The one-year anniversary of the strangest three days in modern American politics

Remember when Joe Biden - or someone claiming to be Joe Biden - quit the Presidential race (and effectively the presidency) with a post on X? And then we all waited for proof of life for 72 hours?

Remember when President Biden ended his (political) life via a post on X? And then didn’t let anyone see him for days because Covid, or something?

And then the legacy media claimed that all of this was normal and that anyone who questioned it was a conspiracy theorist?

That was a year ago. Not a generation, or even a decade. 365 days. Is it any wonder so many people believe the worst about the Jeffrey Epstein files?

—

(Hoping for the best, ready for the worst, reporting the truth.)

—

Just to recap those crazy days:

On Wednesday, July 17, 2024, then-President Biden — who was under huge pressure to demonstrate his fitness for office following his disastrous June debate with Donald Trump — suffered a “medical emergency” in Las Vegas. He immediately flew back to Delaware on Air Force One; the White House announced he had a “mild” case of Covid.

Then Biden effectively vanished, while Democratic and media pressure on him to quit the Presidential race steadily escalated. He was “isolating” at his beach house in Delaware, journalists reported — as if his Covid case was so dangerous that he couldn’t possibly have a press conference.

Until, on Sunday, July 21, at 1:46 p.m., Biden said he was quitting his reelection run. The announcement instantly turned him into the lamest of ducks.

He did so not with an address to the nation or even a press conference but in a post on X in which he promised to “stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President.” (A cynic might wonder what he had been doing previously.)

—

(446 million views. That’s a lot of views.)

—

And then…

Nothing.

No speech. No informal press gaggle. Not even a wave from the steps of the Delaware house, or a shambling walk to Marine One.

Just his post on X, and lots of articles about what a great candidate Kamala Harris would be, as the legacy media began Operation Elect The Funt (not my joke, Saturday Night Live’s joke, don’t shoot the messenger).

—

(In 2019, the woke left considered Kamala Harris MUCH too conservative to represent the Democratic Party, because she’d once been a prosecutor. So making fun of her was allowed. It was NOT allowed in 2024.)

—

Late on the afternoon of Monday, July 22, with the questions about Biden’s absence becoming so loud that even the legacy media had to acknowledge them — if only to mock them — Biden “appeared” at a “campaign event” in Delaware to speak out for Harris.

Only he didn’t, see?

This time, he was present only via conference call.

Again, he blamed Covid for his absence.

—

—

Unsurprisingly, the call didn’t exactly quell the rumors that Biden had not made the decision to quit of his own accord.

Finally, Wednesday night — more than 72 hours after his X post, with all potential challengers to Kamala Harris having furled their flags — Biden spoke from the Oval Office, explaining that he had quit the race to “preserve our democracy.” Which seemed to suggest that his running was a threat to democracy, or something. He stayed far, far from the truth, that his gaffes had turned into something much worse, that he had rightly lost the confidence of both his party and the American people.

—

(Legacy media trained, new media brained)

—

Yet as mendacious as Biden’s speech was, it served one salutary purpose. It confirmed to the world that he was still alive(ish) and had personally made the decision to quit — as much as he was personally making any decisions in July 2024, that is.

So I guess we should all be grateful that we gave it.

But it was the capper to a very, very bad year for the Democratic Party and the media — a run that still haunts Democrats and journalists, and seems likely to do so until they admit how badly they twisted the truth.

In other words, they’re likely to be haunted for a very long time.