It’s been said that you should go when people will ask you why are you going rather than staying on till they ask why aren’t you going. Joseph Biden, 46th President of the US, had to be asked the second question, not once but several times in the last few months. His mental faculties were deteriorating very rapidly and it was clear to everyone that he was not a viable candidate for re-election. Fortunately he has seen the light in time.

His presidency has been a patchy one, not least because it created the space for his predecessor, the highly controversial Donald Trump, to make a comeback. Whether that happens will depend, to some extent, on who replaces Biden as the candidate of the Democratic Party. Biden is reported to have suggested his vice-president, Kamala Harris’s name. But his judgment is open to doubt and the Democrats will probably have a good and long think about who is most suitable. Eventually, though, who it chooses a month from now at its national convention is an internal matter for the American people who seem deeply divided not just over the Republican Party and the Democratic Party but also, more importantly, over the extreme positions of the candidates on a whole range of issues, domestic and international. The process of selection will also play a role.

The Democrats now have to decide afresh on two things that, till a few days ago, were not open for discussion or debate: a new candidate to replace Biden and, as a result, their overall response to Trump whose worldview is diametrically the opposite to theirs. The only thing the two seem to be agreed on is China. But even on that there are differences: hard line or soft. Biden while talking softly took quite the hard line. Trump will probably try to trump that. So the articulation of US policy towards China by the two parties in the next few months will be interesting to watch. The same goes for Iran, Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine. Americans seem to be in the same withdrawal mode they were in during the 1970s. The Soviet Union took advantage of that and invaded Afghanistan thereby unleashing consequences that are still reverberating around the world.

Finally, the elephant in the room, immigration. US policy on this since 2020 has reverted to the pre-Trump era. He will put the new presidential candidate on the spot on this issue. Kamala Harris is unlikely to carry much conviction on this with the whites of middle America. The party bosses will be very mindful of this when they make their choice. What they need is a strategy to divide the Republican consensus on immigration. There’s one country which recently concluded a general election. It could give them some pointers on how to depolarise a polarised election.