After the first presidential debate, President Joe Biden was among the few people in the United States who didn't understand his campaign was over, finished, kaput, done for. Power corrupts, but it also intoxicates and blinds.
His close associates and confidants didn't want or couldn't see what everyone else saw during the presidential debate: this sharp man, one of the most successful presidents in terms of legislation and political ability, is no longer fit to be the presidential candidate. Now, after the Democratic Party has shown Biden the door, it needs to be said plainly: someone who’s unfit as a candidate due to their health and age can’t serve as president.
Only Biden doesn't think he's unfit. He believes he lost the party's support unjustly. That he was betrayed in the ugliest way by those who only returned to power thanks to him. How can we know what Biden thinks? Via Ron Klain, of course.
Biden's senior and closest advisor for many years, his former chief of staff, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): " Now that the donors and electeds [sic] have pushed out the only candidate who has ever beaten Trump, it’s time to end the political fantasy games and unite behind the only veteran of a national campaign — our outstanding Kamala Harris!! Let’s get real and win in November!”
This isn’t a statement from someone who understands Biden suffers from a competence issue as president – but someone who believes a nasty coup took place within the Democratic Party.
Klain agrees to grit his teeth for now to save the Biden administration. A lot of sweet talk and honeyed flattery will now be spread within the party to try to soften the impression of the staged coup. Everyone, including Biden, will have an interest in turning the president who withdrew from the race into an old and respected oracle, a trailblazer, an inspiration. The process began last night.
A precedent-setting moment
We’re witnessing an earthquake, a precedent-setting moment in American politics. Other U.S. presidents have decided not to run for another term — Lyndon Johnson is a notable example. But none of them withdrew due to claims of medical unfitness, especially after winning the primaries. The Democratic Party's mechanism has revealed a failure: it chose to unite around tradition (where the incumbent president almost always gets the party's nomination).
The era we live in isn’t one of esteemed political traditions and cigar-smoke-filled room deals, but one of rebellion and disruption. Donald Trump has been embodying this disruption since 2016 when he eliminated one establishment Republican candidate after another. Democratic activists should have understood that you can't hide, put on makeup, place teleprompters everywhere, and hope to save the free world by doing so.
To them, Trump is the man who will destroy liberal America. And yet — they chose positive thinking and political engineering. There isn’t much to say in their defense, except that Biden’s condition has sharply deteriorated in recent months.
A good example of this is his visit to Israel in October, right after Hamas’s attack. Those who spoke with him from Netanyahu’s government claimed he was sharp and knowledgeable. At 82, every month that passes can change everything.
There was nothing dignified about the bloody struggle that unfolded within the Democratic Party. It was a pathetic fight for Biden and his people against the obvious. No Democratic candidate will win the election when the New York Times says he’s no longer fit to be president. No candidate will win when a large part of his party rebels against him — not due to his opinions, but his mental capacities. When he fails to raise money to fund the campaign.
A dignified exit despite it all
Nonetheless, the letter Biden issued was a dignified end to a distinguished career of an American public servant. One who was always there. Ahead of the 2020 elections, I published the protocol of Biden's secret meeting with Golda Meir, a month before the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Even then, he was an important U.S. senator. Biden was and remains a symbol of the U.S. as a superpower, from those fading glory days when America knew how to use power well — and shape the global map.
More importantly: Biden maintained his image as a decent man, connected to the American consciousness. His presidency was incredibly effective. He passed a series of historic legislations, sometimes with Republican support, and revived the economy after the devastation left by COVID-19 and the Trump administration.
Biden never managed to overcome the dramatic rise in living costs and inflation in the first two years of his term, but all the current data looks positive (for example, wage growth is higher than inflation). These are arguments Biden himself won’t need to make; these are Kamala Harris’s problems now.
What happened to the Democratic Party reminds of the Yiddish joke about the man who tosses and turns in bed because of his huge debt to the town's wealthy man. A debt so large it torments him. He has no way to repay it.
An idea dawns on him, and he goes to the wealthy man's house and announces loudly: I won't repay the debt. I can't. Now — you're the one who won't get any sleep. Biden just told the Democrats — it's not my job anymore. You wanted another candidate? You got it. It's your job. You won’t get any sleep. More accurately: she won’t.
A clear mark for a successor
Kamala Harris was crowned by Biden about twenty minutes after his letter was published to the media, in a separate post he made on X. It was a self-evident decision; any other choice would have plunged the Democratic Party into an endless civil war. But Harris is also the only one who continues the current administration, is part of it, and can use presidential symbols in her campaign — marking a huge advantage.
The Clintons, the political organizations that supported Biden and other powerful figures have already expressed their support for her. Her presidential candidacy, if confirmed, is yet another historic moment in an election campaign that never stops giving us drama: for the first time, a non-white woman, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, is running for the U.S. presidency.
According to every poll published so far, especially after his assassination attempt, Donald Trump was and remains the clear favorite to win the general election. But we live in hectic times. This election has already had more drama than most elections in recent decades — and we’re not even in August. America loves good, new stories. Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party will do everything to try and tell them. The polls are against them, but the elections are starting now.