Dana Allin
On Sunday, Joe Biden became the first sitting United States president since Lyndon B. Johnson to decline his party’s nomination for a second term in office. There are other significant echoes from LBJ in the Biden presidency half a century later. Both men were creatures of the US Senate – its ‘master’, famously, in LBJ’s case. Both were tapped as vice president by younger, less experienced and more glamorous presidential candidates for purposes of balancing the ticket. Both became president as a consequence of national trauma: for LBJ, the John F. Kennedy assassination; for Biden, the long nightmare of the national soul that Donald Trump’s election and presidency constituted for liberals. And both saw major progressive accomplishments in domestic policy.
For Johnson, those accomplishments were overshadowed by Vietnam, a war that ripped the country – and his Democratic Party – apart and the reason he chose not to run again. For Biden, the reason is more prosaic, albeit a profound consequence of the human condition: he is old and getting older. That reality was hardly a surprise, but just over three weeks ago his abysmal debate performance – the performance of an old man – sparked panic among Democrats and Donald Trump-fearing foreign allies. And although the American support for Israel’s war with Hamas has caused considerable dissension on the American Left, the hours since Sunday afternoon show that the Democratic Party is far more united than it was in 1968.
Fellow Democrats have lauded Biden as a hero for putting the country’s future above his ego and political ambitions. Vice President Kamala Harris looks likely to unite the party easily behind the goal of preventing Trump’s return to the White House. Although an open Democratic convention with multiple candidates remains a possibility, it does not look probable.
No comments:
Post a Comment