How his party friends chased Biden out of the race
Recently, Biden could no longer recognize his own Democratic friends, Democrats claim. Many were already displeased with their US President for some time. After the disastrous TV duel against Trump, they broke their silence - and prevented his re-nomination.
Joe Biden chooses an unusual departure. No formal speech at the White House, no grand appearance, but a terse written declaration that the US President releases simultaneously over several social media platforms while he himself is in Corona isolation in his private house in the state of Delaware.
"Dear fellow Americans," he writes - and it's not until four paragraphs later that he gets to the point: "Although it was my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to withdraw and focus solely on the performance of my duties as President for the remainder of my term."
In the coming days, he will give the nation more details about his decision, the 81-year-old announces in another Social Media post. In another Social Media post, he expresses his support for his Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place as the Democratic presidential candidate in the November election. Then there is silence again.
Democrats rebelled openly from late June
This dramatic step is something like a Super-GAU in a US election year, which is already extraordinary - and in which so much is at stake as never before. That a US presidential candidate drops out so close to the election, according to American media, has never happened before. And that a party publicly chases its own incumbent out of the race in the White House about three and a half months before the election is, even for US standards, a remarkable act. The Democrats and the country now face chaotic weeks.
For the party, it is also a chance: To finally put an end to a painful and debilitating debate, to inject enthusiasm into the little-enthusiastic base, and to bring some momentum to their own campaign at the last moment. Euphoria with Biden among the Democrats never came. From the beginning, there were concerns about his age. But there were no alternatives. The Democrats gathered dutifully behind their incumbent. Their concerns about whether he was the right man for another four years in one of the toughest jobs in the world were expressed only behind closed doors.
Biden's complete withdrawal from the TV duel against the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in late June was a turning point: In the face of his disastrous performance before millions of viewers, many in the party could no longer remain silent. There was open rebellion. Several dozen Democrats publicly called on their party colleague to withdraw from the race.
A tarnished political legacy
A stubborn Biden fought for three and a half agonizing weeks to prevent an early departure and declared, among other things, that only God could make him step down from the race. In his desperate attempts to quell the revolt, he made one embarrassing mistake after another, one gaffe after another.
And with each day that Biden continued to fight against the inevitable, more and more Democrats publicly took positions against him and shared painful insights into his condition: for example, that he could no longer recognize some of them at encounters. His struggle for political survival became an unwelcome spectacle. Biden himself was not innocent.
That Biden's long political career ends in this way is bitter. He could have made history as the president who drove Trump out of the White House and stabilized the country, who led the USA out of the coronavirus crisis, revived the economy, and initiated unprecedented investments in climate protection and infrastructure. But his dishonorable departure dealt a lasting blow to his political legacy.
Trump lag ahead in polls for months
Now he goes down in history as one who struggled heavily towards the end and yet refused to let go. Was it out of pride? Arrogance? Biden managed to make it into the White House only in his third attempt - as the oldest US president of all time. Perhaps the fact that it was so difficult for him to get there made letting go harder. The Democrat himself claims that he decided to run for re-election out of a sense of responsibility. Until the end, he maintained that there was no one in the country better suited for the job - and only he could beat Trump again.
But that turned out to be overly ambitious. In fact, as an incumbent with a very impressive record, Biden should have had an easy game against a convicted criminal, who attempted to sabotage the election outcome four years ago and incited his followers to a violent attack on the US Capitol. But for months, Trump was ahead in the polls. Biden's external condition overshadowed his achievements for a long time.
The party had no alternative candidates ready
Above all, Biden himself is to blame for this. In 2020, he ran as a transitional candidate to defeat Trump and then pass the baton to the next generation. But he didn't give up power and failed to systematically build up a successor.
Yes, his deputy Harris was also unable to live up to the high expectations and hopes placed on her. She was invisible in the past three and a half years, appeared unsophisticated, inauthentic, and made mistakes. Biden assigned her impossible tasks, such as "containing root causes." Only at the last minute did she gain some profile on the abortion issue.
In their desperate situation, the Democrats are now looking at Harris as Biden's potential successor and are seeing her past weaknesses in a big way, primarily for pragmatic reasons. As Biden's vice president and above all the first woman and first Black person in that role, it would be difficult to overlook her. Moreover, she has national recognition and could potentially tap into the Wahlkampfapparat and likely also the collected donations of the previous Biden-Harris campaign. Whether the party follows Biden's suggestion and sends her as number one into the election is to be seen. Whether she has a chance to defeat Trump is another matter entirely.
Despite Joe Biden's initial plans to seek re-election for the United States Presidential Election 2024, the disastrous TV duel against Donald Trump led to open rebellion among Democrats. In response, Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, supporting Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate.
In light of Biden's struggles, some Democrats openly criticized his ability to recognize familiar faces and questioned his fitness for another term. These concerns, along with his weak performance in the TV duel, led to a significant surge in opposition against Biden within the party.
