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It took an almighty push from Democrats to get Joe Biden out of the race. After the debate I thought he would be gone within a week, since what was already obvious had suddenly become undeniable to everyone except him and his coterie. But in the following days and weeks he dug in with such ferocity that it seemed as if he might just face everyone down - including the voters, who would then get their revenge in November.
It was an almost awesome display of egotistical stubbornness, and an increasingly infuriating one. Biden seemed prepared to destroy his whole party, and perhaps his country, in order to protect his delusions. Yet as soon as he announced his withdrawal the people who had campaigned hardest to get him out of the race rushed to declare him a hero.
The New York Times virtually performed a 21-gun salute. Its columnist Ezra Klein, who to his great credit did more than anyone else in the media to hasten Biden’s demise, immediately hailed Biden “an actual hero”. He tweeted, “This is what America First looks like when it’s a lived ethos”. Another columnist, Frank Bruni, described Biden’s decision as an act of “fundamental humility”. The same paper’s editorial board said that Biden had “placed the national interest above his own pride and ambition”. It wasn’t just the NYT; virtually the whole of America’s liberal establishment took out their hankies and wiped an eye. The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos wrote, “He has made the rarest of choices in the desiccated, demoralized politics of our time: he has sacrificed his own ambition for the sake of the country.”
What a carnival of cant. To state the screamingly obvious, Biden was forced out of the race. He did not go of his own accord. He got out because there came a point when even he realised that fighting an election when most of your party have declared no confidence in you was an act of suicidal stupidity. The politicians and donors who had already called for him to go were just the first; there were plenty more where they came from. No, Biden did not look deep within himself, channel his inner George Washington, and lay aside personal ambition on behalf of the Republic. He looked up and realised he was surrounded.
This ceremony of moist eyes would have made sense if Biden had announced his intention to serve only one term earlier - say at the start of 2023. He would have been making it from a position of strength. His party had just done remarkably well in the midterms. The economy was motoring again. He had passed several big bills. He had brought together NATO in support of Ukraine. If he’d stepped down then, which he plainly ought to have done, he would have been awarded full canonisation, and deserved it.
This is not just the kind of thing that’s easy to say in hindsight; it made sense at the time. Running for a second term at the age of 81, when you don’t seem in the best of shape, was always an insane proposition. Even though his party had done well in 2022, his own approval ratings were already in the toilet. Voters were sending a clear signal that he shouldn’t try his luck in 2024. But if he had swallowed his ambition at that point, nobody would remember the approval ratings. Biden would be remembered as the hero who lanced the monster and restored America’s global prestige, before sloping off to Delaware, mission accomplished.
As it is, he stuck around long enough to allow the monster to revive, and also to turn his own party into a laughing stock. How did they end up with this guy as their candidate? It wasn’t just the sight of his cognitive or physical decline that was so painfully apparent in the debate; it was the lack of seriousness. He called Trump “a sucker and a loser” and attacked his golf game. The grown-up in the room had become another overgrown kid. Does anyone know what Biden wanted a second term for?
Most infuriatingly, he stuck around long enough to land his party with a candidate who is only marginally stronger than he would have been.
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