Opinion | Another twist of fate in the saga of the 2024 US election
By Tom Fowdy
Joe Biden has quit the race for the US Presidential election.
Finally succumbing to widespread concerns about his age and mental capacity, the President has announced he will step aside for the Democratic nomination and finish his term gracefully. Biden, at 82 years old, is already the oldest president in history and his reputation did not recover from his car crash of a performance at the Presidential debate. This, combined with the attempt on Donald Trump's life, had seemingly made his defeat an inevitability in the psychological sense, with his own party, donors and the mainstream media having turned on him.
Now, Biden has endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris as his would-be successor. The former California judge and senator would be the first woman to tenure in the White House, but there is no consensus on her nomination as of yet and it is believed that some may even challenge her. Neither is there for that regard, any guarantee she would defeat Trump. Although Harris has more appeal than Biden in terms of polling, and none of these fatal flaws, she has not yet been subject to serious scrutiny and she likewise must overcome this sense of "chaos" in the Democratic camp. There is no avoiding the fact her campaign is going to be short and rushed while her adversary has a head start.
As I always say, a week is a long time in politics. What that phrase means is that political developments are fraught with unpredictability and nothing is certain. A trend can appear to be moving in one direction, only for a spontaneous, unexpected, and random development to occur which can change anything, and this is why so many political predictions tend to be proven wrong and age poorly, even from the most respected commentators. Nobody could have, for example, predicted the events which have unfolded over the past few weeks.
Who could have known Biden was going to have an absolute shocker during the Presidential debate that would accumulate in calls for him to quit? Who could have known that a random 20-year-old man would take it upon himself to try and kill Donald Trump, that the US Secret Service would fail to detect him and then that he would miss by a mere inch by the sheer event of Trump turning his head? It was thus consequentially assumed that the accumulation of these events made the Republican frontrunner's victory an inevitability, not withstanding of course Biden would quit and there was for a while little belief he would. Yet now, he has done, so who knows what is coming next? It feels like a dead election has been miraculously fought back to life and there is everything to fight for again.
There is, however, no doubt that this election will be a deeply consequential one in defining the history of the United States and the world. The stakes are now higher than ever before because Kamala Harris, as an ethnic minority woman, represents one side of America, whereas Donald Trump undeniably represents the other. This will be a titanic struggle between Populist Conservatism and American liberalism, a battle for the soul of a deeply divided country as the world watches on with anxiety and anticipation. What will it mean for America's foreign relations? What will it mean for the war in Ukraine? And for the conflict with China? Both sides will surely claim that the whole world hinges upon their triumph.
And will there be another twist of fate along the way, producing outcomes we expect? That is what we cannot predict. We are moving along a dark tunnel where we can only see a few feet ahead of us. It may twist in another direction, or there may be holes in the ground we risk falling inside, and then when we finally reach the exit there's little inclination we will know where exactly we are or what conditions await.
So, we can only undertake the journey, navigate what is around is carefully, and hope for the best. This is the 2024 US Presidential election, presumably one of the highest stake votes in history, and all bets are off.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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