After a disastrous first debate confirmed multiyear questions about his advanced age and cognitive ability, and then weeks of unprecedented calls to quit, President Joe Biden abruptly announced he would not seek reelection.
Years of polling have shown that more than 60% of Democratic Party voters didn't want him to run again. And a snap poll found that just 17% of Americans disapprove of Biden's decision to stand aside.
Many believe Biden ultimately bowed to pressure from rich political donors who some call America's oligarchs.
Fifteen million votes from the Democratic Party primaries, which only ended last month, are now rendered obsolete.
The new Democratic nominee will be selected in backrooms by the party's elite, without transparency or accountability, in a process which many say is undemocratic.
I think that's really unfortunate for the Democratic Party, that they made a poor choice early on or that they didn't factor in this consideration, or he wasn't able to at the time.
But that's the process and it's a difficult one and I feel bad that for those folks that did support him and didn't have another choice moving forward because now they've really got to truncate the choice process.
Member of Public 01
Biden and his longtime friends in the Clinton faction of the Democratic Party immediately threw their weight behind his vice president Kamala Harris.
Polls show that Harris doesn't fare much better than Biden against Donald Trump and her rocky presidential election campaign in 2020 ended before even the first primary vote.
I think in some ways she has been underestimated in the past few years.
It has been kind of hard to for her to leave her mark with the tasks she has been given.
But yeah, I think right now she might give her campaign some new momentum and I think she does have a fighting chance.
Member of Public 02
While many party elites push to secure the nomination for Harris demands for transparency could force an open nomination process at next month's Democratic National Convention.
Many wonder if progressive Democrats will revolt against more pro-war and elite serving policies, creating a party schism, similar to how Trumpism has drastically remade the Republican Party since 2016.
With less than four months until Election Day, the Democratic Party has no candidate; they just nullified the will of 15 million voters and face an uphill battle against a controversial candidate who just survived an assassination attempt.
Many believed there was no way that the 2024 vote could be as chaotic as the 2020 election, but the examples of historic disarray continue to Mount.