Nearly every speaker at the Democratic National Convention in August spent at least a few moments fluffing the ego of President Joe Biden. Mr. Biden, they gushed, was a true patriot: his decision to step aside and let Vice-President Kamala Harris run at the top of the ticket was putting country before self, America’s future above his own pride.
What they didn’t mention is that Mr. Biden’s selflessness was preceded by a prolonged period of selfishness, during which the President both changed his mind about how long he’d serve and lied to the American people to preserve his image and political ambitions.
When Mr. Biden was running for president in 2020, he implied (though did not say explicitly – at least not in public) that he would not seek a second term in office, referring to himself as a “bridge” and a “transition candidate” who would make way for the leaders of the next generation. He appeared to go back on that roughly a year into his presidency, when he told reporters he planned to run for re-election in 2024. As Mr. Biden’s cognitive decline became more apparent, the party went to great lengths to cover up what was obvious to those behind the scenes, blaming “right-wing propaganda” for stoking concerns about the President’s mental fitness. Special Counsel Robert Hur’s February report described Mr. Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties”; the White House brushed it off.
Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump in June made his decline undeniable, and yet the party still tried to deny it: he was under the weather, he had a “slow start,” or in Mr. Biden’s own words, a “bad night.” Mr. Biden clung to his nomination like an octogenarian clinging to his car keys after his family tries to take away his licence. When he finally yielded the floor, it was largely too late.
Had Mr. Biden followed through and only served one term, or even if he had agreed to step aside earlier (say, when Mr. Hur disclosed that the President couldn’t remember which years he served as vice-president), there would have been time for a primary race – one that ostensibly would have seen a robust exchange of big ideas, arguments and platforms. The candidates would not have been expected to carry the baggage of the Biden administration, as Ms. Harris was during this campaign, and would have been given much more leeway to set out a “change” agenda, which is particularly important in a global climate where populations are largely rejecting incumbent governments. And to state the obvious: an actual primary race might have produced a better candidate.
But there simply wasn’t time in the 107 days Mr. Biden left his party to fight Mr. Trump for control of the White House. Ms. Harris, thus, was tasked with running Schrödinger’s campaign: one of the incumbent and of change at the same time. And she couldn’t do it. When asked during her appearance on the talk show The View what she would have done differently from Mr. Biden over the last four years, Ms. Harris replied, “there is not a thing that comes to mind.” That was the wrong answer when, according to polling throughout and after the campaign, issues such as inflation and immigration were top of voters’ minds.
The Democrats did offer a few morsels to try to address Americans’ economic anxieties (an enhanced child tax credit, for example) and frustrations over immigration (reviving the bipartisan border bill), but it was a forgettable, uninspiring platform that didn’t give Americans much to vote for, only something to vote against. Ms. Harris did always have the option of throwing her boss under the bus and running on a message of change, but to repudiate the Biden agenda would’ve been to repudiate her own. She’s the Vice-President after all; voters who are upset about the price of groceries hold her partly responsible.
The handicap with which Mr. Biden burdened his party wasn’t the sole reason for Ms. Harris’s loss, obviously. Plenty of things went right for the Republicans – and wrong for the Democrats – for Mr. Trump to again find his way to the White House. But the Democrats nevertheless would have had a much better shot if Mr. Biden had vacated the ticket before a groundswell of voices essentially forced him out – only after he and his inner circle deceived the American public, and after a primary race would have been possible.
At the DNC, former president Barack Obama declared that “History will remember Joe Biden as an outstanding president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger.” That was a generous prediction during an optimistic time. With hindsight, history will likely remember him as an obstinate old man who refused to step aside until it was much too late, yielding to another moment of great danger.