Bowing to Pressure Biden Drops Out
Report and photos by Phil Pasquini
Washington, DC
Washington: Anyone familiar with visiting the White House would have observed on July 21 an unusual scene there, in noticing a larger than usual police presence both on the street and with heavily armed Secret Service officers walking around Lafayette Park.
The pre-deployment of such a force usually hints that something out of the ordinary is afoot. And so, it was at 1:46 pm EDT that President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race and that he was backing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate. So, for once television sets across the country really had “Breaking News” to announce rather than the tired and overused cliché that the phrase has evolved into.
A little while later the area around the White House was flooded with reporters and TV crews intermixed with demonstrators both thanking the president for his service and those happy to see him step out of the race. News crews from across the globe, to the delight of tourists, hurriedly set up to broadcast their live reports using the iconic building as a backdrop.
Last week’s assassination attempt on former president Donald J. Trump that pushed the race in his favor, today lost ground with Biden’s exit by shifting the dynamics once again in a direction that politico pundits are clamoring to chart in these turbulent and murky waters as to the outcome of this year’s election. Everyone wants to get it right, but no one has a clear view of just what the election results will be. For once, historical precedent does not exist, and the fluidity of the situation has caused great angst among the talking heads.
No doubt if the shift this has caused results in Trump’s second defeat at the polls, we as a nation will be treated to yet more of the “rigged election” narrative ad nauseum once again. Biden’s withdrawal will certainly tweak the polls in the Democrats' favor by injecting a new element into what promised to be a boring contest between two old White men.
While some pundits had believed that Biden would announce his withdrawal from the race this weekend, many others believed that he would not do so until after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was invited by Speaker Mike Johnson to address a joint session of Congress Wednesday on the war in Gaza.
One grandmother was overheard confessing to her young granddaughter that she was so happy to be able to share the historical moment with her while another protester held a sign saying she would vote for a rock before choosing between candidates in this year’s election. A group of nearby activists held signs and engaged in conversations chastising Biden for backing Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the ongoing genocide there. They were hopeful that the next president would end the war in Gaza and discontinue support for Israel. While another man, happy to see Biden leave, held a simple hastily made sign that said, “Bye Joe.”
The Democratic party now finds itself less than a month before its convention without an official candidate with some already calling for a truly democratic convention that would entertain a host of prospective candidates in letting the delegates decide who the next presidential candidate will be.
Although Kamala Harris has Biden’s backing and his delegates’ votes, these are not normal times and now nothing should surprise anyone as we move closer to the Democratic Convention and election day in November.
(Phil Pasquini is a freelance journalist and photographer. His reports and photographs appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Countercurrents, and Nuze.ink. He is the author of Domes, Arches and Minarets: A History of Islamic-Inspired Buildings in America.)
