Joe Biden was discarded by the same billionaire class he assiduously served throughout his political career. Barely able to stumble his way through the words on a TelePrompter and not always cognizant of what is happening around him, his billionaire supporters pulled the plug. He was their creature – he has been in federal office for 47 years – from start to finish. He was used as a foil to defeat Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primaries and was anointed as the candidate in 2024 in a Soviet-style primary campaign. The billionaire class will now anoint someone else. Democratic Party voters are stage props in this political farce. Donald Trump, unlike Kamala Harris or any other apparatchik the billionaire class selects as a presidential candidate, has a genuine and committed base, however fascistic.

In Hitler and the Germans, the political philosopher Eric Vogelin dismisses the idea that Hitler — gifted in oratory and political opportunism but poorly educated and vulgar — mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiote, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist.

Biden and the Democratic Party are responsible for this zeitgeist. They orchestrated the deindustrialization of the United States, ensuring that 30 million workers lost their jobs in mass layoffs. As I write in America, The Farewell Tour, this assault on the working class created a crisis that forced the ruling elites to devise a new political paradigm. Trumpeted by a compliant media, this paradigm shifted its focus from the common good to race, crime and law and order. Biden was at the epicenter of this paradigm shift. Those undergoing profound economic and political change were told that their suffering stemmed not from rampant militarism and corporate greed but from a threat to national integrity. The old consensus that buttressed New Deal programs and the welfare state was attacked as enabling criminal Black youth, “welfare queens” and other alleged social parasites. This opened the door to a faux populism, begun by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, which supposedly championed family values, traditional morality, individual autonomy, law and order, the Christian faith and the return to a mythical past, at least for white Americans. The Democratic Party, especially under Bill Clinton and Biden, became largely indistinguishable from the establishment Republican Party to which it is now allied.

The Democratic Party refuses to accept its responsibility for the capture of democratic institutions by a rapacious oligarchy, the grotesque social inequality, the cruelty of predatory corporations and an unchecked militarism. The Democrats will anoint another amoral politician, probably Harris, to use as a mask for outsized corporate greed, the folly of endless war, the facilitation of genocide and the assault on our most basic civil liberties. The Democrats, tools of Wall Street, gave us Trump, and the 74 million people who voted for him in 2020. They look set to give us Trump again. God help us.

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Fortunes can change in an instant in politics, and Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race yesterday was one such moment. Here are the winners and losers. 

The winners: 

Kamala Harris. You crash and burn in the 2020 Democratic primary but get picked by Joe Biden—who you insinuated was a racist—because he promised to appoint a woman of color. Now the Democratic elite is rallying around you, and you’re a shoe-in for the nomination. Not bad. 

Barack Obama. “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up,” said Obama once, in the most memorable line of the great orator’s career. Game, set, and match to the former president over the soon-to-be-former president in this underrated political rivalry. 

Hunter Biden. The president’s recently convicted son emerged as one of his closest advisers in the last few weeks. He was urging his dad to fight on, so while he hasn’t gotten his way, he’s ultimately a winner, because the chances of a presidential pardon just went way up. 

The Lord Almighty. Only the “Lord Almighty” could persuade me to step down, said Biden recently. The Lord hath spoken. 

X. He just tweeted it out. Yes, the president of the United States announced his seismic decision with nothing more than a tweet. Reportedly, even White House aides first learned the news on the platform. Amid all the talk of a dying social network, yesterday’s news was a reminder that X will never die. 

Nikki Haley. Back in February, Nikki Haley was mocked for predicting that Biden wouldn’t be the Democratic nominee. Okay, she said he’d be out within a month. But close enough. 

Vivek Ramaswamy. Another Republican who called it.

Nancy Pelosi. She can stick in the shiv, and you don’t even know it. After Biden declared in a two-page letter he was staying in, she popped up on Morning Joe and put his departure back into play by saying, “It’s up to Biden to decide if he’s going to run.” 

Drew Barrymore. The nation needs a Momala, she said in a personal-space-violating recent interview with the vice president. And a Momala we shall have. 

Whichever Biden aide suggested an early debate. The decision to challenge Trump to a debate in June will surely go down as one of the worst calls in the history of presidential campaigns. Which is why the person who came up with this idea was surely running some kind of sabotage campaign. Mission accomplished! 

The coronavirus. The pandemic sank Trump’s reelection. And now the virus struck Trump’s successor at his lowest ebb, possibly adding to the sense that the game was up. So Covid is 2-0 against American presidents. 

Joe Biden. The Joe Biden rehab tour starts today! After being painted a selfish megalomaniac for staying in the race as long as he did, Joe Biden is already being talked of as a hero for the simple act of stepping down. 

The losers:

Democratic primary voters. First, the Democrats hid Joe Biden’s mental decline from primary voters. Then, when his decline became obvious, they said to voters: “Just kidding—let’s go with someone else.”  

Donald Trump. Kamala Harris may be an unpopular and untested candidate with many vulnerabilities, but she’s also compos mentis. For that reason alone, she clears the low bar of being a more formidable opponent than Joe Biden.

The media. Sure, he’s lost his fastball, but Biden is still up to the job and any suggestion otherwise is a little bit icky. That was the tone of most coverage of Biden’s age until the debate a month ago. And on that debate stage the legacy media—with a few notable exceptions—were caught in another lie. 

Wolf Blitzer. On Sunday, the CNN stalwart was enjoying a “Wolf Spritzer” cocktail at happening D.C. Mexican spot El Presidente. Then the actual presidente ruined the fun by announcing he was dropping out. Just as he had a nice buzz going, poor Wolf had to high-foot it back to the studio. 

Ron Klain. Not everyone in the Democratic Party was doing their best to meet the moment after Biden’s announcement. “Now that the donors and electeds have pushed out the only candidate who has ever beaten Trump, it’s time to end the political fantasy games and unite behind the only veteran of a national campaign — our outstanding @vp, @KamalaHarris!! Let’s get real and win in November!” Way to keep it classy, Ron.

Andrew Bates. The Baghdad Bob of the Biden administration, press officer Andrew Bates, is as slavishly loyal as they come. “He’s just that fucking good,” he enthused after Biden spoke a few complete sentences at the recent NATO press conference. It’s just that fucking over, Andrew. 

Jill Biden. Before the debate, Jill Biden had a reputation as a scholar, an educator, a molder of young minds. But Dr. Jill morphed into Dr. Macbeth over the past few weeks. At least she got that Vogue cover.

Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman.