Exit, stage left

President Joe Biden’s sudden announcement that he is leaving the 2024 presidential race seemed inevitable, but the reality of his statement, coming just after the Sunday news programs were broadcast, hit like a political bomb. Biden’s withdrawal represents a stunning reset of American political history.

In his statement, Biden addressed “my fellow Americans” and then boasted of political achievements before, at the end of the third paragraph, declaring, “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”

The sense of inevitability had been building for weeks, and the concern can be traced to Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump. Ironically, the Biden campaign had pushed for the early debate with Trump, thinking it would boost Biden’s campaign. Instead, Biden’s collapse was catastrophic. In retrospect, it is hard to imagine how any candidacy could continue after such a debacle. Adding to Biden’s problem, reports of mental lapses due to age started coming in an avalanche, with major Democratic figures and international leaders adding to the mounting evidence. Every news broadcast became a Biden senility watch and then, just as Biden tried to energize his failing campaign, he came down with COVID-19 and was seen walking down the lower stairs from Air Force One, looking like a beaten man. He was.

His party began to abandon him, calling for him to withdraw. Donors cut off the money, threatening downline Democrats and assuring the doom of Democratic hopes to hold the Senate and recapture the House. One by one, the public statements came. Party grandees kept calling on Biden to preserve his place in history and avoid crashing his party, packaged in the call to “pass the torch” to a new generation. Biden kept insisting that he was in the race to stay, which he was until he wasn’t.

This is one of those amazing moments that will reset American history. I can remember watching President Lyndon Johnson speak to the nation in a televised address on Vietnam and then, astoundingly, announce that he would not seek or accept the 1968 Democratic nomination. As we watched together in the living room, my dad looked me in the eye and told me I would never forget watching that happen. He was right.

But Johnson made that announcement on March 31, 1968. President Harry Truman shocked the nation, and his Democratic Party, by making the same kind of announcement. But Truman made that news on March 29, 1952. Joe Biden withdrew from the race on July 21—one month before the Democratic National Convention and only about 100 days from the general election. Nothing like this has ever happened. The big issue now—and the total obsession of both parties—is what Democratic Party names will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot. At this point, little else matters.

On that score, Biden also leaned in on Sunday by a second post on X in which he addressed “my fellow Democrats,” offering his “full support and endorsement” for Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s 2024 nominee for president.

But this isn’t March—it’s late July—and even as Harris appears to have the advantage of the inside game, no one knows if that will be enough. Face the facts here: An open slot at the top of the presidential ticket at this point in an election cycle has never happened before and will likely never happen again. Are rivals to Harris going to just sit it out?

Actually, they might. The many Democrats with presidential aspirations have to know that, even as the prize looks tantalizing, the odds are not good. Truman and Johnson made their announcements in March, and the Democratic Party was able to go through a legitimate nomination process. In both cases, the party went on to face failure on Election Day. Giving Harris the opportunity is clearly the path of least resistance. Nominating someone other than the vice president would be seen for what it is—sidelining the African-American woman who has the inside track, the easiest path to using about $100 million in campaign funds, and now the unqualified endorsement of Biden. Harris is likely to choose a white male politician in a swing state (someone like Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona) to balance the ticket.

What will this mean for Nov. 5? Frankly, it’s hard to imagine the nation being excited about a Kamala Harris presidency. Her campaign in the 2020 cycle ended as an embarrassment, but Biden chose her and, as his post on Sunday indicated, he stands by her now.

The bottom line as Biden departs the race is that he has now done what conservatives predicted all along. He will go down in history as the man who made the leftward leap of the Democratic Party possible. He was elected as good old Joe from Scranton, the working man’s Democratic candidate. He had played that role (awkwardly and often embarrassingly) for more than three decades in the Senate. He then served as Barack Obama’s vice president, only to be snubbed after eight years of loyal service when Obama pushed him out of the way and supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race. He fought back in 2020 and gained the nomination as the only hope for Democrats to unite the party, but all along the Democrats assured themselves that Biden would be the bridge to a far more ideologically liberal party.

Understand clearly that the Democratic Party is going to lurch far to the left with this generational shift. With Biden out of the way, it will be full steam ahead. And Biden bears responsibility for making it all happen. The Democratic left had one final role for Biden to play, and he played it. They finally decided that he played it for too long, and so the gig is up. Brace yourselves for what is to come.

And watch the parable unfold as President Joe Biden rather bitterly leaves the political stage. Exit, stage left.

Editor’s note: This column was originally published on July 21.