For days, the world and the United States have looked at the American Democrats and the possibility of Joe Biden withdrawing from the race for the White House with two distinct but mirror-like feelings. On the one hand, some thought that what was unfolding was something that could not happen, not in reality, not outside the plot of House of Cards or some other TV series. On the other, that this possibility did not seem to have any alternatives. A situation that clearly shows the cul de sac in which the American Democrats found themselves (or perhaps it would be more correct to say: in which they slipped) with the risk of a “lose-lose” perspective.
Joe Biden, after three and a half years as president and a performance claimed as positive by the main exponents of his party, after having won the Democratic primaries in complete serenity and without any notable opponents in the first months of this year, in any situation he would have easily emerged as the Democratic candidate for the elections next November. And, rules in hand, he would have been.
However, doubts about his advanced age (the president is almost 82 years old) that have been going on for some time have only grown stronger after the face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump, in which Biden’s answers were slow and confused, fueling all the doubts about how he could face an election campaign and another four-year term, while behind-the-scenes stories about how the president is increasingly limiting his commitments have emerged with increasing frequency.
In the days that followed, editorials and appeals followed one another asking Biden to step aside, in an unprecedented gesture that would have had a media echo that could have devastated the Democrats, because both keeping Biden’s candidacy in the field and withdrawing it would have been signs of weakness.
Uncharted territory
Finally, on July 21, the long-awaited decision arrived, with Biden stepping back and endorsing his vice-president Kamala Harris, literally taking the Democrats into uncharted territory. It has never happened before that a presidential candidate from one of the two main American parties has stepped back after winning the primaries and obtaining the majority of delegates ahead of the convention. The only partially comparable case dates back to 1972, when Thomas Eagleton had to step back as vice-presidential candidate after news spread of his previous hospitalization for mental health issues and many expressed fears of a relapse. McGovern, the Democratic candidate on that occasion, ended up – also due to other problems in his campaign – obtaining one of the worst results ever for his party.
The totally unexplored terrain in which the Democrats now find themselves requires that the Convention delegates are no longer tied to Joe Biden, to whom they would have remained bound despite any possible stomach ache, but “unpledged”, as they define themselves when they are not tied to any candidate, and as such they can have full freedom of choice. A move that effectively leaves the main Dem exponents with the task of finding the broadest possible agreement around Kamala Harris and avoiding possible distinctions and gestures of dissent for what could otherwise turn out to be a weak candidacy, just as the consensus around the vice candidate will have to be broad when he is identified. Without a large and pre-established majority, the risk would be an old-fashioned Convention, more similar to a party convention than to the simple certification of the primary vote.
A somewhat similar situation occurred last time in 1968, when the assassination of Bob Kennedy left the delegates that RFK had obtained during the primaries without a candidate. These delegates went to support then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey, cornering Eugene McCarthy, a candidate who was openly opposed to the war in Vietnam and who had obtained excellent results and after this episode fell out with the party. It was also for this reason that the Democrats decided to change the rules to give the greatest possible weight to the primary vote.
Previously, however, the choice of the presidential candidate was different: the primaries mainly elected delegates rather than the actual candidate, based on the consensus of local prominent figures, current leaders, “political bosses” and “favorite sons” who then made this consensus count at the Convention, where the candidate was established. An old-fashioned affair that the Democrats could not afford to repeat in 2024 in the situation they find themselves in today, which is why they will try to limit the defections towards the Harris hypothesis to the physiological.
Uphill road
With Democrats trying to navigate this complex situation and launch a totally new campaign in extremis with just over three months to go, Republicans are the favorites, even more so after Donald Trump escaped the attack on July 13 during the Butler rally. In this situation, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has asked Biden to resign as president because, if he is not capable of running again, in his opinion, he is not capable of leading the country either. An attacking game that can help delegitimize Biden and lead foreign leaders in an extremely delicate moment for world politics to turn directly to Trump, considering him the probable president, for many decisions relating to the near future.
The change in progress, in fact, also from this point of view risks representing a sign of weakness. And the question, at this point, is how the Democrats found themselves in a similar situation. In 2020, Biden was about to turn 78 when Americans went to vote and the issue of age had been addressed: for this reason he had chosen a figure like Kamala Harris as vice, also with the prospect of passing the baton to her for the 2024 campaign. However, Harris’s popularity did not explode, unlike among the Republicans Trump was chosen without problems as presidential candidate, consolidating his consensus despite his judicial problems, and while in the world the balances were becoming more delicate, in the Democratic house it did not seem feasible to look for an alternative to Biden. The latest public outings of the president, who made gaffes even when he was young, have however shown him apparently more confused and tired and have led to the change in progress and, paradoxically, to opt for that very baton that they seemed to have envisaged four years ago.
Will it all be simple for the Democrats? Not at all. If they had chosen not to support Kamala Harris right away it was precisely because of doubts about her candidacy, and a change in the race so close to the vote is an element of weakness, without considering possible complications in ratifying the choice of the new candidate and her vice. Having decided which path to take was undoubtedly an element of clarity, but this road to the November vote, for the Democrats, is decidedly uphill.
