Joe Biden's brilliant exit: Democrats get a boost, Republicans left bewildered

July 21, 2024, was one of those "where were you when you heard" days that people will remember for a long time to come. I was online that early Sunday afternoon and I saw the news that President Joe Biden was withdrawing from the presidential race come across my social media feed in real time. A friend texted me "You were right, it wasn't going to happen until the moment it happened." That's what I'd been saying for the past couple of weeks when people would get anxious whenever Biden would say that he was absolutely not dropping out. No candidate would ever say "well, I'm thinking of giving up." They're all in until they're not. 

Since the night of the debate, I was fairly convinced that the Biden candidacy was over. I kept an open mind, thinking maybe he really was just under the weather that night but it had opened the floodgates of concerns that had been out there for a while. The presidency ages everyone who is in it, even the younger ones, and it has clearly taken a toll on Biden. I figured the polls would take a while to show a drop and it was obvious that the media's 24/7 crisis mode would almost certainly have an effect. Reports from behind the scenes this weekend say that Biden was shown polling while recovering from COVID in his Rehoboth, Delaware home that said he had no chance to win. That's when he finally pulled the plug.

Everyone I know reported feeling sad when they heard the news. Joe Biden has been an excellent president, far exceeding the expectations of many of us. If time had not caught up with him, as it does with all of us, most Democrats would have been happy to see him continue. But Biden is a tough old bird, a canny political veteran who understands that if he lost the race to Donald Trump his legacy would be utterly destroyed. More importantly, he understands the stakes and knows the country may not survive another Trump term. As much as I'm sure he loathed having to withdraw, in a long life filled with searing personal tragedies, having to drop out of the race for a second term as president doesn't rank among his worst days.

Wisely, he immediately endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris, as I predicted he would some time ago. Setting aside various logistical complications, Biden needed to take the lead in settling down the chaos and reassure his own loyal voters about the campaign carrying on with his imprimatur. I wasn't sure if the rest of the Democratic Party was going to get with the program but a long string of Harris endorsements from elected officials, state party chairs and delegates throughout the day quickly indicated that there is no appetite for the kind of open primary free-for-all contemplated by some pundits and strategists. (The unspeakably daft proposal for a "blitz-primary" with events featuring Oprah, Taylor Swift, Pastor Rick Warren and Tim McGraw among dozens of others seems very unlikely now, thank goodness.) 

There is some talk of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the diva who ostentatiously left the Democratic Party just a few months ago, throwing his hat into the ring, backed by some disgruntled conservative donors. And perhaps someone else will decide that this is his moment to shine as well. But for now, the Democrats appear to be forming a consensus that Harris is their best bet under the circumstances. In fact, judging from the monster fundraising through the Act Blue platform for small donors yesterday, enthusiasm is off the charts.

So what do the Republicans think about all this? Surprisingly, they didn't seem to see this coming, which is astonishing. The Atlantic's Tim Alberta, who published a long disturbing piece a couple of weeks ago called "Trump is planning for a landslide win," noted in an update on Sunday that the Trump campaign had convinced themselves the window for Biden to drop out had closed and that the election was in the bag:

Republicans I spoke with today, some of them still hungover from celebrating what felt to many like a victory-night celebration in Milwaukee, registered shock at the news of Biden’s departure. Party officials had left town believing the race was all but over. Now they were confronting the reality of reimagining a campaign—one that had been optimized, in every way, to defeat Biden—against a new and unknown challenger. “So, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after having a terrible debate, and quits the race,” a clearly peeved Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. “Now we have to start all over again.”

They seem to have been caught completely flat-footed. Trump was all over his social media platform whining that Republicans should be reimbursed for spending money to run against Biden and running away from debating in September unless the debate will be held on Fox News. The best Sean Hannity could come up with was that Harris wants to take away their plastic straws and is "detested" for laughing:

And Trump's close adviser Stephen Miller pretty much had a shrieking tantrum on Laura Ingraham's show about the Democrats allegedly overturning an election. (Yes, his chutzpah knows no bounds.)

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It seems that they may not have anticipated that Joe Biden gracefully withdrawing from the race might be seen as an act of selfless patriotism in contrast to their leader Donald Trump, the grasping egomaniac who incited a riot rather than admit that he lost. The contrast couldn't be more vivid. And while the country has spent the last few weeks contemplating the toll the pressures of the presidency took on Joe Biden as he entered his ninth decade of life, starting today similar thoughts about Donald Trump are inevitable. As Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC:

Trump's remarkable recent run of political good luck came to an end with a crash. The old man in the race now is Donald Trump, 78 years old and only occasionally coherent, with a record as president that is viewed by historians as the worst in history.

The following ad is from 2019 but it is even more potent today. It's a new race and Trump is now the former president who tried to stage a coup, perpetuated the Big Lie and is a 78-year-old recently convicted of multiple felonies. 

Does Trump have the strength and the stamina to meet the challenge? I wouldn't bet money on it.