The two major parties offer the United States choices that are basically unacceptable and the bench strength, such as it is, is not entirely capable of winning popular acclaim, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
On 11 July, American President Joe Biden addressed a press conference wherein he repeated his resolve to remain in the presidential race.
Ordinarily, an incumbent president seeking re-election would not have had to make such an assertion.
But these are not ordinary times for the United States, certainly not the last two weeks.
Biden is already the oldest person ever to occupy the White House. If he wins in November, he will be 86 when he completes his second term.
His age and fitness for the mighty office he wants to occupy again have now become prime campaign issues.
Two weeks ago, on 27 June, Americans were witness to the first debate between the putative presidential candidates of its two main parties, Biden for the Democrats and the immediate past president, Donald J Trump, for the Republicans.
As was expected, Trump made a complete mess of it, with his wide-ranging, untruthful, assertions and imperious arrogance.
Yet the cat of the possible danger of losing the presidency and control of the Congress was set among the proverbial pigeons of the Democratic leadership.
As the world knows by now, Biden appeared old and infirm, fumbling for words, halting in diction, unable often to complete a sentence.
Even in the latest press conference, he named Trump as his vice president.
A day earlier, he had referred to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as President Putin.
People in the ninth decade of their lives often face such embarrassments, but they aren't running for the most powerful office in the world.
As if this was not enough, a week later, the United States supreme court ruled 6-3 that the president enjoys substantial immunities for actions while in office.
All three Trump nominees sided with Chief Justice John Roberts, the arch conservative (and a hidden Trump supporter, many believe) Samuel Alito and the unspeakable Clarence Thomas (his wife openly supports Trump).
That seems to suggest that the highest court in America, once considered its conscience-keeper, now behaves in a partisan manner.
Latest surveys give Trump a substantial lead over Biden of more than 6 percentage points.
Nearly three quarters of those polled believe Biden is too old to be president.
This makes the die-hard Trump loyalists, the Make America Great Again (MAGA) fanatics (some 40 per cent of the Republicans) ecstatic.
They believe that their man will soon recapture the White House. Most media concur with this assessment.
Everyone who is anybody in the American public life, especially among the Democrats, has had something to say about Biden and his continued fitness for the office he seeks to continue holding in these circumstances.
The rising chorus is for Biden to gracefully announce his withdrawal, leaving his party to choose another candidate at its convention scheduled for 19 August.
The august editorial board of The New York Times, numerous liberal columnists, some Congressional leaders, have all urged the president to retire in the greater interest of the party and the country.
US Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (who was in India recently), a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has ever so gently nudged Biden in that direction. Her words carry great weight.
She has herself walked the talk. After she was re-elected to the House in 2022, starting her 19th term, she declined any leadership role citing her age -- she is two years older than Biden and has been a staunch supporter of Biden all through their largely overlapping careers.
The growing number of Biden critics among his party believe that Biden is the one Democrat Trump is sure of beating.
But Biden seems to be digging his heels in, believing that he is the one Democratic capable of defeating Trump.
He has done it in 2020 and he will do it again this year, notwithstanding the debate debacle, which he described as just another bad day.
Many suspect his wife Jill Biden is the real power behind him.
A current report in The New York Times accurately summarised the status of appeals to Biden to give up his quest:
'Anger has not worked. Fear has not worked. Panic has not worked. Bluntness has not worked. Sadness has not worked. Concern has not worked.'
The majority of the US voters do not support Trump. The general consensus is that if he wins, he will be even more autocratic and vengeful, as he has brazenly promised.
He would wreak havoc on the American constitutional system of governance and further polarise the polity.
Global security and economic well-being could also be affected badly.
The usually acerbic columnist Maureen Dowd, a fierce critic of Trump and not a fan of Biden either, aptly encapsulated the dilemma America faces when she called the coming election as a contest between 'the ghastly and the ghostly'.
But the Democrats' troubles will not end if by some chance, Biden accepts the advice and stands aside.
There is no dearth of potential candidates to get into the race if this happens, but their electability is problematic.
I say this knowing full well that some surveys have indicated present Vice President Kamla Harris prevailing over Trump if she were to be the Democratic nominee.
Winners of the presidential elections so far have all been parts of the power elite with just one exception.
This elite earlier comprised WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) males.
The Anglo-Saxon part disappeared when the Second World War hero, General Dwight Eisenhower, of Germanic descent won the election in 1952.
Numerous non-Anglo-Saxon persons occupied high position in corporate America and successive U S administrations.
John F Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, won in 1960 removing the Protestant qualification for entry into the elite.
Thereafter, in the last six decades, numerous women and members of minorities state and Congressional elections, but the presidency remained the solid bastion of white Christian males with ages ranging between 40 and 70.
Barack Obama's election in 2008 is the sole exception to this pattern (the phrase, a Black Swan event, would have been an absolutely perfect description of such an extremely rare occurrence; but I refrain from using it because of its unfortunate, though entirely unintended, racial overtones).
Obama's telegenic, aspirational appeal may have won him the office, but not smooth sailing of his legislative agenda (including Affordable Health Care, popularly known as Obamacare) in the Congress.
The opposition was largely due to his being an outsider, demonstrating the continuing hold of the power elite.
But post-retirement, Obama seems to have been co-opted as an honorary member of that same elite.
The US electorate must be viewing Obama's victory as a one-off tip of the hat to outsiders.
That, I suspect, is one among the many reasons why Hilary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016.
That result has been termed entirely unexpected, but in hindsight, it was always going to be difficult for the establishment to make an exception yet again and elect another outsider, this time a woman, following a person of colour, as America's president.
That logic, I am quite convinced, still prevails.
That would make a Harris victory over Trump more difficult than what it appears now.
In fact, I rather suspect that at the back of their minds, many Americans are concerned that if Biden is re-elected and cannot complete his second term, not an unlikely prospect, Harris would succeed and then go on to claim her own two shots at the top prize.
That would leave the elite out in the cold for an unacceptably long period.
Run down the list of potential candidates who would emerge if Biden were to stand aside and we will find similar problems.
Gretchen Whitmer, the smart, efficient and popular governor of a major state, Michigan, is mentioned most frequently; but she strikes out because of her being a woman.
Two other prominent women sometimes mentioned as possibilities, Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama, also face the same gender handicap.
Pete Buttigieg, the transport secretary, who was a presidential candidate in 2020, is young (42), dynamic and quite popular -- but he is openly gay and that would place a possibly insurmountable obstacle in his path.
Others, such as the California Governor Gavin Newsom and Illinois Governor J B Pritzker are a bit less known.
Newsom has been criticised for his handling of the Covid pandemic. He successfully fought a recall petition in 2021, but during his tenure, Republicans have managed to establish a beachhead in the Democratic fortress of California.
Both Newsom and Pritzker have ties to big business, not always an asset among the Democrats.
Pritzker is Jewish, which could work against him in heartland America.
So there we have it: The two major parties offer the United States choices that are basically unacceptable and the bench strength, such as it is, is not entirely capable of winning popular acclaim.
Hit by this double whammy, Americans must now depend on hope and a prayer like never before.
Post script: Since writing the above, there has been further development. The Biden super Political Action Committee is withholding $90 million in funding if Biden continues to remain at the head of the ticket. This is another bad blow for the already tottering (in more sense than one) Biden candidacy. Whether this puts an end to it remains to be seen.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
