President Joe Biden pauses as he speaks at a news conference on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington, on July 11. Biden dropped out of the 2024 race for the White House on Sunday, ending his bid for reelection.Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press
Debra Thompson is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail.
What was once considered to be a somewhat tame, less pandemic-ridden rematch of the 2020 presidential election just a few short months ago has now entered unprecedented political territory. The chaos would almost be exciting if American democracy didn’t hang in the balance.
On Sunday, embattled U.S. President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy from the presidential election. Promising to give more details about his decision later this week, Mr. Biden wrote on social media that it is “in the best interests of my party and my country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
This was clearly both the right and the only move for Mr. Biden to make. After his catastrophic performance during his debate against former president Donald Trump last month, the (so-called liberal) media latched on to the question of whether Mr. Biden had the mental acumen to continue as head of the executive branch of the government of the United States for another four years.
But Mr. Biden’s resignation only came after weeks of turmoil within the Democratic Party. Donors threatened to withdraw their support, and, more damningly, many of the President’s ardent supporters – including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Leader of House Democrats Hakeem Jeffries, and even former president Barack Obama – reportedly suggested to Mr. Biden in private that he reconsider his hardline stance of staying in the race. Future historians won’t have to struggle with the question of whether Mr. Biden fell or if he was pushed, because the record is clear – if there even are historians in the future, that is.
The political reaction to Biden’s withdrawal from presidential race
A surprising turn of events in the presidential nomination process of the Democratic Party isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Nor would an open Democratic convention, scheduled to be held in Chicago next month, be the end of the world for the party’s chances of not being completely decimated in competition for the 468 Congressional seats (33 Senate and all 435 of the House of Representatives) that are up for grabs this November.
Unpredictability is an important part of democracy. A central principle of democratic rule is the concept of “bounded uncertainty,” which means that the possibility of electoral change must exist. We do not know in advance which party will win and what policies they will pursue, and even in a country that has long been dominated by a particular governing party, there is always the chance that former electoral winners will become the new losers this time around. The same logic holds true within political parties, one of the core vehicles in a democracy for mobilizing and articulating collective interests.
But what’s good for democracy writ large might ruin the Democratic Party’s chances of retaining the presidency come November. The recent internal conflict and chaos stand in stark opposition to the party’s political strategy in the elections of 2020, and even the midterms in 2022, in which they tried to project an image as the more reasonable, internally coherent option between the two parties for governing the country.
In contrast – and somewhat shockingly for those of us who have followed the longue durée of American politics – the Republican Party now appears to be much more unified in its goals, platform and priorities than the Democrats. Republicans have now fallen in line behind and in support of Donald Trump. Former rivals for the presidential nomination, including former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appeared as a united front for the Trump campaign during the Republican National Convention last week.
Mr. Biden, likely hoping to instill some sense of continuity in the midst of the chaos, has endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to replace him as the presidential nominee. This could work, especially if Democrats decide to wholeheartedly unify around Ms. Harris and find a way to spin these unexpected mishaps into a message of calm and coherence.
That said, the best time for Mr. Biden to have resigned himself to the fact that he would be a one-term president was at least a year-and-a-half ago. This is the first time a sitting American President has withdrawn from the race this late in the electoral season, and the effect is that Ms. Harris, if she does pursue, win, and accept the Democratic nomination, has a little more than 100 days to turn this ship around. Her messaging will need to be careful and clear if the Democrats hope to overcome this latest dose of political chaos in America’s democracy.