Biden withdrawal caps weeks of epic political turbulence

livemint.com:

WASHINGTON—What a year these past few weeks have been. President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 campaign caps off a historically tumultuous stretch in American politics, as a series of unexpected events—from a presidential debate for the ages to a near-assassination—have shaken up the political landscape and thrust it into uncharted territory. Until recently, the 2024 presidential election was shaping up as a snoozer of a rematch, with the same candidates who battled each other in 2020 ignoring the electorate’s pleas for change and slogging joylessly toward a November grudge match.

Now the aperture has been thrown open—and an utterly unpredictable new phase has begun. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it has actually been just over two months since Biden challenged his opponent, former President Donald Trump, to an unusually early presidential debate, aiming to jolt a stalled campaign out of its stupor. “Make my day, pal," Biden said in the May 15 video.

The gambit worked, if not at all in the way he hoped. At the time, Democrats were frustrated that Biden’s message didn’t seem to be breaking through. Trump was spending four days a week trapped in a Manhattan courtroom, defending himself against criminal charges based on his 2016 hush-money payments to an adult-film star.

On May 30, he was found guilty of 34 felonies, becoming the first-ever former president to be criminally convicted. Yet Trump’s many legal entanglements, which once seemed likely to dominate the campaign, registered as barely a blip in the polls, where he continued to narrowly lead Biden on average. Cynical voters seemed to be waving off such seemingly historic developments as just more of the scandalous noise that perpetually pursued Trump.