2024
July
22
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 22, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

My fondest memory of Joe Biden comes from The Onion. For a time during Mr. Biden’s vice presidency, the satirical website cast him as the mortifying but lovable everyman in the White House. “Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am In White House Driveway” was one classic. 

But as with many things, The Onion perceived something deeper. Somewhere between gaffe-prone and refreshingly honest, the vice president was someone to whom we could all relate. 

With his withdrawal from this year’s presidential race, the coming months will mark his coda in American politics – 50 years of service. It is not the way he might have wished. But as our editorial today beautifully states, Mr. Biden’s career has always been a study in success tempered by disappointment. His exit only underlines the humility he has gained along the way. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Democrats are energized, with party leaders lining up to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, and campaign cash is pouring in. But time is short, and they face an uphill battle.

Today’s news briefs

• Gaza evacuation order: The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of part of a crowded area in Gaza that it had designated a humanitarian zone.
• Netanyahu to Washington: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flies to Washington, where he will address a joint session of Congress on Thursday.
• Bangladesh unrest: Bangladesh’s top court scales back a controversial quota system for government job applicants after it led to nationwide unrest and deadly clashes between police and protesters that have killed at least 139 people.
• Migrant caravan: Hundreds of migrants from around a dozen countries leave from Mexico’s southern border on foot in an attempt to make it to the U.S. border.

Read these news briefs.

Evan Vucci/AP
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is surrounded by Secret Service agents after an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.

Security lapses that enabled the July 13 shooting of former President Donald Trump are raising larger questions about Secret Service protection – prompting bipartisan calls today for the director’s resignation.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Jason Tackie works at Parkway Community YMCA as part of a program called SuccessLink that helps teens find jobs, July 16, 2024, in Boston.

Sacking groceries and scooping ice cream had been seen as a vanished rite of passage. But this year, the teen summer job is back in a big way.

Ogar Monday
Ndoh Cheng and his wife farm a plot of land donated to Mr. Cheng by the community in Adagom, Ogoja, Cross River state, Nigeria, April 19, 2024.

A village near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon has opened its arms to refugees fleeing civil war in that country. Their experience offers a glimpse into how embracing refugees can have benefits for newcomers and locals alike.

Points of Progress

What's going right
Staff

In our progress roundup, countries that have lagged behind others in their policies make changes to catch up. Colombia joins a wave of countries that have banned bullfighting and Kazakhstan strengthens protections against domestic violence.

Staff

The Monitor's View

AP
Joe Biden walks off a stage after giving a speech in 2010 as vice president.

President Joe Biden described his reason for ending his reelection run as simply being in the “interest of my party and the country.” Among Democrats, concerns had mounted over his ability to win as well as his mental acuity. Yet his decision ultimately reflects a deeper reason, one based on Mr. Biden’s understanding of where power lies in a democracy.

“The American story,” he said in his 2021 inaugural address, “depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us.”

“Let us listen to one another,” he urged. “Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another.”

Mr. Biden’s humility – the kind that both sees and seeks the good in others – won the day, as is often the case in democracies compared to autocracies. Mr. Biden’s withdrawal echoes the wise decision by President Lyndon Johnson to bow out of the 1968 race. Perhaps the greatest moment in U.S. history was George Washington’s decision not to seek a third term. As he told Americans in his farewell address, “The unity of government which constitutes you one people ... is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence.” His example also set a critical norm for the world in the peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another.

In a much newer democracy, that of postapartheid South Africa, a very popular President Nelson Mandela left office in 1999 with an appeal to his people not to demand his return. “Don’t call me,” he said. “I’ll call you.”

Humility, writes Christopher Beem, a political science professor at Penn State University, is an essential virtue of democracy – a disposition that yields to generosity for those with whom we disagree. “If we enter into the rough and tumble of politics knowing that none of us has a hammerlock on the truth,” he wrote in The Conversation, “we might be more likely to find it.”

Mr. Biden began his political career more than 50 years ago as the youngest member of the U.S. Senate. He sought the presidency multiple times until winning it in 2020. Looking back, perhaps the best line in his inaugural address was in asking Americans to “turn to the tasks of our time ... devoted to one another.” Out of devotion to a cause greater than himself, the 46th U.S. president has now taken his own sage advice.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

We can look to Christ for the truth of our real nature as God’s children, and experience healing as a result.


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Manon Cruz/Reuters
Tadej Pogacar, wearing the Tour de France's famous yellow jersey, celebrates after winning the grueling race in Col de la Couillole, July 20. Mr. Pogacar rides for UAE Team Emirates and hails from Slovenia. This is his third Tour de France victory.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. Please come back tomorrow as we continue to look at the consequences of President Joe Biden pulling out of this autumn’s election. Among the stories we’re following: Did the Democrats just invalidate the choice of their primary voters? And as attention focuses on Vice President Kamala Harris, what more should voters know about her?

More issues

2024
July
22
Monday
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