Suddenly, Trump, not Biden, is the buffoonish old guy in the race

When the US Supreme Court tossed out 50 years of judicial precedent and overruled Roe v Wade, it was an enormous victory for the forces of the right. But it’s not clear that it was a big win for their political prospects.

The right had used Roe as a call to arms for decades – but now it was gone. Meanwhile, a much larger group of people who thought Roe was settled law got more than a little upset about it.

Donald Trump rallies the faithful in Michigan on Saturday.Credit: Bloomberg

The Republicans were the dog that caught the car. What would it do with it now? In virtually every single vote in the United States since, we’ve seen an electorate infuriated by the decision. The Republicans still haven’t figured out how to cope with this big supposed win.

History may record that the right caught a much bigger car today. With President Joe Biden finally facing the obvious and bowing out of the race he was plainly too old to prosecute effectively, the Republican Party is suddenly holding, if I can mix my folksy metaphors here, a hot potato of epic proportions.

But wait — isn’t this a disaster for the Democrats? Chaos, changing horses in midstream, all of that? Actually, no, though there will be a few chaotic weeks. Vice President Kamala Harris seems the likely new nominee – Biden specifically endorsed her but that is not guaranteed. (Former president Barack Obama, in his statement applauding Biden’s decision, specifically didn’t.)

But cock your head a little and this all looks like very bad news for those pursuing the ungodly mission of trying to get Donald Trump back into office.

Consider: The Republicans’ entire campaign has been focused on Biden in general and his age in particular. Suddenly, Trump, not Biden, is the buffoonish old guy in the race. This throws the Trump campaign game plan into question.

Besides the polls that, time after time, have been explicitly telling the Biden administration that voters thought he was too old, there were the other polls that suggested a huge majority of Americans were unhappy with the choices presented to them this year. Now, they’ve got a new one.

Harris and her chosen running mate (or whichever pair eventually comes out ahead) will bring new faces to the campaign, an emphasis on relative youth and vigour, and some other things as well. Biden wasn’t a nimble campaign opponent. Harris has a sharp tongue and can wield it, and so do just about all the other prominent prospects. Expect her campaign to demand more debates – and call Trump chicken if he baulks.

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden at the White House last year.Credit: New York Times

The American judicial system has been showing the strains of the many Trump legal cases and, dispiritingly, giving him a lot of passes. This will be an issue for the Republicans. Trump has been doggedly trying to drag any and every proceeding out. But now, as we face the final 12 weeks of this momentous campaign, those cases will be playing out in the hot glare of the election news cycle.

The Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity delayed Trump’s sentencing in the New York hush-money case. It was supposed to come down just before the GOP convention. This may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory. It’s now scheduled for September 15, meaning we may see a judge sentence Trump to prison six weeks before the election.

As Trump manages to weasel out of his legal predicaments, sometimes with the help of plainly political rulings, there will be a growing sense in the electorate – and an obvious case for the Democrats to make – that the only way to hold Trump accountable is through the ballot box: “Radical right judges he himself appointed are protecting Donald Trump. Only you can stop him!”

Perhaps due to overconfidence, and plainly happy to dramatise the assassination attempt against him, Trump didn’t use his convention to broaden his appeal. Instead, in a barrage of cartoonish hypermasculinity, he doubled down on just about all of his worst instincts, right down to his vice-presidential pick.

J.D. Vance is the epitome of the party toadies around him, and blusters about in the coattails of a bully. It’s hard to see what additional votes he brings to the Republicans.

Democrats excel at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and may yet screw things up. Still, Biden, in the end, did the right thing – and it wasn’t easy after more than 50 years of daily honourable public service and a very consequential term as president.

Harris is not the best candidate for the Democrats. Her administrative abilities worry me, and she’ll have to devise a response to attacks on the administration’s immigration record. But we have something today we didn’t have yesterday – a real campaign on our hands.

Bill Wyman is a former arts editor and assistant managing editor of National Public Radio in Washington. He teaches at the University of Sydney.

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