United States President Joe Biden announced on Monday that he would be ending his campaign for reelection. 

The Democratic president’s decision comes after months of speculation about his mental capacity and ability to defeat Republican challenger Donald Trump.

Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as a potential successor, but the official nominee will be chosen at the Democratic National Convention in August.

What the hell is going on?

Election years in the United States have always been quite intense, but make no mistake, this is a massive decision that is totally unprecedented.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Joe Biden is still the president. He will remain the president until January 20th 2025. He’s not resigning, he’s just saying he won’t run for re-election.

This decision is the culmination of three weeks of pressure from powerful people in the Democratic party calling on him to resign, including former president Barack Obama. 

Why is Biden dropping out?

Short answer: Because he’s too old. and he’s probably going to lose. Here’s how it went down happened.

Ever since Biden first ran for president in 2020, concerns were raised about his age. At 81 years old, he is the oldest president in American history. 

Throughout his term small incidents occurred, such as stumbles or lapses in thought, that caused people to question whether he was mentally fit for the job.

This concern had been lingering under the surface for years, with one poll from January showing that 62% of voters thought his age was a major concern, but a poor debate performance on June 27 turned those whispers into an uproar.

In that debate, Biden was constantly stuttering and stumbling over his words, at once point losing his train of thought while talking about medicare, and at another point trailing off into mumbles entirely, allowing Trump to win the debate convincingly.

The Crisis

After the debate, the Democratic party into a panic as senior figures in the party started to believe that Biden was no longer capable of defeating Trump at the election. At first Biden held firm, but with each passing day the calls grew louder.

Biden attempted to prove that he was still mentally sharp and the debate had just been a fluke, but his efforts were undermined by multiple unfortunate gaffes, such as accidentally calling Donald Trump his Vice President during a press conference. 

Worst of all, during a NATO event that his team had jokingly referred to as a ‘big boy interview’, Biden accidentally referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin”, Putin of course being the President of Russia, the country that Ukraine is currently at war with.

The Final Straw

All this was bad enough for the Democrats until the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on July 13th. 

This event and the iconic photos that emerged from it elevated Trump’s image and Republican resolve, leading the Democratic Party to believe that Biden’s position was now untenable and the calls to drop out reached a fever pitch.

Shortly after this, On July 18th, showing just how high the pressure was getting, Biden announced for the first time that he would drop out if he was diagnosed with a medical condition. 

Three days later Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19. This, it seems, was the final straw. He announced that he was dropping out the next day.

What happens now?

The Democratic National Convention or DNC will meet on August 19th to choose a new nominee. They are widely expected to nominate Kamala Harris.

Most of the delegates were pledged to Biden but since he isn’t running more there was uncertainty over what those delegates are meant to do. This is an unprecedented situation so the democrats truly are in uncharted territory.

Some called for all delegates to become unpledged and hold an “open convention”, some people wanted to hastily organise a mini primary, and others think the DNC should just make it up as they go along and hope it works out.

Whatever they decide to do, Kamala Harris will probably end up the nominee. At time of writing she has already been endorsed by Biden, most of the delegates, and a number of other high-profile democrats, her campaign raised a record breaking $84 million in 24 hours, and there aren’t many obvious challengers.

The Democrats are taking a massive gamble. Both major parties are very unpopular, and trust in American democracy is falling worldwide. This whole month has been a demonstration of just how polarised and unstable America is becoming.

For better or worse, America remains the most powerful country in the world, and therefore everyone needs to pay attention to their elections. No matter who wins, this election will have ramifications the world over.