Joe Biden's age and health have been an issue since long before the disastrous June 27 televised debate. A CNN headline in September 2019 said "Democratic race dominated by 70-year-olds." Those were other times, and at least then the former number two in the White House had company (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren). Biden lost the first three races, it seemed doomed. Then South Carolina's African-American vote came to its rescue. And Barack Obama. The role of the former president is the second thread that connects the preceding situations with the dramatic hours that the American leader is now experiencing. Back then, it was Obama who convinced his opponents to leave. Today, everyone continues to put scissors in his hands, so that they can finally cut Joe's last connection to the 2024 election.
One mandate
For many months before he was elected, Biden described himself as a "bridge" to a future generation of leaders, clearly suggesting that he envisioned a single term for himself, choosing as his replacement the most "presidential" of figures available: Kamala Harris. But it is known that there was perhaps a moment in which he began to change his mind: January 6, 2021, the day of the attack on Congress. Since then, it has been the "defense of democracy" that has acted as the president's compass. Biden was convinced that if Trump were the Republican nominee again, whoever had the best chance of defeating him would have a moral duty to do so. Starting with himself. These are the words he repeated until Sunday evening, when he announced his departure at X.
From the bike to the anti-Trump debate
During Biden's presidency, there have been various moments in which his health has returned to the fore: from Covid, which he contracted two years ago and again on Wednesday, to bike crashes and a first press conference confusing to the press in Vietnam last September. But despite the question of how fit the president was to last another 4 years, he never abandoned either the press or the attacks of his opponents, no one in the Democratic Party had dared to question his leadership: Biden did not had virtually no rivals in this spring's primaries, though that's partly normal for an incumbent president.
Then came the June 27 debate, preceded by a renewed wave of Trumpian propaganda blasts about the G7 in Puglia, with more or less "edited" videos showing Biden in increasingly less good health. But according to CNN, it wasn't so much Trump's catchphrase ("I didn't understand what he said, and maybe neither did he") that opened Pandora's box: it was the confusion in the response, the confused tone that raised alarm around the world and — politicians - the most important American commentators in the democratic zone began to worry. Starting with Tom Friedman in the New York Times: "Joe is a good man and a good president, but now he has to step down."
avalanche
The president tried to appear combative at the NATO summit, where he confused Zelensky with Putin and Harris with Trump. He repeatedly stated that he did not want to give up the race. His wife Jill, whom many would like to help, was with him. But by that point Obama had already returned to cast a shadow over his election. The man who elected him to Congress, who stood by him through the death of his beloved son Beau, who hung the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck, who even loaned him the money to buy his house (but also since 2016 asked him to step aside and leave the presidential race to Hillary Clinton) was immediately back in the news as the only name that could have convinced him to withdraw. They both spoke. But since then almost three weeks have passed in which – as in a devastating avalanche – the friendly press was initially "puzzled". Then party members were the first to complain, starting with influential congressman Adam Schiff. Then fundraising stars like George Clooney or writers like Stephen King. And finally the general staff of the Democratic party (Nancy Pelosi, congressional leaders Chuck Shumer and Hakeem Jeffries), who in the last three days have been standing with phones and statistics in their hands, begging the president to look not only at the tables, but also the reality. A phone call from Obama was expected to tell him that all avenues have ended. But it was not necessary.
*This article was published by Bota.al and reposted by Tiranapost.al
