President Joe Biden waves goodbye at the end of his speech at the Democratic National Convention, on Aug. 19 in Chicago.Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press
It is an incontrovertible rule of politics that party conventions focus on the future, not the past. Still, it has been jarring to watch Democrats in Chicago nominating Kamala Harris as their presidential nominee talk their way around the Joe Biden era as if it never existed and their party has not controlled the White House since 2021.
If you had just woken up after four years to tune into the Democratic National Convention in the Windy City, you might be forgiven for thinking that Donald Trump was still president. And that Ms. Harris was a fresh face promising “a new way forward” out of the Dark Ages, rather than still Vice-President in the sitting Democratic administration.
To be sure, there were all those “Thank you, Joe!” signs that delegates held up on Monday night as Mr. Biden took the stage, albeit well after the almost half of Americans who live in the Eastern time zone had gone to bed, to deliver the speech he never wanted to give.
Just what exactly they were thanking him for was mostly left to the imagination. Thank you for not making a scene on your way out the door?
As he jogged on to the stage at the United Center, wiping away tears after his daughter Ashley’s touching introduction, Mr. Biden elicited more pity than plaudits. After being pushed off his party’s presidential ticket by some of the very people who had taken, or would take, to the same stage to praise him, he has emerged a great tragic figure of American politics. He had been held back for most of his 50-year career by rival forces within his party, only to attain power too late in life to effectively exercise or hold on to it. Poor Joe.
“I’ve either been too young to be in the Senate, because I wasn’t 30 yet, or too old to stay as President,” Mr. Biden said in a bittersweet goodbye. “But I hope you know how grateful I am to all of you.”
Elected to the U.S. Senate at 29 – two weeks shy of the eligible age of 30 – Mr. Biden had overcome adversity and a chip on his shoulder inherited from his father, who had gone from riches to rags when Joe still was a child. Even the nuns at his Catholic school mocked his stutter. But when he got knocked down, he always followed his father’s admonition to “get up” instead of feeling sorry for himself. Even after his then wife and daughter were killed in a car accident six weeks after his first election.
He first ran for president in 1987. He was undone by revelations that he plagiarized the speech of a former British Labour politician, though he felt he was unfairly squeezed out of the race by rivals in his own party.
He became Barack Obama’s vice-president, but was under appreciated by his boss, for whom he performed the thankless job of twisting arms in Congress. When he wanted to run for the top job in 2016, Mr. Obama told him it was Hillary Clinton’s turn.
Mr. Biden still believes he could have beaten Mr. Trump that year, and he has never forgiven Mr. Obama scuttling his ambitions then. When special counsel Robert Hur interviewed Mr. Biden last fall, his memory was already failing him. Yet, he still clearly recalled that in 2016 “a lot of people … were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president.”
On Tuesday night, Michelle Obama gave a rousing address in favour of Ms. Harris’s candidacy, even calling her “one of the most qualified people to ever seek the office of the presidency.” She surgically dismembered the stick figure at the top Republican ticket. But she did not utter Mr. Biden’s name once, much less thank him.
Her husband did offer praise for the 46th president, but did not dwell on it. “History will remember Joe Biden as an outstanding President who defended democracy at a moment of great danger,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, the torch has been passed.”
Well, not quite. Mr. Biden has five months left in his presidency and a slew of domestic and foreign policy crises to manage. Americans still have no clue how Ms. Harris would deal with them or any others that might arise on her watch. She claims to offer Americans new way forward. It’s just that no one yet one knows where she wants to take them. Likely not even her.
The stakes in this election are so high, and the threat Mr. Trump poses to democracy so great, that pushing the 81-year-old Mr. Biden toward the exit was the right thing for Democrats to do. But their shoddy treatment of him at this week’s convention was nevertheless a sad epilogue to a sad political saga. Scranton Joe deserved better.