It’s Joever, now what?

So Joe Biden is out and there’s a huge battle within the Democratic party about what happens next, there’s also lots of questions about Biden’s legacy and how to beat Trump. While many have endorsed Kamala Harris, there are several key missing supporters, notably Barack Obama who is arguing for an open convention to decide the nomination. Some think that would be a disastrous open conflict that would undermine the candidate, others argue such a process would give the candidate much-needed authority.

There’s also the question of Biden’s reputation and legacy.

The American writer Osita Nwanevu has said: “The paeans being written to the heroism and courage of Biden are extraordinary ⁠– it’s rare to see history being so quickly and blatantly rewritten. The truth is that today marks the end of one of the more shameful and ridiculous sagas in American presidential politics ⁠– a crisis made and extended by the fecklessness and inertia of the Democratic party as an institution and the bullheadedness of a man who should have understood his own limits and the risks a re-election campaign would pose to the country years ago.”

“For weeks they charged ahead, questioning the integrity of their critics and ignoring all contrary data until Biden’s position became fully untenable. And one has to wonder now the extent to which their behavior has been reflective of how this administration has handled substantive policy matters behind the scenes, perhaps most especially the war in Gaza, which Biden has backed with an implacability that has baffled and troubled even experts who’ve become accustomed to American deference to Israel. Well before June’s fateful debate, that war fundamentally tarnished what might have been remembered, on the basis of Biden’s domestic policy record, as a respectable and even transformative presidency. Unavoidably now, Biden’s arrogance and solipsism will be part of his story.”

This is true, and also raises the question of – if he’s not fit to run for office, is he fit to govern? This is reminiscent of the old Cold War-era Soviet Union with elderly leaders turning up for set-piece events before returning into obscurity.

America, and the west, does face an existential threat in Trump, but the alternatives have to be better than continuity liberalism. Some of this sounds oddly familiar.