President Joe Biden/AP

By Lisa Van Dusen

July 21, 2024

The momentousness of Joe Biden’s decision Sunday to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election was not lost on anyone. For once in our recent, relentless spree of norm-breaking related to what is still the world’s most powerful office, an unprecedented act was generated by America’s pro-democracy president rather than his unpredictable, anti-democracy predecessor and now-erstwhile rival.

But, with all respect to headline writers toiling against character limit-squeeze on a historic breaking story, Biden’s announcement just before 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon was neither “stunning” nor “shocking”.

Joe Biden has spent the weeks since his spiral-catalyzing debate performance on June 27th being nudged, tugged, poked, prodded, finagled and steered toward precisely this outcome by interests employing a cascade of repetition and reinforcement inputs that stopped just short of skywriters and hand puppets. In the end, the only thing less surprising than the inescapability of the decision itself was that he announced it just in time to be way too late for the Sunday shows.

Now, with 106 days to go before the November 5th election that will choose America’s 47th president, a campaign that has already been fraught with emotionally charged plot twists and defined by existential, Manichean themes involving the future of the world’s democratic superpower could go (at least) one of (at least) two ways.

Either the pivot of the coverage spotlight away from Donald Trump to an orderly, rational Democratic leadership story will drastically reduce our collective cortisol levels by focusing on less performative, propaganda-driven events, or the hypertactical narrative warfare stylings that have given both democracy in general and American politics in particular such a bad name in the past decade will hijack the party’s leadership process, making the past three weeks look like a quilting bee and Trump look statesmanlike.

The burden of fate in this consequential election has now shifted from the president to his party, with all the pressure and peril that entails.

At this writing, in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s announcement, his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris has set the tone for the possibility that the former scenario will prevail. “My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” Biden wrote on X. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.”

For her part, Harris underscored party unity in responding to the announcement, and wisely displayed deference to the process of replacing Biden, whatever that process will be. “I am honored to have the President’s endorsement,” she tweeted, “and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.”

Former President Barack Obama issued a gracious statement about Biden’s role as his vice president and legacy as “one of America’s most consequential” presidents.

“He helped end the pandemic, created millions of jobs, lowered the cost of prescription drugs, passed the first major piece of gun safety legislation in 30 years, made the biggest investment to address climate change in history, and fought to ensure the rights of working people to organize for fair wages and benefits,” Obama wrote. “Internationally, he restored America’s standing in the world, revitalized NATO, and mobilized the world to stand up against Russian aggression in Ukraine. More than that, President Biden pointed us away from the four years of chaos, falsehood, and division that had characterized Donald Trump’s administration.”

Obama has not yet endorsed Harris, which was also not a surprise, given the early timing. The Clintons did endorse Harris, which was both surprising and not, vowing to “do whatever we can to support her.”

A poignant reminder that if Joe Biden’s historic, heart-wrenching choice contains a parting gift to the party and country he has served for half a century, it’s the opportunity for the Democrats to prove they are the sane, unified alternative to the cynical, dystopian chaos fronted by Donald Trump. If Biden had stayed in the race, that opportunity would not now exist.

In that sense, the burden of fate in this consequential election has now shifted from the president to his party, with all the pressure, peril and promise that entails.

Policy Magazine Associate Editor Lisa Van Dusen has served as a senior writer at Maclean’s, Washington columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and Sun Media, international writer for Peter Jennings at ABC News and an editor at AP National in New York and UPI in Washington.