Biden withdrawal: Swiss newspapers welcome ‘inevitable’ decision

US President Joe Biden boards Marine One in February 2023 Keystone

Better late than never – but US President Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to pull out of the race for the White House was far too late, reckon the Swiss media.

“Retirement and Kamala Harris, what else?” asked the Tribune de Genève, alluding to the punchline of a coffee capsule ad campaign featuring actor and Democrat fundraiser George Clooney, who ten days ago called for 81-year-old Biden to step aside.

“The pressure was too great – from within his camp, the press and show business” for Biden to maintain his candidacy for the presidential election in November, the paper said in an editorial. “After a calamitous first debate, in which the octogenarian often looked lost, and quarantine due to Covid, Joe Biden was on the ropes.”

Added to this was the “miracle of Pennsylvania” that “knocked him off his feet”: on July 13, in the middle of an election rally, a bullet “grazed the head” of his Republican opponent, former US President Donald Trump, piercing his ear. Biden, the paper said, “was no more than a feeble old man facing an ageless hero. Cruel for a president who ends his term in office with an economic record that would make many of his predecessors jealous”.

But even if his economic record is good, it’s “incomprehensible” that Biden didn’t realise sooner that he had to step aside, said the editorials of the CH Media group. Biden “simply couldn’t let go. That he has finally done so is perhaps not so much because he wants ‘the best for the country’, as he writes – if that were the case he would have done it sooner – but rather to save his own legacy and reputation”.

The Aargauer Zeitung pointed out that Biden’s “trademark throughout his career has been that he has always found a way out of hopeless situations”. Not this time. “Politics is brutal. It’s not about loyalty, but only about one thing: winning. Because only victory brings power. The Democrats have lost the belief that Trump can be beaten with Biden. […] This fear mobilised enormous forces. However, some members of Congress simply feared for their own seats in the event of a ‘red wave’, a Republican advance.”

‘Curse of the old men’

Nevertheless, this late withdrawal puts the Democratic Party in an awkward position, said the Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich. “Instead of building a succession that would have ensured his legacy and his memory, [Biden] stifled the debate during the primaries in order to secure a new mandate. […] He now leaves the Democrats with the difficult situation of launching a new candidacy less than four months before the presidential election.”

In its editorial, titled “the US can now shake off the curse of the old men”, the Tages-Anzeiger thought Biden’s decision gave the Democrats a chance to beat Trump, “but it’s going to be tough”.

“Yes, time is short for the Democrats,” the Tribune de Genève acknowledged, but in Vice President Kamala Harris “there’s no need to look far and wide to find a candidate”. “Not that she’s necessarily ideal: we don’t know much about Kamala Harris’s abilities, so little space has been left for her to make her own. […] But she alone has the support, both financial (she’s the only one who can inherit the donors’ kitty) and political (Obama, Clinton).”

Biden has thrown his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, and other prominent Democrats moved quickly to rally around her candidacy. Keystone

What’s more, “it’s now Trump who’s the old man”, with the former Attorney General of California aged 59, compared with 78 for the Republican billionaire. “Faced with a young and multicultural opponent, who will have the freedom to be more vocal about certain values (abortion, racial justice, democracy), the Republican will no longer be able to point to ‘the cognitive abilities of the man who occupies the Oval Office’,”.

Good news for voters

Similarly, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) believed Harris could offer Americans the generational change they want. “Especially if she is backed by an even younger man, moderate and white, such as Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, she could appeal to a broad cross-section of voters.” She may not be the strongest candidate, but that could be enough to beat Trump, the NZZ reckoned.

However, La Liberté warned that a Kamala Harris candidacy “could widen the gap between these two Americas that hate each other”.

“Her likely duel with the billionaire businessman is an allegory of the United States today. Female, Afro-American, progressive, she will have to face a macho demagogue and conservative, champion of inward-looking attitudes,” it said.

In any case, Biden’s “inevitable” withdrawal was likely to trigger heated discussions among Democrats, predicted Blick. “The question is who is responsible for the party approving Biden as a candidate in the first place, and why no one managed to convince him, even before the primaries, to hand over to his vice-president.”

So is Biden’s decision ultimately good for democracy? Yes, concluded the NZZ. “If the Democrats manage to put up a valid candidate within a reasonable period of time, the cards will be reshuffled in this election campaign. A month ago, it looked as though two ageing arch-enemies would be running against each other again. The Democrats must now, involuntarily, look for an alternative. This is particularly good news for the younger generation of American voters.”