U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the race for the White House on Sunday, July 21st, after weeks of mounting pressure by top Democrats for him to do so. Many Republicans and some Democrats now talk of a major coup, orchestrated by the Democratic Party elites, who have shunned the wishes of millions of their own voters.
House Speaker, Republican Mike Johnson spoke of an “unprecedented juncture in American history,” saying the president’s decision invalidated the votes of millions of Americans who selected Biden as the Democratic nominee in the primary elections earlier this year.
Majority Leader of the House Republicans, Steve Scalise, called Biden’s decision a “cover up”—saying Democratic party leaders, “after lecturing others about democracy, just forced Joe Biden off the ticket, trashing the primary choice of 14 million of their own voters.”
In a statement posted on his X account, Biden praised the work he had done in the last three-and-a-half years—then quit the race “to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” In another post he endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris to be the nominee for the Democratic Party at the presidential elections in November.
Democrats have expressed their desire—some publicly, some privately—for Biden to abandon his reelection campaign since his disastrous performance against the Republican nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, at their debate in June. Biden, 81, has been displaying signs of frailty and mental decline in recent months, speaking incoherently in most of his public appearances.
Opinion polls project victory for Trump at the election. Democrats have also been worried about how Biden would impact the results of Democrats running for seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Fifty-nine-year-old former California Senator Kamala Harris stated that her “intention is to earn and win this nomination.” In another post she said “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump.” According to news sources, state party chairs are in full support of Harris. So too is former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, who both endorsed Harris.
It is unclear whether other Democrats would challenge Harris for the nomination.
Harris’s polling numbers against Trump were very similar to Biden’s in several recent national surveys, with Trump edging ahead by 2-3 percentage points.
Speaking to the media former President Trump—who recently survived an attempt on his life—said Biden dropping out of the race wouldn’t affect the way he proceeds with his campaign because he was running against the Biden administration’s record, regardless of who ended up on the ticket. Trump has lambasted the state of the economy, the influx of illegal migrants, and Biden’s handling of the Ukraine and Gaza wars. Of Kamala Harris he said: “I think she is no better than him. She could be far less competent, which is hard to believe.”
In a post on his TRUTH social media platform Trump said:
Crooked Joe Biden is the Worst President, by far, in the History of our Nation. He has done everything possible to destroy our Country, from our Southern Border, to Energy Dominance, National Security, International Standing, and so much more. He was annihilated in an Earth Shattering Debate, and now the Corrupt and Radical Democrats are throwing him overboard.
The allegation that an actual coup had been carried out against Biden was reiterated by Bakari Sellers, a Democrat former South Carolina state lawmaker, who described his party’s voters as “pissed off,” fearing the same will happen to Kamala Harris. He said:
My phone is blowing up with people who are pissed off and the reason they’re pissed off, is because they feel like people from on high pushed Joe Biden out the door. A text that I just got from a friend was like, “if they pushed Joe Biden out the door, what are they going to do with Kamala Harris?” They will probably try to push her too. There’s a great deal of fear out there and the people who’ve done the damage, the Nancy Pelosis, the Chuck Schumers those ‘elders’ in leadership [sic].
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly both urged Biden to quit the race, and former President Barack Obama also questioned whether Biden would be able to defeat Trump.
As The Wall Street Journal wrote in its opinion piece a few days ago: “One thing we’ve learned over the years is that Washington Democrats are ruthless when threatened by a loss of power.”
The plot to dump Biden was hatched despite the president’s easy victory at the Democratic Party primaries at the beginning of the year, in which he received 14.5 million votes, and the backing of 87.1% of Democratic voters. The coup, therefore, is essentially a rejection of the democratic process, as the Democratic Party is nominating someone—be it Kamala Harris or anyone else—who nobody voted for.
“Biden is justified in resenting this brutal turn, since these same Democrats were complicit in his decision to run for a second term. They thought he was a useful figurehead as long as they thought he could win again. … They all covered for Biden’s cognitive decline until the debate made that impossible,” sums up The Wall Street Journal. It is the first time in more than 50 years that an incumbent U.S. president has given up his party’s nomination—Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson being the last to do so in 1968. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said the party would soon declare the next steps and the path forward for the nomination process. The party will officially pick its nominee at the Democratic National Convention that takes place from August 19-22 in Chicago.
