In a dramatic but increasingly expected turn of events, Joe Biden exited the presidential race on Sunday via a letter posted on social media.
Analysts have told BI that this peaceful — albeit reluctant — changing of the guard could be awkward for autocratic leaders like Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, and Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
“For all three, public order is the supreme goal,” said Mathew Burrows, a leading analyst at the Stimson Center think tank.
Biden’s sudden and unexpected departure — delivered by tweet — looks like a “palace coup in which the liberal media played a large part,” Burrows told BI.
Increasingly blunt coverage of the challenge presented by Biden’s old age helped shift the narrative against him.
The starkest moment was the June 27 debate, hosted by CNN, was a turning point from which Biden’s candidacy never recovered.
Autocrats tend to tightly control their domestic media, leaving little opportunity of unsanctioned narratives like that of Biden’s old age to take root.
Per Burrows, witnessing Biden’s exit would likely further convince autocrats that they can’t tolerate a free press in their societies.
“Putin and Xi will see all of it as a further indication of US decline and the whole Western system,” Burrows argued.
The expert Fawaz Gerges agreed with Burrows, saying that a Middle Eastern ruler like that Middle Eastern rulers like Crown Prince Mohammed would be unlikely to yield power while still alive.
“Their motto is till death do us part,” said Gerges, a Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics.
Ann Marie Dailey, a political researcher at the RAND Corporation, shared similar sentiments about Putin’s Russia.
“A leader stepping down and saying that it’s better for democracy is clearly not a message that the Kremlin wants to be circulated widely in Russia,” she told BI.
“That would lead people to ask why their own leaders aren’t stepping down willingly when they are aging.”
Putin, 71, has ruled Russia more or less continuously since 2000.
Dailey said that Russia may present to its own people a narrative that Biden’s exit underscores that “democracy is messy and unstable.”
Back in the US, Biden’s Democratic colleagues mostly praised him for leaving in the way he did.
Former President Barack Obama — reported to be one of those lobbying him to step down — issued a public statement praising a “historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own”.
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