SO they´ve done it. Less than a month after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, Joe Biden has announced he is not going to run for another term as US President.
Nobody could have been surprised.
In recent weeks Biden has insisted that he would continue to run unless God told him not to or some health matter came up.
Whether or not God had anything to say, ill-health certainly did.
After testing positive for Covid last week and looking even more frail than usual this weekend´s news came as a surprise to no one.
Straight after Biden’s faltering debate against Trump the party rallied around him in public.
But in private the plotting to unseat him revved up.
From insisting Biden was still at his peak, prominent Democrats started to admit he was only peak embarrassment.
Privately at first, and then publicly, senior Democrats began urging Joe, 81, to step aside.
As he did so on Sunday he also backed his vice president, Kamala Harris, for the top job.
Perhaps Biden is thinking about his legacy.
And has come to the decision that it would be best if he was succeeded by the worst candidate imaginable.
And Kamala Harris is certainly that.
After a career as a prosecutor she climbed the ranks of the Democrat party seemingly for identity politics reasons alone.
Joe Biden said in 2020 that he planned to appoint a black woman as his running mate and Kamala Harris ended up being the person from that seven per cent of the US population that he chose.
She came into office with Biden the following January.
And everything she has done since has been either unremarkable or laughable.
Where Obama actually was an inspirational speaker, Kamala’s attempts to mimic him always go wrong
Douglas Murray
Biden gave Kamala the southern border to manage.
In the last four years the US has seen a historic surge in illegal crossings at the southern border.
During the time Kamala has been in charge millions upon millions of illegal migrants have entered America.
To say that she failed is an understatement. She has been a disaster.
She famously didn’t even bother to visit the border.
When she was questioned as to why she came out with the same robotic evasions or mad laughter.
Not for the first time Kamala looked like a person way out of her depth.
Someone promoted for the wrong reasons who had a sense that they might not be up to the job but believed they could cover for it.
Over time it wasn’t just her policy failures but her fantastic unlikability that voters started to notice.
Kamala is one of the worst public speakers in America.
Whenever she gets on a stage or in front of a camera she does a strange impression of a human being.
But it is not persuasive.
At her best she strives for a Barack Obama-like strain of rhetoric.
But where Obama actually was an inspirational speaker, Kamala’s attempts to mimic him always go wrong.
She either sounds like she is addressing a nursery school class.
Or she fumbles around repeating catchphrases that make no sense.
Or she puts on a fake accent to pretend she is someone she isn’t.
At a campaign rally in North Carolina last Thursday she suddenly broke into a fake southern accent and said of her opponents: “We too busy watchin’ what you doin’ to hear what you’re sayin’.”
She seemed to think this was brilliant, and laughed accordingly. The rest of the nation thought “What?”
Barack Obama himself seems to be cool on Kamala.
At the weekend he suggested that the party should have a talent-contest for the nomination.
If that happened then at the party’s convention next month delegates would have the opportunity to vote on a nominee.
But in the past 24 hours this seems increasingly unlikely.
A number of the people who might have stood against Kamala have announced they are backing her.
The convention looks like it will be a coronation.
Only Kamala could be unaware of why.
Her approval ratings make Biden’s look good.
She has only a 39 per cent approval rating among the American public.
And when asked how they might vote in November polls show that Biden would have lost to Trump by two points among the American public.
Kamala would lose to Trump by five points.
There is probably no way now for the Democrats to also pitch Kamala over the side.
She was hired for her identity and she will now be protected because of it.
It seems the Democrats are resigned to losing to Trump in November
Douglas Murray
Because those are the rules that the Democrats chose to play by.
Identity over merit.
It seems the Democrats are resigned to losing to Trump in November.
They don’t want to waste their best talent in such a defeat.
And so they seem to be deciding that they will instead send their least talented figure into the fray.
This is a policy, of course.
But it is also a disaster.
It was once the Republicans who were in disarray.
Now it is the Democrats.
November’s election is Trump’s for the losing.
