US President Joe Biden at a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 16, 2024 (Herald Sun)
Co-published with the Irish Examiner:
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In the past week, a gunman has fired at Donald Trump, killing a firefighter and injuring two others at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
The Republicans have held their national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. J.D. Vance, who threatened Dublin last December with a rupture in US-Ireland relations, is the Vice Presidential nominee. Trump, his ear bandage, has addressed the faithful.
And yet we are at the same place where we sat last weekend.
Will President Joe Biden stand aside soon to ensure that Trump, the convicted felon who unsuccessfully attempted a coup in 2021, does not return legally to the White House in January?
Welcome to the Spectacle
America’s party conventions are always spectacles. This week’s Republican get-together was reinforced by the darker show of the assassination attempt and Trump’s immediate response to “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
That ensured the Republican Party — more accurately, the Trump Party — would be untroubled by any discussion or policies or the critical issues facing the US.
But the Trump camp had a problem. Their candidate’s aggressive reaction to the shooting threatened to alienate the voters who will decide November’s election not only for the Presidency for control of Congress.
So the spinners told journalists on Monday that the theme of the convention and a “changed” Trump would be “unity”. The bombast and insults would be replaced by a chastened candidate, “touched by the hand of God”, who would represent all Americans.
Vance played his part. He would not appear as the politician who said “Islamists” now run the UK and control its nuclear weapons, who blamed childless women for US decline, who champions the working class but has a 0% voting record on issues affecting the working class, who is opposed to abortion in all cases including rape and incest.
Buried was the man who in 2016 said Trump was a “moron” and “America’s Hitler”, exploiting the problems and concerns of Americans.
Instead, J.D. played up his “Hillbilly Elegy” personal narrative, hailing God and family and bringing his recovered-addict mother onstage. “J.D.’s Mom!” chanted the faithful.
For 15 minutes, Trump with his bandaged ear also stuck to script, narrating his near-death experience last Saturday. But for the next 77, he returned to his rambling default position: declaring the 2020 election was stolen from him, assailing the Justice Department and the legal system, insulting politicians, and pushing false claim after false claim about migrants and asylum seekers, drugs and crime, the economy and taxes, and foreign affairs.
This was standard Trump. But because he was at a lower volume, and because he went on so long, the performance fell a bit flat. Even the big finish, with Melania alongside him — because no one wants to recall 34 felony convictions over a payoff to a porn star, or an $85 million payout for sexual abuse and defamation of a New York City writer — was far from climactic.
Biden’s Departure?
So by Friday morning, less than six hours after the speech, the news cycle had jumped to Biden.
Had the shooting not occurred, the pressure from Democratic politicians, donors, strategists, and activists might have been conclusive. Now Biden’s circle seized upon the event to project their own version of “unity”, emphasising that you cannot remove your candidate when he is the one leading that display.
The firewall held for 72 hours. But on Wednesday, the dissents resurfaced. Promient Democraatic Rep. Adam Schiff called for Biden to step aside. So did political strategist David Axelrod, who is close to Barack and Michelle Obama.
Even more important were the leaks. The media were left in no doubt that current House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, his predecessor Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had all told the President that he could not overcome the polls and the media’s narrative .
By the afternoon Sidney Blumenthal, the senior advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, was appealing to Biden to withdraw. Then, through Thursday’s Washington Post, came the signal in the political sky: Barack Obama was telling confidants that “President Biden’s path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy”.
Meanwhile it was announced that Biden, having stumbled through an appearance in Las Vegas, had contracted a mild case of COVID and was returning to his home in Delaware. At the least, he will be off the campaign trail, if not out of the searchlights, for several days.
This now appears to be when, not if, the President will be replaced for November. Whether or not COVID is cited, he can go before the nation and hail — rightly — the most significant domestic achievements of an Administration since the 1960s. He can restate Trump’s threat to democracy but say that he will “pass the torch” to a younger colleague to guard the White House.
That colleague is likely, if not certain, to be Vice President Kamala Harris. While she is publicly behind Biden staying in the race, she is doing this through a series of high-profile speeches to elevate her stature and, belatedly, her place in the Administration’s accomplishments.
For while the Democrats have the luxury of talent — Governors Whitmer of Wisconsin, Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Newsom of California as well as Cabinet members like Pete Buttigieg and Gina Raimundo come to mind — they do not have the luxury of time. The new candidate has to be estimated before the Democratic National Convention opens on August 19, not during it, to avoid any messy, divisive process and to establish the nominee’s character, policies, and ability to knock back Trump’s daily invective and lies.
Otherwise, come January, the man with the bandaged ear can drop the pretence of “unity”, pursuing his vendettas from behind the desk in the Oval Office.
