Biden's Legacy

Instead of a steady hand that led the country from a darkness to a new vision with a bright future in spite of four years of maga madness, he will be remembered as a speed bump in the middle of the maga darkness, all because he failed to honor his commitment to be a transformative figure. him, and his team of advisors, allowed their ego and lust for power to cost us a chance at a better future. make no mistake, we have djt because biden didn't get out of the way and open the primary.

This author summarizes it well and reflects my long-held belief that the dem party forced two bad candidates on the american people and both times we got djt. he is the ultimate dei benefactor as the dems tried to force two dei candidates on the US and djt benefitted from both failures.

Biden Wanted to Be a Transformative Historical Figure. Instead, He Will Be a Footnote | Opinion

Biden could face an even worse fate, because by the time Trump leaves office in 2029, he will have been the dominant focal point of American political life for over 12 years. Even when Trump wasn't in office, he monopolized our attention. With the fallout after Jan. 6, the FBI raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate, his multiple criminal investigations, his civil fraud and sexual assault trials, his 34 felony convictions, and his eventual return to the campaign stage as the unified leader of a MAGA-fied Republican Party, Trump's notoriety often drowned out anything Biden did from the Oval Office. Ironically, by losing the election in 2020, and being forced to serve nonconsecutive terms, the Trump Era has an extended shelf life beyond even the most influential two-term presidents. In comparison, Biden will be all but forgotten.

It didn't have to be this way. Biden won the 2020 Democratic nomination on a promise to return the country to normalcy, decency, even boringness. His bland, folksy, middle-of-the-road approach was exactly what we needed at a time when a deadly pandemic ripped through the world while Trump mused about injecting bleach to disinfect our veins. And given grave concerns over Biden's age, democratic voters demanded and Biden all but promised to serve as a one-term standard bearer, a transitional figure to, in his own words, serve "as a bridge, not as anything else. There's an entire generation of [Democratic] leaders" who are "the future of this country." Given the historic public health crisis and presidential chaos of 2020, punctuated by the Jan. 6 attempt to violently overthrow an election, Biden's steady hand as a transitional figure to wipe away COVID-19 and Trump would itself have been transformative. History might have viewed him as among the most consequential one-term presidents as a result.

This very well could have been Biden's legacy. Had he kept his implied promise not to seek reelection, a true robust democratic primary could have played out among a dozen or more promising candidates. The number of possible nominees from governor's mansions, the Senate chambers, and within the Biden administration would have ensured a rough and tumble primary season. But that's a good thing. Democrats succeed when candidates have time to introduce themselves to the country, refine their arguments in debates, and respond to voters during the primary season. Barack Obama and Biden himself were beneficiaries of such primaries. When Democrats coronate a standard bearer, as with Hillary Clinton in 2016, or Kamala Harris in 2024, they remain more distant from the pulse of voters they need to win over.

Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered. Incumbent parties in inflationary economies tend not to fare well. But a democratic nominee not named Biden or Harris could have more deftly avoided the incumbent label and perhaps better exploited Trump's continued historic unfavorability ratings. As it stands, Biden's stubborn insistence on seeking a second term to solidify his FDR-like legacy in the face of dreadful internal polling numbers, and refusal to step aside until the eleventh hour, all but doomed his party's chances in 2024 and doomed all of us to four years of unrestrained Trump. And as a result, he likely doomed his legacy as well.

 

the pendulum swung on misinformation. people thinking the economy is so bad, yet this thanksgiving will set records for travel and stores are full and unemployment is low. misinformation, feelings in lieu of facts and realities, is what a large part of this country voted on. the surest threat to a democracy is a misinformed electorate.

 

any dem that could have separated themselves from Biden and the perception that they were responsible for inflation could have beat djt. people didn't vote for djt, they voted against inflation and open borders.

misinformation/feelings case in point. 1 16 point swing in the view of pubs on the economy in one month. these types of misinformed, bias feelings are way too common and drive voting decisions

spock was right. emotions will be the downfall of the human race

Lots of Republicans suddenly think the economy wasn’t that bad after all

But suddenly, over the last month, that’s shifted. You can see it at the very far right of the graph above, that downward shift in “worse off financially” and the upward shift in “about the same.” Among Democrats, views of how they fare now relative to a year ago haven’t changed much in the past month. Among Republicans, though, there’s been a 16-point drop in the percentage saying that they were doing worse a year ago.

 

not sure I agree on the word deplorable

sadly, as much as we talk about being a moral christian nation, we are neither. a moral group of people do not elect an amoral leader in pursuit of economic gain. the US middle cares more about their pocketbooks than they do their morals. we elected someone that reflects the values that, deep down, none of us would want our father, son, husband, brother to be. our finances and self-interests are more important than any sort of respect we once had for decency and respect. having someone so unlikeable and so unrelatable to most people as Kamala didn't help. I like to say our elections use to be analagous to electing the president of the debate club and now they have devolved into electing the prom king

 

boggles my mind over how 250k votes become some insurmountable mandate by the people to change the world. he didn't even get 50% of the total vote on the last numbers I saw. More than 50% of the voters didn't vote for him. that isn't a mandate

2024 National Popular Vote Tracker | Cook Political Report

 

He chose Harris to pay back Clyburn, the man who saved his candidacy by endorsing him and helping him win SC. Clyburn has said as much.