Biden's Legacy

The man lived rent free in your heads because you let him. I mean from Joe Biden down to this forum. Look in the mirror if you want to know why he wouldn't go away.

 

Here's the question that relates to the pendulum. Would it have been better for the country for Trump to have won in 2020?

His term would now be up, Biden would not have run in the Dem Primary, we would have had a Pub Primary as well and start from a relatively clean slate on both sides.

Thoughts?

 

We have Trump because the voters decided they wanted him back. A primary wouldn't have changed a thing. Give credit where credit is due: to the people who voted for Trump. They wanted him in the White House, and they're going to get what they want.

 

That's simply not accurate. There was a ton of enthusiasm for her when Biden stepped aside, which is why nobody else even tried to challenge her for the crown. And as soon as she was no longer tethered to Biden, her approvals skyrocketed. Her favorables were higher than Trump's and net positive in many polls. Y'all are living in fantasy land if you think there was some magical Democrat who would have cured the party's ills in 2024. We got stuck with the inflation albatross and that doomed us.

The only shot we might have had was picking a Rust Belt candidate who had enough popularity there to overcome Trump's narrow margins. But even that would have been a tall order.

 

From Factcheck, which does these quarterly



Biden's Numbers, 2024 Pre-Election Update - FactCheck.org

 

I'm not sure you can call it a strong bounce back with inflation, the border crisis, the Afghanistan withdraw, and two significant conflicts that were started on Biden's watch. Domestically, Biden's spending will have been seen to, if not cause significant inflation than it made it substantially worse. That along with his border policies are what cost his party the White House in '24. His Admin's significant losses at the SCOTUS in attempting to forgive student debt and preventing landlords from evicting non-rent paying renters will be another black mark on his record, since he knew he did not have the legal authority to do either and still attempted them. The OEF withdraw along with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Oct 7th attacks are what Biden will be remember for on Foreign Policy.

I think history will look at Biden as a POTUS that was lured into over reading his win and the GA Senate elections as a mandate for major change when it was really just not to be Trump and get the US back to something nearing normal. Those policy choices and his refusal to step aside, will be seen as what allowed Trump to win. I'm just not sure there will be a lot bright spots for historians to look back on other than his defeating Trump in '20.

 

I mostly agree with this. But the election was decided on 250K votes and there was a lack of turnout from the Dem side for Harris. A different (and I now believe male) candidate who won the Dem primaries might have squeaked out a win. But we'll never know. And the only thing we know for sure is that Trump is president because enough people showed the very poor judgement to vote for him.

 

Hard if not impossible to know for sure, but I tend to agree with you. There are certainly fair critiques of Harris (and the short timeline of the campaign). Having said that, any other candidate would have had their own vulnerabilities and challenges.

 

yes it is. Harris wasn’t a good candidate in 16 or in 2024. The only reason she was there is because Biden selected her as vp and then backed her to run. Per Pelosi that wasn’t the plan (I anticipate Pelosi knew they could do better). Of course maga didn’t like Harris but she really wasn’t popular either with dems. Back in 2023……

“NBC News says Harris' net-negative rating of -17 is the lowest for a vice president in the history of its poll. “

https://www.axios.com/2023/06/26/kamala-harris-poll-2024-election-biden


and her approval only improved as a product of being the dem candidate and the party rallying around her. And still under 50% approval, which is not skyrocketing.

 

Her approvals and favorability in 2023 tells us nothing. She was Vice President for an extraordinarily unpopular President. Her favorability once she untethered from Biden ranged from slightly underwater to slightly net positive, even when Biden was deeply unpopular. In mid October, 538 still had her favorability as net positive. At the time of the election, it was -2. For comparison, Trump was at -8.5. This wasn't a Hillary situation. People were pissed at the Biden administration over inflation and took it out on the Democratic candidate.

 

I don't think anyone can say with certainty that the ideal Rust Belt candidate wouldn't have squeaked it out, but they were facing strong headwinds and were unlikely to emerge from a primary as the winner (frankly). Even if they did, there's a risk that the primary would have resulted in a less unified Democratic Party, which itself could have led to turnout issues. My general point is that people will blame Harris, but she ran an effective campaign and was a solid candidate. She simply couldn't overcome the strong headwinds she faced. And it would have been difficult for any other candidate to win it.

 

The Afghan withdrawal was inconsequential. The border is inconsequential. And other countries attacking other countries has a very small impact on your life. Mostly prices. Your health and your economy directly impact your life and under Biden both improved dramatically. So has the infrastructure you use. You’re welcome - Joe.

 

It is absurd to continue harping on performance in a primary five years ago. Biden failed in multiple primaries before he won the presidency. You keep claiming that Trump is easy to beat, but the fact is that he won the presidency twice. In fact, a large number of people turned out, voted for Trump, and left down-ballot races blank. It sucks that he's not a weak candidate. It makes me sad that so many Americans love him. But the truth is the truth.

 

I assume you meant Harris was not a good candidate in 2020 (as opposed to 2016)? In any event, I'm not sure how much we should conclude from prior elections. Biden tried to launch multiple campaigns over the years and got zero delegates in 2020 despite decades of experience in office and good name recognition. As I recall, Biden never got significant traction until after he had served two terms under Obama. Part of that dynamic IMO was because Obama was still very popular in the party and Biden benefited from the fact that Obama liked and trusted him - though I have a suspicion that Obama never expected Biden to run for President at the age he did. I also think Democrats may have been 'gun shy' after Hillary's defeat and thought it would be safer to run a more traditional old White guy candidate against Trump, particularly given Trump's vulnerabilities.

 

They had a choice, and they voted for Trump. This is despite the fact that she ran on border security and Trump ran on inflationary economic policies. If mass deportation is their thing, they voted for the right guy.

 

The key word. Failed says all we need to know about Joe.

 

Yeah Trump is not easy to beat. He's got a large built-in base that will vote for him no matter what. In fact they'll vote for him even if he attempts a coup and violates all sorts of laws. No other politician has that advantage. So it comes down to turnout on the left and a relatively small number of swing voters.