator, vice president and president, is that he is always underestimated but triumphs in the end. Yet for all his self-certainty and sentimentalism, he is also a pragmatist and a realist. After 50 years in Washington, few better understand the cold, and often cruel, calculus of power.
In this historic moment, there is a history we can call upon. These are not “uncharted waters”, the lazy cliche that too often gets trotted out. Harry S. Truman stepped aside as the Democrat’s presumptive presidential nominee in 1952. In March 1968, Lyndon Baines Johnson, in a dramatic televised address, announced he would also not seek re-election.
In both instances, the Republicans went on to win the White House. In a doubly worrying portent for the Democrats, it was Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who lost against Richard Nixon.
But there is also a more recent history that validates Biden’s decision. American voters tend to punish presidents viewed as either weak or past their prime. That is what happened with Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H. W. Bush in 1992. Even before that disastrous debate, Biden had the look, and poll numbers, of a fellow one-termer.
For the Democrats, replacing Biden is by no means a panacea, the antidote to the poison of Trumpism. A prime reason the president had decided to seek a second term – which went back on his pitch four years ago that he would be a transitional figure and a bridge to the next generation – was because he feared Kamala Harris could not beat Trump.
His 59-year-old vice president, whom he crowned heir apparent within minutes of withdrawing, will confront racism and misogyny. Republicans are already blaming her for the immigration crisis and reminding voters that Joe Biden made her his “border tsar”.
The Trump campaign, moreover, had already argued that a vote for President Biden was essentially a vote for a future president Harris, a warning with electoral resonance. Though they would have preferred to take on Biden, Harris is already being cast as a Californian liberal whose views are anathema to mainstream voters.
Her vulnerability in the all-important Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may explain the hesitancy of figures such as Obama and Pelosi, who pointedly have not endorsed her candidacy.
However, they also know a bitter nominating contest at next month’s Democratic convention in Chicago could split the party and splinter the anti-Trump coalition they need to assemble for victory. Denying a woman of colour the nomination carries enormous risks, not least because black women have become the party’s most loyal demographic.
The gracelessness of Trump in this moment will hopefully have not been lost on wavering voters, many of them suburban women. “Crooked Joe was not fit to run,” he blasted, having already labelled him “the worst president in history”.
But the truth is that historians will regard Biden as among the more consequential leaders to occupy the White House, not least because he stopped Trump in 2020 from winning a second term.
If his self-sacrifice pays off, and the Democrats win in November, he’ll occupy an even more exalted perch in the presidential pantheon.
Nick Bryant, a former BBC Washington correspondent, is the author of The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself.
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