The Democrats must present the American people with a viable candidate

It is not for The Independent to advise the American people on how to vote – but we are entitled to express an opinion on the implications of the United States presidential election for the rest of the world.

That is why we say we are surprised that leading figures in the Democratic Party have failed to engage in the basics of succession planning. The sort of exercise that would have seemed obvious to a small engineering company in Scranton as its founder approached his 80th birthday seems to have eluded the great minds of the governing party of the US.

When Joe Biden was elected president four years ago, at the age of 77, it would not have been disrespectful or morbid for his party’s leaders to have said: “He is in good shape, but we must be ready.”

It was not good enough to say that Kamala Harris was qualified to serve as vice-president and could be relied on to step up to the highest office if needed. It is the Democratic Party’s duty to present the best possible candidate in this year’s election, and there were always doubts about whether Ms Harris could be that candidate.

The party should have organised TV debates, or old-fashioned town hall meetings, or a spelling bee – anything – to give other candidates a chance to be tested.

This failure to prepare has left the party in the absurd position of waiting for Mr Biden to accept that his candidacy is finished. It is obvious that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi know that it is over – and yet the party is still unable to organise the selection of a replacement who might be capable of winning an election that is now only four months away.

The Democrats’ dereliction of duty was made abundantly clear on Thursday night, when Donald Trump, in a rambling 90-minute address to the Republican National Convention, failed to assuage concerns about his own fitness for office. For all his own spin about how he is more “serene” since last week’s attempt to kill him; for all his apologists’ spin about his being a “changed man”; for all that some journalists say they detect a “new softness” to him, this is still the same Trump who continues to claim, falsely, that the last election was stolen; the same Trump who so strongly rejected the result of a democratic vote that he incited his supporters to violence against it.

For many of his fellow citizens, and for many interested observers around the world, this behaviour should disqualify him from ever seeking elected office again. And yet he has not been convicted of any offence in the US for his role in the storming of the Capitol in January 2021.

Beyond that, however, there are policy reasons for The Independent’s view that a second Trump presidency would be contrary to the interests of the US, and those of the world. His reluctance to support Ukraine – and the indifference of his running mate, JD Vance, who has said: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other” – would embolden aggressors and human rights violators the world over. His protectionism is a threat to free trade, and his hostility to climate-change mitigation is a threat to global sustainability.

For all these reasons, the Democratic Party should have made sure that its delegates, who will assemble in Chicago in one month’s time, would have better options available to them than a shrug and the unspoken fatalism: “It’s got to be Kamala – but she’ll lose.”