Who gave Donald Trump back the keys to the White House? It is clearly all Joe Biden’s fault
How must Joe Biden feel today? He was once feted as the saviour of liberal America, having felled the mighty Donald Trump four years ago. But Biden will now be remembered as the president who fumbled his prize and helped give the kingdom back to his nemesis.
When the dust settles from this election loss, it is Biden, not his replacement Kamala Harris, who should bear the most blame.
Biden’s historic misjudgment about his own cognitive capabilities at 81 resulted in Harris being catapulted into the candidacy without due preparation, without having been tested in a primary process and without time to run a full campaign. In short, Biden’s misjudgment resulted in Harris being thrown to the wolves where she was ripped apart.
It was hubris that led Biden to try to run for a second term when he initially planned to serve just one one-term. His family and his White House aides also deserve to share much of the blame for not telling the president the truth about his ageing.
But either way, we now know from the result that Biden’s forced removal in a Democrat coup came too late for Harris to mount her most effective campaign.
That is not to say Harris would have beaten Trump. Trump’s victory is likely to be comprehensive and he would most likely have comfortably defeated Harris even if she had been given a full campaign to fight him. Why? Because as the voters made clear the record of the Biden administration was so on the nose.
The lesson of the global inflation of recent years is that voters punish governments harshly for them without exception. Voters blamed Biden and Harris directly for the fact that their gas prices, their groceries and their coffee was double what it was four years ago. It gave Trump the very effective and simple Reagan-era line to ask voters ‘are you better off than you were four years ago?’
Biden and Harris’ other fundamental failing was not to recognise the political danger of removing Trump-era tough border security policies in 2021. Even Barack Obama as president was eventually tough on border security so it is puzzling why Biden and Harris so misread the mood of the American public on this issue.
Harris also made mistakes during her campaign, most notably when she said she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently to Biden. Exit polls showed that Biden’s unpopularity was a major motivating factor for voters and it is clear Harris, who was a part of that administration, copped the full backlash.
There will be a lot of analysis and hand wringing from Democrats about this campaign. In the end Harris ran a competent campaign, better than many expected given her flame out in the 2020 presidential race. But clearly her message did not resonate. Harris could not separate herself enough from Biden in the eyes of voters and she was saddled with his unpopular policies. But it should never have come to this. Biden’s stubborn determination to serve another term has ended in smoking ruins for his party and for his chosen successor.
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