President Joe Biden described his reason for ending his reelection run as simply being in the “interest of my party and the country.” Among Democrats, concerns had mounted over his ability to win as well as his mental acuity. Yet his decision ultimately reflects a deeper reason, one based on Mr. Biden’s understanding of where power lies in a democracy.
“The American story,” he said in his 2021 inaugural address, “depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us.”
“Let us listen to one another,” he urged. “Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another.”
Mr. Biden’s humility – the kind that both sees and seeks the good in others – won the day, as is often the case in democracies compared to autocracies. Mr. Biden’s withdrawal echoes the wise decision by President Lyndon Johnson to bow out of the 1968 race. Perhaps the greatest moment in U.S. history was George Washington’s decision not to seek a third term. As he told Americans in his farewell address, “The unity of government which constitutes you one people … is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence.” His example also set a critical norm for the world in the peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another.
In a much newer democracy, that of postapartheid South Africa, a very popular President Nelson Mandela left office in 1999 with an appeal to his people not to demand his return. “Don’t call me,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
Humility, writes Christopher Beem, a political science professor at Penn State University, is an essential virtue of democracy – a disposition that yields to generosity for those with whom we disagree. “If we enter into the rough and tumble of politics knowing that none of us has a hammerlock on the truth,” he wrote in The Conversation, “we might be more likely to find it.”
Mr. Biden began his political career more than 50 years ago as the youngest member of the U.S. Senate. He sought the presidency multiple times until winning it in 2020. Looking back, perhaps the best line in his inaugural address was in asking Americans to “turn to the tasks of our time … devoted to one another.” Out of devotion to a cause greater than himself, the 46th U.S. president has now taken his own sage advice.