5 Powerful Reasons the Democratic National Convention Shapes America’s Future

The speech Joe Biden will deliver Monday evening at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, was not the one the president initially planned to deliver.

With COVID making the Democratic National Convention 2020 into a virtual event, this week’s convention was the first time that Biden acknowledged his acceptance as the candidate for president of the Democratic National Convention personally. Biden would have been greeted in a lavish manner and welcomed by Democratic hopefuls that he will win another term following the path of the previous presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton

It was the strategy until July 21, which was the day Biden declared that he was making good on his pledge to become a “transitional” leader, and also endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris to take his position. Up to this point, Biden’s team was working on a Democratic National Convention speech that would celebrate the accomplishments Biden has achieved during his first term and also inspire supporters to “finish the task.”

The president now faces the responsibility of dealing with an opposition party that, according to all reports, has demonstrated that it was prepared to say goodbye to the president’s age of 81 well before he could be ready to walk off the platform. The party that was uninterested in this race has turned to anxiety following his disastrous speech in June. The party immediately rallied over his vice president in the exact moment Biden made it clear that he wasn’t running for reelection. The party quickly reversed the Democratic ticket’s numbers on the polls within a matter of an entire month.

Accepting the reality of this with grace is a struggle for everyone. This is especially challenging, especially for Biden, as he has been involved in politics for over five decades and has been seeking the presidency in every election since he was first elected to his first run for the White House in 1988.

In an interview on MSNBC just weeks prior to his resignation, Biden declared that he was “getting very annoyed” with party leaders. “Any one of them doesn’t consider me to be a candidate? Run against me. Make a statement and be the president. I’m going to challenge you at the convention,”” he said, clearly angry.

This Monday Biden faces an “historically unusual situation,” declared Thomas Schwartz, presidential historian at Vanderbilt University.

“He is a single-term president who was sacked from his ticket by the top leaders of his own party, former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, Obama, as well as [Senate Majority Speaker] Schumer as well as [House Speaker Hakeem] Jeffries. They are now being asked to give an enthusiastic endorsement for his vice president,” Schwartz told VOA. “It isn’t taking Sigmund Freud’s insight to know that Biden might have uncomfortable emotions.”

The sole Democratic president from the modern era who tried but failed to get a second term in office is Jimmy Carter, who lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980. The sole Democratic president to have initially hoped for an election but backed out of the contest in 1968 was Lyndon Johnson in 1968, in protest of his Vietnam military policy.

President Joe Biden, left, as well as Democratic Presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, speak in Largo, Maryland, on August 15, 2024.
A dazzling Leader

Democrats are awed by Biden as a gracious leader who puts the country first over his political goals. In the next four weeks, he will have to digest the fact that he won’t not make the cut on the Democratic list, Biden is likely to do his best to elevate Harris on Monday.

A preview of what’s coming Tuesday evening, in the course of Biden and Harris’s first appearance together to highlight the efforts of the administration to cut the price of prescription drugs The two leaders both praised and praised one another. The speeches were punctuated by the chant of “Thank Joe!” from the crowd.

Biden will have to show that the decision to not contest a second term was “reached by himself,” said Jennifer Lawless, Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. This is essential to debunk Republican talk points designed towards sabotaging Harris and causing division in Democrats in the belief that Biden is “forced to leave” and the nominating process had been “stolen” from the incumbent, she said to VOA.

The Republican candidate, the former president Donald Trump, had suggested that Biden could make a surprise performance at the Democratic National Convention in order to win the nomination.

“What do you think the odds are that the crooked Joe Biden, the worst president to ever be elected in the US and whose presidency was revoked in violation of the Constitution through Kamabla, Barack Hussein Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others of the illiberal left, disrupts the Democratic National Convention and tries to regain the presidency, starting by inviting me to a debate?” Trump wrote in a posting on social media.

He mistyped Harris, the first name of Harris. “He thinks he has made a historical mistake transferring the US presidency, which was a coup for the citizens of the world that he is most angry about and wants to get it back.”

This isn’t likely to occur. In fact, in announcing his support for Harris, Biden will aim to enhance his record, including his legislation, his record on foreign policy, and his status as a leader who, in the minds of Democrats, has once again saved our country from Trump and his ilk, this time handing over the torch.

“In several ways, Biden’s future rests in large part on Harris’s achievements as well as Biden’s accomplishments in the legislative arena,” Lawless said. “And Harris’s achievement is dependent on a unified and enthusiastic political party. Therefore, their motivations are in sync, and they are able to display the united front.”

When asked by reporters on Friday what his thoughts were for Democrats, Biden answered simply, “Win.”