THE Joe Biden he was promising in 2020 that he would only run for a single term—before doing a 180° U-turn after being in office.

Faced with ever-widening skepticism and concern about his advanced age, he was finally forced to keep his promise four years later.

March 9, 2020. Joe Biden, campaigning for the White House, was — already — facing constant challenges because of his age.

At a fund-raising event, the Democrat insisted he saw himself as nothing more than a “transitional” candidate: “There’s a whole generation of leaders that you see lining up behind me. They are the future of the country”, he assured. The statement would immediately be interpreted as a commitment by the candidate that he will only be president for one term.

January 20, 2021. While Capitol Hill was still reeling from the bloody attack by angry supporters of Donald Trump, he was becoming the oldest US president ever to be sworn in.

In the first 18 months of his presidency, he managed to approve a long series of investment plans to tackle climate change and improve crumbling infrastructure. At the same time, he did not cease to warn against the danger that Donald Trump represented for democracy.

But the Democratic president had an anemic popularity, which foreshadowed doom in the mid-term parliamentary elections.

But nothing of the sort happened.

Democrats retained control of the Senate, a major blow to the Republican Party, which was now in full control of Donald Trump — who, despite the famous “red wave” never coming, was quick to announce that he would run again for the presidency.

Doubts about his age aside, Democrats began to see Joe Biden as the best choice to win.

At their convention in Philadelphia in February 2023, Democrats greeted him on stage with chants of “Four more years! Four more years!”

His candidacy was enforced, it was considered a done deal.

April 25, 2023. It’s official: In a tweet posted around 6:00 a.m., Joe Biden announced that he would be “running for re-election,” insisting on what he said was an ongoing battle for “freedom” and “democracy.”

“Let’s get the job done,” he crooned, choosing his running mate, Kamala Harris, as his running mate.

Joe Biden, however, ran a rather low-intensity campaign, punctuated by weekends at his vacation home in Delaware.

Videos of the president stumbling, stuttering, smiling into space, looking haggard or tired have been circulating on social media, much to the delight of Republicans, many of whom have claimed — some even say — that he has dementia.

June 27, 2024, 9:00 p.m. The Democratic president and his Republican predecessor have a date on CNN for their first teleconference of this campaign.

In the studio, the Democratic candidate is confused, slurring his words, confused, while Donald Trump tells one lie after another, launches one attack after another, methodically, with an air of confidence.

The show had not yet ended when a tsunami of messages from anonymous, panicked Democrats hit the press. They were calling for the president to retire, to avoid a showdown with Republicans in November.

Then, in North Carolina, addressing supporters of the party, Joe Biden assured that “he can do the job”. But in the ranks of the faction’s wealthy donors, doubt was spreading, escalating: what if the president is unable to rule the country for the next four years?

The first barrier went down on Tuesday of the following week.

Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, who retains considerable influence in her party, acknowledged that it was “legitimate” to express concerns about the state of the president’s health.

Then, the first Democratic congressman called on the head of state to leave. A second one followed 24 hours later. Others expressed, for the first time publicly, strong reservations about the president’s age.

Calls for him to quit, which had been mounting, appeared to falter for a while after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. They quickly resumed; in all, some 35 factional MPs of all stripes urged him to end his campaign.

Joe Biden’s fateful announcement was made yesterday.