Biden’s selfless patriotism is America’s second chance

This is what patriotism looks like.

Not parades, hubris or spectacle, but the selflessness to step aside when you believe it’s for the greater good.

When President Joe Biden announced he would leave the presidential race, he was already on track to be remembered as one of America’s greatest presidents and public servants. His election in 2020 saved our democracy from further destruction by Donald Trump and a cadre of increasingly corrupt and radical MAGA operatives.

That alone, followed by steady stewardship, might have been enough.

But he’s gone on to accomplish so much more. He has led the country and the economy out of the COVID-19 crisis — and achieved record unemployment, including the lowest Black unemployment in history.

He’s made historic commitments to clean energy. He signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, making enormous investments in climate solutions that benefit communities and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs every year.

He’s seated more than 200 federal judges who are historically diverse and have deep commitments to civil rights and in the remainder of his term, can seat even more. 

He is championing equal opportunity and civil rights at home, and democracy abroad. 

He’s had an extraordinary presidency, capping a remarkable career in the Senate and vice presidency. At every step, his record demonstrates his core belief in the government’s power to improve and transform lives.

And now he is doing perhaps the most patriotic thing he’s ever done, an unquestionably difficult one for a fiercely proud and accomplished man.

He’s passing the torch at a time when the threat of a MAGA government takeover is too big to risk, and for that we’re deeply grateful.  

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this moment in history — or the profound contrast with Donald Trump’s coronation a few days ago at the Republican National Convention, a surreal pageant celebrating the Trump personality cult that is the GOP today.

Trump’s self-aggrandizing speech on the final night ran for more than 92 minutes. It was repetitive, disjointed and mean.

He told lies, lots of them.

He described the shooting that injured his ear (“the ears are the bloodiest part”), going on and on before he ever mentioned Corey Comperatore, who lost his life that day.   

He praised Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose strongman politics are terrifying.  

And there was the déjà vu as the Trump family — a little bigger and a little older now — gathered onstage on the final night, eager for the restoration they clearly expected.

It was impossible to miss: the Republican Party’s MAGA supporters want to tug us relentlessly backward.

So it’s like a deep, cleansing breath to realize that President Biden’s announcement clears the way for a new generation of leadership.

The Democratic Party is fortunate to have a deep and talented bench. And its ideas are forward-looking:  ensuring our bodily autonomy, creating access to health care, lowering prices for drugs and housing, protecting the climate, protecting voting rights and fixing an immigration system that badly needs it.

We have confidence that we can do these things; President Biden’s courage in stepping aside gives us the courage to dream big. It amplifies the fundamental truth that this presidential race is between the past and the future, between what was and what can be.

And it is so far from over.

In the coming weeks and months, we will have the exhilarating experience of seeing the Democratic Party flower under new leadership. Biden has given us this gift, the opportunity to save our democracy from an increasingly authoritarian MAGA movement.

As he said in his letter announcing his departure from the race “there is nothing America can’t do — when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.” 

This is our chance; let’s get to work. 

Svante Myrick is president of People for the American Way.