How Biden’s Critical Failure Gave Trump Another Shot At The White House

Biden’s choice not to step aside denied Democrats a chance for renewal — and paved the way for Trump’s return.

The blame game for Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House has already commenced among Democrats. And there are a lot of causes being tossed around.

The commentariat and some Democrats have zeroed in on their favorite target: wokeness. Democrats, they say, need to stop saying “Latinx,” embrace the public’s opposition to certain trans rights and stop policing language and the shows politicians appear on. Those on the left argue that Democrats need to embrace rhetoric and an agenda more focused on the working class ― and actually deliver on those ideas.

Whatever the merits of these arguments, one thing is clear: Democrats never got to have an argument about which path to take before the election because President Joe Biden did not step aside until it was too late. While the myriad possible reasons for Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss will undoubtedly be analyzed (and re-analyzed, and re-analyzed) in the months to come, it’s undeniable that Biden’s choices put an extra millstone around Democrats’ collective necks. Monday morning quarterbacking may be frowned upon, but it’s worth looking back at why Biden should not have chosen to run again ― and how his failure to back out may have furthered the Democratic spiral by denying Harris more time to separate herself from the administration or giving a candidate from outside the White House a chance to secure the nomination.

Even before the question of age-related decline made Biden’s candidacy undeniably untenable, the fundamentals ― approval ratings and economic measures ― showed an incumbent heading for a big loss. Biden was the most consistently unpopular president who could run for reelection since Harry Truman. (Truman did not run in 1952 for a third term when he could have.) Other presidents with similar levels of unpopularity ― Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and, yes, Trump ― lost reelection.

Economic metrics showed that the American public absolutely hated the state of the economy. Though many measures showed strong performances for gross domestic production, the stock market, economic equality, employment and wage gains for the lowest-paid workers, they largely missed on the most crucial factor: inflation.