Over the past week, Democrats have scrambled and struggled to articulate how they suffered such a resounding political defeat to former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. While opinions vary, one of the most consistent (if misguided) criticisms is the “arrogance” of Biden to seek a second term in the first place.
This criticism elucidates just how far Joe Biden’s political favor – and by extension his legacy – has fallen in the wake of this historic loss. Following the 2020 election, Biden was hailed by the media and Democrat establishments as a hero who “saved” the country from Trump. Now, he will be remembered as the man who paved the way for the left’s worst nightmare – Trump’s return to the White House.
For the American people, of course, Biden’s legacy was sealed long before November 5. Crippling inflation, chaos at the border, overseas fiascos, and Biden’s obvious cognitive decline were always destined to define the 46th president as a failure in the minds of everyday voters. Biden’s one hope to salvage his reputation was to keep liberal elites happy by ensuring Trump did not return to the White House.
To that end, Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his vice president – and natural successor – doomed him from the start. Even against a more competent politician, Biden’s failures likely mean Trump would’ve won re-election. Harris’s glaring flaws only helped pave the way for Trump’s historic comeback.
When Biden first ran in 2020, he billed himself as a “bridge” candidate – someone to defeat the hated Trump and pass the torch to the next generation. He asserted that the “steady hand” of an “elder statesman” would end the COVID-19 pandemic, reopen the economy, and heal the brutal national partisan divide. While Biden would focus on legislating as a center-left president, Harris, a younger, diverse, aggressively progressive vice president, would be free to focus on liberal issues and ultimately run in 2024.
Yet, shortly after the 2022 midterm elections, Biden suddenly shifted course and decided to run for reelection. According to MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Biden took the “better than expected” election results “as a sign that they were on to something and that they didn’t need to course-correct as much as polling was actually telling them to.” But a February 2024 poll found that 86 percent of Americans thought Biden was “too old to run for a second term.”
Once his intention was clear, the party quickly fell in line. Despite multiple gaffes, public falls, and a tendency to wander aimlessly, Democrats accused anyone critical of Biden of “ageism” and promoting “disinformation.” A litany of pundits reassured Americans that Biden was “sharp,” and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed videos that clearly show Biden in cognitive decline as “cheap fakes.”
These pivots and dismissals came crashing to a halt on June 27. Following Biden’s disastrous first and only debate against Trump, questions about his cognitive decline became the dominant political narrative. A July 17 poll found that “almost two-thirds” of voters wanted Biden to drop out and that only 3 in 10 Democrats were “extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president.”
Biden remained defiant, insisting he was the only candidate who “could beat Donald Trump.” Nevertheless, on July 21, amid intense public and private pressure, Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Vice President Harris as his replacement.
Biden’s announcement was met with unprecedented fawning and praise from legacy media and Democrat leaders. Pundits who only days earlier were blasting him as a “stubborn old man” now hailed him as a legendary leader. A week after his announcement, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) called Biden “Such a consequential president…A Mount Rushmore kind of president…You have Teddy Roosevelt up there. And he’s wonderful. I don’t say take him down. But you can add Biden.”
In a Forbes op-ed, pundit Eli Amdur drew a direct comparison between Biden and George Washington. Revolutionary War professor Rebecca Brannon proclaimed that Joe Biden was “America’s second Cincinnatus.” Former Obama advisor David Axelrod posted on X that “history will honor” Biden for his sacrifice. CNN contributor Van Jones said tearfully of Biden, “It’s kind of like when your grandpa… you got to take the keys.”
Historian and presidential biographer Jon Meacham, a close friend of Biden who had previously encouraged him to stay in the race by telling the president that he is a “historically consequential figure in the fight to preserve American democracy,” also penned an op-ed lauding Biden for his decision to withdraw. “His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history, an act of self-sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington,” Meacham wrote.
Yet this grand narrative, dramatic as it may be, was always an egregious insult to Washington’s legacy and reeked of more spin than sincerity. George Washington led a ragtag army to victory over the greatest military power in the world, was offered the title of king for life, and turned it down to return to his family farm. While Washington resigned despite the entire country clamoring for him to remain in power, Biden clung to power despite the entire country clamoring for him to leave. Only when a cabal of Democrat elites, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, held his feet to the fire did he back down.
Less than four months after lauding him as the second coming of George Washington, Biden’s most vocal supporters have abandoned their one-time faultless leader. In an interview with the New York Times, Pelosi directly blamed Biden for the Democrat loss, saying that if had he “gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.”
Rolling Stone Magazine, meanwhile, accused Biden of “squandering his own legacy.” Business leader and political pundit Scott Galloway, who once agreed with Pelosi that Biden should be added to Mount Rushmore, now asserts that Biden will go down in history along with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dianne Feinstein as leaders whose legacy will forever be tarnished by their unwillingness to relinquish power until it was too late.
Many questions abound as to why Biden insisted on holding power for as long as he did. Had he fulfilled his core campaign promise, only running for one term and focusing on unity, his legacy may have endured even if Harris lost. Perhaps there would even be those who said he should have stayed in.
Somewhere along the line, Biden abandoned his pledge to be a “transitional” president and decided he wanted to be a “transformational” president instead. And he was transformational – just not in the way he had hoped. He transformed the country into one that rejected his far-left agenda and embraced Trump’s America First movement.
Should Harris have won, Democrats could likely have kept the façade up a little longer. Indeed, Biden’s popularity increased slightly when he dropped out. Now, as of November 5, it stands at 38.7 percent, dropping by the day. At this rate, he will end his presidency as the least popular president in history.
Biden’s legacy was never going to be Build Back Better, “restoring the soul of the nation,” or “passing the baton.” For Democrats, his legacy would always be his ability to defeat Donald Trump. He may have prevailed in 2020, but now Trump is ascending to office more popular, more powerful, and more beloved than ever before. By that metric, his legacy will forever be one of arrogance, intransigence, and failure. Not even his most strident allies can spin that.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
