Joe Biden has long had a reputation for taking an age to make decisions and agonising over problems until the very last minute. He really outdid himself this time.
All US presidential candidates, by definition, possess a giant ego. But Biden’s stubborn insistence that he was the only person capable of defeating Donald Trump deprived the Democratic Party of valuable time to introduce some new, younger faces to America.
He began this presidential journey by declaring that he wanted to act as a “bridge” to “an entire generation of leaders” while campaigning in March 2020 with Kamala Harris, who became his vice-president; Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan; and Cory Booker, a senator for New Jersey and former city mayor.
