Joe Biden spent 12 minutes on Tuesday evening spouting platitudes and bragging about what a great job he's done as president.
But did anyone else find it curious that he never said why he was stepping aside?
Sure, we can all guess the reasons: age, weakness, a mind slipping away, or perhaps he was just tired of being told he needed to go.
But Joe Biden owes the American people an explanation. Why did he suddenly change his mind after saying for more than three weeks that he was staying in the race?
“When I was elected, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth,” Biden said. “The truth is that the sacred cause of this nation is bigger than any one of us.”
Tell that to the servicemen in Afghanistan who were killed in a botched withdrawal that he has never owned up to. Or the reasons why inflation is destroying the middle class. Or the needless closing of schools that made this "COVID Generation" a lost one.
“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term. But nothing — nothing — can come in the way of saving our democracy, and that includes personal ambition,” Biden said.
What a selfless soul Biden is. "Saving democracy" starts by not disenfranchising 14 million voters who expected to see him at the top of the Democratic ticket. His withdrawal made a mockery of the democratic process.
What we found notable about President Joe Biden’s Oval Office address last night was that he never explained why he’s not running for reelection. While he said he was stepping aside “to unite my party,” he did not say that he believes he’s too old to run, or that he’s unable to take on a campaign because of any physical or mental limitations, or that he believes he could not defeat Donald Trump.
In other words, he did not concede any of the arguments Democratic leaders made to push him out of the race. Perhaps he thought those issues about his age and the bad polls were implicit, but it also suggests that he never came around to those views and only stepped aside because, in the face of the party revolt, he had to.
“The prime-time address aimed to offer a deeper, more personal explanation to the country than his initial written letter,” write Eli Stokols and Lauren Egan, “as well as a rallying call of support for Vice President Kamala Harris, his replacement as the Democratic nominee, and their shared legacy.”
Biden offered no explanation, personal or otherwise. We have to assume that he believed his real reason for stepping away from the campaign was too crass, too basely political to share with the American people.
Joe Biden was forced to step aside because the elites in the Democratic Party were terrified of losing power. To get their way, they didn't care about "democracy," or "the will of the people." They needed Biden gone to put someone else in the top spot.
The behind-the-scenes maneuvering to force Biden to exit called to mind the proverbial "smoke-filled back rooms" that dominated American politics until the late 1960s. The decisions made in those rooms were the least democratic part of the political process. It was the way that party elites kept control of rank-and-file Democrats. Modern Democratic Party elites have resurrected the backroom using modern communications and means of persuasion.
They weren't trying to "save democracy." They were trying to save their own wretched hides.
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