US President Joe Biden is considering dropping out of the 2024 US presidential race after last week’s disastrous debate performance, according to reporting from The New York Times.
The news emerged early Monday after the president was said to be in discussions with members of his family over the weekend on whether to continue his candidacy amid widespread concern over his age. Last week’s televised debate with former President Donald Trump, where Biden frequently appeared to have trouble finishing thoughts and responding to questions, stoked public anxiety among many Democratic Party officials. Opinion surveys since Thursday night’s event appear to show the octogenarian head of state falling further behind in the polls.
The renewed panic comes as observers in France are urging a center-left alliance ahead of elections this weekend to deny Marine Le Pen’s party a parliamentary majority. Observers fear the controversial figure could prevail in the second round of voting Sunday, ushering in the country’s first right-wing government since World War II.
Both incidents are drawing concern internationally as establishment political forces struggle to fend off increasingly potent challenges to their power, according to Dr. George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at London’s Global Policy Institute. The author joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program Wednesday to offer analysis on the twin developments and their implications for Western countries.
“This makes the United States look weak because if Biden does step aside and they say ‘I'm not physically and mentally competent to run,’ then the next question will be, ‘well, are you physically and mentally competent to remain president?’” said Szamuely. “It's going to be very hard for Biden to say, ‘yes, I can still function for another six months as president while there are two serious wars taking place in which America is actively involved. I think there will immediately be calls for Biden to resign forthwith and the result will be great anxiety.”
“So already you have people concerned about Trump, but at least Trump is a known quantity,” he added. “But now, well, what's going to happen now? I mean, what happens during the next six months? What happens at the convention? Everything is up in the air. So internationally there's just a great deal of concern of an America in turmoil.”
“Yeah, it feels like a bit like a free fall for sure,” agreed host Angie Wong.
European leaders are said to be worried over the potential of a second Trump term amid concerns the former president would pull the United States out of the NATO military alliance. The European Union has investigated ways to ensure continued funding for Ukraine’s proxy war against Russia in the event the former president ends US support for the conflict upon returning to the White House.
But Europe’s political establishment is also losing its grip on power as support surges for right-wing populist parties throughout the continent. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party won the most support in the first round of recent French parliamentary elections, leading President Emmanuel Macron to seek alliances to prevent her triumph in the second round.
Although Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s coalition bested Macron’s centrist party in the first round of voting, the French president is unlikely to include the leftwing in figure in any coalition, said Szamuely, noting that ”Macron seems to really hate him.” The analyst suggested the French leader would seek more moderate allies, forming a center-left alliance of establishment political figures to deny Le Pen power.
“Once [Le Pen] did so well last Sunday, it was clear that there would be a gathering momentum to keep out National Rally because that's really what the French elite have been about now for several decades, ever since probably in 2002 when Jean-Marie Le Pen was the presidential candidate against Chirac,” Szamuely recalled. “The elite has been absolutely determined to do whatever it can to keep out National Rally. So I wasn't at all surprised that this is what they would do.”
“Now the question is – and this is obviously the rather salient issue – whether you can keep creating all these alliances to keep out National Rally, and you can just keep whipping up hysteria every few years about National Rally,” he continued. “It hasn't really worked because step by step, year by year, National Rally's vote has been going up. So even if they manage this time to form a coalition government that keeps out the National Rally, then what happens in 2027?”
“There's going to be a lot of anger and a lot of frustration among the French that France's problems are not being addressed. The ruling elites keep whipping up hysteria about National Rally and there's going to be a presidential election and this time they may well vote in Marine Le Pen.”