An American thriller with far-reaching consequences
What everyone was afraid of and talked about behind closed doors ended up happening on Thursday night. No one could tell if it would come in the form of a stumble on the steps of Air Force One or a terrible interview. It happened, after all, in the TV debate with millions of Democrats looking on with anxiety and hope that their candidate would succeed; what they saw, instead, was a catastrophic appearance and panic.
It was no secret in Washington that the party holies – Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi etc – were worried and were exploring a Plan B. It was too late. The first obstacle was to overcome the president’s ego, a man who had been reaching for the highest office of the land for decades. He always thought history had been unfair to him and that he was paying for the fact that he did not hail from the ranks of the American Ivy League elite. He also believed – and was justified in doing so – that he was the only one who could defeat Donald Trump when no one else wanted to step into the ring.
Let’s assume that his closest people convince him to drop out of the race now, before the party convention. The first problem is that the party would be accused of ignoring the will of millions of voters and choosing a candidate in a backroom manner. The second problem is Vice President Kamala Harris, who will reasonably want to be a candidate, even though she is too weak and, possibly, unelectable. But if the party leadership decides to bypass her, this may alienate two important blocks of supporters of the Democratic party: women and Blacks. It’s a tough play because there is no obvious candidate in the picture, one who is convincing enough to make everyone else back down.
We are entering an incredibly interesting and unpredictable phase that any screenwriter would want to turn into a political thriller for Netflix. It is a phase that will determine a lot of things, even the future of the West as we have known it for the past 80 years.
History is, indeed, unfair at times. Joe Biden has displayed consensus and perhaps even wisdom in how he handles many issues, while he also managed to pass important laws and initiatives through Congress. But Lyndon B. Johnson felt the same way in 1968… The American electoral process has always been a harsh, gloves-off, unpredictable experience. The media has always lurked – way before social media – ready to turn an electoral race into a knockout bout, even a thriller. Well, the latest US thriller started on Thursday.
