After weeks of external pressure, the president of the United States has conceded reality and stood down for a second term.
In an irony that would seem absurd in any election cycle but this one, Joe Biden is now liberated to do exactly what he wants without fear of reprisal for the first time in what has been a half-century political career full of triangulation and calculation.
He can even embrace the “Dark Brandon” persona his online fans have yearned for in recent years.
The Delaware Democrat has faced his last election. He won’t have to placate the dispute-prone extremes of his party, spend months buttering up crowds in blue-wall swing states or figure out what should be those famous last words in American politics — a “second-term priority.”
Republicans have painted Biden as one of the most extreme presidents in American history, but there’s a good chance they haven’t seen anything yet.
In short, there’s a realistic chance that if the president doesn’t step down and isn’t driven out — via a 25th Amendment scenario as Republicans from J.D. Vance on down would like — it’s entirely possible his term’s last few months could include some of the most radical moves any chief executive would make.
There’s no one left to cater to. So Biden, who presented himself as something of a caretaker president in the 2020 cycle, can assume his final form as an executive-order-wielding change agent as he runs out the clock on his political career.
Consider student loans, where every change to terms the administration has pushed through has encountered pushback in the courts — with the latest being the SAVE Plan’s rebuff in an appeals court, a likely precursor to a similar verdict in the conservative Supreme Court.
He’s already suspended payments for 8 million people on that particular plan.
He could, in theory, go farther — and suspend payments for everyone with federal loans based on that legal uncertainty.
The latest on President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
Another issue Biden could move forward on: cannabis legalization.
His administration has been mulling rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III, a process slowed down by the Drug Enforcement Administration balking, combined with congressional Republicans saying the play isn’t backed by science and is “expressly political.”
Knowing he has no need to run for office again, what stops him from going further?
Democrats that’ve done very little to secure the youth vote — as reflected in so much recent polling—– have an opportunity to strike a more radical pose led by Joe Biden.
Similarly, if Biden wanted to take more aggressive foreign-policy positions, he has nothing to lose now.
Could he increase American involvement in Ukraine? Could he impose more conditions on aid to Israel amid its struggles with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran?
What’s stopping him is the real question.
What to know about President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
And there of course is the case of Hunter Biden, a key White House adviser of late who was recently convicted of three felonies in a federal gun trial.
Republicans aren’t the only ones who can talk about “lawfare,” and Biden — despite pledging he wouldn’t pardon his son — has nothing to stop him from breaking that vow.
The GOP can carp about hypocrisy, but Democrats won’t be listening, and swing voters who have been anxious to move on from Trump-Biden 2.0 likely won’t care much either.
For more than three weeks, Biden has seemed diminished in ways that go beyond age and acuity. He has suffered reputational damage and a loss of credibility, blaming the press for his problems, with every redoubled effort leading to greater difficulty.
But with the end near, the president has a chance to do things his way — at least for as long as he can resist pressures to resign his office.
And in that sense, the last weeks or months of the Biden era could be the ones most fraught with danger for Republicans and the Donald Trump campaign, which spent years planning for an opponent that won’t be there in November.
