Long before President Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, I said that Joe Biden was too old to be president for another 4 years and for the good of the country he needed to drop out. But Biden continued to insist that he was mentally and physically up for the job and the best person to beat Trump.
After the debate, I was more adamant that President Biden needed to step aside, while Joe doubled down on staying in the race. As more Democrats lined up in opposition to Biden staying in the race, I wrote this in a blog published on Monday, July 8:
Joe Biden’s insistence on staying in the race seems to put party first and country second and that’s not the way it should be. We ALL should stop putting party first. In America - it should be country first and party second - but that is not America’s current reality.
On Sunday, July 21, President Biden made it official and announced he was dropping out of the race. And here is part of Biden’s statement”
I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.
Many high-ranking Democrats and Democrat voters were shocked by Biden’s announcement, even though we had talked about the reports explaining the probability that President Biden could drop out this weekend.
Shortly after announcing he was stepping aside, Biden endorsed VP Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination and a number of notable Democrats followed by endorsing Harris, including 51 of Louisiana’s 53 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. But Harris will have to win the nomination at the upcoming convention August 19 - 22 in Chicago.
As vice president, Harris has a lot of experience with foreign matters and has been in the room with the president during countless key meetings, which gives her a huge advantage over other possible candidates when it comes to being ready to run the country.
But there are other candidates that will have their names mentioned as potential candidates for the Democrat nomination. Get ready because Biden dropping out of the race will bring instant excitement to what would have been a very boring convention.
What is really fascinating is the predictable reaction from top Republicans and Trump supporters. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is questioning the legality of Biden dropping out at this point.
Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner claimed that Biden dropping out is a threat to democracy. Since the Democrats have yet to have their convention, the chatter about legality and a threat to democracy are signs of deep concern because it has been believed within the Trump Campaign that Joe Biden was the best and easiest candidate for Trump to defeat. In fact, the strategy for Trump has been targeting candidate Joe Biden, but now Trump’s campaign will have to scramble to quickly develop a new strategy. But they don’t know for sure who the next candidate will be.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said that the reaction from Republicans says a lot about the concern many have over a new candidate. Also, Trump has always been the disrupter, but suddenly, the Democrats are now the great disrupters and Trump is likely to discover a way to take back that role in this election season. Scarborough pointed out that in Trump’s political, professional, and media life, he has always been the disrupter - but not now. What will Trump do to recover that?
Joe Biden was frail and growing more frail every day. Those closest to Biden lied to their donors and the American people about Biden’s mental and physical state. Biden stepping aside should allow the light to shine on the positive things Biden has done in his many years in public life.
At this point in Biden’s life, there should be no shame in retiring. People who are no longer operating at an efficient level retire from their professional life and there’s no disgrace in that. Some people never have the opportunity to retire and they work until death. It is a privilege to achieve the ability to retire and maybe that can be the focus of the remainder of Joe Biden’s term.
A new face will ultimately be the Democratic nominee and the process of reaching that one new face and their vice presidential running mate will be fun to watch for the political junkies across America. Suddenly, the Democratic National Convention will be must-see TV!
