Analysis by Ulrich Reitz - Biden's half-withdrawal seems like a vote of no confidence in his deputy Harris

Analysis by Ulrich Reitz - Biden's half-withdrawal seems like a vote of no confidence in his deputy Harris FOCUS-online correspondent Ulrich Reitz • 2 hours • 4 minutes reading time Joe Biden is not running again Joe Biden's withdrawal is only half: If he really cared about Kamala Harris, he would have vacated the presidential chair for her. Berlin is relieved for the time being. That could backfire. Joe Biden's withdrawal from the American presidential election campaign is only half, which is why this move - his last - is only half successful. Whether it is enough to help his deputy to the most powerful state office in the world against the seemingly overwhelming Donald Trump is an open question. Biden simply can't go on, he is completely worn out. Everyone has seen it, including himself. That is his special, very personal tragedy at the end of an incomparably long political life. Biden had to be almost violently forced out of office by his party "friends". Recently, he no longer had any of the powerful people in the party establishment at his side. Especially not his former president Barack Obama. He ultimately took on the thankless role of regicide - he is hated, but above all he is needed. Kamal Harris' unfortunate vice presidency First of all: if Joe Biden had really wanted to help Kamal Harris, he could have done so long ago. The American Constitution clearly grants the vice president only one role: to immediately replace the incumbent so that the great nation is not left leaderless. Everything else remains open. Kamal Harris' unfortunate vice presidency began with Biden not giving her a task of any importance, nothing with which she could really have distinguished herself as the number one replacement. Harris has no real profile beyond sociological attributions - woman, black, more of a left winger. One of Biden's achievements in recent years is to have held the erratic Democrats together. Harris' contribution to this was almost zero. We will see whether she can get the Democrats behind her. In the USA, too, the candidate of a divided party is not elected. And that's not all: It would have been fair if the president had resigned this Sunday - and left Harris in the presidential chair in the Oval Office. But as it is, Biden's half-withdrawal almost seems like a vote of no confidence by the outgoing president in his deputy. More than that: Biden's half-withdrawal seems like a vote of no confidence in his deputy Harris Even if "has-beens" with a great aura like the Clintons are now praising Biden excessively and speaking out in favor of Harris - it is not yet clear what will happen to the Democrats now. Harris is not a strong candidate, she still has to gain a profile and does not have a strong voice in the Democratic Party. It is quite possible that experienced senators with a good reputation within the party will challenge her for the presidential candidacy. Back to Joe Biden. To avoid myths: his (half) withdrawal has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with age discrimination. Biden is rather sad proof that age itself can become discrimination - and, for all of us, will become discrimination. But the truth is also that Biden has become a sad case of senile stubbornness in his own right. Every candidate who is elected for the duration of a legislative period must be able to promise to be able to hold office in good health until the last day. Was Biden really so deluded as to believe that his body would allow him to serve another four full years in an office in which one is master of the nuclear briefcase with which one can turn the whole world into Armageddon? Scholz also gave the impression that the US president was still completely in control of the situation. Part of the tragedy - and the misleading of the public - are those who contributed to an obviously false image of the American president's fitness. Unfortunately, Olaf Scholz was one of them, and the German Chancellor also gave the impression that the US President was still in full control of the situation. Scholz said this at a time when Biden was certainly no longer in control. Now the cards are being reshuffled in the US election campaign. Donald Trump did what he does particularly well: he spread a bad mood. He branded Biden a lying president. But what matters is not what we here in Germany think about such things, nor do we journalists. What matters is how American voters like such things. And Trump beat Hillary Clinton with such rudeness back then.