To borrow from Shakespeare, “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.” Joe Biden might have clung on. He could, in his pain and pride, have fought and failed and lost the presidency to a gloating Donald Trump. He could have let his stubborn Irish heart rule his greying Yankee head. But in the end, finally, Biden, old and ill, bravely did the right and honourable thing.

Likening the departing US leader to the Thane of Cawdor is risky, all the same. The latter’s sudden demise opened the way to even greater tragedy, as students of Macbeth and disputed successions know well. Whether Kamala Harris, Biden’s hand-picked heir, can rise from the ashes of a burnt-out presidency is the great question of the hour. Never in modern times has the Oval Office – the world’s biggest, most awesomely powerful job – been so totally up for grabs with a few frenetic weeks to go.

The unforgiving deadline is 19 August, when the Democratic party national convention opens in Chicago. Thursday 22 August is the day the successful nominee must make her or his acceptance speech. After that, there’s no going back, no time for second thoughts. From then until election day on 5 November, it will be all-out war, a fight to the political death with an extremist Republican ticket in arguably the most consequential election since John F Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon in 1960.

Will Harris get her party’s nod, or face a damaging internal competition? She has big advantages. The vice-president since 2021, she can count on nationwide name recognition – unlike Trump’s far-right white nationalist........

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