Photo credit: the New Yorker
It’s no longer news that the American President has dropped out of the race for the White House. It wasn’t an easy decision for him to make, but in spite of everything, he still made it.
To crown it all, he endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris, a Black woman, to replace him in the race. By the very act of choosing his vice, he changed the course of the game.
On the very day Biden announced his fateful decision, people within and outside the United States started singing his praises as if on cue. I presume the American novelist, essayist, and poet Josiah Gilbert Holland, who wrote “God, Give Us Men,” would be smiling in his grave at Joe Biden’s deeds.
I would think Biden, by his dropping out, is a living testimony to Holland’s poem:
God Give Us Men
A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands.
Men whom the lust of office does not kill.
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy.
Men who possess opinions and a will.
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking.
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and wailing Justice sleeps.
By Josiah Gilbert Holland!
Making such a decision is definitely not a kettle of tea, especially for the president of the most powerful nation on earth. When one is leading such a powerful nation, I can’t imagine the privileges that go with it. Yet, Biden decided to forfeit all the privileges and drop out of the race.
He is a great man!
And the world is still celebrating him for taking such a vital action.
I bet that, apart from praising Biden, our world would be a better place if we copied his actions!
