USA, Dems No Longer Credible

“It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as your president. And while it was my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country that I step aside and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” With these words, US Vice President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race for the White House on Sunday afternoon. In his letter, the 46th President of the United States did not mention his health, but it was clear that he had to give in to the excessive pressure on this issue, which has intensified in recent weeks. If the Republicans had already begun to point to Biden’s precarious mental state some time ago, the Democrats, it was rumoured, were also concerned about his health and his ability to perform in the most important and powerful seat in the world. It has to be said that his capitulation was in the air. Biden had been described as a proud and rather stubborn man who had fought hard all his life to reach the top echelons of US politics and who would not have given up the role of US president easily, blind to those who accused him of having come to Washington only because there were no other names to choose from among the Democrats. Now, however, perhaps under pressure from within his own party, he has officially announced that he will not run for the White House, breaking even the unwritten custom of the outgoing president being re-elected for a second term. In his letter, Biden also announced that he would soon address the nation to further explain his decision. It is difficult to predict what Biden will say, how he will justify his decision.

Joe Biden’s resignation: A blow to his presidency and the Democratic Party’s reputation

His resignation, however, raises an issue of no small political significance. By giving up the possibility of being re-elected to lead the United States for another four years, Joe Biden is effectively admitting that he is unfit for the role. But it is a role that he has held since 2020, that he continues to hold today, and that he will continue to hold for several weeks after the November elections. In practice, Joe Biden has admitted that for four years, and especially in the coming months, he has been unfit to sit in the most powerful chair in the world. A situation that is made worse by the fact that his mental state has been the subject of debate for some time. It goes back, for example, to the campaign that led to his election in 2019, the nickname Sleepy Joe, given to him by Donald Trump for obvious reasons. All of this could have a significant impact on the outcome of the next round of elections: the indirect admission of Joe Biden’s incompetence could also damage the reputation of the Democratic Party, which would then be guilty of having nominated and elected a person who was not capable of holding the most important office in the world. The image of all the Democrats who have spoken words of support and praise for Biden over the years would be tarnished. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, wrote a scathing critique of the Democrats in X: “Anyone who calls on Joe Biden to withdraw his candidacy without also calling on him to resign the presidency demonstrates an absurd level of cynicism. If you can’t run, you can’t serve. He should resign now. The message is clear: Joe Biden cannot continue to lead the United States.

Three and a half years of failure

In the letter, there is almost an attempt to hide the issue, to conceal the fact that Biden’s incompetence has been apparent for some time. Indeed, the letter begins with a series of milestones that the American president boasts of having achieved: ‘Over the past three and a half years,’ he wrote, ‘we have made great progress as a nation. Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We have made historic investments in rebuilding our nation, lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and extending affordable health care to a record number of Americans. Provided critical care to one million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years. Nominated the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been in a better position to lead than we are today. Words that would probably still hold up the great sandcastle built by the Democrats to paint Biden as a good president, while ignoring the failures that have come in the areas of immigration management, the woke drifts in schools and universities invaded by pro-Palestinian protesters and Lgbt defenders, and the green drifts that have raised the cost of living unchecked. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump’s reaction was strong: ‘Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for president and certainly not fit to serve – and never has been! He only got to be president by lying, fake news and never leaving his basement. Now look what he has done to our country, with millions of people crossing our borders completely unchecked and unvetted, many from prisons and mental institutions, and record numbers of terrorists. We will suffer greatly from his presidency, but we will quickly undo all the damage he has done.

Harris failed

Biden’s resignation raises another problem: that of choosing his replacement in the race for the White House. The Democrats, barring any further surprises, seem determined to choose Kamala Harris, the current US vice-president, who has already won Biden’s full support (“My very first decision as the party’s nominee for 2020 was to choose Kamala Harris as my vice president. And it was the best decision I ever made. Today, I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be our party’s nominee this year’) and other party bigwigs such as Hillary Clinton. However, the choice of Harris could prove just as fruitless. Firstly, because Harris has never enjoyed much name recognition among voters and within the Democratic Party itself, scraping together a measly 1% in the primaries, and was chosen as vice president only because she was close to President Biden’s choices (as was the case with Biden and Obama himself). Second, because Harris stands in continuity with Biden: she has unhesitatingly supported all his worst policies, she has been one of his biggest supporters since the president started giving important, worrying signals about his state of health. She continued to praise Biden after he became the new presidential candidate: ‘Joe Biden’s accomplishments are unprecedented in modern history,’ she said. In this context, with so much uncertainty in the Democratic world, and with his credibility now in question, it is clear that Trump, strengthened by his new pairing with Vance, his successor to many, has a strong advantage. The Republicans are ahead in the polls and, paradoxically, his words of national reconciliation after the assassination attempt in which he risked his life have succeeded in restoring an institutional and international standing that years of misinformation had eroded.