Biden has always been a weak-minded party man or apparatchik, who does what the party and its vocal special interests want or order him to do.
Democrats are hailing President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race as an heroic act of statesmanship befitting a man who puts country over self.
“Joe Biden will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents. This last act of sacrifice for his country guarantees it,” tweeted Stanford University Professor Michael McFaul.
McFaul is an otherwise sober-minded Democrat who served as President Obama’s ambassador to Russia. McFaul got a lot right about Russia and Ukraine, but he’s wrong about Biden.
In truth, Biden’s decision to quit the race reflects the fact that he has never been his own man; he has always been a weak-minded party man or apparatchik, who does what the party and its vocal special interests want or order him to do.
This was true in the 1970s, when, National Review reports, Biden embraced segregationist Democratic Senators like “James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both of whom steadfastly opposed racial integration and federal civil-rights protections for African Americans.”
It was true in the 1980s, when Biden supported the Democrats’ nuclear freeze, which would have given the Soviet Union a decisive advantage in its cold war against the United States and Europe.
It was true in the 1990s, when Biden tried to “Bork” or torpedo the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Borking or torpedoing Thomas was demanded by the the legal and feminist left.
It was true in the aughts, when, like most Democrats, Biden opposed The Surge in Iraq.
It was true in the 2010’s when, as Vice President, Biden carried water for Democratic President Barack Obama: by advocating for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.
Never mind the fact that Obama would later have to send U.S. troops back into Iraq to destroy ISIS or the Islamic State. The party’s “anti-war” demands had to be met and so Biden met them.
And it is true in this decade as president. Biden may have campaigned as a moderate, but he has governed as a leftist or “progressive,” in accordance with the demands of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the Squad. Thus Biden’s misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” is really a downpayment on the far left’s Green New Deal.
So it should come as no surprise that now, when confronted with Democratic Party demands that he withdraw from the presidential race because polls show he can’t win, Biden is doing as ordered.
Biden is doing as he has always done: acting in accordance with the demands of the party and the clamoring of its special interests. We should have expected nothing less. At 81 years old Biden was not about to act differently.
Biden can’t be his own man because he has never been his own man. He’s a wholly-owned tool of the Democratic Party and whatever special interests are guiding and directing the party.
Good riddance
Feature photo credit: Biden and Hollywood megastar/Democratic Party big-money fundraiser George Clooney, courtesy of Josh Telles/Getty, published in Deadline.