The US presidential election has been reset

Now the Democrats can take the front foot on the important issues

President Joe Biden has passed the torch to Kamala Harris: American's first woman Vice President, first Black Vice President, first Asian-American Vice President. File photo: AP/Kevin Wolf

In this unprecedented US political year, in an unprecedented eight days, with an unprecedented threat to American democracy and its government... This election has been reset.

At 1:46 p.m. Washington time on Sunday, Joe Biden posted a letter on Twitter. He rightly touted the "great progress as a Nation", retrieving the country from "a once-in-a-century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression". He hailed "historic investments" in infrastructure, health care, veterans' care, and the the green economy. 

And then he wrote the words anticipated for days, "I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down" from the 2024 Presidential election 27 minutes later, he passed the torch to Kamala Harris: American's first woman Vice President, first Black Vice President, first Asian-American Vice President.

Had Biden continued until November, the oxygen would have been sucked out of the room by a US media led by Trumpist talking points. 

Every day would have been "Old Joe, Old Joe", shutting out critical issues in the most important US peacetime election since 1865: woman's rights, including abortion rights; climate change; education; health care; the economy; immigration; foreign policy from Russia's invasion of Ukraine to the Middle East to China; and — perhaps, most significant — Donald Trump's criminal record, attempted coup in 2021, and ongoing assault on the US system.

Now, probably with Harris as the Presidential candidate and with a white male politician as her Vice Presidential running mate, the Democrats can take the front foot on those issues and hope the media will choose them over Trump's dystopian spectacle.

Kamala Harris can now take on Trump's lies and bullying. And she has the advantage, especially with women and youth, on issues such as the assault on rights and the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

Because of Biden's decision to run for a second term, the White House had pushed Harris into the shadows since 2022, only letting her out to hold a poisoned chalice such as the white noise over migrants and asylum seekers.

Now she can come into her own. Intelligent and capable, she has learned from the mis-steps in a 2020 Presidential campaign where she was once the Democratic favourite. She can take on Trump's lies and bullying. And she has the advantage, especially with women and youth, on issues such as the assault on rights and the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

This is not to say that Harris will be favoured to triumph on November 5. The Trumpists will throw every term of invective, every item of disinformation at their disposal. They will play the race card. Trump will try to intimidate the Vice President, as he did when stalking Hillary Clinton across the debate stage on 2016.

But now that intimidation risks drawing attention to Trump's misogyny, including his civil conviction over sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll and his criminal conviction over a pay-off to a porn star to hide their sexual encounter.

And at every step, Harris and her running mate will invoke Trump's assault on democracy on January 6, 2021; his pledge to be a dictator from Day 1 of a return to the White House; and "Project 2025", the plan to break US Government agencies with political appointees serving the Donald's commands.

When Biden's letter dropped on social media, a shrewd friend of mine texted, "Messaging: He did something Trump would never do. He put his country first."

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I flashed back. In January 1961, John F. Kennedy stood before the US Capitol, having taken the oath as US President, and said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Thirty-four months later, Kennedy was shot dead in a Dallas motorcade. Now, in a crisis even greater than that sparked by his assassination, a Harris campaign can revive the message.

As a convicted felon/sex abuser/fraudster/coup plotter demands what every person in the US does for him — or else becomes his enemy — the alternative is to go to the country and ask for the repair of a fractured community. Dialogue not division, respect rather than abuse, service rather than selfishness.

If that message resonates, if the US media pays attention rather than sells itself for clickbait, then perhaps America can avoid the calamity that awaits.