Joe Biden was compelled to stand down — could Trudeau go next?

On Sunday afternoon, Justin Trudeau praised Joe Biden as an American patriot.

"He's a great man," the prime minister wrote on social media, "and everything he does is guided by his love for his country." 

That sentence could be read broadly as expressing admiration for Biden's career of public service. It also could be read as praise specifically for the decision Biden took this weekend to relinquish the Democratic party's nomination for president — that was the message Barack Obama offered in his own statement, released about an hour earlier.

"I know he wouldn't make this decision unless he believed it was right for America," the former president wrote of his former running mate. "It's a testament to Joe Biden's love of country."

Either way, the subtext of Trudeau's four-sentence statement on Sunday was so obvious, it barely qualified as subtext. The prime minister, faced himself with calls to resign, was responding to another leader's decision to step aside. He was tipping his cap to a beleaguered counterpart, even while he seems committed to staying on.

Biden and Trudeau have much in common, even if it's largely a coincidence that they came to face leadership crises at the same exact moment this summer.

They're both progressive leaders. They're both contending with some of the same challenges and realities of political life in 2024 (inflation, social media, the legacy of a pandemic, a divisive war in the Middle East). They are both faced with populist conservative challengers.

For Trudeau, the doubts about his leadership became acute after the Liberals lost the byelection in Toronto-St. Paul's on June 24. Three days later, Biden struggled mightily through a televised debate with Donald Trump.

U.S. President Joe Biden's performance during the first presidential debate against Donald Trump of the 2024 election campaign has raised questions from supporters and critics alike about whether Biden should withdraw from the race. Andrew Chang zeroes in on the critical moments that may have lost Biden the debate — and possibly his base.

Neither Trudeau nor Biden immediately took those setbacks as their cue to leave, which is perhaps not all that surprising. You don't get to be a prime minister or president without possessing a high degree of self-confidence, a capacity to set aside doubt and an ability to withstand (or even ignore) criticism. (A decade ago, researchers found a correlation between a successful presidency and presidents who displayed signs of "grandiose narcissism.")

After great effort and sacrifice, the prospect of defeat — or even just the suggestion that someone else could do a better job — can be a difficult thing to face. And power is hard to relinquish.

All of that likely explains why Biden is the first president in nearly 60 years to willingly decline to seek re-election. Even in Canada — where the system of political leadership is arguably more flexible — roughly a half-dozen prime ministers could be said to have stepped aside of their own accord (the list gets smaller still if you exclude those whose health was ailing when they resigned).

How Biden was convinced to step aside

Ultimately, Biden's exit from the race was driven by two factors: the state of his health and the stakes of the election. Those two factors drove the interventions by donors and senior Democrats that finally drove Biden out of the race.

The president and his supporters could insist that he was still up to the job, but they could not change the fact that he is 81 years old. Two thirds of Americans believed Biden was too old to be president. And he was not going to convince voters to ignore what they saw when he appeared and spoke in public.

Still, the calls for Biden to step aside might have been fewer in number if Democrats and commentators did not view the presidential election in existential terms.

Donald Trump is a convicted felon who sought to overturn the result of the last presidential election and incited an attack on the Capitol in 2021. His return to power could result in real and lasting damage to the American system of government and democracy. The possibility of Biden losing — and perhaps dragging down other Democrats — could not be taken lightly.

Crucially, in the final days of his candidacy, Biden faced not just the grumbling of minor backbenchers, unnamed sources and columnists, but the misgivings of some of the most senior figures in his party. With just a month before their party's national convention — and just four months remaining before the general election — Democrats also had good reasons to move fast.

Answering questions from journalists for the first time since the Liberals' Toronto-St. Paul's byelection loss last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tells CBC News he is 'committed' to staying on as Liberal Party leader amid calls for him to step down.

With all due respect, Wayne Long — the Liberal MP who publicly called on Trudeau to resign last month — is not Nancy Pelosi. And after a frenzied few days in the immediate aftermath of the Toronto-St. Paul's byelection, the public debate about Trudeau's leadership has largely gone quiet — though it wouldn't be surprising if Biden's exit now helps to revive questions about whether the Liberals should make their own change.

While progressives may take a dim view of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and what he might do as prime minister, no one is framing the next election in existential terms. The fate of Canadian democracy does not depend on the outcome.

At the same time, every election has consequences. And a majority Conservative government could do a lot to roll back the policies — on climate change and social policy, for instance — the Trudeau government implemented over the last nine years.

The most obvious difference between Biden and Trudeau is that one of them is 81 and the other is 52. Trudeau does not suffer from a liability as intrinsic as Biden's age and physical condition. There is no reason to doubt Trudeau's ability to campaign.

New Brunswick Liberal MP Wayne Long has circulated an email to caucus calling for Justin Trudeau to quit as party leader after a recent shock byelection loss in Toronto. This comes after a statement to CBC News from former cabinet minister Catherine McKenna called for “new energy and a new leader.”

But in the wake of Toronto-St. Paul's — however imperfect a barometer a single byelection might be — it's fair to ask whether Trudeau is faced with too many voters who are simply unwilling to support a party led by him.

In theory, Trudeau could have as much as 15 months before the next election. He has time to continue implementing policies like dental care, to make a case against Poilievre and to introduce new policies. Interest rates might continue to fall. Frustration with inflation might recede. Anything can happen in a year.

But a simple reading of both polling and history suggests a Liberal Party led by Trudeau is a long shot to retain power. Is Trudeau still somehow the best of the Liberal Party's options? Or would Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland or Dominic LeBlanc (or some other hypothetical candidate) give them a better chance?

For Democrats, it became clear they had to try the alternative. Liberals don't seem ready to go that far (at least not yet).

"The prime minister is the person who is the best placed to take the fight to Pierre Poilievre, someone that has a completely different view of what our country looks like and the direction it's going in — I think, quite a negative one," Immigration Minister Marc Miller, a a close friend of Trudeau's since high school, said a couple of days after the Toronto-St. Paul's vote.

"I love my country. I'm going to fight for every inch of it. I believe the prime minister is going to do it as well."

If patriotism compelled Biden to step aside, it seems to be persuading Trudeau to stay on.

A Conservative byelection win in a Toronto stronghold is being seen by many as a message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals that it’s time for major change in the party and who leads it.