We head to Chicago on a wave of euphoria, exuberance, exultation, excitement and even, you might say, ecstasy. It’s going to be a glorious coronation — except that everyone’s mad at one another. Top Democrats are bristling with resentments even as they are about to try to put on a united front at the United Center in the Windy City.

A coterie of powerful Democrats manoeuvred behind the scenes to push an incumbent president out of the race. It wasn’t exactly Julius Caesar in Rehoboth Beach. But it was a tectonic shift and, of course, there were going to be serious reverberations. Even though it was the right thing to do – because Joe Biden was not going to be able to campaign, much less serve as president for another four years – in a fully vital way, it was a jaw-dropping putsch.

In happier times: Joe Biden in 2022 surrounded by top Democrats including Kamala Harris, James Clyburn, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.Credit: AP

But at some point, when the polls cratered, Democratic mandarins decided to put the welfare of the party – and the country – ahead of the president’s ego, and stop catering to his self-regarding fantasy that he was the only one who could beat Donald Trump. Also, they all could know that Biden was slowing faster than he and his family and his inner circle were acknowledging.

Biden went from looking “forward to getting back........

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