America after Biden’s exit
The next few days are crucial for the Democratic Party which has to decide on the process of nominating a successor.
It is probably true that US President Joe Biden took unnecessarily long to make the decision to drop out of the race to be re-elected in November. But better late than never or, worse still, a humiliating removal.
On Sunday night, Biden, who is recovering from Covid-19, graciously announced that he would exit the race to be nominated to fight Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. The decision, which he said was in the best interest of his party and country, was not unexpected. It has long been coming.
After a disastrous performance against Trump in a TV debate, calls grew for him to step aside to allow a more agile and youthful candidate to take on the resurgent former president. In the past week, major donors and senior Democrats began to pile on the pressure for him to make the decision to leave the race. In his announcement, he disclosed that he would now focus on finishing his term. Resigning from the presidency, too, would be disruptive.
This abrupt exit from the race is not new, but it has not happened in a long time, including in the US. Also, there are other older presidents such as Biden. But the deterioration of his health and mental alertness has counted against him. Biden needs to be commended for this decision. It is not common for leaders — in business, politics and society — to give up power voluntarily. It is even rarer in politics.
Though he stepped aside later in the day, Biden joins other great leaders such as Nelson Mandela. At the start of his five-year term as SA’s first post-apartheid president, Mandela immediately announced that he would not seek a second term in 1999. This paved the way for a well-managed transition to the Thabo Mbeki presidency. The world needs more Bidens and Mandelas.
That Biden took long to come to Sunday’s decision should not take away from his achievements. Overall, he has been a strong, decent and consequential president who loved his country dearly. As well as fixing the US economy, he helped turn the tide against Trump’s mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Admirably, he returned the US to the world community. Trump retrenched the US’s role in global affairs, and alienated its allies. He threatened to pull the US out of global bodies such as the World Health Organisation and Nato, the military alliance pact of Western powers.
The next few days are crucial for the Democratic Party. It has to decide on the process of nominating Biden’s successor next month. Biden has endorsed his deputy, Kamala Harris. And other Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hilary, have thrown their weight behind Harris.
An easy thing to do would be to rally support around Harris. From a process point of view, this would be poor. After all, there might be other stronger Democratic candidates to beat Trump. To her credit, Harris, who has availed herself, has said she wants to “earn” the nomination. If nominated, she faces the task of uniting her party and country.
Trump, who survived an assassination attempt a week ago, has been enjoying sympathies due to the failed assassination. The world needs a US that is involved in world affairs. The isolationist instincts of the Trump campaign are concerning.