The Final Days: A Bitter, Resentful Biden Slow-Walks His Exit From the Campaign

Democratic voters overwhelmingly chose Joe Biden to run for president as their standard bearer. Of course, he didn't have any competition. Any Democrat of stature — Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren — refused to take him on, and besides, none of them could make the argument they were any younger than the president.

Now the "party of the little guy" is ejecting the people's choice for president because the elites are struck dumb with terror at the prospect of being swamped in the House and Senate races this fall. 

As long as it was just Biden's hide on the line, the elites could accept a close loss to Trump as long as the party still had a shot at keeping the Senate and taking back the House. Now those chances are being flushed down the drain, and democracy be damned, Biden's got to go.

Almost every leading Democrat has now either come out publicly and asked Biden to step aside or told him in private that he couldn't win and needed to give way to someone else. Not surprisingly, this has angered Biden loyalists and the president himself. And it has massively complicated the president's exit from the race.

The decision to withdraw (and possibly resign from the presidency) has been made for him by the president's erstwhile friends and supporters. He's being ushered to the door and handed his hat after, in his mind, one bad debate performance. 

It's not that at all, of course. Democrats have known all along that Biden wasn't fit to govern. The reason for their panic now is that it's obvious that the American people know the truth of the matter and the nation's Democrats see the need for someone else to head the ticket.  

Those around Biden are angry at senior Democrats.

“Can we all just remember for a minute that these same people who are trying to push Joe Biden out are the same people who literally gave us all Donald Trump? In 2015, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer pushed Biden aside in favor of Hillary; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now,” the source told NBC News.

"How did all this work out for everyone in 2016? Perhaps we should learn a few lessons from 2016; one of them is polls are BS — just ask Secretary Clinton. And two, maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden is more in touch with actual Americans than Obama-Pelosi-Schumer?" the source added.

Party leaders like former speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer aren't urging Biden to step aside. They're doing something much worse; they're refusing to tell members to tamp down the expressions of doubt and skepticism.

For his party, it has created a sense of purgatory. Biden has insisted, repeatedly and emphatically, that he isn’t leaving the race. But many Democrats refuse to take no for an answer, with the steady trickle of calls for him to step aside — and the lukewarm remarks from party leaders — fueling a belief across the party that the matter isn’t closed.

On Thursday night, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, one of the party’s most vulnerable members seeking re-election, became the second senator and the 22nd Democrat in Congress to call on Biden to exit the race.

Though they are scattered across the country during congressional recess, Democrats are coalescing around the idea that it’s not a matter of if Joe Biden steps down as their nominee, but when, according to multiple sources who’ve shared the sentiment.

This is a man who has given nearly 50 years of his life to the Democratic Party. He's done everything asked of him. He spoke at campaign rallies in the sticks, shook hands at shopping centers, raised money, kissed babies, and worked tirelessly on legislation that he believed in. Finally, in 2020, he felt that all his work and all his effort had been rewarded.

And now, in less than a month, he's going to lose it all. No, I don't feel sorry for Joe Biden. But I understand what he must be feeling. And it gives me no satisfaction to see him laid low by his supposed friends and colleagues.