Column: So long, Joe. Thanks for keeping democracy great

Hello, and happy Tuesday. There are 76 days until the election and it’s time to accept your fate: All you are going to hear about this week is the Democratic National Convention.

Monday started off with swagger.

Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance, very demure, very mindful.

Tim “Coach” Walz dropped into seemingly any meeting he could find, from the Black caucus gathering to the Pennsylvania delegation event. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain tore off his sports coat to reveal a “Trump’s a scab” shirt. Take that, Hulk Hogan.

It’s hip, people. It’s brown. It’s Black. It’s young. It’s smart. It’s confident. In short, it’s a Republican nightmare.

Faced with that DNC media assault on his crazy, Donald Trump did what any desperate despot would do — turned to Taylor Swift. Sunday, he posted AI-generated images of made-up “Switfies for Trump.” The barrage included a mocked-up image of Swift, in a tacky top hat she wouldn’t be caught dead in, exhorting fans to vote Trump.

No word yet from Swift on having her likeness stolen, but it wasn’t Trump’s only foray into fantasy. He also posted a fake image of Vice President Kamala Harris appearing to host a Communist rally. And of course, there’s his fake boogie-down video with Elon Musk from last week.

With reality seemingly increasingly unpleasant (and unnecessary) for Trump, his embrace of make-believe might be understandable. But also, oh, so dangerous for democracy.

Which brings us back to the DNC.

Monday night, you probably caught at least some of Joe Biden’s speech. If it wasn’t exactly a farewell, it was real.

The convention will probably make little of Biden moving forward, but what he said — and did— last night deserves a moment, and a place in the history books.

The man who would be king

George Washington saw Trump coming. Washington, the “Hamilton” fans among you already know, was our first president to voluntarily step way from the presidency.

In his farewell speech, which was a huge-big deal in his day, Washington predicted this moment: a day when the back-and-forth domination of competing political parties will have left some wanting revenge, wanting to trample whoever and whatever the other side is at all costs — opening the door for a power-hungry leader to exploit the Oval Office for personal gain.

“And sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty,” Washington wrote.

We all know who that sounds like. But also, it could have been Biden, had he made other choices.

The man who wouldn’t be king

The thing about being president of the United States is that not many people can force you to do something you don’t want to do.

Not even Nancy Pelosi.

Although there was certainly extreme pressure from his own party to step down, Biden could have told them to pound sand. He could have demanded to be crowned as the nominee, victory and democracy be damned.

Because stepping away from one of the most powerful roles in the world can’t be easy, just giving it up because others no longer want you to be there. Because maybe you’re no longer the best person for the job. Let’s be real — it’s gotta hurt that Harris has turned this around in a matter of days.

But Biden is going out with grace.

“He brought dignity, decency and competency back to the White House,” as Hillary Clinton said during her speech earlier in the night. “And he showed what it means to be a true patriot.”

Thank you for leaving

So ya’ll, I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t weepy by the time Joe came onstage to Jackie Wilson’s “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher.”

First Lady Jill Biden had been on, and his daughter Ashley, who called him the “OG girl dad.”

This man did lift us higher. He reminds us what we stand for, when Trump tries to tear Americans apart.

Biden came into office, as he put it, during a winter of “peril and possibility,” though it all seems like a fever dream now. We had endured the COVID-19 pandemic. Charlottesville, Va., with its tiki torch Nazis. George Floyd. The insurrection.

Biden’s tie was a muted blue, his eyes resolute and something more. Angry maybe, sad, determined? All of that.

The crowd chanted, “Thank you, Joe.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he told them, as they went on for more than three minutes. But I’m not sure he meant it.

Thank you for leaving. A hard thing to hear.

And then he meandered through a jumbled hit list of accomplishments. Vietnam came up. So did Henry Kissinger.

All Biden’s claims were true, but the whole rambling speech reminded us of that fateful debate, and the fear and hope that brought us to Harris-Walz.

It was hard to follow, and left no one sorry he isn’t the candidate. Except Trump and Vance.

“America, I love you,” Biden said early on.

“I love my job. But I love my country more.”

And I have no doubt he does.

No matter how badly our rejection hurts him, no matter that it ends in heartbreak.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Trump portrays Harris as foreign, echoing past attacks on Democrats of color
The can’t control it: Trump tries to stay on message — sort of
The L.A. Times Special: Column: Pelosi on Biden ouster: ‘I just wanted to win this election. So if they’re upset, I’m sorry for them’

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. The protests that many feared would disrupt the convention have so far been fairly tame. But the week is young.

Coalition to March on the DNC demonstrators at Union Park in Chicago on Aug. 19, 2024.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

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