Biden dropped out because “the most important thing” is “we must defeat Trump”: CBS News

That's what they said last time and look where he is now. Sure, he's a convicted felon and that's sort of fun to say but that's more of a historical footnote than a meaningful development. There's still been no serious consequences to his actions and if I were to place a bet on it I would put money on the chance that there never will be.

It's deeply ironic to me that a) they almost certainly wouldn't have been in this situation if Bernie had been the nominee last time, and b) as a direct result of that choice their nominee now is formerly the senator with the closest voting record to Bernie's, running with the VP pick that Bernie suggested.

They tried to cut him off at the knees, but in the end, Sanders kind of ended up calling the shots.

Well, effectively, what happened is that the Democratic Party had a primary election, where people voted on who they wanted the Democratic nominee to be. The thing is, conventional political wisdom is that the incumbent president has a large advantage simply from being the incumbent - people who are uncertain tend to stick to the status quo, and name recognition is as high as one could wish for. So, in the primary, no one serious ran against him because:

A. It would have been a waste of time and money

and

B. Doing so would've marked one out as very much 'not a team player', so to speak.

Thus, he won the primary election. However, after the primaries, he had a disastrous debate performance, and several highly influential members of the Democratic Party not only called for him to step down, but alleged mental decline (not necessarily dementia, but a serious decline in Biden's sharpness and energy which raised questions about his ability to run the kind of vigorous campaign needed), even just since January of this year. Biden resisted calls to step down at first, and since he was the winner of the primaries, he was the only one who could realistically make the choice. He eventually bowed to public and private pressure and stepped down.

Less than two weeks before he dropped out, he wrote an open letter to congressional democrats in which he wrote:

I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.

I have heard the concerns that people have — their good faith fears and worries about what is at stake in this election. I am not blind to them.

I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024.

The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party. Do we now just say this process didn’t matter? That the voters don’t have a say?

I decline to do that... I have no doubt that I — and we — can and will beat Donald Trump.

Unless this was all part of an elaborate hoax, it's clear he had no intention of dropping out at that time.

To he honest, I think that if he had dropped out earlier it would have been better. He created a lot of panic within the base that didn't need to be there. I suppose it's not impossible that it was some kind of strategy to make Harris' ascension more welcome and inevitable, but I think that's giving him way too much credit.

It's a 50/50 toss up after only 2 weeks of campaigning. Unless she does something to kill her own momentum, she's in very good shape. Also, it's pretty clear what would have happened if they stuck with Biden; Maine and New York were becoming competitive, there's just no universe where he would have won.

You might have time to wonder if that happens, but I’ll end up in the ovens pretty quick. Fuck racism and fascism.

Honestly, I still think that's a pretty terrible answer when your entire campaign messaging has been, "Democracy will end if you elect this man." I think if he had said something like, "I understand the stakes of this election, I would feel horrible if I lost and let the American people down, but it less than 5 months to the election and I am the best positioned candidate to defeat him," that would have been a much more reasonable answer. It would have been wrong (clearly), but at least it wouldn't have sounded like he was losing a little league game.

I mean, we have a Trump horse race now vs. a Trump blow out before. You may think his administration was great. Personally, I was surprised by how strong on labor he was, but disgusted by his handling of Gaza, and I think his blind institutionalism has made him too slow to react to an out of control Supreme Court. But those opinions don't matter; he was not going to win after that debate. He came across as senile and confused, and he was not going to energize the base he needed to win. No matter what you think of his administration, he lost the election on June 27th, and we're just lucky someone made him see that before it was too late.

Nah, he was pushed out.

For the month that he stubbornly refused to withdraw, you guys told us that he was doing the right thing and anyone who said otherwise wanted Trump to win.

Then when he was forced to by major donors and their chief enforcer Pelosi, THAT was the best course of action to avoid another Trump presidency (true) that he decided on all of his own (extremely obviously false) because he's a heroically self-sacrifying hero (gimme a break).

No matter what he does, you fanboys and fangirls say it's the only right thing to do and that it was all his idea. It's eerily reminiscent of the MAGA cult in its obsequiousness.