After weeks of increasing pressure to drop out of the 2024 campaign, President Joe Biden finally put a stop to the rumors, leaks and chatter with a seven-paragraph statement that showed a resolve and dignity that has been missing in his recent interviews — and political discourse writ large.
Biden as hero, as some have described him for ceding to the Democratic Party’s pleas that he exit the race, is not the right description. But the statement that finally ended the matter was certainly commendable — from the understated stationery, which read simply “Joseph R. Biden Jr.,” to the message it conveyed, free of partisanship and rancor.
The statement, in other words, was presidential, remarkably so because of the pain that we all know lies under the stoic words.
To call Joe Biden a hero is aggrandizement, and unfair to the true heroes in our midst, the kind who run into buildings hit by planes and pull people out of burning cars. Biden is a politician who has enjoyed a long and prestigious career that the sun is setting on. Ask the average person on the street what Biden’s biggest accomplishment in public service is, and before today, they might have struggled to answer. Now he’s most likely to be remembered, above all, for the statement he issued today and the reasons for it: doubts about his capacity to serve another four years and to win the election.
Stepping away from power is not always a sign of defeat. Our first president, George Washington, famously relinquished power twice: first, as commander in chief of the Continental Army, and later at the end of his second term as president, at a time in which he could have been elected again.
Biden’s story, of course, is much different, and in exiting, he has bestowed on the nation the sort of thing that C.S. Lewis called a “severe mercy,” putting America out of the misery we’ve all been in, to one extent or another, since the agonizing debate June 27.
It’s often said that America is so divided that we can’t agree on anything at all. The past eight days has shown that to be untrue. We agreed, as the Rev. Theresa Dear wrote, that none of us want to see Secret Service agents diving on top of presidential candidates under fire. And we agreed that, no matter how well meaning a person is, no matter how beloved within their party, no matter how they have performed in the past, when the time comes to step down, we should do so with dignity, and not have to be pulled off the stage with a vaudeville hook.
You could almost feel the nation exhaling in relief as the news circulated Sunday afternoon.
So where does this leave us?
It leaves us, for the moment, without a Democratic candidate for president in an election just 100 days away, although it certainly seems likely that Harris is ascendant.
It leaves us with another unpleasant debate about Biden: Is he is up to the demands of the nation’s highest office for even the next six months?
It leaves us with hard questions to consider as people live longer and want to keep working — should there be an upper age limit like the lower one with regard to the presidency? And what of Congress?
And it leaves us to discuss what changes might be necessary with regard to how the White House interacts with the public and the press.
It’s disturbing that, up until this weekend, we have been getting mixed messages from the White House with regard to Biden’s health and capabilities. The president’s angry and defiant interviews in recent weeks did nothing to convince a skeptical public that there hasn’t been what amounted to a cover-up about his condition. Part of the conversation going forward should be about how we can prevent this from happening again — do we need more complete disclosure of medical records, regular cognitive tests, or a minimum number of “big boy” press conferences a president should be required to have? Athletes are required to sit before the press after stinging losses and triumphant wins. Why not public servants put in place by the electorate?
The events of the past month are also a fresh reminder of why a partisan bent within the media isn’t just bad for the media’s image, but for the welfare of the country. Accusations that the media was actively complicit in hiding Biden’s decline may not be fair, but there is cause for soul-searching among journalists about why Biden was allowed to coast along with his stumbles, misstatements and outbursts of temper for so long.
But of all the lessons of Biden’s withdrawal, the most important is what was articulated by Maria Shriver, when rumors of Biden’s decision began to circulate. “Regardless of your party, this is a human moment. This is as tough as it gets,” she wrote on X.
Like the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life eight days ago, Biden’s physical and cognitive struggles have brought into sharp relief the humanity that we so often fail to recognize in the men and women who hold public office.
America is having a moment right now, to be sure. It is a cultural moment, a struggle between still sharp and productive baby boomers and the younger Americans who want their jobs and their homes. It is a political moment, from Biden’s cataclysmic debate to his expected yet still shocking withdrawal. But most of all, it is, as Shriver said, a human moment. One candidate survived an assassination attempt; the other revealed cognitive decline before the world.
The moment, and the people involved, should be treated with dignity.