For the past six months, Americans have been consumed by despair and depression at what seemed like the growing inevitability of Donald Trump returning to power and destroying American democracy. Trump, an immoral human being who had refused to accept his 2020 defeat, who had tried everything to overturn that election result, including instigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a coup-monger who should have been disqualified from ever holding office again, seemed destined to be elected to a second term that would be far more dangerous than his first. More dangerous because, unlike his 2016 victory, which surprised even himself, when he had no governing plan and surrounded himself with Republicans of the establishment capable of curtailing his more radical instincts, this time he will be prepared from day one, along with thousands of ideologues waiting in the wings, to implement a vast authoritarian program whose only plan is to sweep away traditional constitutional protections and checks and balances and safeguards, all with the blessings of a compliant Supreme Court dominated by Republicans.
While it’s troubling enough that tens of millions of Americans have gravitated toward Trump’s grievance-filled populist message that blames undocumented immigrants for all of the country’s ills, his supporters are far from a majority in the United States. Trump seemed on the verge of victory in large part because many Americans had come to terms with the idea that Joe Biden, an underappreciated but surprisingly effective and progressive president, especially on domestic issues, was too old and frail to serve four more years.
Any suggestion that Democrats were looking for another candidate, however, was squashed by party leaders. Following the surprising Democratic semi-victory in the 2022 midterm elections, every faction of the party — from Biden’s centrists to Bernie Sanders’ left — decided they would put aside traditional Democratic squabbles and divisions and unite around the man who had soundly defeated Trump in 2020 and could do so again this time. And so Biden ran essentially unopposed in the primaries and easily amassed enough delegates to secure the nomination. But as Biden made gaffe after gaffe, as the party fractured over the Gaza war and as calls grew from columnists and opinion makers for him to step aside, party bosses from congressional leaders to governors steadfastly insisted they were sticking with Biden and chided detractors that their criticism only played into Trump’s hands.
To try to stem the defections and change the narrative, Biden’s advisers had the bold idea of holding the first presidential debate in June, months before the two candidates were even officially nominated. We all know what happened. Biden had a single mission in the debate — to assure Americans that he was fit to serve — and he failed miserably. Finally, party leaders couldn’t help but see what most Americans had already seen. The defections began. At first it was a trickle. Nearly all Democratic officials hold Biden in high regard — an honest man of integrity who has served his country for more than four decades — and many expected him to come to the right conclusion on his own. But as time went on, Biden seemed to deny the polls that showed a loss of historic proportions. He considered himself the “comeback boy.”comeback kid), who had spent his career proving naysayers wrong. But as his attempts to change things through interviews and press conferences only seemed to make things worse, the trickle became a flow. Big donors and celebrities like George Clooney joined the cause. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, his Hollywood-style “fight, fight, fight” response, and the choreographed display of unity and positivity at the Republican convention heightened the sense of impending doom. Finally, the party heavyweights — Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi — delivered to Biden the message they should have delivered months ago.
On Sunday, 24 days after the debate, Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Many of us had been calling for months, and insistently since the fateful debate, for an open competitive process, a sort of mini-primary with televised debates between the leading candidates, to generate interest and select the strongest candidate, but with time running out before the Democratic convention on August 19, that will not happen. In the coming days, the party will unite around Harris, who will choose a running mate to balance the presidential ticket. Although Harris is not the most popular public figure in the party, and her 2020 presidential bid was abandoned for lack of support even before the first primaries, she is an experienced prosecutor, senator and, of course, vice president, and she has immediately generated enthusiasm among Democrats who finally have hope that Trump can be defeated. Indeed, Trump already appears to be trying to back out of the September presidential debate, which many are billing as “the prosecutor versus the criminal.” In December 2023, Liz Cheney, a leader among moderate Republicans and vice chair of the panel that investigated the January 6 insurrection, warned that the United States was “sleepwalking into a dictatorship.” Nothing is decided yet, but at least democracy now has a fighting chance.