Opinion
BY WASHINGTON POST
The Editorial Board
August 20, 2024
“Our best days are not behind us; they’re before us,” President Joe Biden declared to a rapturous crowd at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
If he had his way, Mr. Biden would have spoken these words while accepting his party’s presidential nomination on Thursday night. But the mood at the convention would have been grim — a divided party in the United Center — and a diminished Mr. Biden, at the head of a dispirited party, would likely have lost in November.
And so, Mr. Biden reluctantly made a profoundly selfless decision: He stepped out of the ring. Speaking not as a nominee on Thursday but as a retiring veteran on Monday, Mr. Biden received sustained ovations. Mr. Biden might privately resent Democrats who helped push him off the ticket this summer — or, indeed, the Democratic convention leaders who let Monday night’s proceedings drag on so long that they inexcusably pushed the president of the United States out of prime time. When it was his turn to speak, however, he delivered an energetic address in which he made the case for his own legacy and for Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he credited with casting the tiebreaking vote in the Senate on some of his signature legislation.
In retrospect, Mr. Biden should not have sought reelection. The June 27 debate was worse than just a bad night, as the president maintained afterward. The 81-year-old had showed signs of slipping for a long time, but his inner circle worked to conceal his decline. He and the country would have been better off if Mr. Biden had kept his implied promise from the 2020 campaign to be a “transitional” figure, perhaps by bowing out after the Democrats’ surprisingly good showing in the 2022 midterm elections.
But second-guessing is easy, and Mr. Biden’s decision gives time and space to underscore his accomplishments: historic climate and infrastructure legislation; support for Ukraine in resistance of Russian aggression; expanded health insurance coverage.
It is Mr. Biden’s willingness to surrender power, albeit via internal machination rather than the ballot box, that deserves special recognition. It creates a powerful and, for Mr. Biden, favorable contrast with Mr. Trump — who refused to acknowledge defeat in 2020 and instead stirred up a mob in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. The last weeks have shown how Mr. Biden’s act created a pathway for a new generation of Democratic leaders.
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For Democrats, a new Post-ABC-Ipsos poll illustrates the wisdom of Mr. Biden’s decision: Ms. Harris has opened a slight national lead over Mr. Trump. She’s exciting and reactivating the Democratic coalition, especially voters under age 40 and left-leaning independents. The compressed timeline of what has become a four-month campaign appears to be working, so far, to Ms. Harris’s advantage.
Though he will spend at least some of the time between now and Nov. 5 on politics, campaigning where it can help Ms. Harris win, governing — making the most of his remaining term — is Mr. Biden’s most important mission. “I’ve got five months left in my presidency,” he said Monday. “I have a lot to do.”
His top priority should be ending the war in Gaza, bringing home Israeli hostages held by Hamas and averting a wider war in the Middle East. Signs this week are far from encouraging as tensions rise between Israel and Iran, and with big questions unresolved about who will govern Gaza at war’s end. Still, the challenge is fluid enough that a forceful push could enable Mr. Biden to define the outcome.
On domestic affairs, Mr. Biden won’t be able to get much legislation through a Republican-controlled House, which is in recess until after Labor Day. Perhaps a child online privacy act that has already cleared the Senate with bipartisan support can get through the lower chamber. Mr. Biden will need to negotiate spending agreements with GOP leaders to avoid a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1; freed from concerns about his own reelection, he might actually have greater latitude to strike a pragmatic deal.
Mr. Biden can also be assured that his policies will remain in play. Democrats voted on Monday to ratify an official party platform written before Mr. Biden exited. It still refers to things that will happen “in a second Biden term.” Mr. Biden’s name appears 287 times in the 92-page document. Ms. Harris’s appears 32 times.
Yet as important as what he does will be how he does it. Mr. Biden’s most attractive promise in 2020 was to unite a divided nation; his worthiest moments in politics, both before and after becoming president, were those in which he modeled empathy, moderation and statesmanship. That includes perhaps the toughest call he had to make in his decades in politics: his decision to step aside.
