It’s finally Joever: On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced he’s stepping down from the Democratic presidential ticket with a letter to his "fellow Americans," posted on Twitter. The announcement comes after weeks of rabid speculation, off-the-record reporting, and Game of Thrones-ian infighting and gossip about which top Democrats were working the phones, who was presenting what information to Biden, and so on and so forth. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden’s letter reads. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” pic.twitter.com/RMIRvlSOYw — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024 About a half hour after posting the letter, Biden tweeted that he was offering his "full support and endorsement" to Kamala Harris as the new nominee "My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made," his tweet reads. "Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this." My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024 All of this was the inevitable endgame ever since Biden’s disastrous June 27 presidential debate performance, which saw him struggle to form coherent sentences, brag about finally “[beating] Medicare,” and appear, overall, unwell. His poll numbers against the deeply flawed, deeply unpopular Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, have been almost shockingly bad, trailing in not just every swing state, but even in some states that were once fairly reliably Democratic. Key House, Senate, and gubernatorial races were all thrown into jeopardy as a result of his steady unpopularity. It’s been clear, for weeks now, that there was no path forward with Biden at the top of the ticket—certainly not when every routine event such as a press conference, radio hit, or campaign stop was set to become a referendum on whether the president is dead or alive. Still, even with our most fundamental human rights at stake should Trump win, Biden dragged it out. Amid a rising, internal push for his removal earlier this month, he wrote Congressional Democrats a sprawling, threatening letter; he went on national television and declared that it would take an act of God to maybe get him to drop out; he told George Stephanopoulos that, whatever happened, whether he won or lost to a maniac who wants to ban abortion, he’d be OK knowing he’d done his “goodest.” “For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected," his letter continues. "I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.” The path from here is slippery—better without Biden and his inescapable baggage, but slippery, still. For the last three-and-a-half years, the Biden administration has done little to prop Harris up as…
