Where’s Joe? What’s Going On? Is Any of This Really Happening?
by Robert Spencer
Old Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday afternoon. Everyone saw his post on X. In a follow-up message on X, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential nomination, and Democrat leaders began lining up (with the notable exception of Barack Obama) to endorse her. The controversy over Biden’s dementia and ability to perform the duties of president appears to be over, although the nagging and quite large issue remains of whether he is able to perform the duties of president for the next seven months. And yet almost immediately, questions about the way Biden withdrew began to swirl, including the basic one: did he really withdraw at all?
The rumors began with the form of Biden’s withdrawal from the race. On Sunday at 1:46 p.m. EDT, the Joe Biden X account published an image of a letter in which Old Joe states that “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.” It was a splendid 21st-century moment that Biden announced his own political demise on a social media platform, but it also raised questions, chief of which was: “Where’s Joe?”
There are rough precedents for what Biden did on Sunday afternoon. When President Lyndon Johnson saw the writing on the wall and decided not to seek reelection in 1968, he did so in a nationally televised address. When President Richard Nixon resigned the office in 1974, he also did so on camera. But the public has not seen Old Joe since he was announced as having come down with COVID last Wednesday and retired to his taxpayer-funded walled Delaware beach house.
Shouldn’t Biden have made such a momentous announcement before the cameras? If he is too ill to do so, couldn’t we at the very least have some still photos that make it clear that this is a decision he has actually made? After all, he was insisting right up until quite recently that he was planning to stay in the race and win. There is an uneasy banana-republic feel to this whole thing. A president whose own base has turned against him comes down with a disease that many have noted has all the strength of the common cold at this point. Nevertheless, he treats it as if he had gotten the bubonic plague and immediately goes out of sight. Several days later comes the announcement, ostensibly under his name, that he is bowing out.