President Biden told the nation, on July 24, that “in recent weeks” it had become clear to him that it’s time to put “personal ambition” aside for the purpose of “saving our democracy.”
Indeed, since his withdrawal from the race, many commentators and Democratic Party leaders have effusively praised his selflessness. However, rather than anoint Biden a modern Cincinnatus, we should honor him in a much more human way.
The truth is that he should have stepped aside a year ago. Instead, his decision to become a candidate added peril to the democracy he loves while denying the party he also loves a real choice. Then, just when all seemed lost, facing rejection, perhaps staring a humiliating defeat in the face, he did something extraordinary. He let go — just before it really was too late.
How did it all come to this, that the man who proclaimed himself the bridge to the future kept its gate so tightly shut? It’s all very human. He beat Donald Trump once and, in general, had an impressive term in office. He thought he could and should be the one to do it again.
We all create myths so we can tell ourselves and others a curated story of our life, one that advances our purposes, desires and ambitions. So maybe it’s not surprising that even after his epic debate failure Biden’s myths just kept coming.
The first myth was that Joe Biden “saved” us from Trump. In fact, Trump was a very weakened candidate in 2020, hobbled by the COVID pandemic and his tragically failed response, a cratering economy, and by being Trump. Many of the top-tier Democratic candidates could have beaten him that year.
Nevertheless, this myth led inexorably to a second, that because he beat Trump before, he was the best person to beat him again. However, data going back many months if not years—his approval rating among independents, according to Gallup, only cracked through 40 percent once since August 2021 — showed that while he could win, he very well might not.
Then came the disaster of the debate, and his response. “When you get knocked down you get back up!” he said to reassure us, instead revealing just how personally ambitious his obstinance really was. This was such a far cry from the game plan we needed to defeat the “existential threat” to democracy he proclaimed Trump to be.
The third myth was that only “elites” and “high donors” wanted him to exit the race, and that he was the one chosen by the Democratic voters. The great majority of people I know are, like me, non-elite, many of them small donors. We like and admire Biden, but we didn’t think he would be a strong candidate and wanted other real choices, something we were denied. Poll after poll showed many, sometimes most, other rank-and-file Democrats felt exactly the same way.
This myth is doubly ironic. It was Biden who was the leader of the elites that made it impossible to have a real choice in the primaries this year. And it was the elites who conspired with Biden to clear the field for him in 2020 to deny Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) a chance at the nomination.
One last myth simmered in the background. If not for Barack Obama’s preference for Hillary Clinton, Biden, not Trump, would have been elected president in 2016.
While it’s true Biden would have beaten Trump that year, with Clinton and Sanders running he would never have gotten the nomination. Intentionally or not, Obama helped save Biden from the humiliation of again failing to be renominated by his party, only this time as the sitting vice president.
What then do we owe Joe Biden? A lot. He did beat Trump and, overall, did a very good job as president. But we also owe him — and ourselves — the respect of really seeing him. He is a decent man, intelligent, compassionate and capable. He is also susceptible, like the rest of us, to frailties and failings. One of his is the “personal ambition” to continue as president, something that he waited so excruciatingly long to put aside.
In much of this he is no better or worse than most of us, just on a terrain of enormously different consequences. We can say this with confidence. At the absolute crunch time, Biden did the necessary thing, something that was very hard to do. For that I am grateful. We will soon see if it was enough.
Thomas S. De Luca, Jr. is professor of political science at Fordham University.
