Now that the dust has settled and the Democratic Party is rallying quickly and forcefully around Vice President Kamala Harris, a nagging question remains.
What took them so long?
The party breathed a huge sigh of relief after President Biden announced he would abandon his re-election campaign and urged the party to unite behind Harris.
“I have decided that the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation,” Biden said last week, in a tone reminiscent of John F. Kennedy in his Oval Office address. “That is the best way to unite our nation.”
That was, and should have been, the plan all along, but somewhere along the way a disillusioned Biden convinced himself that he and he alone could finish the job he had started.
But he was not up to the task. We can say that now. A few months ago, we could only whisper it, for fear of offending Biden loyalists and discrediting the country’s older population.
Then came the debate, the one where we ignored all of Donald Trump’s lies — the lies about abortion, the lies about inflation, the lies about immigration — and zoomed in on all of Biden’s mistakes, the unfinished sentences, the weak, hoarse voice.
There would be no going back. The Biden era was over.
“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all of that deserved a second term,” Biden said. “But nothing — nothing — can stand in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.”
There is no shame in Biden’s decline. The job has worn out much younger men.
Nothing tells this story better than before-and-after photos showing how presidents age under the pressures of the White House.
Former President Barack Obama, who was just 55 when he left the White House, tried to attribute the gray color of his mane to genetics.
“It just happened to coincide with the presidency,” Obama said while still in office,
Even Obama was good at lying from time to time.
Even one-term presidents like George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter have aged before our eyes.
Biden is now 81 years old. How much do you think he has aged in the last four years?
We have to admit that Biden did what we asked him to do: he sent Trump home.
Anything beyond that, like lowering prescription drug prices, alleviating student debt and appointing a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, was just icing on the cake.
Biden was supposed to be a simple bridge. But his critics said he was starting to look like a bridge to nowhere.
And by waiting so long to step down, Biden has given his successor just weeks to launch his campaign.
But wait. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe Biden really is a genius.
If Biden had withdrawn earlier, there would have been a tough and bitter primaries, and a lot of money would have been spent on divisive campaigns.
Democrats would have torn each other apart instead of attacking Donald Trump.
In this way, the party can present a strong candidate, who is not burdened by the difficulties of an election campaign. There is not enough time for all this.
“Today I signed the forms officially declaring my candidacy for President of the United States,” Harris wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday. “I will work hard to earn every vote. And in November, our grassroots campaign will win.”
Harris has secured the nomination. Even without winning a single primary vote as a presidential candidate, Harris has united her party ahead of next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Or maybe Biden did. Not bad for an old man.
