With his difficult decision to drop out of the race for the White House, President Joe Biden demonstrated patriotism and humility, something few politicians can attest to, starting with the Republican candidate who is only looking out for his own benefit and could not even admit that he lost to Biden in 2020.
After an impressive political career, Biden is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019 out of a “sense of duty” in the face of Trump’s chaotic and dangerous presidency. He won the presidential race at the age of 77 in November 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, defeating a Trump who did not acknowledge his defeat and instigated a bloody takeover of the federal Capitol to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.
Since then, Trump and his MAGA movement in the Republican-majority House of Representatives have been busy obstructing the legislative agenda of Biden and the Democrats.
Biden faced off against Trump throughout this year until his performance in the first debate on CNN sparked calls for him to withdraw from the race. That became a reality on Sunday, July 21, when Biden also supported the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants, to head the Democratic ticket.
In this way, Biden protected his legacy and gave a lesson in selflessness and courage that only a few people possess, those who, like him, have been hardened by harsh life experiences, from his stutter, the tragic death of his first wife and daughter in a traffic accident, undergoing surgery for two brain aneurysms, the death of his son Beau from a brain tumor, the personal and legal problems of his son Hunter, and now the Democratic chorus asking him to drop out of the race.
After this gesture, it remains to be seen whether the voters will understand what is at stake in this election.
The contrasts between the two parties remain clear.
The Trump-Vance ticket offers a pessimistic, dark and isolationist vision with extremist and retrograde proposals on the rights of women, minorities, immigrants and democracy itself, as outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the roadmap for a potential second Trump administration.
On immigration, the centerpiece of the Trump-Vance plan is mass raids and deportations as well as huge detention camps for immigrants detained by teams of military and police in charge of investigating people’s immigration status. The deportations would include, among others, Dreamers and undocumented immigrants who have been living, working and paying taxes in this country for decades and who have children and relatives who are citizens.
But Republicans are also seeking to eliminate legal immigration and asylum and impose a series of draconian measures that were blocked in court during Trump’s first term, such as the Muslim ban.
Republicans are also falsely blaming Harris for the border crisis the Biden administration has faced. Although Biden tasked Harris with a long-term plan on how to address the root causes of migration from the countries where the migrants are coming from, Republicans began to mockingly call her the “border czar” and blame her for the surge in crossings. But the crossings and border enforcement were not and are not Harris’s responsibility.
In March of this year, the White House announced that Harris had secured commitments from private firms to spend, starting in May 2021, more than $5 billion in the Northern Triangle of Central America to promote economic opportunities that generate jobs and security that prevent people from migrating. The announcement was overshadowed by the crossings.
In her political career as California attorney general and as a U.S. senator from that state, Harris consistently supported a pro-immigrant agenda of citizenship reform, championed the cause of Dreamers, and was the first lawmaker to call for an investigation into the horrendous separation of children from their parents at the border under the Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance policy. As vice president, she is part of an administration that, in the absence of immigration reform due to Republican obstruction, has supported family reunification programs like the one recently announced to legalize nearly half a million spouses and 50,000 undocumented children of U.S. citizens.
On a range of issues ranging from abortion rights, civil and workers’ rights, health care, education, housing and immigration, the differences between Harris and the Democrats under the Trump-Vance ticket are abysmal. The former are trying to expand and defend rights on all these issues, while the Republicans are seeking to reverse the progress made.
Voters will decide between these two visions. The countdown begins.