Shortly after the death of his son Beau led him to heed the preference of Barack Obama and cede the 2016 race to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden underwent the sort of late-stage rebrand that a career politician could only dream of. The plagiarizing, pugnacious swamp monster with a chip on his shoulder was felled by yet another personal tragedy while he served as a second-in-command to the first black president in the nation’s history.

Overnight, the vice president went from the sort of egotistical empty suit whose lifelong legacy is to get an Amtrak named after him to an esteemed elder statesman, the respected white man who proved he was fundamentally decent in playing second fiddle to Obama. He also became the grieving grandfather who stood aside to allow the first female president her turn instead, and then, finally, the standard-bearer of normalcy who returned from a premature retirement to save Democrats first from a socialist nominee and then from the Orange Man Bad.