Anactof grace Biden's selfless choice to drop out sets stage fora different election

Legend has it that when King George III heard that George Washington, the first US president, had decided to retire after his second term, he remarked: "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

- David Smith

Joe Biden, 81, holed up at a Delaware beach house with a bad cough after a Covid-19 diagnosis, ended his presidential re-election campaign last Sunday. It was a selfless decision that put the country's interests before his own - an act of grace that many see as vividly contrasting with the narcissism of his opponent Donald Trump.

It also sets the stage for a completely different sort of election in November as top Democrats rapidly rushed to endorse Kamala Harris, which the president himself did. Now the Republicans will have to deal with issues of mental competence and an ageing candidate.

Although many fellow Democrats had lost faith in Biden's mental acuity and capacity to beat Trump, they had no mechanism to oust Biden, who won a mandate in the party primary and continued to enjoy the support of Black and progressive voters. Although he had spent decades striving for the crown, Biden ultimately realised that it was not about him and never had been.

Opinion polls suggest that he would have lost in November to Trump, a twice-impeached felon and instigator of the January 6 insurrection. To cling on, and return the White House keys to Trump, would have destroyed Biden's legacy. He would have been remembered as the man who saved democracy in 2020 only to sacrifice it at the altar of his own ambition in 2024.