Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
This is the twenty-first century. Miracles just don’t happen. We know water can’t be changed into wine and that people can’t walk on water and that two fish and five loaves will not feed the multitudes. Science tells us otherwise. Still, a lot of people still believe in miracles. According to an article from PBS, nearly seventy percent of Americans believe in angels and heaven—and probably, through extrapolation—miracles. Which is fine. People have the right to believe what they want to believe, whether it’s science, dogma, or superstition.
I personally don’t believe in miracles or divine intervention, but recent occurrences in the political arena have me scratching my head. To say this has been an unusual election year is a massive understatement.
First, the American voter was presented with a matchup of superannuated presidential candidates, the eighty-one-year-old Joe Biden and the seventy-eight-year-old Donald Trump. Then came a nationally televised debate in which President Biden hesitated, stumbled, got lost, and seemed exceedingly frail. It looked like the end for any Democratic hopes for Biden’s re-election. Democratic stalwarts like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi stated that Biden should step down as the presidential candidate, a sentiment echoed by George Clooney and other deep-pocketed donors. The president was being eaten by his own young. He seemed finished. But Biden dug in his heels and refused to move.
Then an attempted assassination of Republican candidate Donald Trump at an open-air rally resulted in the conferring of a near-saintly status upon Mr. Trump by his zealous minions. Photographs showing the bloodied Trump raising a fist in defiance and screaming “Fight!” was an iconic moment in the election (and probably will be etched in history as an emblematic moment).
Then about a week after that came a very weird Republican National Convention in beautiful (not horrible) downtown Milwaukee. Guest speakers included Hulk Hogan, Tucker Carlson, West Virginian governor Jim Justice and his pet bulldog Babydog (who had its own seat), Lee Greenwood, and a performance by Kid Rock. Trump announced his running mate would be the openly misogynistic, racist, and vastly underqualified J.D. Vance (who also champions Project 2025). The spectacle was well—a spectacle.
Then, as they say, the worm turned. On Sunday, July 21st, President Biden unexpectedly announced he would not seek the nomination for the office of President of the United States. News pundits were astounded. Democrats were astounded. Voters were astounded. Republicans were pissed. A short time later, President Biden announced that he would be endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris for the Democratic candidacy, raising all sorts of sticky questions. Would there have to be a mini-primary? Would anyone else step up to contest Harris’s candidacy? Would she stand a chance against Trump, whose momentum seemed unstoppable.
Democrats, knowing that holding their party to a single purpose, let alone a single vision, was like herding cats, held their collective breaths. Would Candidate Harris be able capture the hearts and minds of the American electorate? Would the far left splinter off? Would the Israeli Gaza conflict cause a rift between elements of the party? Would Democrats be Democrats and spin off into a hundred different directions?
No. This was the miracle, the parting of the red sea. According to PBS, within twenty-four hours of President Biden’s endorsement, Kamala Harris raised a stunning eighty-one million dollars and garnered seventy-eight thousand volunteers, numbers that ballooned to two hundred million dollars and over one hundred and seventy thousand volunteers over the course of this last week. Miraculous numbers.
And, in a party known for its fractiousness, no one stepped up to challenge Kamala’s candidacy after the president’s endorsement. Senator Joe Manchin (formerly a Democrat) made a little noise about doing something but soon relented. Enough delegates formerly committed to President Biden switched their support to Kamala Harris to guarantee her nomination.
Democratic leaders of every stripe lined up behind Vice-President Harris. She has collected endorsements from Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, Minority House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, ex-President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as well as democratic governors and state officials all across the spectrum.
Ms. Harris has also become a social media darling. Influencer Charlie XCX has proclaimed Kamala is Brat—meaning that she is “is very honest…very blunt” among other things. Some of other memes based on her statements, including the coconut tree, Venn diagrams, and not knowing how to sing “The Wheels on the Bus” have just about broken the internet. She has become a darling of the younger generation. Which is another miracle.
Former President Trump and his MAGA minions waltzed out of the Republican National Convention confident they had the election in the bag. Polling was showing that support for Biden was slipping, and that Democrats were in danger of losing strongholds like New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. The Trump camp nominated Senator J.D. Vance, whose political views mirror Trump’s and whose attitudes toward fellow Americans border on racist and misogynistic. In a recent stump speech, he stated that he was a working man and that Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, U.S. Senator, and Vice-President of the United States has done nothing except collect government checks. Whether Vance was aware of the implicit—and explicit—racism in that remark doesn’t matter. Other Republicans have invoked workplace DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion) rhetoric to imply that Ms. Harris is not qualified which is—of course—completely racist.
The Trump campaign is floundering. Based on the premise that Biden was too old and infirm to be president and predicated on a strategy to demean and insult him, Trumpsters found themselves holding an empty bag and facing the reality that Donald Trump is now the old, out-of-touch and possibly befuddled candidate. Turnabout is fair play, Mr. Trump.
Vance, and Trump (although the latter is trying to distance himself from it), support a nationwide abortion ban, a position which a majority of Americans do not support and which thousands have rejected in statewide referendums, and which is probably the driving force behind tens of thousands of young voters flocking to the Harris campaign. It’s a miracle.
Add to this the endorsements of megastars Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Jamie Lee Curtis, Spike Lee, Wanda Sykes, Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, and it does indeed seem as if President Biden, with his selfless act of stepping down, has performed a miracle. He has parted the red sea of Republican dominance by granting the American people a new, vibrant, contemporary voice. He has passed the torch to the next generation. For a politician to give up this much power is more than a minor miracle.
He has opened a path for Americans to affirm their rights, their freedoms, and their commitment to American dedication to equality, fairness, and exceptionalism. President Biden parted the red sea. Now it’s time for us to cross that rocky path and give America back to its people. Blue skies are ahead.