Donald Trump took to his social media account last week to goad Joe Biden on his valedictory appearance at the Democratic National Convention on Monday evening.
“They are throwing him out on the Monday night stage, known as Death Valley. He now hates Obama and Crazy Nancy more than he hates me. He is an angry man, as he should be. They stole the presidency from him – it was a coup.”
History may well record that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump twice. First by running against him. And then, by not. The post was a sharp reminder of the untrammelled bitterness and disdain that characterises the relationship between Trump and Biden. Nothing, not even the placatory public words and the private phone call from Biden to Trump after the shocking assassination attempt, has persuaded Trump to offer even a modicum of respectful comment towards the president. The rivalry was poisoned. Polls had long indicated that most Americans dreaded the presidential rematch, and an atmosphere of Democratic gloom gave way to outright despair following their nominee’s abysmal CNN debate performance in late June. Now, Biden is gone from the race. The Democratic campaign has enjoyed a supernova thrust under Kamala Harris. And the Republican campaign has watched as the very polls which displayed a regal position in July are now flashing alarm bells. Biden can at least console himself that the toughest decision of his political life has had the desired effect.
[ Biden back in public spotlight as he stands by the side of HarrisOpens in new window ]
Giving Biden the stage in the United Centre on Monday night makes sense at this convention. The president is in a unique and deeply strange position. He is still the figurehead of the Democratic party. That windy weekend at his summer home at Rehoboth beach when, still recovering from Covid, he bowed to the will of the voices he trusted and to the polls which suggested a path to victory was becoming more treacherous by the day. This was to have been his convention. Now, he will take to the stage where he will, ironically, receive the same rapturous welcome as Trump himself enjoyed when he appeared in the arena at the Republican convention just two days after a gunman tried to kill him.
The outpouring of admiration and even love for Biden – in its limited political iteration at least – will be genuine. The Democratic delegates and the country will be looking at one of the last of his kind – a national politician whose working life is not so much a career as a wormhole back to the roiling days of the Nixon administration and all that has happened since. Resilience has been Biden’s calling card and an adroit touch at bipartisan legislative deal-making his greatest skill. His story, from the death of his first wife Neilia and young daughter Naomi in a car crash in Christmas of 1973, to the death of his son Beau, from cancer, in 2015 through to winning the White House in the twilight of his political life four years ago – is epic. He can tell it whatever way he wishes in Chicago and they will love him.
But they will love him, too, because he is leaving. And that must sting. Buried within Donald Trump’s taunt is a kernel of truth. If Biden is not mad, then he must be hurt. Because he is human.
The first lady, Dr Jill Biden, will speak before her husband takes the stage on Monday night. Old friends and political allies will be in the crowd. The iconography of the event will be defined by Biden-era signs embroidered with his favourite phrases. “Spread the faith.” “History is in your hands.” But in a peculiar way, he will be an observer at what was his own party. The Bidens will leave Chicago after he speaks on Monday night, for a few days respite in California. The practice of decades of guile has not deserted him through this. Once he stepped away, he immediately swerved into channelling his energy to finishing his term strongly. Achieving a ceasefire from Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is a high priority, along with pushing through further economic reforms.
On Thursday, in the suburbs of Maryland, he was back before the people, introduced by Kamala Harris, to talk about his success in pushing through a radically improved base cost from prescription drugs. He looked and sounded stronger than in early summer, but there were times when the public was reminded that the natural register of his voice is little more than a whisper now.
Biden is a politician to the last. Nobody will appear more delighted in Chicago at the prospect of Kamala Harris as president. Helping his party win this election will further burnish his legacy. He will mask his true feelings and the deep hurt and bewilderment he reportedly felt at the loss of belief exhibited in Barack Obama, Charles Schumer and, in particular, Nancy Pelosi. Even the ultimate political insider was taken aback by the severity of the coldness of the game.
When the full history of this period is written, Pelosi’s role as the steely conscience of the party will be central. In a remarkable broadcast interview with David Remnick of the New Yorker, Pelosi said something that Biden knows better than most about the brutal, scarring nature of elite politics. She simply said that it is a brutal business and that you must be willing to take a punch and throw a punch “for the children”.
[ Nancy Pelosi says Trump similar to Mussolini or Hitler in his attacks on pressOpens in new window ]
She recalled a prayer that a preacher in Sierra Leone had nailed to his wall, which told of a person meeting their maker and their creator saying: show me your wounds.
“And if I have no wounds, he will say: was nothing worth fighting for?” Pelosi quoted in a voice that is still crystal clear after 84 years.
“You gotta be proud of your wounds.”
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