Open the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US elections mean for Washington and the world
If the essence of Greek tragedy is that the hero is destroyed by his own shortcomings, then Joe Biden gets the title of star. He defeated Donald Trump, stood up to Russia, enacted more reforms than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and bequeathed a strong economy. This is what made Biden a hero in the eyes of the American left and beyond. However, most of his achievements will now be erased. His legacy is the return of Trump. After Biden, came the flood. He largely bears the responsibility.
The flaw of the Greek tragic hero is arrogance. Biden last week He said He could have won the 2024 elections if he had stayed in the race. This was despite the fact Only 27 percent of Americans Last June, he believed he had the cognitive ability to become president again. Trump is likely to achieve a much greater victory. Whatever blame Kamala Harris deserves, her vote came within 1.5 percentage points of Trump's vote.
Not much has yet been reported about the conspiracy of silence about Biden's diminishing abilities. Although he was shielded from press conferences and other unscripted events, it was no secret in Washington that his mind was in decline. The Biden family's inner Cabinet and longtime aides must shoulder some of the blame. It was also a media failure. The rare journalist who blew the whistle risked losing access and being ostracized on liberal social media.
But the responsibility depends on Biden. Had he followed through on his pledge to be a one-term “bridge” to the post-Trump era, the Democratic Party would have had time to find a stronger candidate than Harris — someone who might have distanced himself from what was unpopular about Biden’s economy. Instead, Biden was isolated from public sentiment. To be sure, the biggest shift in Harris' favor in November came from voters who paid the most attention to the news. Meanwhile, Trump swept the low-information vote by a wide margin, regardless of race, income and gender. All right-thinking Americans are with you, said a supporter of Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee who lost twice in the 1950s. He joked: Yes, but I need a majority.
No one said the policy was fair. Biden has helped ensure that the US's post-Covid recovery will be stronger than that of any other major economy. But a nostalgic nation linked Trump to the pre-Covid era. People blamed Biden for inflation — and his stimulus helped fuel inflation. But voters didn't give him any credit for the rest. A clear majority of Americans polled by Gallup this week said the United States has lost ground in six areas during Biden's term. These were the economy, the federal debt, immigration, income inequality, America's place in the world, and crime.
In only one area did a majority say progress had been made during the Biden presidency — “the situation for gay, lesbian, and transgender people.” No data could better illustrate the Biden administration's weakness in narrative and leadership. Until his withdrawal in July, Biden continued to emphasize the threat Trump posed to democracy, even though his team had known for months that democracy had not figured in voters' top five concerns.
But it is the nobility of the flawed hero that gives Biden a Greek ending. Virtue and arrogance were present in his personal tragedies. When Biden was Vice President, his net worth was estimated at About half a million dollars. After nearly half a century of public life, this was only a rough error. No informed American believed that Biden was corrupt. But he turned a blind eye to his son, Hunter, who sought to monetize the family name even as he fell into addiction. Biden has paid a heavy price for this leniency. Like Othello, Biden loved not wisely but very well.
Ukrainians will remember Biden warmly. The same cannot be said for the Palestinians. Amid the ruins of the worst civilian death toll in years, the Gaza Strip is filled with US munitions provided by Biden. He believes he was acting nobly to prevent the death toll from rising and stop a war in the Middle East. By mobilizing Vladimir Putin's military resources in Ukraine, Biden may also have contributed to the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. But a large portion of the Global South sees Biden as a man who has failed to uphold the values he promised. The toughest judgment of all may be that Trump will be seen as a different version of Biden in much of the world — rather than as a radical departure.
Biden promised four years ago to be “an ally of light, not darkness.” He meant it. As Biden bids farewell to the nation on Wednesday evening, only he will know what it feels like to cede the stage to Trump.
