This lifelong Democrat suspects he had plenty of company in feeling both relieved and saddened when the news broke that President Joe Biden was ending his campaign for a second term.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he said in his announcement letter. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, 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 polls were looking bleak for Biden, especially in key states. An increasing number of big-name Democrats and deep-pocket donors were scared he would lose and were urging him to quit the race.
When he did, more than a few of us “Union Joe” loyalists took the president’s action to mean that he wasn’t about to risk losing his presidency — and most importantly, our democracy — to an authoritarian at best, a neo-fascist at worst. So he selflessly bowed out and lost no time endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Especially after the GOP national convention, MAGA world was giddy over Trump’s chances of winning his old job back. They were bragging about a Red Wave this November. Where have we heard that before?
Now jubilation, mixed with healthy cautious optimism, prevails on our side, at least for the present. Harris has instantly boosted flagging party ardor. She’s raising a ton of money and reaping numerous endorsements from unions – including mine. In some new polls, she’s improving on Biden’s numbers against Trump or is a little bit ahead.
Harris already has won enough delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention to wrap up the nomination.
Biden’s departure and Harris’s warp-speed successes as a candidate has evidently panicked Team Trump. “It’s pretty clear that the former president and convicted felon is spooked by having to run against Harris,” Hafiz Rashid wrote in The New Republic.
After Biden gave way to Harris, Trump, who made 30,573 false or misleading claims while he was president, according to The Washington Post, turned to more truth torturing on his Truth Social platform. He denounced Biden as “the worst president in the history of the United States by far.”
“Presidential greatness may be in the eye of the beholder, but this assertion is laughable,” wrote Steven Rattner of The New York Times. “A recent survey of more than 150 current and former members of the presidents and executive politics section of the American Political Science Association put Mr. Trump dead last, behind James Buchanan (tarred with allowing the Civil War to begin) and Andrew Johnson (impeached, like Mr. Trump, and nearly convicted). Mr. Biden was ranked 14th greatest, just above Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan.”
“Joe Biden has been as good a president as any and better than most,” said a South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial. “Based on his record, he had earned a second term. Yet he stood down from his re-election campaign to allow someone younger and more the picture of vigorous health to finish the work of keeping the nation, and the world, safe from Donald Trump.”
The paper called his departure from the hustings “the most unselfish act by any politician since Lyndon Johnson’s abrupt exit in 1968. Only somebody who loves his country more than himself could do what Biden did. It was as historic as his election four years ago and profoundly noble. But the moment is also poignantly sad. Biden was compelled not by any fair comparison to the character and record of the Republican nominee, but by how polls had spread defeatism and panic among other party leaders, down-ballot Democrats, and major donors.”
The editorial quoted Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. “It’s not fair, but it’s a fact.”
Indeed.
Anyway, I’ll never forget that it was shortly after 12:46 p.m. (CDT) Sunday when I got the news, via a text message from one of my best and brightest students, that Biden had agreed to step aside. Nor will I forget 10:24 a.m. (CST), Nov. 7, 2020, when our TV screen flashed with the MSNBC graphic my wife, Melinda, and I had anxiously waited since the polls closed on Nov. 3: a checkmark with the magic words “PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN.”
I had scribbled a running total of electoral votes for Biden and Trump on a slip of white ruled paper. I hit pause on the remote and stood grinning by the TV while Melinda happily snapped a photo of me and my notes. The photo, notes, and a Biden-Harris bumper sticker are framed together and hang on a wall in our house.
I played “Happy Days Are Here Again” on my home computer that Wednesday. I hope to crank it up again after the polls close on Nov. 5 – the sooner Harris and her yet-to-be named veep win, the better.
Meanwhile, I’m on the lookout for some Harris-for-president campaign merch, notably buttons and bumper stickers, hopefully some of it with the blue logo of my union, the American Federation of Teachers. After backing Biden in 2020 and 2024, AFT was the first union to endorse Harris.
I’m also looking forward to that first Harris-Trump debate. So is Dustin Reinstedler, our Kentucky State AFL-CIO president.
“If there’s one thing that bothers and gets under the skin of Donald J. Trump, it’s a strong woman,” said Reinstedler. That goes double for a strong woman of color. When it comes to women, Trump’s a double-barreled bigot – a racist and a sexist.
“If you want a preview of how that debate will go, watch how Kamala Harris handled Atty. Gen. Barr and Jeff Sessions,” added Reinstedler.
He meant Trump-era Senate hearings. A former prosecutor, California attorney general, and U.S. Senator, Harris clearly got the best of Trump attorney generals Robert Barr and Jeff Sessions. She did likewise with Trump Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh.
If the specter of Harris-as-DA on a debate stage doesn’t put the fear of the Almighty into the race-baiting, misogynist bully boy, viewing videos of Harris versus Barr, Sessions, and Kavanaugh should do the trick.
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